This morning we left Slauternberg for France. We didn't even stop at the frontier. I had forgotten about the travel advantages of the EU.
The American cemetery at Lorraine is the largest American military cemetery overseas. It is quietly dignfied and strikingly beautiful. The assistant director of the cemetery talked with us about the cemetery and some of the people buried there. We then sang some of our songs. The one Becky directed was particularly meaningful, I thought, "Creation Will Be at Peace." It begins, "In the holy mountain of the Lord, all war and strife will cease..."
We transferred to French buses at the cemetery (not sure exactly why) and also met our guide who is a funny Frenchwoman. She gave us a big talk about the history of eastern French which most people went to sleep to. I stayed awake because I wanted to do well on the test. I also tried to unrust my French but the cashier at flunch didn't undersand when I asked her if we could use the gas checkout for food. I also couldn't remember the word for knife (couteau) when we needed one to cut our big old sandwich.
Then it was the four-hour trip to Paris, complete with D.C.-style traffic jams as we neared the city. The guide asked usif we had traffic like this and everyone laughed. We checked into tyhe hotel and had a nice meal. And so to bed.
I was last here in 1966, when World War II had been over for only 21 years. Because of toil and sacrifice of so many, inlcuding those in the cemetery in Lorraine, I could go to Paris then and now we have Bon nuit from the City of Light.
Friday, July 1, 2011
Thursday, June 30, 2011
All over the World
Today we set off for Heidelberg, for some singing at the cathedral, some shopping and sightseeing time and dinner together (140 of us) at a restaurant in the shadow of the cathedral.
The cathedral, we found out, was originally built to house the library for the University of Heidelberg about six hundred years ago in the rear part. The front part was a cemetery! Eventually it became a classic Gothic cathedral and for a while housed both Protestant and Catholic congregations using a divider down the middle of the church, which became totally Protestant in the early twentieth century.
We listened to the cathedral organist play Bach's "Toccata and Fugue," and experienced the three-second reverberation as we sang several of the anthems we did the previous night.
Then we were off on our own, sampling the restuarants and visiting the shops and sights. A number of people rode the "funicular" to the Heidelberg Castle, explored the area and enjoyed the panorama of the city below us.
We went to a restaurant where we crammed inside. I started to experience claustrophobia from the number of people crammed into the room and the level of noise. As it happened, they ran out of seats inside and we had to sit outside where we had a not-so-good meal in the company of Joe Martin's wife Sue, her mother and a friendl Both ladies had been teachers and, being from Dayton, knew a ton about aviation history.
The streets of the old city of Heidelberg are a combination of pedistrian walks with cars and trucks allowed. I can see trucks for deliveries, but cars? Sitting outside at the resturant for dinner it was sometimes unnerving to have a car pass a foot or so away. Mercifully they drove slowly and the Germans do have a reputation for being good drivers.
We got back on the bus about 8:30. and set off for the hotel. In spite of the different language and medieval setting, it occurred to me that tourism and shopping have gotten to be much the same no matter where we are.
And so to France tomorrow and our first concert in an American military cemetery,
The cathedral, we found out, was originally built to house the library for the University of Heidelberg about six hundred years ago in the rear part. The front part was a cemetery! Eventually it became a classic Gothic cathedral and for a while housed both Protestant and Catholic congregations using a divider down the middle of the church, which became totally Protestant in the early twentieth century.
We listened to the cathedral organist play Bach's "Toccata and Fugue," and experienced the three-second reverberation as we sang several of the anthems we did the previous night.
Then we were off on our own, sampling the restuarants and visiting the shops and sights. A number of people rode the "funicular" to the Heidelberg Castle, explored the area and enjoyed the panorama of the city below us.
We went to a restaurant where we crammed inside. I started to experience claustrophobia from the number of people crammed into the room and the level of noise. As it happened, they ran out of seats inside and we had to sit outside where we had a not-so-good meal in the company of Joe Martin's wife Sue, her mother and a friendl Both ladies had been teachers and, being from Dayton, knew a ton about aviation history.
The streets of the old city of Heidelberg are a combination of pedistrian walks with cars and trucks allowed. I can see trucks for deliveries, but cars? Sitting outside at the resturant for dinner it was sometimes unnerving to have a car pass a foot or so away. Mercifully they drove slowly and the Germans do have a reputation for being good drivers.
We got back on the bus about 8:30. and set off for the hotel. In spite of the different language and medieval setting, it occurred to me that tourism and shopping have gotten to be much the same no matter where we are.
