brass

"...never think that ships forget a shore,

Or bitter seas, or winds that mde them wise.

There is a dream upon them evermore;

   And there be some who say that sunk ships rise

To seek familiar harbors in the night,

   Blowing like mists, their spectral sails alight."

New Year

How burn the stars unchanging in the midnight skies,

As on the earth the old year dies!

Like leaves before the storm, so haste our lives away;

Eternal God, to Thee we pray.

For all Thy mercies past we lift our hearts in praise,

Thy care that crowned our fleeting days;

Our follies and our sins, O Lord, remember not,

Lost hours when we Thy love forgot.

From age to age Thy love endures; Thou art our God.

Send now Thy flaming truth abroad,

That with the New Year’s dawning right may conquer wrong

Grief yield to joy, and tears to song!

John J. Moment (b. 1875

On April 19, 1836, the people of Concord completed a monument to the "ëmbattled few" who stood "by the rude bridge that arched the flood" and helped pave the way for our freedom. One reading Emerson’s "Concord Hymn", memorializing the event, would be amazed at the similarity of the mindset of that time to that of the people of Berlin 170 years later on that Saturday at Riverside Park when the Berlin Veterans Foundation dedicated their cenotaph. The two concluding stanzas bring to life his words:

‘’On this green bank, by this soft stream,

We set today a votive stone;

That memory may their deed redeem,

When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

"Spirit, that made those heroes dare

To die, and leave their children free,

Bid Time and Nature gently spare

the shaft we raise to them and thee.’’

 

 

 

So far, yesterday and yet today, I find no reference to D Day, but all over the media you will find the D (Devil's) Day.  So we add to the frenzy this from the clip file:

OK, you know that 666 is the Number of the Beast, but did you know that:

660 Approximate number of the Beast

DCLXVI Roman numeral of the Beast

666.0000 Number of the High Precision Beast

0.666 Number of the Millibeast

/666 Beast Common Denominator

1010011010 Binary of the Beast

Beast1-666 Area code of the Beast

00666 Postcode of the Beast

1-900-666-0666 Live Beasts! One-on-one pacts! Call Now! Only $6.66/minute. Over 18 only please.

$665.95 Retail price of the Beast

$699.25 Price of the Beast plus sales tax

$769.95 Price of the Beast with all accessories and replacement soul

$656.66 Target price of the Beast

Route 666 Way of the Beast

666F Oven temperature for roast Beast

666mg Recommended Minimum Daily Requirement of Beast

Netscape 6.66 BetaBrowser of the Beast

i66686 CPU of the Beast

666I BMW of the Beast

668 Next-door neighbour of the Beast

For all of you journal--ists and potential authors out there, this could be placed in your awarness and mentally kept before your eyes:

For those my unbaptized rhymes,

Writ in my wild, unhallowed times;

For every sentence, clause and word

That's not inlaid with Thee, my Lord,

Forgive me, God, and blot each line

Out of my book that is not Thine.

But if, 'mongst all, Thou find ést here one

Worthy (of) Thy benediction;

That one of all the rest shall be

The glory of my work and me.

Äfterwards"could very well be an Epitaph if so desired, but another reason for posting it is because the month of May is mentioned. If the former use is selected, there is one word to be explained, and that is Postern---an early name for Garden Gate. Ok, then, in Robert Louis Sevenson’s words: "This be the verse you ‘grave for me"

Afterwards

When the present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay,

And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings,

Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the people say,

"He was a man who used to notice such things?"

If it be in the dusk when, like an eyelid’s soundless blink,

The dewfall-hawk comes crossing the shades to alight

Upon the wind-warped upland thorn, will a gazer think,

"To him this must have been a familiar sight"?

If I pass during some nocturnal blackness, mothy and warm,

When the hedgehog travels furtively over the lawn,

Will they say, "He strove that such innocent creatures should come to no harm,

"But he could do little for them; and now he is gone"?

If, when hearing that I have been stilled at last, they stand at the door,

Watching the full-starred heavens that winter sees,

Will this thought rise on those who will meet my face no more,

"He was one who had an eye for sluch mysteries"?

