A very interesting glimpse of an unfamiliar (to me) part of Brattleboro

Monday morning, I met Scott Couper at 9a.m. out front of The Works cafe in downtown Brattleboro, and we went upstairs to the fourth floor of The Brooks House where Scott lives. Scott is pastor of Centre Congregational Church, and he is someone i have wanted to get to know better, so I suggested we get together. It proved to be very interesting, both because Scott is an interesting person, and because his residence is unusual. Scott and I both did our seminary training at the University of Chicago - at different times - he is 35-40 years younger than I am - but he actually graduated from CTS just a few months befoee I arrived in Fall, 1999 as Pastor-in-Residence. So we knew a lot of the same people. Scott has spent a good part of his life in South Africa, both as a student and as a missionary/pastor. While he was in South Africa, he got a Ph.D., and his dissertation was on Albert Luthuli, founder of the African National Congress and Nobel Peace Prize recipient. That is another connection between us, because I met Albert Luthuli at a church camp when I was in high school in Iowa in the 1940s: he was a guest staff person at the camp, part of a tour he was making of the U.S. I feel so priviledged to have met this great man! I remember he taught us Khosi Sigeleli, the anthem of the African National Congress, which Mandela later incorporated into the South African National Anthem. Scott rents a kind of town house in the Brooks Hotel. It is on two levels, and at present he is sub-letting the lower level to an Afghan man, which helps with the rent (which is considerable). The upper level is a spacious living-room, dining-room, kitchen, bedroom and bath. Being on the fourth floor, it has a commanding view of the town, the Connecticut River and Mt. Wantastiquet, which is across the river in New Hampshire. Included in the unit is a private deck - in good weather you can sit out there and take in the view. What a spot!

View from the deck looking west

View looking south - river on left

Scott in his kitchen

Chief Albert Luthuli (1898-1967)

Two very different concerts

Last Saturday we went to an amazing concert with John and Cynthia. It was also a celebration of John's birthday, which is actually today! Happy Birthday, John!! The concert was in Randolph, Vermont at the Chandler Music Hall, and was given by Alash, three men from the Republic of Tuva (Tyva), who are world-famous for Tuvan Throat Singing. The three are Bady-Dorzhu Ondar, Ayan-ool Sam, Ayan Shirizhik (plus their manager and interpreter, Sean Quirk). In addition to singing, they play a variety of stringed instruments, flutes and drums. To say that the effect is stunnning is an understatement. Throat-singing uses the throat in an entirely different way from our Western kind of singing. It developed among the nomadic herdsmen of Inner Asia, people who lived in yurts, rode horses, raised yaks, sheep and camels, and had a close spiritual relationship with nature. Throat singing traditionally was done outdoors, and only recently was brought into the concert hall. Singers use their voices to mimic and interact with the sounds of the natural world—whistling birds, bubbling streams, blowing wind, or the deep growl of a camel. There are five basic styles, Sygyt (a high-pitched whistle like the song of a bird), Xöömei (a middle-range trill like wind over rocks), Kargyra (a very low-pitched drone like the cry of a camel), Borbangnadyr (an embellishment of Sygyt like a bubbling stream) and Ezenggileer (an embellishment of Sygyt like a trotting horse). The amazing thing is that several of these sounds can be produced simultaneously by one person! If you want to hear it, just Google "Alash" and you'll find a lot of examples. Alash has a very diverse repertory, and the concert was immensely enjoyable and riveting throughout. John and Cynthia first met Alash when they came to Bellows Falls back in 2006-2007. They actually stayed overnight at their house. They found them delightful, and for John especially, the connection of their music with nature was very moving. They had a chance after the concert Saturday to go to the "Green Room" and visit with them. John and Cynthia had actually attended a concert by them earlier in the week at the Lebenon, NH Opera House, but had no chance there to make personal contact. They wanted us to hear them live, so they arranged for us all to go Saturday. What a treat!

