Saturday, November 30, 2002
VIEW FROM INSIDE THE HIVE
Many year ago I spent an enjoyable hour inside a bee hive.
It was possible at that time, during World War II when I was stationed with the 467the Bomb Group, USAF, airbase at the village of Rackheath, Norfolk County, England, just four miles or north of the city of Norwich.
A large, walk-in bee hive was a feature at that time among the exhibits in the old Norman Castle which rises on a three hundred foot man-made hill in downtown Norwich not too far from the high spire of Norwich Cathedral. I say “was” because , when I visited Norwich twenty-nine years later, I chanced to be waiting at a bus stop in downtown Norwich. I got to talking with a local citizen who was waiting for his wife to meet him from Christmas shopping. I had been walking about the city and we benched and chatted for a time. It turned out that he had been one of the men charged with care of the large, glass walled, walk-in honey bee hive in the Castle Museum. He told me it had been discontinued as an economy measure after the war.
The Castle has just undergone a full scale modernization and restoration and it is my hope that the hive was reconstituted. If not, there will be marked lacuna waiting me the next time I get to visit the sturdy old fortress.
The bees had access through openings in thick stone walls of the castle to the bountiful Castle Garden outside, and on the sunny day I was there they were one busy bunch of bees. The narrow corridors one went trough had to watch them had glass panels on either side and the place was only dimly lit so you could watch hundreds, perhaps thousands of bees going their systematic ways each one busy about their assigned hive job. Although the openings were not visible from that interior point, I imagined the air-conditioning bees stationed on the uppermost area of the tunnels near the opening were fanning away to keep the hive properly air-conditioned and in touch with the floral displays outside in the Castle Gardens.
“Topic” has readers in England, and anyone in Norwich or East Anglia in general, who knows if he bees are back in the restored and renovated castle, might drop me an e-mail line to let me know if the new hive is thriving.
I have many other pleasant memories of my three-year stay in the area and especially of the fine people I came to know so well. I arrived early, months before the Bomb Group and the B-24's came in. There were a hundred and six of us, I think. We shared our set-up tasks with an RAF group some of whom had returned from Malta. The second advantage I had was that I was assigned to play bass with the 467th dance orchestra named the “AirLiners” and we got to travel about a great deal. We were regulars at St. Andrews Guild Hall on Friday nights when were “at home.”
Odd, isn't it, that of all many more important events events and memories, one that should be trivia stays so close to me, watching The live bees at work inside the Castle building stocking their own castle.
A. L.M. November 29. 2002 [c551wds]
Friday, November 29, 2002
POSITIVE VALUES
Most of the time, when talk turns to the 1929 and the 1930's - the era marked by the Great Depression - we hear about all the miseries of that time.
I have found that if I try to say anything good about those years, I am greeted with obvious signs of disbelief.
Yes, there was misery aplenty. There were shortfalls in every facet of life in those days and the stories about doing without things are not at all exaggerated., but it was also a time in which we learned lessons about many facets of living. I would not recommend it as method by which one might learns such things, but it did have some positive values.
I can remember on such event now that winter weather is with us and the ice is frozen solid on ponds. The ice froze just as firm in those days as it does today, but we were without skates, so we made our own. Here's how it was done.
We took pair of old automobile license plates which were larger then than they are today. It was necessary to cut a slot in edge of the tag. I remember punching such holes with a screw driver and hammer perhaps half an inch back from the edge of the plate. Using old belts or pieces of reins which were hanging everywhere in old sheds and barn, we laced the strap under the foo, down, then up through the slots to pull the metal up when the belt was buckled across the foot. Next we fitted the skate to the individual by having him stand on the plate and using pliers to bend the two front corners over his shoe. A tight fit was essential.
At that stage one could slide on the ice but that was not skating. The next step was to find some old, rusty iron rods – finger-sized was best , if possible, an d then to cut them to at lest two,maybe four inches longer than the plate-skate under construction For pennies, the blacksmith around the corner from our house would bend the front end of the rod up in a graceful half circle and connect the rod, now a blade, to the keel of the plate-skate usually at three of four places - front, middle and rear- with a glob of white- hot metal. He dipped them in the nearby horse watering tough and out of the cloud of steam a new skate was launched.
Of course, they were not really skate. We knew that, but they were better than nothing at all and we did many an hour on the ponds nearby using home-made ice skates.
In the same line, we used old cardboard boxes as toboggans or sleds. It was best to coat the bottom with candle wax which used up every stub of a candle in the area and some good ones, as well, I suppose. Wooden barrel staves, buckled on pretty much as we did the skates, served as our ski gear.
