We know from talking to many of you that this is your "don't miss" place in the Digest, so we
endeavor to make it fun and informative for you every month. One good reader wrote about my Famous and Interesting Quotes (FIQ) page:
"Thanks for steering me to your pearls of wisdom page." Anna Keller, Author of a new book coming out soon entitled, "Belle Terre Acadie,"
a story about the Cajun Expulsion from Nova Scotia.
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Note: Beginning January, 2005, a new numbering system will be employed for the digests. Instead of digest56.htm next month's will be digest051.htm followed by 051, 052, up to 05a, 05b, 05c for Oct, Nov, Dec, then 061 for Jan, 2006, etc. This sequence will last to the end of the century; e.g. 99c will be Dec, 2099.
With all the Thanksgiving fanfare and houseful of company, we didn't begin our Christmas present assembly and wrapping in earnest until December began. Stored away presents, books, and other items came out of hiding and were carefully stowed in boxes. With eight children, 16 grandkids, spouses, nephews, nieces, and assorted other relatives we assembled and wrapped about 75 presents. Mrs. Santa Claus, known hereabouts as Del, does the major portion of the wrapping.
This month I enjoyed listening to Prof. Hefferman of Dartmouth (emeritus) lecturing on James Joyce's novel, Ulysses. This tale of Leopold Bloom’s wanderings during one day in Dublin made excellent company for me during my wanderings around New Orleans doing my errands. Whether it was five minutes to Regions bank in the morning, or 15 minutes to A&P Grocery Store, or wherever, Bloom was always with me. I started to bring the CDs in the house with me to listen to one morning when I got back, but decided that I liked having Bloom's peregrinations match my own. James Joyce was a genius as a writer. He destroyed a sameness in the literature of his time — as a true artist would. He was the Picasso of the printed word, the Van Gogh of the novel. He taught us how to write as we think. His works allowed people to live another’s life by reading a novel.
Early this month I had a minor repair job in the attic. As I went up the pull-down stairs to the attic, I noticed that the string for the light fixture at the top of the attic stairs had broken off. I got a replacement string, actually a wire, and installed it. Then I pulled it and the switch fell apart! It hadn’t been used for years, and the switch components had fallen apart after 30 years. The porcelain base was still good, but there I was in the dark. A light fixture that had been working just fine without a switch for the 15 years we’d been there had broken. The irony is that it would have continued working okay indefinitely if I hadn’t tried to “fix” it.
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” I violated that dictum in an egregious way. That light was always switched on/off by the wall switch and didn’t need to have a pull-string switch at the fixture, but I tried to fix it anyway. Now I was in the dark and had a bigger repair job. I got my flashlight and propped it up for light as I took down the porcelain fixture. I couldn’t get it to switch back to ON, so I took it apart and soldered the switch to ON. A few resistance tests with the light bulb in and out was enough to determine what to solder to what. It’s back installed without the switch which was unneeded anyway --- after a repair job to fix something that wasn't broken.
Del's mom was feeling better early in December. Del took her to the Gretna Senior Citizen Christmas luncheon. Del & Dan bought Doris a first class roundtrip ticket to Charlotte, North Carolina for the week including Christmas. We were feeling very hopeful that she was going to her son's house for Christmas and Del would get a break for a week.
On Saturday the 11th we took a tour with the Louisiana Landmarks Society of four homes on the Gulf Coast: Old Brick House c. 1850 in Biloxi, Tullis-Toledano Manor c. 1856, Lunch at Annie's in Pass Christian, the Old Spanish Custom House c. 1787, and the Log Cabin c. 1928. It was at the Log Cabin where we saw the fine collection of stuffed wild game which I comment on below in my Appreciating Taxidermy Commentary. Another marvelous Christmas tour of two museum quality homes (first two) and two private homes (second two) we would have never seen but for the tour. Some photos of our day are in this digest.
