Michigan Governor Austin Blair

Have you heard of our long-ago Michigan governor, Austin Blair? He was an extremely effective and generous head of our state who literally helped the north win the Civil War. I just wish I could have known him, for he was a great fellow in many ways.

Blair was born in New York in 1818 and helped his father farm for his first 17 years. Then he went to college and graduate school there in New York to become a lawyer.

After graduating in 1841, he moved to Michigan for the rest of his life. He practiced law for a couple of years in Eaton Rapids, but he quickly became extremely upset about the sad situation of the slaves in the south, and therefore he moved to Jackson, Michigan, where he could more easily became involved with politicians who were concerned with eliminating slavery.

In 1849, when he was 31, he married Sarah L. Ford, who was also from New York, and they had four boys.

Then in 1852 he was elected Prosecuting Attorney of Jackson County and two years later he served as Parliamentary Leader in the Senate.

By 1861 he became our state’s 13th governor. At first it seemed to him to be a part-time job, but as the war quickly became a huge problem, he gave his all and became known as Michigan’s finest “War-Time Governor.”

He was remarkably generous during the war, giving a lot of his own salary to help get more troops of soldiers involved. He was requested to contribute just four regiments, but he was so caring about the poor blacks that he went on to establish the fifth, sixth, and seventh regiments, and he continued to supply troops for the Union forces throughout the war.

In addition, he personally helped to raise about $100,000 to organize and equip the troops. As a result, when Blair left office in 1864, he was almost destitute, despite the famous quote from the past by Anne Frank, “No one has ever become poor by giving.”

Sadly, because our state had so many men in the war, we suffered considerable losses, especially at the Battle of Gettysburg. Altogether 14,753 Michigan soldiers died in service, roughly one of every six who served. Approximately 4,500 died from combat, while over 10,000 died from disease because of what Wikipedia describes as “disease, a constant fear in crowded army camps with poor food, sanitation and exposure issues and pre-modern medicine.” Though Michigan was a fairly new state at that point, it suffered the sixth-highest losses among the Union States.

Nevertheless, Michigan people in all political, religious, ethnic and occupational groups were enthusiastic and appreciated Blair’s deep caring.
Of course this state was far away geographically from the problems of the South, but it supplied not only many troops but several important generals. It’s touching that Abraham Lincoln said of our state, “Thank God for Michigan.”

After the war, Blair ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate, but then, from 1867-1873, he represented Michigan’s 3rd Congressional District. He then returned to Jackson to resume his law practice. In addition, he was was a member of the University of Michigan Board of Regents from 1881 to 1889.

Blair died there in Jackson in 1894, at age 64, and was buried there.

He was certainly loved by our state, for just after his death the Michigan legislature appropriated $7,200.00 for a statue in Blair's memory. It was to be placed on Capitol Square, the only time that an actual person has been honored with a statue on the capitol's grounds.

My Life of Teaching

Teaching has been my delightful job ever since I was 14 and helped my mother teach three-year olds at our Congregational Church in Wilmette.

When I was in college, I worked in Vermont one summer teaching religion to children for two weeks in each of four or five different churches. Then the next three summers, after my family had moved to California, I had a full-time summer job there, teaching young children at a nursery school.

At my graduate school, Emory University, in Atlanta, I taught one class of poetry to college students. Then, while I was still there finishing my doctorate, I taught for one year full time at Spelman College, a liberal arts college for black women.

That was in the 60s, when the nation was going through some really difficult problems and some of the other white teachers were busy trying to help blacks and to make white citizens more sympathetic. Sad to say, I felt I was too busy teaching four different new classes to join those other teachers, even though I certainly agreed with them.

After that I taught part-time at Ohio Northern University for a short time where my then husband taught. Then he and I and our boys went to France for three years where he teach English at Grenoble University. I taught English there, too, and several years later we both taught English for one year in South Korea.

After we came home to Ohio, I taught at a community college in Lima, Ohio and then at the prison in Marion for one year. My college students at the prison were extremely smart and hard working. Most of them had completed high school there in prison and really wanted to get more education. That was almost 40 years ago, however, and not as many prisons have college classes anymore.

Later that year, after our divorce, my sons and I moved up here to Michigan, and I taught English full time at Olivet College for twenty years. I truly enjoyed my students and colleagues there and, even though I’ve been retired for 17 years now, I am still friends with a number of people from the college. I’ve volunteered at the Oak Chest there in Olivet for those 17 years, as well. It’s a secondhand store which raises funds for scholarships for students at the college.

Soon after I retired from the college, I kept teaching, but for old folks in the Institute for Learning in Retirement through Kellogg Community College. Because my undergraduate and both graduate classes were in literature, I taught a number of classes about novels and poems. After my open heart surgery and stroke, however, I found I had more trouble remembering enough of a novel--or even a poem--to teach it.

I therefore started teaching music, my other passion, and also playing my violin, and my students seem even to prefer those classes. They don’t need to buy and read a book in advance. They simply come and listen to classical music by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Gershwin, and many other composers, and we talk about how they feel about the music.

I’ve now taught 34 classes there in both literature and music. All of my various teaching classes over the years have been extremely enjoyable for me, with students all the way from my three year olds to folks in their 70s, 80s and even 90s.

Robert Dixon, a Kindred Spirit

Robert I. Dixon is a delightful fellow from Battle Creek and Bellevue who loves music as much as I do. We both worked in different fields from our passion of music, and we really enjoyed our work, but we have also been very involved in music for most of our lives. And now that he and I are both retired, we seem to love music more than ever, and we seldom say no to any invitation to sing or play.

Born in 1934, Bob grew up in Bellevue and has moved back to this town now. Bob explained to me that he realized when he was quite young that he was not athletically inclined and not interested in fishing or hunting. On the other hand, he played both clarinet and saxophone in school and sang in junior and senior years at Bellevue High School and then in Summer School at Michigan State.

He joined the Battle Creek Barbershoppers group 50 years ago, when he was almost 30, and in 1983, when he had been there for 18 years, he was elected “Barbershopper of the Year” for the Battle Creek Chapter.

He was active in its district administration, and in 1979, he was named “Area Counselor of the Year” by the pioneer district. He is still a very happy member now, after a half century, and he will be going to Tennessee next year to receive a 50-year award.

Because of his regular job which involved selling propane equipment all over the United States and also all of Canada, he wasn’t able to go to many International Conventions with the barbershop group, but he did go to one in Chicago back in 1966 and another in Detroit, in 1982, and loved them both.

