Allen Borton, Inspiring Survivor

Dr. Allen Borton, a dear friend of mine and a former music professor at Olivet College, has been through more pain and loss of his wonderful skills than most anyone I know.

It all happened on Saturday, May 22, 1993 when he was coming home to Olivet from a vacation. He was driving alone on the US 127, near Jackson, when a driver forced his small car to flip off the highway.

Though Allen still has no memory of any of it, he has learned that he was ejected from the window of the car. He says that he always wore his seatbelt, but he learned, unfortunately after the statute of limitations had expired, that his small car had been on a recall list for defective seat belts.

When his head struck the pavement, he incurred a closed-head traumatic brain Injury and went into a coma which lasted for over two months. He was engaged to a very musical young lady named Michelle Rabey at that point. They had to postpone their wedding for six months while Allen began to recover. He sadly learned that though his brain was fine, he could no longer communicate vocally, either by speech or song. But he was thankful every moment that Michelle still wanted to be his wife.

By December of that year, though Allen was of course still extremely weak, they were married and have been very happy together now for 21 years.

Naturally Allen wished he could go back to teaching singing and conducting various choirs. Some of his non-musical friends have thought that since his arms and hands were not damaged, surely he could go back to his music career. He knew better, however, saying “a majority of the work takes place in the rehearsal, both by explanation and by demonstration, and without this ability, continuing as a choral conductor was impossible.”

Allen and Michelle have been living in Ann Arbor since their marriage, and Michelle teaches music there at a private school. Despite his lingering serious problems with speech and with various body difficulties, Allen has been able to find work with Firestone, where he drives errands and does paperwork for the store. It is not the work he wishes he could do, but every day he has made the best of life and thanked God that he is alive and happy.

Though he cannot sing or conduct or play the piano nearly as well as he did before, Allen has become a fine composer of music. At this point he has created over 600 pieces, most of them original, but also some arrangements of already written works. Over the years he has had a number of them performed by numerous soloists and choirs, Michelle’s ringers when she was directing the church handbell choir, the string orchestra members at Michelle’s school and members of the Olivet College music group. I have felt honored to  get to play some of his work on my violin, as well, during concerts at Olivet College and in Ann Arbor at his and Michelle’s church.

My sweetheart Andrew and I have played Scrabble numerous times with Allen, and we’ve found that he’s still very good at words, as well.

Perhaps the most amazing aspect of Allen is his positive, loving nature. Many people would be so depressed after going through what he did that they would not even want to try to communicate with friends--much less love them.

But Allen makes the most of life every day and provides a wonderfully positive example for us all.

The Gershwin Brothers, George and Ira

George and Ira Gershwin were two extremely talented brothers who were born in New York city in the late 1890s of Jewish parents from Russia and Lithuania. The family had to move about 28 times during George and Ira’s childhood, and all of that change probably brought the two brothers closer together, even though they were extremely different.

Though George was a genius at composing music he didn’t even become interested in it until he was 10. Once he started to love it, however, he spent the rest of his life constantly learning and composing. He was very much of an extrovert who loved playing his works for thousands of fans.

Ira, who was George’s older brother, was a word person and an introvert who loved reading books and writing poems and was not at all a performer or musician. He was extremely modest, and said "I always felt that if George hadn't been my brother and pushed me, I'd have been contented to be a bookkeeper."

Though Ira has never been as famous as George, he wrote wonderful words for hundreds of George’s songs and should be more appreciated for his equally amazing talent. The two brothers’ private lives were extremely different, as well. Ira went to college for two years whereas George left school at age 15.

George never married though he certainly cared for women and is said to have seduced quite a few. He had a lover named Kay Swift for ten years. Perhaps he didn’t marry her because she was not Jewish, or maybe it was simply because he was so busy. After all he composed over a thousand songs, longer works for orchestras and five operas--as well as doing a lot of painting. And it’s especially amazing because he died from a brain tumor at just 38.

Ira, on the other hand, married a woman named Leonore Strunsky, and they were together for almost 60 years.

Despite all of these differences, George and Ira lived either together or close to each other during most of their lives and got along amazingly well. Sometimes George would write a melody, and then Ira would create words to go with it. But other times, Ira would come up with a poem, and George would set it to music. As Ira put it, “We worked best under deadlines and we worked mostly at night.”

