HAYWIRE

“The more we discover about the circuitry of the brain, the more we tip away from accusations of indulgence, lack of motivation, and poor discipline—and toward the details of biology. The shift from blame to science reflects our modern understanding that our perceptions and behaviors are steered by deeply embedded neural programs.”

So now I know why I am as I am: the above quote from an article in The Atlantic, “the Brain on Trial”, tells me that my brain’s circuitry is wired a certain way: my way. I suppose I am fortunate that my brain isn’t wired to make me a sneak thief or a murderer, or even on a milder basis, a gossip or hypochondriac.  Now I know what happens when I stand in front of the refrigerator looking for a snack: intellectually I know I should shut the door because I really don’t need the snack, but my circuitry overrides it all and I go ahead and eat. “I can’t help myself.”  Well, I could, but I rarely do.  For such a relatively smart person, this is really dumb.

They call this a brainbow, and it shows
nerve activity

These latest discoveries about our biological makeup are opening up a huge can of worms.  We’d think that intellectually, likely taught as youngsters, criminals would know right from wrong. What they know and how they behave are two different things – but should they be punished for how they act?  How their brains are wired?  The worlds of medicine, law, and ethics are going to have to hash this out. 

Until these recent discoveries, criminals were criminals and were punished according to the law.  Now, much like with the insanity defense, it will be a question of the criminal’s wired state of mind. No more: “he’s depraved on accounta he’s deprived.”  It’ll be “he’s depraved on accounta he’s not wired too tight.”  The wiring’s the thing.

Yes, I know this is a Phrenology bust, but even though it 's
about the outside of the head, not the inside, I'd never seen
such a thing before I visited Historic Brattonsville. I've been
saving this photo for quite a while. Today is the day to use it.

In the near future there may be laws not for pre-marital blood tests, but pre-marital mental tests. They say that DNA testing may be able to tell us a child’s future proclivities - that’s one of my favorite fancy words for habitual tendencies or inclinations.  Another can of worms: what will society do when confronted by evidence that a child may grow up to be, shall we say, anti-social?  Hoo-boy! 

So now that I know I think the way I do because it’s the way I’m wired, boy would I like to get inside and rewire some other folks brains.  Unfortunately I can’t do that, so I’ll just have to be more understanding about the less-than-lovely traits of others. I’ll just have to say “Poor dear, she really can’t help herself. She’s wired that way.”  And I guess they’ll say that about me too!

Later…

…while googling for brain-wiring illustrations to accompany this essay I came upon The Connectome: A New Way to Think About What Makes You You, also in The Atlantic. I first read that to be connect-to-me, and actually it does connect to me.  The article gets into a little more serious stuff than I wanted to cover in my light essay, but it is quite intriguing.

FUJI MATSURI

I once had a book of Chinese Fairy Tales, and one tale was of The Princess of Wisteria Wood. The illustrations were just beautiful. Since then I've love wisteria - can't really say I love the scent, but I love the flower and the colors.  Just today I learned that the Japanese have a wisteria festival,  fuji matsuri, that follows the cherry blossom festival, sakura matsuri.

Check Garden Design for more about wisteria and this wisteria tunnel, and check my blog for my piece on the Cherry Blossom Festival.  For you gardeners, the Garden Design website looks like an interesting find.  I'm finding so many wonderful websites and blogs these days. As it is with books: so many blogs, so little time!

WOULD THAT I COULD FLY

           

"Long ago in Africa, it is said, some of the people knew magic that enabled them to fly. But when they were brought to America as slaves, they forgot the magic. All but one old man. When he could tolerate no longer the suffering of his people, he whispered the magic words and, one by one and then in flocks, the slaves rose up and flew to freedom"                                                 

             From the cover of The People Could Fly, by Virginia Hamilton.

Have you read the book with this cover?  I bought it for one of my grandchildren almost twenty years ago, and when I first saw the cover it stopped me in my tracks. You see, in my dreams I’d always been able to fly – not like Superman, but just like that. I’d just rise up and go. I know there were a few dream instances where I was cleverly avoiding something bad, but usually I just rose up and flew.  No magic words, I just flew.

One vivid dream I’ve always remembered – as best one can remember a dream – was of flying along in the high vaulting of a cathedral, swatting with my furled, black umbrella at all the huge, nasty, jeering crows that were threatening to smash the stained-glass windows. I suppose I remember this one because I know I told a few people about it.  It was weird!