Bob’s favorite kind of singing is with quartets. As he puts it, “There is nothing that can be compared to four voices perfectly turned and creating an expanded sound.” Over the years he has been a part of numerous local quartet groups including “Millionaires,” “Circuit Breakers,” “Village Rambles,” and “United Sound Assembly.”

Then, after he retired from his job in 2,000, Bob also joined the “M-66 Express,” and now the latest quartet he’s joined is called “Hometown Sounds.” He also sang in the choir of the St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Battle Creek for 30 years.

Bob’s first wife died 11 years ago, and though he was of course very sad, he remarried in the next year. His new wife is a lovely woman named Ione, whom he had known since way back in 1969. She has two children, and several of Bob’s children babysat for them years ago.

It’s not surprising that Bob had parents who were very musical and an aunt who is an organist and choir director in several churches in Windsor, Ontario. And all six of his children are musically talented as well.

One son, Chuck Dixon, had a master's degree in music education and serves as an assistant band director in Pennfield. Another son, David, performs at the Zarzuela Restaurant in Marshall on open-mic night. And Bob’s daughter, Carol, got to go to Europe to play her bassoon with Blue Lake Summer Program. Bob now has nine grandchildren and three step grandchildren, and he feels sure that they all love music, as well.

As a response to all of these years of musical joy, Bob especially loves the song “Thanks for the Memories,” and I feel sure he would happily sing it for you if you asked him.

The Great Songster, Stephen Foster

I’ve played classical music with various orchestras since I was in middle school, back in 1952, and believe me, I love it all.

For the past five years, however, I’ve been playing popular songs mostly for old folks, and I love playing them, too. I don’t have to practice difficult music anymore, and I am fortunately able to play any song I know by ear. That is really appreciated by old folks, for I can walk to their table or bed and play their requests without having to have any music or stands.

A favorite composer of many old songs I often play is the very talented composer from the 1800s, Stephen Collins Foster.

By the time Foster was just six years old, in 1832, he had taught himself the clarinet and could pick any tune by ear. He started composing as a young teen and did it the rest of his life. Sad to say, he lived only for 37 1/2 years, from 1826 to 1864, but he composed over 200 songs, including such jewels as “Oh! Susanna,” “Camptown Races,” “Old Folks at Home,” “My Old Kentucky Home,” “Old Black Joe,” “Beautiful Dreamer,” and “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair.”

He grew up in Philadelphia, but he moved to New York with his wife, Jane Denny McDowell and daughter in 1860, for what would be the last four years of his life. Unfortunately, his wife and daughter left him when he was just 34, and he would live for only three more years.

He became impoverished while living there and also had to stay in bed for some days because he had a high fever. While he was so weak, he fell against a washbasin and wounded his head. Just three days later, he died.

Foster didn’t make a lot of money during his life, partly because back then it was not common for people to make a living creating popular songs. Also, he was not a very good businessman and simply gave some of his songs away for no money.

Even now, however, many of his songs are still well known and loved. “My Old Kentucky Home” is the official state song of Kentucky, for example, and “Old Folks at Home” is the official state song of Florida.

Unlike many composers, Foster also wrote the words to most of his songs. Here is a really good example from one of my favorites, “Beautiful Dreamer.”

Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me,

Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee.

Sounds of the rude world heard in the day,

Lull’d by the moonlight have all passed away.

Beautiful dreamer, queen of my song,

List while I woo thee with soft melody.

Gone are the cares of life's busy throng,

Beautiful dreamer awake unto me.

Beautiful dreamer awake unto me!

Foster is still well honored in Pittsburgh, where he was born and where he lived during quite a bit of his life. At the campus of the University of Pittsburgh, there is a landmark building called the Stephen Foster Memorial. It contains a “Center for American Music” and two theaters as well as a museum about Foster’s life and his achievements.

Foster has been rightly acknowledged as "Father of American Music." He was added to the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970 and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2010.

I suggest you go to YouTube, where you can hear a number of his wonderful songs. “Beautiful Dreamer,” for example, is available in nine different renderings.

Georgia O'Keeffe, Distinctive American Artist

I feel there is something unexplored about woman that only a woman can explore. "  - Georgia O'Keeffe

Georgia O'Keeffe was an amazing woman who painted thousands of pictures and created some sculptures as well throughout her extremely long, successful life.

She certainly loved painting, for she kept doing it until two years before her death at age 98. Her eyesight finally started to fail when she was 90, but she nevertheless kept creating pictures until she was almost 96.

Georgia started painting as a young child, as her two grandmothers had done, and by the time she was 12, her family arranged for private lessons, for they realized that she was extremely talented. A child of a large family, she was very satisfied, saying later, “I seem to be one of the few people I know of to have no complaints against my first twelve years.”

It’s interesting that she was also talented in music and played the piano very well. As she said rather amusingly, as a young adult, “Singing has always seemed to me the most perfect means of expression, but since I cannot sing, I paint.”

Georgia eventually married the photographer, Alfred Stieglitz, when she was 37 years old and he was 52. Alfred was born in 1864 in this country but spent almost a decade in Europe as a young man. They had met much earlier than their marriage, and over the years they exchanged some 25,000 letters, some of those letters being 40 pages long.

Stieglitz had promoted her first “Solo Show” in 1917, and he truly admired her amazing skills. Both Georgia and Alfred were extremely independent, however, and their marriage, though it lasted for 22 years, was hardly ideal. For one thing, Georgia loved the southwest and often went there for months without her husband. As Laurie Lisle says in her book called “Portrait of An Artist: A Biography of Georgia O'Keeffe,” he was not happy about it, feeling that “Her infatuation with New Mexico might be stronger than her loyalty to [me.]”

Georgia did realize that the marriage was not perfect, saying at one point, “I think I would never have minded Stieglitz being anything he happened to be if he hadn't kept me so persistently off my track.” She also said about spending so much time in New Mexico, “I chose coming away because here at least I feel good — and it makes me feel I am growing very tall and straight inside.”

Eventually, when he turned 80, Albert felt very weak, and he died at 82. Though Georgia said honestly that she missed him, she lived for 40 more years happily alone. From what I’ve read about her, I think she actually preferred being alone and concentrating more fully on her painting. As some people put it, she was a "loner, a severe figure and self-made person."

I learned a lot about this extremely talented lady by reading Lisle’s book about her, and I recommend it to anyone who loves art.