The next day, while watching the Saints whip the up-and-coming Dallas football team (Saints Alive!), I read Chapter 8 of Harold Aspden’s book about “Creation: Stars and Planets” where he devlops a theory that predicts there was never a Big Bang, but rather that the doppler “red shift” of distant galaxies was due to what happened to the light over longer distances – a frequency attenuation due to the aether of zero point energy. His calculations show that this attenuation matches the changes that would be due to the doppler effect of an outward movement of the distant galaxies. He postulates the existence of a quon – a sub-atomic particle which is charged and spinning – sounds a lot like Joe Newman’s gyroscopic particle which Joe uses to explain how his motor creates more energy than it consumes from external sources. Aspden's theory of the evolution of the solar system is much closer to Rudolf Steiner’s view of how it happened, while holding itself within materialistic constraints. One important point he makes is that neutron stars cannot consist sole of neutrons and yet be powerful sources of electromagnetic radiaation. Aspden posits an alternate explanation in keeping with his theory and the known facts which make a so-called “neutron star” like one enormous nucleus containing not neutrons, but anti-protons with balancing quons.
The upshot of all this physics folderol is that the Big Bang is a Big Fizzle --- it never existed except as a made-up scenario due to a misinterpretation of the available data. A tempset in a teapot, the British might say. Astronomers' hairlines might be receding, but those distant galaxies in their telescopes are not! They are red because they are far away, not because of a doppler shift. Once more the simpler explanation prevails over the more complicated one in science.
Del and I took Daddy and Emily to lunch on the 16th because we planned to be in Bloomington, Indiana at our son's home for Christmas and miss the Christmas Eve gathering at the Matherne home. While at lunch, Del asked Buster (my dad) if he’d talked to his brother, Purpy, recently. When Emily pointed out he hadn’t, I decided to call him from our table and let Daddy talk to his brother. I recall how in his generation making a long distance phone call was something you only did when somebody died or some other serious event happened. Thus, when I finally reached Uncle Purpy, and he began by saying, “I have something to tell you about Aunt Maryann,” I was prepared for the worst. She had been sufferly endlessly from back pain, back problems, and back operations. Countless times over the past twenty years, she has gone to Gainesville, Florida for surgery to repair her back, and every time she was disappointed by getting no relief. So I waited for the latest lugubrious installment of her condition, only to be rather surprised, almost shocked. Uncle Purpy continued, “ She went to a charismatic meeting and her back is not hurting her for two months now and no medications. Some guy named Benny Hin.” Wow! When someone gives you an update on someone aged 85 or so who’s been having problems for as long as Aunt Maryann has, you can’t believe that it’s going to be good news. Later I called my cousin Deanna and told her, “Well, she’s been to every other healing place in Gainesville, so maybe the religious healing place was the last one for her to visit.” You always get cured in the last place you visit, don’t you?
Two Christmas parties for us, one at my club where we met Mike and Beth Lachin. Del met Betty Hotard who knew my daughter Maureen Bayhi from Archbishop Chapelle High School. It was the second party in a row we'd gone to where Del met a lady who knew Maureen. When I told Maureen about meeting Betty, I added, “We’re going to a Christmas party for Waterford-3 tonight — the place I retired from — where I’ll bet more people will know me than know you!” She laughed.
On Saturday the 18th we motored to Baton Rouge to our son John's home to exchange gifts with our Hatchett children. Of the four, Jim in Beaumont and Stoney in Baltimore were unable to come, but John and Kim and their families were there. Got a photo of Thomas, Kim's son, perched on top of his other grandfather's pickup truck --- if you look closely, you may be able to spy the moon over Thomas's head in the blue sky.
On the trip to and from Baton Rouge Del and I had been listening to Professor John Fisher of Rollin College lecturing on Oscar Wilde. One quote struck me as particularly revealing. Oscar Wilde said,
“The only difference between caprice and a lifelong passion is that caprice lasts a little longer.” What I picked up from Wilde’s statement: caprice is a spur of the moment whim which comes to one and leads one to do something that one would have no earthly reason to do otherwise. One never understands consciously the rationale behind a caprice. As such, a caprice must be identified as due to some karmic bleed-through of a reality from an earlier or future lifetime. This analysis shows that caprice, though momentary, can “last longer than a lifetime.” Since we do not consciously know about such things as lead to caprice, the information which triggers caprice must come through as a vague feeling which initiates action, just as karmic impulses do during this period of human existence with its overwhelming materialistic tendencies which mask direct knowledge of karmic impulses, up until now.
