[FairfieldLife] Re: Veterans of Life
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, dhamiltony2k5 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Yes, that's told very special. Thanks, is a great story. I showed it around my household and everyone was blown away in turn. What life does bring. What a great story of courage. That was only 60 years ago all that happened. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0HVg1kCpxU I `ve, always liked good real stories. Good real moral character type stories. Stories where stands gets made on moral grounds of virtue. Stories that show a virtuous presence of mind that has resolute a nature in life. In human life often we are not called on to make hard or extraordinary choices and often the good stories of life are those where people stand out or stand in front of something by moral force. By something of moral human character inside. Good stories often turn on a presence of mind that has someone stand resolved. Well told stories do tell what someone was thinking or doing `walking in those shoes' and sometimes a good story just helps you stand where someone stood for a moment. I liked the story about your parents as it is told. It is a good story. Different than just animal fight or flight, people can have their character of a soul to account for. How that gets accounted for often makes story. Your parents story is a great modern one. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/message/162641 Jai, -Doug in FF Marek Reavis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Thanks, Doug, it's been lucky for me and my brother and sister that our folks have shared their memories as thoroughly as they have, and that they're still available to resource despite their age. It's impossible to imagine the hardships and violence that so many people in the 20th C. endured; I can't, at least. The folks you mention below, and my folks, are incredibly resistant individuals, people of true character. We've been lucky to know them. Marek Doug writing: I remember an obituary last year published in the FF Ledger for Harriet Berman's mother here. It was written in a common way, that she was fun and a great game player and active in her later life and such. The un-expanded part of the obituary was that she grew up Jewish, in 1930's occupied Poland. I wondered then if the family had her story as she saw it. Her MSAE grandson from FF then has now become a professional journalist elsewhere, I wondered then if he had collected it or if it had come to be too late. There seemed to be an untold character story in the obituary. Certainly some veterans of those times only wish to go on in life putting it behind them in their privacy. That generation is passing fast now. My wife's dad was with the first army medical unit to arrive at Dachau as US troops arrived and found it. He has a scrap book with photos and articles about it from then. But now his own memory is rickety and about all gone. At Revelations used bookstore here a while back I bought a used book about all the concentration and work camps of Nazi Germany, in real nice shape that had clippings from the war carefully folded in to the book. Evidently from someone's (from around here?) estate or collection who seems to have been there. In town here we have a kind old guy who as a skilled handy-man takes care of appliances. As a boy he was displaced with his mother and brother from East Prussian farming districts that were emptied of all civilians as the Russian army came in that way against the Germans during the war. They traveled about as displaced civilians trying to connect with their family's father who had been conscripted in to the German army and sent down to Austria. As the war narrowed down, like with this other story they were separated by the lines of occupation and it was quick heads-up thinking in hand-changing destinations on travel documents that got them from the Russian occupied side over to the American occupied side where the dad was later in the war. I am telling his story to you in writing this but even in doing that I have left out a lot of viseral texture to the way he told it to me directly. My dad had his stories from then too. He is gone now and the liveliness of those stories with him. I remember some of them but not the way he told them. -Doug in FF Marek Reavis reavismarek@ wrote: Yeah, Curtis, my folks; the back stories are equally interesting. And as you can see, the red wine (and the vodka) apparently haven't diminished their capacities too much. It's just a life and every life is a story that each one of us has the opportunity to enrich every day. I always appreciate the stories shared on this forum with a community I feel so lucky to be a member of. Marek ** --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: --- In
[FairfieldLife] Re: Veterans of Life
Doug Hamilton writes snipped: Good stories often turn on a presence of mind that has someone stand resolved. Well told stories do tell what someone was thinking or doing `walking in those shoes' and sometimes a good story just helps you stand where someone stood for a moment. TomT: Susan Herzberger (a TMer in FF who has been awake since 85) explained it as story has the ability to by pass all the alarms of the modern and sophisticated mind and get directly to the reptilian mind where the message is taken in whole hog. Seems great teachers use them to change minds without the permission of those listening to the story. Tom
[FairfieldLife] Re: Veterans of Life
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, tomandcindytraynoratfairfieldlis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Doug Hamilton writes snipped: Good stories often turn on a presence of mind that has someone stand resolved. Well told stories do tell what someone was thinking or doing `walking in those shoes' and sometimes a good story just helps you stand where someone stood for a moment. Edg: Cute quip I came across: Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. TomT: Susan Herzberger (a TMer in FF who has been awake since 85) explained it as story has the ability to by pass all the alarms of the modern and sophisticated mind and get directly to the reptilian mind where the message is taken in whole hog. Seems great teachers use them to change minds without the permission of those listening to the story. Tom Edg: Whew! That's a new concept for me! Shudder! Talk about controlling the masses. All we need is a spiritually sensitive George Bush to control the world! That said, I hope that Susan's insomnia will someday be cured!
