NOW INFANT APRIL JOINS THE SPRING
AND VIEWS THE BRIGHT NEW SKY!
AS A YOUNG SONGBIRD TRIES ITS WING AND FEARS AT FIRST TO FLY!
WITH TIMID STEPS SHE VENTURES ON
BUT HARDLY DARES TO SMILE
TILL BLOSSOMS OPEN ONE BY ONE
AND SUNNY HOURS BEGUILE! (J. Clare edited)
March is ending with a roar. There are the roars in the air from an Air Fest at McDill Airbase south of Tampa, and there is the roar of motors from Grand Prix in downtown St. Petersburg! They expect nearly a million people will be in the area today (3-31-07) and that includes those who are at beaches. It is a beautiful and sunny but not too humid. With weather like this and these attractions the predictions seems reasonable. The auto race is run on the streets of down town St. Petersburg. I am not a fan of either enterprise so all I will get for the next two days is noise. April comes on the morrow and as the poet says, “tiny blossoms open one by one” We are spending more time in giving those blossoms and grass a chance by pulling weeds often. Our amaryllis comes earlier than spring. We now are cutting down the dead ones. They grow along our fence. They are beautiful for about 3 to 5 weeks but then begin to die. It doesn’t seem right and proper that Spring should come and they leave!
The jottings remembering my dad brought to mind another story. My sister Marge while in high school had a friend, named Marie Kenny. In maybe their senior year Marie was an overnight guest of Marge’s. It must have been during the week because around six in the morning my father as usual was rapping on the door announcing, “Benedicamus Domino” (Blessed be the Lord!) to which Marge replied “Deo Gratias” (Thanks be to God). Marie being awakened by the exchange was supposedly to have said something like, “Your Dad’s crazy, it’s the middle of the night!” Ironically Marie was then talking of becoming a nun. When my father heard of that and of her being surprised by the awakening, he commented that she’d never make it as a sister. Despite his opinion after Marie finished college she entered the Holy Child Order and became a nun. She certainly often heard those strange words over the years as a nun.
My Dad is part of my history. He is the prologue to my present. I was surprised to find he was alive when Harriet Beecher Stowe was. She died when he was ten years old. Harriet, I learned too lived in Florida so now she seems just like an old neighbor. The fact that she knew Mark Twain and Oliver Wendell Holmes really makes her historic, or is that just “old”. It is surprising when we think of historic people that some of them were around seemingly just yesterday. It is I suppose some of that ‘wisdom’ you get for surviving over 70 years. Historic doesn’t seem to be as old as it used to be.
Now coming back to the present I did something unusual. I started to read a book and never finished it. In fact I took it back to the library before I had read 5 chapters. It was called “Running With Scissors”. It was a memoir but what memories! I found a review (which I wished I had read earlier) that expressed my view. It read, “ I made it about halfway through this book and said forget it. . I don’t know the last time I started a book and didn’t finish it but this book just wasn’t worth even that. In fact I felt I was somehow doing myself a favor by stopping. I hated every character – there wasn’t a single person that I cared about in the tiniest amount. Reading this book was like having to eat your vegetables out of the garage can.” His final admonition was “Don’t waste your money!” Fortunately I didn’t spend any money to get the book. After reminiscing about the discipline of my father here was a boy without any discipline being imposed on him. A father and mother who did nothing but fight and the mother left for fear of her life, than left the author with her psychiatrist whose was a wacky as could be. He eventually lost his license. She left him with this family completely wild and undisciplined who sought pleasure in everything. This was their purpose in life and demonstrates how having no spiritual values can lead to chaos. I turned to the end of the book to see if there was a coming back to reality, but no such thing. It ends with him living with one of the daughters of the psychiatrist who has managed to get through high school and college. He had never finished elementary school and even had the psychiatrist work up a fraud so he was committed to a mental institution and could not be prosecuted for breaking the law requiring him to attend school until he was 17. I suppose the ‘good news’ is that he was able to write in understandable English today. As another described the book “I still had not found (after 5 chapters) anything that made this book worth all the hype. Lots of childish material and misery-loves –company stories fill this book. Augusten (the author) definitely finds comfort in his role as a victim of society, molestation, family dysfunction, and just about every other form of abuse and/or disordered relationship you can imagine.” All of which leads me to advise: Don’t waste your time or money on this book.
If it did one thing it brought to mind the difference in the disciplined life I was made to lead and fought, and what an undisciplined life could accomplish. Life had no purpose but pleasure in the moment and anyone who interfered were hated and attacked. I was hoping the author would end up seeing this but not in this book.
