This week I attended the posthumous launching of a book by an Australian newspaperman, who I didn’t know, except by reputation. It began with an invitation which led, as these things do, to wholly unexpected events. A friend came by and we waited at a rendezvous for gentleman who might have been eighty to join us, pooling transportation to ease the parking problem, but creating, by the by, a conveyance with such an assortment of unlikely characters that we must have resembled a clown car.
John Howard had come to launch Frank Devine’s collection of essays about the joys of growing old among those one loved, an unlikely last subject for a journalist who had spent his career covering politics. The former Prime Minister gave a speech which kept the audience laughing, talking largely about his old friend Frank Devine; about the times they had spent together at a newspaper; and of the patter Frank had kept up when Howard visited him just a few days before he died in a hospice, alive until the last. “He was the same old Frank”. I looked around the room — at the rheumy old men, the distinguished faces — and wondered what memories had gathered them together? Offices, honors and badges were perhaps the least durable of things. For most of us, the only ones who will come to the funeral will be our friends. At this last both Frank’s book and John Howard’s speech dealt with the small things. Perhaps the only lasting substance of our lives.
John Buchan once observed that “the immortal thing was the broken human heart”; that thing which remains when all the unimportant worldly things have been burned away by time. Devine’s book was about things like that — the secret thrill he felt on afternoons when, after “foraging at different ends of the mall” he met his wife again in the central court and of the quickening he felt even after many years of marriage. The wonderous thing about true love is when we discover not only the joy it brings, but how it can improbably always get better. A former journalist standing beside me said that for some reason he felt he was hearing something “almost newsworthy”. And in a way it was, but in another news universe perhaps, not the one of reality TV shows and tabloid stories.
embedded by Embedded VideoYouTube Direkt
Like an old married couple who fuss and go their seperate ways to cool off, then look forward to the reunion with the mate who was despised not a few hours before.
Poetic really.
I’m glad to hear that Mr. Howard is up and about and around and receiving laughter and applause from appreciative peers. When I succumb to depths of despair watching Reid, Pelosi, Obama and his missus flail around at pretending to be human, it’s heartening to think that Howard, Blair and Bush are still out there, hale and hearty and hopefully willing to come back after whatever apocalypse Obama succeeds in hurling us into. In fact, if you have the opportunity, you might encourage Mr. Howard to immigrate to Texas and take up leadership of the Tea Party movement. I’m sure there would be room for him at the Crawford ranch.
P.S. Do Aussies wear tux’s to these events, and if so, were you in one?
Thanks for this lovely post. It is indeed the little things that make the most difference. When we are recognized for something big we can wonder whether it is for the achievement or for ourselves that the attention is directed. But when it is little things, it is certainly for us.
The very best thing someone can hear is, “I know who you are and I love you.”
This song says it all: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nNk3ZlDsL8
Thanks from me, too, W. Prodigious discourse such as yours springs from a mindset that “feels” things, not one that “wants” stuff. Great Nelson Eddy link, too. Simply well done!
PS: You, too, Batman
I recently spent 10 days away and now my wife of 28 years is doing the same. It feels sort of like losing a limb, in my case, definitely the better part. Real love and family and true friends and genuine community transcend all the drip drip, prattle. prattle nonsense that the media regurgitates hourly with updates at 10 PM.
“It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”
-Samuel Butler
“Love is all there is
It makes the world go round
Love and only love
It can’t be denied
No matter what you think about it
you just won’t be able to live without it
Take a tip from one who tried”
-Bob Dylan
I did not know Frank Devine, not even by reputation. Like all of us, he spent his time here as best he could, and then he left, as we all will. The question is not so much how each of us spends our allotted time, but what is time.
There are those who believe time is the point of an arrow, hurtling through space, with nothing before or behind the arrow point. In this view, there is no future time nor past time, just present time. Others believe time is a never-ending river, a river that has always been there and always will be there, where every living thing enters the river in its time and drifts downstream until time to leave. In this view, the future is always down river, the past always up river, with everyone and everything who has ever lived or ever will live in the river at the same time, though each aware only of those in his own infinitely small stretch of river. Neither view proves or disproves the existence of a Creator God, neither view answers the question of what are we doing in the river or at the point of the arrow. For that we must look into ourselves.
