Every day has its history to recount, sometimes unforgettable, other times mundane, but today marks several unrelated events worth noting. On this day in 1991, Rodney King was beaten my Los Angeles police, something that had happened to others like him many times before by all accounts, though this was perhaps the first captured on camera and shared around the world. When the officers were acquitted a year later and riots erupted in LA and beyond, King, whose life was admittedly an otherwise checkered one, had the decency to say, “I just want to say – you know – can we all get along? Can we, can we get along?” It is tempting to editorialize, but a simple reminder of his words can still inspire.

On this day in 1951, “Rocket 88” was recorded at Sam Phillips Sun Records studio in Memphis by the later infamous Ike Turner and his band. Phillips later touted the song as the first Rock and Roll recording. The upbeat R&B tune was one of the first to have significant crossover appeal with white audiences, opening the ears of many to the rich and creative history of black music, which lily white artists like Pat Boone and others coopted in time.

I’m not schooled enough, in music or sociology, to comment meaningfully on these subjects, but I do find one bit of trivia about the song notable. The fuzz effect so prominent in the recording was the result of using wads of paper to shore up an amplifier cone that had broken in transit. Rock continued to experiment in ways to distort and alter electric sounds for many years in the work of many artists like Jimmi Hendrix. Today’s popular music, if you consider it Rock at all, carries on the tradition with the use of autotune effects to alter the sound of singers, many of whom have perfectly fine natural voices. But then, age alone does not qualify one as a critic.

And then today marks the 1931 official adoption by Congress of “The Star Spangled Banner” as our national anthem. What is notable to me is that the poem on which it is based was written by the amateur poet, Francis Scott Key, in 1814, on the back of an envelope. This fact set me to thinking about other famous uses for repurposed envelopes. Some accounts have Abraham Lincoln writing his Gettysburg Address on an envelope while on the train to the memorial. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley wrote “Absence” to her husband on an envelope, following his death:

“Ah! he is gone—and I alone;
How dark and dreary seems the time!
‘Tis Thus, when the glad sun is flown,
Night rushes o’er the Indian clime.”

Emily Temple chronicled a set of examples for “The Atlantic“, which shows examples from F. Scott Fitzgerald and others. And then there were Emily Dickinson’s envelope poems, about whom an entire book has been written, “The Gorgeous Nothings“, reviewed in the New York Times.

NPR and others reported just yesterday that 300 year old letters folded so intricately that opening would destroy them can now be deciphered through scanning devices. No one, however, will ever write anything at all, memorable or not, on the back of a blog post, email, or tweet. Indeed, despite the best efforts of Dunder Mifflin, paper itself seems no longer ever within reach for those inspired moments when a timeless thought comes to mind. Something to consider perhaps in a quiet lull when tempted to check your mobile phone.

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There are two million three hundred thousand tragic ways, and ever more daily, to mark the course of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 that has plagued the world with COVID 19 over the past years and change. We may never quite trace its exact origin or its direct path around the globe and into a pandemic we thought could never happen again.

Still there are markers along the way worth noting. Cases of a then unidentified disease were first noticed in Wuhan China as early as perhaps November 2019. By the end of December China had isolated the virus, deciphered its genetic code and shared at least that data.

I began following news the disease around then and noted that CIVID 19, as the disease caused by the virus was named, had spread in the Wuhan region and was soon detected in Italy, so I watched and waited for the first cases in the US, expecting they might be found in Atlanta, where I live, because of our busy international airport.

As it happened, the first case in this country was found in Seattle on January 20, in a man who had returned from visiting family in Wuhan. He was hospitalized and recovered, but by then the disease had infected others in the area and elsewhere, perhaps due to him or likely from independent sources connected in some way to its origin. We may never know because, in part, our medical infrastructure and government were not prepared. To this day, contact tracing is mostly handled by word of mouth by those who tested positive being willing to step forward and reach out themselves to those they may have infected.

It turns out that the real world is complex and unpredictable, and we don’t have Dustin Hoffman and Renee Russo to save us all in less than two hours, just before the closing credits. It may be more like something from Stephen King, in which the last scene shows whatever creature thought to be defeated is seen walking into the darkness with ominous music in the background.

Today does mark one year since the first known death in the US by COVID 19. CNN reports that Patricia Dowd (pictured above) died on February 6, 2020 in San Jose, California of what was later identified as COVID 19. They didn’t know for some time, because testing then, as to a lesser extent now, was hard to come by.

