Henry M. Blanchard II, 2nd Lieutenant, Army Air Corps

For a very long time, I have been trying to find some information on my dad's first cousin, Henry M. Blanchard II, whose bomber was shot down over the South Pacific during WWII. Through some websites that I came across recently, I found his squadron, rank and date of death and the placement of a monument in Manila, Phillipines

Today, I came across the above picture, which shows my cousin, Mac, third from left on the top row, with the rest of the crew. The man to his left, the reader's right, is the captain of the bomber. Its hard to believe I could find such information. I am still looking for additional information.

The bombers were apparently coordinating bombing runs over Palua, where a Japanese airstrip was located. MY cousin's plane was shot down over Palau on August 25, 1944. There were no survivors and the bodies were not found. This has been a source of mystery for the family ever since.

December 9, 1941

Imagine what Pearl Harbor was like on December 9, 1941. I am sure the ships that had been hit and damaged by the attack were still smoldering in the harbor. The local surviving populace was probably still in a state of shock. At that point, most of the population of the mainland in the United States was aware of the damage in Pearl Harbor and the surrounding air bases. The attacks on the Phillipines were in full swing and we were battling to save our territories in the South Pacific from the Japanese.

I read a book which was a diary of a young man from Winder, Georgia named Rocky Gause. He was assigned to act as a radar operator, even though few people really knew anything about operating radar. When the attack occured in Manila, he and his buddy headed up to the mountains above Manila to take their posts and were ultimately captured by the Japanese invaders. Later, they escaped the Bataan Death March and ultimately made it to Australia. Its an amazing book and I highly recommend it.

Rocky Gause wanted to be a fighter pilot. Later in the war he died in a training mission. It was ironic that after making such an amazing escape from the occupied Phillipines he ultimately died in a fluke.

My dad had a first cousin named Henry McKoy "Mac" Blanchard. Mac grew up in Chattanooga and attended McCallie School in Chattanooga. Later, he attended a year at the University of Florida before he enlisted in the Army Air Corp during World War II. He was a Navigator/Bombadier in a bomber stationed in the Pacific. Growing up I knew that his plane crashed and he was not found, but no one knew much beyond that.

On December 7th, I was able to look up some military records on Cousin Mac and found some information on him. He was a liuetenant in the Army Air Corp. His plane was shot down on August 25, 1944. He remains missing. However, there is a monument to him and the other members of his crew at Fort McKinley in Manila. I would like to visit that site some day. I have never had much of a desire to visit the Phillipines, but I wouldn't mind visiting for that purpose some day.

I was born five days and fifteen years after Pearl Harbor. I understand that the USS Enterprise returned to Pearl on the 12th of December, 1941. I can only imagine what they found when they returned.

Recuscitation

Between driving up and back to Ballground for a closing on Friday evening, working in the yard on Saturday and driving back and forth between Griffin and Dunwoody on Sunday, come Monday morning I was tuckered. I did not get much sleep on the night before and was not very awake on Monday morning when I was driving Cindy to Southern Crescent Technical College.

Afterward, I had to drive over to Office Max to drop off a closing package for delivery to the lender. When I got there there was a young mother and her toddler son, who appeared to have had some type of surgery, as he had a tube coming out of his mouth. As the mother waited for the clerk to make copies and ring up the sale, the little boy walked around staring at the world of Office Max.

Finally, his eyes lit on my face and I smiled down at him. At the receipt of my smile, the little boy came forward and hugged me around the knees. It happended so quickly and not many of the people in the store seemed to notice. It did make my morning and allowed my world to rescusitate from the slumber in which it had been travelling up to that point.

Fall and Winter coming

After a long weekend in the mountains above Blue Ridge, waking up to the sun rising orange over the mountains and the fog rising up from the valleys below us, we had just begun to see the leaves turning color on the trees. We drove home on Sunday. The turning of the leaves had been a small part of the enjoyment of our trip.

Then Monday rolled around and the other side of Autumn came to visit: dark, grey clouds and drizzle from morning to sunset. With the exception of Wednesday, we have been covered with grey flannel skies all week and it appears that it will continue at least until sometime tomorrow.

Don't get me wrong. Fall drizzle and clouds have been with me since I was old enough to be aware of the weather. It is part of the season. But on the other hand, I do remember those Autumn afternoons in Virginia when I was in college and the air was cool and dry and the sun reflected off the orange and crimson leaves on the trees around the campus. It was what made the season sublime.

It will only be awhile before we get to that point in late November and early December when the air turns dry again and the leaves have left the trees and you can travel through the world of early Winter and see the dying light of day creating silhouettes with the bare trees and the pines against the western sky. Feeling the warmth from the heater in the car and catching sight of the art of Early December.

It brings me comfort in a comfortless time of year.