And so to France tomorrow and our first concert in an American military cemetery,
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Down to the River
We started out today with a cruise on the Rhine River during which we saw about twenty castles and ruins of castles, numerous cargo boats, and vineyards running up nearly 45 degree slopes. Lunch was schnitzel so I feel like I have had traditional German food.
Then we went to theFaith Baptist Church in Kaiserslautern where we had a three-hour plus rehearsal including instruments. I thought we were for the most part well-prepared.
The church served a meal of chicken and rice with lemon sauce and watermelon (which I don't like BTW) but it was nice of them to feed all 140 of us.
The concert went well with a webcast so that we heard from people in the States about it. It should be available soon at the church's website.
I was thinking that we went down to the river all day long. We went down to the literal Rhine river with its history, commerce and natural beauty. We went to the church which is part of the long-flowing river of Christianity and we drew on the deep river of American song. Not a bad day's work, that.
Tomorrow we go to Heidelberg to sing at the Cathedral and do a little shopping. I hope I can post this today since the internet here is, to put it charitably, sporadic.
Then we went to theFaith Baptist Church in Kaiserslautern where we had a three-hour plus rehearsal including instruments. I thought we were for the most part well-prepared.
The church served a meal of chicken and rice with lemon sauce and watermelon (which I don't like BTW) but it was nice of them to feed all 140 of us.
The concert went well with a webcast so that we heard from people in the States about it. It should be available soon at the church's website.
I was thinking that we went down to the river all day long. We went down to the literal Rhine river with its history, commerce and natural beauty. We went to the church which is part of the long-flowing river of Christianity and we drew on the deep river of American song. Not a bad day's work, that.
Tomorrow we go to Heidelberg to sing at the Cathedral and do a little shopping. I hope I can post this today since the internet here is, to put it charitably, sporadic.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
The (Mostly) Friendly Skies
Well, here we are in Kaiserslautern, Germany, after about a thirty-hour day, or so it seemed.
We got to the airport the recommended three hours early, and I have to tell you that United Airlines has to do a better job with international checkins. First of all, it's not clear which line you get in. We started to get in one in the front of the terminal but asked and were told we needed to go around to the rear. There was a line about 1000 feet long but it seemed to be moving quickly so we joined it, meeting up with people from the Chorale as we looped back and forth. When it became our turn, we had to use the automatic checkin which entailed scanning our passports. The agent snapped at Becky for not knowing where to scan the document. We also noticed several other United agents fussing at people. I know it's a busy time for them when all the international flights seem to go out at once, but don't you think they would know that by now and put on a few more agents...or at least some good-humored ones? Makes sense to me.
Anyhow, her document was accepted and the screen asked her if anyone were travelling with her. That would be me so I scanned my passport and the machine printed out a boarding pass.B ecky didn't did get one, so we had to find a (non fire-breathing) agent. We did so and she fixed us both up with a boarding pass and we were on our way. Becky set off the detector at security with her hip replacement so she was patted down. Turns out she was supposed to tell them before she went through the detector and they would have put her through the infamous scanner. This was a big secret, but she walked through the detector and then they had to pat her down. I stood there and stared at the procedure, but she took it with good humor.
We got to the gate where there were a number of our people there. Waiting for a flight is a whole lot more fun if you're doing it with people you know. One couple came up to the gate as boarding was beginning. They had spent an hour and 45 minutes trying to check in. The same thing happened to the man as happened to Becky except he couldn't get the attention of an agent. Finally they asked for other passengers on Flight 916 and then they got their passes. Come on, United, you gotta do better.
The flight was fairly uncomfortable, since we were crammed into steerage. The seats made my hips and knees hurt so I couldn't sleep.They did keep feeding us which helped. The flight landed and we made our way through customs and retrieved our luggage.
We met up with the leaders at the Meeting Point (that's what it's called) in the Frankfurt Airport, loaded on a bus and were off to...Worms? This was a surprise side trip, probably to occupy us until we could check into the hotel. We found Worms to be interesting and historic with some beautiful very old churches. We also found we couldn't figure out the menus in the restaurants but finally we found one that had a picture menu we could point to. Then it was back to the bus and on to our hotel in Kaiserslautern.
There we took naps, freshened up (it was very hot here today with little air conditioning), had a big (if slow) traditional German dinner together of thousands of carbohydrates on the plate. We then had a short orientation meeting about what to expect (answer:anything) and rehearsed the music for an hour or so. Then it was time to relax and prepare for tomorrow, which will being a cruise on the Rhine, a loooong rehearsal, and our first concert in town. Stay tuned to see if we melt from the heat.
