An Anniversarial Dither

Tomorrow, 30 April, will be the 14th anniversary of the day husband and I were wed, back in England. Our habit, over the years, has been to celebrate with a wee trip. Departure dates have often been changed, due to adverse weather forecasts at this time of year in Tornado Alley. This year it's reported that tornado season in Oklahoma is having a very late start, but some rather iffy storms are forecast for Oklahoma and surrounding states during the coming week, as hot weather builds to the east of us and cooler air remains to the west. We're dithering on the question of anniversarial celebration. Anyway, come what may, I'll put the blog on hold now, for a few days, whether we eventually stay, or go, or just continue to dither a lot, which seems highly likely at present. I'm still not 100% back to normal comfort, not yet free of dressing-type stuff on my left-side top half, after recent medical adventures, so there's that too. Hitting the road for any major trip right now might not be ideal. Maybe a few short day trips will be the way to go. We shall see.

Music Monday ~ A Folsom Anniversary

A musical anniversary is coming up later this week - 50th anniversary of the recording of Johnny Cash's album
At Folsom Prison. From Wikipedia:

On January 10, 1968, Cash and June Carter checked into the El Rancho Motel in Sacramento, California. They were later accompanied by the Tennessee Three, Carl Perkins, The Statler Brothers, Johnny's father Ray Cash, Reverend Floyd Gressett, pastor of Avenue Community Church in Ventura, California (where Cash often attended services), who counseled inmates at Folsom and helped facilitate the concert, and producer Johnston. The performers rehearsed for two days, an uncommon occurrence for them, sometimes with two or more songs rehearsed concurrently by various combinations of musicians. During the rehearsal sessions on January 12, California governor Ronald Reagan, who was at the hotel for an after-dinner speech, visited the band and offered his encouragement. One focus of the sessions was to learn "Greystone Chapel", a song written by inmate Glen Sherley....On January 13, the group traveled to Folsom, meeting Los Angeles Times writer Robert Hilburn and Columbia photographer Jim Marshall, who were hired to document the album for the liner notes.

There is no live film of Cash's show at Folsom Prison, but there are live recordings of the songs.

Johnny Cash - Green, Green Grass of Home, written by Claude "Curly" Putman, Jr. Track recorded Live January 13, 1968 at Folsom Prison.





This comes from another prison concert, referring back to Folsom Prison - the song was written by Johnny Cash in 1953. He was inspired to write it after seeing the movie Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison (1951) while serving in West Germany in the United States Air Force at Landsberg, Bavaria (itself the location of a famous prison). Cash recounted how he came up with the line "But I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die": "I sat with my pen in my hand, trying to think up the worst reason a person could have for killing another person, and that's what came to mind."
(See Wikipedia HERE for more.)

Two to the Dozen!

Yesterday, 30 April, was the 12th anniversary of the day Anyjazz and I were wed. As is our habit we intend to celebrate with a wee trip. Date of departure has been changed more than once, due to adverse weather forecasts. Anyway - come what may, the blog will be on hold for a few days.

Another of husband's photographs, taken in a junk store recently, made it to Flickr's "Explore" section during the week:



Caption: "Past Time - If I could keep time in a bucket"

Which prompts me to recall the Jim Croce song - and how appropriate for our wedding anniversary!

"Time In A Bottle"

If I could save time in a bottle
The first thing that I'd like to do
Is to save every day till eternity passes away
Just to spend them with you

If I could make days last forever
If words could make wishes come true
I'd save every day like a treasure and then
Again, I would spend them with you..................

This song from the 1980s kept popping into my head the other day. It's by Labi Siffre, and was about Apartheid in South Africa (Wikipedia). The lyrics could also be seen as relevant to any struggle, and I hope Labi Siffre would not object to my seeing it as relevant to the campaign of Bernie Sanders, now reaching a high point of struggle against Sec. Clinton and the DNC in the primaries still to be held. There'll be one on Tuesday in Indiana.

GO BERNIE! The higher they build their barriers the stronger you'll become....

Half a century has gone by.......

It's hard to miss the fact that today marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, 1963. The internet has been buzzing with stuff about conspiracy theories, books on the topic, what ifs, and memories of "how I heard the news" for days.

I wasn't in the USA in 1963 - it'd be another 41 years before I came to live in south west Oklahoma - a 3 hour drive from Dallas. We were in the city just a couple of weeks ago (see here).

In 1963 I was staying with my parent's at their home and business, then in Lancashire. It was a messy time in my young life. Marriage had floundered after barely a year. I was spending a short time at home, helping out in the bakery and post office until I could find another hotel office job. In the evening of 22 November we were all in the bakehouse, cleaning and clearing up, dawdling because it was nice and warm in there. The radio was on - the announcement of JFK's assassination came over - we gasped. Shocked. I don't remember much more than that.

I wasn't particularly interested in US politics, or in the USA for that matter, back then. I was more aware of Jackie Kennedy than of JFK. She had frequently graced the pages of fashion magazines and newspapers in Britain. I had even copied her (then) signature pill-box hat for my doomed wedding the previous year.

Would these 50 years have been different in any meaningful way, I wonder, had JFK lived - and avoided any future attempts on his life? If any of the conspiracy theories were near the truth, whoever wanted him gone wouldn't have stopped trying to achieve that end.

“A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on. Ideas have endurance without death.”
~ John F. Kennedy

Cruellest Month

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
(From The Wasteland by T S Eliot)

Revisiting some of the words I wrote last year and the year before in mid-April:

There's something about this time of year that feels a little unsettling. I don't know what astrological factor, if any, might be involved because no two years have the same celestial configurations, other than Sun in the last degrees of Aries and first degrees of Taurus. Was it some perverse "anniversary" syndrome by the perpetrators that directed so many tragedies into the same few days? Or is there a common astrological factor? Perhaps elements of both.

On April 19, 1993 74 men, women and children died in the inferno at Waco, Texas.

On 19 April 1995 the Oklahoma City bombing of a Federal building by home-grown terrorists killed 168 people, including 19 children under the age of 6.

On 20 April 1999 the shootings at Columbine High School, Colorado when 12 students and a teacher were killed by two senior students.

On April 16 2007 the Virginia Tech. massacre when 32 people were killed by a gunman, fellow student of those he murdered.

(On a very personal level, for me:
On 23rd April 1992 my father died.
On 21 April 1996 I and my late partner lost everything we owned, except the few clothes we were wearing, my purse and our car, in a fire which consumed the apartment in which we'd lived for 24 years.)

I'll not attempt to find astrological correlation. There is correlation enough in the devastation wrought upon the lives of so many. Motive, method, and root cause may differ in each case, but results do not. The result was then, and is now, pain and sorrow.

Men die, but sorrow never dies;
The crowding years divide in vain,
And the wide world is knit with ties
Of common brotherhood in pain.(Susan Coolidge).

Part of the Oklahoma City National Memorial The Gates of Time: Monumental twin bronze gates frame the moment of destruction - 9:02 - and mark the formal entrances to the Outdoor Memorial. 9:01, found on the eastern gate, represents the last moments of peace, while its opposite on the western gate, 9:03, represents the first moments of recovery. Both time stamps are inscribed on the interior of the monument, facing each other and the Reflecting Pool.