Remembering "The Great War"

Remembering “The Great War”

“This is a war to end all wars.”—Woodrow Wilson.

I remember when we celebrated the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, the Great War, the War to End All Wars. The war officially ended in 1918 on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. On 2018, at 11 a.m. on November 11th or Veterans Day in the morning, bells tolled in churches all over the globe. Special programs about the war were held worldwide, most notably in England and Paris, France, where the world’s diplomats met to commemorate the peace accord that ended the war.

Both of my grandfathers served in the war and came home. I never heard Grandfather Johnson speak of his experience. The other, Grandfather Whaley, rarely talked about the war itself, but he did have much to say about his experience in the army. He was born in what is now the Great Smokey Mountain National Park. Going into the armed service was his higher education.

When I was in college, my grandfather wrote to me weekly on his old typewriter, on which several keys often would stick. The lines of type were uneven. Every letter, however, was full of his army experiences and how he related them to my new life in college. He would remind me that book learning was not the most critical part of my new life. He believed the best lessons were found in the people I would meet and the places where I would travel. Almost every sentence ended with etc., etc., etc.

I kept every one of his letters. The girls on my floor in my dorm would gather each week to hear about his wisdom from his life experiences a half-century earlier in the army in World War I—and about his present life in small-town Virginia.

 My recently released book is about the messages in these letters, Letters from my Grandfather.

Did I forget to tell you that my grandfather always enclosed a dollar bill with each letter?

Old and Tired

“Old and Tired”

Guest Writers: Ken Fellows

     I’ve never been a car-guy, ‘never had a genuine interest in contemporary vehicles other than for utilitarian uses. But antique autos, they’re in a special category for me …objects of style and beauty, nostalgia and craft.

     This fascination started one summer, when, as a teen, I helped my adolescent friend, Tommy McConnell, completely dismantle ..and then reassemble .. the engine of his Model T Coupe. It didn’t matter that 4 or 5 engine parts were left over. That old engine started immediately and ran perfectly. According to mechanics, a feature of Model T’s is that if 2 of them are completely dismantled, there are usually enough parts to reassemble 3 functional cars.

      That Ford Coupe was central to our neighborhood gangs’ summers on Big Whitefish Lake. Weekly, we would all pile in, 3 in the cab, a few on both running boards, several standing on the back bumper, and 2-3 in the rumble seat, to swerve down the gravel roads meandering around the local Michigan inland lakes. Fortunately, our parents never learned about a crash one night into a gravel pile that miraculously injured no one. It didn’t even dent that sturdy Ford machine.

    My cars were solely conventional, working and raising a family during my middle adult life. As I neared retirement age, I acquired a home in Maine, and an interest in old vehicles resurfaced there. Briefly, I became the owner of a 1940s dump truck. Why is a mystery, but it did establish me as a ‘character’ in our Kittery Point neighborhood. After a short period, I traded the dump-truck for a more reasonable 1938 Plymouth pick-up. It was much more stylish …. black in color with red striping, it sported huge, sculpturally rounded front and back fenders. It was distinctive enough to maintain my reputation as a bit eccentric.

     The highlight of that truck’s 15-year ownership was driving it in a parade commemorating the restoration of a local antique bridge –with my 7-year-old granddaughter, Ella, riding beside me and extending queenly ‘royal waves’ to an amused throng through the passenger-side window.

     With this background, imagine my delight some years hence at spying the Model A Ford in this painting, parked in a small Maine junkyard. As a subject for a painting’s composition, I’m always attracted to scenes where geometric shapes (as with houses, sheds, vehicles, docks) contrast with the adjacent randomness of nature. As in this picture, the defined lines and angles of the old car stand out against the background of rounded shrubs and overarching trees.

     Shadows play another vital part in my art. Without shadows in a painting, there’s no variability in ambient light, which leaves only color to create interest. Perhaps it’s my former life as a radiologist that’s responsible. One of my former medical colleagues, attending a gallery showing of my paintings, remarked: “Well, I see that in retirement, you are still dealing in shadows.”

     I also like this scene because it seems a metaphor for human aging –the Model A representing a bygone style preserved over time and still exhibiting signs of solidity and resilience.

     In the final analysis, of course, it’s just another watercolor painting in which viewers, I hope, may find some interest or pleasure.

Ken Fellows

Joanna  https://www.joannaseibert.com/

 

 

 

 

Buechner, Ignatius: News of the Day

Buechner, Ignatius: News of the Day

“When the evening news comes on, hundreds of thousands of people all over the earth are watching it on their TV screens. There is also the news that rarely gets into the media, and that is the news of each particular day of each particular one of us. Maybe there’s nothing on earth more important for us to do than sit down every evening and think it over, try to figure it out, at least try to come to terms with it. The news of our day. It is, if nothing else, a way of saying our prayers.”—Frederick Buechner.

Buechner challenges us to spend even a fraction of the time we listen to the world news of the day dealing with the news in our own lives. 12-step groups and short courses in Christianity, such as Cursillo and Ignatian spirituality, all suggest methods for reviewing the day, giving thanks, making gratitude lists, remembering back to when we encountered God, when we harmed ourselves or others, asking for forgiveness, planning to make amends, and in essence turning our life and our will over to God one more time each evening. Those in recovery call it the 10th step. St. Ignatius calls it the Examen.  

Buechner reminds us that we should consider these exercises as prayer. It is our news of the day for God, nighttime news, and nighttime prayers.

  These nighttime prayers are more needed now than perhaps at any other time in our lives.

In due course, answers will come regarding how we will respond to the world news of the day.

                      Joanna. https://www.joannaseibert.com/