I always wish I could let you hear some tunes when I do columns about music, but you can easily can get tunes on “YouTube” on your computer. And now I wish I could include a number of O'Keeffe's wonderful art works in this one. But there is another book about her called “Georgia O'Keeffe” by Charles C. Eldredge, which has over 100 of her pictures. Also, you see a number of her paintings simply by going to “Georgia O'Keeffe prints” online.

Tchaikovsky, depressed composer of beautiful music

     Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, 1840–1893, was an amazingly successful Russian composer, but, sad to say, he was also very depressed for much of his life.

     The first sad occasion in his life was that his parents sent him, against his will, to the School of Jurisprudence for a career as a civil servant when he was just 10 years old. It was 800 miles away from his family’s home, and he had to stay there for nine years and study law for seven years. Also, his mother died when he was just 14, and he suffered from her death for the rest of his life. As he himself said, "Every moment of that appalling day is as vivid to me as though it were yesterday." 

     Though he studied law for such a long time, he also involved himself in music and went to a conservatory to study. He then became a Professor of Music Theory at the Moscow Conservatory and started composing seriously. 

     Eventually he composed six symphonies and three wonderful ballets, including “Swan Lake,” “The Sleeping Beauty,” and, of course, “The Nutcracker Suite.” He also composed eleven operas, five concertos, three for piano and one each for violin and cello, and over 100 other works, including many songs. 

     His personal life, however, despite his success, was full of problems. They were probably largely because he was homosexual, and that was, of course, an even bigger problem back then. He lived as a bachelor most of his life, but in 1877, at the age of 37, he married a former student, Antonina Miliukova, perhaps just to appear more “normal.”  They had huge problems, however, from the very beginning, and lived together for less than a couple of months. They never divorced, probably only because it was not at all common or easy back then, but they never lived together again. 

     He had another relationship as well, this time with Nadezhda von Meck, a wealthy widow who really helped him by giving him money each month. It was a large enough amount that he was able to stop teaching music and focus exclusively on composition. Their relationship was extremely odd, however, for she said she purposely never wanted to meet him in person. They did stay in close contact during those 13 years, exchanging over 1,000 letters, but they never saw each other.

     She said of their relationship, "I am very unsympathetic in my personal relations because I do not possess any femininity whatever; second, I do not know how to be tender, and this characteristic has passed on to my entire family. All of us are afraid to be affected or sentimental, and therefore the general nature of our family relationships is comradely, or masculine, so to speak."

     After he created many successful works and became very popular, Tchaikovsky traveled a great deal all over Europe and even into this country. He always enjoyed going back to Russia, however, even though his music was extremely influenced by Mozart and also by other composers in Europe. It’s therefore not surprising that he was much admired in many countries besides his and was even awarded an honorary Doctor of Music in England by the University of Cambridge.     He died quite suddenly, at just 53, either from cholera or from suicide. Apparently it has never been known for sure just what caused his death, but it is certainly known that despite all of his success, he was often depressed by his mother’s early death and by the many problems he had to face because of homosexuality.

My Dear College, and How Much it has Meant to Me

I want to tell you just how much I loved my college in South Dakota, even though it was forced to close in 1984. By that point 28 members of my family had graduated from either its high school or its college, both of which were part of the same campus way back in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

My grandmother, who lived in one of those very small towns in South Dakota, went to Yankton High School where she met my grandfather who was in college there from Chicago. If her little town had had a high school, therefore, I wouldn’t even exist and wouldn’t be writing columns for you.

It’s strange that I went to one of the country’s finest high schools, New Trier, in Winnetka, Illinois, and yet I was much happier in a poor little college in South Dakota . The best teachers I ever had, from grade school, high school, college and graduate school were at Yankton College. The main one was Dr. Cummings, a brilliant English teacher who truly inspired me. Before I had him, I didn’t even think of myself as a graduate school student, much less a professor, but he persuaded me that I could and should be both.

Another powerful professor was J. Laiten Weed who was the finest music teacher I ever had. I don’t even know that I would have kept playing my violin for the rest of my life had I not been so encouraged by him. In addition, I would guess that I wouldn’t have had free graduate school had I gone to a college in a more wealthy, successful part of the country. As it was, there in the midwest I was awarded a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship and, as a result, a National Defense Fellowship. I therefore got to go free to Emory University for both advanced degrees. Of course I had some fine teachers there, too, but nobody was as inspiring as Dr. Cummings.

Also some of my still close friends were students there. Bill Charland, for example, was also a English major and friend at the college. Since those days we have gotten together many times, as well. After we went on to graduate school, we met again in Atlanta, where we both taught at black colleges just down the street from each other. Later, he came to visit me in Ada, Ohio, where I taught, and we also met in France, where I taught English for three years. And we have since met in Chicago, Colorado, and back for a reunion at our dear former college.

Sad to say, the college is now a prison. It’s a very minimum security place where the gates aren’t always kept locked--or sometimes even closed. The problem with prisoners leaving, of course, would be that, if caught, they would not be returned there but would have to go to a different prison with much tighter security. Also, they’d have to stay there for a longer time since they had escaped their previous prison.

Bill and I have many similarities, including the fact that we’ve always loved to write, and we both still write for newspapers, his in Silver City, in southwest New Mexico. We email each other often and send our works to each other. In fact, it was he who suggested that I do a column about our dear college.

I’ll send this one to lots of my friends from Yankton College, and I feel sure they will reply with similar feelings for our loveable school.

Thoughts on Mortality

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die.” Ecclesiastes

I realize that I recently did a column about how I am determined to live to December 3, 2039 so I can marry my sweetheart on my 100th birthday. And of course I hope to make it. But I also realize that Ecclesiastes is right about our inevitable “time to die,” saying it is not just an occasion for some but as something we all will go through, sooner or later.

In my case, I’ve had polio, breast cancer, open heart surgery and a stroke, so of course I don’t know but that my time will come before 2039.

I just read an excellent book called “Being Mortal” on just that subject. It is by a prominent doctor and writer named Atul Gawande, whose parents came here from India. His book is about our inevitable deaths, and he quotes Ecclesiastes, though of course he says that our health care is very different now than it was back in the third century BC. This very old message is nevertheless still true. We all eventually have “a time to die,” and much of Gawande’s book is about just that.

A subject he emphasizes is that of hospice, a program which makes the end of life more bearable. It’s amazing that this practice first existed back in the 11th century in Europe, no doubt for much younger people. Of course not much is known about those early days of end-of-life care, but today those admitted have been advised--and have therefore chosen--not to go through any more risky operations or other extreme kinds of help. They simply are cared for by loving specialists, are given medications to help with pain, and are helped with their emotional and spiritual needs for the six or so months of life remaining to them.