As for his lyrics, Ira said “They should be simple, colloquial, rhymed conversation,   . . . and capture the way people spoke to each other, their slang, their cliches, the catchphrases.”

Some of the most famous songs they created together were “The Man I Love,” “Fascinating Rhythm,” “Someone to Watch Over Me,” “I Got Rhythm,”  “They Can’t Take That Away from Me” “Nice Work if You Can Get It,” “Love Is Here to Stay,” “Lady Be Good,” “Strike Up the Band,” “Funny Face,” and “‘S Wonderful.”

The “folk opera” “Porgy and Bess,” was George’s most famous creation. Ira composed some of the lyrics, but many were created by DuBose Heyward who first wrote the novel and then the subsequent play which George later converted into an opera.

After George died, it took Ira at least three years to get beyond his sadness and back into creating words for songs. He did eventually create more lyrics, however, for many more songs by such famous composers as Aaron Copland, Jerome Kern and Kurt Weill.

How fortunate we are that these two very different geniuses worked together so brilliantly.

On Reaching 75

This was Linda Jo's column for Friday, December 12, 2014.

Nine days ago I turned 75 and thus began my fourth quarter. Just before my birthday, I was introduced to a long essay by Ezekiel Emanuel, a prominent clinical bioethicist at the U.S. National Institutes of Health and head of the Department of Medical Ethics & Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania.

Emanuel is not 75 yet, but though he seems to be extremely bright, active and successful, he insists in his essay that he wants to live only to age 75.

As he puts it, “living too long is a loss. It renders many of us, if not disabled, then faltering and declining, a state that may not be worse than death but is nonetheless deprived. It robs us of our creativity and ability to contribute to work, society, the world.

It transforms how people experience us, relate to us, and, most important, remember us. We are no longer remembered as vibrant and engaged but as feeble, ineffectual, even pathetic.”

Unlike  Emanuel, however, I’m definitely not ready to die. Life can be difficult for older folks, that’s for sure. My memory has become much worse since open heart surgery and a stroke, but life is still extremely satisfying and enjoyable for me.

Besides, I seem to be appreciated by my family, my friends, and the folks I work for, including my bosses at the Enquirer, folks in charge of Meals on Wheels, faculty at Olivet College who know that I have volunteered at the Oak Chest since I retired 16 years ago, and my older students in the Institute for Learning in Retirement here in Battle Creek. I’ve taught over 30 classes for them through the Kellogg Community College.

I also play my violin many times each month, mostly for older folks who seem to be especially appreciative.

One very musical violin playing friend, Carole Merrick Ringer, was born on the same day as I was, back in 1939. We’ve been friends ever since we went to kindergarten together in Wilmette, Illinois, 70 years ago. Over the years she served as a paid professional with various symphonies in Illinois and still does a lot of volunteering these days with various organizations in the arts.

I would certainly admit that Emanuel is right in saying that after 75 people tend to accomplish less. I used to love to sew, for example, but these days I repair clothes only if really needed.

I used to love travel a lot, not only in our country but also spending three years teaching English in France. I spoke French quite well and could read books easily.

A few years later I also taught English for one year in South Korea. And still later, I spent three weeks with my dear pianist friends, Emily and Dan Byrens, in the Philippines, teaching and playing my violin with them.

These days, however, I truly don’t want to travel to any far-away place. I just appreciate staying home pursuing my various enjoyable activities here.  

Whereas I used to write poems a lot and even taught poetry writing, I never write them anymore.

Another sad aspect of getting old is losing one’s friends. A lady I knew who was in her mid 96s cried often, for most all of her long-time friends had died. But, as she wisely said, “The older you get, the more important it is to make younger friends.”

So far, therefore, I’m hoping to live longer. Besides, Emanuel is only 57 now, and it will be interesting to see how he’ll feel about death in 18 years, when he reaches 75.

Malnutrition, a column from July 2013

Last week there was the Battle Creek Enquirer preempted Linda Jo's
column, so here's an extra one from the archives.

I just read a most depressing article about the terrible effects of 
malnutrition, stating that it causes 45% of the deaths of young
children all over the world. These dreadful problems begin with
conception--or even before, if the mother is malnourished before
becoming pregnant.