We have a set of place mats on our kitchen table today using art by Currier & Ives which reminds me of those skating days every time I see them ...a large frame house and down a small slope a frozen pond with kids skating around happily.
No, Great Depression Days talk need not be all negative.
A.L.M. November 27, 2002 _Thanksgiving Day [c579wds]
Thursday, November 28, 2002
NEIGHBORHOOD-ISM
Is there hope for the re-establishment of a neighborhood feeling in our cities ? Does more mean better?
I bring those two related questions because I notice our nearest city, the urban center in which we shop most frequently, is developing into complex grouping of pairs, or more, of business firms which seem to be placed to serve a segment of the nearby residents. We went through a phase of intensification when businesses tended to head for the Mall on the edge of town. That mall, of course, has now being overwhelmed with new shopping centers on every side of it, and while it continues to do well, so do the stores at other locations – some of them duplicates of the Mall shops.
Ours is a small city with a population of around thirty-thousand. It is fortunate to have a large area from which it draws shoppers in a least twice that number It has two universities and another college nearby which is a factor of great importance with seasonal jumps of about fifteen thousand residents. Construction of apartments and town houses continues unabated ,much of as student housing. The city fathers have wisely provided well in advance to meet increasing traffic and utility needs and to control
the growth of the city and to refurbish the downtown area which has, like many others, suffered a measure of blight.. Right now, it sports the lowest unemployment rate in the State of Virginia up a bit to l.4%.
A small city, you might say, and growing.
This small city now has two Wal-Mart Super Stores, with a third one under construction and no talk, thus far, of closing one of the others We have five Food Lion stores and three or four more in small towns in the area. Three Radio Shack stores are making a living, two McDonald's, three major book outlets, and another opening soon. Pairs are endless all over two in the fast food stores, pizza shops and convenience stores, auto supply shops, gas stations, banks and ethic restaurants abound.
And, if you watch carefully you will see a family tendency to try to live pretty much within the section of town in which their home is located. They bank at the branch nearest them; the visit the food store nearby, they do all they can as close to home as possible. They go outside the neighborhood area for employment, for medical care, and for entertainment and much of their neighborhood shopping, such as food, health and vanity needs, is done as they are going in-or- out of the larger community.
For those of us who saw merit in the old neighborhood scheme, this appears to be a blessing we can come to enjoy all over again, with modifications, of course. Go with the flow of progress, it seems, and you will find we “progress” in large circles. We tend to re-try what we have done before with subtle changes, of course, which - we hope - will make it be an even better time way of living.
a.l.m. November 27, 2002 [c519wds]
Wednesday, November 27, 2002
CAPTAIN FLOYD
Most sea captains we read about made more than one voyage but that is not true about Captain Floyd. He made one and that was it.
The first Floyds to come to America were two brothers from Wales and they settled on the eastern shore edge of Virginia. One of those brothers had son named William. He married Abileah Davis, from Amherst County in central Virgnia who was of Indian decent. John Floyd was their son, and he was born about 1750.
Growing up on the Eastern Shore he became well acquainted with sea going people and with various types of ships. He married at age eighteen. His wife, fourteen years old when they married, died within the year. John left the Eastern Shore to begin life anew as a school teacher in Botetourt across the Blue Ridge Mountians in Southwest Virgnia.
When not engaged in school teaching, John clerked or“wrote in the office” of Col.William Preston the County Surveyor and he also acted as a deputy for Col. William Chrisian who was High Sheriff . Until 1773 he lived with Col. Preston at “Smithfield” which was then in Fincastle County.
At that time, the county embraced most of what is now Kentuckey and Col. Preston appointed John Floyd as a deputy and sent him to survey lands along the Ohio river.
Later, in 1775, when he returned to "Smithfield”, John Floyd became engaged to Jane Buchanon, daughter of Col. John Buchanan; grand daughter of Col James Patton and second cousin of Col. Preston.
After the signing of the Declaration of Independence, three gentlemen of the area decided to buy, of all things, a sea-going schooner named “The Phoenix”. Dr. Thomas Walker, Edmund Pendeleton and Col. Preston formed the company and they had the ship fitted out as privateer. They gave commnd of the ship to John Floyd .
One can only guess their purpose in getting in to the merchandise shipping busness, which was, at that time, in particularly the "privateering" aspect of it all, was suspect. It was about as close to piracy as one could get. It started during the time of Elizbeth I and continued, virtually unabated, until 1819 in most areas of Earth's troubled waterways.
