CoMMensa

2012-01-08T19:54:00.000-08:00

2011—Senior Primary “Chorister”?

Like all nice Mormon boys, I was brought up to look upon Church callings (assignments from ecclesiastical leaders to serve in specific, responsible positions) as awfully close to Divine commandments. J Reuben Clark, the first General Authority I ever paid serious attention to, was known for describing callings as something that faithful Latter-day Saints “neither seek nor decline.” As a matter of principle, and in the abstract, that has always been my position.

Royal P. Skousen

Like some distinguished forebears, however, I must confess to receiving some official assignments “with a doubting heart” and with audible grumbling. Haven’t yet written up in these pages my experience in receiving from Boston Stake President Mitt Romney a call to serve as president of the Asian branch in Lynn; it’s instructive, but I’m not particularly proud of it.

More recently, I have just been called as Senior Primary “chorister”¹ in the Fox Pointe Ward. The last time I attended a meeting of the Primary Association, I was (embarrassed to be) eleven years old, in San Bernardino. The whole program has evolved, well out of my recognition. Last Sunday, everybody was very tolerant of my clumsy incapacity, but it wasn’t much more than a classic learning experience.

Adam S. Bennion

Today went much better. Sweet little Savannah Kartchner, age 9 or so, came up afterward and said, with a sincerity I’d be a cad to gainsay, that I’d done a good job. As rivers of water in a dry place…

Levern M. Hansen

But by the time that third-hour session started, I’d requested and received an almost-chiropractic adjustment to my attitude. As the fast and testimony meeting proceeded, I was fairly suddenly aware of the faces of four men, hovering somewhere around the edges of my consciousness. I was supposed to be listening to the meeting, but I turned my mind’s eye to the faces and recognized them as belonging to Royal P. Skousen, Adam S. Bennion, Levern M. Hansen, and Paul H. Dunn—all Church leaders I had known and regarded highly, as a child, more than half a century, ago. All now deceased, but all tied into precious memories for which I feel some obligations of stewardship, even today.

Paul H. Dunn

Considering them together (and, I must confess, missing each acutely, even after all this time), I realized what they had in common: each had, at least once, treated little me as a fellow human being, worthy of respectful attention, even as older people of rank and attainments waited their turn. And suddenly, with tears, it became clear that I have now received an opportunity—perhaps my last in this world—to show gratitude to those dear brethren.

¹As far as I know, only Mormons apply the term “chorister” to a song leader. To everybody else, a chorister is a member of a choir.

2011-12-08T14:46:00.000-08:00

1978—The Blizzard

Sunday, February 5, 1978. Supper-time at the kitchen table in Timbaloo. Speakers on the wall, feeding us the news. Hmmm. A monster storm is about to hit Washington, D.C.; it will then head up the coast toward New England. Now, we loved to make jokes about the unreliability of the Weather Service, and so we were inclined to shrug off the forecast.

EXCEPT that I had in my briefcase a multi-million-dollar Abt Associates proposal that had to be in Washington at noon the next day. Given the District’s well-known inability to function under what we’d consider trivial amounts of snow, I had the makings of a problem.

So, in typical mature, measured fashion, I left my supper half-eaten and my boots, gloves and heavy overcoat in the closet, called a cab to Logan Airport, grabbed the next Eastern Airlines shuttle out (which turned out to be the last one to land at National Airport, before the snow closed it down). Got there in the middle of Sunday night, took a motel room near National, and woke in the morning to

find the pantywaists of our nation’s capital paralyzed by a few inches of snow. Called around and found an enterprising chap on skis who took my proposal¹ across the Potomac to its destination.

So now (Monday mid-morning) I was at liberty to go home. But how? The airports were closed, and even if I could get on a plane going to Boston, it wouldn’t be able to land anywhere in New England. Made my way to Union Station and learned that the Montreal Express (I think that was its name; or maybe that was what we called this kind of nor’easter) train was scheduled to leave around midnight. Bought a ticket. Finally departed after dawn on Tuesday. Before long, the train was acting as a snowplow and going VERY slowly. The meager food supplies on the crowded train ran out quickly.

¹As it turned out, the agency extended the deadline. Ours was there on time. The winning proposal (not ours) met the second deadline. Hmpf.

We crossed into Massachusetts Thursday morning, stopping at Route 128, as they announced, to pick up the corpses of some motorists who had died of carbon monoxide poisoning in their immobilized cars. Arrived in Back Bay Station early Thursday afternoon, sixty hours after scheduled departure from Washington. Seven snowy miles from home. Hungry. Weary. All the vending machines in the station had been empty for days. But the phones were working! Called home from a pay phone (remember them?); assured Valerie (six months pregnant) that I was still alive, sorta, and asked her to send the three boys out to clear a path up Timbaloo’s front steps.

Then started to pay attention to the officials who were ordering us to stay put until they’d see fit to give us leave to go. Called The T and learned that a piece of the Green Line subway (ending three long blocks away) was still running as far as Park Street, and that the Red Line was still operating from Park Street to Harvard. Conspired with similarly-rebellious fellow-passengers, and ultimately set out northish along Dartmouth Street toward the Copley Station subway stop, about a quarter of a mile, through head-high snow, with an elderly academic, a blind woman, and her companion.