On Sunday the 19th, on the Hour of Power, Dr. Schuller talked about a Dr. Flew who had a debate with C.S. Lewis some thirty years ago during which he had decried a belief in God, calling it inconsistent and illogical. Schuller said that he had received an update about Flew from a conference where Flew averred that he was now convinced that a higher intelligence was necessary to create human beings and that he had reversed his earlier position on God, now saying scientific evidence seems to him to require the existence of God. I posted an email to a friend of mine, Don Cruse, who is very interested in this debate which bears directly on his book, Evolution and the New Gnosis, which I reviewed awhile back. The details of what Dr. Flew said then and now can be read here.
After High Mass at St. Joseph's Church, we drove to pick up rent money from one of our tenants, Hector Perez, and brought him a special Christmas gift. Then we drove down to Oak Street, hoping to see the 1940s cars lined up for the remake of "All The King's Men" which is being filmed along the street currently. Saw no cars, but when Del suggested we backtrack to a little café on Carrolton Avenue, we drove past a huge array of blooming purple bougainvillia flowers. I rolled the window down on my driver's side and as we admired the profuse explosion of deep purple a monarch butterfly landed on a bloom and I managed a closeup shot of it which I'd like to share with you. When we finally reached the café, we noticed it was Middle Eastern food, so we drove back to Café Margaux on Oak, which looked inviting. The simply splash of yellow daisies on our table and the jazz piano player near the buffet complemented a wonderful New Orleans brunch of grillades, grits, and omelette.
That afternoon the Saints were playing Tampa Bay, another playoff hopeful team that has been improving of late, and expectations for a win by the Saints were low as usual for this season. A few hours later and the Saints had no only won convincingly, but they were themselves now in the hunt for a wild card slot. All they have to do is win out — win their last two games and they’ll have performed something only real saints can do: a miracle. Who would have bet on a Daily Double of the Saints making the playoffs and white Christmas for New Orleans? Well, both of those long shots are stretching their legs for the finish line as I type these words.
I'd like to share a story of Christmas cheer with you, the kind you read about in the newspapers, but this one happened in our family this year. Actually it happened in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving last month. About 1500 troops were waiting to be shipped out to Iraq from Fort Polk in Central Louisiana. The loccal news showed film clips of these young warriors who were in limbo for several weeks with not much to do but wait.
Meantime our daughter Kim in Alexandria was helping a group of moms of her daughter's junior high prepare a fund raiser to sponsor their trip to Washington, D. C. Their plan was to sell po-boy sandwiches to businesses in Alexandria. The girls would make the sandwiches and deliver them to various businesses. Kim had the idea, “Why not ask the businesses to buy sandwiches for the troops in waiting at the base?” From that basic idea, she enlisted the help of her friends and some of the moms who also liked the idea. She checked with the base commander who had major obstacles to overcome before the project could proceed.
About halfway into her project, the simple idea grew into a huge task which began to overwhelm Kim — the logistics of doing over 1,000 sandwiches seemed insurmountable. She was almost in tears of frustration when help came from an unexpected source, as help often does when one is in need. Her housekeeper, seeing Kim in such distress, said, “Miss Kim, remember the story of the loaves and fishes. Let’s pray together for Jesus to help you.” And they did.
The donations of the food to make the po-boy sandwiches poured in, helpers came from all over, including some of the moms involved in the original project, and the base commander called and invited those working on the sandwiches to come to have lunch with the troops. The girls working on the project would be served the MREs or Meals-Ready-to-Eat that the troops had been eating while awaiting departure, as most of them had limited funds for eating off-base during this long wait. The day was a big success for all those involved.
Kim has made her parents very proud. She got an idea, she fought opposition at every turn, overcame all obstacles, fed the troops a delicious home-fixed meal, raised money for the teenagers' trip, and had an abundance of food remaining after the sandwiches were prepared to donate to a homeless shelter. Life consists of little miracles like this one which often go unnoticed and unappreciated. Kim, we appreciate what you did more than we can tell you. . . but in this photo the look in your mom's eyes speaks volumes.
