The Human Spirit

Debby and I frequent the Trinity Trail near Oakmont Park.  It is one of our sacred spaces.  Good "together time" for us - and it's where we do some of our best talking.  (I hope you have some "together time" with those you love.  I think that's very important.)

A few weeks back we saw a young boy - maybe 5 years old - walking along the trail behind his mom and dad.  He was exhausted.  His eyes were full of tears. "Pick me up! I can't walk anymore," he wailed.

Then he saw the playground equipment about 100 yards ahead.

Guess what he did?

He ran!  Ran!  Ran fast!

(I am sure there are doctors reading this blog entry who can explain what happened to the young boy.  How could he recover so much energy so quickly?  There is certainly a scientific explanation for what I saw.  Adrenaline?  I don't know.)

I believe in the Human Spirit.

The Human Spirit is that "something special and mysterious" that enables us to do what we are convinced we can not do.

History provides us many examples of this.  The English defeat the French at Agincourt.  Apollo XIII returns safely back to Earth.  Tiger Woods wins the 2008 US Open with a broken leg.  Jennifer Pharr Davis conquers the Appalachian Trail.  Isner and Mahut play an 11-hour match at Wimbledon.  Benoit Lecomte swims across the Atlantic in 73 days.  Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain secures Little Round Top.

A little boy dashes toward the swing set.

I cannot explain it.

But I know it is real.

Dinner table conversation of the week:

Consider the ethics of writing a fictional anecdote on a college application.

Meeting of the Minds

I  remember vividly - and with fondness - the old Steve Allen show Meeting of the Minds that aired on PBS from 1977-81.  It was filmed in Hollywood and featured a round table discussion between some of the world's most notable historical characters.

Perhaps some of you remember it too.

For example, Allen might moderate a discussion that included William Shakespeare, Voltaire, Karl Marx, and Catherine the Great.  Or, perhaps, a debate between Oliver Cromwell, Socrates, and Thomas Paine.

Have you ever thought about your "dream team" dinner party of historical characters?

I think if I could host my first dream team dinner party, I would include soldier Henry Knox, poet Phyllis Wheatley, writer Ernest Hemingway, and director John Ford.

Here's why...

Henry Knox (1750-1806)  Knox is one of my heroes because he conducted one of the most daring and exciting missions of the American Revolutionary War.  He was dispatched from Boston by George Washington on November 16, 1775 to conduct a forced march - through snow, ice, and mud - of over 300 miles to Fort Ticonderoga in order to seize mortars and cannons.  (Those cannons were critical to the American cause and would stay in steady service for the remainder of the War.) That Knox did so is a miracle.  As the noted historian David McCullough writes in his book 1776,   "[Knox] had fulfilled all expectations, despite rough forest roads, freezing lakes, blizzards, thaws, mountain wilderness, and repeated mishaps that would have broken lesser spirits several times over.  The story of the expedition would be told and retold for weeks within the army and for years to come" (McCullough, 82).    Find time to read about Knox.  He must have been an extraordinarily creative problem-solver.  A real man of initiative.

http://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/war-for-independence/resources/dragging-cannon-from-fort-ticonderoga-boston-1775

Phyllis Wheatley (1753–1784)  I've taught about - and admired - Wheatley for many years and her story appears in our history texts.  She was a slave and one of the most celebrated poets of the colonial era.  She was seized by slave traders in West Africa sometime around her eighth birthday and arrived in colonial Boston in 1761.   She was a brilliant learner, a voracious reader, and must have had an incredibly fertile mind.  She ultimately penned more than 140 poems.  Her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral was the first volume of poetry published by an African-American in modern times.  In October 1775 she even sent a poem of adulation to George Washington, and his thank-you note (and desire to meet her) is thought to be his only correspondence with a slave.  Carve out some quiet time in your busy day and read some of her poems.  I think you will enjoy them.  Wheatley must have been an incredibly intelligent and courageous woman.

http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/phillis-wheatley

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)  Hemingway is my favorite fiction writer.  The Sun Also Rises.   A Farewell to Arms.  The short stories The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Old Man at the Bridge.  And who can forget The Old Man and the Sea?  I also really like his non-fiction work Death in the Afternoon because of his vivid descriptions of the great matador Joselito.  (I know some think Hemingway vulgar and his sentences confusing.  But I don't think so.  I believe his short, clear, staccato sentences are honest.)  Take a few days and reread a Hemingway novel.  I guarantee you'll appreciate it more as an adult than you did as a teenager.  Hemingway must have been a remarkably honest, insightful, and diligent writer.

