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Something Magical

From the worn cloth of his overalls, the faded upper bib, two wide straps buckled over each shoulder, his clothes were old as his farm truck, and many times, December snow high as the running board, farmers in town selling Christmas trees freshly cut – that divine scent of cedar berries, each corner under the street lamp, a yellow glow high as the old trolley lines along main street, and for two miles flatbeds and pick-ups, some red (most were black), a full load of trees, propped from bumpers, slats of pine tree stands custom-made, the mistletoe, never seen growing in the city, the white berries and green green clusters of inconspicuous yet delicious arrangements of Christmas vividness as only the vigorous and young enjoy; and more snow seems likely, the day is dark this time of year and wet clouds are set for the night, in all houses every window aglow, silver bells on the door, apples and fruit singing the advent of December. From the first memories, the city seems the same each year: a tree in every house, men who work hard, farmers in town selling their trees, grown from wooded fields of old family farms, where as children they learned to work summer and winter and spend their personal time with their animals or playing music with friends or family, each musical instrument an heirloom; a pumpkin pie, the warm smell of turkey gravy, logs on the fire popping, nutmeg and vanilla, smoky hot candle wax, and juicy tangerines in Grandma’s wooden bowl – people in every house, along a country road unpaved or a cobbled city street  -- the family abides, aimless love filling a grateful heart, a warm blanket of goodness covering the land, such as it were in southern Virginia, 1939.

  “How by struggle and by labor you shall gain what you have prayed for – ”  -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Song of Hiawatha (1855)

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Something Hemingway would gravitate toward.

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Crackers and Dip

The view is the Atlantic looking south over the ocean, much like the view from the Galapagos to the islands of Marquesas – nothing but 3,000 miles of blue water.

It’s five o’clock, the cocktail hour. Windblown and salty, doors are open, no flying insects, a gusting sea breeze, the best kind in warm weather. All of which is good and made better by a holiday weekend, only the weekend hasn’t started quite yet.

The small bar, a butler’s tray on a rattan folding stand, something Hemingway would gravitate toward. Not exactly set for a party but always set. Remembering a day when guests gathered for drinks before returning for their bath and dressing for dinner. 

Serve yourself, ask for help, or be served in due time. Not formal, but a scent of glamour and style from different cities. Here they gather, not exactly every summer, but at exactly the best times of the year, notably the late season or sometimes for the Kentucky Derby.

Four bedrooms, each occupied. Every bedroom facing the ocean, a door in each room designed as such. And you would never expect the private entrance.  In summer, children would be included.  This is different. No kids, no fuss. Solitude to clear the senses. We all need to do this – to rid the clutter, to throw out everything in your life that’s not bolted to the boat.

Everyone is dressed for the tropical air.  The wine is chilled. The beach now bedding in soft colors of sunset. No one looks at the crackers. White saltines, white cream cheese, pure as diamonds and imperial caviar.

“Try some.” Guests must be instructed.

“Very good, what is it?”

It’s Ray’s Dip. My mother made it when I was a boy.  I don’t know how she did it.  After she died, I first made it as best I could. I never learned about cooking, but I did wash a lot of pots and pans.

This recipe, a family treasure for all to learn, I submit.

Ray’s Dip – since 1942

Two 8 oz. boxes of Original Philadelphia Cream Cheese

Two tablespoons of mayonnaise. Just enough to flavor the cheese – I never measure. Duke’s mayonnaise is good.

Half a sweet onion.  Here in the South,Georgia onions are best.

One tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce – Lea & Perrins with the brown paper wrapping. Three shakes will do; the next day, add more as you like.

Salt (not much)  In 1942 Mother never knew about seasoned salt. I use coarse, Kosher salt, two pinches. Be careful.

In the old days I chopped the onion by hand, very fine. Large pieces of onion should not be in this dip. The dip is best when one cannot guess that onion is part of the recipe. Today I puree the onion in the blender and add to the mixing bowl after draining.

In a large mixing bowl, add all the above. I mix by hand.  An electric mixer will do but I don’t like to wash it. It’s OK to warm the cheese for easy mixing. Mixing time is not important, just whip it up. Light and fluffy, good enough.

Cover and refrigerate until served. Nothing except Saltines, that’s the rule. Will keep for a week and seems to improve.

