Saturday, December 31, 2022

One Last Storytelling Evening for 2022

While Sheila was enjoying the fireworks show right out our back door, I was telling a story to folks all over the country from a spare bedroom.

Sheila took the picture from the levee in our back yard.I hated to miss the fireworks. Bad timing. from a Terrell point-of-view.

But I sure did enjoy getting to tell a story with these five Georgia Storytelling Network friends for the 7 p.m. hour of the 2022 Story Blowout. Clockwise from bottom Left: Robin Kitson, Esther Culver, Anne Wheeler (emcee), Gwendolyn Napier, Melanie Kauff, and yours truly.

Here's a practice video of my story tonight.

Old Leaves: 2014 Resolutions

Time again to examine my sorry self and mend the breaks and chips and polish the smudged spots. Here's the post I wrote way back when 2014 was drawing to a close.

______________

Resolved....

This day brings to mind Sheila's wonderful grandmother, Annie Belle Brannon Snell, the smart AND wise (not an automatic combination), kind, practical, industrious, and loving woman who was born on this date in 1884 and blessed our marriage with her wisdom and love for its first ten years. She died in 1981.

And forty --- FORTY! --- years ago on this date we got the call that my sister Carol had given us a new niece. We pulled into our little log cabin out in Chubbtown, from our Christmas trip to Tallahassee and turned right around and headed down to Atlanta to meet Larisa Carron Johnston, one of the great bonus tax deductions of all time. What a little bundle of joy she was and is! Happy Birthday, Larisa! We love you and your own additions to our family.

____

“Good habits make all the difference.” —Aristotle

And today is the traditional day to take stock and renew determination to more fully live, to grab this remarkable, magical, mysterious consciousness and make the most of it.

I am living into extra innings, in a way. My father and his father, my beloved Daddy and Daddy Shaw, never reached their 68th birthdays. I've passed them (chronologically) already and will, I am hopeful, reach that milestone in March. Having outlived both those good men I try to remind myself each morning of the great privilege the current day is. One wonderful aspect of that privilege is this opportunity to voice my beliefs and dreams for the future of my children and (from the internet to God's ears) grandchildren and fellow Americans and Earthlings.

So I'll resolve,

_________

TRAVEL ADVISORY:
Due to a flurry of New Year's resolutions, the Road to Hell is currently closed for repaving.
Please take an alternate route.

_________

call & see my mother more often,
call/write/see/really-visit Brannon & Lillian more often (Things also work the other direction, I'm told?),
have friends over more often, (How about the Dictionary game or Categories?)
visit Mildred and record her songs,
organize a Hoot,
organize and downsize my stuff,
tell more stories, sing more songs, do some theater, write more often,
record some of my stories,
finish what I start (and what I have started)*,
(and what I have started)*
(and what I have started)*
(and what I have started)*
get the new and improved Big Fibbers™off to a great start,
get ready for the Fourth early,
travel more,
spend more time in the woods,
spend more time on the rivers,
take some good pictures,
more exercise and fewer calories,
engage in some practical politics,
engage in some practical charity,
be a better husband, father, son, brother, and friend.
stay cheerful,
dream big,
do now.

*I'm unwilling to make some of these things public, but Sheila knows them, and I'd love to surprise her a little this year!

Of course I could do pretty well with Woody Guthrie's 1941 resolutions:

NEW YEAR'S RULIN'S

1. WORK MORE AND BETTER
2. WORK BY A SCHEDULE
3. WASH TEETH IF ANY
4. SHAVE
5. TAKE BATH
6. EAT GOOD - FRUIT - VEGETABLES - MILK
7. DRINK VERY SCANT IF ANY
8. WRITE A SONG A DAY
9. WEAR CLEAN CLOTHES - LOOK GOOD
10. SHINE SHOES
11. CHANGE SOCKS
12. CHANGE BED CLOTHES OFTEN
13. READ LOTS GOOD BOOKS
14. LISTEN TO RADIO A LOT
15. LEARN PEOPLE BETTER
16. KEEP RANCHO CLEAN
17. DON’T GET LONESOME
18. STAY GLAD
19. KEEP HOPING MACHINE RUNNING
20. DREAM GOOD
21. BANK ALL EXTRA MONEY
22. SAVE DOUGH
23. HAVE COMPANY BUT DON’T WASTE TIME
24. SEND MARY AND KIDS MONEY
25. PLAY AND SING GOOD
26. DANCE BETTER
27. HELP WIN WAR - BEAT FASCISM
28. LOVE MAMA
29. LOVE PAPA
30. LOVE PETE
31. LOVE EVERYBODY
32. MAKE UP YOUR MIND
33. WAKE UP AND FIGHT

It's the final day of 2014. We are thirty years past 1984. We are living in science fiction times.