Some people get this kind of care in a special part of a hospital, but even then their care is about one third the cost of what it would be in a regular hospital situation.

For these reasons, hospice has become more and more popular, so that these days about 45 percent of Americans die either at home or in an institution, but with hospice care. As Gawande puts it, “People are truly cared for with services for anything from pain control to making out a living will.”

Another important aspect of the end of life, Gawande feels strongly about is that “People who have substantive discussions with their doctor about their end-of-life preferences were far more likely to die at peace and in control of their situation and to spare their family anguish.”

There is an obvious complication for us all about dying, nevertheless, says Dr. Gawande, for “People die only once. They have no experience to draw on. They need doctors and nurses who are willing to have the hard discussions and say what they have seen, who will help people prepare for what is to come--and escape a warehoused oblivion that few really want.”

A doctor’s obligation, he says, is “helping others deal with what medicine cannot do as well as what it can do.” But in addition, doctors need to consider two possible poor choices: “the mistake of prolonging suffering or the mistake of shortening value life.”

Of course I hope my readers are far from their deaths, but I nevertheless recommend Gawande’s book, “Being Mortal.”

Stories about Hymns

If you love hymns as much as I do, you will enjoy reading a book called “101 Hymn Stories” by Kenneth W. Osbeck.

Osbeck was born here in Michigan in 1924 and got two degrees from the University of Michigan. He then taught for 35 years, first at a Grand Rapids School of the Bible and Music and then at the seminary there.

He also served as a music director for various churches here in Michigan and for the Radio Bible Class, and he has written a number of books about hymns.

Osbeck and his wife, Mary, stayed on here in Michigan after he retired, and since his retirement they have given over 600 dramatized hymn story programs for churches.

Of the 101 hymns he describes in his book, he discusses the words first, and it’s not surprising, as he says, that most were written by ministers. He also makes several interesting remarks about the importance of hymns:

“Historians have stated that Martin Luther won more converts to Christ through his encouragement of congregational singing than even through his strong preaching and teaching.” (16th century)

“Of the Wesleys it was said that, for every person they won with their preaching, ten were won through their music.” (18th century)

Some hymns are extremely old. For example the words to a favorite hymn, “All Creatures of Our God and King,” were composed by Francis of Assisi in 1225, just before he died. Friedrich Spee created the tune four centuries later for a Roman Catholic hymnal in Cologne, Germany.

Another old one is “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” for which Martin Luther, 1483-1546, composed both the music and the words. Osbeck says about it, “It is the single most powerful hymn of the Protestant Reformation Movement.”

A much more recent favorite of mine, “How Great Thou Art,” was composed in the 20th century and was made famous by Billy Graham and his Evangelistic Team.

Many of us sang the hymn “Jesus Loves Me” as children, but it’s interesting that it is also sung in Asia as “Yes, Buddha Loves me.”

“Amazing Grace” is especially familiar for me because our Olde Tyme Music Group plays it at the end of each of our nearly 60 performances each year. It was composed by John Newton who in his early years collected Africans as slaves and eventually got his own slave ship. Fortunately he changed radically and eventually became an Anglican minister and a prominent supporter of abolitionism.

“Rock of Ages” is another favorite hymn composed by Thomas Hastings in this country, using words by Augustus M. Toplady, from England. Hastings wrote music for over 1000 hymns and texts for over 600. It is especially amazing that he was so successful, for he had only a little musical training. He was nevertheless rightly rewarded with a degree of Doctor of Music by the University of the City of New York in 1858.

Yet another favorite of mine is “It Is Well With My Soul.” Horatio G. Spafford composed the words almost immediately after he had lost his four children in a terrible shipwreck in the Atlantic Ocean. He was so committed to Christianity, however, that he wrote extremely positive words at that point:

“When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea-billows roll,

Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,

It is well, it is well with my soul.”

These are only a few of the many stories in this most informative, enjoyable and recommended book.

The Power of Music

Though I studied music only as a minor in college and it was never my career, I have played violin and truly loved it for most of my 75 years. My mother was a fine pianist and loved to play with me, even when I must have sounded terrible because I had just started.

I played in the Battle Creek Symphony for 31 years and really enjoyed it, but then I retired and started playing mostly by ear for old folks. And I’ve come to love that even more.

Part of the reason I so enjoy playing by ear is my very poor memory following my open heart surgery and stroke. I have a lot of trouble remembering words in general, especially people’s names, but my memory for music and my ability to play by ear seems to be untouched. I am extremely pleased that I can still play just fine and thank God daily for the joy that music brings me.

I’ve lived here in this part of Michigan for 37 years and would never want to move away, for I have too many friends who seem to appreciate my music a lot and don’t want me to leave.

For the past five years I’ve played my violin with the Olde Tyme Music group six or seven times a month, mostly for people in assisted living places and nursing homes. And I play for other groups, as well. In fact, in the month of December, 2014, I played 18 gigs of music, four at the Congregational Church in Battle Creek, and the rest for older people. I loved each chance to play and never even got tired of any of those Christmas songs and carols even though I played each of them so often.

The elderly seem to love music even more than the young. They sometimes have trouble reading because their eyes are failing them. In addition, many have suffered from losing their spouses and friends, and some seldom even get to leave their beds. Music therefore seems to be one of their main joys in life.

In fact, one time when Brooks Grantier and I played at Sterling House, just south of Battle Creek, on Lois Drive, one man said to me, “This was the happiest hour I’ve had in all of the two years I’ve lived here.”

Some of the most appreciative audiences I’ve encountered are at Marion Burch, a day-care center for people who can’t stay home alone during the day and at The Oaks which is connected with Northpointe but is for full-time care for quite old people. I play at Marion Burch twice a month, once with our Olde Tyme Music group and once by myself, and I play alone each month at The Oaks. As I tell them each time I play at both places, those are the fastest but most enjoyable hours of the month.

Elena Mannes, a much awarded woman, wrote a book called “The Power of Music: Pioneering Discoveries in the New Science of Song.” As she explains, music stimulates our brains more than any other force. "A stroke patient who has lost verbal function — those verbal functions may be stimulated by music."

I’ll close with a memorable quotation from Plato: “Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.”

Carrots - and other Good Things to Eat

I love to eat and look forward to every meal each day, and I sure want to be alive for a long time and able to eat what I love. I’ll tell you in this column just what I eat--and why.