The snow and wind had pretty much tapered off, but Governor Mike Dukakis had ordered all roads closed except to emergency vehicles; it would be weeks before Brunnhilde could legally leave our driveway.

Must admit it was tough, slow going, and the blind girl and her friend were glad to find an old, traditional hotel (which I’ve been unable to identify since) a bit more than half-way along our route. We all went in and found the dark lobby (the power was out) crammed with fugitives like ourselves. In a true spirit of hospitality, the uniformed hotel staff circulated in the crowd, bearing candles, tea, and something like what our Brit friends call biscuits. Our blind companion was perfectly at home in the darkness; she and her friend stayed there, while the professor and I pushed on after a little rest.

Finally made it to the subway station, where we shook hands and wished each other well, and he continued toward his Back Bay home. The T carried me to Park Street and then to Harvard without further mishap (and without asking for the usual fare). Emerged to a truly startling sight: Harvard Square with no traffic, unless you count a couple of police cars and the odd snowplow.

Five miles to go. Recall, if you please, that I was wearing (really inadequate) plastic shoes, a light overcoat, no gloves, and no hat. Carrying a briefcase. Did have my sunglasses, thank the Lord. Well, the plows had moved or compacted the snow on Mass Ave, and I was all alone as I trudged up the middle of the road as far as Porter Square, where a pleasant fellow offered me a ride on his snowplow.

He dropped me off in the middle of Appleton Street, right in front of Timbaloo, bless his gizzard. Where, of course, my three faithful sons were throwing snowballs at each other in the general vicinity of the unshovelled stairs. Climbing them (the stairs, not the boys) resembled swimming more than walking, but I did arrive at last, weary, cold, and famished.

Now that we were together again, and ever since, we’ve had to confess that this historic disaster turned out, on balance, a very positive experience for us. We saw more of each other, got to know our neighbors, and enjoyed with them a we’re-in-this-together spirit that might otherwise never have arisen.

We remember our disrupted church situation, in particular, very positively: until they once again permitted parking in Cambridge, we held Sacrament meeting in our parlor for those of our neighbors who cared to participate. Our guests on these occasions included some we seldom if ever saw at the Chapel. We resumed our normal commute with mixed feelings.

A procrastinated thank-you

2011-04-18T19:44:00.000-07:00

I've been diffident about posting this memory. It's tender, and I wouldn't wish to impose that tenderness on anybody who wouldn't be glad to harbor it. But you can just skip it, in that case. Ray Glazier says I should post it, and I value Ray's counsel. I'll watch for comments.

President Thomas S. Monson
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
50 East North Temple
Salt Lake City, Utah 84150

Dear President Monson,

This is by way of a belated thank-you note. In 1967, you were pivotally helpful to a man we love, and your kindness has begotten wonderful consequences about which you ought to know. Please forgive our procrastination: we’ve repressed good intentions for years.

You may perhaps remember H. Duane Anderson, who was called in 1967 to preside over the mission in Paris. The picture shows Duane and Leola, as they looked then. They’re the parents of one of us and the grandparents-in-law of the other. After decades of teaching French language and culture, our Pappy was thrilled to receive this call, but it also terrified him. As he related the story to us later, he poured out his heart to you in a private meeting, asking how hecould possibly direct the work of three hundred missionaries, when he had never himself served a mission. He told us that you comforted him, related some stories of missionaries who had done mighty work despite a lack of preparation, and assured him that the Lord would make him equal to his opportunities. He went to Paris reassured, and had an intense and honorable experience there.

Now we fast-forward to 1991 when young Ron Ralston had the good fortune to fall in love with the Andersons’ eldest granddaughter, Cynthia Lee Anderson of Arlington, Massachusetts. To his great joy, Cyndi agreed to wait for Ron while he served a mission to Milwaukee.

President Thomas S Monson Page 2

Full of enthusiasm, Ron entered the MTC, where it became apparent that a disability would keep him from serving a mission. He came home absolutely desolated, and he went around saying to himself and to others, “Cyndi will never marry me, with all the missionary tradition in her family. Here I tube out of the MTC! She's going to break our engagement. There is no way she's going to marry a guy who couldn't make it through the MTC.”

Our Pappy became aware of Ron’s distress. As Ron remembers it, Pappy called him in and related the story of his own misgivings at the brink of the mission field and how you had assured him that the Lord would make him equal to the challenge. Pappy then, as head of the Anderson family, welcomed Ron to the family and told him: “Nobody in this family is going to hold it against you that you didn't get to go on a full-time mission. If anybody gives you any trouble about it, you send him to me.”

Before too long, Cyndi and Ron were married in the Salt Lake Temple (it was several years too soon to make it happen in Boston). They and their children (see the fairly recent photo on the next page) are forever grateful to you for teaching our family patriarch how to strengthen the feeble knees.

President Thomas S Monson Page 3

So now you know; we hope you rejoice. And we do sustain you and pray for you always. Thanks for a beautiful Conference and for your blessings upon us; we treasure them. Within the limits of our capacity, we send you also our blessings.

With much love,

Ronald Ralston

Richard B. Anderson

Mr. Richard B. Anderson
390 East 1500 South
Kaysville, Utah 84037

Dear Brother Anderson:

Thank you for the letter from you and your son-in-law
Ronald Ralston regarding your dear parents, H. Duane and
Leola Seely Anderson. You have a noble heritage of devotion to
the Gospel of Jesus Christ, even in the face of sacrifice and
trials.