I flew high for years, over the rooftops, coming down only when I was very sick with a neuritis that numbed me from my toes on up.  My dreams seem to have reflected my symbolically grounded state.  Ah, but though I couldn’t rise up, I could always skim the ground lickety-split* through the remembered but always mutating towns that are the regular landscape of my dreams. I could glide up and down staircases by just breezing my hand over the banister. I could negotiate up or down, hand-over-hand, many scaffold-like dream constructions.  Still can.

In the last few years I’ve risen up a bit again. Here and there it’s just a few feet. Only a few times have I been above the treetops.  I love to watch those aerial travel programs like the Smithsonian’s current series Aerial America, or the series Baltic Coasts on HD Net.  Perhaps seeing all that aerial activity has raised my dream prospect – in more than one sense of the word. Perhaps in my old age I should take up hang-gliding and get high for real.  Perhaps…

*If it is still available to view, watch the lovely, Academy Award nominated short Luminaris to see how I skimmed the ground. Did they get this idea from my dreams? Thanks db for telling me about the film.

SCCL NATIVES ARE GETTING RESTLESS

(With apologies to any of my regular readers who are not SCCL homeowners.)

Active Adult communities are a rare breed.  Having such a community with an HOA makes it even rarer – and scarier.  ‘Active Adults’ is a euphemism for ‘Seniors’.  Seniors, by virtue of their accumulation of years, have become, in my opinion, either wise or cantankerous. (With a curmudgeon here or there who is, I hope, a bit of both.) We’ve all got strong opinions.

The Sun City Carolina Lakes active adults are getting restless. It’s been over six years since the first homeowners moved in, and in those six years employees of the builder, Pulte Homes, have constituted the Board of the Home Owners Association.  When the first homeowners signed on here they agreed and signed on many dotted lines to allow that to happen, thinking, in those days of rapid home sales, that the community would be built out in about five years.  We all know that didn’t happen. Along the way we even allowed the builder to add to the number of houses to be built. Home sales slumped and the reverberations of that were felt nationwide. So it now looks like the builder will call the shots for at least another five years.

We could start wearing t-shits like this.

Not that the burdens here, namely the rules and regulations, are getting too outlandish – not like it was for our country’s founding fathers – but the phrase “taxation without representation” springs to mind.  We’ve been dutifully paying our association dues for months and years on end, and we’ve still no say in what happens here.  Not that we’d change much – though I’m sure there are several wish lists out there – but of late we’re beginning to sense a much too paternal attitude toward the homeowners. Let me simplify that: we feel, I feel, we’re being treated like children.

I’d love to know what the builder thinks a homeowner-directed HOA board would enact that would jeopardize home sales. Would we do away with those only symbolic electronic gates at some – only some – of our entrances?  Would we put in perennials instead of the costly annuals changed each season? Would we curtail the parade of construction vehicles on our too narrow streets? Maybe so. Ultimately, were I them, I’d be thinking it was time to turn things over to the homeowners lest prospective buyers, who might get a chance to question folks who live here, find out just how the place is really run. 

It’s time for the tail to stop wagging the dog.

REFUGIO BEACH



2001 - REFUGIO BEACH STATE PARK

I took this picture at Refugio Beach State Park in Santa Barbara, California.  I think this young boy was on his knees praying that his Mom wouldn't beat the tar out of him - or off of him as the case would be.

We were driving north on US 101 when the lure of the beautiful beach was to strong to ignore. I wanted to dip my toes in the Pacific once again, so I took off my sandals and waded in. Big mistake!  There are tar globules everywhere in the sand.  I've since learned that this is common to beaches in that area. At our hotel that night it took me what seemed like eons to get off the tar. What a mess.  At least my good sandals weren't covered in the stuff. I can only imagine the horror on the face of this boy's Mom when he finished his romp in the surf.  I hope she had gallons of turpentine handy.

