A Happier New Year

Photo ⓒ VRBatterson

My plans for this end-of-the-year post didn't materialize, and I simply ran out of time. I started working on what I wanted to say a couple of weeks ago after visiting the 9/11 Museum in New York, but it seemed none of my words could adequately express the emotion I felt during that visit. I wanted to tie that time with some things that have been on my mind for quite a while, but everything I wrote seemed rushed. My muse has abandoned me it seems, and I need to find her. Holiday demands haven't helped, and perhaps I can blame most of it on that time of year, but darn that muse. Enough with the vacation!

All I can offer at this time are some wonderful poems by Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919), and her reflections of the season. Thank you to everyone who continues to read this blog; several years and counting. May it continue.

My wishes to all: 1) a happier new year than the last, 2) don't drink and drive, 3) best wishes for good health, 4) show the people you love that you do, and 5) stay warm!

Peace.

THE YEAR

What can be said in New Year rhymes,
That's not been said a thousand times? 

The new years come, the old years go,
We know we dream, we dream we know. 

We rise up laughing with the light,
We lie down weeping with the night. 

We hug the world until it stings,
We curse it then and sigh for wings. 

We live, we love, we woo, we wed,
We wreathe our brides, we sheet our dead. 

We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,
And that's the burden of the year. 

NEW YEAR'S DAY

When with clanging and with ringing
    Comes the year's initial day,
I can feel the rhythmic swinging
    Of the world upon its way;
And though Right still wears a fetter,
    And though Justice still is blind,
Time's beyond is always better
    Than the paths he leaves behind.

In our eons of existence,
    As we circle through the night,
We annihilate the distance
    'Twixt the darkness and the light.
From beginnings crude and lowly,
    Round and round our souls have trod
Through the circles, winding slowly
    Up to knowledge and to God.

With each century departed
    Some old evil found a tomb,
Some old truth was newly started
    In propitious soil to bloom.
With each epoch some condition
    That has handicapped the race
(Worn-out creed or superstition)
    Unto knowledge yields its place.

Though in folly and in blindness
    And in sorrow still we grope,
Yet in man's increasing kindness
    Lies the world's stupendous hope;
For our darkest hour of errors
    Is as radiant as the dawn,
Set beside the awful terrors
    Of the ages that have gone.

And above the sad world's sobbing,
    And the strife of clan with clan,
I can hear the mighty throbbing
    Of the heart of God in man;
And a voice chants through the chiming
    Of the bells, and seems to say,
We are climbing, we are climbing,
    As we circle on our way.

NEW YEAR RESOLVE

As the dead year is clasped by a dead December,
   So let your dead sins with your dead days lie.
A new life is yours and a new hope. Remember
   We build our own ladders to climb to the sky.

Stand out in the sunlight of promise, forgetting
   Whatever the past held of sorrow and wrong.
We waste half our strength in a useless regretting;
   We sit by old tombs in the dark too long.

Have you missed in your aim?  Well, the mark is still shining.
   Did you faint in the race?  Well, take breath for the next.
Did the clouds drive you back?  But see yonder their lining.
   Were you tempted and fell?  Let it serve for a text.

As each year hurries by, let it join that procession
   Of skeleton shapes that march down to the past
While you take your place in the line of progression,
   With your eyes to the heavens, your face to the blast.

I tell you the future can hold no terrors
   For any sad soul while the stars revolve,
If he will stand firm on the grave of his errors,
   And instead of regretting--resolve, resolve!

It is never too late to begin rebuilding,
   Though all into ruins your life seems hurled;
For see! how the light of the New Year is gilding
   The wan, worn face of the bruised old world.

NEW YEAR
As the old year sinks down in Time's ocean,
    Stand ready to launch with the new,
And waste no regrets, no emotion,
    As the masts and the spars pass from view.
Weep not if some treasures go under,
    And sink in the rotten ship's hold,
That blithe bonny barque sailing yonder
    May bring you more wealth than the old.

