Roaming, brooding & scattering thoughts

To glimpse Michelangelo's "Pieta" is reason enough to travel.

Roam the earth & see the beauty ....

It seems to me that a primary advantage to residency on the European side of the Atlantic Ocean is being much nearer to centuries of art and architecture. So much is there to appreciate. Spending a few moments within St. Peter's Basilica standing before Michelangelo's 15th Century marble "Pieta" is a reminder that while years pass by, there is some beauty which may resist change until the end of time.

I sort of like this photograph, even though the technical quality is rather dismal. The photo might also be a reminder for us to roam the earth while there still is earth to roam, and while we are fully alive to enjoy it. Our days are numbered, and neither god nor man will keep us young or safe forever.

The brooding Norwegian runs his errands ....

Yes, I am in a somber mood today. Brooding Norwegian equals one-half of me, fastidious German equals one-quarter, and with an indefinable mix spilling into the "final quarter." I have a dozen things on my mind right now, but the thoughts are too unfocused and random to capture more than a few words about any of them.

Today included run-around time for me. I had to go to a bank and shuffle some money from one to another. I had to go to the post office for a money order. Whenever I do that, I always vow never again to buy anything online from an individual or business which only accepts money order-type payments. However, in this case the item was something that I absolutely had to obtain. It was still another magazine for the Fabrique Nationale 6.35 mm pistol I bought Thanksgiving week. The magazine was made available on the "GunBroker" auction site, and I won it. I now have the original magazine for the pistol and two spares. One more spare, and that will be that. Right. Something I really needed.

I replenished my refrigerator and my closet food shelves today. I do that only once every ten days to two weeks, so it takes more time than I like to give it. I usually make at least one error while selecting food items. When I got home today, I discovered that I had picked up a box of sugar cookies instead my favored chocolate chip cookies. I suppose I can handle it.

I also replenished my liquor cabinet today, which meant another stop. Shopping for myself has always been easy in this category, but trying to keep a variety around for guests once was a difficult chore. I finally solved this dilemma simply by buying one of everything. With decision-making skills like that, I should be qualified to be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

Random thoughts from a scattered mind ....

I regret: That I never learned how to play a guitar. I absolutely love the music of the great rock and roll guitar players.

I wish: That I could travel through time to witness any number of events the way they actually happened. This is my dream of what "heaven" would offer me.

I feel: That I am indestructible until old age takes me. In the language of the Old Norse, I have money-luck, battle-luck and health-luck. It would be nice to have weather-luck and woman-luck as well, but I would not trade away any of those I do have.

I know: That there is power greater than my own; I just do not know what it is or where to look for it.

I believe: That good and evil are real and existing entities, with corporal bodies, and present among us, and not merely personifications of religious myth.

I like: People who are honest and people who are courageous.

I have no respect/time for: Career politicians, hustlers and wimps.

I hope: That I will be able to build another Sanctuary/Refuge.

I am still thinking about: Whether or not romance really is vanishing from the earth.

Music Note: Trying to psych myself up by listening to "Arena Rock" on cable television ....

Thinking of grandfather & re-evaluating art

Happy birthday, grandfather of mine ....

Today is my grandfather's birthday, on my mother's side. He was German, and loved being German. He is long gone now.

This evening, I will eat a German meal: Pork chops, potatoes and sauer kraut, washed down with beer. That was among his favorite dinners.

I will remember him as he swiftly seemed to become an old man, listening to polka music on his radio on Sunday afternoons: In the winter, sitting in own father's chair, his stocking feet on the oven door of an ancient wood/coal-burning stove, reading; in the summer, sitting in that same chair, outside under the shade of a tree, reading.

I'm not certain if most grandfathers are beneficial or not to their grandchildren, but I think he was for me. He turned his daughter, my mother, into a reader, and she passed that along to me. He gave me my first dog when I was four, telling my mother that all boys need dogs. (My mother went along with it.) He gave me my first shotgun, one of his, and trusted me enough to turn me loose with it when I was 10. (My mother went along with it.)

He showed me how to be patient, but he also taught me how to roar. When I was a teenager, he would pass a few dollars to me for gas money so I could visit my girlfriend in a neighboring town. More than anything, he was a man and he knew the score.

He knew things only an old man could know from years of experience living life, and he offered them to me as I moved through my teenage years. I listened to him because, even then, I understood that as his life was drawing down, he was giving me an honest gift: The benefit of knowledge he had earned from living through depression and war; through manual labor under scorching sun and in raging blizzard; through the loss of loved ones. He had crystal clear vision.

Can old art be re-born through technology?

A few nights ago, I saw more in the paintings of Henri Matisse than I had seen before. I think it was more the hypnotic music and the superb, creative video used to display the paintings than it was the actual work of Matisse which brought about this feeling, but .... I really do not know. Believe me, I have a few relatives who are art majors and who practice their art and who actually make some ridiculous amounts of money selling their stuff -- so, I am not a newbie to art. Explain to me then, why am I seeing today what I was not seeing yesterday?

When I wrote about Robert Louis Stevenson last night, I saw more in the painting of his face and his eyes than I ever had seen before in a photograph of him. I think I saw his actual persona and understood him. I also saw the frailty of his body. It seemed obvious to me he wanted to show it, as if to say it was his mind that really counted. Is all this massed together in the painting the extension of him .... or is it a particular talent of the painter who produced the portrait .... or is it some insight within me I did not possess only a few days before? Does this mean art is catching up to me and running me to ground? Sort of fun to consider.

But, before I collapse completely, allow me to regain my former composure and Spartan masculinity by once more quoting Stevenson: "I wish to die in my boots; no more Land of Counterpane for me. To be drowned, to be shot, to be thrown from a horse -- ay, to be hanged, rather than pass again through that slow dissolution."

Yes, that is more like it.

Music Note: Listening to Cinderella ....
Specifically, "Night Songs" ....
("Nobody’s Fool" -- you better believe it, baby)

While wandering here and there and ....

The closest thing I have to a brother is a man named Tom. He spent some time with the U.S. Army. Since I utilized this page on Saturday to sing praises for the Marine Corps, I decided the best way to avoid an argument with Brother Tom is to use the page today to acknowledge the service of Army veterans.

I don’t have a list of quotes about the Army as I did for the Marines. I never did any time with the Army, so I have no personal experience upon which to base any legitimate opinions about life on the inside. What I do have are photographs which recall perhaps the greatest feat ever accomplished by any army anytime in the history of warfare: The storming of the beaches at Normandy in France on D-Day, June 6, 1944:

Pointe du Hoc

American Army Rangers scaled those cliffs while under fire from German troops (probably some of my relatives among them) who were fortified above. It seems unbelievable any Rangers survived to reach the heights, but they did, and won the day. (Photos are Fram's, summer 2004)

Omaha Beach

There are many shorelines like it, beautiful and peaceful. But, on a summer day in 1944, more than 2,200 American soldiers died on that soft sand in the matter of a few hours.

American dead

Here, for eternity, rest some of the fallen on D-Day and in ensuing weeks. This is one of many cemeteries in the area of Normandy. Sons, brothers, husbands, each an individual soul ....