Early morning thoughts, still with Ludwig Van …

Political and philosophical differences are worthwhile and good, when they represent the results of reasonable people reviewing facts and coming to different conclusions. They should be expressed. They keep us on a safe path between two rival modes of destruction—unchecked extremism.

When what we say derives from what is facile or popular or are overheard from those who have built a profit-generating constituency on hate and anger, our thoughtless utterances become like word-worms that can destroy the foundations of our country.

I, and many others like me, once took an oath to protect and defend that country. Now I sometimes weep at what I hear or read.

The sometimes treasonous, often racially tinged, and generally vitriolic epithets leveled against the President of the United States of America Barack Obama by undisciplined citizens and unchallenged by the good people of our country led me to review the speech by Auschwitz survivor andNobel Laureate, Elie Wiesel. It never fails to open my eyes as well as my heart. How much pain and destruction has the silence of good people allowed? How many divisions and how many tanks, guns, and bombs could be replaced by simple indifference?

On this Thanksgiving Day, let us all temper our rhetoric with reasoned contemplation lest history rear its head in ghastly repetition.
 

Wiesel at Auschwitz - second row
of bunks, seventh from left

See also: www.wattensawpress.com

Thoughts: Darwin and Stuff

As most readers know, I shamelessly paraphrase the late Lewis Thomas. He, however, reflected late at night while listening to Mahler’s Ninth Symphony. I reflect during the quiet times of the morning listening to whatever the YouTube sprites might suggest. This morning they slipped in a collection of Maria Grinberg’s rendition of the Beethoven sonatas. Have mercy!

It did remind me of a Thomas quote I read somewhere about the majesty of the earth’s life moving from blue algae to the B-minor Mass in only five billion years.

Then my friend Michael Hester posted “25 Life Lessons from Albert Einstein.” All were good, but the last one hugged my neck like a long-lost friend: “Never lose a holy curiosity.”

It reminded me that I heard a speaker say once that if you studied a topic for 30 minutes a day, in five years you would be an expert. That led me to a long crusade to learn about Charles Darwin’s writings on descent with modification, commonly referred to as “evolution," or, by some fundamentalists as "oozings from the pits of hell," It had seemed the most logical thing I had ever heard of when I encountered it in high school but I had not taken the time to learn, really learn, about it.

So, with the help of “Books on Tape,” a career involving a lot of travel, and Little Rock Public Library, I started. I began with Stephen Jay Gould’s “Ever Since Darwin,” proceeded to a life of Thomas Huxley (Darwin’s “Bulldog”), and then to the works of Darwin himself. Hardly an expert, I do find myself able to converse freely on the topic.

I worked myself through the feuding between Gould and Richard Dawkins over whether the process of modification occurred at the organism or genetic level, an argument that ended with Gould’s untimely death and the advances in genetics that seem to have proven Dawkins right. Imagine the thrill of attending a presentation by Richard Dawkins himself in what will probably be his only trip ever to Little Rock.

It has been a joyous journey. I still marvel at the mind of this self-taught man Darwin (science as such was taught in universities as a field of study until after Huxley’s campaign for it in the late 1800s). Since its publication in 1859, there hasn’t been a scientific study or breakthrough that was not consistent in all important aspects with “On the Origen of the Species.”

Amazing. That’s all I can say. Amazing. Well, the sonatas are as well.

 

See also: www.wattensawpress.com

Thoughts: November 25, 2014

Early morning thoughts with Gustav Mahler
and other old friends …

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
- From “The Second Coming”
William Butler Yeats

 “I, on men’s impious uproar hurl’d,

 Think often, as I hear them rave,
 That peace has left the upper world
 And now keeps only in the grave.”
- From “Lines Written in Kensington Gardens”
Matthew Arnold

 "Who's winning? Nobody's winning. Cities are dying and ships are sinking and aircraft is going in, but nobody's winning."

- From “Alas Babyon”
Pat Frank


Lynne Mapp Drexler, “Gotterdammerung”, 1959

See also: www.wattensawpress.com

Morning Dogs

     Early morning thoughts while listening to Chopin’s Opus 42 in A-flat major. (Read once that it was Harry Truman’s favorite. Been thinking about him this week for some reason).

     As I write this, Suzi the Evangelist Dog is staring at me with love in her eyes. At least I think it is love. Could it be hunger?

