Spitball Army

March 25, 1943
Thurs noon
2nd part – letter

Here I am again, Sweet –

Still love you too –

Audrey gave her notice to quit at the Bank; so she’s serious about going to New York & being with Don for awhile.  Hopes to find other work when she gets back.

Rec’d my card from the Red Cross today stating that I had been selected by the committee for their Staff Assistance Corps.  Their course of training begins next Tues – Mar. 30 at 10 a.m.  So will be busy with that for the next months – Red Cross wants June as a Nurses’ Aide – Have been thinking about donating some blood for the Red Cross.  Seems like it’s really the least we at home can do.

I did appreciate your telegram so much & am so very anxious to hear more.  Bought some new piano music yesterday.  Dad gave it to me for the anniversary.

Yes, Darling, I miss you all day long but mostly when day is done, for to me that’s always the most lonely part of the day – I have such a yearning for you to hold me closely – I used to love the nights with you by my side.  But some day, we’ll be together again & how wonderful it will be!  You’re dearer than dear to me.  Remember this?

“My heart to thy heart
My lips to thine
In the dew of the cornfield
The blood of the vine
The last sigh at leaving
The word as we part
Is, my lips to thy lips
We two, heart to heart”*

I need you, Darling, every moment.  My thoughts are with you always.

I love you,
Bev

* This poem is entitled “Lines on a Loving Cup” and was written by author and poet Charles Warren Stoddard (1843-1909). The poem has startling similarities to a poem entitled “Song” [text shown below] written by African-American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906), though it should be noted that Stoddard’s poetry was mostly published in a collected volume in 1867, prior to Dunbar’s birth.

My heart to thy heart, my hand to thine;
My lip to thy lips, kisses are wine
Brewed for the lover in sunshine and shade;
Let me drink deep, then, my African maid.
Lily to lily, rose unto rose;
My love to thy love tenderly grows.
Rend not the oak and the ivy in twain,
Nor the swart maid from her swarthier swain.

March 25, 1943
Thurs. 12 noon

Dearest:  I love you.

Missed writing to you yesterday, & it just seems ages to me now, since I’ve written.

The ice has melted on the creek & we really do have a beautiful sight to view now with such a wide space of river.

Dad & I started on our moving yesterday by working up in the attic and sorting things out.  Guess you & I have about half of what’s up there.  Mab. is coming over Sat. to help us as so much is hers too.  Jim will be over & join us for supper then Dad took yesterday off to pack.  He asked for a French toast breakfast to begin with.  We had lunch together & then both went down town.

I had to have the “air” test at 5:30 p.m. by Dr. Lang.  Guess it wasn’t too satisfactory & I have to come back next Wednesday – He said he wasn’t worried about a thing though.  I only know I certainly had pains across my shoulders & in my neck last night after the test.  Today, I feel a little bit “achy.”  Certainly want to get everything fixed up the way it should be.  I’m so anxious to have you home, Honey.  Dreamed about you last night.  Can’t tell you about it as it was rather mixed up – but you were there & that’s what counts.

Joined the Business Girls’ Club again for the Spring Term – I do enjoy being with the girls.  Guess Max. intends to join too – then Winnifred is there too –

The end of the page comes too soon, but am going to continue this on another sheet.  Do hope you are all right – Had a letter from Marge Schroat & Alice Athey this week.

With all my love –
Beverly

September 5th, 2003, was an exciting day.  On that day, new sod was planted in front of my house.  My next-door neighbors and I went in together for the “volume discount” and hired a landscaper to clear the weeds, rocks, roots and grassy remnants from the curb area of our properties, and had him plant a legitimate lawn in its place.  This is what it looked like when the job was finished:

It looked terrific!  What pastoral promise!  There is practically nothing as refreshing as feeling the cool grass beneath your bare feet on a steamy late summer day!  And now I had that opportunity right outside my very own front door, as long as I avoided stepping on my upper yard, which was then and today remains a mown blanket of weeds of diverse origin.