L. to r.: Ayan-ool Sam, Bady-Dorzhu Ondar, Ayan Shirizhik. *********************************** Before the concert, we had a really nice dinner at Saap, a Thai restaurant in Randolph. The food was delicious! We met at the Putney Park n' Drive a little before 4pm, came up to Randolph in our car, had dinner, went to the concert and got home well before midnight. A wonderful outing and lots of opportunity to visit.

John and Cynthia at the Thai Restaurant

My plate of Pad Thai

The Saap Thai Restaurant********************************** Sunday afternoon we went to a very different concert; a performance of Paul Dedell's Stations at St. Michael's Episcopal Church. Stations is based upon the stations of the cross, and has nine movements, performed by three cellos. It was inspired in part by nine sculptures also based on the stations of the cross by local artist, Susan Wilson. The sculptures were installed on the walls of the sanctuary. Paul is the husband of Susan Dedell, who for years conducted the Brattleboro Concert Choir, and we performed works by him over the years. This music was meditative and mournful as befitted the theme. It was the perfect thing to do on Palm Sunday afternoon.

The concert setting

Susan Wilson's sculptures

Paul introducing his work

Paul Dedell, composer

Susan Wilson, artist

An amazing link with the past

Thursday I made an unexpected contact with someone from the distant past - 68 years ago, to be exact. It came as a kind of coda to March Madness (coda in the original sense of "conclusion," not "Children of Deaf Adults" a la the recent movie). I had been reflecting on the Tarheels experience of losing the national championship game by just 3 points in the closing seconds, and had watched the post-game interviews with players and Coach Davis, and had remembered that in 2016 they had lost a championship game to Villanova in the final second when "Nova" scored a buzzer-beating basket, and all that led me to pull off the shelf a book I've had for some time but had not looked at recently, Thad Williamson's More than a Game: Why North Carolina Basketball Means So Much to So Many. Yes, someone has actually written a book about being a TarHeels fan! Here is a excerpt from a description of the book: "More Than a Game provides a unique look at both North Carolina basketball and the phenomenon of sports fanhood in the United States. For serious North Carolina basketball fans, following the team is more than just another recreational activity -- it's an irreplaceable part of who they are. Every winter, Carolina fans habitually schedule their lives around the Tar Heels during the season. Many fans say that following the team is one of the most valuable and enduring attachments in their lives. But is this a good thing? What are the implications of so many people being so in love with Carolina basketball? Are there better and worse ways to be a fan? And why, exactly, does North Carolina basketball have such a hold on its loyal followers?" Williamson wrote this book back around the 2000s when Dean Smith retired, and Bill Guthridge, his assistant, became head coach. There is a lot in the book about Bill Guthridge. He was the epitome of the "gentleman coach" - unflappable, not one to stand and yell at his players from the sidelines (as many, even most, coaches do. Bill Guthridge usually sat during the game). In fact, some TarHeels fans at that time blamed his style of coaching for the TarHeels' losses - if he was more passionate, they said, they would win more games. Williamson discusses all this at length and critiques it (he is more critical of the fans than he is of Coach Guthridge). All that brought to mind a connection I had - through Shirley - with Coach Guthridge. Back in 1954, when Shirley graduated from Wellesley College, she becme a "Danny Grad," which was short for "Danforth Graduate." This was a program of the Danforth Foundation of Saint Louis, MO, an offshoot of the Ralston-Purina Company, famous maker of cereals (e.g., Ricechecks). The