October is upon us

The rust of Autumn is attacking the leaves on the dogwoods and maples. Beginning tomorrow or Saturday the high temperatures are supposed to be in the high 70's. Lows should be getting down in the forties. The coolness of the dying year will soon be upon us and we will have those days where the morning is chill, with an afternoon warmth followed by a new chill as the evening brings its darkness. Deutsches bier weather. A good time for flagons of ale and sausages with potatoes and cabbage. A trip to Helen, the ficticious Alpine village in north Georgia. Day dying in the western mountains.

Next weekend we will be traversing up to Blue Ridge for a weekend in the mountains of Union County. Buying fresh apples and apple bread and pumpkins and cinnamon spices in the air. Checking the effect of the passing clouds and the sun on the ridges of the mountains surrounding us. Reading a book in a rocking chair. Chasing the raccoons down the road. The light from the headlights reflecting in the eyes of the possums and other critters.

I have a hard time picking between Spring and Autumn. Then again, there are some wonderful things about Summer and Winter, as well.

September sunshine

The sun is high in the early afternoon sky. Soft fleecy clouds hang in the baby blue above. The humidity which hung heavily in the first part of the week is gone now. The temperature is in the low eighties today. Kate is coming home for the weekend. I am travelling to Columbus this afternoon. I hope to return early enough to eat seafood with Cindy and Kate at Sixth Street Pier. I look forward to the rest of the afternoon and the weekend. Its good to have the whole family reunited.

Tomorrow, Carolyn Jones will be married in the grass behind the Buggs' house. We will eat barbecue and enjoy friends and family. The visit from Kate will be over too soon.

Tripping

I am wishing I could be in Lexington this weekend. Watching football and enjoying the scenery and walking around campus at W&L. Rediscovering old mental photos in the album of my brain. Wishing I could do something to show the value of my education. Enjoying the Virginia.

Local Eating

I am sitting here watching Anthony Bourdain walking around the city of New Orleans, my adopted third home (after Christian County-Montgomery County and Dunwoody), enjoying the culture and food of New France. He was talking with a writer/author who was lauding the ability of the Cajun/creole folks to hold on to their food culture. Lately, I have been enjoying Restauants in Atlanta and even at Callaway Gardens where they specialize in local foods and dishes maybe tweaked a bit. Georgia white shrimp is my favorite. But I was thinking about the movie, "The Help" and for some reason thought of a story my grandmother told about a place out in the county in Montgomery County, where African-Americans went to eat good food, drink, listen to music, fight, dance and have a good time. Apparently, there was a door on the side, where white folks went to get takeout. The irony is contained in the idea of a place where the whites couldn't go inside, but, instead, drove up and were served around the side. Just one spot where the usual segregated world was turned upside down. I also was thinking about smoked pork and country ham and peas and butter beans and watermelon pickles and my grandmother's biscuits, which I swear I will replicate some day. Real local Western Kentucky/Middle Tennessee food. I got to get me some!

A simple pleasure, recaptured

Yesterday morning, I spent most of the morning at the Georgia Bone & Joint offices in Newnan. I was there to see the orthopeadic surgeon to determine whether he would cut the cast off my arm and leave it off. As it turned out, he decided it was time to free my left arm from its bondage, so I drove back to Griffin, sans cast, and have spent the subsequent hours trying to get used to life without the big blue cast on my left arm.

As it turns out, the arm hurts more without the cast than with it. I may be wearing the splint I purchased at the beginning of this travail, just to give me some support and comfort. However, I am happy to get the opportunity, probably this weekend, to swim in a swimming pool and enjoy the only part of summer left untested. This morning, I was able to floss my teeth, shower without a plastic bag over my left arm, and feel confident that I was able to bathe and soap every part of my body.

One part still unresolved: wearing a wristwatch with a metal band is still difficult. I think I will wear a leather band for awhile.

Tonight, I drive to Ellerslie and back for a closing. I am back to being an accepted vendor for one of the title companies. Yay!

The Last Fall of College

When I was a Senior in college, during my last season of football, I would walk over to the gymnasium on late Sunday afternoons and sit in a hot whirlpool tub in my gym shorts for about an hour until my right knee felt loose. Usually, my buddy, Don Crossley would be in one of the other whirlpools. On the following Monday afternoon I would walk over to the lockerroom at Wilson Field, the old football stadium, after class, and paint my knee with atomic balm, a really hot, viscuous liquid liniment. It was dark orange-red and fragrant. When I pulled my knee brace over the knee, I would feel a comfortable heat on my knee which would last throughout the week. As we went through drills in preparation for the week's game, my knee would swell and feel more stable from the fluid.

After the game on Saturday afternoon, I would be bruised and swollen all over. After spending an afternoon of watching pro football on tv, trying to avoid having to watch the Redskins, who we all hated in my dorm apartment, Don and I would walk back to the trainer's room in the gym and start the process all over again.

