Sunday, April 27, 2014

Dr. Zhivago, Boris Pasternak, cold in Eaton and Varykino!

Waking this the last April Sunday morning of 2014 to snow flakes was truly a discouraging thing.  The cold damp air as the cat slid out the door came rushing in at me… and as I held the door my thoughts once again flashed back to the Boris Pasternak novel and the film Dr. Zhivago. This cold year is now 116 days old and it seems there is no respite in sight.

The scenes from the movie at Varykino and all the ice hanging inside the old mansion has made me smile with remembrance as all winter my house has been so cold that the windows were frosted over in the unheated majority of the old structure.

Thoughts of Boris Pasternak and Russian politics have been pushed to the front of the news with the Olympics, the Ukrainian situation and Putin... it is bringing to life with his divorce and actions a new novel that would rival Zhivago in a more modern way.

The novel itself covers the years from 1905 - 1920, years of revolution … White Armies…Red Armies and shows the feelings, poverty, hardship and pain that it wrought in the Motherland.  Banned in Russia the novel was finally published in 1957 in Italy after it was secreted out.  It became a monumental success and actually won the Nobel Prize for literature for Pasternak in 1958... against a backdrop of fear for he, his lover, his wife and his family's well being as the novel in Russia and was claimed to be subversive.

Banned from accepting the award and threatened... writing to the Academy he said, “In view of the meaning given by the society in which I live, I must renounce this undeserved distinction which has been conferred on me. “

In 1960’s Carlo Ponti, the husband of Sophia Loren, bought the screen rights to the novel and offered it to David Lean to make into a film.  Lean felt that in no way was Lara, the main character,  able to be played by Loren... and produced the movie using Julie Christie and Omar Sharif.  The movie of course became a classic and the struggle of the Russian people became a widescreen success that humorously had to be filmed in Spain! 

Lara’s theme became a hit that the music director had to record using Balalaika players from a local Russian Orthodox Church who could not read music… this to make it realistic…It won the Academy award.


And those pictures of Varykino - that are forever in my mind…phony.  To make it look like ice the mansion and sets were sprayed with white wax and then coated with water… yes…wax!!!



















Sunday, April 13, 2014

April 12, 1945 and the non-accidental President Harry Truman.

Through all the years of studying history my singular favorite President of the United States has been Harry S. Truman and this winter with my study of books on the Great Depression, World War II, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt I have not changed my mind.  The press called him the "accidental President"…but he wasn’t…he was chosen.

When Franklin Roosevelt ran for his unprecedented fourth term he choose not to go with Vice President Wallace instead he went with Senator Harry S. Truman.  Many thought this was an odd move, but in studying the time closely you begin to realize that Roosevelt knew he was going to died in office and he needed a man capable of handling the peace negotiation after the war that was coming to a swift end in Europe, and a man who could deliver action to end the war in the Pacific with Japan.

Truman had worked for years in the Senate and had done a superb job on the Truman Committee on the Railroad situation and of stopping waste in the contracting of our military bases during the war.  In fact Truman was considered a true Democrat who did his President’s will and a sincere and honest man… a very rare commodity in Washington.  A man who could carry on his goal of gathering the World's powers into and organization to keep the world at peace. (The United Nations)

At the last Democratic National Convention before his death Roosevelt was adamant that he dump Wallace and that he put Truman on the ticket.  The trouble was Truman did not want the job.  He loved being in the Senate and it took much badgering and a direct call to Roosevelt to get him to accept the offer. 

The telling moment in history for me is when Truman meets the President before they start the campaign and the President asks Harry how he was going to campaign.  Truman replied “by air”.  Roosevelt turned to him and said, …”No…one of us has to be alive to be President!” 

Roosevelt knew he was a dying man and at that meeting Truman knew it as well when he saw how ill he looked.  Truman also knew the terrible weight that was about to descend on him, and at that point he didn’t even know about the Atomic Bomb!

On the evening of April 12, 1945 Truman became President number 33 and immediately took the reins of the government.  He was sworn in at the White House that evening.  On the following Monday he gave a speech addressing Congress at its conclusion he said, … “I have in my heart a prayer.  As I have assumed my heavy duties, I humbly pray Almighty God, in the words of King Solomon: “Give therefore they servant an understanding heart to judge Thy people, that I may discern between Good and bad:  for who is able to judge this… Thy so great a people?”

These words of one of my other favorite people in history, King Solomon who asked God for “Wisdom” not money…something we need in rulers today!  


Wish we could find another Harry Truman!


"A video of President Roosevelt's home and resting place from a visit I did on April12th last year!!"

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Memories light the corner of my mind this springtime....

I watched an old movie the other night, something I seldom do.  The movie was “The Way We Were” and what I found most interesting was the mini documentary that went along with the movie.  The most part that interested me most was the discussion of finding the right song.   They needed a song that would transport the viewer back to memories. 

The composer chosen for the job was Marvin Hamlisch and the wordsmiths… the Bergman’s.   They describe in the documentary their work to craft the perfect “vehicle” to set the mood.  They said the title, “The Way We Were” was wonderful all in itself, but that they had the first line originally “daydreams light the corners of my mind”.    When they presented the song to Barbra Streisand she changed… one note and one word, a word that became the most important change …  the word daydreams to “Memories”.

The song won the 1973 Academy Award for best song in a movie, a Golden Globe and became one of the songs of the century!   To this day I am sure many of us enter a little piece of reverie as we listen to it… since memories are a haunting part of our life; they are something that comes back to us …sometimes good, sometimes bad…sometimes happy…sometimes sad.

My memories seem to start in the  Spring, which is supposed to be a new beginning, a time of rebirth when the earth wakes from the sleep of winter.  The sap has started to run and the great giants on the hill have started to sprout buds that will soon bring leaves that will last until fall’s last call.  Added to this are my memories of the many summer days spent by the lake, by the glimmering water, with the brush of soft sand against my feet when I walked the shore dreaming of the future.  Never expecting it to be where I am today.

Spring for me brings both my best memories and my saddest memoires. 

My best are the many childhood weekends around Easter… since most members of my family shared April time birthdays.  Grandmother, grandfather, aunts, uncles, mom, dad, myself… these birthdays all turned into weekend parties, one after another.  Parties where everyone got together and cousins played at life.  Easter meant seeing some cousins from a long distance that came to the city to visit Grandma.  These were fun times to be sure.

Then things changed and I moved to the country where – ironically - all of the new neighbors shared April birthdays and the parties began again. 

Those times and people have all passed as well… and I am left here with only memories of them.  Lingering sad memories… as death end life.  In the past some of my best friends died on the three days around my birthday… and their memories though certainly fond ones, are wonderful… but they are sad.   They leave me with a feeling of being alone…. like sad memories all of my family who are no longer here. 


The wise man said that you can never go back… you can only go forward.  And so we must… we can only relive that past as “Memories” that light the corners of our mind.