In the ensuing 4½ years, due to my reliable neglect of it, and also due to the steady migration of airborne and waterborne seeds, my lush front lawn paradise evolved into the Crestwood Weed Farm.  A week ago, as I puzzled how to best tackle the problem, I took this portrait of my bedraggled patch of weed-choked zoysia:

What was I to do?!  Two options were immediately apparent:

Option #1
Go to the home improvement megalo-mart and buy a high-powered chemical spray to eliminate the weedy pests and let them die slowly before my eyes, leaving chemically-treated mulch behind to feed (gasp!) the grass.

Option #2
Get down on my hands and knees and start pulling.

While Option #1 was straightforward enough, I also am aware that it is just a seasonal quick fix, and those weeds – the onions, especially – would just be back in the lawn in a matter of months, and in full force this time next year.  I opted for #2.

When I was 10 years old, my family moved from a small house near the beach to a large hilltop home on 2½ acres.  Between the street and the top of the rise where the house sat, we planted thirty-six citrus and bare root fruit trees: two kinds of oranges, lemons, limes, tangelos, grapefruit, figs, apples, peaches, plums, even a couple of grape vines that never quite took hold.  This was my domain, it was my responsibility to keep the area groomed, and I spent a good portion of my time mowing, pruning and, the most heinous chore of all, weeding the basins.  I hated weeding, I absolutely hated it.  On several occasions, my mother went to the orchard and tried to teach by example by getting really dirty, pulling the weeds from each basin and building the sides of the basins up so they would hold water like a big washtub under each tree.  She had a weed-pulling method, grasping each individual weed by its base and sliding her fingers as far down into the earth as possible.  In this way, she was able to get the entire plant, roots and all, and lessen the chance of it growing back in a few days.  This method appealed to my detail-oriented nature, which my mother knew.  She, after all, was the person I most likely inherited that trait from.  And while I appreciated the pedantic gesture, I already knew what I was supposed to be doing.  I just hated doing it.  It was this memory that kept running through my head as I contemplated Option #2.

That night, I experienced an extremely vivid nightmare wherein rows and rows of fruit trees marched in formation toward me, hurling rotten tangerines and dirt clods at my head while “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” roared in the background.  The next morning, I took immediate action.  I went out to the front yard, early, determined that the property line was between the pear tree and the telephone pole, and I started pulling.

Here is what I was able to do in a couple of hours:

The weed-free area was obvious, but just those two little nibbles at the corner of the lawn took over two hours!  This was not going to be a quick task.  I looked at the grass from every angle.  I walked around it.  I went up to the upper lawn for a fresh perspective and took a picture.  Then I did what I’d seen my Dad do every time he had a dilemma like this to work through – I opened a bottle of beer.  The yard looked better 15 minutes later but, frankly, it was still just a bunch of weeds.

The next day I had a plan.  Before going to sleep the night before, I caught the last 20 minutes of an HBO documentary about “The Gates,” the artist Christo’s temporary installation of thousands of bright orange curtains running along the pathways in Central Park.  Inspired, I hatched a plan in my sleep to create a temporary work of art in my front yard by removing weeds in geometric patterns.  Brilliant! (I thought.)  Where Christo has to raise millions of dollars to manufacture and impose objects into a natural landscape, demonizing many of the area’s residents in the process, I am going to do the same thing in the opposite way.  My plan will cost me nothing except my time.  I was taking things away, instead of installing them.  And all of my neighbors would be thrilled with the ultimate outcome, the transformation of the Crestwood Weed Farm back into a sleek, green lawn.

Examining the rough outline in the grass from the first day’s weed-letting, I chose diamond shapes as my yard-art theme.  The second day’s work yielded this sublime shape:

Beautiful, isn’t it?