I have a great part of the knowledge of the ages available to me in my pocket, and redundantly, on my lap at this moment. The majority of the great books, whole encyclopedias, almanacs, star-charts, and more are at my fingertips. I have a magic wand within reach with which to command 47 inch visions on my wall, if I like, of rescuers in the Indian Ocean, performances at Carnegie and Albert halls, up-to-the-minute stock prices on Wall Street, the songs of long-dead singers, the speeches of our president as he speaks them, endless gossip at any hour from mindless talking heads, or even half- (or fully!) nekkid folk cavorting lasciviously at any hour. And any and all of those magical choices I make will be recorded and reported to an esoteric intelligence that will then make, based on my choices, suggestions to me for the rest of the day and, I suppose, the rest of my life.

I wonder how many times today my image will be recorded as I drive or shop.

We are living in science fiction times.
___

Mike Bock has caught up with me again, as he does annually on the closing day of the year. Happy Birthday, Mike! I hope we see lots of you in 2015. Come south young man.

This day brings to mind Sheila's wonderful grandmother, Annie Belle Brannon Snell, the smart AND wise (not an automatic combination), kind, practical, industrious, and loving woman who was born on this date in 1884 and blessed our marriage with her wisdom and love for its first ten years. She died in 1981.

And forty --- FORTY! --- years ago on this date we got the call that my sister Carol had given us a new niece. We pulled into our little log cabin out in Chubbtown, from our Christmas trip to Tallahassee and turned right around and headed down to Atlanta to meet Larisa Carron Johnston, one of the great bonus tax deductions of all time. What a little bundle of joy she was and is! Happy Birthday, Larisa! We love you and your own additions to our family.

____

“Good habits make all the difference.” —Aristotle

And today is the traditional day to take stock and renew determination to more fully live, to grab this remarkable, magical, mysterious consciousness and make the most of it.

I am living into extra innings, in a way. My father and his father, my beloved Daddy and Daddy Shaw, never reached their 68th birthdays. I've passed them (chronologically) already and will, I am hopeful, reach that milestone in March. Having outlived both those good men I try to remind myself each morning of the great privilege the current day is. One wonderful aspect of that privilege is this opportunity to voice my beliefs and dreams for the future of my children and (from the internet to God's ears) grandchildren and fellow Americans and Earthlings.

So I'll resolve,

_________

TRAVEL ADVISORY:
Due to a flurry of New Year's resolutions, the Road to Hell is currently closed for repaving.
Please take an alternate route.

_________

Friday, December 30, 2022

We Need to Save Local Journalism

Local journalism is important.

The John Druckenmillers, Diane Wagners, David Crowders, John Baileys are essential to our republic. Sheila and I with our partners Steve & Laurie Craw had a go a it in the seventies. I think we did some good things but we couldn't make a living at it.

Jefferson is reputed to have said he'd rather have a free press and no government than a government and no free press.

Sheila and I have subscriptions to four papers, the Rome News, Atlanta Journal/Constitution, the New York Times and the Washington Post. The last two are very important national papers and probably safe. The former two, despite some very good writers and reporters, are frankly only a shadow of their former selves. There just is not the advertising base to support robust journalism. Local radio does minimal weather and news nowadays. I suspect the vast majority of their airtime is prerecorded "canned"stuff. Thank God for GPB and NPR.

I do not know how to restore principled local journalism, but we are in trouble without it. When one small local paper on Long Island broke a major story last September, few noticed.

Tuesday, December 27, 2022

A Late Afternoon Riverwalk

Sheila and I needed to check Mother's house after several very cold days. All was fine. Since we were coming from West Rome, rather than starting our evening walk from home we decided to park at the Mount Berry Trailhead near the post office and start there. There must have been a dozen cars in the lot; we were not the only folks ready for a walk in the not quite so cold weather.

There was still plenty of ice about though the dusting of snow was gone except in the deepest shadows.

There only a few icy/snowy spots along the riverwalk.

This fall/winter collection of debris under the Veterans Parkway bridge has a torrent of water streaming around the eastern side.