My parents came to every game that year, as they had during my junior year. They got to travel to a lot of places, big and small: Sewanee, Tennessee; Danville, Kentucky; Georgetown, D.C.; Davidson, North Carolina; Emory, Virginia; Maryville, Tennessee. A few others I don't remember. Nice weekend trips in the Fall of the year; I hope they enjoyed the trips. It was an odd season. We had knew coaches. We worked harder. We felt like we were making progress, even if we were still losing most of our games. I still liked it. I look back on it fondly. My friends, coaches, trainers, professors and such. An Autumn thirty seven years ago. Man, I am old.

There is a Circle in Tennessee

There is a circle of trees in Tennessee
Of antique oaks and sugar maples
Where the furrowed fields roll round about them
And the sun and moon do pace their measure
And the circle is perfect
And the circle is true
As a golden wedding band
When first placed on its finger
Once we saints sat in lawn chairs
And recited ancient stories
That passed us from heat of day
To the cool of evensong
Beneath the perches of the quail
As they conversed among the branches
And all my family were there
Grandfather, uncle, greataunt and father
Preserved in their places
And I was swinging from a tire
Suspended from the obliging arm
Caught up in the eternal oak
All in a circle
All as one
All together
Forever caught in the honey amber
Stitched in the tapestry of the circle of trees.

To the Session of First Presbyterian Church of Griffin

Tonight as I lay in my bed before turning out the lights for sleep, I finished a book over which I have been laboring for a number of weeks. The book is a biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great German pastor who was executed in the last days of World War II. After the war in Europe was over and it became clear to his family and friends that he had not survived his imprisonment by the Nazis, an English clergyman and friend held a memorial service in London for him and all those who had died in Europe opposing Hitler and the Nazis. In the book I was reading, the author quoted the memorial sermon of the pastor, which was based on a quote from 2 Chronicles
20:12, "Neither know we what to do, but our eyes are upon Thee." At the end of the sermon, the pastor referenced the familiar lines from the Apostles' Creed as follows:

Yet our eyes are upon Thee. We believe in the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting....."

As I read these words, it occurred to me that God was sending a message through this sermon delivered sixty six years ago. The phrase 'communion of the saints' lept out to me from the page. In these times of strife and economic hardship, we are particularly called to the communion of saints. I am no theologian or Bible student. I do understand that the communion of saints refers more to our ultimate reunion with those who went before, but tonight I read that phrase in a broader mode as I considered how I fit into the communion of saints in Heaven as well as on earth today.

Two years ago this past July, my father passed away in Dunwoody. As we prepared for the memorial service at Mount Vernon Presbyterian Church in Sandy Springs, I was thinking more of my family traveling up from Florida and down from Tennessee and the members of the church and community who were friends with my parents or knew me from my time as a boy growing up in Dunwoody and in Sunday School. As the afternoon of the memorial service arrived, I was gratefully surprised to see members of our church family in Griffin coming up the walk to the narthex of the church, sitting in the pews I grew up in and sharing words of comfort and consolation with me at the reception.

I perhaps felt no greater connection to this communion of saints since Kate was baptized and later confirmed. I will always be grateful to those couples who came up from Griffin to support me and the rest of my family. It was a moment of touching communion with my brothers and sisters and an outpouring of their love.
When I think of 'the communion of saints' it is hard to break free of my memory of that afternoon gathering in Sandy Springs.

But now I fear we as a congregation are suffering from a weakness in the communion of the saints. For some time now, we have suffered from a feeling of the loss of connection with our friends here. The first time occurred when Cindy developed pneumonia and was missing from church for several months. No one called. No one asked me where she was when I was in church. People who we had been very close with throughout the years were absent.

Today, so many of my friends are now going to other churches. I don't see any great effort to reach out to them. There seems to be a lack of effort to preserve our sense of communion. I confess that I, like many of us, share responsibility for this break in the fabric of our communion. We all must consider how we can reach out to others in our community. I think if we are to preserve the mission of this church, we must pray and work to strengthen the communion of the saints. I understand that there are many reasons why people leave the church. I understand that Americans are culturally individualistic by nature.

But when we speak the creed, we state that we believe in the communion of the saints. The passage from 2 Chronicles instructs us to look to Jesus. In one of his parables, Jesus told his disciples that the shepherd would leave his flock to ensure the safety of the lost lamb. Are we not called to search for the lost lambs of our congregation? This church has been a shining light in this community and the world. God calls us to see after the lost lambs wherever they might be. We must make an effort to preserve the communion of the saints as we acknowledge in our creed. Amen

Word from the front

One more week and maybe I get this damned cast off my left arm. The pain and weakness is gone from my left ankle; I know not how. At least I could get free of these impediments and do something other than sitting on the couch, watching television. I have made it clear that when this blue cast comes off, I get a grilled hot dog, a cold beer and a swim in a pool. I hope this happens before the end of summer. Football season has already started. It's getting on there. I haven't been writing regularly. Using this I-phone is difficult. Convenient, but more difficult.