Sometime ago I had read an opinion article on memoirs. It was there I that I first read about this book. My recollection was that the writer said if you want to read something containing all the things that are useless and hurting in life, you’ll find them here. But he didn’t warn me of ‘how bad’ and his main point was that a memoir is suppose to show how the author overcame all these difficulties and how he now lived with purpose and relatively happy. He did indicate I believe, and know now, that the author did not do this. So it failed in his opinion as even a ‘memoir”.
We went to our favorite theater recently. We witnessed another tormented life. It was Tennessee Williams’ drama “Suddenly Last Summer”. The mother’s ‘love’ of her son is so overwhelming and to such a degree the he becomes a possession. The acting required is awesome but they carried it off wonderfully. The theater is one in which the audience sits in a circle rising from the stage. You feel like you are down there with them as they act. The two women who played the mother and the girl friend/ cousin had the major parts. The hatred of the mother for the young girl, whom she believes aided and abetted in her son’s death oozes out scene after scene to a dramatic physically loud climax. The show is eighty minutes long with no interruptions. It reminded me of the mother in C.S. Lewis’ fictional “Great Divorce” The mother stands on the field just below Heaven’s gate talking to her ghost/angel guide. Her son had died some time before and is with God in heaven. She insists on seeing him and is treating God ‘as a means to’ do so. She exclaims as did the mother in Williams’ play in different words, “This is all nonsense- cruel and wicked nonsense. What right have you to say things like that about Mother-love? It is the highest and holiest feeling in human nature.” The guide’s reply is that natural feelings are not ‘high or low’ in themselves – only when God’s hand is on them. They all go bad when they are set upon their own and make themselves into false gods. In effect saying that even ‘mother-love’ can go sour and become bad.
I have some sad news for the fans of “McSorley’s Old Ale House” or “McSorley’s Wonderful Saloon” founded in 1854 just down the street form Cooper’s Union in the Bowery. Lincoln did not stop in for an ale on February 27,1860 while killing time before his historic address at Cooper’s Union. It is a myth. As the Chicago Press & Tribune reported, “He never drinks intoxicating liquors of any sort…” And he certainly would not have imbibed a few hours before making the most important speech of his career. (All noted in “Lincoln at Cooper’s Union” by H.Holzer) Until next time, Pax Tecum!
NOW INFANT APRIL JOINS THE SPRING
AND VIEWS THE BRIGHT NEW SKY!
AS A YOUNG SONGBIRD TRIES ITS WING AND FEARS AT FIRST TO FLY!
WITH TIMID STEPS SHE VENTURES ON
BUT HARDLY DARES TO SMILE
TILL BLOSSOMS OPEN ONE BY ONE
AND SUNNY HOURS BEGUILE! (J. Clare edited)
March is ending with a roar. There are the roars in the air from an Air Fest at McDill Airbase south of Tampa, and there is the roar of motors from Grand Prix in downtown St. Petersburg! They expect nearly a million people will be in the area today (3-31-07) and that includes those who are at beaches. It is a beautiful and sunny but not too humid. With weather like this and these attractions the predictions seems reasonable. The auto race is run on the streets of down town St. Petersburg. I am not a fan of either enterprise so all I will get for the next two days is noise. April comes on the morrow and as the poet says, “tiny blossoms open one by one” We are spending more time in giving those blossoms and grass a chance by pulling weeds often. Our amaryllis comes earlier than spring. We now are cutting down the dead ones. They grow along our fence. They are beautiful for about 3 to 5 weeks but then begin to die. It doesn’t seem right and proper that Spring should come and they leave!
The jottings remembering my dad brought to mind another story. My sister Marge while in high school had a friend, named Marie Kenny. In maybe their senior year Marie was an overnight guest of Marge’s. It must have been during the week because around six in the morning my father as usual was rapping on the door announcing, “Benedicamus Domino” (Blessed be the Lord!) to which Marge replied “Deo Gratias” (Thanks be to God). Marie being awakened by the exchange was supposedly to have said something like, “Your Dad’s crazy, it’s the middle of the night!” Ironically Marie was then talking of becoming a nun. When my father heard of that and of her being surprised by the awakening, he commented that she’d never make it as a sister. Despite his opinion after Marie finished college she entered the Holy Child Order and became a nun. She certainly often heard those strange words over the years as a nun.