We got to the airport the recommended three hours early, and I have to tell you that United Airlines has to do a better job with international checkins. First of all, it's not clear which line you get in. We started to get in one in the front of the terminal but asked and were told we needed to go around to the rear. There was a line about 1000 feet long but it seemed to be moving quickly so we joined it, meeting up with people from the Chorale as we looped back and forth. When it became our turn, we had to use the automatic checkin which entailed scanning our passports. The agent snapped at Becky for not knowing where to scan the document. We also noticed several other United agents fussing at people. I know it's a busy time for them when all the international flights seem to go out at once, but don't you think they would know that by now and put on a few more agents...or at least some good-humored ones? Makes sense to me.
Anyhow, her document was accepted and the screen asked her if anyone were travelling with her. That would be me so I scanned my passport and the machine printed out a boarding pass.B ecky didn't did get one, so we had to find a (non fire-breathing) agent. We did so and she fixed us both up with a boarding pass and we were on our way. Becky set off the detector at security with her hip replacement so she was patted down. Turns out she was supposed to tell them before she went through the detector and they would have put her through the infamous scanner. This was a big secret, but she walked through the detector and then they had to pat her down. I stood there and stared at the procedure, but she took it with good humor.
We got to the gate where there were a number of our people there. Waiting for a flight is a whole lot more fun if you're doing it with people you know. One couple came up to the gate as boarding was beginning. They had spent an hour and 45 minutes trying to check in. The same thing happened to the man as happened to Becky except he couldn't get the attention of an agent. Finally they asked for other passengers on Flight 916 and then they got their passes. Come on, United, you gotta do better.
The flight was fairly uncomfortable, since we were crammed into steerage. The seats made my hips and knees hurt so I couldn't sleep.They did keep feeding us which helped. The flight landed and we made our way through customs and retrieved our luggage.
We met up with the leaders at the Meeting Point (that's what it's called) in the Frankfurt Airport, loaded on a bus and were off to...Worms? This was a surprise side trip, probably to occupy us until we could check into the hotel. We found Worms to be interesting and historic with some beautiful very old churches. We also found we couldn't figure out the menus in the restaurants but finally we found one that had a picture menu we could point to. Then it was back to the bus and on to our hotel in Kaiserslautern.
There we took naps, freshened up (it was very hot here today with little air conditioning), had a big (if slow) traditional German dinner together of thousands of carbohydrates on the plate. We then had a short orientation meeting about what to expect (answer:anything) and rehearsed the music for an hour or so. Then it was time to relax and prepare for tomorrow, which will being a cruise on the Rhine, a loooong rehearsal, and our first concert in town. Stay tuned to see if we melt from the heat.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Leaving, On a Jet Plane
This afternoon we leave with 30 or so other members of the Manassas Chorale to join about 80 other choral singers in Germany and France for a week of touring and concerts. We will do concerts in Kaiserslautern and Heidelberg and then travel to the American Cemetery in Lorraine where we will sing, and on to Paris for a little sightseeing and then to the American Cemetery in Normandy for a concert on July 4. We return on July 5.
I was thinking about the last time I was in France, about 45 years ago. I was part of a semester abroad program which consisted of six weeks' language training in Tours, France, and the rest of the time in Paris. The thirty or so of us in the program were on our own to find our housing and meals. All we had to do was to attend a seminar each week hosted by a professor on sabbatical and write a paper (in French). I later became good friends with the professor who had limited vision so that he had to have everything read to him. I was one of his readers when we returned to the U.S. He was also a dyed-in-the-wool Marxist who could see a conflict between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat in Little Red Riding Hood. After a while we made fun of him. When he asked what a story was about, someone would say, "The conflict between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat" and we would all chortle. That was a sign of our immaturity. He was an brilliant and kind man. When I read to him he would ask me what I thought a passage meant. One time I said, "It's about the conflict between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat." He looked down and said, "Cut the bullsh*t and tell me what you think." After that I did. I learned a great deal from him--our reading sessions were more like tutorials.
Anyhow, near the end of August, 1966, I found myself on board an Air France Boeing 707, the Chateau de Chenonceau. It was my first airplane flight and it was a good one. I still have the menu for the meal here some place. No doubt I'll find it some day.
Going back to France makes me think of all the changes that have occurred in the past 45 years. I finished two degrees, bought three houses (not all at once), got married, taught school for 32 years, helped raise two children. Not a bad life, that.
I'll be interested to see how much Europe has changed. I know I've lost a lot of my French, but we'll see. When I was in Paris there were about eight Metro lines. Today there are about sixteen with four express lines running through the city. And you know? I can hardly wait to get back. I'll try to update this every daya nd let you know how it is going. Au revoir for now.