Dreary Summer Afternoon

The sky is a dark-blue grey color and the limbs on the trees are pitching back and forth. We are supposed to have a chance for rain today. It has looked ominous at several times this afternoon, but never as much as right now. I would like some rain this afternoon for the plants and the grass. Rain, rain, rain.

I have an appointment for this afternoon in a few minutes and I am supposed to travel up to Stockbridge for a closing for seven. It seems as if everyone is wondering if this closing will happen. I have the documents. I have spoken with the borrower twice. I am constantly getting calls. Everyone wants to know whether or not this thing is going off. How important is this closing?

I have received several calls for appointments for closings for this week today. One for Columbus, now cancelled. One for Warner Robins, now cancelled. One for Peachtree City, who knows? I am beginning to wonder.

I just want a little more rain.

Mortality

I spent all morning in the jury box of the Monroe County Justice Center watching the calendar call of criminal cases. Most of the calendar call was fairly light in tone. No one went to jail. The only change in tone occured when one of the accused fell asleep in the courtroom and elicited the irritation of the judge who sent the sleepy denizen to the back of the courtroom to be tested for drugs or alcohol. Later, he came back, rather sheepishly, and a deputy sheriff handed a piece of paper to the clerk, who handed same to the judge, who told the accused not to fall asleep in his courtroom. Meanwhile, the assistant d. a. I was here to speak with had to leave the courtroom I guess because of recent health problems. The whole drama left me with a sense of my own mortality. There, but for the grace of God, go we.

Thursday Heat

Thursday night. June 2nd. Hot as the gates of Hell. Ticks climbing on all of us. Fleas . I don't want to talk about it. This has been a very unsatisfactory end of the day. Too little to do; I picked up Cindy and went home and never went back today. Very unsatisfactory. Very hot and dry. Heat shimmers and dust.

June 1 Summer, with a stone on my chest

It is again quite warm this morning. I took the trash to the curb and realized that this is a holiday short week where they ordinarily adjust the pickup days so that trash pickups occur one day later. If that is the case, then pickup will happen on Thursday. Meanwhile, it is going to be in the middle to high 90's today and tomorrow. I get to run the sprinkler at lunch. Yay! Matt and Al are in Rome today. La-di-da. I am not trying to critique Catholicism. It is just not on my radar this morning. I have more concern for getting to the office on time.

I am on a Samuel Taylor Coleridge jag right now. He is definitely one of my favorites, although I do like all of the Romantic Poets: Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, Byron. All great. That was my first favorite class in college. Well, the heat lasted through the evening. I picked Cindy up at SCTC and the thermometer in her car read 103. That is hot for Georgia on the first day of June. The portents are ill in early June/late Spring. We haven't even had the Belmont and the end of professional hockey yet. That is silly.

A Fragment

I had a dream earlier tonight. I dreamed that I was on a date with a young women who resembled one of the Olson twins. She was a young blonde-haired women with bright blue eyes and a slender build. She seemed much younger than me. I encountered her in her offices with her colleagues and friends, which caused me to feel like an outsider. After suffering the continuing experience of alienation at the hands of her co-workers, I determined that it would be better to find my car and call it a night. I apologized to my date and headed through the parking deck in her office building to my car. My date followed and we talked quietly as we walked. When I got to my car, I noticed damage to my windshield and a ticket. We discussed my problem and she registered concern and empathy. I suddenly discovered similarities with her that I hadn't noticed before. We stood and talked in the parking deck and suddenly she was in my arms and we were planning another meeting for the future.I remarked to her about our similarities. My dream ended when Cindy and the dog got up in the middle of the night. I awoke.

More Coleridge. "In Xanadu, did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree..."

Taking the fruits as they come

I am sitting in a chair on our back patio. Cindy is sweeping the refuse and water left over from watering the plants on what Cindy refers to as "our little piece of Provence." I am sitting with my foot up, in an aircast. I am doing my best to replicate Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his poem, "This Lime Tree Bower, My Prison". There are no lime trees, but there are two lemon trees and the fruit are still green. Cindy has been working on the garden in the heat. I have been resting with my foot up; I think I may have turned a corner today. Just a bit more rest and a couple more pills might do the trick.


The Lime-tree Bower my Prison [Addressed to Charles Lamb]

Well, they are gone, and here must I remain,
This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost
Beauties and feelings, such as would have been
Most sweet to my remembrance even when age
Had dimm'd mine eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile,
Friends, whom I never more may meet again,
On springy heath, along the hill-top edge,
Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance,
To that still roaring dell, of which I told;
The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep,
And only speckled by the mid-day sun;
Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock
Flings arching like a bridge;--that branchless ash,
Unsunn'd and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves
Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still,
Fann'd by the water-fall! and there my friends
Behold the dark green file of long lank weeds,
That all at once (a most fantastic sight!)
Still nod and drip beneath the dripping edge
Of the blue clay-stone.