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Veterans of Life
On Jan 29, 2008, at 9:55 PM, Marek Reavis wrote: Thanks, Doug, it's been lucky for me and my brother and sister that our folks have shared their memories as thoroughly as they have, and that they're still available to resource despite their age. It's impossible to imagine the hardships and violence that so many people in the 20th C. endured; I can't, at least. The folks you mention below, and my folks, are incredibly resistant individuals, people of true character. We've been lucky to know them. OK, Marek, so which one of those beautiful kids at the end was you? Sal
[FairfieldLife] Re: Veterans of Life
Sal, I never even made it to the cutting room floor. Don't know who those kids were. ** --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Sal Sunshine [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Jan 29, 2008, at 9:55 PM, Marek Reavis wrote: Thanks, Doug, it's been lucky for me and my brother and sister that our folks have shared their memories as thoroughly as they have, and that they're still available to resource despite their age. It's impossible to imagine the hardships and violence that so many people in the 20th C. endured; I can't, at least. The folks you mention below, and my folks, are incredibly resistant individuals, people of true character. We've been lucky to know them. OK, Marek, so which one of those beautiful kids at the end was you? Sal
[FairfieldLife] Re: Veterans of Life
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Marek Reavis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Thanks, Doug, it's been lucky for me and my brother and sister that our folks have shared their memories as thoroughly as they have, and that they're still available to resource despite their age. Have you considered getting your parents to relate their experiences in detail into a tape recorder, to do an oral history project with them?
[FairfieldLife] Re: Veterans of Life
Judy, my brother has hours of interviews with them and a book in progress for many years now. Whether it ever comes together or not as a published piece, it's chocked full of amazing stories and unlikely coincidences. One memory I have was the visit of an old guy by the name of John de Rosen to our home sometime in the early 60s. He was a Polish mosaic artist and he was in Saint Louis at the time to work on a large mural he was commissioned to do for the Saint Louis Cathedral, a gorgeous (and massive) Romanesque church that was in construction for most of the 20th Century. He also did the huge mosaic of the Christ above the altar in the National Cathedral in D.C. and stuff at the Pope's Castle Gandolfo. Anyway, there had been a story about his Saint Louis project in the papers at the time and my mother read about it and wrote to him because she remembered him from times he had come to her father's Castle Lesko where he had designed the stained glass work for the chapel. He came and visited for the day and brought with him a small painting as a gift for my mother; it was one of the original designs he had prepared for her father before the final approval, construction and installation of the windows. He wrote a sweet dedication to her at the bottom and it's been hanging in the foyer ever since. Very cool stuff, for sure. ** --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Marek Reavis reavismarek@ wrote: Thanks, Doug, it's been lucky for me and my brother and sister that our folks have shared their memories as thoroughly as they have, and that they're still available to resource despite their age. Have you considered getting your parents to relate their experiences in detail into a tape recorder, to do an oral history project with them?
[FairfieldLife] Re: Veterans of Life
The Goethe poem is a favorite of mine; Schubert set it to music and made it even more moving. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Angela Mailander [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Here's a Buchenwald story for you. When the Allies liberated Buchenwald, it became part of the Russian gulag, and the Russian occupation army filled it back up with prisoners under pretty much the same horrible conditions that had tortured and killed so many Jews there. But this time the prisoners were not Jews, they were Germans, and my aunt Maria did time there for nine years. The name, Buchenwald means beech forest, and it had indeed been a beech forest once upon a time when the great 19th century German poet, Goethe, liked to take walks there. The forest is mostly gone now, but one centuries-old beech tree had survived, standing in the middle of the courtyard at Buchenwald the prison, and it had a plaque with one of Goethe's most famous poems engraved on it: Wanderer's Nachtlied Ueber allen Gipfeln Ist Ruh, In allen Wipfeln Spuerest du Kaum einen Hauch; Die Voegelein schweigen im Walde. Warte nur! Balde Ruhest du auch. The Wanderer's Night Song Above all mountain tops is peace, In all the tree tops you feel hardly a breath; birds are silent in their nests, But wait! Soon you, too, shall rest. My aunt told me that this tree and its poem were of immeasurable comfort to her and to the other prisoners at Buchenwald, but when the prison guards learned of this, they cut it down. - Original Message From: dhamiltony2k5 [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2008 7:34:52 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Veterans of Life Yes, that's told very special. Thanks, is a great story. I showed it around my household and everyone was blown away in turn. What life does bring. What a great story of courage. That was only 60 years ago all that happened. http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=w0HVg1kCpxU I remember an obituary last year published in the FF Ledger for Harriet Berman's mother here. It was written in a common way, that she was fun and a great game player and active in her later life and such. The un-expanded part of the obituary was that she grew up Jewish, in 1930's occupied Poland. I wondered then if the family had her story as she saw it. Her MSAE grandson from FF then has now become a professional journalist elsewhere, I wondered then if he had collected it or if it had come to be too late. There seemed to be an untold character story in the obituary. Certainly some veterans of those times only