“An estimated 900,000 lives could be saved in 34 countries if 10
proven nutritional interventions were scaled-up to 90% of the world,”
according to Helen Briggs, British broadcaster and member of BBC
News. She goes on to say that “Poor nutrition leads to the deaths of
about 3.1 million under-fives annually.”

I realize that other countries have worse problems of malnutrition
than ours, but even here in America, many families are suffering every
day from not having adequate and appropriate food to eat. And sad to
say, whatever the reason for their poverty, it’s their young children
who suffer the most.

The effects of all of this are incredibly tragic--and they are also,
according to Briggs, very expensive. As she puts it, “According to a
recent United Nations report, malnutrition is estimated to cost the
world $3.5 trillion dollars (£2.3 trillion in English terms)--or $500
for every person in the world in healthcare and lost productivity.”

A team led by Prof Robert Black, of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School
of Public Health, Baltimore, US, which has studied this terrible problem
ever since 2008, says that though there has been some recent
improvement, more than 165 million children had their height as well
as their general health--and even their minds--affected negatively in
2011 alone. And of that number, approximately 50 million have been
negatively affected by low weight and who knows how many have
been affected mentally.

One of the most depressing factors in all of this is that as the
population grows and people have to move into cities to find work,
inevitably farms will become less worked or will disappear altogether.
As a result, it will become even more difficult to feed millions
nourishing, fresh vegetables, especially in countries such as China
and India.

I surely wish America could do more to help this problem, but our
House and Senate seem to have trouble agreeing on anything. As a
result, they don’t seem to concern themselves sufficiently with
suffering in other countries--or even in our country.

I hate to sound excessively negative in my columns. It’s much more
enjoyable to talk about unselfish, productive, loving people and
concepts, and I try to emphasize the positive whenever I can, but this
whole world-wide problem of extreme malnutrition is a situation of
gravest concern.

I know that many conservatives feel that our government is handing
out food and money far too much, but in reality less than 1% of our
federal budget is given to other countries in foreign aid - see
http://borgenproject.org/foreign-aid-2/  I wish they would realize
just how great the needs are these days and how extremely harmful it
can all be to the young and hungry.

I just learned that the Methodist Church here in Bellevue has rented a
downtown building to use for free food for those who need it. That
church has been generous for many years, providing food from
downstairs of the church, but now they are expanding their program.
It seems to me that our country--our world--needs a lot more of this
kind of generosity.

The Joy of Playing the Violin

There’s something truly joyful about playing music, and I’m so glad my instrument is a violin. For one thing, it’s easier to get into an orchestra, for they generally have 30 or more violinists, whereas they only have a half dozen or so viola, cello and bass players, and even fewer individuals on each woodwind, brass and percussion instrument.

In addition, the violin is easy to carry so that the player doesn’t have to do what cellists and double bass players traveling on airplanes must do and pay for extra seats for their instruments. Things are even more complicated for  pianists or organists for they constantly have to adapt to a different instrument wherever they play.

I have been playing the violin for 66 years now, and I surely hope I’ll get more years in the future. I especially loved playing in the Battle Creek Symphony for 31 years and finally retired only four years ago. I still write program notes for each concert, and my sweetheart, my son and I help out by taking tickets and passing out programs.

True enough, my career was completely English in nature, teaching British and American literature and writing articles and columns. But I’ve loved playing violin for even longer. And these days it’s even more of a predominant passion, for though my memory for words slips, I still remember music just fine.

I certainly don’t claim any comparison with Albert Einstein and his brilliance -or, for that matter, his musical talents - but we both loved the violin for many years. As he put it, “If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.”

I’ve had that same kind of enthusiasm, too, ever since 1946, at age six, when my musical mother decided that I should have proper piano lessons. She took me to a music school in Winnetka, north of Chicago, and the piano teacher there sat me down at a huge grand piano and asked me to play for him. After I played some simple little pieces, he said I should close my eyes and tell him what note he played. I obeyed and was immediately able to identify each note. When he realized that I had what he called “perfect pitch,” he said to my mother, “She’s a string player.”