There was deep sadness on the passing of your mother
and great admiration for your father as he continued to serve
with faith and courage. How grateful we are for comfort and
peace received from the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the gift of
the Holy Ghost.

Please give my love to your family. May our Father in
Heaven bless you in the service you give and in all that you do.

Shakespeare Was Never…

2010-11-15T17:48:00.000-08:00

Y’know, I really don’t feel in charge of this thing. As random as its topics may appear, it has felt as if each was imposed on me, in its due time, by apparent coincidence.

I don't believe in coincidence.

Yesterday, an e-mail announced preparations for MIT's coming sesquicentennial celebration. So how could I not begin to ruminate on my participation in the centennial, in 1961?

Then, just today, a letter surfaced in which I'd reported that very participation to Valerie, fifty years ago but only two days after the event. So here's the story. As before, I present it on compulsion.

Contrary to prevailing Harvardian calumnies, there's plenty of culture at MIT, including a great deal of the conventional sort. This story stands out in my memory, however, even in some pretty stellar cultural company.

It fell to our East Campus House Committee to bring to pass a perfectly magical cultural event that I’m going to try to describe. Not in the hope that you’ll be able to reproduce it—I’m firmly convinced that that can never be—but because I count it among the miracles that have taught me about the love of God.¹

It was 1961: MIT’s Centennial Year. Everybody was remembering a hundred proud years and laboring to make memories that would last another century. Aldous Huxley and e. e. cummings were lecturing and reading in our halls of assembly and broadcasting over our airwaves² and along the audio cables that complicated our ledge-walks.

We in East Compost cherished a long and distinctive tradition of sponsoring only the dead minimum of parties and other conventional social gatherings, in firmly-intentional contrast to the policies of the fraternities and even of other dormitories.

So, some consternation ensued when the powers that be passed along to the East Campus House Committee, via the Dormitory Council and therefore via my reluctant self, an urgent mandate to plan and bring to pass some sort of event of memorable cultural value. Also a $50 budget. More money then than now…

Given our traditions and predilections, how could we possibly cooperate to leave a coherent cultural mark on the Centennial? Our customary hacks, however subtle or sophisticated, didn’t really fit the description. Nor did hall-hockey, mega-water-fights, or any of the other ways in which we usually came together to do things. It’s not that we were without culture, but rather that our cultural preferences tended to vary widely and individualistically, to be more solitary than collaborative, and to partake of a sense of humor bordering on the sardonic.

We argued and agonized. More than one meeting bore no fruit. Until my good friend Charlie Weller, Third Floor Hall Chairman (if I recall aright), brought one of his constituents to an ad hoc “let’s try one more time” House Committee gathering. This parishioner of Charlie’s stood out for oddness in this very individualistic assembly. I’m going to call him “Lance,” inasmuch as I don’t remember his real name. Not one whose company I ever sought out. Presumably brilliant, on some level, but then that went without saying, in those Sputnik-haunted days and corridors.

While Charlie shrugged and rolled his eyes and the rest of us sat by slack-jawed, Lance made us a thunderstrikingly strange proposal. He’d relieve us of the burden of our assigned event and promise us something cultural that we’d always remember, but in return we had to buy his plan sight unseen and do it exactly his way, with no further negotiations or modifications. The budget, said Lance, was plenty. We’d also have to give him the green light to arrange a partnership with our very opposite numbers at Senior House.

Well, we debated, but not nearly as long as we’d already done to no avail. Seeing no real alternative, with tremblings, we cast our lot and our budget with Lance and invited him to reveal this non-negotiable plan of his. Before long, we convened the first (and likely only-ever) joint conclave of the East Campus/Senior House governing Committees. Where Lance laid it on us:

We were now irretrievably committed to mounting a full, costumed outdoor performance of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream in the L-shaped courtyard between Senior House and the President’s House.

Much of the action was to take place in the courtyard itself, among the audience, who would occupy folding chairs. Palace scenes would mostly happen on the Senior House balconies; the President’s wall would double as Fairyland. The halls of Senior House and the President’s back yard would be our backstage.

This would be a reading performance: nobody would have to memorize lines.

Lance would allocate parts at random, with no right of appeal nor, one supposes, demurrer. Nobody with previous stage experience would be eligible for a speaking part.

There would be no rehearsals. Lance would walk each actor individually through his entrances and exits. The cast would meet for the first time at the one and only performance.

We’d borrow costumes from Dramashop. Except for the inexpensive paperback script from which each of us would read, the munificent budgets of the sponsoring organizations (us and the Senior Housers) would be combined and spent on very nice cookies and punch for audience and cast to share afterward.

A few misgiving voices rose to challenge our commitment. Had they been able to propose any concrete alternative, they might have prevailed. As it was, they subsided, and we set to work with doubting hearts to make the best of our Centennial obligation.

The randomness of Lance’s casting remains in historical doubt, but nobody then or now seems to want to point any fingers. The central rôle of Puck went to Mary, the daughter of Dean of Students John T. Rule. I’m morally certain she had prior stage experience, but she delivered a performance that I remember as treading the line between fetching and dazzling—what I could see of it, from my usual position in the “wings.” And her central position in the cast guaranteed that the prominent Rule family would attend in force.

