Sometimes a piece of a tune, a hint of fragrance or a glimpse is enough to put you on memory lane.
FRIDAY LUNCH FLASH MOB
AT THE CLOSING OF THE YEAR
What's a cloudy cool day among friends?
THE YEAR IN PICTURES
A favorite task in the newsroom was to review the work of our photo journalists, to find the images that told of a year. Here is the year reconstructed by images from shooters at Reuters. I suggest you watch this full screen.
OK, District of Columbia police are stating the law, maybe even doing their job well, but, hey!!!
NBC News and Meet the Press anchor David Gregory being in a hot spot because he held an automatic weapon ammo clip on the air while Americans own and use such things is a snapshot of how absurdly silly this complex nation is becoming.
School children die when a "legal" weapon is used against them, but hold a clip in a studio and be the object of an investigation?! Should we laugh, or cry?
SCROOGE
Frank Raiter played the best Scrooge I have seen.
I struggled to remember his name last week, as I noted the great performance in Tom Haas's adaptation of the Christmas Carol at the IRT a couple of decades ago.
My thanks to those of you who suggested other names, and while I know some of them and they were indeed very worthy, Raiter played old Ebenezer better than any I've seen, on stage, film or television.
Frank's name popped into mind over the weekend as I devoured any thing Christmas Carol on the air, DVR or On Demand. One more Christmas ghost, jarred loose. I don't think Raiter's performance was captured on film or tape so like many other good stage performances, it lives on in memory only.
Incredible, amazing, even miraculous that the birth of a legal bastard of questioned fatherhood, born in an alley stable to a poor couple, the mother both reviled by community and rejected by her intended husband's family, two thousand years ago in a backwater village is the cause of a celebration of joy and hope that wraps the globe.
When gazing upon that tender infant's face, Christians for two millennium see he who links humans with the divine and the child who grows to be a rabbi who demonstrates sacrificial love. Unbelievable that such a story line is a trigger to such cultural outpouring.
Christmas, as we know it today, is a relatively new occurrence. But even in a cultural milieu of silver bells, Santa Claus coming to town, decking the halls, rockin' around a Christmas tree, family gatherings, feasts, parties, pageants, ballets, choirs, wrapping paper, and every thing else that has grown around the date, it centers back to that illegitimate baby boy born among live stock to a young girl.
Guess those astrologers from a line of scholar disciples of Zoroaster may have been onto something when they read the charts and traveled under night skies to visit the child and his bewildered parents. In a very real sense they were the guest at the first Christmas party.
For two thousand years critics and doubters and the intervening madness of wars, mass killings, disasters, disease, poverty, decadent commercialism and even hate have been unable to stop the party.
A curious birth, lower than the lowest level of civil society, in a smelly stable and it has come to this. Unbelievable isn't it?
A couple of weeks ago I posted a video with Dan and Phil Ponce, a couple of Chicago news casters who are also extraordinarily talented musicians and singers. Dan was one of the founders of Straight No Chaser an a Capella group formed at Indiana University that is now a hot ticket.
As fate would have it, several of you have sent me videos of the group, so I am "re gifting." Most of you are no doubt aware of them, but for those of you who are not-
Enjoy. Here's an early gift.
AND AN EARLY VERSION OF THEIR FAMOUS RENDITION
DAVID HANGS IT UP
An era came to a sad but noble end today. I think of it as a ghost of Christmas future.
A tennis partner quietly announced at the net as we were shaking hands at the conclusion of a match, that he would no longer be playing. David said he could not trust his balance anymore and he didn't want to take another fall, as he has twice this year. David is an octogenarian.
I didn't play tennis until we moved to Cambria. My court sport in Indiana was basketball, but wanting to stay in shape I began as a late aged neophyte on the tennis court. It took months of some awful play before I was worthy of joining into a foursome. David, Phil and Janos were the first group to ask me to sub from time to time. They were also the first group to ask me to join as a permanent player.
I play three days a week in three different foursomes now, but the Friday morning 9AM foursome on Court 1 was the "mother's milk" of my tennis play. David, Phil and Janos allowed me to learn and grow and they are a delightful group of guys. After our play, we always end up at Lilly's coffee deck for wide ranging conversations and a good dose of friendship.
David and I were often partners and there would be times he wore a frustration at what had departed his game. But there were also those times when his wicked cross court shot, or a hard hit liner would do the job and was evidence of a man who had great game. He particularly enjoyed, as I did as well, when we would rally back from being down and win the match. We both would leave the court with more spring in our step. He remained a competitor though he knew his days of being an excellent player were history. He loved the game and he continued to play.
David was also the picture of a gentlemen competitor at all times. He evinced a great sportsmanship and integrity. He is also a true gentlemen in every other regard. A class act if ever there was one. As well traveled as anyone I've met, even among other globe trotting journalists, David is a great joy in social settings. We hope he will continue to join us for our post match coffee.
Our buddy Phil has been on medical leave of recent, though his love for the game is pushing him to get back on the court as well. In my few years of play I have come to know that love of the game and can understand how tough it must be to hang it up. David will now take up lawn bowling, of which there is a tough league in Cambria. And he may join the ping pong matches.
