THE BLACK MOUNTAINS - WALES

While I was in England, my friend Erika took me on a day trip by car through the Black Mountains to the town of Hay-on Wye in northeastern Wales.   In a later post, I will show my pictures of the town.

The mountains are hills, as my friend Kevin, who lives near the Cascades in the US, reminded me. Whatever - the scenes are beautiful, as you see from the pictures.

The beauty of Wales is one of Britain's well-kept secrets, at least it was to me. I had no idea of the loveliness of the countryside until our visit.

The photo shows plainly a few of the many crevices in the rocky hills.

The animal in the photo is a wild horse. Erika hoped we would see a herd of horses, but one is better than none.  Though if I remember correctly, there may have been another horse in view but too far away to capture in the same picture.

QUIET ROMANTIC DINNER

A man and a woman were having a quiet, romantic dinner in a fine restaurant.  They were gazing lovingly at each other and holding hands.

The waitress, taking another order at a table a few steps away, suddenly noticed the man slowly sliding down his chair and under the table, but the woman stared straight ahead. The waitress watched as the man slid all the way down his chair and out of sight under the table. Still, the woman stared straight ahead.

The waitress, thinking this behavior a bit risque’ and that it might offend other diners, went over to the table and, tactfully, began by saying to the woman "Pardon me, ma'am, but I think your husband just slid under the table."

The woman calmly looked up at her and said, "No, he didn't. He just walked in the door."


Doug strikes again.

EMILINE "DOUCE" BOURGEOIS - OLDEST WOMAN MILITARY VETERAN IN LOUISIANA

Emiline Anne Bourgeois enlisted in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps on Feb. 10, 1945, a week after the U.S. 6th Army invaded Luzon island in the Philippines intent on liberating Manila from the Japanese. About six months later, she was there nursing wounded soldiers.

A Thibodaux native, she served her country through the end of World War II in the Philippines and a post-war, overseas assignment in occupied Germany.

She served stateside through the Korean War and the beginning of the Vietnam War era.

Bourgeois was honorably discharged as a major on Jan. 31, 1962, a rank few women attained back then.

Douce is an old friend and distant cousin. Two years ago, we celebrated her 100th birthday with family and friends. The picture to the right shows Douce with her sister Cora Lee at her birthday party at a local restaurant.  Douce will be 102 years old on on Christmas Eve of this year.

Douce receiving communion from a lay minister dressed in her uniform, which is still a perfect fit.

Douce and I are related through the two brothers pictured in their Confederate uniforms. On the left is Paulin Adrien Ledet, Douce's grandfather, and on the right is François Amedee Ledet, my great-great-grandfather.

REMEMBERING...

My thoughts and feelings on this Sunday when many churches honor the living and dead veterans of our wars are far too conflicted for me to write at length and coherently about the day of remembrance.

A few questions:

Do we remember the glory of war more than the horror of war?

Why, as a country, are we so lacking in care and compassion for many of the living veterans of all our wars? Why do our deeds not match up to our patriotic words?

Thank you, veterans.

MY ADVENTURE AT THE ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM

During my travels in England, I had an adventure that I didn't tell anyone about until I returned home. One morning when I visited the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, I went down the stairs near the entrance to the ground floor to the cloakroom. As I descended the stairs, there was a red carpet covering a stair near the bottom. A warning, but of what? With my bifocals, which those of you who wear them will understand, downward looks can be distorted. I understood the red carpet warning to be about the last step, but - alas - it was not so. There was one more low step beneath the red carpeted step, which was more or less the same color as the floor, and I missed it and began to fall. Though I tried to catch my fall with my hand on a nearby pillar, I spun around in an intricate and ungraceful ballet maneuver and landed on my padded bottom and banged the back of my head hard on one of the metal lockers lining the wall. I sat dazed for a minute or two, but I never lost consciousness.

A museum employee came running toward me and immediately called the first-aid staff person to tend to me. When he came, he told me to sit for a while and began asking me questions. After a few minutes, he asked if I wanted to try to get up, which I did because people were staring. I managed to get up with his help, and I walked on my own to a room away from public glare. He looked at my pupils, asked me if I could see and hear and if I'd lost consciousness. He looked at my hand which had struck the pillar. It was red but not really injured. He didn't look at my bottom where I landed, but it was well-padded as I've already said, so no injury there.