Now, my friends emerge
Beneath the wide wide Heaven--and view again
The many-steepled tract magnificent
Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea,
With some fair bark, perhaps, whose sails light up
The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two Isles
Of purple shadow! Yes! they wander on
In gladness all; but thou, methinks, most glad,
My gentle-hearted Charles! for thou hast pined
And hunger'd after Nature, many a year,
In the great City pent, winning thy way
With sad yet patient soul, through evil and pain
And strange calamity! Ah! slowly sink
Behind the western ridge, thou glorious Sun!
Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb,
Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds!
Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves!
And kindle, thou blue Ocean! So my friend
Struck with deep joy may stand, as I have stood,
Silent with swimming sense; yea, gazing round
On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem
Less gross than bodily; and of such hues
As veil the Almighty Spirit, when yet he makes
Spirits perceive his presence.

A delight
Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad
As I myself were there! Nor in this bower,
This little lime-tree bower, have I not mark'd
Much that has sooth'd me. Pale beneath the blaze
Hung the transparent foliage; and I watch'd
Some broad and sunny leaf, and lov'd to see
The shadow of the leaf and stem above
Dappling its sunshine! And that walnut-tree
Was richly ting'd, and a deep radiance lay
Full on the ancient ivy, which usurps
Those fronting elms, and now, with blackest mass
Makes their dark branches gleam a lighter hue
Through the late twilight: and though now the bat
Wheels silent by, and not a swallow twitters,
Yet still the solitary humble-bee
Sings in the bean-flower! Henceforth I shall know
That Nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure;
No plot so narrow, be but Nature there,
No waste so vacant, but may well employ
Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart
Awake to Love and Beauty! and sometimes
'Tis well to be bereft of promis'd good,
That we may lift the soul, and contemplate
With lively joy the joys we cannot share.
My gentle-hearted Charles! when the last rook
Beat its straight path along the dusky air
Homewards, I blest it! deeming its black wing
(Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light)
Had cross'd the mighty Orb's dilated glory,
While thou stood'st gazing; or, when all was still,
Flew creeking o'er thy head, and had a charm
For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom
No sound is dissonant which tells of Life.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Still, I could have been at some nearby lake, swimming, eating a hot dog and drinking a cold beer with friends and family. The earthy smell of the lake in my nose. A good, filling meal of fried fish and a hot shower at the end of the long day; maybe a glass of red wine and a dying sun in the pink and orange of dusk. But, the trees around me are turning into the deep green of Summer. Cucumbers in vinegar, as cool as ice, and slices of pink watermelon. A bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich with fresh home-grown tomatoes. The gifts of Summer are here.

We are at rest now and the music has died on the stereo and the birds have taken over. The fan is buzzing. The twilight world is growing cooler and darker for the time being. Respite.

The rest is welcome.

The Recipe

Well, perhaps I may have found the ultimate recipe for mint juleps. This recipe was formulated by General Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr, who, at the time, was the commandant at West Point. He was requested by the Superintendant, his superior, to provide the recipe. This son of a Confederate general, graduate of West Point, and Governor of Kentucky wrote down perhaps the penultimate recipe for juleps. I offer this recipe as a grand example of my birthplace. You can find it at a Buckner family geneaological site. Just go to Simon Bolivar Buckner. I'll offer that for my morning missive.

Ahh, May. "A Maying We Shall Go." "It's May! It's May! The lusty month of May!" You can't get better than that (other than a post NCAA basketball celebration in Lexington).

Here we go again

The neighborhood is still asleep for most. I sit here with my iPhone, watching the morning news, wondering what word salad would come out if I just wrote without trying to edit the spelling. I see what happens when some people text me without trying to correct their spelling. You get to the point where you can't make any sense of the message. I do better on my desk top. Sooner or later I am going to have to go get ready for work. Oh well.

A long day, but longer for others

It starts off coming into the office very early so you can look over the file and make sure that you have it stuck clearly in your mind so that you don't look like an idiot in front of your client, who will definitely let you and everyone else they know that you are an idiot and remember that if you do well it was a miracle and if you don't then you are paid too much for what you do but you sit there in court from about 8:30 until 12:00, watching the show of other cases and other lawyers and other clients and you get the idea of where court is heading and you almost lean over to counsel for the other side and warn him about what might happen, but you don't so you come back after lunch, which you skipped by the way, but you did let the dog out, Cindy, but you didn't get to water, but you return to court and wait for your client to show and then they start dealing with other cases and you are watching and waiting then suddenly they call the calendar and you stand and opine as to how long it will take and the judge calls somebody else and then you are sitting watching and he asks if you could do it quicker, so you say yes, what else would you say, and you pick your stack of papers up and pile them on the desk and you motion for your client and she comes up and asks you where you want her and you point to the witness stand and she doesn't understand and you try again and you get her up there and swear her in and she starts to unravel and you try to push her forward until the judge starts asking questions and suddenly everyone is leaving and you are running back to the office to prepare an order and the day is done, at least that part of it and you have succeeded temporarily until the next day and the next court and the next client and judge.