By the end of February, the first horrific outbreak in a Seattle nursing home had become known, and by then I had ordered hand sanitizer, masks, gloves and other supplies, expecting the worst. Despite the willfully blind denials of too many and failures at nearly every level of government, what we have seen has been just about as dreadful as one could have imagined.

Those of us who have survived have done so by luck, some common sense, dedicated medical professionals and the kindness of others. Nearly 27 million in this country, however, have been known to be infected (said to be probably three times that number infected but untested) and 450,000 have died (probably many more if you add collateral deaths that wouldn’t have occurred in the absence of the disease).

In mentioning medical professionals, we should call out our real life Dustin Hoffman, Anthony Fauci, who stood tall and true through death threats and talk of drinking bleach, though he did say he’d rather be played by Brad Pitt (and was).

The next weeks and months promise hope, through vaccines just now beginning to be distributed, but thousands still die here daily. What’s more, the virus has begun to shape shift in ways that may challenge the vaccines.

The story of Pandora, the Greeks’ Eve, echoes in the events of this past year. After Prometheus gave man divine fire, Zeus chose to punish man by commanding Hephaestus to create woman, which I suppose does show that both history and myth were written by men. Each Olympian was commanded to give a gift to Pandora, whose name means “all gifted.”

Hermes, the precocious child-god and a favorite of Zeus, gave Pandora a “pithos,” actually a jar but later mistranslated by Erasmus into what we know as a box. As we all know, Pandora’s curiosity led her to open the box, releasing all the evils of the world. One thing remained in her box, “elepis.” This word is often translated as hope, or more aptly the spirit of hope, but scholars have long questioned this simple interpretation. Perhaps it was a reflection of what one may see in it, whether hope or despair in knowing we are all too human to do more than merely hope.

Pandora buried her box with elepis still within, and the Greeks never quite explain who released it, if at all. I do know we need it ever so today.

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Mike Luckovich of the AJC has captured lightning in an image so many times you have to wonder if he is a direct descendant of Ben Franklin. He hit his mark again this morning to note the passing of Henry (Hank) Aaron at 86.

I was born in Atlanta and grew up with the Atlanta Braves as my home team. My dad took me to games from time to time, and I took my now kids as well, though they were both of the age that peanuts drew their attention more than the game.

I was a fan when Ted Turner embossed his team with his indelible eccentricity while also turning them into America’s baseball team through his Super Station TBS. They were often hapless but always entertaining and no matter what were anchored by one stalwart great: Hank Aaron, who quietly played the game with strength, grace, consistency and power.

If you follow baseball at all, you know the story of the mountain he climbed athletically and as a black ballplayer in the South as he methodically chased Babe Ruth’s career home run record, one of the most cherished among baseball faithful. I followed the 1973 and then 1974 seasons closely as the record came within reach.

Atlanta fans, locally and across the nation cheered him on, but “The Hammer,” as he was called, quietly endured threats and hate mail spewed toward as good as an example of a man as Ruth was sad. The mail, good and bad, totaled 900,000 in 1973, so much that his contract had to call for a secretary to manage the tide and to report threats to the FBI.

The story and that of Aaron’s life are told in his book, “If I Had a Hammer“. Wikipedia’s article on Aaron gives a short version of his life story and his records, which include:

755 home runs, a number purists rightly consider to be the career record for players not tainted by PEDs

6,856 total bases, by far the most for any player

3000+ hits, even without his homers, highest among his peers

Aaron pounded home runs of 30 to 45 year after year for most of his 23 years as a player

He drew walks more often than he struck out, a rarity for power hitters.

All these things were true, but none captures or reflects his quiet strength as a civil rights figure, something he lived, but could finally voice freely when he put down his bat. In 1997, he penned an op-ed in the New York Times, reflecting his views through the lens of baseball. With his death, many of his behind the scenes deeds will now likely never be told. We know though that he kept all that hate mail, which must have itself been enough to count as a record if anyone kept count of such odious things. They were a reminder to him of all he rose above.

The past year and change has been as hard on baseball as it has been for us all. More than the time’s share of greats have died, but some long overdue change has come, if only in taking down racist team names. The Atlanta Braves still retain their moniker, a change they should know to make. Let me be the first to suggest the “Atlanta Hammers.”

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It was four years ago today that I first posted on this blog with these lines:

Often, I think, too many words are spoken and too little said of any lasting meaning or value.  As a result, when the shouting is over, not all that should be considered has been said.  That is my premise for this blog.