As I pulled weed after weed after blasted weed, applying the method I had learned while doing time in the family orchard, I was careful not to destroy the perfect design by pulling too many weeds.  My back hurt.  I sat next to an ant hill and the dirty buggers got all up in my pants.  Sometime near the end of the day’s session, I must have knelt in a patch of cat piss, which drove my own two cats maniacal when I walked inside the house, the acrid smell broadcasting from my jeans.  I was forced to do laundry earlier than planned.

The conclusion of the third day’s work yielded two full diamonds and the beginnings of a third:

And, thus, my labor as the Christo of Crestwood continues.  I welcome you all to view this work in progress, as it takes shape, then disappears into Glad ForceFlex bags, leaving a verdant strip upon which the neighborhood cats and dogs may more comfortably relieve themselves, and the brave among us may luxuriate in bare feet.

Admission is free.

It occurred to me this morning, as I watched some swirl down the drain, how unfortunate it is that toilet paper made from recycled materials is itself not recyclable.

I also recently watched the marathon four-hour DVD, Andy Warhol: A Documentary Film.  Even at four hours, some topics seemed only lightly discussed, like the details of Edie Sedgwick’s demise, or what really went on at the Factory.  But, this being a PBS production, it was probably appropriate that the salacious bits were only hinted at, leaving more time to cover the significance of Warhol’s art.

Though in retrospect it makes perfect sense, given the frequent commercial references in his work, I had no idea that Andy Warhol was a highly successful graphic and commercial artist prior to making it big on the “art” scene.  The sequences in the film that explain how he broke into the advertising world in New York, and the innovations he created, are some of the most interesting in the film.

The Andy Warhol Museum is mentioned briefly at the close of the film, so I hunted for its website online.  Turns out that it is in Pittsburgh, so I will most definitely have to combine a visit there with my trip to Falling Water later this year.  One of the interactive elements of the Museum’s website is an area where you can learn, step by step, how Warhol designed his trademark silkscreen portraits.  You are then given the opportunity to make one yourself, using some pre-selected photographs as your raw material.  I created the virtual silkscreen below, using an element from a photograph of New York firefighters at work (possibly 9/11-related):

The silkscreening-specific webpage of the Warhol Museum is here.  Enjoy it, and have fun unleashing your inner Andy!

Mar. 23, 1943

Hello Sweetheart:

I love you and do miss you so much.  This is my first Vmail letter.  I have several other letters written and already to send; so, Darling, you can send me your address anytime.  I’m so anxious to hear from you & will enjoy your letters so much, I know.  Do hope everything is all right with you.

June & I had our interviews with the Red Cross Staff today, & they will send us a card telling us when to report for their course.  I think it will be interesting work & am looking forward to doing my part in this war.  I shopped around with June.  She bought a new Spring suit, and I did get myself a cute white blouse to wear with my old suit.  I do have plenty to wear now, but do want a new black straw hat & (dare I mention it??) a pair of black shoes.  It gives me a “lift” to have something new once in a while; though I’m not a bit enthused about buying clothes when you’re not here to notice them.

We’re waiting for Aud. to get home for supper.  I have things ready, but will have to warm them up now, as had expected her earlier.

The only objection I have to this V-mail is that there really isn’t much space for a letter, & am afraid I won’t receive long letters from you; but then, if you write often enough, that will make up for it.  Right now, I’d be more than satisfied with even a little short note from you.  Darling, I do love you more everyday in every way.  Please be careful.  I’m waiting anxiously for you & everyday will bring us that much closer.

Love,
Bev

– In the Valley of Elah
This film, Paul Haggis’ directorial follow-up to Crash, begins quietly and proceeds through its initial 30 to 45 minutes slowly, allowing the viewer to fully absorb the soul of the piece, which is Tommy Lee Jones’ willful and determined character of Hank Deerfield.  At this halfway point, the movie begins to shift from being a mystery with several dead ends toward the anti-war film whose sentiments clearly fueled its creation.  Haggis’ script works to expose the effects of the Iraq War on the young people sent to fight it, and it does so subtly, excepting the heavy-handed final flag-raising scene which has the feel of an editorial postscript from the screenwriter.  Worth the time for the performances of Jones and Susan Sarandon alone.