In the same pulsating vein, three of the four named Fairies were President Jay and Kay Stratton’s daughters, Cathy, Cary, and Laurie. If it hadn’t already been a foregone conclusion that the Strattons would come to this activity in their back yard, this casting decision surely applied the stamp of certainty.

Me, I drew a genuine bit part, that of Egeus, father to Hermia. Normally listed second only to Duke Theseus in lists of dramatis personae, but granted by the Bard only two short and rather querulous scenes. My costume featured a marvelous, heavy, ankle-length wool cape, which I was just ham enough to swirl about in my sparse moments on stage.

So we collected our paperback scripts, went through our parts individually with Lance, and got costumed and made up at Dramashop. On the big night, a numerous and locally-stellar congregation did in fact assemble on the folding chairs.

I wish I could provide a coherent account of the performance. You’ll have to use your imagination, and it’ll fall short. You really had to be there. One brief example, to illustrate the difficulty. My excellent friend and fellow MIT Concert Band clarinetist Joe Goldfarb drew (again I doubt the randomness) the rôle of Moonshine in the play-within-a-play. Where (Act V, Scene 1), in his truly spectacular Brooklyn accent, he intoned:

     This lanthorn doth the horned moon present…

     Myself the man i’ the moon do seem to be…

     this thorn-bush, my thorn-bush; and this dog, my dog.

To get the full flavor of this comic climax, you have to assimilate Joe’s classic manner of speech, in which, for example, “this dog” has three syllables, resembling, sequentially, “diss” “dough,”and “ugg.”

Near the outset, I delivered my first resonant line: “Full of vexation come I, with complaint against my child, my daughter Hermia!…” Then for much of the rest of the performance, I hunkered in the President’s yard, behind its surrounding wall, in company with other bit-players. Including, as it turned out, the lovely Laurie Stratton, whom I had heretofore admired from afar but actually met only on rare, rather formal occasions.

Well, as it happened, Laurie’s somewhat skimpy fairy-costume wasn’t really adequate to the chilly evening, and she gave some visible evidence of distress, even in the moonlit gloom. Fetched up as a gentleman, what else could I have done? I invited her into the coziness of my big wool cape, and we kept each other warm in the most chaste manner imaginable, until one of us had to arise to the call of another cue.

For bashful, virginal, nineteen-year-old me, this innocent little interlude was fraught with a great deal of hormonal electricity. I don’t flatter myself that it was so for her. I don’t recall that Laurie and I ever met again.³ But I suppose that you need to know about this part of the story, if you’re to decide what to make of the rest of my account.

…For my recollections put this evening in a very sparsely-populated category: that of perfectly magical, one-off, irreproducible occasions of amazing joy. I’ve been blessed with a few such; this is the most secular of them and therefore the one I feel most free to recount here. For each, I won’t live to return enough thanks to the Source of all marvelous things.

As I recall it, the prevailing mood around the very nice fifty-dollar cookies and punch was rather breathless. Something had happened. Reminiscent of Peter on the Mount of Transfiguration, blurting out: “…it is good for us to be here…” However enhanced and distorted my personal experience may have been, it remains an objective fact that we, MIT, and Shakespeare had a huge, memorable, cultural success in the Senior House courtyard, despite all reasonable expectations.

I don’t know what ever became of “Lance.” I seem to have heard that he dropped out of MIT without graduating, but that’s as uncertain a recollection as any. It’s only now, half a century later, that it occurs to me how perfectly his achievement on our behalf fits with the classic “hacking” ethos that infused and shaped my East Campus experience: unexpected and even counterintuitive results from clever and unconventional techniques, playing fast and loose with “the rules” as required, and all executed in an atmosphere of high spirits and, sometimes, low humor.

Here’s how I reported the same event in a letter to Valerie the next Sunday, April 30:

Tech

April 30, 1961

Dearest Valérie,

...Had a big triumph-type occurrence Friday night that all but pulled this small tool out of his perennial depression. As follows:

Shakespeare orgy was held, celebrating Old Willie's birthday. We had a highly informal reading enactment of Midsummer Night's Dream, advertising of which drew us a capacity crowd of distinguished people out for a good deal of fun. Dean Rule's daughter, Mary, played Puck and really stole the show. She's 15 years old and a natural-born, freckle-faced ham. Once, she lost her place by turning one page too many and started reading some of Oberon's lines. Then, realizing that the lines were unfamiliar, she grinned, muttered, "Lord, what fools these actors be," and picked up where she should have been, bringing down the house.

I had the only straight part in the whole thing: Egeus, the villainously proud old curmudgeon whose sole function is to act as a foil for a whole playful of delightful tomfoolery. Well, I poured all that's dramatic in me into that obscure part and had the satisfaction of having the director gently berate me afterward for making the principles [sic] look sick! Yep, I'm bragging -- so there! Pres. Stratton, ex-Pres. Killian, Deans Fassett and Rule, and a couple of reporters were very flattering afterward. Just thought you might like to know that your aged boyfriend is moderately famous now -- only a week after being in the slough of despond.

The whole thing was immensely successful -- largely because there ws no expectation of an artistic production. Nobody was nervous, because we all had scripts there with us. Everybody just plain had fun, and in the process a great deal of the basic hilarity of the play came through that might not have shown in a more self-conscious production...I honestly haven't had half so much fun in a long time...