Danny Grad program involved only women - college-graduate women - who were sent to colleges all over the country as a kind of chaplain, or "religious worker, as they were sometimes called. This program was a favorite of the founder of Ralston-Purina, WIlliam H. Danforth. The 1954 class of Danny Grads - 25-30 or so women - all went to Camp Minniwanca, Michigan, for a summer month of orientation before going to their assigned schools. Well-known religious figures, like Ruth Seabury (a very prominent missionary in the Congregational-Christian denomination at that time), led the women in classes and discussions. There were some college presidents there also, and among them was Rees H. Hughes, the president of Kansas State Teachers College, Pittsburg, Kansas. Hughes took a liking to Shirley, and when assignments were made, he asked for her to come to KSTC. And that is where she went. For Shirley, it felt like being sent to Outer Mongolia. It was, for her, a kind of intellectual wasteland. So when Thanksgiving came, she came to Chicago for a religious conference being held at Chicago Theological Seminary, where I was a first-year student. She was looking for intellectual stimulation, but she got more than she had bargained for. We met there and fell in love, and the rest, as they say, is history! After she went back to Kansas, we wrote virtually every day until the summer of 1955, when we were married. So what does this have to do with Bill Guthridge? Well, one of the other Danny Grads at Camp Minniwanca that summer was Joan Guthridge, from Parsons, Kansas. Bill Guthridge was her younger brother. When she learned that Shirley was going to Pittsburg, KS, which is just down the road from Parsons, she gave Shirley her parents' address in Parsons, and encouraged her to use their home as a sort of retreat where she could go to get a break from the stress and strain of being a college chaplain. And Shirley did that. She would sometimes spend the weekend with the Guthridge's. She never mentions Bill Guthridge in her letters, but he was a Junior in High Schoool that year and she almost certainly must have met him when she was in his home. Bill Guthridge became the head coach at UNC just after Shirley died, so she never had the chance to make this connection. She would have been so thrilled!! Bill Guthridge himself died several years ago (2015), but I wondered if Joan was still living. Years ago, when I was sending Katie the letters Shirley had written her parents from Wellesley, and then to both them and me from KSTC (I have them all!), I had looked up Joan Guthridge and learned she was married, and her name was Rodkey. So on Thursday, I Googled "Joan Guthridge Rodkey" and "BANG" - there was her phone number in Overland Park, KS, outside Kansas City! So I called the number "out of the blue." Her daughter answered, and a moment later, I was talking to Joan herself! She was surprised, to say the least, and also pleased. She loved hearing from someone from that part of her life, which had been so important for her. And we put together that not only had she known Shirley, she and I had in all likelihood met the summer of 1951 at Association Camp, Estes Park, CO! My good hiking friends there were from Parsons, KS - Jerry James and Dick Scott. They were her friends too, and she had visited them that summer with her parents, and she had been there when the staff put on a kind of musical which I helped write, based on Sigmund Romberg's Desert Song, and she sang in it! Small world! I learned a couple of other facts too - she was sent as a Danny Grad to Florida State University (I had not known that), and - get this - while she was a student at Univ. of Kansas, she had dated Dean Smith for a while (Dean Smith was the very famous TarHeels Coach for years; Bill Guthridge was his assistant and replaced him when he retired). Joan and I had a long talk, and she is going to put me in touch with a couple of other Danny Grads who are still living (few are). So that was pretty amazing!

