The month of August is full of celebrations. There are eight birthdays, three of them for Mary’s, two for Paul’s and our wedding anniversary. It is hard to believe that on this 15th day of August, June and I will have been married twenty-five years! We both remember when we married some whom felt and said “it would never last” We are in many ways the classic example of opposites attracting. I can testify that there were times when our friend’s prediction seemed to be coming true. But thanks to the love abounding in June even at those times it didn’t. A thousand more thanks are due for the care of my health, body and soul. She has nursed me through hospitalizations and sickness at home with the expertise of a professional and the love of a caring wife. She has been responsible for bringing faith back into my life and making it the mainstay of that life. To top all of that off, she’s a great cook. So we will celebrate the occasion with great joy and many thanks. We will pray that the Lord help us as we continue our life’s journey.
Three of my children Paul, Dan, and Mary have birthdays and celebrate another year of being spouses and parents. It has been a comfort and joy to see them succeed and grow. It is the birthday of my ‘favorite’ sister-in-law, Mary Macdonald. She is June’s only sister and our caretaker at her beautiful home in New Jersey whenever we venture north. My sister Mary, a member of the sister of Mercy, has been a sister and friend over the years, especially with her frequent short notes full of news and encouragements. We have a grandson Paul celebrating along with a niece, Winnie and Grandniece, Denise. We wish them all “Happy Birthday!”
Once in a while as you read ideas emerge that you remember from other readings. Sometimes its places or people. They appear in fiction or non-fiction where you least expect it. These experiences make your reading seem more a part of you. They bring forth things you know from your memory. For example, historical figures appear as characters in fiction. like Larry McMurtry’s series of the Berrybender Family. In the first two stories there are a number of such figures from the Lewis and Clark Expedition. There is Sacagawea’s son, called “Pome” and his father Charboneau, the French trader who brought Sacagawea, then pregnant, and took her on the expedition. The same three Indian chiefs are in the novel that went with Captain Clark to visit the American President, Jefferson, after the journey. Charboneau, the furtrader, in the novel, is helping this English Lord find his way and he’s returning the three Indian Chiefs to their tribes. Of course the fiction part is accented in that all of this is supposedly taking place in 1832 nearly 20 years after the Lewis and Clark expedition. In Gresham’s novel “The Brethren”, a Federal Prison here in West Florida is the site of the story though I don’t think he named it. The descriptions made me feel it was the Coleman Federal Prison not too far from St. Petersburg. In the “Philadelphia Story”, the movie and TV show I recall seeing the 100 year old courtrooms where I once practiced law.
Another ‘place’ recall was Cooper Union in New York City. It is located in the Bowery. The Union was created by Peter Cooper. It was by some considered the first vocational/ night school. Its original title was the “Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art.” I leaned that from reading some essays by James Campbell, which were really talks given by him at the Union. Now Cooper Union is just down the street from McSorley’s Wonderful Saloon. A journalist for the New York Post wrote a book in 1943 with that title telling of the founding of the saloon in 1854 and a bit of its history. The stories were about characters that hung out at McSorley’s some of whom were students from the Cooper Union down the street. I visited ‘McSorley’s’ in the late 70’s when I believe my daughter Suzanne was attending Columbia Law School. I went down the street to the Union and found it was now part of the New York State system of schools. In Campbell’s book of essays, which were really talks previously given, I learned that they were given in the ‘Great Hall’ of the Cooper Union from 1958 till 1971. Mr. Campbell mentions in his preface his awe of speaking in such a place. It was “derived in part, of course, from the old fashioned simple grandeur of the Great Hall itself and the knowledge that Abraham Lincoln once spoke from the same stage”. Sometime later reading a biography of Lincoln entitled “Abraham Lincoln: The Redeemer President” by Allen Guelzo, I read about the incident referred to by Campbell. The talk Lincoln gave was considered the catalyst for his becoming the Republican/Whig nominee for President. This happened in February of 1860. In fact the Union was not the first choice for the talk, it was to be given in a church somewhere else in the city, but when that wasn’t possible it ended up at the Union. The New York Tribune stated “no man ever before made such an impression on his first appeal to a New York audience.” Apparently New York audiences were tough to appeal to even in 1860. The talk was given just six years after McSorley’s was opened down the street. I wondered if any of the McSorley’s had attended the appeal by Lincoln. It is pleasant just to think that some of them were that close to Lincoln. I feel certain that my father, if he were here to ask, would have assured me that no McSorley would be attending any Republican appeal. My father was born a mere twenty years after Lincoln’s death and he may have been right. The effect of these ruminations is that such places get a special category in your mind and seemingly make the story or writing more real.
I recently learned something some of you would be interested in, namely, how the game of golf was invented; J.R.R.Tolkien, known for the “Lord of the Rings wrote in “The Hobbit” as follows: “Old Took’s great grand uncle Bullroary, who was so huge (for a hobbit) that he could ride a horse. He charged the rank of Goblins of Mount Gram in the battle of the Green Fields, and knocked the king Golfimbul’s head clear off with a wooden club. It sailed a hundred yards through the air and went down a rabbit hole, and in this way the battle was won and the game of golf was invented at the same moment.”(emphasis added) I later learned that there was such things as ‘hobbits’. In a new book entitled “Language of God: a
Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief” the author head of the Human Genome Project, and a physician, wrote: “Other branches of hominid development appear to have encountered dead ends. The recently discovered ‘hobbits’, tiny people with small brains who lived on the island of Flores in Indonesia until extinction as recently as 13,000 years ago”.
We spent the first week of August (the 5th to the 11th) in a wooden cabin house in the mountains above the town of Blue Ridge, GA. It is about 500 plus miles to Blue Ridge from St. Petersburg, and our cabin was another 13-mile journey on a labyrinth of roads up the mountain. Near the cabin the roads were made of stone two and had two ruts roads. The cabin had a garage, a hot tub, and comfortable screened in porch, two bedrooms, a large living room with a fireplace, a small dining area and kitchen. The idea I had when reading we were going to the town of “Blue Ridge in GA” was that it would be small rustic village. As we approached in on the four-lane highway we passed one shopping complex after another. We passed intersections with arrows pointing to ‘Blue Ridge Downtown’, ‘Scenic Railroad’, etc. This did not fit my image of a small rustic town. The labyrinth of roads up to the cabin became a challenge each time we went up or down. We were so happy when we made it without at least one wrong turn!
The town was composed mostly of antique shops though June and our friend Shirley, who was staying with us, found a great fudge shop! We drove one day over to Asheville, NC to visit the largest single residence in the U.S., the Biltmore Estate. George W.Vanderbilt, the grandson of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, built it in 1895. It is still owned by the family but open to visitors. We heard that the grandson or maybe his father had increase the Vanderbilt fortune to the equivalent today of 96 Billion! It had smoking rooms, gun room, 51 bedrooms, a parlor on each floor, a bowling alley (one of first in America) and pool. The house was surrounded by 8000 acres of green and trees. It was an awesome place. We had heard much about it and were not disappointed with taking a day to visit it. We’ll tell you more about the scenic railroad and Twin Falls of Fanin County next time. Pax Tecum!