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1954/hemingway-bio.html

John Ford (1894-1973)  I grew up on Ford films.  The Searchers.  She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.  My favorite is probably Fort Apache because it was my introduction to John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Shirley Temple, and Ward Bond.  (I believe Ward Bond to be perhaps one of the greatest 'unknown' actors.)  I know these films are a bit dated and may not top the AFI 100, but I like them.  I am an unrepentant fan of old Western films, and I think Ford had a great eye for talent as well as location.  That so many of his films were shot in Monument Valley is not coincidence.  Check out The Searchers.  Wayne's complex character fascinates, confuses, and intrigues me and it's fun to see Natalie Wood in her first role.  Ford must have been a visionary artist.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000406/bio

My dream team - Creative.  Bold.  Intelligent.  Courageous.  Honest.  Diligent.  Insightful.  Visionary.

Sound like a great party?  It does to me.

Dinner table conversation of the week:

Who would you invite to your "dream team" dinner party?

The Book-Giver

I have a friend who is a really good book-giver.

I'll refer to him as the Book-Giver.

He is, as you might guess, a giver of books.

But he is not simply an average  giver of books, he is a really good giver of books.

(By the way, I think gift-giving is an art.  My mother is a superb gift giver because she always gives me exactly what I need.  My Dad was also a fantastic gift giver because he always gave me what I wanted but didn't need.  Different philosophies of giving.  Both sound.)

If gift-giving is an art, then I think book-giving the highest form of art.  Like the best symphonic music.  Or the best sculpture.  Mozart.  Schubert.  Bach.  Britten.  Michelangelo.  Donatello.  Rodin.

The Book-Giver is so special to me because his book-giving is unpredictable and his inscriptions meaningful.   I think the surprise of receiving a thoughtfully-inscribed book  makes all the difference.  I enjoy reading (and thinking about) the inscriptions as much - or more - than reading the text.

That's because the inscription anchors the book in time and space.

Inscriptions add context.  And emotion.   And joy.  And, sometimes, inscriptions resurrect the sorrowful memories of those we've lost.

(My friend Leonard Tremble gave me a book of quotations as high school graduation gift in 1986.  Leonard died in 2004 and I miss him dearly.  Leonard had a large and deep scar on the bridge of his nose caused by a German soldier who shot him as he rowed a small canvas boat across the Waal River attempting to capture the Nijmegen Bridge in September 1944.  [You can read more about Leonard on p 463 of Cornelius Ryan's magnificent A Bridge Too Far.]  You see?  That's context.  Context.  That book ceased to be just an average book of quotations many years ago.  Now it's about Leonard, his nose, the boat, the sniper, and the other exciting stories Leonard used to tell.  The book is now more than a book.)

I suspect that the Book-Giver is reading this blog entry.

If you are, thanks.  Thank you for instilling in me the love of a good book, a good inscription, and the ability to see how something as simple as a book is really much more.  I guess it's true that you can never read the same book twice.  We are ever changing.

I appreciate you, Book-Giver.

I suspect that many, many others do as well.

Dinner table question of the week:

You have witnessed a man rob a bank.  But then, he did something completely unusual and unexpected with the money.  He donated it to an orphanage that was poor, run-down and lacking in proper food, care, water and amenities.  The sum of money would be a great benefit to the orphanage, and the children’s lives would turn from poor to prosperous.

Would you:   A) Call the police and report the robber, even though they would likely take the money away from the orphanage, or  B) Do nothing and leave the robber and the orphans alone?

Colonel Gentry's Milton Book

A cherished possession.

Tell Thy Story Well

Many years ago my father went turkey hunting in upstate Arkansas.

It was 1937.  Dad was ten years old.  Arkansans were suffering through the Great Depression.  Food was in short supply.  As were shotgun shells.

Dad took his gun from the peg above the door and fished one shell out of the box.  Shotgun shells were cardboard in those days.  Dad took only one shell that day for two reasons - he placed a premium on marksmanship but also couldn't afford to waste.

North-central Arkansas is hilly.  The Ozarks are dark and rugged.  Up he climbed, down he fell.  Up.  Down.  Up.  Down.  Lots of sweat on his brow, even though it was  mid-December.  The shotgun got heavier with each step.

