family

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Embracing

The Embrace and the 1965 Freedom Plaza by artist Hank Willis Thomas and MASS Design Group on the Boston Common

The Embrace is a bronze figural abstraction based on a photo of an embrace between Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King after he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. The 20-foot-tall, 25-foot-wide artwork differs from the singular, heroic form of many memorials to Dr. King and others, instead emphasizing the power of collective action, the role of women as leaders, and the forging of new bonds of solidarity out of mutual empathy and vulnerability. The Embrace is an unprecedented attempt to give shape and prominence to Dr. King’s conception of agape love. It is also intended to reflect Coretta Scott King’s faith in the power of art, and her long life of struggle against militarism, poverty, discrimination, racism, and sexism.

City of Boston

One compensation for the many trips to Boston for cancer treatment has been the opportunity to visit people and places we might otherwise have not seen. On the last trip we had a pleasant walk through the Boston Common and Public Garden, highlighted by The Embrace.

It’s a moving sculpture, both in the sense of being emotionally significant and in the sense of conveying a feeling of life in motion. It’s a testament to the King Family, the Civil Rights movement, and what Boston hopes to become.

I’ve felt an embrace from the people around me during this cancer journey, especially from Susan, who’s had a harder time of it than I have. (I’ve slept through much of it.)

She said in one message to friends and family:

He’s grateful for all your concern and messages. He can’t easily respond to your messages, but we’d love to hear from you.

That was very true. I’ve felt support from everyone.

And of course, I can’t say enough about the many health providers at Dana-Farber, Outer Cape Health Services, Cape Cod Hospital, and more. In an era when public health is deteriorating rapidly, I’ve been fortunate to receive the best care in the world.

[This article is cross-posted on my semi-private cancer blog, Surviving Lymphoma. Login with your own WordPress account to request access, or write to me for a login and password.]

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W. S. Camp

I’ve just come across some memorabilia from my great-grandfather, William Sterling Camp.

I never met him and don’t know much about him, except that he was born in Walnut Grove, Illinois in the middle of the Civil War and died in San Antonio in the middle of World War II.

One item is a book of poetry. He modestly presents it thusly,

Take this bouquet of vagrant weeds,
A plenitude of naught,
Grown from the zephyr-carried seeds
Of idleness of thought;
Pray ponder well the printed page,
Then say if the relator
Should not in haste seek to engage
A mental conservator.

Picardy countryside

There are no dates on the poems, but I can guess the years from the content. The poems inadvertently tell the story and prejudices of his times. They also talk of death. The most charming ones, such as “A Luscious Bit of Erin,” speak of lifelong love.

One may have been inspired by the popular song, “Roses of Picardy.” That song reflected the bitter fighting in Picardy during World War I, but expressed it as a melancholy love ballad (“Roses are shining in Picardy / In the hush of the silver dew / Roses are flow’ring in Picardy / But there’s never a rose like you!”).

In Bill Camp’s version, we have

Picardy Roses

When fair Picardy fields are free
From with’ring blight of war’s debris,
O’er clefted stones that fashioned hedge
For winding lanes ere Prussian wedge
Was driven deep in Freedom’s heart
And rapine came, a German art,
Will clamber roses as before
Fair Picardy was rent by war –
But ev’rywhere that Virtue bled
Picardy roses will bloom red.

I not only never met Bill Camp; I never heard (or remember) any stories about him. Looking back it amazes me how oblivious I must have been to the lives of those around me. My grandmother, for example. She was his daughter. I wish now that I had asked her more about him and his wife, Jennie.

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My musical gifts: Opportunity, teachers, and incompetence

To say that someone has a musical gift, or is gifted, usually means that they have unusual talent or can perform beautifully for others. I mean something quite different here.

When I say “musical gift” in this and the next two posts, I mean a gift to me, one that enhances my enjoyment of music. I was granted these through no effort on my own––no long, arduous hours of practice.

Opportunities to learn

My dad at his piano store c. 1954

The first of the three gifts is opportunity. It came in multiple ways.

My father sold pianos through his store. We always had a piano in the house; it was part of the store’s inventory. If anyone wanted that model he could sell it as a lightly used piano. That meant that we might discover that our much loved mahogany spinet might be suddenly hauled away and replaced by a large black upright, or in later years by an electronic keyboard.

Continue reading →
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TCU’s glory

1957 Cotton Bowl, TCU pregame meeting

TCU’s extraordinary football season, which soared until the reality of Georgia happened, triggered fond memories of following sports as a teenager in Fort Worth.

Pop Boone

Mark Boone reminded me that his grandfather, Pop Boone, was sports editor for the Fort Worth Star Telegram and the Fort Worth Press. There are now TCU athlete of the year awards named for him.

