Friday Five: Winter

I have a lot of catching up to do, I've been reading and doing other things rather than blogging for a bunch of days now. But first, the Friday Five.
Singing Owl over at RevGalBlogPals posted this picture and says:

The picture is out a window at my place, complete with screen. ;-)

Brrrr! Baby, it’s COLD outside! At least that is the case where I am this morning. We are in a January deep freeze. Have a cup of hot tea and tackle five easy seasonal questions.


1. What is the thermometer reading at your house this morning?
It's afternoon now, and it has warmed up to 23 degrees F. I know it was colder than that this morning.
2. Snow—love it or hate it?
Both --- love looking at it, not so fond of slogging through it.
3. What is winter like where you are?
Snowy, quite often sunny, and cold but not usually excssively so.
4. Do you like winter sports? Any good stories?
No. But I like to watch the Winter Olympics when they happen.
5. What is your favorite season, and why?
Fall -- neither too hot nor too cold, easy to get around, beautiful colors.
Bonus: Share a favorite winter pick-me-up. A recipe, an activity, or whatever.
Well, basically I like to sit at home and read. I almost never get "cabin fever."

Friday Five: Read Any Good Books Lately?

RevHRod at RevGalBlogPals writes:
The website promoting this piece of art says, "For the first time, the world's most influential religious texts are brought together and presented on the same level, their coexistence acknowledged and celebrated”. The shelf is made of reclaimed wood that contains seven religious books. The designers have put them – literally – on the same level.


Well, pish posh! I think that some books ARE better than others! How about you?

1. What book have you read in the past six months that has really stayed with you? Why? I guess that would be The Coldest Winter by David Halberstam, a history of the Korean War that focusses mainly on the first year of the war. I picked it up while researching my father's life, but he was in Korea for the last six months of the war. Nevertheless, I learned a lot from the book and think about its lessons for us today. Just slightly more than six months ago I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver and that has been quite influential in my daily life.

2. What is one of your favorite childhood books? The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I recently got my original copy back from the cousin I'd passed it on to. It was the first of Wilder's books I read, an old edition (even in my childhood which was a while ago!) with the original, pre-Garth Williams illustrations. Something about the hardships and the ways they got around them -- and then the wonderful day when the train got through!

3, Do you have a favorite book of the Bible? Do tell! Well, each book has its times and seasons, but all in all, I sure like Genesis. Lots of stories.

4. What is one book you can read again and again? There are more than one, but today I'm going to say Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons. I enjoyed the movie that was made from it a few years back, but the book is even better and I find new things to chuckle at each time I read it.

5. Is there a book you would suggest for Lenten reading? What is it and why? I used to just pick up a free one that would come as a sample when I worked as a church secretary. Probably this year I'll either read the RevGalBlogPals choice or do Daily Office from Phyllis Tickle's book. However, I would like to recommend Nikos Kazantzakis' The Last Temptation of Christ. Although some considered the film made from it blasphemous, it was really the book that brought me back to the fold.


Bonus question: if you were going to publish a book what would it be? Who would you want to write the jacket cover blurb expounding on your talent? My wish and goal is to publish a book (I have to write it first, and before that finish researching) on my mother's family, specifically her father's line which starts with a Devonshire fisherman coming to Maine in 1635, and a large part of which has remained in Maine ever since. For the jacket blurb I guess I've got to get Robert Fate, although he might not be that interested in most of the characters, since I've "blurbed" one of his Baby Shark books (mysteries set in 1950s Texas -- very reprehensible and very good).

By the way, about the shelf shown above. At first I thought they meant that the reclaimed wood was somehow made from pulverized books. I can think of a few fundamentalists in every religion who would have some issues with that. (Not to mention bibliofundamentalists who can't stand the thought of destroying, recycling or throwing away a book of any kind, no matter how tattered or outdated!) Then I realized that the description just means that the hollowed out spaces make each book's top level with the others, no matter what the size. However, there would be an easier way to accomplish this, by presenting the books themselves in a uniform edition, and indeed, I own such a set which I got from the Quality Paperback Book Club some years ago. So pish posh again!

Pictures from our mid-morning walk

Perhaps later today there will be more words, but for now, pictures.

A neighbor on the next block has this interesting sight. It's an old house, note the moldings. I hope that the fact this house has a metal roof means that these icicles are not going to cause a problem, but I don't know for sure.





This is a shrub or very small tree outside the same house, which somehow acquired this odd coating of ice.














Here are some branches against the sky. I'm not
sure the photo shows how very blue the sky is
today in some parts (other parts are paler). It is
another sunny day, for which I'm grateful.