I was thinking about the last time I was in France, about 45 years ago. I was part of a semester abroad program which consisted of six weeks' language training in Tours, France, and the rest of the time in Paris. The thirty or so of us in the program were on our own to find our housing and meals. All we had to do was to attend a seminar each week hosted by a professor on sabbatical and write a paper (in French). I later became good friends with the professor who had limited vision so that he had to have everything read to him. I was one of his readers when we returned to the U.S. He was also a dyed-in-the-wool Marxist who could see a conflict between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat in Little Red Riding Hood. After a while we made fun of him. When he asked what a story was about, someone would say, "The conflict between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat" and we would all chortle. That was a sign of our immaturity. He was an brilliant and kind man. When I read to him he would ask me what I thought a passage meant. One time I said, "It's about the conflict between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat." He looked down and said, "Cut the bullsh*t and tell me what you think." After that I did. I learned a great deal from him--our reading sessions were more like tutorials.
Anyhow, near the end of August, 1966, I found myself on board an Air France Boeing 707, the Chateau de Chenonceau. It was my first airplane flight and it was a good one. I still have the menu for the meal here some place. No doubt I'll find it some day.
Going back to France makes me think of all the changes that have occurred in the past 45 years. I finished two degrees, bought three houses (not all at once), got married, taught school for 32 years, helped raise two children. Not a bad life, that.
I'll be interested to see how much Europe has changed. I know I've lost a lot of my French, but we'll see. When I was in Paris there were about eight Metro lines. Today there are about sixteen with four express lines running through the city. And you know? I can hardly wait to get back. I'll try to update this every daya nd let you know how it is going. Au revoir for now.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Summer Windows
The room where I write these posts is the reclaimed bedroom of our older daughter Amy who has been gone from the house since 1999. We called it "Amy's old bedroom" for years and have switched over to calling it "the computer room" since that's where our main computer is located. It's on the second floor of our three-level house, which has a walk-out basement so that computer room is about thirty feet in the air. In the summer, what is mostly visible from the two windows are oak trees, which fill the windows with green.
I spend a lot of time in this room, writing and scoring SAT essays eight times during the school year. I especially enjoy it during the summer. I bring up some tower fans from the basement to draw cool air from the main level. It's a comfortable and airy place to write. Nacho the cat likes to lie in the open window facing the street especially when the sun streams in. Cats are no fools.
I think of a couple of poems when I'm in this room. One is "The Writer" by contemporary poet Richard Wilbur who not incidentally was my freshman composition teacher if you can believe that. The poem is about his daughter writing with a typewriter in an upper room. It begins:
The other poem the computer room puts me in mind of is the well-known English major favorite "The Garden" by Andrew Marvell. In the piece, the poet describes his garden and experiences a kind of seventeenth century out-of-body experience as he is overwhelmed by the beauty and power of the garden:
Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less,
Withdraws into its happiness :
The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find ;
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds, and other seas ;
Annihilating all that's made
To a green thought in a green shade.
That's just part of the poem: the rest is available at http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/marvell/garden.htm.
So, for today, a little poetry and a wish that you have your own "green retreat" and spend some time there soon.
I spend a lot of time in this room, writing and scoring SAT essays eight times during the school year. I especially enjoy it during the summer. I bring up some tower fans from the basement to draw cool air from the main level. It's a comfortable and airy place to write. Nacho the cat likes to lie in the open window facing the street especially when the sun streams in. Cats are no fools.
I think of a couple of poems when I'm in this room. One is "The Writer" by contemporary poet Richard Wilbur who not incidentally was my freshman composition teacher if you can believe that. The poem is about his daughter writing with a typewriter in an upper room. It begins:
In her room at the prow of the house Where light breaks, and the windows are tossed with linden, My daughter is writing a story.
It's a graceful and thoughtful poem. If you want to read the rest, and I would recommend you do so, it's available athttp://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15487.
The other poem the computer room puts me in mind of is the well-known English major favorite "The Garden" by Andrew Marvell. In the piece, the poet describes his garden and experiences a kind of seventeenth century out-of-body experience as he is overwhelmed by the beauty and power of the garden:
Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less,
Withdraws into its happiness :
The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find ;
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds, and other seas ;
Annihilating all that's made
To a green thought in a green shade.
That's just part of the poem: the rest is available at http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/marvell/garden.htm.