So there it is. Another onion dip?  Never is, never was.

Everybody wants to serve Ray’s Dip. I get calls all the time, three generations now, “We’re having a cook-out here, how do you do that?”

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A Boy Ten Feet Tall

That dreadful spring. Four months during which all went wrong. Now young men, every one, gone to fight a war with no end. Others preparing to leave, even before getting everything in order. Closing up shop or leaving instructions, putting their affairs in some sort of order – for how long no one knew. Such a shame. Why did it come to this; why did loved ones have to leave?

Sitting together at the table, it is early morning. Toast and jam, orange juice, the morning paper pushed aside, like breakfast this morning – wasted.

We did not speak, father and son, just us. Mother in her room, my sisters with her. Dad had packed a small bag, nothing more. I knew he was leaving. We were done with talking. There was nothing more to do. He could delay leaving no longer. He leaned forward, elbows on the table, face in hands – a quiet moment, then he was up and gone. No time for my tears, hugs and kisses useless.  A quick goodbye.   It is finished.

Dark clouds on the horizon, as Churchill wrote: the gathering storm. By 1939, and on each side of the globe, large armies move swiftly across open fields, crossing borders, mechanized warfare such as the world had yet to see.  Whole populations shipped off to remote labor camps, families uprooted, divided, information withheld, cities occupied. Our long-standing ally rushes to aid Poland; England declares war on Germany.

Quickly to rearm, the nation is set to full-scale war status. Men ordered to duty, military camps built. Factories ordered to retool, gasoline supplies ordered to the military. All this was bad enough but for years the banks had failed – the stock market crash in 1929 – never had there been an easy time, a strong national economy dried up, finished.

Every day the news is bad. The enemy is strong, well trained and supplied. Paris had fallen, the legendary French army and all its equipment in rout and ruin. London is besieged. Her only expeditionary army pushed into the sea – the Royal Navy asking for aid.

Addis Abbaba is overrun, now in the hands of the Italian army. U.S. Marines on Wake Island facing a superior force, overpowered and vanquished. There is no song, no love nor glory – finished.

There was a time when war would be halted, governments would send their envoys to gather around a green-covered conference table and discuss matters of state and the rules of war. Those were the days men of honor abided by their conduct as statesmen and gentlemen. Not this.  This would be decided by force, and as the conflict now stood, the free world might be overwhelmed – a new dark age which we would not see a way through.

The house is too large to maintain: one woman, three children, very little money, but here we are. Where can we go? Who will care for the girls – and the boy is so young. Dad is in the military, his is the only money we have. Many needs unanswered – heating oil, shoes, motivation. For extra money we rent rooms. The town has few places service men and women can live. This is a grand house near the college with large, shady trees. Each bedroom has a bath. Two army pilots came first, then a school teacher, then a military nurse. I never knew the names and was told not to bother. Never were they part of the household; strictly a war effort which gave no joy.

The mill here is very large, perhaps the largest in the country. Everyone knew this was the target – running three shifts a day non-stop, all war materials. Two hours away, maybe less, an army base, forty thousand men and headquarters for an entire division, all newly built. On weekends, the soldiers come, the town is full, servicemen all in uniform – not for the wild and crazy nightlife, none of that – but this is a nice little town, a place to get away from the war. A three-day pass, solitude and civilian life for a change, if only for a short while.

Largely because of the war, this town has the biggest passenger terminal between New York and Florida. Built by the Southern Railway, it is on the main line. And not just the Southern. Every train on the eastern seaboard stops here. A landmark building, a classic train station. Middle of town, cobbled streets, lampposts in the carpark, old world style. The huge interior for incoming passengers, the waiting room and ticket office lower level, enormous Victorian-style windows, wood paneled walls and platforms outside edging the tracks, porters in dark blue uniforms, passengers in large groups awaiting their departure times, luggage on trolleys, the overhead curving to shelter each coach as far as the eye could see. All so young, soldiers, wives, girlfriends, each with their duffels, overstuffed, the limit a man could shoulder.

Coaches here – same as New York and Philadelphia– all overbooked, people forced to sit in the aisles atop their luggage. In every city, the youth of a nation in constant movement. Servicemen with the same orders – to sally forth, and each filled with good will and a common purpose.  