¹You may well think me irredeemably silly on this score. Go ahead. I can’t help it. That’s still how it affects me, almost half a century later.

²“WTBS-AM, 640 on your dial in Cambridge, the Radio Voice of MIT.” For a while, I deejayed a twice-weekly evening “classical” music program from the studio in the basement of Senior House. Until fellow radio guy Lew Norton told me I talked through my nose. Kinda lost interest, after that.

³Laurie’s father’s extended 1994 obituary, published by MIT, lists her among his survivors as Mrs Laura Thoresby of London. I ran into Kay Stratton at an Alumni Council function in the 1990s and inquired after Laurie. Mrs Stratton replied that her daughter had divorced “her barrister” and was working as confidential secretary to a Saudi prince. Also that I shouldn’t feel lonesome for having had a crush on Laurie. Much of East Campus and Senior House seemed to have shared the experience.

Missionary Journal of Leola Anderson 1967-68

2010-10-24T16:36:00.000-07:00

Friends and Companions--

The lost is found! In all our movings-around, I'd lost track of the journal that my Mammy (Leola Seely Anderson) kept during the last year of her life, while Pappy (H Duane Anderson) was mission president in Paris. It surfaced last Wednesday, and I spent an emotional day on Thursday, scanning its 115 pages and reducing them to a PDF file named "LSA Journal 1967-68.pdf"

Below, the first page of actual journal entry. The whole thing runs to 21 MB; you're welcome to download it from

http://commensa.net

Just click on "Parked Files," then on "Family Publications," and then tell it you want to download "LSA Journal 1967-68.pdf".

Back while it was missing, our daughter Cyndi expressed interest in transcribing it into machine-readable text. She's still so inclined, but she's willing to share the opportunity with others who may feel similar motivations. If that's you, please make contact with her at cyndiralston@gmail.com.

Unto us…

2010-10-04T18:31:00.001-07:00

This has been a favorite memory for forty-five years now. Last Tuesday, in fact, was its (and therefore Rick's natal) anniversary. Celebrated that very sweetly with Rick and family at his house. And then it just happened to come up at the chronological edge of my personal history.

I believe the class was a mite bigger than this, but I couldn’t now name those who were missing for the photo-shoot. Yes, they were a perfectly darling group of Menlo Park ninth- and tenth-graders who got up very early every school morning and gathered at their ward meeting-house, where we studied the Scriptures and talked of special things.

One anecdote will prepare the next major topic (Rick) and also give you an idea of their sweetness:

They knew, of course, that we were expecting our first child, and they were excited about it, too. On the 28th of September, 1965, even as we convened, things were starting to pop, chez Valerie; I left the group a time or two to call home for an update. No cell phones, in those days: just the pay phone in the hall. That afternoon, Rick made his entrance.

The next morning, I got there ahead of all the students. As each came in, it was “Well? did it happen? what did you get?” with their eyes just shining. I told each to take his seat, that I’d have an announcement, once everybody was on hand.

Now, our routine was such that I normally had Tabernacle Choir music playing, as the students arrived. Today, the 12-inch vinyl disc was spinning on the turntable, but the needle sat, quietly and inertly, in its little holder.

When the last student had taken his seat, I smiled at the class, lifted the needle, and placed it in the groove: “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given…”

That’s the only standing ovation anybody has ever accorded to yours truly. I can’t remember it with dry eyes.

The kindness of strangers

2010-09-23T16:08:00.000-07:00

It's been decades since these vignettes last came to mind, and yesterday's sun was setting before it became obvious that I should insert them, now, into my personal history. They're a couple of indispensable sidebars on Bostonians whose memory I cherish: it would be a crime to leave them out. No photos, to my shame. Wish I’d thought. It was Blanche, wasn’t it, who taught us about the kindness of strangers…

Maggie


	This is how the line outside the Durgin-Park Dining Rooms tended to look, back before they gentrified the Quincy Market area out of all recognition.

We East Composters, eight or ten strong, scruffy and hungry, would depart the dorm around 9:00 of a Saturday morning in 1958-61 and hike across the Longfellow (“Salt-and-Pepper-Shaker”) Bridge from MIT in Cambridge to the neighborhood of the Customs Tower at the Waterfront in Boston. Then we’d get near the front of the line, so as to be able to dash upstairs when the door opened at 10:30, and claim our spots at Maggie’s table.

Maggie, you see, distinguished herself among Durgin’s notoriously sharp-tongued staff for her determination not to see undergraduates starve. Each of us would order a 95¢-special lunch, instituted in those days to get around Governor Foster Furcolo’s Old Age Tax of 5% on restaurant meals over a dollar. When we finished the glass of milk that came with the special, Maggie, ever tall, skinny, dark-blonde, and nearsighted, would absent-mindedly rest a broad tray of coffee-creams on our table and turn her back. By the time she looked at us again, all the cream-jiggers were empty, and our milk-glasses were pretty much full. Miraculous! Same sort of deal with trays of Durgin’s excellent corn-bread to which we weren’t, strictly speaking, entitled.

For a sweet sequel from 1964, please check in over there.

