Tuesday, August 31, 2004

Olympians on the Roof

From noon yesterday until noon today the Olympians worked on the roof. I should have taken a picture of them, knowing how I love to watch men work. These young men were phenomenal.

When the shingles came in and were delivered to the driveway, they formed a brigade in which each one of them made 15 trips up the ladder with his heavy load on one shoulder, his free hand steadying himself. Between the six they had the bundles of shingles to the peak in no time. The Olympian athletes had nothing on them; they had strength, agility, balance and grace.

He Who Must Be Obeyed was impressed, which is more meaningful than me being impressed. I am impressed with workers who simply lean on their shovels, as we sometimes see on our Omaha street maintenance crews.

They worked late, came early today, and cleaned up everything including a couple of old logs from last fall's tree trimmings! I will never say a disparaging thing about our new Omaha immigrants. If they are illegal, we are not speaking about it. Not one word. We are grateful for their skilled and cheerful labor. I just pray they live better than they ever have before. They deserve it. Gold medals all around.

Four new skylights and a new roof. Life can't get much better than that.

Sunday, August 22, 2004

Compassion and Justice

He Who Must Be Obeyed came home from early church and told me I was in for an excellent worship service at 11:00. He was right again. It was excellent in every way. I got my liturgical fix and was made uncomfortable with a thought provoking sermon.

It is easy for me to get off on what a person should be doing on Sundays. We have heard that third commandment all of our lives; but do we recall that little part where we are not supposed to work our slaves? Jesus healed the woman bent over for 18 years in the Temple and on the Sabbath. It is about compassion and justice, isn't it? Jesus goes against Biblical law and gets 'nailed' for it.

Here was the hook. We enjoyed a little retelling of Mark Twain's Huckelberry Finn and his dilemna over taking off down the Mississippi with Mrs. Watson's slave Jim. Huck is agonized about his offense of helping a slave to freedom which is against the law, and running of with Mrs. Watson's property which is against the Biblical law of stealing. Should he turn Jim in? He tries to pray but can't, sinner that he is, so he writes a letter to Mrs. Watson telling her where her slave is. That agonizes him as he has developed a liking to Jim, who has once put his life on the line for Huck. Finally he decides to go against the Bible, the law of society, and to tear up the letter and just go to hell.

So, what are we, you, my reader, and I, what are we going to do about compassion and justice?Even if we get 'nailed' for it, will we, like Huck, decide we will just go to hell and do the right thing? If so, we will be in good company.

Thank you Pastor Jim for a beautiful new hymn, the old liturgy, and the throught provoking sermon.

CBS Sunday Morning

CBS Sunday Morning has been my favorite television program for 25 years. This morning as they celebrated that milestone with some past memories; I was once again reminded why I like it so much.

During my high school teaching days, I often taped the John Leonard segment to be used in conjunction with my large group of either television producers or mass communication students. John Leonard is a media critic; a man who knows how to use our language in a rich, memorable way. In this morning's program it was stated that was precicely why they chose him. A man of language and letters.

It was one of those delicious hours in life. My roommate of over 50 years woke me to say he was going to early church and I had the opportunity to watch this example of perfect televion in my cozy warm bed with no distractions.

What do you do with those obtrusive minutes of advertisments? I simply switch over to C-SpanII to see who is on Book TV, my second favorite program.

All of this before real life sets in on a Sunday morning.


Saturday, August 21, 2004

Where's George

Small things pleasure me. This morning at a garage sale, I found a ThighMaster for a dollar. Just last night I watched Debra Norville interview Suzanne Summers who talked about her greatest business mistake. It was a device similar to her ThighMaster that she named a ButtMaster. She said people weren't likely to want to walk out of WalMart carrying a box called "ButtMaster."

But that isn't my small pleasure. It was when He Who Must Be Obeyed pulled out a dollar for the ThighMaster, he gave me one that was stamped with that little circular "Follow This Bill www.wheresgeorge.com. I did that and found out that the first time it was entered was here in Omaha in January. I can hardly believe that no one since then has followed it. So my next instructions are to spend it in an interesting place. I like that thought. It might be at another garage sale. They are about as interesting as life gets. Some day I am going to do a study on society in the Midwest using them as my material.

Tuesday, August 17, 2004

Get Rich Quick

I know people who are intrigued by the thought of inventing something that is going to bring them instant financial gain. I have read about people who have done that. Oprah has had them as guests on her show. It happens.

I am a Lockergnome junky. Chris Pirillo got his start in Des Moines, Iowa, practically a neighbor. I love it when youngsters do well. Look at Bill Gates. This odd article in this morning's "Lockergnome's Tech News Watch" is about somebody's lightbulb idea. It is all laid out for the artist aspiring to get rich with original artwork. The hook is the artwork must be submitted in a little box the size of a pack of cigarrettes; if accepted for distribution one must make 50 little artworks in 50 little boxes and can expect $2.00 to $2.50 on consignment for each one sold.