The highway department will have a pretty big job clearing this out.

We walked all the way to the temporary end of the trail at the new Big Dry Creek bridge. When the short stretch of riverwalk from the bridge to the Armuchee Bypass is completed the Riverwalk will be a complete circuit for our backyard to the confluence on the west side, upstream to the stadium, across to the west side by the bypass bridge and back to our house. All that with no road crossings. Wow.

It was almost dark by the time we got back to the pond near the trailhead.

A beautiful end to a nice walk.

Monday, December 26, 2022

White (Second Day Of) Christmas!

I'm seventy-five years old and I still get a little excited over a dusting of snow.

So I walked out and took a few pictures. I may just call the grandgirls -- they're on California time -- and show them some snow. They spent part of Christmas Day at the beach!

Later...

We walked around the yard as we FaceTimed with Clemmie, Ruth, Suzie, and Brannon. And Granny even made the girls a (minimalist) snowman atop a concrete bench...

The Capitol is Special to These Two

A deep love for my country was infused into my mind by my parents stories. I was overwhelmed by the majesty of our national ideals during our family trip to the nation's capital in my childhood. I read dozens of those brown back and blue back children's biographies of our national heroes during my elementary years. I majored in history when I got to college. I glory in our nation's ideals and weep for the times we have fallen short of them. I feel the same sort of reverence for American ideals in the two American patriots. They have vastly different ideas of how best to meet those great purposes of the Preamble, but they love the ideals and their country.

I would be shocked if the twice-impeached former president could name half, and certainly not all six of the Preamble's goals. And he loves only himself. I truly pity that little man.

(Click the picture to read this article.)

Northwest Georgia Rebel

We may be in a minority here is the 14th District of Georgia, but we cancelled out just enough Trumpist votes to elect a great president in 2020 and to send two Georgia patriots to the Senate in January of 2021. Then this fall we re-elected Raphael Warnock. I thank God for sensible patriotic Northwest Georgia folk like Cody Johnson.

-----------------------

In rural Georgia, an unlikely rebel against Trumpism

Why didn’t the Republican red wave materialize in the midterms?

The life of Cody Johnson offers one answer.

By Stephanie McCrummen

December 22, 2022 at 6:00 a.m. EST

Click the picture to read the article

Joe's Groove

It is so good to see President Biden beginning to get the recognition he deserves for principled, professional, progressive AND bi-partisan leadership (more alliteration than intended!) I love that he has strong FDR/LBJ/BO progressive goals combined with a pragmatic ability to reach across party lines to find compromise. He also has built one of the strongest, most accomplished, intelligent, and diverse executive teams in history. It would be difficult to find another president of my lifetime who has been so successful through two years in office.

How Joe Biden got his groove back in 2022 (Click the picture to read the article)

A Poem toi Start the Week: A Christmas Carol

It is now known mostly by its first line "In the Bleak Midwinter" but was first published simply as "A Christmas Carol". I think it is one of the most beautiful.

In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan;
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.

Our God, heaven cannot hold Him
Nor earth sustain,
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty —
Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim
Worship night and day,
A breastful of milk
And a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom Angels
Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
Which adore.

Angels and Archangels
May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
Thronged the air;
But only His Mother
In her maiden bliss
Worshipped the Beloved
With a kiss.

What can I give Him,
Poor as I am? —
If I were a Shepherd
I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man
I would do my part, —
Yet what I can I give Him, —
Give my heart.

- Christina Rossetti

I have previously mentioned this poem/carol here.

Old Leaves: The Miserable Ones

The day after Christmas exactly a decade ago we got to see a brand new film in a huge theatre in New York. I really liked it.

_______________________________

12-26-2012

Tonight was perhaps the most captivating night at the cinema of my life. Our daughter Brannon treated us to Lex Miserables, the musical movie, at Ziegfield Cinema near Times Square in New York City. The theater was sold out so we were glad to find seats down close slightly to the right. I had the aisle, giving my aching legs stretching room, and my eyes a full view, sometimes of individual sweating pores and tears building to a drop.

I have a bone or two to pick, but let me begin by saying that it is a magnificent piece of film, creatively imagined, expertly cast, gorgeously photographed, dramatically lighted, really acted, beautifully sung.