LAGOM

I've got to put the Curmudgeon
label on this one

Just this morning I noticed that I’d better wash one of the shelves on the door of my refrigerator.  I suppose I should wash the whole fridge more often than I do.  I know I’ve written before that for years my Mother cleaned her fridge every Thursday – every Thursday!  She also had a regular schedule for washing the kitchen floors, doing the bathrooms top to bottom, washing whatever walls weren’t wall-papered, doing all the drapes and curtains, not to mention the regular dusting and vacuuming, making the beds, and doing the cooking and laundry. Whew! I’m exhausted just writing about it, but this is just what most women did years ago. You might see it as a decline in standards, but I see it as an increase in choices. 

The lifestyle choices we have today have made a hash of centuries of status quo.  Over the years the fashions changed, new worlds were discovered, wars were waged, but men’s and women’s roles in society, how they lived and how they worshiped, were pretty fixed. Not today! The decrease in church attendance can be attributed to more choices for what to do on a Sunday morning. Choices for what to do on a weekday, from furthering their education to getting a bit of retail therapy, have lead women out of the house, and into whatever they want to do. I’m all for not cleaning my fridge every Thursday and going to a museum instead.

All this is well and good, but I’ve never seen gals as busy as some of these young Moms. Were I a Mom today, I might think that yesteryear-housewife’s schedule serene. Where today’s choices have opened up, so have choices for the children’s schooling and pastimes. And this means the Moms are constantly on the go, bringing the kids hither and yon. And the wide open choices also lead to multiple family cars, and a garage packed with sports equipment for the whole family. And the whole family is rarely together because they’ve got so many choices of what to do, and meals have be fast food eaten on the run. And all of this stuff leads to packed credit card balances, AND, I’d guess indigestion at an early age.

All of this leads me to a word I only recently heard: lagom. The Swedish live by this word that means ‘just enough.’ The Swedish, and probably much of the rest of the world, generally believe that all of us Americans want to be Number One, the best, and have the best and the most of everything. I’d say that not all of us want that, but relatively few Americans would care to live by ‘lagom’. Look at any fashion, family, or ‘shelter’ magazine and you are exhorted to get with the times and update everything from your wardrobe to your décor to your kitchen dishes, and to make sure your kids are germ free and equipped with the latest in toys and technology. If you like to keep up with the Joneses you go out and buy, buy, buy, and soon your stuff has stuff. * 

And, and, and, and… my thoughts on all this excess seem to go round and round. Where will it all end?

I've got a great collection of the best of my favorite Sunday comics.
This one is "Rose is Rose" from April 1, 1990. 
I don't know if I'd say 'mediocrity', but 'lagom' would be apt.

Again I quote Aristotle - or whoever it was:
"The wise man achieves balance by reducing his needs to the level of his possessions."

* if your stuff has stuff see my blog entry here.

LILACS

When lilacs last in my dooryard bloomed it was over five years ago at our house in upstate New York.  I've not seen any since we moved to South Carolina. They don't care for these warmer climes. Today I found big bunches of them at Trader Joe's and I am in heaven. I got white and purple ones, and they are sending the most wonderful fragrance throughout the house. My spring is complete.  Thanks to Google for the picture above - the one below is mine, taken at Hancock Shaker Village, which was about eight miles from where we lived.

did you ever have one of those days...



I took this picture years ago at Hancock Shaker Village.
I knew it would come in handy one day. Today's the day.

...where you felt like a chicken running around aimlessly?  Today I can't think of any pithy sayings, words of wisdom, or bon mots except this: "One day I shall burst my bud of calm and blossom into hysteria." And considering that I carelessly wiped out my first attempt at this post, these words from The Lady's Not for Burning are particularly apt.

ATLAS HUGGED



Oslo, Norway of course, one of my favorite cities



I’ve loved maps since I was about 9 years old, and in the fourth grade. We had to draw a map of the old Lincoln Highway, section by section, taped one to the other, and learn all about the areas it traversed. I can still see those eight by eight inch squares, pasted one to the next, until I had a long, fan-folded map snaking from Times Square to San Francisco. I wish I’d save it.  I can remember our sixth-grade study of South America and the map we had to make of its countries and products. Making maps was one of the things I liked best about grade school.

As I’ve mentioned before, when I was around 10 years old I sensed a difference in Jamaicas. I was born in a hospital in Jamaica, New York, but I’d heard of an island called Jamaica. I needed to find out what was going on there. It was then that I became interested in more than just the Lincoln Highway, and was introduced to what has become one of my favorite references: a world atlas. I’ve had several updated versions of them over the years. An atlas is one of the few books I can’t order on line. I have to go to the books store and look at the latest selection to be sure it’s one I like. There’s no describing how I make my selection – one of the available editions will just ‘speak’ to me.