He did recommend that I first take a couple of years of piano, for that would teach me more about the base notes and chords, but then when I was about eight, he said I should start violin. If you have heard beginning violinists, you know that it’s a very difficult instrument to make sound good. My mother was extremely tolerant, however, and  immediately began playing accompaniments with me.

We played together every day and eventually began playing for our family, for Sunday School, and for old folks’ homes. Most of time time we both played by ear, for, as my Mom always said, “Paper just gets in the way of having fun.”

These days I play many times each month with the Olde Tyme Music Group here in town as well as for special solo or accompanied programs at various churches and old-folks’ homes. December is an especially full month with dozens of invitations to play Christmas music.

I’ll close simply with another great quote from Einstein, a man I admire tremendously, and whom I surely agree with: “I get most joy in life out of music.”

These are finding strength from a terrible disease

Chances are you have never known anyone suffering with Progeria, for there are only just over 100 known victims in this country.

I first learned of this disease when reading an excellent, best-selling book “When Bad Things Happen to Good People” by the Jewish rabbi, Harold S. Kushner. He wrote the book in 1981, not long after his poor 14-year-old son Aaron died after suffering from Progeria.

I was really sad reading about little Aaron, for he was an extremely bright, loving boy, but he stopped gaining much weight at eight months and lost all of his hair by age three. In addition, he had a thin but disproportionately large head and a small jaw and dry and scaly skin. Sad to say, he never grew much taller than three feet high.

I looked up Progeria online and found some excellent accounts of this terrible disease. One especially sad one, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzyJyCZqumw), tells the story of a poor family in India who had five of their seven children suffering from this disease.

Another one, (http://www.progeriaresearch.org/meet_the_kids/), published in May of this year includes a map of the world, showing that this disease is found mostly in eastern America, South America, Europe, the Middle East, India, Korea and Japan. It’s interesting that no victims have been reported in either Australia or Russia.

This site also features pictures and information about 16 amazing and bright children who suffered--and in some cases have already died--from this terrible disease.

For example, a teenage girl named Hayley from England, won the prestigious Children of Courage Award and has appeared in several documentaries and stories about Progeria. She and her mother even wrote a book about living with Progeria called “Old Before My Time.”

Quite amazingly she said, “My life with progeria is full of happiness and good memories.  Deep inside I am no different from anyone. We are all human.” Another victim, a 17-year old fellow named Sam, has received highest honors at his high school in Massachusetts, has served as a percussion section leader in his band and is an Eagle Scout. He has even been interviewed on national television about his condition and his accomplishments.

And a six-year-old girl named Adalia, from Texas has over ten million followers on Facebook.

Rabbi Kushner and his wife were of course extremely sad to lose their loving son. As he explained, however, after his son’s death, he began to understand God in a much deeper sense and therefore became a much better rabbi and human being.  

God has given us free will, he points out, and therefore He does not control our lives. “Because our tragedy is not God’s will, we need not feel hurt or betrayed when tragedy strikes. We can turn to Him for help in overcoming it, precisely because we can tell ourselves that God is as outraged by it as we are.”

Elsewhere he says, “No one ever promised us a life free from pain and disappointment. The most anyone promised us was that we would not be alone in our pain, and that we would be able to draw upon a source outside ourselves for the strength and courage we would need to survive life’s tragedies and life’s unfairness.”

I truly recommend Kushner’s book, for though I’ve had polio (suspected), cancer, open heart surgery and a stroke, I’m certainly not blaming God. I’m simply very thankful to be alive and doing well.

Brilliant Local Historian, Elizabeth Neumeyer

I hope folks in Battle Creek realize how lucky they are to have such an amazing citizen as Elizabeth Neumeyer.

“Liz”  first came to town in 1968 to teach American, Michigan and local history just a few years after Kellogg Community College began.

She is a very educated lady, for she earned not one but three Masters Degrees, one from Central Michigan, in history, and two from Western Michigan University, one in  counseling and one in communication. These two later degrees she achieved while doing full-time teaching.

In addition to being a professor for many years, she was a long-time member of the Board of Directors of the Historical Society of Battle Creek and helped start Heritage Battle Creek Journal back in 1991.

She also wrote books while teaching. One very impressive one, for example, is  called “Mother: Ella Eaton Kellogg,” about the wife of the famous John Harvey Kellogg. The book is almost 100 pages long and contains some great photographs of the Kellogg homes and family.