One food I have every single day is raw carrots, and I advocate them for you as well, for they are very good for us all. Carrots were apparently first cultivated in Afghanistan in the 10th century or even before, though, as they say on line, they were a little “purple or yellow root with a woody and bitter flavor, resembling nothing of the carrots we know today.” Our carrots, on the other hand were developed by Dutch farmers in the 16th and 17th centuries and are, of course, orange.

Unlike some vegetables and fruits, carrots are available all through the year at a good price. In addition, they are said to help us maintain our vision. It’s interesting that though they have few calories, when I eat them between meals, they make me feel quite full. Because I’m always trying not to gain weight, that’s a big help, for it keeps me from eating more fattening snacks. I read online that Americans eat about twelve pounds of carrots per year, but I eat more than three pounds per week--and I never get tired of them.

I also love all other vegetables, especially fresh broccoli, corn on the cob, peas, spinach and lettuce, and eat at least three different kinds each day. And I eat salad at least once every day, as well.  I realize I’m not unusual in loving fruits, but I truly love every one of them and eat them everyday for breakfast. I especially love bananas, oranges and some of the newer apples such as Gala.

You will probably consider my favorite drinks rather unexciting, for they are simply milk and tea. I drink low-fat milk because of calories, but I certainly don’t mind that it’s “thin.” I’ve drunk milk for 75 years, my mother’s for about a year and then milk in bottles, and still love the taste. I have read that it’s especially good for calcium, and I want to be sure that I get enough of that.

And as for tea, I drink about four cups of regular tea every morning for breakfast and then many decaf cups the rest of the day, not because I prefer it to regular, but in order to sleep well at night. Besides loving it, I drink tea often, for, like carrots, it helps fill me up and therefore keeps me from eating anything else between meals.

I also love all meats, but I just have them at most once a day. And I love eggs, too, and we have scrambled eggs with another of my favorites, cheese, sometimes for dinner.

As for desserts, I’m fortunate that I don’t care if I don’t eat them. On the other hand, one food I really love and eat every day is nuts. They have a lot more calories than my carrots, so I don’t allow myself to eat as many as I would like. But they are also said to be good for us, for as it says on line, they are “Rich in energy, protein, packed with antioxidants, vitamins, minerals and much discussed omega-3 fatty acids.”

I hope you have read all of this column, for all of the foods I’ve mentioned will not only help you keep your weight down, but they’ll also help you live longer and stay in better health.

Farewell to "Cabby" Gallagher

I felt extremely honored to play my violin for the funeral of Caroline “Cabby” Gallagher on March 10th of this year. She had lived here in Battle Creek for many years, and when she died on March 7, she was 98 years old.

Cabby and I had an amazing relationship, for she spent her childhood in Wilmette, Illinois, just a block and a half east of our home. We didn’t know each other back then for she was 23 years older than I, and she had gone away to college and graduate school by the time I was born in 1939. But we felt as though we had sort of known each other even back then because we had attended the same grade school and high school and remembered some of the same wonderful teachers at both schools and even a few neighbors on our street.

The first time I actually met Cabby was up north of Traverse City, where she and her family had a very nice summer cottage just down the street from the cottage of Barbara Woodruff, a dear friend of mine. Then I next saw Cabby at Northpointe, where she lived for quite a while in her 90s. She always went to our Olde Tyme Music concerts as well as going to hear Brooks Grantier, his daughter Marguerite and me when we played recitals there. She also greeted me warmly when I played a number of times alone for the special lunches there.

When Cabby turned 97, she began to have trouble walking and moved down to the nursing home, Sterling House, in the south end of town. She missed me right away, she said, so she requested that I be allowed to go there and play my violin. As it turned out, they didn’t have a piano or organ, so when my friend and partner Brooks Grantier came to play with me, he brought his accordion. Even though it’s not as wonderful for accompanying as a piano or organ, the advantage is that Brooks, who loves to play by ear as much as I do, could walk all around with me, playing his accordion.

Because of all of these meetings and my resulting warm friendship with Cabby, I felt particularly honored to be asked to play for her service at the Congregational Church where she had been a member for many years. As we heard at the funeral service, she was truly an amazing woman who was a teacher and the wife of a fine man who was a colonel in the U.S. Air Force. She and her husband were both at the base at Pearl Harbor when it was attacked in early World War II. She and the other women and children were quickly sent back to America without knowing that they would ever see their husbands and fathers again. Fortunately her husband survived, and they were very happy together for 55 years, until he died in 1995.

As Rev. Thomas J. Ott said at the funeral, “She was a person who remained curious and open to new insights, new information, new perspectives, new discoveries all through her life.” He also said he learned that “She was the family grammarian, historian, and analyst of news and current events.”

Battle Creek has lost a true jewel, that’s for sure, and many folks will truly miss her.

A Noteworthy Battle Creek Gentleman

Olen Dean Dygert is an amazing gentleman of 88 years right here in Battle Creek. He has lived in a number of cities, but he has been here for 40 years now and loves our city best.

When he grew up in Indiana, his very young parents had no electricity until he was 10 years old. They lived on a rather basic farm, and his father used horses to do work in the fields. Little Dean was responsible for various jobs, such as milking the cows when he was just nine, and he quickly decided, as a teenager, that he really didn’t want to be a farmer for the rest of his life.

After high school, he joined the Merchant Marines and got assigned to go to the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and Russia. Next he spent a year in Vienna, Austria. Back in this country, he went to Tri-State University in Indiana, where he graduated in 1951, and from there he got a job designing construction equipment.

He had married while in college, and he and his wife worked in many places, including Indianapolis, Denver, and Peoria. He went on to get a Masters Degree in Mechanical Engineering in Colorado, and then he worked in still more cities, including St. Louis, Indianapolis, and Lima, Ohio. In addition, he got patents for a number of his inventions and also was a member for over 50 years of the Society of Automotive Engineers.

Dean continued to work, partly at home, until quite recently, and has made the most of living in Battle Creek. He has enough of a problem with his eyes that he can’t drive anymore, so he is especially grateful that this city has buses that can take him most anywhere in town that he wants to go. Also, he and his wife, Joann, love the smaller Episcopal Church when they have worshipped for years.

Dean truly cares about preserving his health as best he can. He walks a couple of miles or more each day and carefully eats only food that is good for him.

The reason I met Dean is that he likes my columns and asked me to read and comment upon the early part of his second book about his family. So I went to their house on Wahwahtaysee to look over the draft. While I was there he got to talking about his very interesting life, and I decided I really would like to do a column about him and his new profession as a writer, which he began at age 86. He said he’s always loved reading and exploring his family’s ancestors, so that is what he has written about.