Is time the point of an arrow
Or a never-ending river
Will lives be spent in sorrow
Or joy with God the giver
Of time and love and life
Who gives a child to laugh
Where happiness and strife
Are lines upon the graph
That heaven keeps on file
And marks up every day
And traces us the while
We work and love and play
For me the river’s deep
And flowing much too fast
With memories to keep
Of faces from the past
We enter far upstream
And slowly drift the tide
Awake in God’s good dream
Till we are by His side
Wretchard,
Your post and “When I grow to old to dream” brought back a very poignant memory.
When my parents moved out of a house where they had lived for many years, they brought a car load of important things to store in our attic. My father commented “A very fragile collection–a collection of memories”.
Being young and naive, I thought that memories are not fragile, that they will endure after all else is lost. But my father, who later diagnosed Alzheimer’s Disease in himself when everyone else (including his doctors) denied it, knew better–knew that not only dreams but also memories can fade and disappear.
To our good memories, while they last.
Jim
When I lost my sister, with whom I was very close, someone told me she continued to live in my memory. I didn’t understand that then — I was still working through the anger stage of grieving. Now, some 18 years later, I think I finally understand. But I have to thank you, Wretchard, for reminding me so poignantly. And thanks too for the Sigmund Romberg/Nelson Eddy piece. Nicely done all around. F
Do Aussies wear tux’s to these events, and if so, were you in one?
I’ve only had to wear a tux once to a formal “regimental” diner. But I don’t go out much.
Here in the Appalachian mountains where I live, I once had an old neighbor in his 80′s who told me wonderful tales of what this region was like in the early 1900′s. One of the most memorable things he told me was about when the church bell tolled in the middle of the week.
Everyone around here in those days — Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist, Free-Will, Independent, Church of Christ, etc — knew the particular sound of their church bell. When it rang in the middle of the week, it was announcing a death. Upon hearing that, men from the congregation would walk or ride their horses to their church graveyard, carrying their shovels, and often a “jug.”
Once at the church, the men discovered who died and took turns digging the grave. As they dug, and talked, and nursed “the jug,” they shared memories of the deceased. I would love to think my male friends would do this on my passing.
On the other hand, one of the funniest stories my old neighbor told me was about the time, when after digging about half the grave and all the jug, the men decided the deceased was a son of a b*tch and not worth a decent grave.
Salt Lick, that’s hilarious! Thanks for the laugh!
Wretchard, I really appreciate this blog. There are a lot of times when I think most of the world is so damned stupid they shouldn’t be allowed out of doors without a minder. Reading this blog reminds me that there are at least some extremely wise people out there who are trying hard to restrain the fools and who will be there later to help restore things after the political class crashes them.
SL/10–your story reminded me of one my grandfather used to tell. He made The Run into Oklahoma as a baby and swore his father used to tell it. I always assumed it was a joke but was never sure:
Back in Arkansas, in a small hill community, there was a town drunk, a total wreck and reprobate who frightened children, insulted decent women, and made a spectacle of himself daily.
One day he died and, as was the custom, the leading men of the community took up a collection and purchased part of the cost of a cheap coffin from the undertaker, who donated the rest himself.
They formed a small procession up to the charity part of the graveyard, placed the coffin in the grave, then stood back. At this point, it was the custom to speak some kind words about the deceased and generally think about his or her life.
They stood there in silence. After a long pause it became uncomfortably clear that none of them could think of a single favorable thing to say about the departed alcoholic.
Finally the town barber shuffled his feet and cleared his throat: “Well,” he said with some hesitation, “he wasn’t a hard man to shave.”
Every mornin’ when the Sun come up,
She brings me coffee in my favourite cup,
That’s how I know…
ADE
Gordon @ 12
And, after another long awkward silence, some one said “Well, sometimes he wasn’t as bad as he was the rest of the time”.