Mom took us to the beach that summer, near the base at Fort Story. All the family at the hotel, an old summer resort with oceanfront dining. Our porch chairs facing the ocean, Dad in his dress whites. Dinner moved back an hour, lights on the beach blacked out during the war. “First call for dinner,” the message was cried out. Later, second call for dinner and those with cocktails, a bit later – “Last call for dinner….” 

A year passing, and no visits with Dad. From Norfolk he shipped out. His travel at sea never restful, ship’s crew at battle stations, constant alert. Receiving a short message – “all is well” followed by his new address: U.S. Naval Base, Panama Canal Zone. No more visits for a while.

October every year the fair comes to town. The fairgrounds and my gradeschool are both on the same city property and are separated only by a single service road. All the houses near here were built years later. When the fairgrounds were built this property was undeveloped.

“Mom, may I have an apple?”

“Take it outdoors,” she calls, “it’s a beautiful day.”

I go into the kitchen. A big house, a big kitchen. No cooks, no pastry chef. Not like the old days – there’s a war going on. All the cooks are in the army. The yesterday apple is gone. We never have fruit, too expensive. A quick look, a pickle will do. I wrap it in waxed paper, a big fat pickle cured in wood, the jar so big I carefully use two hands.

Pickle eating is for later. I stuff the pickle in my pocket, breeches made of corduroy, the perfect fit for pickles, big and baggy.

Across the back porch, screen door slams, the creek at the end of the yard an easy jump, the path to the top of the hill. I stop to rest. My house is still in view if I care to turn and see.

At the crest, this is the gravel road circling the fairgrounds. I come here all the time. Makes me feel like a boy ten feet tall. This lot is overgrown and unused – my favorite place. When the fair leaves town I come here alone, walking among the livestock buildings, empty now, and kicking up wood chips to see what I can find.

As always when the fair is in town, long-burning campfires I see from my house on the crest of the hill. Feeling the excitement, I think about joining them. But as mother warned: “Don’t ever go up there after dark, gypsies will carry off small boys at night.“

I never did believe this.

As I lay on my back at the fairgrounds, sun on my face, I unwrap the pickle. The broom straw is tall and thick, golden yellow this time of year. A gypsy campfire, I see it now. I hate it when the carnival wagons leave town. Why does everyone have to leave?

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London in winter.

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To London, To London

Acknowledgement

As Dickens described London, the flower stalls of Notting Hill and the bankside brothels along the river, a city where the abnormal and the commonplace lie side by side – this is the city I always wanted to see.  But not a summer vacation, and not a field trip, and not just for amusement. I wanted to experience the light, the magic, the song beyond my own lifespan. And this we did, the three of us, as natural as a moth to the flame.

What touches the heart, as we discovered, is that life in London in all these years had been the same as today. People are the same; the same needs, the same comforts. Their body, their brain, same as ours, never inferior. Vigorous compatriots exactly like us. I now have a new understanding of Londoners.

The time spent there is but a glimpse of the wonderful and inalterable inheritance of its people which I treasure, and now give thanks to Kathryn for her inspiration and goodness of heart, without which I could not see a way through.

London

On this site the first church of St. Paul’s was built in 604 AD. Here in London this day stands St. Paul’s Cathedral, built is 1697, the fifth St. Paul’s – same location.

Also, Westminster Abbey built on the site where it still stands, an abbey built by Edward the Confessor in 1065. This abbey stands as the site of every coronation in English history since William I.

The city does not feel old. Like Madrid, it is young and vibrating. London feels a rhythm of energy. Peoples of every nation are here. Why do they come? Why did I come? Why did King Arthur? Why did Lord Nelson come to serve his country at the age of 12?

Not a student of history, but the thrill is standing where history was made. And if your ancestors lived here, stories of events you learned as a child in school gain fascination by being here, landmarks enduring the passage of time, the variety endless; never in a year would anyone see it all.

There are ancient ruins to be seen, but don’t look in London. London is very much alive – the old and the modern standing together. For example, near Liverpool Street Station, the market near Petticoat Lane. Old London and business is good. The new London, everything around the Broadgate Center, new construction, tall buildings, office workers pouring out at lunch time, jazz and nightclubs drawing crowds, Eric Clapton, world class music. Old Commercial Street now the hottest spot in town for new development. Young professionals on their way up are moving in.