He also lent me his first book, “Rachel,” which is mostly about Rachel Allen Ewers-Hunt Lowther, his great great grandmother. She was born in 1838, but some of the stories go back even a generation before that. It is amazing how much information he has about a number of relatives who had died before he was born. As he admits, sometimes he filled in some unknown incidents with fiction, but he says that what he added was nevertheless “likely the way it happened.”

Many folks certainly don’t know enough about their ancestors to write about them, and even if they do know quite a bit, they’re unlikely to start doing so at Dean’s age.

I feel honored that Dean wants me to check over his second book, and I look forward to his finishing it.

My Favorite Color

So what is your favorite color? Mine is definitely red, and I’ve read a lot about just what that means. First of all, red is not subtle! I’m not terribly subtle, either, and can’t imagine making dull colors like grey or brown my favorites. Even blue, which is probably my second favorite, just isn’t as appealing for me as red.

I’m not thrilled with some of what I read about red, however. For example, I read in the book “The Dewey Color System” by Dewey Sadka, that although “Red gives the impression of seriousness and dignity, represents heat, fire and rage, [and] it is known to escalate the body's metabolism. Red can also signify passion and love. Red promotes excitement and action. It is a bold color that signifies danger, which is why it's used on stop signs.”

In fact, in some ways, I’d rather be a lover of green, which was my mother’s favorite. As the book says, people who love green, “Are sure to be constant in your ways, persevering, sensible and respectable. You have a good balance. Outspoken, with a love of freedom, those who like green are generally social and live in a good neighborhood, have many friends and belong to social organizations. ... Your social standing, financial position and reputation are all of top importance to you. You constantly seek affirmation of companionship and affection.”

I’d also partly prefer to love blue best, for it “Represents temperature, sky, water and ice. It is the second most powerful color. It obviously represents coolness, mist and shadows. In some applications it can represent peacefulness and calmness. And as pink represents femininity, blue represents masculinity…. Blue is a contemplative color, meaning intelligence and strength. It is one of the most politically correct colors there is with no negative connotations of it anywhere on the globe.”

Yellow isn’t at all a favorite of mine, but, as the “Basic Psychology” people say, “Yellow, the color nearest to ‘light’ leaves a warm and satisfying impression, lively and stimulating and in many cultures symbolizes deity…. Yellow birds, flowers and skies are sure to be eye-catchers just because of the way the mind and eye works!”

The colors I truly don’t care for are orange and purple, and yet I read that “Orange is symbolic of endurance, strength and ambition,” and “Purple symbolizes royalty and dignity.”

Brown, which is certainly not exciting to me, is said to be “useful in balancing out stronger colors, and because it is one of the most predominant hues in nature, it gives a sense of familiarity. Light brown confers genuineness while dark brown is reminiscent of fine wood and leather.”

Even gray, surprisingly, is referred to as the color "around which creative people are most creative” and can even “enhance and intensify any other color it surrounds.”

And as for black, though it’s not exciting, like many bright colors, “It is associated with elegance and class (black-tie affair).” And, along with red, it is my favorite color to wear. My hair is almost white but my eyes are almost black, and therefore black seems to bring out contrasting colors best on me.

Finally, however, we surely would not want a rainbow to have fewer colors, and we wouldn’t want painters to feel they couldn’t use any of the hundreds of possible color types in their creations.

Maybe the best approach, therefore, is my sweetheart’s, which is simply to love all colors as important parts of our beautiful world and be thankful for each of them.

The Island of Long Life

My sweetheart and I plan to marry when I’m 100 and he’s 107½. If we stay here in America, however, we might not still be alive in 2039, so maybe we should move to a Greek island called Ikaria which is near the coast of Turkey. That’s because people there live longer than those in most any other place in the world.

There are almost 10,000 Greek nationalists there, and they are said to reach 90 two and a half times as often as Americans. Of course they can still get diseases such as cancer, but for a number of reasons, they aren’t as apt to die from sickness as soon as the rest of us. For one thing, they eat less meat than most of us do. Instead, they eat a number of their island’s herbs which have strong antioxidant properties.

Folks in general also have a less stressful pattern. They get up later in the morning than we do, and they regularly take naps. Then in the evening they get together, drink wine, and have fun with their friends before a rather late bedtime. Also, they don’t care nearly as much as we do about the exact time for anything.  “Have you noticed that no one wears a watch here,” said Dr. Ilias Leriadis, one of the island’s few physicians. “When you invite someone to lunch, they might come at 10 a.m. or 6 p.m. We simply don’t care about the clock here.” In addition, approximately 80 percent of older folks still have sex regularly, and that is also said to prolong life.

According to a book by Dan Buettner called “The Blue Zones,” a man named Stamatis Moraitis had originally come from Ikaria to this country in 1943, at age 27. He eventually contracted lung cancer in 1976 and was told he wouldn’t even live for another year. When he learned that, he decided to take his wife back to his old country so that he could be buried there. He ended up surviving, however, for over 35 more years. He was 98 when he finally died, and his wife lived almost as long as he did.

Moraitis was of course very glad that he had moved back to Ikaria, and though he did come back to this country 25 years later to see doctors here, he announced, upon going back, that unlike him, all of his old American doctors had already died.

Apparently long-living isn’t new, either, on Ikaria.  In the 17th century, Joseph Georgirenes, the bishop of Ikaria, wrote, “The most commendable thing on this island, is their air and water, both so healthful that people are very long-lived, it being an ordinary thing to see persons in it of 100 years of age.”

The author Dan Buettner said on a TED talk that we have more control over how healthy we remain and long we live than we realize.  As he put it,  “Scientific studies suggest that only about 25 percent of how long we live is dictated by genes. The other 75 percent is determined by our lifestyles and the everyday choices we make.” By working with, rather than against, our biology, “we could add at least ten good years and suffer a fraction of the diseases that kill us prematurely.”

Though I truly doubt that Andrew and I will move to Ikaria, we certainly can try to make all efforts to survive until sometime after December 3, 2039. And that’s what counts!

Letter to a Korean Schoolgirl

The following was published some years ago in the Battle Creek Enquirer, before I started my regular posting of Linda Jo Scott's columns.

Back in the mid seventies I spent a year teaching English at a university in Seoul, Korea. I fondly remember the beautiful countryside and the high level of creativity evident in the art and architecture. But most of all, I remember the warmth of the Korean people. My colleagues invited our family into their homes; my students were very respectful and eager to  learn, and my neighbors generously helped me with shopping and cooking.