My Dad is part of my history. He is the prologue to my present. I was surprised to find he was alive when Harriet Beecher Stowe was. She died when he was ten years old. Harriet, I learned too lived in Florida so now she seems just like an old neighbor. The fact that she knew Mark Twain and Oliver Wendell Holmes really makes her historic, or is that just “old”. It is surprising when we think of historic people that some of them were around seemingly just yesterday. It is I suppose some of that ‘wisdom’ you get for surviving over 70 years. Historic doesn’t seem to be as old as it used to be.
Now coming back to the present I did something unusual. I started to read a book and never finished it. In fact I took it back to the library before I had read 5 chapters. It was called “Running With Scissors”. It was a memoir but what memories! I found a review (which I wished I had read earlier) that expressed my view. It read, “ I made it about halfway through this book and said forget it. . I don’t know the last time I started a book and didn’t finish it but this book just wasn’t worth even that. In fact I felt I was somehow doing myself a favor by stopping. I hated every character – there wasn’t a single person that I cared about in the tiniest amount. Reading this book was like having to eat your vegetables out of the garage can.” His final admonition was “Don’t waste your money!” Fortunately I didn’t spend any money to get the book. After reminiscing about the discipline of my father here was a boy without any discipline being imposed on him. A father and mother who did nothing but fight and the mother left for fear of her life, than left the author with her psychiatrist whose was a wacky as could be. He eventually lost his license. She left him with this family completely wild and undisciplined who sought pleasure in everything. This was their purpose in life and demonstrates how having no spiritual values can lead to chaos. I turned to the end of the book to see if there was a coming back to reality, but no such thing. It ends with him living with one of the daughters of the psychiatrist who has managed to get through high school and college. He had never finished elementary school and even had the psychiatrist work up a fraud so he was committed to a mental institution and could not be prosecuted for breaking the law requiring him to attend school until he was 17. I suppose the ‘good news’ is that he was able to write in understandable English today. As another described the book “I still had not found (after 5 chapters) anything that made this book worth all the hype. Lots of childish material and misery-loves –company stories fill this book. Augusten (the author) definitely finds comfort in his role as a victim of society, molestation, family dysfunction, and just about every other form of abuse and/or disordered relationship you can imagine.” All of which leads me to advise: Don’t waste your time or money on this book.
If it did one thing it brought to mind the difference in the disciplined life I was made to lead and fought, and what an undisciplined life could accomplish. Life had no purpose but pleasure in the moment and anyone who interfered were hated and attacked. I was hoping the author would end up seeing this but not in this book.
Sometime ago I had read an opinion article on memoirs. It was there I that I first read about this book. My recollection was that the writer said if you want to read something containing all the things that are useless and hurting in life, you’ll find them here. But he didn’t warn me of ‘how bad’ and his main point was that a memoir is suppose to show how the author overcame all these difficulties and how he now lived with purpose and relatively happy. He did indicate I believe, and know now, that the author did not do this. So it failed in his opinion as even a ‘memoir”.
We went to our favorite theater recently. We witnessed another tormented life. It was Tennessee Williams’ drama “Suddenly Last Summer”. The mother’s ‘love’ of her son is so overwhelming and to such a degree the he becomes a possession. The acting required is awesome but they carried it off wonderfully. The theater is one in which the audience sits in a circle rising from the stage. You feel like you are down there with them as they act. The two women who played the mother and the girl friend/ cousin had the major parts. The hatred of the mother for the young girl, whom she believes aided and abetted in her son’s death oozes out scene after scene to a dramatic physically loud climax. The show is eighty minutes long with no interruptions. It reminded me of the mother in C.S. Lewis’ fictional “Great Divorce” The mother stands on the field just below Heaven’s gate talking to her ghost/angel guide. Her son had died some time before and is with God in heaven. She insists on seeing him and is treating God ‘as a means to’ do so. She exclaims as did the mother in Williams’ play in different words, “This is all nonsense- cruel and wicked nonsense. What right have you to say things like that about Mother-love? It is the highest and holiest feeling in human nature.” The guide’s reply is that natural feelings are not ‘high or low’ in themselves – only when God’s hand is on them. They all go bad when they are set upon their own and make themselves into false gods. In effect saying that even ‘mother-love’ can go sour and become bad.
I have some sad news for the fans of “McSorley’s Old Ale House” or “McSorley’s Wonderful Saloon” founded in 1854 just down the street form Cooper’s Union in the Bowery. Lincoln did not stop in for an ale on February 27,1860 while killing time before his historic address at Cooper’s Union. It is a myth. As the Chicago Press & Tribune reported, “He never drinks intoxicating liquors of any sort…” And he certainly would not have imbibed a few hours before making the most important speech of his career. (All noted in “Lincoln at Cooper’s Union” by H.Holzer) Until next time, Pax Tecum!