Yet the old London endures. Please make a note and see for yourself.  It’s not the money. It’s the style. These hotels are not a recommendation, but see for yourself what is offered. These I like:

Brown’s Hotel, off Piccadilly near Green Park at Albemarle Street. Very old. Also the Ritz, 150 Piccadilly. Or in Mayfair, Claridge’s is at Brook Street and Davies. And not in any particular order, please see The Berkely (pronounced bar-klee), Wilton Place at Knightsbridge. Also, the Savoy, located on the Strand, of course – and not to miss the Savoy Grill.  This, my favorite – The Dorchester, 53 Park Lane. A view of the park, dramatic at night with all the lights aglow. Best in December, by the fire.  

#London #England #Ritz #savoy #Claridge's #Brown's Hotel #Dorchester #The Berkely #Old Commercial Streeet #Liverpool Streeet Station #St. Paul's #Westminster Abbey #Broadgate Center

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Grayson County, Virginia

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The Magic of Rugby

I have been here once, a four-hour drive from the house I've lived in these last 50 years. I first came here about five years ago from North Carolina to the highlands of Southwest Virginia. This is mountain country.

In 1748, this is the frontier. The end of the known world. Explorers were everywhere, looking for a gap to move westward. For years, men traveling in small parties returned. Not passable; not the Alleghenies, not the Blue Ridge – the Great Smokies the most severe.

Here in the Cumberland they discovered the best mountain passage and here they all came, boatloads from Europe landing in Virginia, some crossing Pennsylvania – many from Ireland and Scotland and Germany. Their unbroken family heritage is found here today.

And more to come.  An unending flow of men and women hiking the 2,000 mile Appalachian Trail, built by President Roosevelt in 1937 – today, the longest marked hiking trail in the world.  It’s not a picnic in the grass, its rocky course along the crest of every peak. Many have done it non-stop in six months, from Georgia to Maine.

Others come here every June for the Grayson County Music Festival near Rugby, Va. Two thousand guitar pickers, music lovers and dancers. A circle of people, each with their instruments – banjo, bass, mandolin, ukulele, fiddle – most, handcrafted family keepsakes. Some are locally made or near about. The training of children very much starts at home, none too young to learn.

If you would like to own a handmade violin, go to the general store in Rugby and ask about Wayne Henderson, perhaps visit his shop there.

Experts say the Henderson Guitar built in Rugby is the best in America. From 1644 to 1737 the best violins were built in Cremona, Italy (Antonio Stradivarius). Each of these men practice making instruments with a microscopic perfection of workmanship.

In these mountains there can be felt an ever-present and intense spirit. It must be remembered, in 1846 a million people died, the potato famine, an ugly time in the history of humanity and of Ireland. Here, many descendants live, those who escaped to America. Their music very much alive. Will the circle be unbroken.

Vocals have been added with the new tunes, reflecting the culture of the region, but many of the old songs are soulful at times, reflecting a way of life which ended, of loved ones lost. Yet much is raucous and upbeat – the hypnotic rhythm of the river dance. And best of all, at full tempo, like a freight train passing through, the entire population packed into a small Irish music house, a celebration of life’s journey, of love for one another.

Life is the moment, of brevity and beauty. Learn to keep all that you love in your heart.

There comes a time when enjoying what you are doing, nothing else is needed – knowing when enough is enough and allowing enough to satisfy.

A music festival in the mountains, a cool breeze rushing upward, an open sward of green, soft and smooth – the silence of peace floating above the stillness of the horizon. And at night, the campfire is long burning, smoke and ash driven high as the faces of young children – poems and stories of Hiawatha.

As ever, the ocean roars, the ocean rocks. Here, 3,000 feet above, the mountains sing.

Then dance, dance, wherever you may be. I am the Lord of the Dance, said he. And I’ll lead you all wherever you may be, and I’ll lead you all in the dance, said he.

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The Homestead, Hot Springs, Virginia

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The Discretionary Gentleman

The resort is popular year-round.  Driving here is an easy trip from home. Such a pleasure to be in the mountains of Viriginia, far from all the cities. There is no traffic at this elevation. A narrow, two-lane road through dense hillside foliage. Treetops shade the road. It’s a long climb. 