I wrote the following open letter to a particular young girl whom I observed during one of my many bus rides around Seoul. I don’t remember her name and perhaps never saw her more than once, but my letter to her appeared as one of my many columns in "The Korea Times.”

My dear young lady,

I just watched you give up your seat to an old woman with a bundle of cabbages in her hand, and I want to convey to you my admiration for this simple gesture.

I want to tell you that I think you are beautiful in your simple, long, gray school uniform, with your straight-cropped hair, your dark stockings, and your modest expression.

Your refusal to wear makeup or curl your hair--even on a Sunday afternoon--is admirable. You accept your role as a schoolgirl with such grace and simplicity, hoping, no doubt, that someday you will emerge from this somber cocoon into a beautiful and desirable woman. But not yet.

You were born some eight or nine years after your fathers and uncles fought together with some of my older friends for your freedom. And yet you are not naive. You have lived all of your life knowing that your freedom is precious, knowing that your people have been oppressed for most of their existence and will continue to live in danger. Saddest of all, your people seem always to have been the victims, never the aggressors.

Korea is like a young school girl, attacked time and again by hungry, possessive men, and yet she retains her purity and dignity.

Perhaps some of your own family are unknown to you because they live

in North Korea. Perhaps you will never know them.

You know that your city could be bombed anytime by the people of the north, and you know, also, that your own family might well not escape south of the Han River, for there are so many people, so few bridges. And, sad to say, there would be so little time.

And yet, my dear, you have such a calm about you. I feel as though I have seen you on a hundred streets of Seoul with your school chums, often walking arm in arm or hand in hand, with a serenity far beyond your years. I have never seen you girls put on airs; I have never even seen you laugh loudly.

Even now if I smile at you, you will only return a slight acknowledgment. I cannot speak your language, and so I must write to you in my own tongue, expressing the warm feeling that I, as an older sister from the West, have for you.

May you never lose your innate respect for those older than you. May

you someday become a wise mother who will pass on these values to her

children. And may your children grow and blossom in freedom.

Warmest greetings, Linda

I can only hope that this girl--now a woman of close to 60 years old, probably a mother and perhaps even a grandmother--is having a good life.

Albert Schweitzer Lived an Extraordinary Life

I still remember when Albert Schweitzer made his only trip to America. It was in 1949, back when I was just 9½ years old, and my mother and grandmother went to hear him speak in Chicago. They didn’t take me along because they thought I was too young. I’ve always regretted their not taking me, for I’ve admired Schweitzer tremendously all of my life and wish I had had that only chance to see him and hear him speak.

I’ve never heard of anyone as accomplished in as many different fields as he was, and I’ve also never known of anyone as generous and devoted to others.

It certainly helped his positive outlook that Schweitzer grew up in a loving family. His father was a Lutheran minister, and Schweitzer said often that his father was his best friend. In addition, his whole family was musical, and Schweitzer, who played piano and organ wonderfully, could easily have had a fine career as a musician.

He also studied philosophy and theology in both undergraduate and graduate school, and could have been a highly successful professor or minister as well. Then, at age 30, he decided to go to medical school for six more years, for though he continued to play music and to be fascinated by philosophy and theology, he had decided to devote himself instead to becoming a missionary doctor.

He eventually married a woman named Helene Bresslau who was an anaesthetist for surgical operations. Her family had been Jewish, but her father had his children baptized in 1866 at least partly because of anti-Semitism in Berlin. Schweitzer first met her in 1898, but they didn’t marry until 1912. A year later they went to Lambaréné, in Africa and set up the beginnings of their hospital. Sad to say, they soon had to go back to an internment camp in France during World War I because they were German.

Unfortunately Helene wasn’t able to stay in Africa as long as Albert because of her serious problems with tuberculosis. All the same, they were a happy, loving couple and had one child, Rhena, who was born in 1919. She became an American humanitarian activist, the director of the hospital her father founded in Africa and a key organizer of the fellowship that bears his name. Despite her health problems, Helene was always loving and helpful. In 1937, for example, she came to New York alone to tell Americans about her husband and to raise money for his work.

During his 50 years in Africa, Schweitzer often had more than 5,000 patients per year, at his hospital, including many with leprosy. He also allowed their families to stay at the hospital and eat with the patients. Many of those people in return worked in the hospital garden and helped Schweitzer share the vegetables not only with people but with cats, dogs, birds, fish, and other animals. They also helped with creating new buildings, especially after Schweitzer was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1953, including its monetary bonus.

I decided to write this column after watching two excellent films online about Schweitzer. The first one, which is called “Albert Schweitzer: Documentary,” is an hour and 20 minutes long and took six years to create, while Schweitzer was still alive. The second one, “My Life is My Argument,” is shorter but newer and also excellent. You can find them both simply by going to “Albert Schweitzer Youtube.”

I strongly recommend that your watch both films not only for information but for inspiration.

It's time to drink in the wonders of tea

I have been drinking a lot of tea ever since I was a young child, back in the mid 40s. My dear grandmother was a constant tea drinker, and I guess I started drinking it mainly because I wanted to be just like her.

For me tea is a perfect drink. It helps me become awake in the morning; it has no calories, and therefore it doesn’t put on weight, and it makes me remember my wonderful grandmother. Unfortunately, I have to drink mostly decaf tea these days after breakfast, so as not to interrupt my sleep. Decaf is delicious, too, however, and it doesn’t taste too much different from real tea.

I just read a really good book on the subject, “The Chinese Art of Tea,” by John Blofeld, a British writer who has spent much of his life in Asia. He lived from 1913 to 1987, drank a lot of tea for over 50 years and felt strongly that it kept him healthy and happy.

Blofeld quoted an Asian emperor who said that tea “induces lightness of spirit, clarity of mind and freedom from all sense of constriction, whether mental or physical; and it promotes such serenity that mundane cares fall away so that whatever is strident or exacerbating in daily life can be put out of mind for a while.”

Or as Chinese poet Lu T’ung, who lived from 775 to 835 A.D. put it, “I care not a jot for immortal life, but only for the taste of tea.”  As a part of his poem, “The Song of Tea,” Lu T’ung wrote,

“The first bowl sleekly moistened throat and lips;

The second banished all my loneliness;

The third expelled the dullness from my mind,

Shaping inspiration gained from all the books I’ve read.