The “Phoenix”, commanded by Captain John Floyd, started on a West Indies cruise and soon captured a merchantman with a rich cargo. Floyd, thinking, his fortune already made, decide to go home, but just before they came within sight of the Virginia capes, "The Pheonix" was overtaken and captured by a British Man-0f-War. Captain Floyd was taken, in irons, to England where he was held in prison for nearly a year.
The unbelievable part of it today – actions we have seen in a score of movies - insists the jailer's daughter obtained the key to his cell and let him out. He begged his way to Dover where he found a clergyman who, it seems ,was in the habit of helping in such situations. He concealed him until he could arrange passage to France.
The French people gave him bread and grapes and Dr. Benjamin Franklin, at Paris, furnished him means of returning to the United States.
John Floyd retuned to “Smithfield” to a joyful reception. Miss Buchanon broke off her engagement to one Col .Robert Sayers, and married Floyd in November 1778. They had three sons and one daughter. John Floyd was morally wounded in an Indian attack when he and his brother were retirning from Salt River to Floyd's Station. His brother got him on horseback and managed to get him home, but he died the next day. Ten days later his third son was born....his mother named him John.
That was April 24, 1783. Two hundred nineteen years ago.
Yet, it could do very well, I think, as a novel, a movie or TV special today.
A.L.M. November 26, 2002 [c631wds]
Tuesday, November 26, 2002
DISCOVERY
“I have found a new friend!”
Those words are certainly among the most promising you can hear yourself say. You may not say them aloud, but you will know.. you will sense that someone new and special has come into your life. You have found someone who will be your associate in all that you do; someone with whom you will share innumerable treasures.
A good friendship is a new source of wealth for you. With proper care and good management it will earn is own keep and and actually grow in value.
A friend shares his blessing with you, and you respond in the same manner. There is no prescise starting point at which this begins, no recess period once started, and no closing time.
Friendship becomes a binding ageement without any legal documents having been drawn up. It is a mutual understanding in which one will always stand ready to respect the views and feelings of the other. Both may be totally unaware that such conditions exist.
It cannot be said that it is all a happy time and a joy forever. Far from it. A true friend stands by you through "thick or thin"; through "in sickness and in health" and it is just such distressful times that demonstrate the validity of the relationship.It can either be underscored and strengthed by such moments, or blighted. Occasionally, it all just ceases to be with the same mysterious phases by which it came to be. It never leaves forever, I like to believe. The spark is stlll there, and may be revived by gentle, loving breeze to bring remembered warmth back into your lives once more.
And we must always remember that friendships are a two-way street.
At this very moment someone may see you as you go about your daily affairs; hear you express ideas they think are valid and true; listen to others and what they say of your ways of doing things and wondering how they can go about becoming a friend of ours.
You showcase yourself in everything you say or do.
A.L.M. November 25, 2002 [c428wds]
Monday, November 25, 2002
ERSATZ REALISM
We have had just about enough faked realism on our TV screens! Isn't it about time for some fantasy, fable and fun? Some enlightenment, perhaps?
In recent months, we have pushed the realism envelope a bit too far I'm afraid until it has become evident that much of the material was contrived, faked, or severely modified while claiming to be actual happenings in progress live from some of the most outrageous settings in the world.
Oddly enough thus is not a new situation at all. There are quite a few persons out there who continue to believe the "Six Million Dollar Man" stories of many years ago were the true story of an Air Force pilot restored electonically to fight and win the magnifienct battles which were the core of the series. Others accept the "Gilligan's Island" actors as being really shipwreaked on a distant island.
This past seaon gave rise to two monsters - the quiz/money shows and the realism series. Both were borrowed from England. The very same people who are cointinually poking fun at the old-fashioned ways of Eruopean television, have to get their new shows from the very place they so often deride as being stuffy and bound by trandition which forbids innovation and creativity.
That's where we acquired "Millionaire" - from jolly 'ole, up-tight Britain - which quickly spawned a dozen or more immitators . One by one, each network had to have its version of a kindred format. It is interesting to see that, while all the others have gone toes-up, or wherever and in what position dud-Tv shows go, wlth the "Millionaire" continuing to do well l with Meridith Vieira overseeing the "hot seat" area. "Millionaire" survives without Regis Philbin who is now one himself. and quite busy with other things he, wisely, never gave up. One good thing came out of all of hese quiz/money shows and that was a restoration, for a time, at least, of two respected emcee personalities from the past -: Maury Povich and Bob Eurbanks.