Mine is not meant to be “the last word”, but if it prompts more thoughtful reflection I will deem the effort a success.

I read recently that if something won’t matter in five years, it may not deserve five minutes of worry now.  I suspect there is an element of truth there, at least in the sense that we should think more deeply and with a more lasting perspective than Twitter often prompts.  This blog, like my interests, will touch on a range of topics and I hope some will interest you.  Much that relates to politics falls into the short-term concern category, and I plan to leave most of those discussions to others.

More of the truth was that I despaired of inflamed political rhetoric and the frightening results of the 2016 election. I wasn’t sure what one inconsequential person could do, but I felt the still, small voice of what was once deemed kind and thoughtful reason might offer perspective in the whirlwind that had finally overcome civility in politics.

I’ve posted about 100 times since then, often about moments in history and what they might say to the thoughtful today. As best as I can tell, few if any have found an appetite for these posts from a virtual voice crying in the wilderness, certainly not to those who seek wealth or vengeance through coopted Christianity or for the utter defeat of any who doubt the dogma of their political religions.

And yet I have persisted, not to be heard, so much as to speak and settle my mind with the thought that there is hope, that humanity can rise above hate and that someone should keep that fragile flame alive until enough realize we need it again.

When I began the vigil that is this blog, I feared the horsemen that might be released by those unprepared for the responsibilities of leadership and that they might use their power for personal gain, vengeance or to tear down institutions to promote their form of anarchy. My belief that our country was better than that was rarely validated.

The events of those four years proved vastly more destructive than I imagined in my deepest fears. The list is long, and cannot do justice to the whole of its horribles that include: families separated, children caged, open and even proud white suprematist acts, killings of blacks by those sworn to protect us all, disenfranchisement of voters, efforts to turn courts into political tools, and finally the inhumanity of fiddling on Twitter while hundreds of thousands died of a pandemic. The list is as long as it is disgusting.

It ended with an assault on the most fundamental of our institutions, the election of a President, an assault that culminated in the sitting President inciting a mob to disrupt Congress and deface the most sacred place in our secular democracy, the Capital itself. In another context and in trying to grasp the events of January 6, I wrote a few lines, which are stronger than I would like to feel.

And so I offer, in what kindness I can summon,

these few parting words of counsel:

Treason is unpardonable.

This is our country now,

and you would do well to leave 

while you have the freedom to go.

And take with you all the false flags 

you waved in our temple of democracy.

Only leave the one you desecrated

because we take back, and

will fly it anew from on high,

knowing it and this land 

belong again to we who 

will soon again laugh with joy,

hope and the promise that 

truth will truly set us free.

Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon on this day in year 49, the decisive step in declaring his rule of Rome. I at least, pray we have sent the self-declared, but mad, monarch of our times packing as a lesson to those who would have torn down all we have worked and that so many have died for. Too much wrong has occurred, the consequences of which will far outlast the five year time I mentioned four years ago.

I hope now to go quietly back to my votive vigil and tend the candle of hope until the last words of vitriol have been exhausted, and we can begin again to make our world a better place for all.

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The New York Times had a thoughtful reflection this morning on John Conway’s Game of Life, created in 1970. Neither a game nor about life as we know it, the computer program visually simulated a world made of a cellular grid with a beginning state and a set of rules for cells that live, reproduce by connecting with others and die. It predated Pong and, while among the simplest of imagined worlds, continues to fascinate fans today, as demonstrated by its own Wiki site: conwaylife.com.

Conway long rued his creation for its popularity, which detracted from his more serious work, though he eventually got wry pleasure for being described as “The inventor of Life.” I couldn’t do Conway’s creation justice here, but it is worth noting that the Game of Life has been used to illustrate the “butterfly effect” and the randomness of – well – life itself.

With that in mind, I found elsewhere that it was 45 years ago tonight that Dan Fogelberg experienced the random meeting that became his bittersweet ballad, Same Old Lang Syne. Jill Greulich and Fogelberg dated in high school in Peoria, Illinois and parted ways, as the song related. Both had returned home for the holidays and ran into each other in a convenience store. She first heard the song some years later on the radio, after she had divorced the husband mentioned, who was not, by the way, an architect.