For the world is for ever improving,
    All the past is not worth one to-day,
And whatever deserves our true loving,
    Is stronger than death or decay.
Old love, was it wasted devotion?
    Old friends, were they weak or untrue?
Well, let them sink there in mid-ocean,
    And gaily sail on to the new.

Throw overboard toil misdirected,
    Throw overboard ill-advised hope,
With aims which, your soul has detected,
    Have self as their centre and scope.
Throw overboard useless regretting
    For deeds which you cannot undo,
And learn the great art of forgetting
    Old things which embitter the new.

Sing who will of dead years departed,
    I shroud them and bid them adieu,
And the song that I sing, happy-hearted,
    Is a song of the glorious new.

Copyright ⓒ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Mid-South Arts Against Hunger

The second annual Mid-South Arts Against Hunger food drive to benefit the Mid-South Food Bank in Memphis will be underway soon.  Officially scheduled to run from November 27 until December 21, patrons of participating arts organizations are asked to bring non-perishable food items when attending events during this time.  Some groups are hosting free admission specials in exchange for donations. Collection boxes will be at each location.

The Orpheum Theatre in Memphis will be showing the holiday movie, Miracle on 34^th Street, on December 20 with free admission to anyone bringing a non-perishable food item for the food drive. Santa Claus will be on hand for photo opportunities. Patrons of the Orpheum can also simply donate during the entire run of the drive when attending anything at the theatre, and at the Halloran Centre.

The Dixon Gallery & Gardens is offering free admission until Christmas to anyone who brings three canned good items for the drive.

In addition to the Orpheum Theatre Group, and the Dixon Gallery & Gardens, some of the other arts organizations participating this year are Opera Memphis, Arts Memphis, Ballet Memphis, New Ballet Ensemble, University of Memphis College of Communications & Fine Arts, Brooks Museum, and the Blues Foundation.  

Many thanks to all of these great groups for participating and for helping to ease the pain of hunger this holiday season. For more information, check the community events calendar at www.midsouthfoodbank.org.

The War of the Worlds

Between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m. on October 30, 1938, listeners tuning in to the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) radio broadcast thought they were listening to live orchestral music from Park Plaza in New York.  What they weren’t expecting to hear were special bulletins and interviews interrupting the hour-long program.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt our program of dance music to bring you a special bulletin from the Intercontinental Radio News. At twenty minutes before eight, central time, Professor Farrell of the Mount Jennings Observatory, Chicago, Illinois, reports observing several explosions of incandescent gas, occurring at regular intervals on the planet Mars…Ladies and gentlemen…Seismograph registered shock of almost earthquake intensity occurring within a radius of twenty miles of Princeton. Please investigate…Could this occurrence possibly have something to do with the disturbances observed on the planet Mars? Ladies and gentlemen…It is reported that at 8:50 p.m. a huge, flaming object, believed to be a meteorite, fell on a farm in the neighborhood of Grovers Mill, New Jersey…we have dispatched a special mobile unit to the scene…Ladies and gentlemen…object itself doesn’t look very much like a meteor…looks more like a huge cylinder…I’ve never seen anything like it…Just a minute…something’s happening! Ladies and gentlemen…this is terrific…the top is beginning to rotate like a screw…she’s moving…the darn thing’s unscrewing…keep back, keep back! Ladies and gentlemen, this is the most terrifying thing I’ve ever witnessed…SCREAMS AND UNEARTHLY SHRIEKS…now the whole field’s caught fire…EXPLOSION THEN DEAD SILENCE.”

Then a little bit later, “Ladies and gentlemen…I’m speaking from the roof of the Broadcasting Building, New York City. The bells you hear are ringing to warn the people to evacuate the city as the Martians approach. Estimated in the last two hours three million people have moved out along the road to the north, Hutchison River Parkway still kept open for motor traffic. Avoid bridges to Long Island…hopelessly jammed. All communication with Jersey shore closed ten minutes ago. No more defenses. Our army wiped out…artillery, air force, everything wiped out. This may be the last broadcast. We’ll stay here to the end…People are holding service below us…in the cathedral.”