And will any say when my bell of quittance is heard in the gloom,

And a crossing breeze cuts a pause in its outrollings,

Till they rise again, as they were a new bell’s boom,

"He hears it not now, but used to notice such things"

. . . . . . Thomas Hardy

 

 

 

 

May 1, 2006.  I wonder what the wall-covering-stores do with all of their old wallpaper sample books.  They used to save them for their good customers so that those people's "kids"could make May Baskets out of each sheet.  Some would roll the sheets at an angle so that a conicle shape resulted; made a handle and pasted or stapled it on.  Some would fold up the sides of the sheets a little and make a flat basket to which the same kind of handles would be affixed.  They came the good part.  They would verry slyly visit their best friend"s house, leave it hanging on the doorknor, ring the doorbell and run away.  Does anyone remember?  Are wallpaper samples still displayed in this fashion?

Another significance of the day is Law Day observed by the Law Profession in honor of presumed justice for all.

We hope that May Day in Russia does not have the same connotation it had in the past.  They are having a hard time in convincing anyone that things have chaned for the better.

 

 
With its Tuesday dismantling, the Christmas Tree began its 11-month hibernation in the garage. Signs of the coming event preceded this action for several days. One by one, or two by two, other traditional accouterments of the season began disappearing and packed away in their containers which would be stored in the storage area on the lower level. "It's beginning to (not) look like Christmas" around here. With the mild temperatures and, today, rain, it looks rather like Spring is here. We get fooled every year. As for the tree, it's a pre-lit spruce we treated ourselves to after many a year of trying to arrange the lights all over.  We've had an artficial tree far many years and since moving into a condo we found enought space in the garage to obviate dragging it down to the storage area.  We have no quarrel with devotes of natural trees, after all we come from an area that is one of the capitals of Christmas Tree Country; we know they are preferred by some for their appearance and pine odor, etc.  We have just saved a lot of hassle by having used the man-made tree.

Whether you rely upon the forecasting of the weather for business purposes or for recreational pursuits the fact remains that we are besieged with a plethora of weather savants who prognosticate periodically pursuant to future happenings viz a viz our climatology. The race is on to outdistance each other with the equipment, software and graphics. Whether it be Digital Doppler Designs, Wind Direction, Lightning strikes, Anticipated location of moving thunderstorms and who knows what's next and who will unwrap their latest toy.

And it was not enough to dub the department as the Weather Center which was too calm-sounding, someone came up with the term "Storm Center" even though the occurrence of storms comes to our attention a small percentage of the time.

Then it's a matter of who airs first. There's First Forecast, whether it's the first time in the broadcast, or second or fourth. Then another brags Forecast First, again, whether it's the first time around or the second, etc. It doesn't matter if it comes on at 4 PM or 6 or 9.

Then it's your weather forecast. It doesn't matter whether you have the equipment and software and graphics, it's your forecast. The fact remains that it is their forecast. We have nothing to do with developing the forecast; they have the equipment, the software and the graphics, but it's is always your forecast. And then, in their grandly pontifical voice, proclaim "Berlin, your temperature is 50 degrees." Here's your forecast, never theirs who have labored over it for perhaps a half-hour or so. And then when their technology allows them to attune the forecast to your own particular neighborhood, then it's "My Personal Forecast".

They never have enough to say to fill their allotted portion of the broadcast. They have to call on additional words to help them fill the time. It's never "the wind is moving in" or "it's windy" but the wind is moving on in, "there are windy conditions". It's never "it's dry" but "we are having dry conditions". Two further time-eating, word-proliferating expressions: "this point in time" and "your neck of the woods".

There's a store in Alaska sporting a big glass window. In the middle of it is a square delineated by a frame of duck-tape. You look through the square and see the outside, and the current weather. The legend below the square states "Today's Weather". Oh for such simpler times.

From my "clip file".  But if you begin reading, promise you will read it in its entirety.

Where To Bury A Dog

There are various places within which a dog may be buried. We are thinking now of a setter, whose coat was flame in the sunshine, and who, so far as we are aware, never entertained a mean or an unworthy thought. This setter is buried beneath a cherry tree, under four feet of garden loam, and at its proper season the cherry strews petals on the green lawn of his grave. Beneath a cherry tree, or an apple, or any flowering shrub of the garden, is an excellent place to bury a good dog. Beneath such trees, such shrubs, he slept in the drowsy summer, or gnawed at a flavorous bone, or lifted head to challenge some strange intruder. These are good places, in life or in death. Yet it is a small matter, and it touches sentiment more than anything else.

