NEW BOOKS

SO somebody asked me if I'd read all fifty books I bought while on vacation. Duh! Of course not. (By the way another six books have arrived by mail and there are a few more that I have to order before my special discount runs out.) Anyway, not all the books are the kind you read through. Several are commentaries, books you use for the study of the Bible. You consult them as needed. I have used three of them already for the Bible study on Mark we're doing at church.


I have, however, read several of the books. First, Benjamin Franklin: In Search of a Better World. The book was written for the Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary Exhibition which I never saw. It contains eight lavishly illustrated chapters on various aspect of Franklin's life as a scientist, a politician and statesman, a printer, and as a possible abolitionist. The later chapter is interesting because at one time Franklin was a slave holder, but in 1787 he became president of the Pennsylvania society for promoting the Abolition of Slavery. What changed his mind? Historians don't seem to know what made the change, only that he did change. This is quite different from may of today's politicians who brag about never changing their positions of anything. It has been just that sort of prideful stubbornness that has gotten us into such trouble. We could use some more practical statesmen like Franklin.


I also read the children's book The Magic Shop by H. G. Wells in an edition illustrated by François Roca. I didn't know this short story at all, but the essence of the story is a magic shop that turns out the be a real Magic Shop.


Next on the completed list is Chicago Originals: A Cast of the City's Colorful Characters by Kenan Heise and Ed Baumann. I have to grant that New York has produced more famous people than Chicago, and certainly there are more movies stars in LA than Chicago. (Although, Chicago was a great movie making center in the silent film days.) However, Chicago has had per capita more characters than any other great city. There's Al Capone, of course, and the notorious Everleigh sisters, but also Mother Francis Xavier Cabrini (now a saint) and Louis Sullivan. But it's the politicians that give Chicago is character as the "Windy City": "Bathouse" John Coughlin and Michael "Hinky Dink" Kenna, "Paddy: Bauler and Richard J. Daley–Hizzoner. The book is far from complete lacking "Big Jim" Colosimo and Jane Adams and Colonel McCormick and William Wrigley and Oprah Winfrey and Studs Terkel, but it's a start.


Speaking of Studs, he passed away while I was in Chicago at the tender age of 96. Among other things, Studs was the popularizer of oral histories. I picked up to of his books, Hope Dies Last and The Good War. I also bought Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation of which I read about 60 pages so far.


The final book for now is one I haven't exactly read, but I've listen to. It's a collection of three of the Mrs. Pollifax mysteries by Dorothy Gilman. Mrs. Pollifax is an older woman (sort of like a Miss Marple) who works for the CIA. It's quite an accident that she began in this role, but she looks like the least likely person to be a spy so who better to send on missions? I stumble in the series a few months ago and have been listening to recordings of them in my car as I travel around. I have listened to A Palm for Mrs. Pollifax and am in the midst of Mrs Pollifax on Safari. I picked up this collection in hardbound for $1.00.

There are more books to report on, but they are of a rather heavier sort, so I'll leave them for another time.


May you enjoy a good book or two (or a dozen) on your pilgrimage. May the days of Advent prepare the Way. And may the Lord bless you on your journey and welcome you on your arrival.


Wayne


3239

FA MILY PICTURES

I thought everything would return to normal. And I’d be back writings by now. No such luck. Busy, busy busy. I do have some pictures I scanned of my family, so I’ll post them.


My Great-Grandma Kofink. No idea when or where it was taken. You can see the strong features of her face that are still visible in many of her descendants. My Grandpa Kofink looked very much like her when he was in his 50s & 60s.

Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa Kofink. I know this was taken in the backyard of the Seeley Avenue House, possibly in 1931 which would have been their 50th wedding anniversary. Grandpa has a pipe in his hand and Grandma has a set of figurines of a bride and groom. I never met my great-grandparents. Could you guess that Great-grandpa was German?


The front of the Seeley Avenue house that was first owned by my great-grandparents. By the time I was born the Victorian Gingerbread was gone, but the stained-glass window was still there. Unfortunately it was removed in remodeling in the 1950s.

I have no idea when this picture was taken, but it has to be in the teens or early 20s before the dormers were added to the second floor. Pictures are my Grandma Kofink, her mother-in-law (great-grandma), her sister-in-law Aunt Minnie Wardell, and her father-in-law (great grandma.) Below is a picture of the house today.


Do you see how big the little tree in the first picture has gotten in 80 years or so.