Jim
When a friend or loved family member passes, we weep for ourselves. This has always helped me who have lost so many friends. I hope it may help others
ETERNAL VISION
by
J. Sig Paulson
They know me not
who think that I am only flesh and blood —– a transient dweller on the fragile spaceship earth that gave me human birth.
For I am Spirit:
eternal, indestructible, not confined to space or time, and when my sojourn here is through, my roles fulfilled, my assignments done, I will lay aside this space suit called my body and move on to other mansions, roles, assignments in our Father’s house of eternal life.
So dry your tears;
weep not overmuch for me — nor for yourself.
Set me free in the love that holds us all and makes us one eternally.
Our paths will cross again. Our minds and hearts will touch.
Our souls will shout with joy and laughter. As we recall the lives we’ve lived, the worlds we’ve seen, the ways we’ve trod to find ourselves –at last
–in God.
Belmont Club is a party where you arrive and are given a present. You never know what it will be, and yet you know it will be a blessing. Thank you W. for your vision.
It isn’t just people we love, but our pets. Dean Koontz has just written a book, “a big little life” as tribute to his dog Trixie. Love just glows in it. The deaths of those given such short lives, can make us appreciate love more, as precious sign of divine presence.
The night after my brother died of cancer more than ten years ago, I heard his voice say “I love you…”, two thousand miles from where he died. Knowing I will see him again, it still is painful. Yet this pain is simply love in a different form.
The Rabbi looked at the congregation and looked at the departed and looked back at the congregation.
“Well, his brother was worse.”
Little things do mean a lot. Only a very small man would refuse to tie a small child’s shoelace. Perhaps that is why we love dogs and small garden plots. They allow us to be decent in a small way. John Keegan said that during WW-I the British trenches were the scene of intense gardening. We had a saying on the ships, “Big dogs don’t bark.”
presbypoet,
Regarding our furry friends. There is a line in Blade Runner when the inventor tries to console the replicant, Rutger Hauer, who is about to kill him, “The light that burns the brightest …”
Presby,
You remind me, I have yet to summon the courage to read Levin’s book about his dog.
—
Another sort of Terminal Launch:
One Way Trip to Titan
In the advertiser’s own persuasive and humane words: “I am certain you will make it safely to Titan but there will not be enough fuel to get home. This is for someone unique that has always wanted to see the universe first-hand and has perhaps a terminal view on life here at home. Here’s your shot at romantic history.”
Yes, that’s right. You won’t be coming back. At all. Ever. So perhaps you might want to check what the nightlife is like on Titan. Because that might be the only way you could really create romantic history.
Tears in Rain (Director’s Cut 1992)
Tip O’Neill was famous for attending Communion Breakfasts in his district and calling by name many of the people sitting in the hall. He knew them from way back, knew their families, and knew their names. All politics is local, even if right now politics seem scripted from some national level.
Paul Wellstone was another great people person, always ready with a name, a story, an invitation. You might not like his politics, but you seldom met a person who didn’t like him personally. Veterans especially liked him.
Obama, on the other hand, seems like someone who could care less about the neighbors and the average Joe at the church event. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think so.
Is Obama Poised to Cede US Sovereignty?
It’s strange to find my car and its passengers described as “a conveyance with such an assortment of unlikely characters that we must have resembled a clown car.”
However, it was a great evening. We all enjoyed ourselves and John Howard was in fine form.
By the way Richard, your American readers may be interested to know that Frank lived for some years in the United States as well as in London and Tokyo before coming to Sydney, where he put down his final roots. Along the way he was a senior editor of Reader’s Digest and editor of the Chicago Sun Times, the New York Post and later, The Australian.
See here:
http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2009/9/frank-devine-as-essayist
And here:
http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/people/editor-and-columnist-frank-devine-dies-20090703-d757.html
And here:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25761426-7583,00.html
Frank Devine leaves also a daughter, Miranda, who does an excellent job of attacking the bullshit foisted un a sometimes gullible public by politicians and many in the media.