And they are still trying cases up there, or were when you left.

The Tyger and the Lamb in Griffin, Georgia

I rode out on the Spring-time streets of Griffin-town
And the skies above me were an infant baby boy blue
And the grass was a tender, callow green,
Like the first sheepish poking of the first planting
Spring and the flowers offered their baby girl pinks
And bright butter-sunshine yellows, a pretty ribbon on the package

This is the day that the Lord has made

And yesterday, last week, last month when the cyclones blew
And the broad oak trees and maples tumbled down and were toppled
From the power of those winds, until the morning's sunshine's light
Showed the tragedies of loss and the chaos of chance
To so many of our brothers and sisters

Yet, this too is the day that the Lord has made.

And so the lamb who frolics to the tabor's piping in Springtime softness
And the tyger who watches from the darkened forests of the midnight blackness
Licking his lips in anticipation and hunger, are children of the same Creator.
So, Blake shall offer our catechism this pleasant morning:
The God of Moses, the God of Jonah as well.

I dreamed of Steven Hawking

I dreamed I met Steven Hawking at Bluegrass Airport in Lexington, Kentucky
And I maneuvered his infirm body into a rental car and drove him southwest
From Lexington toward the palisades along the Kentucky River
And on up the hill from Asbury to Pleasant Hill, an old Shaker community,
Where those early pilgrim souls, descendants of John Bunyan, Milton and Donne,
Sought their Utopia in the verdant hills of the Bluegrass of Olde Kentucky.
Parking our vehicle in the blacktopped parking lot, I pushed him up
To the collection of simple Shaker buildings, still and dignified
And ended his journey in a broad green space between the buildings
Where the grassy field was bounded by white-washed wooden fences
And the invisible breezes of April blew against our faces.
Squatting on my knees, down before his wheelchair,
I stared into his corrected eyes and asked him to stop
The meandering of his mind for a brief moment
And feel for the soft touch, the prompting of his heart
And search for the presence of God, the Creator of his mind
And body and the beauteous hills rolling out around us.
The mechanism of creation might just then lead him to the mechanic there.

FFV

I did some research on wikipedia tonight. I looked up First Families of Virginia. They had a list of family names. Interestingly, Baynham was on the list. So were Morris and Carr. Nice to be part of the group.I think that and a dollar or three, depending on where you go, will get you a cup of coffee. If you drink coffee. There was a news story about the noted, crippled theoretical physicist, Steven Hawking. After writing books about the origin of the universe. After writing about the scientific basis for the universe (based, of course, on "theoretical physics") he decided to explain that there was no scientific basis for God as the creator. The problem with this, as I see it, is that there doesn't have to be a scientific explanation for God. I always thought that the study of god was theology. Perhaps I will look to a theologian for information about God's nature and a physician for information about the physical world.

Moments Kept

There are some moments you never forget. I remember when we were visiting grandmommie and granddaddy at the farm and Frank fell into the hog wallow face first and walked up to the front door covered in that dark green-grey slop from head to toe. Grandaddy didn't recognize him. I remember walking across the fields to find cow carcasses lying at the edge of the woods. Taking home molars from the jawbone. Trolling across the hard-frozen pastures, looking for game. Quail, rabbits, whatever might flush as we breathed out the 'smoke' of late November. Following a rabbit starting away from us and watching as my dad turned and fired his 'sweet sixteen' and tearing that rabbit apart. Climbing up the wooden ladder into the loft above the stable and finding hen's eggs in crannies against the roof. Walking into the tobacco barn and smelling the remnants of the fired burley. Opening the smokehouse and smelling the hams and sausage long after they been taken down and consumed by the family. Eating bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches with homegrown tomatoes and my grandmother's own mayonnaise and a glass of iced tea in the summer. Warm, tart blackberry cobbler with vanilla ice cream.

Coldest Day

The snow blew in from the west
It was a grey, grey afternoon
In early December
In Northern Tennessee
An early blow
The thin funeral tent not much shelter
Thinking of Ms Jane and her thin, cotton coat
Not much comfort from the cold
We were all gathered
The whole of the congregation
Sitting on a hill above the Cumberland
And we paid the price of respect with our shivering
As the early whiteness fell:
The first snow of the season.