Brownie

December, 1958. With all the campus offered and demanded, this California-raised, sweetly sheltered, 17-year-old Tech tool had had very little commercial contact with Boston. But now the first snow was dusting the grime, and it was time to venture forth. Christmas was coming; I was flying home, and the folks back there would expect me to bear thither something more Bostonian than my greenhorn self.

So, I trudged across the bridge and down to the Common. Windowshopped, bashfully, for a while. Saw something promising; entered the establishment; sought assistance and quickly formed a distressing generalization that Boston retail people think very highly of themselves and of the value of their time. Not sure anybody said, “And don’t steal anything, either!”, but they might as well have. Very different, culturally, from the almost-gushingly-friendly store clerks I’d grown up with on the edge of the Mojave Desert.

Pretty soon, I was in tears. Or maybe it was just sticky snow crystals. Felt the same, either way. Wandered, disconsolate, up West Street from Tremont and the Common toward Washington, and stopped at the bright front window of Bailey’s of Boston. Through which I could see a display of classy hand-dipped chocolates. Thought I, I can at least take Pappy some of those. Entered. Stood by the chocolates. Very quietly. Then a voice: “Wassamadda, kid?” Looked up. Didn’t see anybody. The voice repeated the question. This time I discerned, so help me, standing beside the display (I couldn’t have seen her over it), Flora! See the gray hair, tied up? the round face and twinkly eyes? Fauna and Meriwether didn’t show themselves.

Actually, as I soon learned, it was Brownie, not Fairy. More formally, Louise Larkin, of Dorchester (pronounced “DAAAAHch’stuh). She worked at Bailey’s, but I believe she was on duty that evening primarily to rescue my pathetic young keister. Quoth she, “Y’look like y’lost y’last friend!” At which I did indeed blubber.

Once Brownie figured out what was eating me, she took charge. Named four or five nice retail places. For each, said something like, “At Brooks Bruthahs, tell ’em ya wanna talk ta Henry; then tell Henry, Brownie sentcha. He’ll find ya a very Baast’n tie fa y’dad.”

At each establishment, people just like the ones I’d met earlier now treated me with respect, consideration, and all the friendliness one could have desired. Blessings upon Brownie, in whose name and for whose sake I was, however callow, Californian, and doubtless visibly impecunious, suddenly somebody of worth.

I won’t bother to get explicit about the theological parallel I’ve come to cherish here. Too obvious.

Exalting Grace—a Shaker experience

2010-09-08T10:31:00.000-07:00

Back in the spring of 1978, I woke up at Timbaloo in Arlington, Massachusetts, intending to fly to Bergen County, New Jersey for a meeting. My glance out the window stopped with a thud in solid New England pea-soup, penetrating only inches past the glass. A phone call to Logan Airport confirmed that I needed, as they say these days, to “seek alternative routes.” So, I packed up my research material, kissed Valerie, and jumped into Brunnhilde, our 1969 Volvo station wagon. Interstate 95 was navigable, despite the fog, and I ended up only an hour late.

Valerie and I would fall in love with the Shakers only a couple of decades later, attending their worship service (the only one that day, anywhere, as far as I know) on the Fourth of July in the year 2000, at their community at Sabbathday Lake, Maine. You may remember how a Shaker meeting went: a member, when so moved, would rise and announce, “An angel gave me this for you,” and would then teach the congregation a song and sometimes a dance, often complete with the angel’s name.

The Shakers were a modest lot, to the point of declining to put their names on their gravestones. When they acted as angelic conduits, they saw it as a blessing and as an act of humble obedience, not as a means to any sort of personal aggrandizement. They were careful to write down their revealed treasures, including many of surpassing beauty and a wide range of poetic and musical sophistication.

While driving, though [don’t try this at home: I’m a highly-trained, professional, distracted driver], I had what I can only describe as a Shaker experience. Got to thinking about some lovely Folk Legacy recordings by Gordon Bok and friends. In particular, a Scots piece they called “Come by the hills.” Also about my recent efforts (by then fairly consistent for fifteen years or so) in daily, prayerful study of the Scriptures. Pretty soon, I’d put a pad of paper on the shotgun seat and was scribbling (yes, unsafely) on it with a ball-point pen. A lot of my favorite scriptural passages just fell into the gentle, folky rhythm of the Celtic ballad. And by the time I pulled into the parking lot at my destination, I’d written down a hymn (if that’s the right term) of ten quatrains.

Named it “Exalting Grace.” Shared it around gingerly: how does a Mormon tell his friends (much less his ecclesiastical leaders) that he’s had a Shaker experience? Not much response.

It surfaced again in 2002, in the tender, reminiscent, last days of our Timbaloo period. Realized, to my surprise, that, unlike a lot of my old writings, it didn’t embarrass me, a quarter century later. Revisited the text, introduced a few minor refinements, and recorded it to a computer file and to an audio CD. Sang it in a couple of meetings, including a missionary farewell. Nobody was critical, even helpfully. One nice person (can’t for the life of me remember who) actually took a copy and sent it to Church headquarters, where a kindly functionary replied that they’d keep it in the files. Guess that’s how the Restoration registers a rejection slip.