So, for today, a little poetry and a wish that you have your own "green retreat" and spend some time there soon.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
This Wheel's on Fire
Like most working class lads, I spent some time in my teens fooling with cars. I wasn't very sophisticated about it, sticking with oil changes, shock replacements, radiator flushes and the like. I did replace a muffler and exhaust line once, and decided that would be the last time I did that. Some people I know did much more with cars--my brother and a friend completely rebuilt an engine. I'm not sure that it ran afterwards, but they did it.
Then, of course, cars changed. They became computerized and fuel-injected. I think most of these changes (except for thinner sheet metal and the dreaded "doughnut" spare) were for the better, although the gentle art of manipulating a manual choke is long lost. (Ask your grandmomma.) On the whole, cars are safer, more environmentally sound and more sophisticated than back in the day. I know, they don't have the soul of your '59 El Dorado, but they are better in so many ways. You just can't work on them like you used to.
Changing tires is something that can still be done, especially by fathers shortly after Father's Day, so when my daughter Amy told me she had picked up a screw in the tire of her Mazda I told her to bring it over, take one of the other cars we have, and I would put the doughnut on and we would get the stricken tire to the shop to have it plugged. Or so I thought.
I jacked the car up with the world's worst emergency jack (the metal kept deforming as more weight piled on it), took off the lug nuts and tried to pull the tire off. I say tried because, unlike any of the perhaps 100 tires I have changed, the tire didn't budge. It seemed frozen to the hub. In fact it was frozen to the hub. I pulled on it for a while and then I pushed on it. I stuck my legs under the car and kicked the tire from the inside. I sprayed WD-40 on it and waited for that to work. I pounded the assembly with a rubber mallet.Nothing seemed to help.
After an hour and a couple of skinned knuckles, I gave up. I told Amy she would have to call AAA and have them use their expertise.
I was telling my dad about the stuck tire and he said, not entirely humorously, "Get a bigger hammer." When the AAA tow truck showed up, the driver couldn't get it off either. He said, "I need a bigger hammer." Then another two truck showed up and this driver got it off with a bigger hammer and a block of wood.
I later learned on a Mazda owners' forum that the steel of the wheel often bonds to the some other kind of metal in the hub. Either that or the wheel rusted to the hub. Since it's oxidation, it a very slow fire, hence the title of today's post.
So, Mazda owners, you might want to check your tires or have them checked. It would be better to be sure they're able to be removed than to find out on a dark roadside that they're not coming loose. I would also replace the emergency jack with one that doesn't look like it was made in Santa's Tin Toy Shop. In this case, I thought I knew a little about cars, but as with most everything else, I still have a lot to learn.
Then, of course, cars changed. They became computerized and fuel-injected. I think most of these changes (except for thinner sheet metal and the dreaded "doughnut" spare) were for the better, although the gentle art of manipulating a manual choke is long lost. (Ask your grandmomma.) On the whole, cars are safer, more environmentally sound and more sophisticated than back in the day. I know, they don't have the soul of your '59 El Dorado, but they are better in so many ways. You just can't work on them like you used to.
Changing tires is something that can still be done, especially by fathers shortly after Father's Day, so when my daughter Amy told me she had picked up a screw in the tire of her Mazda I told her to bring it over, take one of the other cars we have, and I would put the doughnut on and we would get the stricken tire to the shop to have it plugged. Or so I thought.
I jacked the car up with the world's worst emergency jack (the metal kept deforming as more weight piled on it), took off the lug nuts and tried to pull the tire off. I say tried because, unlike any of the perhaps 100 tires I have changed, the tire didn't budge. It seemed frozen to the hub. In fact it was frozen to the hub. I pulled on it for a while and then I pushed on it. I stuck my legs under the car and kicked the tire from the inside. I sprayed WD-40 on it and waited for that to work. I pounded the assembly with a rubber mallet.Nothing seemed to help.
After an hour and a couple of skinned knuckles, I gave up. I told Amy she would have to call AAA and have them use their expertise.
I was telling my dad about the stuck tire and he said, not entirely humorously, "Get a bigger hammer." When the AAA tow truck showed up, the driver couldn't get it off either. He said, "I need a bigger hammer." Then another two truck showed up and this driver got it off with a bigger hammer and a block of wood.
I later learned on a Mazda owners' forum that the steel of the wheel often bonds to the some other kind of metal in the hub. Either that or the wheel rusted to the hub. Since it's oxidation, it a very slow fire, hence the title of today's post.
So, Mazda owners, you might want to check your tires or have them checked. It would be better to be sure they're able to be removed than to find out on a dark roadside that they're not coming loose. I would also replace the emergency jack with one that doesn't look like it was made in Santa's Tin Toy Shop. In this case, I thought I knew a little about cars, but as with most everything else, I still have a lot to learn.
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