– Dear Frankie
A young deaf Scottish boy writes letters to his “Da,” who has supposedly been away at sea for most of the child’s life.  The charade is perpetuated by the boy’s mother, who intercepts the letters and writes replies in the father’s hand.  When circumstances threaten to uncover the mother’s deception, she is forced to find someone to pretend to be the boy’s father for one day.  This movie is charming, despite its movie-of-the-week premise.  The settings and characters have a verité quality, and an understated simplicity.  And though the boy doesn’t physically speak throughout the film, we hear the voice in his head as he writes his feelings, observations and dreams in the letters to his father.  This was a device that was used to wonderful effect in one of my favorite films of last year, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and works beautifully here, as well.

– Dan in Real Life
Steve Carell utters one of the most ridiculous lines in a movie ever in Dan in Real Life: “This corn is like an angel.”  Out of context, it’s even more ridiculous, but I laughed out loud at the moment in the film when he lets it rip.  This was another charming movie, with characters that seemed to genuinely care for one another.  Even two strangers, forced into a hot shower together – one fully clothed, one naked – seem to sympathize with each other’s plight (certainly she – the naked one – does, and as Juliette Binoche plays her, it is all in the face and eyes).  This film is a worthy companion to Juno, sharing smart dialogue, quirky characters, some dangerous emotional moments, a hopeful ending, and a distinctive soundtrack (filled, in this case, with songs and music by Norwegian popster Sondre Lerche).

– In Treatment
The first 15 episodes of HBO’s new daily drama are available as a free download online.  I got them a week ago, and “watched” them while doing office work (they run about 22 minutes apiece).  The show takes place primarily in a therapist’s office, and focuses on his weekly sessions with four patients, plus his regular visit to his own therapist.  I was easily hooked, but have found out that the first 15 episodes only go through week 3, and HBO has just finished airing week 8.  So I am in a fix: do I pick up in real time at week 9, or try to track down the intervening weeks and watch them in sequence?  I haven’t been able to find weeks 4 through 8 anywhere online yet.  Meanwhile, my verdicts on Paul Weston’s (Gabriel Byrne’s) patients: Laura – terrifies me; Alex – annoys the shit out of me, but draws my sympathies, too; Sophie – a manipulative teenager, but she allows her motivations a great deal of transparency, therefore she fascinates me;
httpv://youtube.com/watch?v=gcJwRPdjCrU
Jake and Amy – hard to care about two people who seem to feed off of conflict.  Gina, Paul’s therapist, is wonderful, doesn’t seem to be as rigidly adherent to the therapist code as Paul is, and is a fascinating character herself.  She’s played by Dianne Wiest.

– John Adams
The first two episodes of this mini-series that aired last week were good, but are the constant tilted camera angles really necessary?  They are driving me nuts.  Maybe that is supposed to signify the topsy-turvy state of the late 18th-century world but, clearly, we could gather that from the narrative without the addition of sea-sickness.

At Oceanside Harbor, California.  I’m going to say that this was taken around 1964, but will check with a survivor from that ancient era to verify the date.

March 21, 1942
Sat night 2030

How-do-you-do-my Lover:

I had a 3 page letter written to you last night, but after I read it over, I just felt it wasn’t worth sending, so just didn’t, and now I’ll try again.

