“Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for. Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us.”-Maya Angelou
Haven’t posted in a few days…busy taking care of Mom…busy worrying about Mom…being a caretaker is just all-consuming. We’re just at the end of February and more snow is predicted, so, I worry about getting mom to a much-needed and important doctor appt and dental appt next week. If I could just take one day at a time and not project or go into my “What if…” scenarios!!!!! Way back in 1970, Simon and Garfunkel’s album, Bridge Over Troubled Water was certified gold. Every song on that album is a gem! To think that I was 17 years old then, 61 now…it’s amazing how the years fly!!!!
to enlighten those who have been kept in the dark, in the name of humanity…”
-Emile Zola
As a young woman, I devoured the books by French novelist, Emile Zola…they were soap operas; they took on the plight of the poor, the disenfranchised, women, anti-semitism… Today, in 1898, “In France, Emile Zola is imprisoned for writing his “J’accuse” letter accusing government of anti-Semitism & wrongly jailing Alfred Dreyfus”–historyorb.com Currently, there is a new movie out starring Jessica Lange based on Zola’s novel, Therese Raquin, titled, In Secret. Zola fled to England and was not jailed and all charges against Dreyfus were found to be false.
Today, the brilliant educator, professor, activist, philosopher, W.E.B. Du Bois was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts in 1868. If you haven’t read his full length biography by David Lewis (just to name one), do so. Du Bois lived a very full life filled with many accomplishments.
“Our Day Will Come,” a beautiful song sung by Ruby and the Romantics entered the charts today in 1963 when I was 10 years old. Oh how I loved to sing that song and Ruby’s voice? Silky smooth!!!!
“Our Day Will Come means so many different things to so many different people. To Zola it meant the end of anti-semitism; to W.E.B. Du Bois, it meant equality among all people; to Ruby and the Romantics, it meant maybe one day getting the royalties they deserved from their huge hit.
Nina Simone was born today in 1933 in North Carolina. My husband and I continue to listen to her and hear her influences in many of today’s artists, whether they’re aware of it or not. She was a huge personality…strong…powerful…direct and her original compositions, such as “4 Women” were evident of that. Nina Simone was an outstanding interpreter of lyrics, mood, nuance and just the best of the best. I urge you to read about Nina Simone and her very interesting & sometimes, turbulent, life. In the meantime, enjoy the selections:
“Inspiration is a guest that does not willingly visit the lazy.”-Tchaikovsky
It has been 4 days since my last posting. Just didn’t know what to write about. Life has been OK, no emergencies…Mom’s doing all right, though she’s been in the house for weeks due to the weather and the mountains of snow; yet she doesn’t complain. As long as I always have library books for her and she does her daily crossword puzzle, she’s not bored. How lucky I am that she has never been a demanding person who needs to be entertained. Speaking of Mom, I’ve written before on the time she took me uptown to see a panel discussion on Civil Rights in the early 60s at the NY Society for Ethical Culture. The society is over 100 years old. I definitely remember Sydney Poitier and Harry Belafonte being on the panel and I think James Baldwin also was there among others. Well, today is Mr. Poitier’s 87th birthday!!! I remember mom and I going to the movies to see “Lilies of the Field” and singing “Amen” along with Sydney Poitier and the nuns. I’ve seen every one of his movies. Today also marks the death of the great Frederick Douglass in 1895. It was a sudden death after having a very nice and productive day at a Women’s Rights conference. Folksinger, Buffy Sainte-Marie was born today in 1941. Always loved her music.
So, I found a little inspiration today to do my blog posting! Yay!
Knowing how nervous I would be to drive to mom’s this morning, my husband drove me early at 7am so as not to interfere with his going to work. I just needed to see for myself that mom was ok since I didn’t see her yesterday. She was fine. My husband also shoveled a bit at mom’s even though our service shoveled there last night; it snowed in the wee hours of the morning again. That’s love. Showing up.
Very True Haiku for My Husband:
He promised my Dad
A meal I would never miss
He has kept his word.
This is absolutely true; my dad was concerned that my husband had no money and wasn’t earning much money and came from a family that struggled and couldn’t help us. He told my dad I would always be well fed.