And below, a photo of the last leaves on a volunteer tree in
our back yard, and the shadows the sapling casts on the snow.

We have had 59 inches of snow this winter

and although some of it melted during our January thaw last week, quite a bit is still here. So in response to requests, here are more pictures of snow!

This first one is "Why do I have to wait?" which is what Rusty is thinking as I am taking the picture. The big mound in front of him represents partly fallen snow and partly shoveled snow from the walk. All the photos were taken about 3 pm so it is getting on for sunset already.



The second photo shows our "back yard" such as it is, and a bit of the Mansion House behind us. Our house stands on what was once the majestic front lawn of this house, which has now been added to and contains apartments -- all of which appear to be rented by very nice, quiet people. Our deed says that we may never build a house higher than 1 1/2 stories on our lot, to maintain the ascendancy or at least the view, of the Mansion House (it's called that in the deed). Most of our back yard is the slope up to where the trees are. I think the light is pretty on the snow.




Next, looking over our side and front yard -- the corner of our lot -- toward downtown.
Here is a picture of our house as seen coming back from a walk on Maine Street. You will note we have not shoveled the front steps and walk. This is because (a) it's Maine, no one uses the front door, in fact in the country houses often have front doors but no steps up to them; and (b) the walk is a bit steep and tends to get slippery very easily, so this is for the protection of UPS delivery people and such, who do try to use the front door because that's where the address is. (The mail carrier delivers to the side, where the mail slot is. No complaints from the USPS here.)

We like our big 50s picture windows because they let lots of light in, and on sunny days like today we get free heat, which is not to be sneezed at these days, when a gallon of heating oil costs as much as a gallon of gasoline. The white, non-snow thing visible at the lower right corner is the electric door to our garage, which opens into the basement. In all the years we lived in Exile (aka "40 below keeps the riffraff out"), we never had an attached garage, or a garage door opener, and indeed for the most part did not have a garage our car would fit into. So we think we are living in the lap of luxury now.

Tuneful Tuesday: Songs for Dr. King

Although the official holiday isn't until next Monday, today is the 78th birthday anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I well remember watching on television as he gave his "I have a dream" speech at the March on Washington, and Onkel Hankie Pants won a high school oratory contest by repeating that speech. I also remember the sadness, the outrage, and the fear that gripped my campus when Dr. King was assassinated. It's a time for remembering him and his work, but also a time to assess how far we have come on the road he led us on. There are certainly many changes that still need to happen, but one little vignette from my experiences last year gives me hope that change will continue. On the way back from the beach to Atlanta, The Decorator, The Accountant and I stopped at a chain chicken restaurant (I can't remember the name but I think they are known for their chicken salad). As we were eating our lunch, a pickup truck bearing the name of some small business pulled up outside and two men got out. One was black, one was white; they were co-workers and they came in to eat lunch together. Not only could they do that legally in a state where, throughout my childhood, eating places were segregated; but they ate together with every appearance of cordiality and as if it were something they did every workday. It may be a small kind of progress, but progress it is.

Some of the songs I've selected are ones you might sing in church next Sunday or at a special service or commemoration; others are associated with the Civil Rights Movement. They are in a rough chronological order, too.
1. Go Down Moses -- Marian Anderson -- Spirituals.
I'm sure everyone knows the story of Marian Anderson being refused permission to sing at the DAR's Constitution Hall, and how Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the DAR and Harold Ickes intervened to reschedule her concert for the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. This was not one of the songs she sang at that concert (she did sing four spirituals including "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen") but this spiritual recounting the events of the Exodus has long been identified with the African-American struggle for freedom. If you can't get hold of the Marian Anderson version, try Paul Robeson:


2. Lift Every Voice and Sing -- Boys Choir of Harlem -- We Shall Overcome.
Long known as "The Negro National Anthem," this beautiful song, with lyrics by the poet James Weldon Johnson and music by his brother, J. Rosamond Johnson, is the official anthem of the NAACP. The version I have is by the Boys Choir of Harlem. You can listen to a story about the writing of the song, with links to several different arrangements, here. I hope we can sing it in church this Sunday. My 5th great-grandfather, Black Ben Darling, was African-American and, even living in Maine, his descendants faced discrimination for several generations, so I have some small right to join in. But in a larger sense, as with Dr. King's vision, the victory the song speaks of is for all of us.