wish to go on in life putting it behind them in their privacy. That generation is passing fast now. My wife's dad was with the first army medical unit to arrive at Dachau as US troops arrived and found it. He has a scrap book with photos and articles about it from then. But now his own memory is rickety and about all gone. At Revelations used bookstore here a while back I bought a used book about all the concentration and work camps of Nazi Germany, in real nice shape that had clippings from the war carefully folded in to the book. Evidently from someone's (from around here?) estate or collection who seems to have been there. In town here we have a kind old guy who as a skilled handy-man takes care of appliances. As a boy he was displaced with his mother and brother from East Prussian farming districts that were emptied of all civilians as the Russian army came in that way against the Germans during the war. They traveled about as displaced civilians trying to connect with their family's father who had been conscripted in to the German army and sent down to Austria. As the war narrowed down, like with this other story they were separated by the lines of occupation and it was quick heads-up thinking in hand-changing destinations on travel documents that got them from the Russian occupied side over to the American occupied side where the dad was later in the war. I am telling his story to you in writing this but even in doing that I have left out a lot of viseral texture to the way he told it to me directly. My dad had his stories from then too. He is gone now and the liveliness of those stories with him. I remember some of them but not the way he told them. -Doug in FF Marek Reavis reavismarek@ ... wrote: Yeah, Curtis, my folks; the back stories are equally interesting. And as you can see, the red wine (and the vodka) apparently haven't diminished their capacities too much. It's just a life and every life is a story that each one of us has the opportunity to enrich every day. I always appreciate the stories shared on this forum with a community I feel so lucky to be a member of. Marek ** --- In FairfieldLife@ yahoogroups. com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@ yahoogroups. com,
[FairfieldLife] Re: Veterans of Life
Thanks, Doug, it's been lucky for me and my brother and sister that our folks have shared their memories as thoroughly as they have, and that they're still available to resource despite their age. It's impossible to imagine the hardships and violence that so many people in the 20th C. endured; I can't, at least. The folks you mention below, and my folks, are incredibly resistant individuals, people of true character. We've been lucky to know them. Marek ** --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, dhamiltony2k5 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Yes, that's told very special. Thanks, is a great story. I showed it around my household and everyone was blown away in turn. What life does bring. What a great story of courage. That was only 60 years ago all that happened. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0HVg1kCpxU I remember an obituary last year published in the FF Ledger for Harriet Berman's mother here. It was written in a common way, that she was fun and a great game player and active in her later life and such. The un-expanded part of the obituary was that she grew up Jewish, in 1930's occupied Poland. I wondered then if the family had her story as she saw it. Her MSAE grandson from FF then has now become a professional journalist elsewhere, I wondered then if he had collected it or if it had come to be too late. There seemed to be an untold character story in the obituary. Certainly some veterans of those times only wish to go on in life putting it behind them in their privacy. That generation is passing fast now. My wife's dad was with the first army medical unit to arrive at Dachau as US troops arrived and found it. He has a scrap book with photos and articles about it from then. But now his own memory is rickety and about all gone. At Revelations used bookstore here a while back I bought a used book about all the concentration and work camps of Nazi Germany, in real nice shape that had clippings from the war carefully folded in to the book. Evidently from someone's (from around here?) estate or collection who seems to have been there. In town here we have a kind old guy who as a skilled handy-man takes care of appliances. As a boy he was displaced with his mother and brother from East Prussian farming districts that were emptied of all civilians as the Russian army came in that way against the Germans during the war. They traveled about as displaced civilians trying to connect with their family's father who had been conscripted in to the German army and sent down to Austria. As the war narrowed down, like with this other story they were separated by the lines of occupation and it was quick heads-up thinking in hand-changing destinations on travel documents that got them from the Russian occupied side over to the American occupied side where the dad was later in the war. I am telling his story to you in writing this but even in doing that I have left out a lot of viseral texture to the way he told it to me directly. My dad had his stories from then too. He is gone now and the liveliness of those stories with him. I remember some of them but not the way he told them. -Doug in FF Marek Reavis reavismarek@ wrote: Yeah, Curtis, my folks; the back stories are equally interesting. And as you can see, the red wine (and the vodka) apparently haven't diminished their capacities too much. It's just a life and every life is a story that each one of us has the opportunity to enrich every day. I always appreciate the stories shared on this forum with a community I feel so lucky to be a member of. Marek ** --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues curtisdeltablues@ wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Marek Reavis reavismarek@ wrote: Curtis, here's another story I think you might enjoy told last year to a local Saint Louis PBS station in Saint Louis, accompanied with some inexpensive red wine. Totally blown away! Thanks for sending this Marek. Your folks? What a fascinating couple. What a life! I live for stories like this! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0HVg1kCpxU **