My latest atlas

A new, huge volume now sits leaning against a floor lamp right by my rocking chair and I refer to it frequently. It is especially helpful for finding answers to geographical clues in my favorite NY Times crossword puzzles.  Yes, if I’m really stumped I look up the answers – how else can you learn? My motto is “when in doubt check it out.” 

Unless they are rare volumes of historical maps, worthy of a high estimated value on Antiques Roadshow, old, outdated atlases don’t seem to have much value beyond filling bookshelves or being used as sinkers. Libraries certainly don’t want them. It just about killed me to have to trash my last atlas. Even the recyclers wouldn’t take it unless I ripped off the covers and recycled just the paper. If anyone has suggestions for what to do with old atlases I’d love to hear them.



Europe around 1595.  Not easy to read - then or now.



What does have value is a good, individual historic map.  Early in the 1980’s, an antique-dealer neighbor of friends of ours in England suggested that we invest in antique maps.  For one reason and another we never acted on his advice.  Would that we could have: lately, antique maps have become collectors’ darling$. 

When we go driving I’m the navigator.  I’ve navigated us all across this country – and England and other European countries as well.  I like to do the job because I love to read the maps.  Some maps I’ve used, like the Ordnance Survey maps of England loaned to us for our travels there, or the Michelin maps of France, are on a very large scale, something like 6 inches to a mile.  You can’t get lost using those – well, you can if the driver is going too fast (oh #@%&, turn around, we just missed the cut-off to Stonehenge!) or if you’re absorbed in studying other bits on the map and lose your place and objective on the map, or if you’re fascinated by the scenery and forget the map altogether.  Done that!



Nice Côte d'Azur Airport.  It's easy to get lost here if you don't have a map.
Been there - done that!



My latest navigating tool is Google Maps.  I crank it up before a trip and have an aerial look at where we’re going.  I even get down to ground level for a look at the critical turns and junctions. (I’ve also used Google Maps to look at places I used to live or have visited. 

Things have certainly changed in my old neighborhoods!)

I love my atlas, I love maps: celestial maps, world maps, country maps, road maps, subway maps, airport maps, tourist and visitor maps to streets and attractions, even our SCCL handy-dandy neighborhood maps.  It’s nice to know where I’m at.



The London Underground - The Tube.  I've an old map of this system in the form of a large, square scarf.
An earlier map of this system became the model for other cities' subway maps.



PORTOFINO FROM A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE

I've learned.... That it's those small daily happenings

that make life so spectacular.    

...some of the wisdom of Andy Rooney

furthermore...

...on the heels of my curmudgeonly essay on caring not who makes the nations laws, today I am up in arms over the cost of airline tickets. Something should be done!

A dear relation of ours decided just last week to fly up and pay us a visit. Direct flight from Ft. Lauderdale to Charlotte? Oh, somewhere in the neighborhood of $800. Had she booked for forty-five days ahead, the same flight would have cost just under $300.  She did get a flight for about $325, but has a three-hour layover in Atlanta.  It’s good she has needlework to do, a book to read, and her ever-present laptop.

I know that it is the same for railroad fares, but not to the same degree of markup: $343 vs. $216, though not many would want to do this trip by railroad – it takes about thirty-two hours! I haven’t checked the bus schedules, but I imagine they are much the same. It is to the customer’s advantage if they can plan ahead, and to the carriers’ advantage if they can’t.  No wonder the cost of doing business is going up – the airline fares are outrageous for business people who must travel at the ‘last minute’.

               Just thought I’d rant on about this. Who does makes the laws?

...WHO WRITES THE NATION'S LAWS

I’m told that humorist S.J. Perelman often gleaned his topics from articles or ads he’d read, taking off on the subject. One of his essays begins: "I guess I'm just an old mad scientist at bottom. Give me an underground laboratory, half a dozen atom-smashers, and a beautiful girl in a diaphanous veil waiting to be turned into a chimpanzee, and I care not who writes the nation's laws.”

I’ll never be able to equal that inimitable style, but Perelman’s opening prompts me to do a piece of my own. Which part of that sentence do you suppose struck the note? Yep!: “I care not who writes the nation’s laws.”  Not to sound unpatriotic – I am a flag waver of the first order – but I really do “care not”. 

