only call yellow
sulphur golden citron, how …
lovely yellow is
Just now we are having a glorious strong heat, with no wind, just what I want.
There is a sun, a light that for want of a better word I can only call yellow, pale sulphur yellow, pale golden citron.
How lovely yellow is!
And how much better I shall see the North!
Oh! I keep wishing for the day when you will see and feel the sun of the South!
Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to his brother dated Arles, 13 August 1888.
important that one
not say any foolish things
if he can help it
I appear before you, fellow-citizens merely to thank you for this compliment. The inference is a very fair one that you would hear me for a little while, at least, were I to commence a speech.
I do not appear before you for the purpose [of speechifying] and for several substantial reasons.
The most substantial of these is that I have no speech to make.
It is somewhat important in my position that one should not say any foolish things if he can help it and to help it is to say nothing at all.
Believing that that is my precise position this evening, I must beg you from saying “one word.”
Abraham Lincoln in response to a ‘serenade’ from the crowd on the night of November 18, 1863 as reported in the Gettysburg Star & Banner.
The next day, after spending the night in Gettysburg, Mr. Lincoln would deliver his short remarks in dedicating a cemetery on the site of the battle.
Gabor Boritt, in his book, The Gettysburg gospel : the Lincoln speech that nobody knows (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006), writes:
In 118 or so words, Lincoln acquitted himself: his first Gettysburg address. The following day, he would speak in a different vein and would not need many more than twice the number of words to say his piece. This night the crowds got the bantering, vintage Westerner, funny and humble. They applauded long when he finished. Thursday, the 19th, would be another day.
Young Hay wrote in his diary: “The President appeared at the door said his half dozen words meaning nothing & went in.” Lincoln knew better. He had shown the people that he was one of them. That was not unimportant. That his opponents would fault him, “the great American humorist,” he also knew. And if he had even more serious purpose in coming to Gettysburg, he understood that the throngs came in no small measure to enjoy themselves. Nor would all of them make sharp distinctions. Local butcher Harvey Sweeney heard Lincoln that evening and on the next day, too, and in a letter to his brother ten days later would lump it all together as “noble speeches”: “the greatest of the great men,” whose words “endeared him to the hearts of the people and added thousands of friends to him….“
When Lincoln went back indoors after his speech, he could hear people whooping, singing, carrying on, and going next door to serenade the next dignitary. In the Harpers’ house, the Secretary of State was the most honored guest. Seward had been the president’s stand-in until a few days ago. On the train, had the two men talked about what they would say? They were heading into a festive town and Seward knew that he would be asked to speak, too. He had his backup speech ready.
Brevity.
Not sure why that thought is on my mind today.
once made, no step could
ever retraced; once headed
path would never bend
The horse plodded stumble-footedly up the hill and the old man walked beside it.
In the lowering sun their giant shadows flickered darkly behind them.
The grandfather was dressed in a black broadcloth suit and he wore kid congress gaiters and a black tie on a short, hard collar. He carried his black slouch hat in his hand.
His white beard was cropped close and his white eyebrows overhung his eyes like mustaches.
The blue eyes were sternly merry.
About the whole face and figure there was a granite dignity, so that every motion seemed an impossible thing.
Once at rest, it seemed the old man would be stone, would never move again.
His steps were slow and certain.
Once made, no step could ever be retraced; once headed in a direction, the path would never bend nor the pace increase nor slow.
From The Red Pony by John Steinbeck with illustrations by Wesley Dennis, (New York: Viking, 1945).
Once made, no step could ever be retraced.
Once headed in a direction, the path would never bend nor the pace increase nor slow.
I like to think of a feller named Potiphar.
For those of my readers who didn’t have the benefit of a Sunday School education, Potiphar was the captain of the guard for Pharaoh and when caravans arrived in Egypt with a slave for sale named Joseph, a poor kid sold off by his brothers up in Canaan land, Potiphar bought Joseph and put him to work in his household.
The story of Joseph takes off from there but its Potiphar I think about.
There is so so so much in the news today about money money money and wealth wealth wealth.
In the days of Julius Caesar, the richest man in the world at the time, a feller named Crassus, said the sign of true wealth was your own private army.
Crassus owned the major fire departments in Rome and when you needed them, they would arrive and then tell you how much it would cost to put the fire out.
Closer to our time, the financier John Pierpont Morgan was asked how much his new private yacht cost. This is the Morgan who put together the syndicate that formed US Steel as well as the ship building conglomerate that launched the Titanic and her sister ships Olympic and Britannic. Anyway, when asked about his yacht, the Corsair (which was later converted by the US Navy into a warship for the Spanish-American War) what it cost, Morgan said if you have to ask how much, you can’t afford it.
Today the fellers have private air fleets, private islands and private homes all over the world that proving, each day to be less private then these rich people ever thought.
Back to Potiphar.
Fitting into my definition of the rich person, the Bible tells us that Joseph turned out to be a good purchase and Potiphar turned over his household operations to Joseph and with a good man running his affairs and his position as Captain of guard for Pharaoh, Potiphar …did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate.
All Potiphar had to do each day was think, ‘what do I want for lunch?’, with full expectation that anything he wanted for lunch today is what he was going to have for lunch today.
How can having $1 Million or $100 Billion in the bank improve on that?