I've seen pictures of what happens to the brain from a blow on the back of the head; the blow forces the brain forward where it collides with the front of the skull. The back of my head where I hit the metal locker hurt, as did my neck and forehead. I assume the neck pain was due to forward force, sort of the opposite of whiplash. The first-aid person asked questions, took notes, and asked me to sign a paper in which I agreed that the notes he'd made were correct, which they were, and I signed. I presume the papers were necessary in the event I decided to litigate, which I will not unless unforeseen complications develop, which is highly unlikely, as I am fine now.

The employee told me the signs to watch for indicating a concussion, but I already knew them from having three children who received blows on the head in the course of their childhood. Not from their parents, I should add, but rather from the vicissitudes of life. I worried about concussions in my children after head blows, but one of my sons did suffer a concussion at age two or three from falling off the bed while he was jumping on the bed, and it was immediately obvious something was very wrong.

The gentleman finally told me he had done all he could do and asked me if I wanted him to call for further help or walk me back to my hotel, which was only a short distance away. I said no, but I thought a cup of tea would do me good, and if I needed him to walk me back to my hotel, I would call for him. He took me to the café and got me tea. I took a paracetamol and drank my tea slowly and started to feel better. When he came back to check on me, I told him I would continue my walk through the museum. You know, carry on, if you can. When I was done at the museum, I made my way back to my hotel in time to meet a friend. For a few days my head, both in back and in front, along with my neck were sore and painful, but paracetamol relieved the pain, which was not severe. All things considered, I was very fortunate, because I took a hard blow.

I told no one about the accident at the time, because I knew my family and friends at home and in England would worry for the rest of my stay. Perhaps the decision was unwise, but it's what I thought best at the time, and, in the end, I was all right, at least as all right as I was before the fall. All's well that ends well, and it's over now.

The safety expert who ordered red carpet on the next-to-last step made a mistake, in my opinion. Red carpet warning! Be careful! Of what? Not this step, but the next step? That's not how my mind and my bifocals work.

Image from Wikipedia.

AROUND THE MEADOW AT CHRIST CHURCH COLLEGE, OXFORD

My friend Richard and I walked the path around the meadow at Christ Church while I was in Oxford.

The buildings of the college are far in the distance.

As sunset approached, but before Mr Sun disappeared over the horizon, he gave us the wonderful display of color against the dark clouds.

The different appearance of the sky in the various pictures makes it hard even for me to believe that the photos were taken on the same walk.  In the center and to the right, the small brown speck is a deer.

A drainage canal beside the path around the meadow, which Richard said is, "...vitally needed because the land is immensely soggy, and otherwise the cows' hooves would rot....  It's a very damp place, Oxford."

"DIVINITY BELONGS TO THE POST-EASTER JESUS, NOT THE PRE-EASTER JESUS" - MARCUS BORG

"Divinity belongs to the post-Easter Jesus, not the pre-Easter Jesus. To think of Jesus as divine actually diminishes him. If he was divine and had the power of God, then what he did wan’t all that remarkable. He could’ve done so much more.  But the classic Christian affirmation about the pre-
Easter Jesus is not that he was God, but that he was the decisive revelation of God.  This is the cumulative meaning of the exalted language that Christians use for Jesus: in him, we see what can be seen of God in human life.”— Speaking Christian by Marcus Borg

If the classic affirmation about Jesus is that he was not God before the Resurrection, why have I not heard this before now?  What do you think?

FROM FOX NEWS!

WHAT'S OLD IS NEW AT ST JOHN'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH

For the past several months, the pipe organ in St. John's Episcopal Church in Thibodaux, LA has been away for repairs and maintenance. The instrument was returned to its place in the church while I was away with a new (to us) antique console.

Another view of the console.

The organ pipes in the loft were moved to a more forward position, which makes them stand out nicely.

How lovely it was to have our wonderful old organ back in its place in the church.

MEANWHILE BACK ON THE HOME FRONT

Right after I left for England, Grandpère planted and tended greens in his autumn garden.  He knows I love my salads, and greens fresh from the garden make the best salads.
 

 

By the time I came home, the greens were ready to eat. Grandpère does not pull up the entire plant but rather breaks off leaves until a frost is on the way or the plant gets too old.  The two photos above are different varieties of lettuce.

My favorite green, roquette (rocket), is pictured above. Grandpère plants roquette especially for me, because he doesn't care for its bite, but the bite is what I like. The best salads include a combination of the three greens.

All too often, I take for granted the fresh produce from the garden, and sometimes it takes a reminder from others for me to realize how fortunate I am to have fresh fruit and vegetables throughout much of the year.