3. We Shall Overcome -- Boys Choir of Harlem -- We Shall Overcome. In my Pilgrim Fellowship group, in then lily-white Fairfield, Connecticut*, we frequently, at the end of the Sunday night meetings, joined hands and sang this (we also sang Kumbaya, and I don't think either exercise was pointless). We were interested in the Civil Rights Movement, not yet, at 14 or 15 years old, sure what we could or would do about it. But we could sing the songs, and I think that in singing the songs, the ideas they represented became part of our worldview. The origins of this song are cloudy; the most reasonable description I've found is here (you will have to scroll down a bit to find We Shall Overcome, but it's worth it, and do click on the link to the Smithsonian recording). Note the identification of the tune with O Sanctissima -- mentioned in a previous post and here it is again!
*In our school of about 1000 kids, there were 2 black girls, I think. The boast of those who wanted to believe we were a liberal community was that Meadowlark Lemon lived in Fairfield. This turns out to be true, although he has since moved to Arizona.

4. Freedom Trilogy (Oh Freedom/Come and Go with Me/I'm on My Way) -- Odetta -- Gonna Let It Shine.
I was looking for a recording of Oh Freedom, another song I associate with the movement, and the one I liked best was in this medley by Odetta. In looking for some information on the song (it's probably a post-Civil War freedom song, adapted for the Civil Rights Movement), I came upon this hour-long report with music on Freedom Summer, 1964. It's well worth listening to, particularly if you can't remember 1964 because you are too young.

5. Hold On (Keep Your Eyes on the Prize) -- Pete Seeger -- WNEW's Story of Selma.
One more freedom song -- with a long introduction by Pete Seeger about how all these freedom songs came to be. There is more information as well as music and words here, giving some credit to Guy and Candie Carawan of the Highlander Folk School. And you should know, the Highlander Folk School was much influenced by the Danish folk school movement begun by N. F. S. Grundtvig! It's fitting that this song should appear on an album called "Story of Selma." The events in Selma, Alabama on Bloody Sunday made it hard, but even more necessary, for the civil rights workers to hold on and keep their eyes on the prize.

6. Deep River -- Paul Robeson -- Spirituals.
I said these songs would be chronological, and at this point I am thinking about Dr. King's life. Many forget that in the last years of his ministry he was not only a civil rights activist, but a peace activist, speaking out against the war in Viet Nam. I imagine that he may often have thought of the words of this old spiritual,

Oh, don't you want to go
To that gospel feast
That Promised Land
Where all is peace?

Paul Robeson had one of the most beautiful voices of all time. I found this on YouTube:


7. Precious Lord -- The Original Five Blind Boys of Alabama -- The Sermon.
Written by gospel pioneer Thomas A. Dorsey, this was Dr. King's favorite song and one he often asked Mahalia Jackson to sing at events. She sang it at his funeral. I had picked out the Original Five Blind Boys version since I don't have the Jackson one, but then I found this:

There's a little "blip" at the beginning but otherwise it's a good recording.

8. Siyahamba (We Are Marching in the Light of God) -- Tapiola Choir -- Joy!
When Dr. King died, apartheid still held sway in South Africa and Nelson Mandela was still in prison. But people in South Africa were already singing this song, which has become a favorite of children's choirs and is included in many American hymnals. There is some information about it here. I include it because the desire for freedom and the will to attain it are worldwide. The Finnish children's choir does a lovely job, but I also found this on YouTube, a slightly older mixed choir from Croatia:


Wow! That's a lot of clicking for you to do, but I think you will enjoy and learn from it. Let's all try to make next Monday more than a day off or an occasion for store-wide sales.

A funny thing about LibraryThing

I don't know how long these things stay up, but just now when I looked at the blog as published, I saw that right next to each other in the "Random Books from My Library" were: The Real Age Diet and The Cake Bible.
Hmmmm.
Actually the latter book is so complicated that I have not yet made any cakes from it. She (Rose Levy Beranbaum) would really prefer that you weigh the ingredients rather than measure, for example.

I have signed up on both GoodReads and LibraryThing, and after doing some entering of books, I decided that GoodReads "to read" shelf for me is only going to have books that I am actually planning to read in the next two or three weeks. And of course, it will also include library books. LibraryThing will only have books I actually own although in some cases there will be books I used to own and don't yet realize I don't have any more. All clear? OK.

Too Much Snow!

At least it looks pretty, but I didn't take any pictures today. I think it has finally stopped snowing. The first time Rusty and I went out today I had hardly gone 20 feet when suddenly I was flat on my back. Fortunately for my head I had both a hat and a parka hood on, but I still have aches and pains all over my back. There will be a lot of shoveling for everyone tomorrow (some people are already working on it, and Rusty does not approve, or else wants to join the fun -- on our walk he jumped and jumped when he saw people shoveling.) Rusty also likes to dig in the snow for who-knows-what, even burying his whole head in it. This snow is more the light, powdery kind, but there's lots of it. Maybe tomorrow I can take a picture.