I’m sitting out here in retirement land viewing things from a seven decade perspective, and one thing I’ve learned is that elections and the hoopla leading up to them are strictly for the political enthusiasts among us. And as for our outdated system of primaries, caucuses, and conventions, I’d rather not start on that vast topic. My head is not stuck up there where the sun don’t shine: I do vote in the primaries, I do vote on election day, and I do take a modicum of interest in the passing political scene. It’s the intense media manipulation and speculation that jars me. One would think that some of these pundits had crystal balls as integral parts of their nether anatomy. 

I realize that the Presidency is “a dirty job but someone’s gotta do it”, and there have been smarter and wiser folks than I who have wondered why there is such a fierce and sometimes dirty competition to get to the White House next. The job is thankless, perilous, and relatively low paying.  And while we’re describing the job, let’s also add powerless.  All the pre-election promises mean nothing more than maybes – maybe the candidate, if elected, will be able to get his pet programs off and running.  Chances are slim because the power a President holds, with the exception, perhaps, of getting us into wars we’d be better off avoiding, is often no more than the celebrity power to awe.  Legislative proposals, vetoes, approvals: few of them are truly monumental or irreversible.

Chinese civilization is so old that they’ve been there, done that, and have a saying to prove it. “The heavens are high and the Emperor is far away.” I care not who writes the nations laws – or who is President – because it is all far away. It comes closer every four years and, love it or hate it, I’m made to think more about it. But what goes on in the ant hill that is Washington D.C., or any in any other legislative center, is truly far away and out of mind, and, happily unaware of all that, my own life goes on.

              "What matters in life is not what happens to you

                        but what you remember and how you remember it.  

                                   Gabriel García Márquez

Here it is March 27, and the dogwoods are already in full bloom. This is always my favorite time of the year - not just spring, but dogwood time.  The big trees are lacey with all their shades of green.  Too soon they'll settle into their almost uniform leaf green.

With spring coming so early this year, I was thinking that the summer would be a scorcher.  I checked with the Old Farmer's Almanac and it predicts cooler than normal temperatures from May through October. Early spring and a cool summer - sounds great to me!

SAKURA

There is no doubt that the change of seasons – from summer to winter, from winter to summer – are both eagerly awaited by everyone. Some people prefer the crispness, the new chill in the air, and, of course, the warm colors of fall.  This year the spring has sprung early and with a vengeance, and I’m already into sandals and cropped pants. I love the spring. The lacy, pastel colors run riot on the dogwoods, the redbuds, Bradford pears, apples, plums, and, of course, the cloud of blossoms on cherry trees. There’s new warmth in the air and grass is greening.



It’s no wonder that in the spring a tourist’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, DC.  This year will mark the 100^th Anniversary of the first planting of the cherry trees.  On March 27, 1912, Helen Taft, the president’s wife, and Vicountess Chinda, the wife of the Japanese Ambassador, planted the first two of the over three thousand trees that would surround the Tidal Basin in West Potomac Park. The cuttings they planted were scions from the famous trees that grow in Tokyo along the banks of the Arakawa River. 



Peter Max's poster for this year's festival



Over the years there has been a reciprocal replenishment of the cherry trees.  After World War II, cuttings were taken from the Washington trees to replace those destroyed by Allied bombs in Tokyo. Later, Tokyo sent cuttings back to replace some of the trees that had died in Washington; then Washington sent cuttings to replace trees lost in a flood.  Today the cherry trees flourish all over Washington.

In 1915, the United States sent scions of flowering dogwood trees to the people of Japan, and there was a reenactment of the 1912 events. This became the beginnings of the Cherry Blossom Festival, though it wasn’t ‘official’ until 1935. The festival was suspended during the war, but resumed in 1947.  Today the festival is held over a two week period, with hundreds of thousands of tourists in attendance.  Mother Nature and the festival organizers don’t always work hand-in-hand.  In some years the trees blossom earlier or later than the planned festival dates. Peak blossom performance, however, has almost become secondary to the cultural: exhibits, music and dance, fashion shows, and food fests; the sporting: a kite flying fest, bike races and a ten-mile run; and the ceremonial events: the crowning of a festival queen, a parade, and lots of fireworks.