Now at the top, it seems like another world. The land spreads out on every side, far away and unspoiled.

At the hotel, the staff is attentive and efficient, though the portico is bumper-to-bumper, trunk lids open, porters with trolleys piled with luggage. Garment bags, hat boxes. The porch is huge, with guests milling about, everyone checking in, their cars left along the carriage sweep waiting for a valet.

I present myself at a long counter of handsome employees, young and gracious, almost to the extreme. A brief exchange, smiles. She hands me the room key. “Enjoy your stay.”

Every guest is made to feel like a VIP. What a nice way to do business. To put everyone at ease, and so artfully done for 246 years now as mandated by Captain Thomas Bullett, a gentleman and patriarch of Virginia, lifelong friend and personal aid-de-camp to General Washington, and founder of The Homestead.

Escorted to our room, Nina and I dismiss our porter and take a moment to refresh. Our day began early with breakfast in Lexington. At four o’clock, after a respite, we return to the lobby to unwind with a cocktail.

Just off the lobby is the Great Hall. A dramatic space, large enough for a formal reception. Collonades facing each side of the long room. Three open levels. Suggestions of intimate spaces and quiet conversation.

There is activity, brisk at times. Greetings, drinks passed, guests coming down from their rooms. Others enter from the porch, still in riding clothes. Men in boots and hacking jackets. Ladies in wide-brimmed garden hats and blazers. This is not city chic.  

A piano is playing nearby. We arrived at the proper time. For those inclined, tea is being served.

Back up to the room for a hot bath and a nap. Not too long – much to do. This is our first visit. Each moment, and moments between moments, meant to be savored. Finally, the indulgence of dressing for the evening.

I take great care in dressing. Everyone dresses for dinner. The main dining room is the heart and soul of the social life at the Homestead. Grand chandeliers. Piano, bass and drum floating over the parquet dance floor. Staff is black coats and ties.

Ready now as I’ll ever be. I call to Nina, who has yet to begin. No reply expected. Just a courtesy between consorts.

Down to the bar in the Great Hall.  It feels even larger when you are unaccompanied. I take my drink and find my way to the lobby.  Not the scale of the Great Hall, but a beautiful room.

I hate to admit: I hope Nina doesn’t join me too soon. High above sea level, far from home, a five-star hotel, two ounces of Old Fitzgerald. My shoes are polished. I cut a handsome figure.  

A sip of my drink. Seventy-seven but feeling like forty-seven. But who am I? Do I love only when it is fashionable? Do I search for truth? Do I believe in the genuineness of others? How many of my friends are outcasts? How many others do I try to avoid?

Another sip. A nod of greeting, perhaps only for myself. Enjoying a relationship with my higher nature. I know this: without the spirit to aid us we are all destitute.

The lobby is filling. Many of the same faces, now in evening clothes. Men in black wool suits, a satin stripe down the leg. I’ve always wondered about dinner clothes and the stripe down the trouser.  It seems to me there is only one reason for the satin detail. A gentleman of discretion should not want his butler to be better dressed than himself. Certainly, never after six.

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Just as Mr. Duke Wanted

It was a village of shanties on the edge of town – small huts on a construction site. Trade guild workers recruited from Europe. Mostly stonecutters from Spain and France, all hired on to complete what we now know as the last major Gothic project in this country. A local quarry produced a rare type of blue stone. Rail lines were laid to transport the rough ore 15 miles from the main junction to the chosen location.

Five years earlier, Mr. James Buchanan Duke, son of a North Carolina tobacco farmer, and Dr. Few, then president of Trinity College in Durham, walked among a pine forest a short distance from Trinity. At long last Mr. Duke stopped. “This is where it should be.”

Duke University was born.

Seven years later, in 1932, the campus chapel and much of the school was completed. The chapel was designed as a landmark, large enough to seat as many as 1400 people and host the university’s first commencement. The inspiring stone edifice in the forefront of the main gate is just as Mr. Duke wanted, the spiritual heart of the campus and student body.

I live in old West Durham, in a neighborhood just a short bike ride to the Duke campus. But not until I retired did I begin going to the chapel every Sunday, my routine these last several years. When I first started attending I was only a visitor. Those summer mornings, parking was a factor, especially if I was running late. So I started arriving an hour before the service, a practice that has become a habit and a joy.