I know people who could do this. I could do this. Once I watercolored 50 little Christmas cards, it was fun, they were all the same. Do I want to spend my days watercoloring little cards and putting them in little boxes to be vended out like cigarettes all over the world. What if they sold like hotcakes, or worse yet cigarrettes, and the demand increased until I had to stay up late at night watercoloring more and sending them off 50 boxes at a time. Would I really get rich, and would I want to become a slave to this little endeavor?

The idea intrigues me. It is a little bit creative and a lot enterprise, the American way. A dream that would soon turn into drudgery, a slave concept. My kitchen table would be filled with little boxes and watercolor sets, glasses of murky water, no dinner ever and never on placemats, properly set. It would immediately turn into a disaster. People would be clammering for my little box. I would soon tire of the demand. It would snowball out of control.

But it would be better than babysitting. This sounds better. We all love the sound of cellophane.

Sunday, August 15, 2004

Multitasking Again

I am listening to Kurt Anderson's Studio 360 online, trying to write anything of consequence for a change, and keeping an ear on the Olympic boxers. I can't see the tv set and dislike boxing, so slop-over sound might not count.

Once I told one of my television production classes that humans multitask; I put a quiz in front of them, told them to take a few lecture notes, turned on a VCR and commenced to lecture on some aspect of production skill. It was a dirty trick and I shouldn't have done it. I wanted to tell them "Welcome to the world." Instead, I observed those who could handle all of it, those who felt like throwing up, and those who became red-faced angry.

Kurt Anderson graduated from the high school at which I taught. His guest, Ursula K. Le Guin, and he are discussing utopia and writing. Inverted utopias are my life. It makes me think of the sermon at St. Timothy's Lutheran this morning around the Lesson, the Gospel and the title of the play, "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change."

I subscribe to the free version of Today in Literature that arrives in my inbox on weekdays. One of the items in it Friday was Powell's Books Tenth Anniversary Essay contest which regards memorable reading experiences. Clinking into the article, I see that one of Kurt Anderson's most memorable reading experiences is Lawrence Wechsler's Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder that he says "astounded and pleased me intensely and became immediately hard-wired into my personal epistemology...The book's pleasure--its maximum memorablility--depends on a certain slow reveal of its secrets. So: trust me: read it."

When he puts it that way, I think I will finish it. It was given to me last spring by my daughter/granddaughter and my son-in-law/grandson-in-law. Those relationships are a long story and I am not going into that now. When I started thinking Mr. Wilson's museum was a real place in LA, I remembered how I looked up the National Geograpic Photographers after reading "The Bridges of Madison County" and was so embarrassed to think I got that caught up in it, I put "Mr. Wilson's Cabinet..." aside. I didn't want another of those memorable embarrassments. Reading a few reviews, I now think that it does exist on Venice Avenue.

A person would think that a librarian would know the difference between fiction and non-fiction. My inverted utopia. Clinking is a word I just coined. I mean it as clicking on links. Maybe "clinking pink" is appropriate for this blog, or "plinking."

Wednesday, August 11, 2004

Baba Yaga is Dying

Nancy Duncan, our local talespinner is dying of cancer. She tells us so in the Sunday World-Herald. The story is poignantly beautiful. As a story teller, the article goes on to say:

"she spun out the tale of the old man and woman who made up the rules for humankind. They decided how many fingers to put on each hand and where to place genitals.
When it came to death, the old man wanted humans to live forever. The woman disagreed.
She said, "They have to die forever or we won't value each other."

I did not know Nancy Duncan, but certainly knew of her and had heard her tell stories both in person and on KIOS, a public radio station in Omaha. I did, however know her husband, Harry.
Harry Duncan was my Fine Arts Professor under whom I studied the History of the Printed Word, and the Hand Printed Book.

For a summer, I volunteered in the Fine Arts Press to print a volume of Reiner Rilke's poetry translated by Rikka Lesser, HOLDING OUT, copyrighted in 1975. I would arrive early in the studio to wet and prepare the heavy hand made paper. Harry inked the old Benjamin Franklin press. We would print together, he inking and turning the press into the paper, me turning and making sure the wetted paper was in its proper place and he again inking, printing, and holding the large sheet up to the light checking for exactness of placement and ink application. We printed four pages at a time on both sides, to be cut apart later. I was gifted a copy of the book when the project was completed.

When the galleys were prepared to go to the translator in Denmark, I would read and he would follow along with the original, checking punctuation, spacing, spelling. It was a travel to another place, another time, and a second chance for me to observe an artist at work.

My own son, then ten years old was in the Omaha Community Playhouse production of Music Man. It was a six week run, with seven productions a week. I was mothering five, fostering one, back in college taking 15 hours after a 17 year hiatus and I saw one of the performances. How amazing I found it, to see my own professor, Mr. Duncan, playing the Mayor.