Our family subscribed to both of the papers, and enjoyed reading writers such as Dan Jenkins, one of Boone’s protégés.

Pop was a big supporter of both the TCU Horned Frogs and the Fort Worth Cats minor league baseball team. I spent many hours watching or reading about these teams. I saw only a a few Cats games, but I often listened to the radio, filling out stat sheets, as shown below right.

Baseball blank stat sheet

Television

Some of my interest came from Bud Sherman, a sports announcer for radio and WBAP- TV. He was my friend Clayton’s father.

TV was a new thing in Fort Worth in 1948. Our family got one sometime after the political conventions in 1952.

Of the many stories from that time, one is that a viewer called WBAP on the first night telecast, complaining that she was not receiving any picture. The receptionist asked, “What kind of set are you using?”  The viewer responded, “Why, my radio set, of course!” 

Also, on that fateful night, Amon Carter, who owned the station and much else in Fort Worth, nearly fell to his death through an unmarked hole in the studio floor. He was grabbed just in time.

Football day

TCU’s Amon G. Carter stadium was built in 1930, long before my time, but I benefited from it, the two newspapers, and the sports legacy that Pop Boone created. 

On football day when I was 10 or so I ‘d go with a couple of friends to sit in end zone seats. Tickets cost 50¢; I’ve heard that prices have increased since then. We’d move to better seats after halftime when the thin crowd thinned even more.

We watched Jim Swink, the star running back. He was an All-American in 1955 and 1956. During a game against the U of Texas at Austin, he rushed 15 times for 235 yards and scored 26 points in a 47–20 rout. The Longhorns’ slogan and the hook ’em horns sign was created in reference to stopping him. Swink was drafted by the Chicago Bears and later became an orthopedic surgeon in Fort Worth.

Jim Swink with the Dallas Texans on a Fleer bubble gum trading card, 1960

After the games, we’d collect a big stack of programs. These were in the form of a daily newspaper, but a bit smaller. They had seemed so valuable before the first kickoff.

I’m not sure why we felt compelled to collect them. We’d carry them home and bury them for some imagined future use. I imagine they’ve long since composted.

1957 Cotton Bowl

See the powerful pregame locker room photo from the 1957 Cotton Bowl pitting TCU against Syracuse. That was chosen by Sports Illustrated as the photo of the century.

Don’t the players look serious? They’re probably asking how they could possibly stop the amazing Jim Brown. 

Brown was not only a football legend, but a star in basketball and track as well. He was so good in Lacrosse that they changed the rules of the game.

Brown rushed for three touchdowns in that Cotton Bowl game. He also kicked three extra points. It would have been a tie, but TCU blocked the final extra point try. TCU and Swink went on to defeat Syracuse and Brown, 28-27. 

I wish I’d been able to go to that Cotton Bowl, but Dallas was a long ways off and tickets probably cost more than 50¢.

[Thanks to Mark Boone for telling me stories about Pop Boone. Also to Troy Seate for his excellent article on Jim Swink.)

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The rebus resurrected

Over a decade ago I wrote about the rebus baby announcement and the people of the rebus. What started as an idle curiosity based on the discovery of a crumbled scroll of butcher paper in the attic has become a fascinating journey into family and daily life in 1905.

The rebus contains references to contemporary songs, movies, and comic strips, news of current events, including the circus coming to town, President Teddy Roosevelt’s trip to hunt bears in Colorado, and racial stereotypes in popular products.

After we discovered the rebus, we used the facilities of the university’s conservation department to preserve what we could of it. Recently, Conservation Framing in Truro did further restoration and framed it, the largest frame being about four feet long.

There’s too much for an ordinary blog post, but this file summarizes what we’ve learned so far.

rebus.fodt_Download
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Coming back to Texas

Days 11-17: Leander, Texas, 2856 miles, 13 states

There’s a land I know where the bluebonnets grow that is paradise to me,

From Amarillo skies down to Mexico, from the Pecos to the sea

Kenneth Threadgill, “Coming back to Texas”

Fifty years ago, I heard Kenneth Threadgill and the Hootenanny Hoots perform “Coming back to Texas” at the Split Rail in South Austin. This was in the “land that gave me birth.”

I went with good friends to share pitchers of beer, enjoy fried onion rings, and listen to great music performed by Threadgill, George McLean, and other notables. I should retract that. The music wasn’t always “great,” especially when folks like me chose to sing along.

“Fraulein” was a favorite and we weren’t awake enough to see that the term might be sexist. We were transported by lines like

Far across deep blue waters, lives an old German’s daughter

By the banks of the old river Rhine.