I suppose we may wish for moments like theirs to reflect on times we recall wistfully. Despite the randomness of life, it has a way at times of winking at you with Fogelberg moments if you are watching. I have had one or two of my own that may be worthy of sharing someday after time has helped process them. What I’ve found though is how much richer life is if you live each day as if it were just such a moment worth preserving, because life is more than a game.

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The world celebrates Ludwig von Beethoven today, 250 years from the likely date of his birth in 1770. Much will be written about him today, his larger than life genius, passion, ambition, angst and his unknown “Immortal Beloved.”

Life is often filled with ironies and Beethoven’s certainly qualified. For one so tuned to sound to turn deaf, ranks among fate’s harshest cruelties. He said he noticed the loss beginning in his late 20s, which is now speculated to have been due to otosclerosis, a softening of bones in the inner ear. By 1812, he was deaf to all but the lowest tones and to sharp, loud sounds.

At some point in the same frame of time, Beethoven met Therese Malfatti, whom some speculate to have been his Immortal Beloved,” though she married another, becoming a baroness. We do know that a particular piece by Beethoven, inscribed “Fur Elise on April 27 (1810),” was found in her papers upon her death, long after his passing. There are other stories, based on speculation, as to the purpose of this bagatelle, but I prefer the one below, which is my way to honor him today, in what music there may be in prose.

For Therese

“Blindness separates us from things; deafness separates us from people.”

Helen Keller

Well into Fur Elise there is a grace note, during the second playing of the theme and before the bridge, that you barely hear and that almost seems a mistake, except it is there again in the second verse, and one last time as the piece begins to close.  Two octaves and change above middle C, that faint E belongs in its A minor key, but seems – if you hear it at all – an afterthought, a garnish left upon a plate.  

The story is told that Beethoven wrote this bagatelle planning to play it that very night for a young Therese Malfatti and then to propose, but – perhaps besotted with more than love – he ended up doing neither.  I doubt that, by the time Beethoven wrote the piece, he could still hear a note quite that high, as nearly deaf as he had grown.  

Fur Elise was found, upon her death, in Therese’s papers – a love note with one note she alone could hear.

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Emily Dickinson came into this world on December 12, in 1830 – 190 years ago today. She was born, lived and died in Amherst, Massachusetts. She never married and spent much of her adult life in an upstairs bedroom in the house where she was raised. She took to wearing white – though not in this perhaps early photo, was rarely seen outside of her family, and was known by others through letters, if at all.

In a time when soaring, formal poetry was as celebrated as hip-hop is today, she quietly penned short, simple poems about nature, love and occasionally death. Other than a few that were published or that she shared with literary critic, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, most of her poetry – nearly 1800 works – got no further than a drawer in her desk, though Dickinson’s Irish maid and friend, Margaret Maher, eventually stored them for her in a trunk.

Emily Dickinson asked Maher to destroy her poems after her death, but she shared them with Emily’s sister Lavinia instead. In time, Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd edited and published them. Their edits removed references to Emily’s sister-in-law Susan Huntington Gilbert, a relationship some speculate about. To students of poetry, the more telling edits were removal of the many end line dashes found in her original penned pages. It was not until 1955 that her complete works were published in their original form – with her unique punctuation.

During her life, only 10 of Emily Dickinson’s poems and a single letter were published. She was an enigma then, known locally as an eccentric fascinated with horticulture. Her simple, unique and breathless insights were silently held within a desk.

This little poem – and all the dashes I’ve come to use as I write – are for her.

Of Emily

I’m no poet of course

but I found today

I’ve had more pieces 

published in my time 

than Emily in all of hers

but of course she died 

all too early after

once too often flirting 

with that one last end

she could not stop for

while the opus of my work

is but passing bits and bytes

less lasting than one

of the breathless dashes 

that punctuated her poems

which were all those before

distilled to their essence

and hidden away in her

Pandoran desk until we

might dare sense her slant

I sometimes wonder

if there is another Emily

out there today

somewhere upstairs

in a lonely bedroom

able at last to answer

Emily’s wistful wishes

but for now I know 

she was the perfect poet

and we are only prose

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From time to time stars align in the truest sense and this happens to be one such time. Jupiter and Saturn, technically planets if you insist, will conjoin in the eastern evening sky this month, reaching their closest on December 21. This degree of connection has not been seen since the Dark Ages’ year of 1226.

A similar conjunction occurred in 7 B.C.E., and has been thought by some to be the Biblical star in the east referenced in Matthew. It’s timing, though, doesn’t quite align with the best dating for the birth of Jesus. Still, the timing of this celestial event so near to our Christmas strikes the imagination with wonder and hope, particularly in a year as fraught with plague and loss as this one.