“Speak clearly, if you speak at all; carve every word before you let it fall.”–Oliver Wendell Holmes
As an educator, I’ve always found it very important to enunciate each and every sound for my students as I spoke and also to be a model for how they should speak. My students came from all over the world and I would put them in situations where, even though they didn’t know English, they were supplied the words in order to make them feel comfortable, have the new words roll around their tongues, feel good about themselves and shine. The classroom was our stage and we also used the auditorium stage as well as marching into other classrooms and performing. They loved performing, even if they just entered my classroom that day! It was always an accepting learning environment. A few years ago, the movie, “The Great Debaters” came out starring Denzel Washington as the debate team’s coach, Melvin B. Tolson. Well, today is Mr. Tolson’s birthday and he was born in 1898 in Missouri.
“In 1924, Melvin Tolson accepted a position as instructor of English and speech at Wiley College. While at Wiley, he taught, wrote poetry and novels, coached football and directed plays. In 1929, Tolson coached the Wiley debate teams, which established a ten-year winning streak. The Debate Team beat the larger black schools of its day like Tuskegee, Fisk and Howard.
After a visit to Texas, Langston Hughes wrote that “Melvin Tolson is the most famous Negro professor in the Southwest. Students all over that part of the world speak of him, revere him, remember him and love him.”
According to James Farmer, Tolson’s drive to win, to eliminate risk, meant that his debaters were actors more than spontaneous thinkers. Tolson wrote all the speeches and the debate team memorized them. He drilled them on every gesture and every pause. Tolson was so skilled at the art of debating that he also figured out the arguments that opponents would make and wrote rebuttals for them-before the actual debate.
In 1930, he pursued a master’s degree in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University; met V.F. Calverton, editor of Modern Quarterly; wrote “Cabbages and Caviar” column for The Washington Tribune and organized sharecroppers in South Texas.
In 1935, he led the Wiley Debate Team to the national championship to defeat the University of Southern California before an audience of eleven hundred people. In 1947 he was appointed poet laureate of Liberia by President V. S. Tubman. He left Wiley to become professor of English and Drama at Langston University in Oklahoma.”–Wiley College
Melvin B. Tolson was also a writer and a poet. I love his ode to Louis Armstrong:
“When I got finished, Gershwin paid me the ultimate compliment. He said, ‘Boy, even I couldn’t do that.”-Burton Lane
Composer and lyricist, Burton Lane was born today in NYC in 1912 and he is responsible for so many beautiful songs and lyrics that may have faded, so I’m here to remind all of us! How are Things in Glocca Morra is from his play, Finian’s Rainbow, which was also a movie in 1968. Lane also wrote one other play, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, (also made into a film in 1970) which singer Robert Goulet sang so beautifully. My dad was a big fan of Robert Goulet and he would sing that song in particular and whistle it so well. A personal favorite song of mine is from “Finian’s Rainbow,” titled: Look to the Rainbow. Burton Lane’s songs have been performed by hundreds of artists and are just as beautiful today in 2014.
“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.”-William Wordsworth
You’ll notice that yesterday and today, I’ve just wanted to write simple poems…poems that come instantly, nothing profound. As a child, I wrote all the time; teachers loved displaying my poetry on the hallway and classroom bulletin boards; in school newsletters. Once my dad gave the Trinity Church in lower Manhattan my Laura Nyro-inspired poem, “Save the Children” and they printed it in their newsletter. (Laura’s great song, “Save the Country” had the line, “Save the Children.”) Today, before I rised, I just looked at my husband sleeping and I smiled. He’s just the nicest person I know and for over 30 years, he’s been my anchor in the most positive of ways!!!!
I wanted to just get up and write
Something meaningful; something deep
Instead I think of your eyes and how they pierce into me
I think of your gentleness and how it guides this family
The world has lost a beautiful flower, one of the Greatest Humanitarians it has ever seen or will see again: Pete Seeger. His life, his whole being, inspired me since I was a little girl of about 4 or 5 years of age when my mom bought his first long-playing LP of children’s songs for my birthday. As I evolved, got older, I saw Pete so many times at many different marches, rallies, events and at the old South Street Seaport when he first acquired the Clearwater Sloop and would dock the boat, hand out pumpkins, sing a few songs and bring along some friends to help. I remember one time, one of Pete’s young friends, Don McLean performed an unfinished “American Pie.” Pete was an American Treasure and stood for the best of what we could each aspire to be. We will miss him.
Ilene On Words 