Now imagine what might have been going through listeners’ minds who had tuned in to the program midway through it, hearing claims that aliens from Mars had invaded New Jersey.  With the concerns of World War II imminent, hysteria and panic ensued; the phone lines at CBS were jammed with callers, and police officers arrived at the studio ready to shut down the production.  It wasn’t until the close of that long hour that all was revealed to be what it really was: a Halloween hoax, orchestrated by a young Orson Welles.  The above was taken as excerpts from the radio transcript airing that night.

The twenty-three-year-old Welles directed and narrated an adaptation of H.G. Wells’ (no relation) science fiction classic, The War of the Worlds, for an episode of the Mercury Theatre on the Air, complete with live bulletins and sound effects. While the novel’s aliens invaded Great Britain, Welles and company had the Martians landing in the United States with actors reacting to the fictional tale.  It stirred up a lot of trouble for the network and the actors, with the Federal Communications Commission launching an investigation into Welles that would eventually be dropped.  The actor even lamented that he feared his career was over.

Legend of the panic escalated and grew over the years.  Decades later, some say the panic was nothing more than myth and hype created mostly by newspapers taking vengeance against broadcasters. They argued that the Mercury Theatre on the Air had few listeners, and the newspapers sensationalized the coverage to place doubt with advertisers about the integrity of radio broadcasts.  It seemed to be about revenue.

Orson Welles didn’t disappear; he lived until the age of seventy, working in theatre, film and radio.  I first learned about the early radio broadcast during a film class in college.  We researched Welles and watched his 1941 classic, Citizen Kane (with Welles’ character based on newspaper magnate, William Randolph Hearst). Told in flashback, the movie is about a reporter who goes in search of discovering the meaning of Kane’s dying word, “Rosebud”.  While I won’t give away the meaning behind it, I do recall being rather close in what I thought it to be. I also remember thinking Orson Welles (as co-screenwriter) was very clever with that script; some probably believe he was just as clever in what he did with that radio broadcast three years earlier, even though he claimed there was no intent behind it.

Finally, as we near the 79^th anniversary of that infamous broadcast which instilled fear and belief that Martians were walking on earth, I’ll end with the final statement of the transcript.  Also, Happy Halloween, everyone.  May there be no Martians threatening tricks this All Hallows’ Eve.

“Orson Welles:  This is Orson Welles, ladies and gentlemen, out of character to assure you that The War of the Worlds has no further significance than as the holiday offering it was intended to be.  The Mercury Theatre’s own radio version of dressing up in a sheet and jumping out of a bush and saying Boo! Starting now, we couldn’t soap all your windows and steal all your garden gates by tomorrow night…so we did the best next thing.  We annihilated the world before your very ears, and utterly destroyed the C.B.S.  You will be relieved, I hope, to learn that we didn’t mean it, and that both institutions are still open for business.  So, goodbye everybody, and remember the terrible lesson you learned tonight.  That grinning, glowing globular invader of your living room is an inhabitant of the pumpkin patch, and if your doorbell rings and nobody’s there, that was no Martian…it’s Hallowe’en.”

Part of the transcript for the 1938 radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds

  

Montana's Big Sky

The first indication of warning was from the Montana Department of Transportation.  The portable road sign with its changeable message flashed, “Wildfire Situation Ahead. Do not stop along the shoulders. Reduced speed enforced.”  The next message was about a mile farther, painted on a wooden plank and propped against a tree in someone’s front yard.  It read: “Thank you firefighters. Stay safe.” 

Unbeknownst to us, we were driving into a wildfire zone.  I suppose under normal situations, the haze and smoke would have been indicators, but we’d been in Montana for several days and were leaving Glacier National Park, which had been dealing with recent wildfires that started the day before we arrived.  As a result of a severe thunderstorm, 150 lightning strikes sparked several wildfires due to very dry conditions, so the haze had been part of our visit.  Three fires in the park are still burning, with officials speculating that the larger one won’t be completely contained until the first snowfall of the season.