How is everything going?  I haven’t heard from you for a couple of weeks now and it seems like such a long, long time.  Today was the day I was really supposed to get your mail, so I am concerned.  Please keep writing often, won’t you Hon?  I’m desperately in love with you and need you, of course, & miss you so.  Our country needs you too, though, & I can wait, because it’s going to be so wonderful to have you back again, to be with me forever.  You’re so much to wait for, so worth while, with your lovable ways & winning personality.  That smile of yours sure made me “fall” hard, & I found out too, what a perfect husband you make, not only in the one month we were together, but ever since in your letter writing.  You’ve been wonderfully faithful & expressed your love every single time by beginning & ending “I love you” – & I’ll never, never see or hear those 3 words too much.

Winnifred & I did see the ice show on Thursday.  It was splendid, but golly, it sure didn’t seem right to be sitting there without you next to me.  The costumes were even more beautiful than last year’s, & they had many new lovely settings.  The only big disappointment was the fact that Ev. Chandler was ill with a strept throat & not able, of course, to skate.  She really has the other girls in the show beat with her spectacular skating.

The comedians were as funny as usual.  Heinie Brock started out by selling peanuts in the audience & no one recognized him.  He was yelling so, that people tried to quiet him so they could enjoy the 3 sophisticated ladies skating.  Finally after a lot of commotion, he dropped his baskets of peanuts & sailed down on the ice.  Boy, everyone laughed.  He was dressed with big baggy trouzers & a funny looking shirt.  He went thru some of the same tricks as he did last year.

I have my rings back now from the jeweler, sparkling more than ever, & the wedding ring has our initials on it too, so that makes it specifically yours and mine.

I’m just a plain housekeeper again now, as was laid off yesterday.  It really doesn’t matter one way or the other as long as I’m kept busy.  It’s nice to have the change of working out part of the time, & then catching up on the housework the rest of the time.  It’s housecleaning season now too, so that means that blankets, curtains, rugs will have to be washed or cleaned & the whole house gone through.  It seems that Dad does intend to stay here this summer.  He’s talking of buying a home, just a small one, because says that he could soon own one with the rent he has to pay here.  Guess real estate is about the best investment there is now.  He thinks it would be ideal if you and I could buy a house & then he rent from us until you get back.  He says he’d rather be paying rent to me than a stranger.  I don’t feel that would be exactly the wise thing for us to do, however.  Of course, if inflation should come, it would be better to have our money invested in something like that; but then if we knew exactly where we would eventually be settled, it would be different.

Audrey is out with Don tonight & Dad is busy reading the paper.  Harvey is still in New Jersey.  Jim has to be re-classified.

I didn’t accomplish much today, though did bake a blueberry pie & got my groceries for the week-end.  It seemed I was busy answering the door all day.  First the egg man came, then the butter man.  Some little girls came to sell me some camp fire doughnuts; a woman who preached a little religious sermon to me for about ½ hr., before she told me she wanted to sell me some magazine subscriptions, was also here; then the ass’t pastor of the Methodist Church stayed for 2 hours – & so the day went.

Anyway – do you know why Hitler changes his socks three times a day?  He smells de-feat.  Or did you already guess it?

Sweetheart, I love you & you’re the one that makes me feel happy and keeps me singing when the days otherwise would seem long and dreary.  I’m so glad we belong to each other & that I have you to wait and live for and live with in the future.

Love, Bev

[Note: This letter was written eight days before the first wedding anniversary of Bev and Ande, from their home on So. Xerxes in Minneapolis.  Within a month they would be residing in Mission Beach, California, near the Navy base in San Diego.  Sometime between the summer of 1942 and the beginning of 1943, when Ande leaves the country for the war effort, Bev moves back to So. Xerxes.]

Wherein Karl Wallinger excoriates every aspect of western civilization that he can fit into 8 and ½ minutes, and barely takes a breath in the process.  This song was written at the turn of the last century, when so many of these issues were prominent in everyone’s thoughts and, by the sound of the song today, they have remained so – the lyrics feel as if they could have been written yesterday.  Look!  There’s chemical warfare engineers, Dubya, religious fanatics, Larry Langford, rap musicians, media marketeers, hopemongers.  We’re all there.