Ella and her husband not only adopted 11 children but also raised more than 30 others over the years. Liz even includes a list of all of the children, including their names, ages and brief remarks about their adult lives.

She also explains how the Kelloggs founded the Haskell Home for Orphans which nurtured 150 to 200 children each year. As though all of this work with children weren’t sufficient, they also ran classes for mothers of kindergartners and helped supervise the children’s play and development.

Part of the reason for writing that book was in order to succeed in getting Ella into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame through the Battle Creek Historical Society.

Though she has formally retired, Liz seems to be just about as busy now as ever.

Together with another really hardworking, devoted Battle Creek  citizen, Mary Butler, Liz works many hours a week studying and writing about local history for the Heritage Battle Creek Journal.

In addition, the two of them teach classes on local history for the Institute for Learning in Retirement.

She and Mary, together with some local teachers, won a Michigan Historical Society Education Programming award for a series about education here in town.

Liz also writes a monthly column for Scene Magazine on the origin of street and road names in the Battle Creek area and holds a monthly history roundtable at Northpointe Woods where she can learn even more about Battle Creek from its many senior citizens.

Just recently Elizabeth was asked by KCC to work with Marty Stilwell, the Learning Resource Center director, and Mark O'Connell, the Vice President of finance, on a history of the school for the college’s 60th anniversary in 2016, continuing from the one Dr. Neva Bartel did from 1956 to 1986.

Matthew Samra, one of Liz’s former students, now teaches English at KCC. As he says, "We co-taught many courses together at KCC, and I was always impressed by her breadth of knowledge. If you were enrolled in her history course, you can bet you'd be exposed to some sociology, literature, and psychology along the way - among with other rich, interdisciplinary subjects."

I have even been privileged to have this brilliant and entertaining student and friend in several of my ILR classes.

Thank you, Liz, for all you do for us all.

If you want to read more about local history, you can go to www.heritagebattlecreek.org.

Dena Phaff Haas, Artistic Battle Creek Photographer

Dena Phaff Haas is a bright and talented lady here in Battle Creek who has brought joy to hundreds of people through her photographs.

Dena was born in the Netherlands, but her family came here when she was just two years old. Her father was a photographer, so though she studied all kinds of art at Calvin College, she eventually came to emphasize photography and moved into her dad’s business about 25 years ago. She wisely opened a studio right next to her house, so that she could be close to her children, even while working.

I met Dena quite a few years ago when she started taking special photographs of two members of the Battle Creek Symphony for each concert. The very large professional pictures have always been displayed in the hall outside the auditorium where  the orchestra plays, and mine was one of the pictures. I especially liked that picture, bought it from the orchestra and still have it hanging in my music room at home.

Over the years Dena has also taken literally  thousands of pictures of babies, young children, high school seniors, brides and grooms, families and business people.

You can go see 15 of her wonderful pictures on display at the Brownstone Restaurant in downtown Battle Creek. The owner admired her work and requested special pictures for his doorway and inside walls. If you’ve already been there, you’ve no doubt seen some, for three of them have been hanging there for over five years.

Even if you can’t go to Brownstone, you can see a number of her wonderful photographs on line by simply going to http://www.phaffstudio.com/.

Dena sometimes presents inspiring quotes from the people that are on display. One lady, for example, said, “I've discovered that I must be flexible and open to new ideas, yet remain true to the core of who I am... My physical and mental strength grows by being stretched to the limits of my endurance."

Through all of the years of full-time photographing, Dena says that she has been touched when people have come back to her to say how precious her pictures have become for them. This has been especially true when family members have died. As she put it very touchingly, “Photographs in a sense stop time, for it only takes a part of a second to freeze moments forever.”

Dena introduced me to the word “Chiaroscuro,” which describes artwork that emphasizes illumination and shadows. Her photos just outside Brownstone are more emotionally dark, whereas the pictures inside are more light and positive. These contrasts, she believes, describe human life for us all, for we have both negative and positive, dark and light events in our lives, and both help us to develop our deep understanding, tolerance and, in most cases, love of of life.

As she put it, "So much of what I do in both my art and photography is devoted to seeing and analyzing light and shadow.  To me this is also a metaphor for my life's journey.  My belief in and worship of the God of light is an important part of who I am."