By the time I thought about “Exalting Grace” again, it was 2010. I’d fallen in love again, this time with Doctrine and Covenants 78:17-19:

17 Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye are little children, and ye have not as yet understood how great blessings the Father hath in his own hands and prepared for you;
18 And ye cannot bear all things now; nevertheless, be of good cheer, for I will lead you along. The kingdom is yours and the blessings thereof are yours, and the riches of eternity are yours.
19 And he who receiveth all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious…

Cycling along the Santa Ana River with daughter Cyndi and grandson Matthew, in early September, 2010, I received something like an angelic P.S. We only did eight miles, but by the time we got back, the ninth verse of the current version (below) had become inevitable.

So I’ve decided to put the story and the song out on this blog; it’ll be interesting to see if it draws any attention. Even negative attention: that’d hurt some, but I think I’d prefer it to the hitherto bleak, hollow silence. It’ll also go into my hypertext personal history, not that that’ll earn it any more attention…

1. Come unto me! I am Christ, the Savior of men.
Give me your heart. Let it break: I will mend it again.
Take my burden with joy. Believe me. It’s easy to bear,
And the day of this life is the time for men to prepare.

2. Come and open your door, for behold, I stand here and knock.
Surely ’tis I, your Redeemer, your Master, your Rock.
When you open to me, I’ll come in, and we’ll sit down and sup.
And that meal will suffice, ’til the hour when I’ll raise you up.

3. If you love me, you’ll keep my commandments. Behold, I command:
As I have loved you, so help one another to stand.
O remember my poor! Uplift the distressed tenderly:
Inasmuch as you do it to them, you do it to me.

4. Truly happy the man who delights in the law of the Lord:
He shall increase, as a tree nourished full by my word.
His fruit shall not fail, and when he shall enter my rest,
Grateful friends and descendants shall rise and call his name blessed.

5. So what manner of men, O my friends, ought you to be?
Even as I, showing works you observed first in me.
Let your love cast out fear: evil shall perish at length.
As I’ve called you to act in my name, I’ll give you my strength.

6. In our purpose, the Father and I have always been one:
Bringing you life in abundance, that’s why I Am come.
I’ve perfected the work our Father assigned me to do,
And I’ve gone up on high to prepare a mansion for you.

7. Immortality’s free, and the path is narrow but plain,
Leading to life of a kind kings may covet in vain.
By suffering I learned obedience, though I Am the Son:
Follow me, and the life of the gods will be yours when you’ve done.

8. Have I said unto any, ’Begone! I don’t want you here!’?
No--if you’re far away, you’ve done the moving, my dear.
Come, you ends of the earth! Partake of my bread and my wine.
I can give them: the Father’s proclaimed all things are now mine.

9. You’re still children, beloved: as yet, you’ve not understood
All that your Father in Heaven intends for your good.
The Kingdom is yours! the riches and blessings thereof:
Now receive with thanksgiving the glorious gift of His love.

10. Overcome! Overcome, and you’ll sit with me in my throne.
I, who have trodden the winepress of wrath all alone,
Will to share with you now the joy my atonement has won.
Grasp my hand and endure: by my grace you shall overcome.

11. I have said what I’ve said. It’s the truth, and I make no excuse.
Seek first your crown: all the rest by and by you shall lose.
Though the earth pass away, my word shall endure for your good,
And death shall inherit no place in the Kingdom of God.

If you care to, you may download here sheet music (PDF) and an audio file (MP3—6MB+) of Debbie and me singing last year's version.

It's surely presumptuous of me to say so, but I continue to believe that this little unsolicited project plugs a significant hole in our hymnody. I'll save that argument for a later posting.

Lo-ammi?

2010-09-07T20:55:00.000-07:00

Why have people¹ named their sons Lo-ammi? Haven't they understood that that lovely, distinctive Hebrew handle comes vertiginously near meaning "not my child"?² Y'gotta be careful how you borrow stuff from the Holy Scriptures, whichever version you may espouse.

Well, "Exalting Grace" bears my name, 'cause I wrote it down. In a deeper sense, though, I have to confess that it's not my child. It isn't very original, and I wouldn't dare claim otherwise. I put borrowed words to a borrowed tune, distorting each as little and as lovingly as possible. Much closer to the self-effacing Shaker model than to contemporary self-promoting authorship, although in 1978 I hadn't yet encountered the Shakers, and I'm not particularly averse to recognition.

The sheet music lists 37 Scriptural passages from which I've borrowed, explicitly and gratefully. Each reports an utterance of the God³ I worship.

Most come from the Bible (5 Old Testament, 18 New, King James Version), with 7 from the Book of Mormon and another 7 from the Doctrine and Covenants. Doctrinally, there's little⁴ here that should bother any committed follower of Jesus Christ.

It has already a significant and (thus far) durable place in my private devotions. Ultimately, that's enough. But if others can find it congenial to their own spiritual life, that's an extra blessing. Some of you have been kind enough to say so.

Apart from authorship and credits and such, the other question that keeps popping up has to do with my Church's “Green Book”:⁵ By sharing “my hymn” in this modern manner, am I angling to obtain for it the kind of approved-for-worship imprimatur that the 341 pieces in that volume enjoy?

Complicated question. I'd be pleased and (yes, however inappropriately) flattered beyond measure if anything of the sort were to happen. I'd also be surprised, inasmuch as “Exalting Grace” deviates from the Green-Book pattern⁶ in some possibly-salient ways:

It's long (but so are some in the Book).
It's set to a folk tune (but so are some in the Book).
It doesn't conform to the amateur-Victorian-art-music tradition that has become something between customary and obligatory with us, ever since the days when we were all amateurs and Victorians in mountainous isolation, some with artistic talents and more with artistic pretensions.
It presents God as speaking to us in the first person.