The fourth brought forth light perspiration

Dispersing a lifetime’s troubles through my pores,

The fifth bowl cleansed ev’ry atom of my being

The sixth has made me kin to the Immortals.

This seventh is the utmost I can drink--

A light breeze issues from my armpits.”

Blofeld himself certainly agreed, saying “a whole range of leisure involving ears, eyes, nose, palate and mood can be enjoyed by two or three people who have come together to make and drink fine tea.”

Tea is a very old drink, Blofeld explains, first enjoyed, according to tradition, in approximately 2700 B.C.in China, in the time of Emperor Shen Nung. Tea eventually got to Japan in the 600s but not to Europe until the 1600s. As tea moved around the world people often changed its taste. Though the Chinese and Japanese generally left it plain, the Russians and people in central Asia added lemon and sugar and even sometimes jam to their tea, and many Muslims added mint. Some cold countries even added Vodka or rum.

Besides simply drinking tea, Blofeld also explained that rinsing your hair with tea can make it soft and glossy, and rinsing your face with tea can help get rid of pimples and minor skin rash. If you keep tea leaves in your mouth for a short time, you can get rid of the smell of garlic, onions and alcohol and even ease toothaches. Also, if your eyes are tired, you can help them by bathing them in a weak bit of green tea.

I feel that Blofeld is right in emphasizing the power and joy of drinking tea, and I hope it will give me many more years to drink it with my friends and my sweetheart.

Depression Didn't Stop These Great Composers

Two of my favorite more recent musical composers are Edward Elgar, an Englishman of the late 19th century, and Samuel Barber, an American of the 20th century.

Elgar was an English Roman Catholic, a denomination that was not readily accepted in England in those days, and also he was pretty much self-trained. For both of these reasons it was hard for him to make a name for himself in the world of British music.His wife, Caroline Alice Roberts, helped him with lyrics and acted as his secretary and agent, and he composed one of my two favorites, “Salut d’Amour,” for her when they were engaged, in 1888. In turn she offered him a poem called “The Wind at Dawn,” which he soon set to music.

I have played “Salut d’Amour” many times on my violin, and I love to hear it played by others, either just with a piano or with a symphony orchestra. It somehow conveys the warmest and deepest emotions of love. My other favorite of his, “Nimrod Variation,” is the 9th of his famous 14 “Enigma Variations.” First performed in the summer of 1899, it is also extremely emotional in the best sense.

Elgar was definitely a “people person” who had one of his real friends in mind for each of the variations. Nevertheless, he apparently did suffer at least infrequently from deep depression, vowing sometimes, when it happened, that he would stop composing music altogether. On one of those sad occasions shortly before he composed “Enigma Variations,” Elgar’s friend, Augustus J. Jaeger, tried to comfort him by singing part of the second movement of Beethoven’s “Pathetique” for him. Apparently it worked, for Elgar later said that when he composed his wonderful “Nimrod Variation,” he used the “Pathetique” as an indirect source, though he called it “only a hint, not a quotation.”

Our Battle Creek Symphony played “Enigma Variations” back in the 80s under Bill Stein’s conducting, and then again in the 90s, under the baton of Matthew Hazelwood. Matthew was generally a conductor who knew which music needed to be worked on and which music would pretty much play itself. When it came to practicing the Elgar, however, he kept making us go back over “Nimrod” repeatedly, simply, we figured, because he loved it so much.

The other more modern composer whom I admire greatly was an American named Samuel Barber, who lived from 1910 to 1981. His “Adagio for Strings,” second movement, which he composed at the age of 26, is another favorite of mine. It is an extremely sad kind of piece which has been played for such somber, international events as the funerals of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Albert Einstein, Princess Grace of Monaco and Mary Travers of Peter Paul and Mary, as well as having been played by the London Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall in London just after September 11, 2001. It also was used at the end of that deeply emotional film “The Elephant Man” and throughout “Platoon,” one of the saddest films ever made.

It’s interesting that Barber, like Elgar, had times of depression and also became an alcoholic. But like Elgar, he composed truly passionate magnificent music which I love to play.

I hope you will listen to these three works on YouTube:
“Salut d’Amour” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXLOF-z5Zlk
“Nimrod” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEl4WrfX8lg
“Adagio” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcPR95QfPeM

The Need to Write

My mother was a compulsive writer. She taught English and French, and she also loved to write in different genres all the way from letters to diary entries to poems. Her brothers would complain that they always owed her a letter, for as soon as she heard from them, she would reply.

Because she died in 1975, she was limited to “snail mail,” but she made the most of it, writing to family members and to her life-long best friend every week of the year. I often think of how she would have loved emailing, by which letters to her family and friends could have been delivered instantly and freely.

Like mother, I’m a compulsive writer, too. I taught poetry writing, as well as other fields of literature for many years at various schools, including Olivet College, and wrote hundreds of poems along with my students. Unfortunately, however, most of my poems sit unread, unpublished, in a manila folder in my den closet.

But after I retired from the college in 1998, I began writing part-time for the Enquirer, and my words were actually published. Most of my early assignments were on subjects that would be considered minor, such as local fund raising events, city government decisions, and the like. But even if they were unexciting reports I nevertheless simply enjoyed the writing process.

Then they began letting me write feature stories. I especially remember writing about a woman who had seven siblings, all of whom had different fathers. There was also the one about the standard poodle who, together with his owner, was said to serve as principal at the elementary school in Olivet. And then there was the one about the Battle Creek Symphony violist and piano-tuning friend who always invited me to his “Piano Burning Party” where, each year, he would select an instrument which was beyond repair to be consigned to the flames.

For some years now I have had the honor of writing a regular column, and I am grateful to be able to indulge myself in my passions, my compulsions, in the Enquirer every week.

This need to communicate is certainly not uncommon among people in general. It was particularly fervent among the Jews in concentration camps. Even though they were weak from starvation and disease and even though they knew they were probably going to die, they would gather up any bits of paper they could to write about their feelings and their suffering. According to Roger Rosenblatt, a prominent American writer, these prisoners “rolled those scraps into small scrolls and slipped the scrolls into the crevices of the ghetto walls. . . . because they had to do it. They had a story to tell.”

True enough, after losing his parents and one sister at Auschwitz, Elie Wiesel didn’t write anything about the Holocaust for ten years. But, upon the urging of French Nobel Prize winner, Francois Mauriac, he wrote his powerful book “Night.” He then went on to write 56 more books, many about the war, and he won the Nobel Prize in 1986.

British writer Vita Sackville-West said it well when she declared, “It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows.”