Driving with Cicadas

There was a lot of driving today, up to Hampton or Lovejoy and then to McDonough (pronounced Mik don a, you news heads from Atlanta). Later, I drove down to the jail/magistrate court in Forsyth. As I exited my vehicle, I noticed the eerie sound of cicadas in the trees. Afterward I discussed the advent of these noisy flying pests with Judge Davis and his clerk. I walked out of the justice center and climbed into my car. As I reached up to insert the key in the ignition, I noticed a cicada sitting on the cuff of my dress shirt, staring at me like I had trespassed on his domain. Instead of arguing his place in the world of Central Georgia, when these creatures lie dormant in the soil for thirteen years between appearances, I shook him off onto the floor. Later, when it started making his obnoxious noise, I smashed its fairly substantial body under a plastic jar I found on the floor. Afterward, I read that cicadas are delicacies in many parts of the world, particularly in Mediterrean regions such as Greece and Provence. I offered it to Cindy for her supper. She didn't take to the concept. I was puzzled by her refusal.

Decisions in the darkening world

I am lame. My left foot is betraying me. My ankles are swollen and I keep trying to walk it off without resolution. Two o'clock in the morning is a bad time to try to undertake something of even remote significance. A brighter person or at least one in control of himself would probably determine that it was in his best interest to go back to sleep. Between the stupid ads, the lawyer come-ons and the short educational programs on television at that time of night, you will be driven crazy. Even the PBS show on at this time is talking about education in Brasil. So, I should learn from media: I should go back to bed.

Daddy

He was born in the black patch
South of Christian
Walking the brown furrows, smoking a cigarette,
Row after row, Season to season, Chasing after game,
The grey barns billowing with smoke in Autumn,
On horseback, Good morning Jud, down Butch down,
On to college, riding the train down the black,
Smoky tunnel to dimness and coal dust
First class to reach the computer age:
International Business Machines
White Plains Armonk Schenectady New York
Engineers working with NASA
To help send Neil and Buzz to find Tranquility
On to Atlanta and Coca Cola and the Braves
And "Gone With the Wind" and MLK
In "a city too busy to hate"
Chasing after children and running tractors
Because he had the knowledge, the old farm boy,
To lay the slag, sweeten the soil,
Until we all looked like Eastern Kentucky coal miners
Breathing the dust, the smoke in the darkness
Until the night arrived, climbing those stairs
One last time back to the mountains, to the Chestatee
To ride the flow of my thoughts
The Summer sun reflecting on the waters,
Riding on toward the Gulf, forever.

"Atta Boy!"

Derby Day Eve

Today was filled with partially aborted endeavors. I drove down to Forsyth and found that one of my clients is free. I called his dad and got a call from my client. He wanted me to get his money from the sherrif's office. I asked him he had called the sherrif's; he said, "no." I guess his money is only important in relation to whether I can get it for him. At any rate, I drove over to the jail and signed in to see another client, only to be told that they had transported him back to detention in Upson County. That nixed a part of my trip. As I left the jail for my car, I noticed a strong ringing sound like the ringing accompanying the advent of the alien predator in a 50's science fiction movie. I couldn't figure it out.I drove over to another client's house, only to hear it again. I asked them what it was and was told that the sound was cicadas awakening after a thirteen year sleep underground. Weird. I finished up the day with several calls and a trip to the grocery and to Home Depot. Later, I ordered supper from El Toro Loco. Now we are watching tv before I get the pork and fire ready for overnight smoking. Tomorrow should be a good day. Derby Day. The eyes of the world will set on my birthplace for the day. Not every state gets such special treatment. Not every state deserves such treatment. "You take a K and an E, an NU and CKY, that spells Kentucky, but it means Paradise."

Shadows in the afternoon

It is a magnificent day, albeit, a bit cool this morning. I feel overwhelmed a bit, although most of my angst is based on an ebbing sense of depression taking me down like a heavy wave. It comes and goes. I want to shake it off and take care of business. Be an adult. It will get better, I just have to work my way through it. Working on this mess does some good. Singing at night or on Sunday mornings helps. Being with friends and family. Going out from time to time and sometimes sitting down on the patio and sipping a glass of red wine or cup of bourbon and ice and watching the shadows of evening paint depth on day. That's what I need everyday.

No fun trips tomorrow

I was quite surprised when I found out this afternoon that I will not be crying out any foreclosures tomorrow. I don't know whether that is a sign of good times or just a glitch where the federal agencies which oversee mortgage lenders bear down on the lenders. We shall see soon, I suspect. At any rate, the dark angel will sit and work at his office tomorrow. North Georgia is safe for this month, anyway. I'll have to rely on the normal brand of darkness that a lawyer can get into on a rainy Tuesday.

Jesus Christ

The gift of God's created,
A rudely constructed bridge
Over the flood of time and
The groaning of creation
Which forced a passage
Between us and our heavenly Father.

Confederate Memorial Day

In Georgia today is a state holiday, a hold-over from earlier years when a Democratic legislature more aligned to the old Confederacy than the modern day, could issue a proclamation commemerating the end of hostilities between the northern states and their southern sisters.