This is my Great-Grandma & Grandpa Angner, my mother's maternal grandparents. I only know this from other pictures of them. This one isn't dated, but it had to have been taken in Louvrin, Romania where they lived. My mother met her grandparents when she went to Europe in 1937. I only got to know Great-grandma years later.


My mother as a very young child, around 1927 or so and her mother, My Grandma Szlavik. I'd recognize my grandmother anywhere. I can pick her out in a family portrait when she was a very little girl. I'd never have recognized my mother if I didn't have a portrait of her when she was a few years old.

This is Great-Grandma Angner back home in Romania in 1966. She had lived in the States for a while in the 1950s, but returned home again. I did get to spend time with her when she was here. Nana and I got along fine even though she spoke no English. I learned to count in German. This picture was taken a few years before her death. It was given to my grandmother with the inscription "Your loving old mother. For you."

That's all for now. May the Lord bless you on your journey and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne



3205

I'M BACK

Well, here I am back from vacation and attending a meeting of the American Academy of Religion in Chicago. I should have lots of material to discuss now. After all, I saw two operas, Bizet's The Pearl Fishers and Massenet's Manon. I saw two musicals, Wicked and Candide, two plays, Amadeus and The Screwtape Letters,a review, Side by Side by Sondheim, an awful lute concert, a good Gospel Concert, and a so-so Reformation Day program at a church which used to do a lot better. I heard at least 37 learned papers read on all sorts of religious topics, some so learned that I didn't understand anything the scholar said and a few so stupid that I could have done better myself. I also bought more than 50 books. (Well, there are great used book stores and the publishers sell discounted books at the meetings.) And I ate a LOT of fine food at restaurants (and drank some fine beer, but not lots.) With all of that, what do I want to tell you about? Halloween.

It's the first time I've been in Chicago for Halloween in 32 years. That night I had to travel on elevated trains to get to the Sondheim production in Evanston. I don't think I had ever traveled on the elevated on Halloween night before, so I have nothing to compare it to. It was positively surreal. The trains were filled with what appeared to be college students going to and from parties dressed in costumes. I assume they were wearing costumes although some younger folk dress pretty strangely on ordinary nights, so it is hard to tell.

I made notes of a fraction of what I saw. There was a vampire, a zombie, several bloody dead people, a surgeon covered in blood and carrying a head, two coffee farmers dressed in burlap sacks, several cats, many cross-dressing guys, an evil fairy, Mother Nature, Spider Man, a prisoner, two terrorists, two 50s characters with slicked-back hair and white t-shirts with cigarette packs rolled up in the sleeves, Uncle Sam, a pharaoh, 2 skinheads, and my personal favorite, a Rubic's Cube. We also had someone who looked very sick from drinking too much who managed to move to a different car before she threw-up. Except for her, everyone seemed to be having a jolly-good time.

I really should have worn the pirate hat and eye-patch I took with, but I didn't want to appear conspicuous. Perhaps I was more conspicuous by not dressing up. However, no one older than their 20s was parading around incognito, so it's better that I left my disguise in my suitcase.

I know if I researched it, there would be a lot of scholarly papers on people who wear costumes and such on occasions like Halloween, but I don't care. There are a good number of Christians who find all the Halloween stuff to be absolutely Satanic. I acknowledge that Halloween marked some old pagan observation which the Christians tried to appropriate by dropping a Holy Day on top of it. (November 1 is All Saints' Day.) That never worked as witnessed by Christmas which certainly preserves more old pagan customs than Halloween.

Well, I'm not going to be an old fuss-pot and complain about youngsters having a good time although I really wish they would do it without the consumption of huge amounts of alcohol. I prefer the ghostly sort of spirits to the distilled ones on Halloween. But moderation is a virtue. Even Paul enjoined Timothy to "take a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments" (1 Timothy 5:23). A little wine, note. Or perhaps a little beer. There is that misquote attributed to Ben Franklin: "Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." (Franklin actually wrote that about wine, but beer is funnier.) Or my favorite remark on the consumption of alcohol from the Rule of St. Benedict. ". . .we believe that a hemina of wine a day is enough for each one. . . . Indeed we read that wine is not suitable for monks at all. But because, in our day, it is not possible to persuade the monks of this, let us agree at least as to the fact that we should not drink till we are sated, but sparingly. . . "

Now how did I get off on that subject? Well, I'm going to finish my tea (Ceylon orange pekoe with a spoon of blood orange added for exotic flavor) and read a half-dozen books or so. (Ha!)

May the Lord God bless you on your way and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne




3154