Our planned Christmas trip to Bloomington, Indiana and a White Christmas at our son's house was cancelled because Del's mom, Doris, was not feeling up to the trip to North Carolina, so we were forced to stay home. Not wishing to give up the White Christmas we dialed Santa and had him deliver one to Timberlane on Christmas Day, perhaps the only White Christmas ever in the New Orleans area. But first we had dinner at our daughter Maureen's house on the "night before right before the night before Christmas" as Benny and the Grunch sing it. Her husband Steve spent so much time on the scaffolding repairing the roof that he cut back on his Griswold Christmas lighting this year, but it still was super.
On Christmas Eve we exchanged gifts and met new members of the Matherne family at dad's house. Newest great-grandchild for Dad was Ella Grace Matherne and in the photo of her above, she looks like a manger baby.
On Christmas morning Del and I sat in front of a roaring fire and opened our gifts to each other. Del got a Moebius strip silver bracelet with the Lord's Prayer written in one continuous script on the inside/outside. Del left to assist her mom who is unable to get out of bed by herself and I watched the weather reports and the skies wondering if the White Christmas would ever arrive. Working at my PC, I suddenly spied huge globs of snow falling. Hurriedly I got my Sony CyberShot and Video Camera out. With the Video camera on its tripod, I taped the snowfall from the East Portico and then the West Portico. I took it out on the drive to record Timberlane with the snow falling in front of it, but had to hold a towel over the camera to keep it dry as the snow was melting upon contact. It was quite a juggling act with the still camera holding the towel on top as I shot photos out on the drive. Neighbors came out to take photos of their kids playing in the snow. Our next door neighbor, Ann, came out and got in the video at one point. The luckiest part about the whole snowstorm was that neither Del nor I had to drive anywhere. I'll be posting some of the snow photos I took on Shutterfly for family members who wish see them. If there's a link below at the end of this sentence, it will be the one to view the Shutterfly.com photos.
The snowstorm scuttled my duck hunting plans and we will give it another try on the 30th if the ducks are flying over the rice paddies in Alexandria, Louisiana where my son-in-law Wes Gralapp has his hunting leases.
Our first ever White Christmas in New Orleans was followed by another Saints victory over Atlanta on Sunday and suddenly the Saints are alive and kicking and contending for a playoff spot. Beating Carolina Panthers on the 2nd will likely propel them on the road to the Super Bowl. A White Christmas and a Super Bowl Champion? Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, so stay tuned.
Once more a coach from the North has come South like a carpetbagger of old, climbed on the backs of our football players, and leapfrogged to a new job shortly after winning a National Championship at LSU. Paul Dietzel did it in 1962 when he left LSU to be head coach at Army, a stay which was woefully short. And this year, no sooner had Saint Nick placed gifts under the Christmas tree, Un-saint Nick Saban announced he was leaving to be head coach at Miami. Both men left behind a chance to retire from LSU as head coach as Bear Bryant did from Alabama. One of them, Dietzel, probably regrets he did. The other will likely also regret he did.
The weather has warmed slightly and the snow is gone. Our daughter Carla has come to visit from Beaumont with her two children, Molly and Garret, and they will be coming over tonight for some hot minestrone soup, stuffed bellpeppers, and baked sweet potatoes. The next day I took my three grandkids, Gabe, Molly, and Garret to the New Orleans’ Children Museum and kept track of them as shopped at SAV -A-CENTER, steering barges and tugboats down the river, pulled themselves up on ropes, dressed up as Vikings, and generally had fun. Afterward we picked up their two moms, my daughters, Carla and Maureen, and we went to Café Du Monde in the French Quarter where we ordered café-au-lait and beignets. Two-year-old Garret pretended to sneeze and the white powdered sugar sprayed over Carla, his mom. That began a mutual spraying of the white stuff which dusted each of us before we left. This dusting is usually the only White Christmas one can expect in New Orleans, up until now. Seems to happen most often to women wearing black dresses or pant suits.
Remember to have some boiled cabbage and black-eye peas on New Year's Day to ensure a Happy and Prosperous New Year for you and yours!