While pondering these thoughts, a little poem came to me that I’d like to share with anyone who stumbles along here.

Of Planets and Promise

December seems deeper and darker

in this season of masked isolation

than the eternity of icy anticipation

children have endured for eons

in waiting for stockings stuffed 

with sugarplums – seriously

whose idea was that anyway?

In the counting of our blessings

we have the blessed good fortune 

to include a fellow named Fauci

to serve as an Elf on our Shelf

with the promise of pin pricks

to free us to return to things 

we never dreamed we’d miss

But for now in our long winter’s 

dark night of loneliness and loss

something or One we owe thanks

has sent a star or two in the east

to wed as one in the sky while we 

cannot here – a promise perhaps

for the patient of better days to come

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Four hundred years ago today, democracy was introduced to this continent with the signing of the Mayflower Compact by its passengers, or at least 41 of its men; but then democracy, like nature it seems, is always evolving in order to survive.

Having been blown off course from their intended Virginia, the Puritans had reached Cape Cod in what became Massachusetts, well outside the chartered colony they meant to join. Some of the non-Puritans aboard asserted that they were thus not bound by their charter, which prompted the Puritans to establish their own government, at least until things could be sorted out with England and their financiers.

As Nathaniel Philbrick wrote in his recent book on the Mayflower, “Just as a spiritual covenant had marked the beginning of their congregation in Leiden, a civil covenant would provide the basis for a secular government in America.” Although we treat the covenant as historic and with respect, it was short, simple and born of necessity. It declared their common agreement to establish liberty under laws, with all (in the narrower sense of the times) having the right to participate in establishing them.

The wording of the Compact consists largely of what we now deem flowery precatory language and relies on the implied good faith of all to serve the common good by the signers and those to be governed by it:

IN THE NAME OF GOD, AMEN. We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, &c. Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the first Colony in the northern Parts of Virginia; Do by these Presents, solemnly and mutually, in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid: And by Virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions, and Officers, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general Good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due Submission and Obedience. IN WITNESS whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape-Cod the eleventh of November, in the Reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, Anno Domini; 1620

The Compact remained in effect until 1691, when Plymouth merged with the Massachusetts Bay Colony, but it survives today as a symbol of our continuing commitment to a self-government for the common good.

Democracies must evolve in the face of new challenges and in recognition of failings, of which we have had many. A war over the civil and moral wrong of slavery tested our resolve. The commitment to the system and process is what holds us together still after 400 years.

Some today seem to question that compact once more, including one misguided leader and others dependent on his whimsied graces. The fact that the Puritans felt a need for a written document implies that they may have had similar dissenters among them. What has made us great though has been 400 years of the common belief that we are better as one working together.

A look back for perspective seems more timely than ever. We need also to look forward, as we face challenges far greater than those few who were hoping to survive the coming winter on one cold November day in 1620.

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Ours is a big country and the right to differ peacefully, to learn from that diversity and to grow stronger from it has, or had, long defined us. It is one thing to have and to share points of view. It has been another to demonize those we disagree with. My hope is that we will regain that spirit as we begin a new era of leadership.

Elections should be about choices over priorities and those we select to pursue those goals. Someone’s candidate necessarily wins, but if we are true to what this country stands for, no one loses.

This may sound unrelated, but bear with me a moment. When Pandora, the Greek’s Eve, opened what Erasmus mistakenly translated as her box (pithos actually means jar) all the evils that afflict us still escaped, but one item remained, elpis in the Greek. It is an ambiguous term, but we translate is as hope. Nietzsche and the Existentialists have questioned whether hope was a gift from the gods or a curse, though to Dostoyevsky it was essential for life. Still, hope for better tomorrows is as much a defining trait of this country as any one word can encompass. I woke this morning with that hope once again.

In Pandora’s story, she buried her box or jar with hope still inside. The ancients never said who, but someone later unearthed and released hope for mankind. During the darkness of recent times, I published a poem that reflected on the glimmer of hope I still felt. Today I thought I would share that thought with you.

Apocalypse

Once upon this morning

the sun no longer rose

It was dark all day

and everyone slept

peacefully through 

what would have been 

another day

Only the end of the world

had come and gone

and with it war disease

hunger and hatred

because the Four Horsemen

could not find their way

Instead we held each other close

and started counting over

this time in days without fear

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