Turns out that last point takes this piece farther out of the Green-Book main stream than you might think. Even though the Scriptures are full of wonderful quotes attributed to the Lord:

Please argue with me about individual hymns, if you wish. But the pattern's pretty clear, and (as sampling statisticians are wont to insist) small errors of allocation seldom make much difference:

The first person doesn't appear to be forbidden, but few of our hymn-wrights (and, it seems, few of those from whom we've borrowed) have seized the opportunity. Do we feel it would be presumptuous on our part to speak or sing with His voice? I find it hard to square that notion with the Latter-day Saint doctrine of Priesthood. In other theologies, perhaps, but not in ours.

Changing gears abruptly, I need to mention a brand-new realization. It dates to last evening, when Laura and her kids were kind enough to try to sing three verses of “Exalting Grace” around Maggie-on-the-piano. It became obvious that I don't sing it to the exact version of the (monodic) tune that I put in the sheet music.

Debbie and I, moreover, have harmonized on this and similar pieces since she was four years old (1978, interestingly enough), mostly in the car and mostly on New England highways. As you can hear in the MP3, a two-part arrangement lends it some intensity.

If anybody were to wish to push this thing any further than the obscurity of a blog, there'd be more work to be done on it.

¹Not many, to be sure, but some distinguished ones. Colonel Loammi Baldwin of Woburn, Massachusetts, for example, ranks among the honored heroes of our Revolution.
²Hosea 1:8-9.
³Father, Son, or Holy Ghost.
⁴Verse 7 does state one central bit of Mormon doctrine that some might find controversial. If you don't like the source or the substance of a verse, please feel free to skip it. The rest will stand alone, and Heaven knows the angel gave us enough verses.
⁵Hymns of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1985.
⁶Some would call it a “standard.” On my stronger days, I'd be tempted to argue with them.

Am I just doing it wrong?

2010-06-22T17:15:00.000-07:00

I started this with doubts, and they've grown. It's been a fortnight. Two posts. E-mailed the second one (which I thought fairly attractive) to tons of people. 'Twould appear that the folks in my Address Book are as quick as I on the delete button, when they receive mass mailings.

The system reports a dozen anonymous peeks at my "profile," but the only actual comment (kindly, but brief and not very substantive) came from the person who suggested I try this avenue.

I still think folks, at least those within my family, “ought to” have a look at my life's work and tell me whether they find anything worth a second look. Or maybe silence is the kindest response... Maybe I'm just deceiving myself.

We did my mother's 100th birthday on Saturday, and it was marvelous; I'm updating her Gedenkschrift with a report.

Today, I quit procrastinating and reorganized the first few screens of my Stories site. 'Cause it seemed I'd made it unnecessarily difficult to get to the full list of topics, represented there as “ Presentations.” Now it's easier. I think. If a list falls in a forest and nobody hears it…

Maybe I'll go out into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind, and compel them to look at my stuff.

Or maybe I'll just find some other way to spend my time.

Why might you want to look at my stuff? Well, maybe…

2010-06-05T12:29:00.000-07:00

… you enjoy a good love story? An adventure story? A crime story? A rags-to-riches story? A true story?

… you’re kin to my mother, Leola Seely Anderson (1910-1968 )? Or you may remember her as a friend, teacher, writer, counselor, neighbor, mover, or shaker. That’s she at left, as a teenager. We’re celebrating her hundredth birthday on the 19th of this month.

… you care about what happened at Lexington and Concord in 1775?

… you’re connected to Cambridge, Watertown, Carlisle, Concord, Salem, Sandisfield, or other places in colonial Massachusetts?

… You have Mayflower ancestry?

… you’re connected to Hartford, New Haven, Colebrook, Norfolk, or other places in colonial Connecticut?

I’ve organized my family-stories material into about a score of “Presentations”, each of which can stand alone as a hypertext treatment of its topic. Presentations come, and presentations go, as my understanding and knowledge develop.

I keep an alphabetic list of current offerings at the page that this link sends you to. Most pages in the collection include a Presentations link, with which you can go immediately to this table-of-contents page.

Nearby pages cross-index the same material by People and Places.

Do I really want a blog?

2010-06-04T20:58:00.000-07:00

You folks say this is a new tool that will help my work. Guess I'm willing to give it a try.

For ten years now, I've wandered about, collecting stories and images that say where my family comes from. Some of it's really exciting. To me, anyway. Others have stumbled upon my Web presence, mainly indexed at

http://commensa.net

and some say they've enjoyed my stuff. Maybe you will, too. I've made new friends and learned of cousinly contacts already; if a blog can make those connections grow, I'll be glad.

Descendants and other kinfolk who themselves share this marvelous picture, or pieces of it, will be the most interested, I suppose.

My folks also took part in historical events and lived in places you've heard of: the American Revolution, the Civil War, the Crusades, the settlement of Massachusetts and later the West, the Mormon saga, and so forth.

If I can make my blog entries address these areas of shared interest, maybe folks will be moved to visit them, perhaps to enjoy them, and at least to tell me why they did or didn't.