Somewhat fittingly, this song came up in rotation on the Random Song Machine not long after I had read through a discussion about Barack Obama’s recent speech on race over at the worstweblogintheworld.  So, this one’s for you, Brian.  No hidden meaning.

[audio:World_Party___Always_on_my_Mind.mp3]
“Always On My Mind” from Dumbing Up (2000) by World Party

Where do you begin to explain the mess,
The mess you made of it?
I was only out for half an hour,
I said, “Please look after it.”
You had to think that you know best
And forget all the golden rules,
You ignored the difficult truth
And opened the door to fools.

Now I see the strong ones make,
I see the weak ones break,
I see you running out of time.

You got a finger in every pie,
Well, what did I expect?
You made an art-form out of talking shit,
And partying ’til you’re wrecked.
In the small hours it’s so easy to feel
You’ve got some big ideals,
But in the morning you should put them away
‘Cause you know they’ll end in tears.

I see the strong ones fake,
While the weak can’t stay awake,
You know you’re always on my mind.

And football’s all about training shoes.
Yeah, it’s added up to this.
And religion’s all about bums on seats
And if you’re livin’ in the West.
Mum’s apple pie is full of ‘E’s,
And Dad ain’t at his best;
His new car was designed by God
But, Jesus, he looks a mess.

I see the strong ones take,
I see the weak, the weak ones ache,
You know it’s always on my mind.

While we’re busying ourselves with mines,
The chemists are working late.
They gotta breed an indestructible gene
To wipe us all away.
They’re just following their inquisitiveness,
Well, that’s what they like to say.
But it sounds like they’re just following orders
Like the Nazis used to say.

I see the gas clouds shake,
I see the rivers ache,
You know it’s always on my mind.

What kind of music are you playing there, son?
What is that old machine?
Doesn’t matter I can’t hear the words,
‘Cause I don’t care what they mean.
Yeah, I believe you,
You’re a real street fighter,
Gonna change the system from within.
Hey! Watch this guy, he’s a bare-faced liar –
Yeah, that’s, that’s him in the limousine.

I hear your bullshit take,
I hear your drum-machine break,
You know it’s always on my mind.

If Jesus came now
He’d say, “Lord get me outta here,
‘Cause I, I just can’t handle this.”
The Lord would say,
“Hey, Jesus, what do ya mean?
It was always going to be this way.”
“Almighty Father, you are full of shit,
‘Cause the folks down here don’t want to be saved.
Why have they forsaken themselves?
And used hypocritical armor-plating.”

I see the strong ones take,
I see the weak ones break,
You know it’s always on my mind.

If you were passing in a space vehicle,
And you came close to Planet Earth,
You wouldn’t stop by for tea
‘Cause of the screaming that you heard;
And the lying, and the cheating, and the gnashing of teeth,
And the straight-ahead mental deformation.
You’d head on to Venus
With its welcoming sulphuric acid precipitation.

Who’d want to stop where the strong ones reign
But they won’t ease the weak ones’ pain?
You know, out of sight would be really out of mind.

Well, I’m sittin’ here watching little kids starve,
And worlds get thrown away.
I’m thinking there’s just gonna be more
Before any goodness has its way.
I’m sick of feeling sick of you,
You’re too smart to be like this.
But you’ve got no legends that will guide your soul.
Now you’re really taking the piss.

I see the weak ones strong someday,
Not in any silly Communist way,
More like in the movement of Elvis’ hip-sway,
When civilization comes and stays,
When all the corporations have gone away,
When laughing gas is handed out on the Big Love Day,
When egos are driven underground ’cause they get no approbation,
When boys and girls are laughing in every nation,
When the Truth is pursued for relaxation,
When living with the world is our aspiration,
When there’s no mileage in hate, and no gas-stations,
And the creatures are protected from mammals to crustaceans,
And the soul has found its liberation.

You know, this is always on my mind.