Someone once said:
“In the end, all we have is memories.”
I don’t feel old, but am. Not as greybeard as some, but a whole lot more than others. I still feel the same as when I was eighteen, wondering what the day will bring.
I thank the Lord for people such as those that meander here and leave tidbits and morsels for my mind.
Thank you all.
tomw
Goodness, you folks do nice elegy. I loved the Reader’s Digest and never understood the snob compulsion to make light of it. The logic seemed to be, if it can’t be War and Peace then please, peasant, just sit still and don’t read nuthin’. But RD never pretended to be anything more than what it was, which was a reader’s digest, just like it said on the cover.
Speaking of the message on the cover, the dearly departed sure sported a humdinger. When your name is a good definition of ‘truth’ –that is, something both frank and divine –and then you have managed to live up to it and have made it fitting, well that’s to have been a whole lot more than just not all that hard to shave.
Walt, the muse never leaves your side –clearly she finds you interesting! or at least your mind anyway, which is almost as good. May i add to your most edifying peroration on time and life, that, while time does fly like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.
Presbypoet #16: “Belmont Club is a party where you arrive and are given a present. You never know what it will be, and yet you know it will be a blessing. Thank you W. for your vision.”
I’ll second that. Wretchard is the man; but boy he has some good buddies. I get such a kick out of Walt’s poetry, Subotai’s incisive take and real-world grounding, LOTM, Leo Lindbeck, Luddy, others.
Never met any of you, but there is a meeting of the minds. Which is exactly Wretchard’s point here. In such minor crossings and brief bouquets of idea, word, question, story, joke, do we live our best selves and create what is most valuable.
Stay well, all. Life is not a rehearsal and I am just glad to find myself on the same part of the stage with you.
Death?
Death has always scared me from a young age.
My grandfather who was my only father figure died when I was 6 years old and with him went my child’s eyes. I feared death constantly from that age on. I feared my mother’s death and my other grandparent’s eventual demise. Death [it seemed to me] was around every corner. Death happened so much and too fast and unfairly.
I lost two fourteen year old cats this year. Death is cruel too and I shan’t go into details.
I’m still young but still terrified of death.
Why?
Because I have so much left I want to do! I have so many books unread, songs unsung/unwritten, stories untold, recipes uncooked…etc.
Life is so fleeting and scary and beautiful and fast.
I cry a lot lately.
Must be the moon.
Yeah, right!
Bless you.
Key West
Life Lessons is a dramatic and inspiring story of Captain Tony Tarracino’s remarkable journey from the ghettos of Elizabeth, NJ to becoming a living legend serving as the Mayor Emeritus of Key West. He has made a career of being a mesmerizing storyteller, captivating personality, and Casanova of the sea.
Rest In Peace Captain Tony
Captain Tony dies at 92. The Key West legend died peacefully at the end of a week that celebrated his extra-large life. Recently memorialized in a new book, though already unforgettable to everyone who met him,
Captain Tony died November 1, 2008.
Captain Tony Tarracino
I believe W has come up with a wonderful description of what Belmont Club truly is: “a conveyance with such an assortment of unlikely characters that we must have resembled a clown car.”
We find a place here where the most serious of topics are wrestled with, as we seek to comprehend and understand Truth. Yet with a sense of humor, where we can laugh at death, laugh at evil, the new emperor and his “new” clothes.
I had an image of God looking down on us, as we exit the car. We are a bunch of clowns, each entertaining in a different way, and He laughed with us. A laugh full of Joy.
The best weapon against evil is laughter. The devil hates Joy.
Hat tip, Deuce
—
You remind me of why I was always more than willing to check
“Presbyterian” when asked,
Presby.
From The Weight of Glory by C.S.Lewis
“It is a serious thing
to live in a society of possible gods and
goddesses, to remember that the dullest
and most uninteresting person you talk to
may one day be a creature which, if you
saw it now, you would be strongly tempted
to worship, or else a horror and a
corruption such as you now meet, if at all,
only in a nightmare. All day long we are,
in some degree, helping each other to one
or other of these destinations. It is in the
light of these overwhelming possibilities, it
is with the awe and the circumspection
proper to them, that we should conduct all
our dealings with one another, all
friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.