Battle Creek artist Andrew Freemire admires Dena tremendously and urged me to write this column. As he put it, “There are photographers, and then there are photographers. As in all disciplines, there are those that have the academics and do fine, but then there are those that have the academic, the innate talent coupled with genuine passion.  Dena has the later blend, and the results are so evocative/comfortable/inspiring."

The Joy of Writing a Column

“Rage is the only quality which has kept me, or anyone I have ever studied, writing columns for newspapers.”  Jimmy Breslin

Jimmy Breslin is a much more famous columnist than I’ll ever be, and I do admire him. He is a Pulitzer prize winning journalist and has even written novels--a job I’ve never even tried. I must say, however, that I disagree with what he says about needing to feel rage.

I almost never feel rage, so it certainly isn’t a part of my job with the Enquirer. I write about subjects I care about, and I truly try to be positive and encouraging because I would at least hope to influence my readers to want to make their lives not only a bit more informed but also more fulfilling and enjoyable.

Moreover, I feel nothing but gratitude that the Enquirer has allowed me to compose well over 1,000 articles and sentencing reports and close to 300 columns. I’ve worked for them part-time for 16 years, ever since I retired from teaching English at Olivet College, and I’ve loved it the whole time.

Because I now do a column for the paper every Friday, I really appreciate it when my friends suggest subjects for me, though of course I don’t always feel that I can take their suggestions. For example, one dear old friend from college wanted me to do a column about a prisoner out in Minnesota. My friend visits and admires him, but I don’t know him personally, and after I read about his various crimes, I just didn’t feel comfortable trying to emphasize his intelligence and good character.

I must say that my favorite positive subjects for my columns are certainly not about people’s crimes. It’s rather about all of the music that I play on my violin for older folks. Along with English, which was my career, music has always been my passion, and each time I’ve done a column about my love of music, I’ve received really nice, positive responses.

I’ll be 75 in December, and my memory has gone way downhill since I had open heart surgery and a stroke. It definitely takes more time to write my columns these days, but I still seem to be able to do it and still enjoy it. In fact, my very nice boss, Charles Carlson, humorously said I could keep writing columns forever.

My sweetheart, whom I plan to marry on Dec. 3, 2039, when I turn 100 and he turns 107 1/2, always reads my columns in advance. He had a fine education in England and is downright fussy about proper grammar and language. Even though he was an engineer and I was an English professor, he often has good suggestions for slight changes.

Yet another thing that I appreciate about the paper is that they put a little picture of me by my columns each week. I’m no beauty, but sometimes people I don’t even know come up to me and say they feel they recognize me through my photo and like my columns.

Finally, I’d be glad to get more suggestions for future columns. You can email me at lindajoscott@gmail.com or call me at 269 763 3041 with your ideas.

Perhaps you would even allow me to come and interview you, and I’d really like to do just that.

Two Memorable Funerals

I am generally a positive column writer and would rather write columns about happy subjects you would all enjoy and feel good about.

This column, however, is about two memorable funerals two days in a row. On Tuesday, Oct. 14, I attended the Catholic service for Helen M.Cox Lothamer at the large church in Charlotte. Helen was a wonderful woman who had 15 children, 46 grandchildren and 52 great grandchildren. After having all of those births and raising all of those children, she has happily stayed in close touch with all of her grandchildren and great grandchildren all of these years and lived a healthy, happy life all the way up to the age of 96.

Thirteen of her children are still alive and 12 of them were at the service along with most of her grandchildren and great grandchildren as well as dozens and dozens of her children’s and grandchildren’s spouses and other relatives.

I was honored to get to play my violin with Helen’s talented pianist daughter, Susanne at the service. I have played for a number of occasions over the years with her, including their family weddings, funerals and parties, but this one was especially sad but memorable for both of us.

And, speaking of large numbers, there were almost 30 priests there, for Helen Lothamer’s second child, James Lothamer, who conducted the service has been a priest for many years and is a close friend of many others of his profession.

Then the very next day I attended another equally unforgettable service for Samuel David Carpenter, who was an outstanding lawyer with Vandervoort, Christ and Fisher Law firm here in Battle Creek.