Sperry Chalet on July 21 - Photo by Bret Bouda

But this particular wildfire had been burning longer and continues to spread.  The Rice Ridge Fire in the Lolo National Forest started July 24.  It, too, was triggered by lightning.  Driving south along Highway 83 and nearing the town of Seeley Lake, we saw and smelled what residents had been dealing with for a while.  As one local said to us, shrugging, “You get used to it, but it’s frustrating.  What are you going to do? Lightning.”

As of this writing, the Rice Ridge Fire is still burning, consuming over 139,500 acres and the town of Seeley Lake has been evacuated.  Its residents not only have the worry of what might happen to their homes and businesses, they also have been breathing some unhealthy and toxic air for weeks.  Yet very little about this or any of the forty-eight active wildfires that are ravaging the state have been reported nationally.

Sperry Chalet/Sprague Wildfire - Glacier Natl Park Photo

Our visit to Montana originated in Salt Lake City, Utah.  As my husband and I drove closer to Idaho, the haze became part of the landscape and stayed with us until we headed home from North Dakota.  Except for one afternoon.  Clear visibility occurred the day after some heavy rains cleared the smoke for a bit in Glacier National Park.  It briefly revealed to us what I had traveled there to see.  Stunning vistas, rugged terrain and Montana’s big sky.  However, those rains didn’t contain one little fire.  From the shores of Lake McDonald at Apgar Village during those clear-sky hours, we saw the Sprague fire smoldering just behind some peaks, its smoke rising into the sky as if being released from a smokestack or chimney.  Nothing more.  However, it became a lot more.  It has now burned over 14,000 acres, destroying a National Historic Landmark, Sperry Chalet (built 1914), in the park and forcing early closure of nearby McDonald Lodge and the west entrance to the Going-to-the-Sun Road.  It’s the fire that some think that only Mother Nature can entirely contain with snowfall.  That might seem fitting since Mother Nature was its cause.

My iPhone photos of Lake McDonald 

I had originally planned for this blog post to be about our visit to Montana, with descriptions of the beautiful scenery accompanied by photographs I had taken.  I couldn’t wait to see “Big Bend” along the Going-to-the-Sun Road, its carpet of wildflowers leading down to a valley, with four separate mountains and peaks jutting against blue sky and white clouds along the horizon.  It wasn’t to be. The breathtaking drive up to Logan Pass in one of the park’s official Red Buses (something I highly recommend doing given the narrowness of the Going-to-the-Sun Road and the amount of traffic on it) was special.  But “Big Bend” couldn’t offer the usual spectacular view, as haze and clouds hung low like curtains shuttering away the setting behind it.  Logan Pass was the same.  Mother Nature’s theatre was dark.  Still, glimpses of the grandeur were there, better caught with my eyes and my imagination, if not with my camera.  And while I had hoped for more photo opportunities of that big sky, I feel it was good to see first-hand what was happening, and unfortunately what was to come.   

Montana is burning.  As are Oregon, Washington, California, Idaho, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada.  Over eight million acres burned thus far; people, wildlife, homes, buildings and livelihoods continue to be affected, with air quality unfit in many places.  Lives have been lost. And the word needs to spread, just as rampantly as those fires have.  The nation’s attention has been focused on the hurricane devastations in the south, and rightly so.  But there is need and attention north and west, and it’s a desperate situation.

In addition to The American Red Cross, there are other donation and giving opportunities available in Montana such as The Missoula United Way, the 406 Family Aid Foundation, Garfield County Fire Foundation Relief Fund (via fundly.com), Bear Paw Volunteer Fire Department (on its Facebook page), Lolo MT Community Outreach Group, Eureka Chamber of Commerce and the Libby Ministerial Association. The same exists for all of the other states affected, as well.  Simply do a google search to find what’s best for you.  Everything helps, and pass the word.  Share the need, this post, news articles and the like to your Facebook and Twitter pages.  Tell your friends and families.  Hopefully, the media will take notice.