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“De-Lovely” (2004) was exactly as advertised — de-lovely. Kevin Kline was superb as Cole Porter in this 2 hour marathon of his music, lyrics, and life. Newly in the spirit world Cole is sitting in a theater with his Muse at his side, watching the play of his life, a musical, naturally. His Muse calls up actors, dancers, musicians, friends, and lovers from Cole’s life to trip lightly across the stage on his command, sometimes snapping his fingers to adjust their costumes to please Cole’s directorial preferences. A genius of a movie befitting a genius of a man who dearly loved his wife and soulmate Linda. To quote the one song we heard sung by the composer at the end, “You’re the top!” Cole Porter.
“Meet the Fockers” (2004) I’m still chuckling from this movie an hour later. Hoffman, Streisand, De Niro, and Stiller. Non-stop rollicking laughter. If you don’t laugh during this one, go back to the monastery and throw away the key — no need to leave again. “I don’t want to be Pamela Byrnes-Focker, I want to be called Pamela Martha Focker.” There you have it from the aunt of a one-year-old whose first word is . . . aw, see the movie and find out for yourself.
“The Life and Death of Peter Sellers” (2004) in which it became clear the reason for his last movie, “Being There” — like Chance the Gardener, Peter Sellers did not have a life outside of the screen. He was an empty shell which people like Blake Edwards filled and when people saw the result they were greatly amused. In Dr. Strangelove, he was filled to overflowing with four parts, which drove him to complete distraction. Telling vignette – on the plane he asks someone for a light, and when his seatmate asks, “Aren’t you Peter Sellers?”, he responded, “Not today, I’m not.” Geoffrey Rush was excellent as Sellers, but he had an easier job of it — he only had to mimic what Sellers created out of thin air. 
“The Company” (2003) Ever want to go behind the scenes of a ballet company during rehearsals and performances? Here’s your chance. The good, the bad, and the beautiful are all expertly laid out on the screen. The final dance sequence with the Blue Snake and the Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum Giant is spectacular. Don’t miss it. Watch it twice – as we did.
“Garden State” (2004) How can you fire your psychiatrist when he’s your dad and he thinks you crippled your mother on purpose? In the movie such a son returns home as a bit player from Hollywood after a self-imposed exile of about seven years for his mother’s funeral. Son and dad do not touch or talk. Son finds a girl who brings him out of his shell and he proceeds to stop taking the lithium after the doctor identifies it as the cause of his weird lightning burst headaches. He escapes his drug-induced state by stopping his medication and begins his individuation into a separate person, a real human being, one who can finally cry, laugh, and love for the first time in his memory.
“Buffalo Soldiers” (2001) another movie in which grand larceny pays off for the crooks. Joachim Phoenix plays a Tony Curtis role as an Army clerk involved in the black market, manufacturing heroin, and selling heavy arms to terrorists. Once more, like in the “Italian Job”, the crooks get off scot-free while laying waste to taxpayers’s property and lives. Avoid this one — too much like watching the government at work. 
“Duplex” (2003) Another movie about a writer in which the big novel he ends up writing is the movie itself. Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore as a young couple become landlords with a tenant who is a nice little old Irish lady from Hell. 
A Hearty Soup for this Month: Split Pea Soup
yourself --- they will take away the control you have of making something taste good as you cook. If you see some restaurant or menu advertising "Spicey Cajun Cooking" do yourself a favor and avoid it! But, if you see a Cajun cooking the dishes, Mais, Cher! You is in for a treat! You will tell people about the food you ate, "Talk about good!" I guarantee!
Edison's success came by applying this dictum to the implementation of other people's ideas unfortunately. This fact gets glossed over by folks in awe of the success of his
implementation of his primary thievery (taking ideas from others). I met a man whose dad worked directly for
Edison in New Jersey who saw up close and personally what Edison was doing.
We cannot build a house unless we destroy so-and-so many rock formations. There is no point in speaking of blame. We have to speak of necessity in this case. And, in the same way it is necessary in the spiritual world to demand the sacrifices that are now being demanded because the seed is needed. This seed consists in the unspent ether bodies which will then be present in all that develops for humanity , and these have to be available if evolution is to proceed. Otherwise mankind would lack the energies it needs to progress.