     She was thrown out at an abandoned church in south Lonoke County, Arkansas in the middle of the summer and was discovered there by the Queen B and the Lady Hazel. She lived under the church for weeks with a collection of toys she had gathered—tin cans, sticks, sacks, and assorted rags. The ladies fed her until she became trusting enough to come with them to the farm.

     She’s been our spiritual leader since. She’s the one who once picked a fight with a Bush-Hog and lost. The leg still bothers her some after a long day of digging for moles. We encourage her to cease that practice but she likens it to rooting out the evil amongst us. She is also an inveterate shoe-chewer, says we need to remember that Christ had only one pair of shoes and that should be enough for anyone.
     Oops ... must go now. She wants to discuss the disappearance of the concept of grace among the fundamentalist congregations. Oh dear.

    

Eyes that could melt steel, steal your heart,
 or steel you against life's trials.

"I care not for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it." - Abraham Lincoln.

See also www.wattensawpress.com

Fame

            Early morning thoughts with Ludwig Van. (David Oistrakh’s version of the Violin Concerto—the late and beloved Joe McSpadden always said it was one of the finest).

It is my pleasure to know the great-grandson of William (Will, Bill) Pickett, a legendary Texas cowboy and wild-west show performer of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Pickett was a combination of African-American and Native American, son of former slaves. At an early age he had developed greats skills as a cowboy and went on to a career as a performer. His skills at bulldogging (he contributed to the creation of the term) included biting the lower lip of the steer for greater control.

            He died in 1932 from being kicked in the head by a horse. Will Rogers, the famous radio and screen personality announced the death of his friend on his radio show. Pickett’s fascinating life is summed up on the Famous Texans website.

            For several years, his great-grandson, Richard Bell, lived in our condominium building. On a Sunday afternoon entertainment get-together, Richard presented the life of his famous kinsman. It was a most wonderful experience. Richard married not long after that and moved away. We still miss him.

            One never knows what delightful bit of history may be waiting nearby, does one?

 

“It is easier to get an actor to be a cowboy than to get a cowboy to be an actor”. -  John Ford

 

Richard Smith's great-grandfather

 

Road Trip: DeValls Bluff

            On a cold, rainy dreary day, what could we do but head out on a road trip, the ladies and I? We heard that there was a museum in nearby DeValls Bluff, Arkansas so off we went.

            Now if you study about the Civil War in Arkansas, you know what a pivotal location this place turned out to be. Armies heading west to Little Rock or east to Helena crossed the White River at DeValls Bluff. At one time there was something like 32,000 federal troops encamped there in three separate forts. Photographs depict a river clogged with steamboats ferrying troops and supplies. What a spot. I suspect my great-grandfather, George Washington Harris, crossed there with the First Indiana Cavalry.

            So we found the museum. It is in the old high school auditorium, abandoned due to consolidation and now serving as a community center. A gracious and hyper-enthusiastic lady named Debbie Cook gave us a “cook’s” tour, perhaps more precisely the “Cook” tour” She is one of those dedicated and selfless people found so often in our state.
            The Civil War section proved fascinating, but then we were treated to a unique piece of history. DeValls Bluff was, along with other sites on the White River, a location for the pearl button industry of years gone by. The museum houses one of two known remaining machines that punched buttons from mussel shells. They were harvested from the bottom of the river by braver souls than I. The machine still works and is proudly put into action for school groups.
            Then we learned of a “favorite son” from the town, RCA recording artist Jim Minor. He performed with them all and was inducted into Michigan's Country Music Hall of Fame. Later, when I looked up a recording of his on the internet, I found he was backed by the immortal guitarist Hank Garland. Oh my.
            The museum is a non-profit operation of the Bill and Sharon Arnold Foundation. They are a couple from the town who left, came back wealthy, and are spending a large part of their fortune to help their home town. More can be found at the annual festival website.



            If you don’t visit local museums, you are missing out on great treasures. In the case of DeValls Bluff, a trip could include lunch at Craig’s Barbecue and, on selected days, a piece of pie at Miss Lena’s. It just doesn’t get much better than that.

Curator Debbie Cook and the button machine.

"History is a cyclic poem written by time upon the memories of man." -  Percy Bysshe Shelley

 

See also www.wattensawpress.com



Words

Early morning thoughts with Mozart’s "Requiem in D-minor" (mixed with the sound of foster-puppies whining).

Two events profoundly affected me this week. First, I spent Thursday in a diversity training exercise for UALR faculty. The experience reinforced the reality of how hurtful words and actions can be when aimed at what nature has provided someone—quite arbitrarily—in terms of sexual identify/preference, skin color, facial features, physical capabilities, and gender.