Cherry Blossom Festival fireworks in
Hamburg, Germany

Sakura is the Japanese word for cherry blossom.*  The word is known at Cherry Blossom Festivals all over the world, from Brooklyn to Hamburg, to Tokyo, of course.  Be on the lookout for a festival during your spring travels.



A tree grows in Brooklyn -
Of course - it's a cherry!



*My favorite version of the Japanese folk song, Sakura – actually, the first version I ever heard, so no wonder – is this one by Harry Belafonte.

and speaking of things British...

... I just found another picture to add to my female curmudgeon collection:

Of course you remember:

The lemon look was never better expressed than by these two great British actresses, Maggie Smith and Margaret Rutherford.  Now I have two lovelies to add emphasis to my curmudgeonly essays. 

I just thought I'd bring you all up to date on this.  Happy Thursday 

GOD SAVE THE QUEEN

Speaking of anthems, as I was in my last blog, it’s a shame we can’t use America – better known as My Country, ‘Tis of Thee (and wouldn’t you know, God is in the lyrics there too, and some folks just might object. Nuts!) The British are already using the tune – not ‘officially’ mind you, but it might as well be. 

Just as most folks do these days, I googled God Save the Queen just to see what was what. Whew! There’s a lot of info out there, more than I needed to know, including these lyrics from the second stanza:

Lord, our God, arise,

Scatter her enemies,

And make them fall.

Confound their politics,

Frustrate their knavish tricks,

On Thee our hopes we fix,

God save us all.

 I hate to sound irreverent, but that one could be the anthem of any of our Presidential hopefuls these days: “Confound their politics, frustrate their knavish tricks.” Oh, those tricky knaves! 

All of the above aside, the real focus of my essay is Queen Elizabeth II, now celebrating sixty years on the throne.  To paraphrase Kermit-the-Frog: It ain’t easy being queen.  Although she used it for the year 1992, I’m sure she’s had many another “annus horribilis”. Still she soldiers on. 

I had an uncle who, during World War II, was stationed in England, and sent me many books from there. My favorite was one about a princess who found a little dragon and could keep him only if he didn’t use his fire. Well, one day these robbers came into her room and the dragon used his fire to chase them away and then he knew he couldn’t stay, and then… well, I do digress, and you can guess the rest of the story.  But with that book and many others I got accustomed to kings and queens and princesses.  They were part of life. I was still 10 years old when Elizabeth’s coronation took place, so naturally I sent her a letter.  She was the Queen. I know my Mom sent the letter, but I’ve always wondered where it wound up. At 10 I was still sorting out a few things like why I lived near Jamaica, New York, but there was also a far-away island called Jamaica, and didn’t everyone have a President and a Queen?  Finding out about Jamaica started a life-long love of geography, but it took me a while to get the President/Queen realities straightened out in my mind. You’d guess of course that England was the first country I visited when I could travel by myself.  I am an Anglophile and a Reginaphile too. (Is there such a word? Well I am it.)

 

I found the picture above, taken this week’s visit to the Cathedral at Leicester, in The Telegraph.  The Queen looks overwhelmed by all the flowers.  Perhaps if she’d ditch the hand bag she could have dealt with another one or two posies.  And – the ubiquitous question – just what is she carrying in that purse – the weight of the world? From some of the other pictures it looked like almost everyone had a bouquet for her.  What do they do with all of them afterwards?   

I’ve always perked up and listened to any mention of the Queen and her family.  They’ve all had their ups and downs, but it looks like these current years will be anni mirabili – happy years for the Queen. She certainly looks happy when she’s out and about with the Duchess of Cambridge – better known to us as Kate. Elizabeth II – QEII - has set sail on her Diamond Jubilee tour of the country. The countdown’s starting: she’s only got about three and a half years to go to surpass Queen Victoria’s sixty-three plus years in the same job.  I’m sure she’ll make it. 

I do love all her hats. She always looks
like she just stepped out of a bandbox.

THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER - OR NOT

The Star Spangled Banner was made our national anthem just over eighty years ago in March 1931.  1931 was the year the Empire State Building was completed and the year my husband was born.  Two out of three of those have weathered well – one, the anthem, has not. 