I am indebted to Janos, Phil and David. I will miss David's enthusiastic narratives and droll humor as we play. And I hope at some distant match, holiday season or other wise, I can leave the game with the same class and gentlemanly style as David.
And for the record David's quick returns and well aimed shots earned us several points today.
Paul McCartney playing with Nirvana may have been the cosmic rift that some have attributed to the Mayans.
First at the Sandy benefit international broadcast, 12/12/12 and then again on Saturday Night Live (SNL), McCartney assumed the late Kurt Cobain's role. That is not something we saw coming, nor would ever expect.
By virtue of his "Beatledom," McCartney is probably the reigning star in the Rock realm. Some ascribe such cultural and musical shaping influence to the Beatles they belong in Darwin's theory of evolution. Of course most of that is true. And Paul is a superb player, in addition to writer, composer, arranger, producer and by most accounts a grand fellow. He certainly held his own, and in a way was saying, I maybe the grand old man and the master of pop and ballads and lyrics, but I can still kick out the jam. Still
McCartney with Nirvana was just plain weird!
THE LEGEND MAKERS
One more item of Iconography. One of the greatest sports legends, because it is true, is the "Goliath killer" Butler Bull Dogs.
The small Indianapolis north side University thrilled NCAA fans a couple of years ago with back to back national championship runs, ending up as runner up two years in a row. Over the weekend the "Dawgs" worked their way into the nation's top 25 again by knocking off the nation's number 1 powerhouse, neighboring Indiana University.
The IU Hoosiers lay claim to 5 national championships and 8 final four appearances. To some, IU under Bob Knight, UCLA under John Wooden and Duke under Coach K are the epitome of college basketball powerhouses.
Well,...way back, in my kid hood, we remember the great and historic Butler teams under the legendary Tony Hinkle. Always a small school, but with a brand of basketball that cast a national shadow.
Under former coach, now athletic director Barry Collier and coach Brad Stevens, Butler has become the favorite little guy. Their intelligence, determination and toughness remind millions of how basketball excellence can look.
If you saw the classic movie Hoosiers written by Angel Pizzo, you may be inclined to say the real Hoosiers in Indiana-the little guys who knock off the big boys, are the Bull Dogs! Great stuff.
Television news producers called it a false lead-that headline in yellow gold above, a case in point. Get your attention with it, but do another story or two first. Sometimes because the headline story wasn't ready, perhaps a technical issue, or simply to make you wait through earlier info.
HISTORY TELLS US THIS IS A GREAT DAY
This photo and an accompanying letter has been passed down through our family since the 1940's. More than once it was a topic of a school essay or report.
Orville Wright, who with his brother Wilbur created the age of air travel, is a cousin. It was on this day at Kill Devil Hill, North Carolina the Ohio brothers alternated flying for the first time, as captured in the photo. Orville's letter of May 2, 1945, to a relative genealogist verified her research that our family lines joined with Edmund Freeman, born in 1590 in England. He came to Boston in 1635. His research and hers were consistent. The Freemans, Booths and Jones-part of the English line were my father's mother's lineage.
I remember the night my father and I drove to cousin Rhea's home to see her massive genealogical charts and I can still remember her great excitement at making the Wright Brothers connection, some ten years prior to our visit. It was a big deal in the family.
DICKEN'S BIG HIT
The Charles Dicken's classic A Christmas Carol made its first appearance on this day in 1843. I loved it from the first telling by an English uncle and in my later first reading from an old English illustrated copy. I've seen it staged more times than I can remember and assume by now it has become part of my bones. The best Scrooge I've seen, and in fact some of the best staging ever, was the Tom Haas adaptation performed for years at the IRT in Indianapolis. I'm drawing a blank, if you can remember the fine Rep actor who played Scrooge several times at IRT, let me know, please.
WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?
That was the best question to come from the hours of coverage and reportage on the Newtown tragedy. America has been through this too many times. As always we resolve to something. We do nothing and politics always intrudes. As I have posted previouslyI've covered this sort of violence and wrote and directed a documentary which dealt with the topic. I am a firm advocate of the Bill of Rights, but I wonder if there isn't some way to develop a standard that closely approximates the type of fire arm the writers of the Second Amendment would approve. I think a good case is made the Second is focused on the right of people to keep and bear arms only as a means to organize a regulated militia for their defense. It is not about keeping specific firepower. Clearly the firearms of 1791 were less sophisticated, but couldn't there be a way to equate what was available and in use in those days, and bring the standard forward to include modern technology, but draw the line some place? If self defense is an operating principle then some of the weapons available today clearly go beyond that. Automatic weapons are meant to kill, rapidly, efficiently. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a fool and or apologist. Assault rifles are meant to be used as tools of war and to kill. I wonder what James Madison, George Mason, Patrick Henry and Alexander Hamilton would think. How would those writers of the Second Amendment react to Newtown, or Aurora, or Columbine, or etc, etc, etc.? Can't we find a way to define classes of weapons, or ways to categorize what is consistent with being able to mount a militia? Though I confess those who are overly obsessed with being able to create a militia seem a little shaky themselves. I don't profess an answer, but the question needs to be answered. What are we going to do about it?