Isn't it time now for Ameican television to start to live up to the reputation it has built around the world as being vibrant, strong, and energentic - not only in the technical sense, but also from the standpoint of creation of inspiring, useful enjoyable program materials. Certainly, the world is full of writers who think along such lines. The industry, largely from sheer laziness, has accepted, without question, the antiquated, self-serving mode of literary agents - the same system used by film companies from the silent movie days.
We now need a totally new way of developing televison materials. Competitions through schools of all levels, plus scholarships to keep them filled with would be writers and artists who will become a positive, practical, immeasurably better way - a real step forward looking to a time when TV script production will be a planned, rather than a hapazard operation. We cannot go on much longer being content to exixt on printed materials adapted to the small screen. Television, here in America, is now old enough, wise enough, strong enough to start doing more things on its own.and one of them is the creation of new materials.
When you watch "Jeopardy" and "Wheel of Fortiune", two successful shows past years which have continued. through sysdication, and are still popular, notice the quick credit at the end which reads: "Created by Merv Griffin" We need more "Merv's" in production and management, just as we need new writers.
A.L.M. November 24, 2002 [c526wds]
Sunday, November 24, 2002
BOY TIME BASEBALL
We had our own, individual brand of baseball as kids.
It cannot be referred to as “sandlot” play, because we lived in limestone country and our playing field was a grassy plot with some stone outcroppings. At home plate, and at the base locations, it soon became hard, packed clay with just a hint of a path leading from one to the other.
It was a wonderful past-time, and I dare say that is why, to this day, baseball remains my favorite sport over all others to be seen on TV. Saturday was our main school-time day depending the weather. Summer extended play until dusk.
We played under a host of ”Ground Rules” formulated to meet the limitations of the area. Anyone could play largely because it was hard to get enough the make up two teams. Girls were included on occasion when we were short of players.
We had some sort of ritual for choosing up sides, as I remember. The two oldest, and usually the loudest, boys tossed a bat high into the air and other other caught it well down on the heavy end as possible. He grasped it firmly and the other chooser put is hand above the original and the one who held the bat the longest, even by the very tips of his fingers won the first choice. He won the right to make his selection from the rooster of players around them. There was also a special step to this selection process at times, but I can't remember why. The winner of the toss had to hold the bat by whatever grip he ended up with - maybe even the tips of his fingers – and the opposition man got to kick the bat three times. If he dislodged it, he became the winner. If not, the fist winner got two “first” choices. We called this disaster addition “Double or Nothing” and it was a “I double dare you!” item.
There was an amazing amount of team spirit, too, once the sides had been chosen. The biggest and best players where chosen first and my brother and I were always down in the middle somewhere. At times we took big league team names and the umpire, if we had one at all, was a community kid who didn't play and be successful managers. The town's main street backed our Home Plate which made it all very interesting when the town's only trolley car went buzzing past. People on the street car turned to look at us and we turned to look at them. On our right a solid brick wall of a three storied building behind which rested the local Chevrolet car dealership. No windows. Out in right field, however, we had an automobile paint shop which did have windows... three of them with small panes. Mr. Whitt, who ran the shop, must have been a boy himself at one time, because he eventually bought a wooden case of window panes, the small size, packed in a sawdust. when we broke a pane - which happened now an then - whoever broke it had to go fix it. Center field was wide open to the next block and the apartment house in which we lived was on our left far enough away to be out of the fly ball zone as a rule.
Consider the amount of proper baseball equipment we did not have, it is amazing how well we go along. Most of us had gloves of some sort. What we then called “painter's caps “ subbed for heavier billed baseball caps, and he most honored among us actually possessed a baseball. The were finely crafted things in that day, made in Haiti, far better, of course, that those we get today from Costa Rica. At least we considered them to be wonderful creations. The twined, cord body was sturdy and, once the cover had been shattered and blown to bit by a mighty wallop, the remainder could be covered with black insulation tape kept for months until a new ball came as a Birthday or Christmas gift. There was built-in, automatic feature. When a fly ball developed a black tail and appeared as a comet streaming through the sky, we knew it was time to re-tape the ball.
None of us every made the big leagues, of course, even the minors, for that matter, but we did have lots of good, outdoor and inexpensive fun. I re-live some of it today when I watch the Atlanta “Braves” play on TV.I remember losing interest when we had recurrent “Subway Series”. This year we had a “Shakey Side Series” but our “Sandlot Series” play has meant a lot to us over the years and shadows of it reappear frequently.
A.L.M. November 23, 2002 805wds]
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