For if the dog be well remembered, if sometimes he leaps through your dreams actual as in life, eyes kindling, questing, asking, laughing, begging, it matters not at all where that dog sleeps at long and at last. On a hill where the wind is unrebuked and the trees are roaring, or beside a stream he knew in puppyhood, or somewhere in the flatness of a pasture land, where most exhilarating cattle graze. It is all one to the dog, and all one to you, and nothing is gained, and nothing lost -- if memory lives. But there is one best place to bury a dog. One place that is best of all.

If you bury him in this spot, the secret of which you must already have, he will come to you when you call -- come to you over the grim, dim frontiers of death, and down the well-remembered path, and to your side again. And though you call a dozen living dogs to heel they should not growl at him, nor resent his coming, for he is yours and he belongs there.

People may scoff at you, who see no lightest blade of grass bent by his footfall, who hear no whimper pitched too fine for mere audition, people who may never really have had a dog. Smile at them then, for you shall know something that is hidden from them, and which is well worth the knowing.

The one best place to bury a good dog is in the heart of his master.

by Ben Hur Lampman

big, in this case a .3A farm pond on a "SeaSnark".  We later graduated to a "Sunfish" on a 66A lake.  I'm afraid my sailing days are in the past.

This currency may be de-valued only because of all of the exchanges possible.

No one has ever accused me of being a rabid sports fan but I do like to watch football---if it is the Green Bay Packers playing. But I am a little deficient in recalling the names of the players and also the coach's tactics or the philosophy of football play. Other games, namely Soccer, Jai Lai, Rugby ( do they still play Rugby?) Cricket, etc., etc., to me, have their provenance in foreign lands. I have, however, lost interest in the game whose aura has reverted from a fast, game of finesse ball-handling, where hardly any bodily contact was planned because of penalties, to one of huge giants with muscles up to here providing cushion for the intentionally crowding and blocking, who, whether they like it or not, exhibit a perfect simian-similar spectacle at the rim of the basket when they come in to score: Basketball. Nascar has stuck its nose into the tent of TV coverage and advertising too often. What does that leave me? Tennis? It will be OK once I learn the scoring past One-Love, 15-30, etc., such as break point, games, sets, etc. Horse Racing seem a nice sport. They only come on two or three times a year. Golf is a calm afternoon (who was it that said "Golf is a good walk spoiled"), if you are just a spectator. As I said earlier, "No one has ever accused me of being a rabid sports fan.

Kipling wrote many years ago but unfortunatley on June 5, 1989 I had not as yet read about "The Power of the Dog". . . . . There is sorrow enough in the natural way from men and women to fill our day; and when we are certain of sorrow in store,  why do we always arrange for more?  Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware of giving your heaart to a dog to tear.   Buy a pup and your money will buy Love unflinching that cannot lie---perfect passion and worship fed by a kick in the ribs or a pat on the hear.  Nevertheless it is hardly fair to risk your heart for a dog to tear.  When the fourteen years which Nature permits are closing in  (with)asthma, or tumour, or fits,  and the vet's unspoken prescription runs to lethal chambers or loaded guns, Then you will find---it's your own affair---but . . . you've given your heart to a dog to tear.  When the body that lived at your single will, with its whimper of welcome, is stilled (how still!), when the spirit that answered your every mood is gone---wherever it goes--- for good, You will discover how much you care, and will give your heart to a dog to tear.  We've sorrow enough in the natural way, when it comes to burying Christian clay.  Our loves are not given, but only lent, at compound interest of per cent per cent.  Though it is not always the case, I believe, that the longer we've kept 'em the more do we grieve.  For, when  debts are payable, right or wrong, a short-time loan is as bad as a long---So why in Heaven (before we are there) should we give our hearts to a dog to tear? 

1989-2005

 

Each Thanksgiving Day I dust off and publish an old but forever true the following.  I am not usually this truant but I blame the delay on a mix-up with my password, etc., etc., etc.

"THANKSGIVING IS the holiday of fondest reunion, of bonds of love and memory and friendship renewed.  It is a holiday without pride, without show, without anxiety and tension, even without any special hymn or anthem.  It is a day of the simplist ritual, a day of embrace and satisfaction of the heart, a day of truce from a yappy, snapping world."

This was originally posted for Memorial Day but I thought it bears repeating.