There are no ordinary people. You have
never talked to a mere mortal. Nations,
cultures, arts, civilization—these are
mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of
a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke
with, work with, marry, snub, and
exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting
splendours.”
Responding to the link by 21.Charles to Youtube of Lord Monckton’s account of the pending UN AGW treaty which Obama is likely to sign….
Al “bovine-fecal-matter-for-brains” Gore, when serving as vice-president under Wm.J.”can’t-control-his-willie” Clinton, put his signature on the infamous Kyoto agreement.
Back stateside, the U.S. Senate had previously voted 95-0 (Byrd-Hagel Resolution, Senate resolution 98) to reject any such protocol which failed to provide binding strictures on developing nations similar to those on the already industrialized countries.
The point of mentioning this is that for the U.S. to be bound to a treaty, it must be ratified by the Senate; signature of an ambassador or even the President is insufficient.
The League of Nations had to fail on its own without participation of the U.S., because Wilson couldn’t sell the idea to the U.S. Senate after signing.
On the other hand, the the power of the Senate in restraining the sort of promiscuous president as we currently have, resides in its constitutional role of Advise and Consent.
Lord Monckton’s address is possibly the most sobering of all the extremities of this administration. His performance so far shows clearly that Barack Hussein Obama would unhesitatingly and full willing surrender power over every citizen of the U.S. to the murdering pimp-pervert-lying-embezzling-thieving thugs who run the United Nations.
More calls to our Senators are in order.
Here is a link to the video so you don’t have to go back to find it above. The person who posted the video of Monckton speaking as a guest of the Free Market Institute at Bethel University has comments and links, which I have pasted below, The original text is found in the “more info” section which Youtube provides to allow the poster to give more details. Find it near the upper right hand of the page, near the top… Just click on “more info” to expand the display.
___________________
“On October 14, Lord Christopher Monckton, a noted climate change skeptic, gave a presentation at Bethel University in St. Paul, MN. In this 4 minute excerpt from his speech, he issues a dire warni…
On October 14, Lord Christopher Monckton, a noted climate change skeptic, gave a presentation at Bethel University in St. Paul, MN. In this 4 minute excerpt from his speech, he issues a dire warning to all Americans regarding the United Nations Climate Change Treaty, scheduled to be signed in Copenhagen in December 2009.
A draft of the petition can be read here:
http://www.globalclimatescam.com/documents/un-fccc-copenhagen-2009.pdf
Page 18: Section 38 of the “Share vision for long-term cooperation action plan” contains the text for forming the new government.
Page 40: Section 46 Subsection H of the “Objectives, scope, and guiding principles” contains the text for enforcement and establishment of the rule of law.
There has been considerable debate about Monckton’s conclusion that the Compenhagen Treaty would cede US sovereignty to a world government. His comment appears to be based upon his interpretation of the The Supremecy Clause in the US Constitution (Article VI, paragraph 2). This clause establishes the Constitution, Federal Statutes, and U.S. TREATIES as the supreme law of the land. Concerns have been raised in the past that a particularly ambitious treaty may supersede the US Constitution. In the 1950s, a constitutional amendment, known as the Bricker Amendment, was proposed in response to such fears, but it failed to pass. You can read more about the Bricker Amendment in a 1953 Time Magazine article:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/art…,9171,806676-1,00.html
Lord Monckton served as a policy adviser to Margaret Thatcher. He has repeatedly challenged Al Gore to a debate to which Gore has refused. Monckton sued to stop Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth” from being shown in British schools due to its inaccuracies. The judge found in-favor of Monckton, ordering 9 serious errors in the film to be corrected. Lord Monckton travels internationally in an attempt to educating the public about the myth of global warming.”
Hey, Richard – hope to meet you at one of those events!