Then last evening our family watched, together, Steven Spielberg’s production “The Last Days,” a documentary featuring interviews with five survivors of The Holocaust. Highly recommended.

As I am prone to do, I spent part of the night connecting dots instead of sleeping. To wit:

Maybe the roots of The Holocaust lie in the decision by good people to allow the proliferation of hurtful words. That would have made hurtful actions more palatable, particularly when the good people watched them occur without protest. Perhaps the silence of a good person was as complicit in this atrocity as the actions of any SS officer.

If one were to watch Fox “News” all day today, one would experience an unbroken continuum of hurtful words and lies aimed at what Jesus of Nazareth is recorded as calling “the least of those among us.” A simple reading of history will reveal where that is taking us. Are we to be among those who one day will say “… we wept for Zion?”

It is time for good people to quit being silent, don’t you think?

Man Overboard

Yesterday was a fun day. I dined with one of my dearest and best friends for free at one of the local restaurants offering lunches to vets. We reminisced about old times, the uncertain future, and just how happy we were to be there.

Later I started thinking about memorable adventures. I had quite a few in four years, many of them after I returned from the Orient and went aboard the USS Hunley for a couple of years. It was on the east coast and I learned, to my dismay, that they hated west coast sailors, particularly ones with certain service ribbons. So … they gave us the lowest jobs on the ship, or so they thought. I ended up being a Bosun’s Mate.

I loved it.

There was this one time. We were at sea and they decided to have a “man-overboard drill.” Since I was coxswain of the Admiral’s Barge, they decided somehow that I was senior and should coxswain the lifeboat.

Oh wow. The photo shows us being lowered over the side. I’m the one aft with his arm sticking out to grab the lowering lines.

Now. You see these shots of ships at sea and you think, "How peaceful." Not really. Those waves were about nine feet from peak to trough and it was a little boat. The ship would disappear into the tr when we descended and reappear at the peak. We struggled toward the “man-overboard dummy” that was also appearing and reappearing. The ship, on the other hand, was a little farther away each time we caught a glimpse.

Then the engine died.

We had an officer with us but he was bent over a gunnel puking.

We had an engineman on the craft but he was the second dumbest man on the ship.

We had several Marines with loaded weapons (what for I don’t know, sharks maybe) but they were puking on one another and waving their rifle muzzles in our faces.

As if all this weren't unnerving enough, we were bouncing around like a kernel of popcorn.

The ship was drifting farther away.

I thought I could hear the dummy yelling for help.

While I was mentally computing the distance to Cuba, the engine caught. We grabbed the dummy and motored back.

Then our troubles really started.

Getting back aboard called for inserting pins into bollards at each end of the boat. One of those pins is what the lad, forward at the bow, is trying to grab. The pins were attached to lines that would then hoist us aboard.

Remember, the waves were about nine feet deep, or high—depending on which way we were bouncing.

Also know this. It was right after lunch and they were cleaning the galley. There are these things called scuppers on the side of a ship where they discharge waste.

Thanks to my shipmate and FB friend
 Sidney Bussey for the photo.

Yep. You guessed it. In addition to the sick passengers, we were now being bombarded with partial heads of cabbage, uneaten meals, and other delicacies.

We stopped for three minutes to give thanks that this adventure was playing out on the port side of the ship. I shan’t tell you what the scuppers on the starboard side discharged.

Well, we made it or I wouldn’t be here to relate this adventure. I was somewhat a local hero although it was observed that, after several failed attempts at grabbing the dummy in the rough water, I solved the problem by landing the boat athwart his lifeless form. Although it might have been bad for his health, it facilitated recovery. Besides, a real person could have been expected to get the hell out of the way.

I was happy to get back to motoring the Admiral's wife and her friends around Charleston Harbor. As an aside, they always had a nice meal aboard of chilled chicken and white wine with beer chasers. As we deposited them at the main naval base pier, the precious lady would always say with a wink, "Now 'Boats' (they give us this honorific), "You do know how to dispose of the leftovers properly, now don't you." That's when I learned the benefits of saying, "Yes ma'am."

But back to the man-overboard drill. Did I learn a lesson? Yes. Being able to find humor in situations is part of the coping skills that four billion years of evolution has provided us. Luckily, we had them, the coping skills I mean.

We can only hope these younger brothers and sisters do.

"Youth is wasted on the young." - George Bernard Shaw

Check out www.wattensawpress.com