Dad finally reached the crest of a granite outcrop and peered over.  In the adjacent field, only 40 yards away,  he could see six turkeys sitting atop six cedar fence posts.  

Six!  All in a row!

Dad formulated a plan.  He figured that if he swung the gun in a semi-circular motion while firing, the lead pellets would hit several of the turkeys.  Maybe as many as four or five.  Maybe all six.  Food on the table. How proud Mom and Dad would be!

Dad cocked the gun.  He clinched his teeth and swung from right to left as fast as he could and pulled the trigger.  Bang!

He shot a hole in the seat of his pants.

Legend or myth?

Who knows.  Who cares.

Dad died in 1996 but his stories live on.

He was a magical story-teller.  I'm not sure which stories were true and which ones were made up.  I really don't care.  (Though I seriously doubt that he shot a hole in the seat of his pants.)

What I cherish most is the fact that he told them.  He cared enough about my brother and me to talk with us about his childhood and his own unique experiences as a boy.

We learned about rural Arkansas.  The Depression.  Farming.  White River floods. Cows.  Deer antlers.  Peaches.  Chickens.  Snakes.  World War II.  Poverty.  Tuberculosis.  Mountain medicine.  Humor.  Whittling. Music.  Flying squirrels.  Firearms.  Tomahawks.  Hiking.  Jokes.   Raccoons.  Possums.  Moonshine.  Really odd people.

I believe in the power of family stories.  Not only because they add color to own our lives,  but because they teach our children that we are resilient people.  RESILIENT PEOPLE.  Families are resilient institutions worthy of celebration.

We all have holes in the seats of our pants.

That's because we are part legend, part myth.



The Ozarks

Thomas Blythe Gentry

I want to celebrate the life of one of my old English professors.

His name was Thomas Blythe Gentry, Class of 1944.  He taught in the department of English at Virginia Military Institute for over fifty years and I adored him.

I adored him because he made Milton fun.  (He once gifted me a book of Paradise Lost.  I didn't appreciate it at the time.  But now I do.  I still have the book.)

I adored him because he cried when he read Shakespeare's sonnets aloud. (While other cadets snickered, I was jealous of his passion.  I remember thinking: "I wish I was that passionate about anything...")

I adored him because he used to tell stories about listening to live radio broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera on Saturday afternoons in the Barracks when he was a cadet.  In those days the opera broadcasts were played over the loud speakers.

I adored him because he took our music society - the Timmins Music Society - to New York City every spring for a four-day weekend.  The trip included an opera at the Met and a concert by the New York Philharmonic.  He led these cultural experiences for over 40 years and this trip became one of the most formative experiences for VMI cadets.

I adored him because he wrote one of my recommendations to graduate school.  Though I requested the letter many years after I left VMI, he remembered me.  In fact, he remembered more about my cadetship than I did.  The last time I spoke to him I could tell that he still cared about me.

Colonel Gentry, rest in peace.

You made a difference in my life.

Sorry I didn't tell you these things while you were alive.

 



 

Hang Tough

Have you ever heard of Dick Winters of Ephrata, Pennsylvania?

He's one of my heroes.

Have you ever heard of Jordan Brown of Lebanon, Pennsylvania?

He's also one of my heroes.

Dick died in 2011 at the age of 92.  He was featured prominently in the 2001 HBO miniseries Band of Brothers and in the book of the same name.  (I am sure many of you have seen the series and probably enjoyed it as much as I did.)  Dick is best known for leading an assault on a battery of German 105mm guns at Brecourt Manor.  The destruction of those guns resulted in Dick receiving the Distinguished Service Cross.

Jordan is 14, the same age as our 9th graders.   As far as I know he is alive and well.  I first learned of him in a 2012 news story.  At that time Jordan was trying to raise enough money to build a monument honoring Dick near the small French hamlet of Ste. Marie du Mont, just down the road from Utah Beach.

He simply thought Dick needed a statue.

Jordan estimated the cost of the statue at $400,000.  So he set about selling rubber bracelets emblazoned with Dick's personal motto: Hang Tough.

Jordan sold lots of bracelets.  Lots.

I've visited the monument near Brecourt.  It is provided here for your viewing.  If you ever get to Normandy, check it out.  (I have also included a picture of Dick taken during World War II.)

Well done, Jordan, well done.

Dinner table question of the week:

Think of your own question...you can do it!





Dick Winters