Back toward the beginning of this month, in 1865, in a modest white, clapboard farmhouse in central Virginia, Robert E. Lee had surrendered to General Grant, thus terminating the powerful Army of Northern Virginia. Lee returned to wife and children in Richmond, to later take a position as President of Washington College in Lexington. Grant returned to Washington DC and later, the presidency of the United States. Not soon thereafter, he would sit on his front porch and write his account of his life and the war he had just finished, providing a source of support for his wife and children after his death from throat cancer.

Meanwhile, the remnants of the Army of the Tennessee and the Army of Tennessee continued to dance their slow death waltz until today's date, when Joe Johnston surrendered his army to Uncle Billy Sherman at Bennett's farm near Durham, North Carolina.

That, oddly, is what we celebrate today in Georgia. We join our celebration with a few of the other states in the Old South. Other southern states will celebrate the holiday on Jefferson Davis' birthday in June. Of course, the Georgia state employees actually celebrated the holiday yesterday in order to give themselves a three day weekend, and some a four day weekend, if they celebrated Good Friday. I'm sure little thought was given to what they were actually celebrating.

Of course, we are more politic than that. We don't refer to Friday as Good Friday, lest we upset our non-Christian brothers and sisters and we don't refer to yesterday or today as Confederate Memorial Day. No, this is just a day like any other. Despite the significant actions which took place in central North Carolina, back in 1865.

In just a few months from now, one hundred and fifty some odd years ago, Uncle Billy would be out west exterminating the plains tribes of Native Americans more efficiently than Andrew Jackson and his federal troops and their marching orders. Little Big Horn and General Custer, notwithstanding. History is written by the victors, you know.

Easter and earthquakes

The gospels describe the crucifixion of Jesus on Golgotha. When he breathes his last, the earth shakes and the curtain in the temple is rent. For those of you who have followed my blog for some time and probably were wondering what was going on from December 2010 to the day after Easter 2011. Well, just consider it's the season for earthquakes.

Miracles do occur and sometimes I do have a thought to offer.

April, Easter and Atticus Finch

It has been some time since I wrote anything in this blog. One morning, on my way to Clayton, Georgia, up in Rabun County, I wanted to write something down so that I could vent about some Idiot who came up behind me in the early morning hours, driving on I-285 at the Memorial Drive exit, and poured his brights in my side view mirror to such an extent that I went blind for a few seconds and couldn't see in front of me, much less behind my car. I maneuvered the curve running under the overpass at Memorial Drive and got out from in front of the guy and regained my sight. Amazing Grace.

More of an amazing idiot, rather than amazing grace.

Anyway, I was reading a passage of characterization of the main characters in "To Kill a Mockingbird" a second ago and thought about the concept of grace in the book.
The main plotline in the book revolves around the trial of Tom Robinson, a black man, who is falsely accused of raping a white women in the small town in Alabama which provides the setting for the book. Despite the exemplification of the innocence of Tom Robinson, he is found guilty because he is black and later killed when he "attempts to escape". In this case, there is an Old Testament-type sense of law which finds the man guilty despite his perceived innocence.

On the other hand, Bob Ewell is described as the real malevolent symbol of evil in the novel. Despite the inference of his own guilt of the central crime, he jumps with glee when Tom Robinson is found guilty in his stead. Later, he is murdered by the "avenging angel" of Boo Radley, when he tries to harm Jem and Scout coming home from the Fall Festival at school.

Later, when the sheriff of the county comes to visit Atticus to enquire after Jem and Scout, Scout pinpoints Boo as the man who protected the two children and murdered Bob Ewell. As Atticus tries to reason a defense for Boo Radley and begin to defend him against the law, the Sheriff points out that his murderous act was done in defense the children and that he should be protected from prosecution because, "you don't kill a mockingbird."

This act of grace, refusing to prosecute Boo Radley due to the nature of his act and the character of the actor, results in a poetic justice in the end for the little community. Boo Radley carries a dark reputation throughout the novel which hides his gentle nature. His act in defending the children and his underlying gentleness, seeme to overcome his guilt for the ultimate murder. The actions of Boo do not atone for the evil which is committed in the community. However, Boo is not held accountable apparently due to the righteousness of his actions.

I understand that many lawyers hold this piece of fiction as one of the reasons why they became lawyers in the first place. I am sure that it is the character of Atticus Finch which appeals to the reader: the gentle, virtuous attorney and father, who fights the good fight in the face of insurmountable obstacles. I wonder if there are any who associate with Arthur "Boo" Radley, the gentle, silent guardian of the community who rescues the main characters in their moments of need. In some sense, both Atticus Finch and Arthur Radley portray aspects of the father in the novel. One finds honor and respect through his actions; the other finds forgiveness through his righteousness.

It is the time of grace and atonement.