Hugh Jackman will give Daniel Day Lewis a run for the Oscar for best actor. One of the beauties of this story, the musical, and now the movie is its reminder to those of us who live in comfort and plenty that poor, dirty, despairing folk are folk. Behind the grime, the pretense, the toothless grins, the overdone make-up, the ragged clothes, the unkempt hair, the poor English... are flesh and blood humans with the same wants and needs, hurts and hearts of all men. Jackman as Valjean is unrecognizable and totally believable in the opening scenes as the depraved, dehumanized convict.

And he becomes one of the beloved characters of all literature.
I thought Jackman's singing was sometimes a little nasal. Where Colm Wilkinson, very effectively and purposefully, used falsetto, Jackman used a full, though somewhat strained voice.

Fantine (Anne Hathaway),

not of her own volition, takes the opposite path, falling from virtuous and beautiful to compromised and pitiful. Both are outstanding.

My favorite character and the strongest acting and singing was that of Eddie Redmayne.

His portrayal of the distraught Marius singing Empty Chairs at Empty Tables was heart-rendingly perfect. Redmayne deserves a supporting actor Oscar, in my humble and correct opinion.

Siblings Eponine (Samantha Barks) and Gavroche (Danial Huttlestone) were captivating.

The Thernardiers were well cast, though I thought (my kids disagree) that they were overdone. The disgusting food scene was more graphic than necessary and not believable to me. Like Sheila, I was glad they were made more disgusting than comic though.

Russell Crowe as Javert has received the most criticism of any actor in the film, I suspect. I actually liked his acting. His singing was a little weak, though I like its understated manner except for the suicide when I wanted him to give me more overt pain and... volume.

The 1200 sold-out seats at the Zeigfield were filled with Les Mis enthusiasts, like the Shaws, who applauded for the announcement, after interminable previews, of the main attraction. They also applauded individual songs again and again, especially I Dreamed a Dream, On My Own, Empty Chairs at Empty Tables, and nearly brought the house down for One Day More and the Finale.

Drat it! One of my dreams is to sing the Valjean part someday in a local production or concert version. Folks will now picture Jackman (20 years my junior) in the role rather than an older Colm Wilkinson type. I'm already pushing the upper limit even with the Wilkinson image of ol' Jean.

Get your tickets. You don't want to miss this on the big screen, at least once. I'll see it again soon.

Sunday, December 25, 2022

Christmas and Hanukkah 2022

It was wonderful to get to share Christmas and Hanukkah this year with Lillian and Jordan. Unfortunately we could only share the holidays "virtually" with Brannon, John, and our Grand Girls - Clemmie, Ruthie, and Suzie. But I am thankful that we can use FaceTime to "make do". Here are a few pictures and even videos of our holiday celebrations together -- physically and spiritually.

Brannon sent this and the next two pictures of the way Santa presented the gifts for the GrandGirls. They have practically worn out the light green "Nugget" set of cushions during the last year. These wonderful foam cushions can be made into a couch or chairs, of course, but better yet they can be used as construction elements for "Little Pig" houses, playscapes for climbing, jumping, and sliding, puppet theaters, tents, dog and kitty houses, and more. So Santa brought a whole new set to double the possibilities, this time in a darker shade of green. And he used his fertile imagination to make a Christmas Tree out of old and new.

Meanwhile Aunt Lil and Jordan sent a complementary group of cushions that make a castle (Jordan's business manufactures these!) Brannon & John may need to build an addition to their abode to house these Christmas gifts.

Here one of Santa's elves poses with the "Nugget Tree"

FaceTime screen shots do not make for prizewinning photography, but perhaps they can give a taste of the joy we shared electronically Christmas morning.

Mama's iPhone and empty boxes are great Christmas morning toys as well.

Clemmie mugs for the iPad in front of her new "castle".

Ruth showed off her new 60s short-skirted Barbie, but hid her face. We were soon able to turn this into a game of "Peep-eye" (or "Peek-a-Boo")

The girls sometimes get right in the iPad's face...

... Suzie has gotten into brushing her teeth and Clem is enjoying a chocolate coin.

Christmas afternoon we decided to take a walk on Jackson hill. We parked at the intersection of Ross and Dogwood Streets and walked up to the old Water Works -- with commentary from yours truly on his adolescent acquaintance with the hill. We walked across the top of the big 1890s water tank where the hilltop American flag flies. We peeped through the windows of the remodeled waterworks event space that in the late sixties held the Rome Art League coffee house where I used to sometimes sing. Then walked around the old empty and topless tank below it. Since the sixties I've thought there should ve a concert space there. I wonder what an acoustical engineer could do to take advantage of the great reverb in that tank and yet keep unwanted noises under control.