This was also a huge funeral with beautiful reminiscences from all four of Sam’s children as well as one from his nephew, Dave Carpenter, and another from a law partner and close friend, Chris T. Christ. There was even a wonderful video tribute called “A Life of Faith” about Carpenter’s many ways of  sharing his remarkable talents and his beliefs with many people in this area.

As a teenager, Sam was successful in statewide Ohio competitions for his performance on violin and ukulele. Music remained a very important part for Sam’s life not only because of his own talents but also because his loving wife of 55 years, Helga Frank Carpenter, was a professional piano teacher.  

As an adult, Sam played a piano anywhere and anytime he could find one, in homes, churches, restaurants, hotels and malls and in many senior living facilities. He played piano by ear and when asked about his favorite song, he replied that he would be happy to play any song he knew. As he said, “With so many beautiful melodies, I could play all day and never even scratch the surface.”

I certainly don’t claim to be nearly the wonderful person Sam was, but we did share a common love to play music anytime we could. I had my violin with me at his funeral because I was going afterwards to Northpointe to play for their 15th anniversary. So at the reception at the Battle Creek Country Club, I was able to play people’s requests. This wouldn’t be appropriate at most funeral receptions, but many people who loved Sam seemed grateful that I played in his memory. Some of them even said that Sam would have loved to play with me if he could have been there.

Funerals are of course sad occasions, but both of these were also extremely inspiring and memorable for us all.

The Appeal of Elephants

Dogs, cats and horses are usually considered people’s favorite
animals, but elephants are certainly one of the most lovable ones,
too.

For one thing elephants seem extremely empathetic when their kind
suffer and die. Also, they can certainly be known longer, for they
often live up to the age of 70 or so.

Though there are of course many elephants in zoos and though their
early relatives were  in North and South America thousands of years
ago, most native elephants these days are in Africa and Asia. It’s
interesting that those two groups are different enough that scientists
still disagree as to whether they are members of the same species or
not.

African elephants have bigger ears and heads and concave backs,
whereas Asian elephants have smaller ears and heads and convex backs.

Elephants in Africa stand 10 to 13 feet high and weigh between 8,800
and 14,400 pounds,  whereas those in Asian stand seven to 11 feet high
and weigh between 6,600 and 11,000 pounds.

Also, the African ones have two finger extensions at the tip of their
trunk, while the Asian ones have just one, and whereas African
elephants have 21 pairs of ribs, Asian elephants have 19 or 20 pairs.

One of the most amazing parts of any elephant is its trunk. Elephants
not only breathe through their trunks, but they also collect their
huge amounts of food with them before putting it all in their mouths.
In addition, they can hold more than two gallons of water in them  at
a time. Yet their trunks can also do such a delicate job as wiping
their eyes and even flirting with the other sex.

Those trunks are extremely long, reaching up to 23 feet in the air,
but they can also work below ground, obtaining water under sand or
mud.

Another amazing fact about elephants is that they don’t just grow baby
teeth and adult teeth, as we humans do. They get new teeth about six
times during a typical lifetime. It’s also strange that those new
teeth first grow in the back of the mouth and then move forward to
replace the older teeth.  Don’t we older folks wish we could keep
getting new teeth, too!

It’s also interesting that hough elephants are mainly walkers and
runners, they can swim for up to six hours without a break.

And then there’s the Elephants’ intelligence, which is quite
impressive, but then their brains weighs 10-12 pounds compared to ours
which weigh just four pounds.

Pregnancy for elephant mothers takes two years, and most have just one
baby at a time. At birth these babies already weigh about 260 pounds
and are about 33 inches long.

Elephants are much respected by certain religions. Some Buddhists, for
example, believe that Buddha himself was a white elephant before he
was reincarnated as the great leader of his faith.

Perhaps the nicest aspect of elephants is that unlike many other large
animals, they are extremely friendly and generally non-aggressive. I
recommend a delightful story on line, at
http://www.wimp.com/elephantdog/ which tells of the warm, loving
friendship between an elephant and a dog.

It is truly sad, these days, that elephants are killed far too often
simply for ivory. Americans are apparently especially guilty of buying
it, and there is a campaign I hope you will join to try to stop this
practice at http://www.bloodyivory.org/news.