It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier, not the lawyer, who has given us the right to a fair triail. It is the solder who salutes the flag, who serves under the flag, whose casket is draped in the flag. who allows the protester to burn the flag.
----Charles M. Province

Long before Google and Amazon and who knows how many other publishers are considering the experiment; and maybe not so long ago Questia and Literature Page, and a pioneer, in my understanding, bartleby.com has made available for reading on line works we all are aware of but seldom have time to read.  Authors such as Wilde, Dana, Hawthorne, Dostoyesky, Austen, Wharton, DeMaupassant, Fitzgerald, Cather, Balzaac, Dickens, Tolstoy, Fielding, Woolf and Elliot to name a few I have recently become acquainted with.  It was a relief to go from the earlier style with sentences which were hard to keep in mind to the later styles much more contemporary.  That is, from Dickens, Balzaac, Cervantes to Eliot, for example.  Speaking of Eliot, another author comes to mind who wrote another work I may peruse, Sand, the author of Silas Marner.  Both of these authors, I should say authoress' who both chose the nom de plume of George, for their own reasons and orientation.  Opportunity for another journal later when and if I become more than a novice myself.

The other day the story was about a pirate attack on a cruise ship in the Indian Oceon off Somalia.  (Must innocent ships carry defensive weapons for protection?) Is this the area of the scandalous Cole affair? (This one had weapons)  Definitely not a "painted ocean".  On the map this area is always shown in sepia or other somber colors.  Seems appropriate, although there is never any talk of bad weather or rough water in the Indian Ocean.     Contrast this area with the bright colors of "Off Valparaiso" by Somerscales, definitely a "painted ship upon a painted ocean".  (Quotes refer to Coleredge's "....the ancient mariner")  The sea is a beautiful blue in a "pacific" oceon which can change crossing Lat 33.  Here the only attack is the change in the climate.

This image was posted in a personal response to several fellow-jouralists interest in goats.  Privately I had in the beginning stated that I do not capture this image, that I didn't recall when or where I "lifted" it, that I did not know who the fotografer was or even if this structure existed in the US.  dirtyjase 7734 stated in his journal  ...Spammed..."It sucks when people are so BORING and UNCREATIVE that they must post photos that they haven't shot or whatever."

I have had comments on it from a number of viewers who were aware of goats; there is some interest there.  To compound the matter, Buzznet, selected it as a Featured Foto of the week or something.  If you want to "drum" me out of this new home I just found, I will offer no resistance.  This new home is for my journal; I have submitted fotos since 4/24/04.

HALLOW E'EN along with its almost-forgotten religious significance comes every October 31st, and a secular thinking, held to by the Manufacturers-Merchandisers-Children's Story Tellers-Complex, endeavors to ascribe an aura of "other-worldliness" to the evening, but fails in the attempt.

Returning from the wood box "en passant" the bookcase, my hand reached out and randomly selected a "tome of forgotten lore" and laid it on the reading table in the study. The logs were arranged in the fireplace along with fire starter and kindling, a match was tossed in and the fire began to sputter. I settled into the worn, albeit comfortable, Lazy Boy and, with the handle, adjusted the legrest just enough and the backrest, just so.

The calm air without the house began to stir and caused the lifeless limbs of the oaks to rustle the dry leaves they held captive as if to compete with the sound of the fire. Suddenly the wind gave a gasp across the top of the chimney and drew the fire up like a mannerless child noisily sucking up the last of a soda through the straw. Before much could be thought of the action, the fire was expectorated back down into the firebox completely engulfing the fuel so much so that the flames danced and sent flickering shadows along the walls. The wind, still feeling its power, changed direction and blew across the doors and windows sounding several notes simultaneously resulting in a minor-key dirge-like chord.

Waning now somewhat but still with enough strength, the wind went up to the top of a maple at the corner of the house and shook down a branch that had broken off in a windstorm some time ago, but, because of interlocking branches, remained trapped in the treetop. In falling, the branch produced a dull thud on the roof and as it slid down to the ground, its branches clawed at the shingles as if trying to arrest its descent giving off a sound of muted fingernails on a blackboard.

"The wind certainly is active tonight" my only thought.

Just then a piece of crumpled newspaper blown from a passing paperboy's bag earlier was brushed up against the window sounding like the fluttering of wings but I told myself that the only thing flying tonight was a Raven.

As I folded the creamy vellum folios in upon themselves, the clock began to chime. Eleven, twelve, thirteen ...I must have begun counting on a wrong stroke. Or maybe it was time to have the Grandfather Clock repaired. Let's see...he died several years ago...oh, but that's another story.