I’ve always found it hard to sing.  It starts out in a fairly comfortable range, but then “the rockets’ red glare” takes the range sky high. Years ago everyone sang it at the start of sporting events. Today some rock group or rap singer or some sponsor’s wife does the rendition. Many flub the lines. The younger generation’s singers just have to jazz it up and add notes that were never in the score. The singing wives, who really are fine in the church choir, should never be encouraged to get up and sing alone. This is our national anthem, for pity’s sake, let’s not abuse it.

A notoriously bad version - Oh, yeah!

Hard to sing or not, it would be less painful to the ears if everyone sang as they once did. Just think of the money NASCAR or other sports organizers could save if they’d just have everyone sing it in one rousing chorus – flags waving, jets roaring by overhead.  Sounds good to me.  But then I realize that having all these stars around entices fans to get to the track or to watch the race on TV.  With a sigh I say “Oh well, the almighty dollar wins again.”

Whenever the subject comes up it’s for sure folks will agree that our anthem is hard to sing, and most will suggest we’d be better off with a rousing rendition of Irving Berlin’s God Bless America.  Don’t hold your breath kiddies!  Though it has become popular to play it at many sporting events, especially in the National Hockey League, (after all, there is no law that says a national anthem has to be played) the politically correct in this country wouldn’t have an anthem that contained the word “God”.* I don’t know how these same folks handle their greenbacks though, what with “In God We Trust” on all our currency.  Perhaps they rely totally on electronic banking.

This Land is Your Land, Woody Guthrie’s great song, might come under consideration, especially if we stuck to just the first two verses. “This land is your land, this land is my land, from California to the New York Island” – it covers the whole nation.  But in the original version, after the first few verses it begins to sound like the protest song it is. Guthrie wrote it in 1940 as a rebuttal to Berlin’s God Bless America, which he thought unrealistic.  God Bless America does get my vote though. Anthem lyrics aren’t necessarily realistic, but they should be patriotic, extolling us as we can be our very ‘finest hour’.  Realistic lyrics would have to be changed on a regular basis according to the state of the union, and would read like the front page of a major national newspaper.

There’s a lot to be said for America the Beautiful – but God is in the lyrics there too, wouldn’tcha know.  And it’s a song that’s usually played slowly and with a bit more, shall we say, reverence than our current anthem, making it a poor choice at sporting event s.  Yes, “God” is in the lyrics of The Star Spangled Banner: “and this be our motto: ‘In God is our Trust.’”  Rarely do we sing on down to that fourth stanza to note it. At the time our anthem was chosen the movement toward political correctness was not even on the horizon. I wish Congress had stuck with Hail, Columbia. Maybe they can bring that one back.

You can go on line and come up with many differing opinions on the current song and its suggested replacements – I just thought I’d add my own thoughts to the mix.

*They’re after the Pledge of Allegiance too. Read this recent article from the UPI.



AT HANCOCK SHAKER VILLAGE

                    The wise man achieves balance by reducing his needs to the level of his possessions.

                                                                                                 ... attributed to Aristotle

HAPPY BIRTHDAY VITA

The Writer’s Almanac tells me today is the birthday of writer Vita Sackville-West, born one hundred and twenty years ago at Knoll House in Kent, England. I began reading several of her works, which I enjoy tremendously, after I visited her home and gardens, Sissinghurst, also in Kent.  It was a home in which I felt very comfortable, in which I could easily picture myself living – just take away all these tatty tourists and I’ll move right in.

As to her birthplace, Knoll, I remember four things about it: the 365 rooms (not that I visited them all), the ingenious Knoll sofa, endless staircases, and the bone-chilling cold in the sunny month of May.  The tatty tourists can have that one.  Maybe if they all rustle around and do a dance they can warm up the place.

SISSINGHURST CASTLE

The Almanac also tells me she wrote: "It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment?"  It must have been lovely to be able to have the leisure to see that those days didn’t slip emptily by.  I’m sure she had other things to do, places to go, people to see, but I’m also sure she had household help. I don’t. I do have a nice chunk of leisure now that I’m retired, but the household chores are still mine to do.  The laundry is tumbling away even as I write this.  Every once in a while my schedule goes haywire and I’ve got to write a list of things to do, but usually I manage a properly apportioned rota of day-to-day chores that affords me lots of time to write – and read.  Right now life is mah-velous!

Oh – yes!  Happy Birthday Vita.