You can’t eat more than one lunch today.
I had a Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato sandwich for lunch yesterday.
A sandwich made on bread I baked the day before.
How can having $1 Million or $100 Billion in the bank improve on that?
I am as well off as Mr. Morgan, Crassus or Potiphar.
So you ask, what does this have to do with the quote from the Red Pony?
As I recall, the Red Pony was one of the books read to my sixth grade class by our teacher who started the day with 10 or 15 minutes of reading.
I don’t often think of our teacher, Mr. Vanderwheel, as a liberal type but to read the Steinbeck to a bunch of 6th graders …
But I digress.
Here is the point for today.
I put it to you that the truly well off are those folks who do not concern himself with anything except the food they eat.
What will I have for lunch?
And I put it to you that the only real decision anyone can make each day is what you will have for lunch.
We are all there, because, truly, all the other decisions have been made.
The steps are slow and certain.
Once made, no step could ever be retraced.
Once headed in a direction, the path would never bend nor the pace increase nor slow.
To think we have any control … well Boy Howdy.
All I can say is I hope you enjoy your lunch as this is way too much to think about for a Monday morning.
Oh and BTW … I cannot write about how happy I might be without enormous wealth without thinking of an interview I saw between Dick Cavet and Orson Welles. Mr. Cavet asked Mr. Welles what he would do if he was given a fabulous amount of money, millions of dollars, and Mr. Welles immediately responded, ‘Give it all away!‘ There was a pause and the camera stayed on Mr. Welles and he tucked his chin into his chest, smiled and said very quietly something along the lines of, “… of course my answer would probably be different if it ever actually happened.”
in any instance
violated the injunctions
incur punishment
Not sure what you think about on February 22nd but I often think of the old black and white John Wayne movie, Fort Apache.
After a long journey of crummy trains, stage coaches and other hardships, the new Commanding officer (Henry Fonda) and his daughter (Shirley Temple … yes that Shirley Temple) arrive at Fort Apache to find that not only were the officers at the fort not one bit concerned about the trials their new Commanding officer might be experiencing but his officers were having a party!
When he walks in the music and dancing comes to a halt and Fonda, cold, correct and angry, is introduced and everyone stands around staring at the floor until Fonda says, “… I take it this dance is not in my honor.’
There is quiet and John Wayne speaks up, ‘It’s a birthday dance, sir.’
Birthday. Whose birthday?
General George Washington’s, sir.
And Fonda shrinks down into the floor.
On Monday, March 4, 1793, George Washington was sworn in for the 2nd time as President of the United States.
He gave the shortest inaugural address on record.
With 135 words, General Washington said:
I am again called upon by the voice of my country to execute the functions of its Chief Magistrate. When the occasion proper for it shall arrive, I shall endeavor to express the high sense I entertain of this distinguished honor, and of the confidence which has been reposed in me by the people of united America.
Previous to the execution of any official act of the President the Constitution requires an oath of office. This oath I am now about to take, and in your presence: That if it shall be found during my administration of the Government I have in any instance violated willingly or knowingly the injunctions thereof, I may (besides incurring constitutional punishment) be subject to the upbraidings of all who are now witnesses of the present solemn ceremony.
After serving as a Virginia Delegate to the Continental Congress, then serving as Commander in Chief of the Army, then Chairman of the Constitution Convention and finally, the General said that, after all that if there was any … ANY … instance found where he violated his oath of office (preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States) he deserved both Constitutional punishment and upbraidings or intense, formal, or severe criticism (according to the online dictionary).
Just something worth thinking about today.
Happy Birthday General.
you think you’re exempt
world handed on a platter
therefore it’s all yours
” … struck me as a typical sports hero.
I know the type, because I was once one myself, or so the sports pages kept informing me.
You get to the point where you expect people to do whatever you want because they’ve been lucky enough to breathe the same air you breathe.
When you pass by people who are talking, you assume they’re talking about you.
You think you’re exempt from the rules of ordinary conduct, since the world has been handed you on a platter, and therefore it’s all yours.
Money?
There wasn’t much money in football forty years ago, the way there is now, although then, like now, you were likely to take the money mainly to show everybody how wonderful you were.“
From the book A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe (Farrar, Straus and Giroux: New York, 1998).
These words are delivered by the Charlie Croker, the main character or Tom Wolfe’s book about the Atlanta Developer in the midst of a financial crisis of his own making.
Mr. Croker got an edge to his start in Atlanta business due to being a star of the Georgia Tech football team and he played those connections into a world of fabulous wealth.
And how did he get there?
You get to the point where you expect people to do whatever you want because they’ve been lucky enough to breathe the same air you breathe.
When you pass by people who are talking, you assume they’re talking about you.
You think you’re exempt from the rules of ordinary conduct, since the world has been handed you on a platter, and therefore it’s all yours.
Any reading of history and you see these people from the get go.
You might say that back in the book of Genesis, Cain, even though when God told Cain, “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”, Cain felt exempt from the rules of ordinary conduct and went his own way.
From the get go.
We should be and I guess for the most part, we are used to these people being in the world.
It happens to sports stars, rich people … presidents.
What also survives from the get is that warning.
If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door.
*Genesis Chapter 4:
No Haiku For You 