The reward is a better seat and a quiet time of meditation and choir rehearsals, a brass ensemble often added, heightening the drama of the moment. All of this I enjoy and look forward to, and even more so now that I am a member.

Church had never been a happy part of my life. Why now? Perhaps I need a change. Lord knows there is much to improve.

I remember that hot summer those first few weeks I went to the Duke Chapel alone. Not a familiar face. The organist, the ushers, the Dean of the Chapel, the presiding minister, the summer staff assistants – all strangers to me, and I to them. This day, the service concluded, the congregation gathered shoulder-to-shoulder on the stone entryway, beneath the looming chapel spires, if only briefly in spontaneous fellowship.

In the center of all this I was alone still, nonetheless feeling included, with no desire to leave. Suddenly, pushing through, a man approached me and gave me a wooden cross, thrusting it into my hand without any greeting. And as quickly, he moved away through the crowd without a word. I looked closely at the cross as if it would speak. Just a small wooden cross. Rare jewel grain, handcrafted mortise.  

I looked back for the man to say thank you, but he was gone.

I am a regular at the chapel these days. A familiar face. Smiles are given and returned in kind. Conversation is plentiful. With every passing year, the memory of that moment becomes more profound, more intense, more loving. Wherever you are, whoever you are, thank you.

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Thomas Merton

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A Pillow for My Soul

When Thomas Merton was a young student at Columbia in New York City, the Nazi party was on the rise in Germany.  Hitler, a veteran of the Great War, was making his mark in local politics.

If Merton had time during his studies he would work without pay on campus to promote the worldwide Communist party of Vladimir Lenin. War was a dark, gathering cloud and young men were agitated. A friend of Merton’s asked one day, “Do you want to know what I believe in? How to live in peace and find fulfillment?” Merton, taking a moment to consider before answering, replied, “No, that’s not my problem. I only care about what I know.”

My biggest trouble is, when I need the correct answer to what I really care about, I just uncover more questions. I may solve one problem only to create two new ones.

Here’s the biggest mystery of my life (I’ll make it short): I’m laying in my crib, no pillow, a flat, hard crib mattress. I was not happy.  I missed my pillow. But when did I ever have one? Never. So, if I never had a pillow why was I upset because I was denied one? And, as always, one more question – why do I still demand an answer? That was 77 years ago.

The story above is true, but only when you see the mind and brain as brothers. Not twin brothers but, like yin and yang, made for each other. Not one better than the other, yet incomplete unless united, working together.

We are, by design, one person made of two parts -- body and soul. Our lower human nature and our higher spiritual nature.  But how does the mind have knowledge of pillows? Maybe it doesn’t. It may be that all minds are different, some more developed than others. And if you believe in “old souls,” perhaps you believe that a mind, indeed a soul, can acquire a unique vintage.

It stands to reason that not the brain but the mind is the voice of our higher nature – the voice of spirit. The voice of our soul. It is the spiritual nature that cries out for the pillow, which could only mean that the spirit has a unique voice of its own.

I take note of children. Most I see have a vague notion of fair play, of justice. The fight between good guys and bad guys. An inborn awareness of tenderness and caring. To have such knowledge children must be taught, but it seems they know as much at a time when their brains are only beginning to learn. From the crib, the brain is being fed. Yet the mind already understands basic principles. While the brain is being taught, the mind is dictating policy.

Man does not live by brain alone. The mind channels the spiritual wisdom of our higher nature. It is through this wisdom that we develop the ability to know. This, I believe, is what Merton was talking about.

Life on Earth is never going to please God unless directed by the spirit. Humanity, driven by its lower nature, will never be compatible with God and nothing we mortals can ever do will change the fact. Only the spirit knows the Father. Our higher nature is given the spirit and spirit-to-spirit we are able to have a relationship with Him who made us.

As children of God, not wholly spiritual, not completely mortal, we are made in His image – yin and yang. I have come to this enlightenment because I am not a slave anymore. Better than salvation, I have forgiveness. And more than that, the power which is ever-present in me: free will. I have free will to accept God or deny him.

Why did it take so long for me to arrive at this point? It didn’t. I don’t worry about all the yesterdays. Today is what counts.

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