It was easy to ignore the fact that the actual subject of the song was a German-American living in Houston. If the singer had really meant

By the same stars above you, I swear that I love you

You are my pretty fraulein

he might have put more effort into just making the relationship work, not dreaming about the old river Rhine.

The Lone Star and Pearl longneck beers were cheap, there was no cover charge, no dress code, and no paving in the parking area. Hippies, cowboys, and graduate students mingled with little concern for status or political beliefs.

This was the Old Austin, near its end. Today, the streets around the Capitol and the University are just a tiny eye of calm in the middle of the hurricane of highways, suburban developments, and booming tech industry that characterize the New Austin.

But the real purpose of our stop in Austin was not to reminisce, but to see family, just a few of whom are shown here in a photo from dining out. The family time has been far more precious than even the memories of the Split Rail.

Indian blanket (Gaillardia pulchella)
At Matt’s El Rancho
Checking out the lower vanagain bed for comfort and size
At sister Karen’s; Henry recovering from broken arm playing basketball
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Primeval soggy

Days 5-6: Prince William Forest, VIrginia, 824 miles, 8 states

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie”
With the Williams. Guess which baseball team they support!

We stayed last night in Prince William Forest Park, Virginia. There had been a continuous rain for several hours leading up to our arrival in the area, so the grounds were soggy, the air was misty,  and the trees were dripping.

Our stay almost didn’t happen, because we’d made a mistake on our reservation. A ranger happened to pass by as we were considering speaking to the usurpers of our campsite. We learned that they were totally in the right and that our reservation was for a previous day. Fortunately, there was an unoccupied site we were able to use.

The Park sits next to the Quantico Marine Base, and as a reminder of the toll of war, the Quantico National Cemetery. The area of the Forest was once home to several villages, including one for former slaves.

It’s now a lush green landscape, much further along than our cape Cod vegetation and denser in any case. There’s a beautiful Scenic Drive, trails, well-spaced campsites, and limited, but well-functioning facilities.

We visited nephew Mark, his wife Laura, and their two boys in Springfield. It’s a sign of the enforced isolation of covid on top of our laziness that they’ve been in a new home for five years and we hadn’t seen it before.

Mark and Laura may have started a trend. We’ll be seeing at least seven family individuals or groups in domiciles new to us on this trip, and as a bonus, one family in Texas and another in California who’ve sold their homes and moved out, but don’t have a new one yet. In addition to covid, there are growing families and new jobs, maybe a little restlessness appropriate to our times.

Chess masters. Why is there no large screen TV?

Blue heron at Burke Lake

Intrepid explorers

Paulownia bush taking advantage of a disturbed area under a bridge

Cicadas preparing to emerge

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The new baby

Day 3: Holmdel, New Jersey, 435 miles, 5 states

I am amazed at this spring, this conflagration
Of green fires lit on the soil of the earth, this blaze
Of growing, and sparks that puff in wild gyration,
Faces of people streaming across my gaze.

D. H. Lawrence, “The Enkindled Spring”

We’re now seeing family in New Jersey. This means renewing ties that have been too long restricted to email, phone and zoom. But it also means newing (?) ties with Claire, the baby who joined the world last September 5.

Yesterday we went for a walk in Deep Cut Gardens, an enchanting site with waterfalls, formal and informal gardens, statuary, and lush trails. It’s a marked contrast to the life of the man who developed it, Vito Genovese. He reportedly sought a retreat from mob warfare in New York City. See The Gangster’s Garden.

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Packing for the Big Circle

Day 1: Wellfleet, Massachusetts, 0 miles, 1 state

Ring out the old, ring in the new

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, ‘Ring Out, Wild Bells’

After eight months hibernating, we’re about to set off on a big adventure. We’ll travel through 30 or more states in our vanagain, camping along the way, and visit well over 30 family members and old friends. We’re leaving just as the cherry tree is about to lose its last blossoms.

Susan and I now have our covid vaccinations and I’ve had my cardiac ablation. These should lessen our danger to others and ourselves, especially with the camping.

We’ve had several smaller jaunts in the vanagain, such as canoeing on the Raquette River. That’s helping us with the packing. We also remember many great adventures with Emily and Stephen in our VW camper.

Off to canoe on the Sangamon RIver, 1992
Off to canoe on the Sangamon RIver, 1992

The new camper van is similar to the VW, but it’s built on a Metris platform. Although much of it is familiar, the heater and AC both work. There’s also better gas mileage and enough acceleration to enter an interstate highway safely. So, a little less drama, but it’s still fun to drive.

The vanagain has all we need for extended travel and camping, but it doesn’t require us to stay in an RV park. It even parks in a standard garage.

Susan, packing the vanagain