Jordan and Lillian experiment with the reverb of the tank with one of my favorite mournful songs, Stephen Foster's "Hard Times Come Again No More". I first labeled this a "folk" song momentarily forgetting it was composed by Foster. I first learned it, I think, from a Peter Yarrow album, but Bob Dylan, Jennifer Warnes and many others have recorded it. Foster has been a favorite of mine since childhood. I remember reading a children's biography of Foster in third or fourth grade.

And Lil plays with her echo.

We sang some too, but didn't record it. :-)

Back home it was time to celebrate the eighth day of Hanukkah, which in 2022 coincides with Christmas.

Jordan sang a Hanukkah blessing. He & Lil also sang another longer Hanukkah song.

...and lit all the candles of the Menorah.

Lil & Jordan were thrilled to raid our LP collection for some classics to take home with them. I see "Famous Blue Raincoat" Jennifer Warnes' cover of Leonard Cohen songs.; "Still Crazy..." Paul Simon, "First Take" by Roberta Flack, "9 to 5" by Dolly Parton, "Sweethearts of the Rodeo" by the Byrds, Sweeney Todd cast album.

Mike's Christmas Package

It's always fun to see a package on the porch postmarked in Kettering Ohio. You can usually guess part of what's inside, but also can wonder if there might be little surprise too. Just before this Christmas I found such a package on the porch. The size and heft of it suggested the name Esther Price to me. Y'all know Esther?

According to Wikipedia: Esther Price Candies sells its products in 87 store locations in five states, including Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Illinois. Esther Price Candies was founded in 1926, and produces about one million boxes of candy per year. The company employs about 100 people. Its chocolates are made at the Wayne Avenue facility in Dayton [Ohio].

We have received many of those boxes of candy during the last few decades. Before her death in 2021 my Mother also often received a box of those delicious chocolates on her birthday.

Thank you Mike Bock.

Several times Sheila and I have taken that box with us to the live nativity scene at our church to share with the folks who have volunteered with us. We did that again last Thursday night. Wow! Every morsel was eaten. We were so glad that they were so enjoyed -- compliments of one of closest and oldest friends.

But chocolates were not all that was in that package. Besides a nice Christmas card and handwritten greeting there were two loose photographs. The first is of Sheila, me, and Mike along the Tearbritches Trail in the Cohutta Wilderness of North Georgia in 1973. Almost half a century ago. The second? We are not absolutely certain. I can tell that's me taking a picture. When and where was this taken, Mike? Is that baby Brannon? Lillian? I am just not sure!

Saturday, December 24, 2022

Christmas Eve 2022

A few notes on the Christmas card above: 

center picture at the top - Ruth & Clem and their paper chain representing the days left till the arrival of "GrandShaw and Granny" last September. This was taken when they had to add seven links because GrandShaw had come down with Covid. 
center pic at the bottom - the girls loved visiting with their Aunt Lil at her home in Decatur. Here they roll around the front lawn.
center pic at left the three sisters sit on a mossy bank of the trail at Sloppy Floyd State Park.
center pic at the right - Aunt Lil & Jordan sport their Chip & Dale hats.
bottom left - the girls loved playing on the Little Tikes playlet on our big side porch - one of the best 15 bucks I ever spent.
bottom right - Clem agrees to pose with the Courtin' Frog in our Backyard Football
center - Ruth climbing on a playground. These girls explore multiple playgrounds wherever they travel.
top right - the girls welcome their Dad to Georgia in our Atlanta AirBNB

-------------------------

Brannon & John and the girls called us on Christmas Eve to

let us share with them as the girls opened one present early.

Suzie is into throwing kisses and waving.

She offered us a bite of a "cookie".

The girls carefully tend to a sheet of "cookies" with dad's help.

The kit comes with cookie sheet, cookie "dough" to "slice" and "cut'

These girls have gotten much more than their parents' money's worth from their "nugget" set of construction cushions. (Stay tuned for Christmas morning's surprises for them@!)

Sisters

Excited over the new cookie toys

Ruthie offers a bite of "cookie"

Joseph (Jordan Friedman), Mary (Lillian Shaw) Angels (R-L Sheila Shaw, Holly Bettler, Stacy Harris, Caroline) Shepherds (Don Bettler, ??) Wise Men (Tom Brown, Tom Harris, ?? Harris, Harris SIL)