The last time I saw Mr. Duncan was in my doctor's office. He was waiting for a son, who having returned from a time in Africa, was being treated for a number of after effects of that third world country. Mr. Duncan looked frail and I was happy he remembered me.

The newspaper article says this about Mr. Duncan's last days: "In 1997, he grew weary of his leukemia and the serious complications that came along with it, so he quit eating and drinking.
He slipped into a coma and, within days, died at home. "

Mr. Duncan wove his way into my life again, posthumously. When I attended the interment services of the Nebraska Medical School for my mother two years after her death and donation of her body, we were given a program listing the donees. How joyous it was for me to read my dear, dear Professor's name listed with that of my mother's.

I read that Baba Yaga is "not afraid of death at all."


Monday, August 09, 2004

Sturgis Rally Blogger

We have now been married 50 years and two days. I see that it will be clear coasting to the 51st Anniversary. It was amazing to have 13 immediate family members here for our usual Nebraska summer meal of grilled steak, sweet corn and salads.

Our youngest son came in with a white cake on lace and trimmed with little doves. My roomate of all these years called them ducks. We never had a wedding cake 50 years ago, and I have never had a cake with "Willo" written on it. First time events are good at any age. It made me happy.

The morning was beautiful and we had a back yard full of swimmers of all ages. This child-bride, now 69, was one of them. It was a joyful day indeed. My youthful groom got the shingles in spite of all the happiness. He had it diagnosed this morning. Lower right quadrant, I suppose it could go to his toes. Odd isn't it, how he has been fixing a roof leaking through the cedar shingles and now he has them.

Yes, there is a Sturgis Rally Blogger. The rally started this weekend, but my Black Hills high school friends tell me that some of them must have thought it started last week. Bill Harlan, a Rapid City Journal staff writer says in his article that he now knows how Guttenburg felt. It is nice that he will bring us pictures and text from the Sturgis rally throughout the day(s).

He goes on to say "Blogs, however, are not an arboricidal form of communication. Blogging is all done with electrons, which, according to Stephen Hawking's latest thinking, can neither be created nor destroyed, simply rearranged into an image of Britney Spears riding a chopper down Main Street in Sturgis behind a hideous, leather-jacketed Bat-faced Boy.The beauty of a blog is, I can take their picture and report it to you before an editor ever notices."

Maybe that is the beauty of the blog. It happens in a nanosecond, before He Who Must Be Obeyed notices. I don't think he has figured out how to change things in my blog. He is much too busy with two types of shingles.

If I don't sound sympathetic it is unfortunate because I am. He is too nice a guy to have both kinds. I think we are getting a new roof and four new skylights. Not exactly the kind of trip for an anniversary. Maybe it won't be all bad. I have heard this quote too many times: "It is better to live on the roof than with a nagging wife." Proverbs 21:9 Even the Bible can turn on you.


Friday, August 06, 2004

Golden Wedding Anniversary

It sounds very strange, very. I frankly don't know what to make of it. It is good, though, in a lot of ways. Strange to think about it, in relation to happening to us.

Fifty years ago tonight, He Who Must Be Obeyed, took the girlfriend before me, out... to tell her he was getting married, he said. To tell the truth that has annoyed me for as many years. I had gone home to my little home town. My last night unmarried and I sure didn't have any thoughts of going out with any of my old cowboy boyfriends.

At 20, he was too young to get married in South Dakota. His dad had to sign a paper at the Lawrence County Couthouse for us to get a license. I felt a little one-up being an old and legal 19. Actually, it shouldn't have lasted according to the statistics today. I hardly knew him and met his family that day at the courthouse. It was so weird. But I was crazy about him. Really crazy in love. It was a nice feeling. It is good to think about it. It is nice to still feel that way.

Monday, August 02, 2004

Meadowlarks

The warble of the Meadowlark follows me, makes me homesick, is stuck like a faultline in an old record, and I am cheered every time I hear it. Today Dick Kettlewell, the Rapid City Journal photo-journalist writes of "Motzart and Meadowlarks."

He writes, "The serene, gentle strains of Mozart's "Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra" float from the sound system of my truck as I slowly guide it down the crude old ranch road that winds, dips and rises across a high mesa top in this southernmost reach of the Hills." In his article he goes on to say that "My ears detect the familiar warbling of a nearby meadowlark, heralding the start of the day from atop a small boulder. In an effort to tease this little songster, I turn up the music a bit, as though giving her some accompaniment. She cocks her head, glances about and then raises her own pitch as she sings again and again, apparently accepting my invitation. This land is one for both Mozart and meadowlarks."

In my youth, living on the west edge of the small isolated prairie town of Buffalo, SD, I would be stirred from sleep by the sound of Meadowlarks through my open window. My father's morning ritual would be to stand in the yard imitating their call with his own wonderful ability to whistle. I never knew which was which. They would accept one another's invitation and continue the echo until one or the other was beconed to the day's tasks. Life with Meadowlarks, or even the memory of their song, is rich.