A group of Danny Grads at Camp Minniwanca. Shirley is in the front row in a Wellesley sweatshirt, and next to her on her left, right in the middle of the photo, in a dark jacket, is Joan Guthridge. I sent the photo to Joan and asked if she was in it, so that's how I know. The checkerboard shirts are, of course, inspired by the Ralston-Purina logo. *****************************

Bill Guthridge, Assistant TarHeels Basketball Coach under Dean Smith for 18 years and then Head Coach for 3 years.

Dr. Rees H. Hughes, President of KSTC. It's astonishing to consider all that would not have happened if Hughes had not asked for Shirley to come to KSTC!

As I Lay Dying

Tonight is our Uncanny Voyages class, and our assignment was William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. We don't own the book and Phil Weinstein did not send us one digitally, so we were on our own. The quickest thing we could do was to take advantage of a free trial of Audible, an online Audio Book app. That's what we did. As I Lay Dying is written in stream-of-consciousness style from the standpoint of many characters - most of them members of one family, the Bundrens. So the Audiobook has many readers; maybe not a different one for each chaarcter, but it sounded that way. We managed to listen to the entire book - about 6 1/2 hours in all. That is different from reading it oneself, and I think we both would like to read it now ourselves. LATER We had the class, and it was great, as usual. It was interesting, though, that except for myself, all the classmembers asking questions were women. I don't know where the men were tonight. It's impossible to encapsulate the session here, but basically the book centers on the death of Addie Budren, and the reponse of her family - her husband and five children - to her death. The "plot," if you want to call it that, centers on a promise made by her husband to honor her wish to be buried not near her home, but in Jefferson, MS, about 25 miles away. Getting there entails first putting her into a coffin made by her oldest son, Cash (who is building it outside her window while she is still alive, but actively dying), and then carting that coffin, and the entire family, on that journey, during which every conceivable, and also inconceivable, bad thing happens to them. Buzzards follow them, they must cross a large river but the bridges wash out, and in their attempt to ford the river, they are hit by a log, the cart tips over, the mules pulling the cart drown, Cash breaks his leg, the coffin fills with water, Cash's precious tools are lost, etc. And that is just the beginning. The story is not narrated; we see it through the inner thoughts and dialogue of the various characters, each with a unique and often contradictory perspective. My question had to do with those soliloquies. They are beautifully written and often profound in their insight. How are we to square that with the fact that these are poor, unschooled, illiterate country people. Their soliloquies could hardly be how they would talk or even think. Phil Weinstein said, "Yes, that's true, but it's how they are. That raises a profound question. How can we manage to be something that we could never articulate, even to ourselves. Yet I suspect that we want to think that we are. Maybe we are like the "mystical experience of God," which is often said to be "ineffable." I.e., incapable of being put into words. Yet here, the novelist is putting these people into words - words they themselves would never use and not be able to understand. Pretty heavy !

Addie's husband, Anse, and two of the boys, at the Bundren cabin, from the 2013 film.

CODA

We went to Andy and Robin's Sunday evenng for supper and the movies! They had subscribed to AppleTV so they could watch the film, CODA, which won Best Picture at the Academy Awards. We really enjoyed the film. It is a "feel-good" movie for sure, but also a great movie, with outstanding performances by all the leads. And of course, it broke some "sound barriers" so to speak! For us it had the added attraction of being a lot about singing. Singing and signing!

Emilia Jones, Troy Katsur and Marlee Matlin, stars of CODA. Katsur won the Best Actor award. He is deaf, as is Marlee Matlin. Jones played their daughter, who is a hearing person (in life and in the film) and in the film is the bridge between her family, all of whom are deaf, and the hearing world in which they are trying to make a living in the fishing industry. Her passion is singing, and she is good - good enough to get into Berklee School of Music in Boston, but that raises huge issues for the family, who feel they cannot survive without her. LATER Tonight was a heart-breaker in the NCAA championship game! UNC led Kansas by 15 points at the half, but lost by three in the last second. Caleb Love's 3-point shot just before the buzzer fell short. It was like the Baylor game - UNC's big half-time lead collapsed in the second half. They hung in there, but couldn't pull off the miracle this time. Several of their players took quite a battering during the game. It was exciting basketball, but sad for Heels fans. But Adam Lucas, the Heels' "historian," had this last word: "Absolutely zero people believed the Tar Heels would be playing on the last Monday night of the season, and here they were, just the 12th team in school history to play for a national title. 44 players have enrolled at Carolina as first-year or transfer players in the last decade. 28 of those (63.6 percent) have been part of a team that played for a title. It's so, so hard to get here. And the Tar Heels are doing it with regularity right now. What a season, including some of the most memorable wins in school history. What a team. Stay tuned to Carolina social media channels for information on the team's return home tomorrow, likely to be mid-afternoon."

Adam Lucas carrying the TarHeels 2017 National Championship trophy. Next year, here we come! Go Heels!

Wow! Amazing!

North Carolina won the game against Duke last night, 81-77! This puts them into a championship game against #1 Kansas tomorrow night. If you had suggested this possibility a month ago, you would have been laughed off the court. Carolina had just lost the semi-finals to Virginia Tech in the ACC Tournament, and was ranked #37 in the nation. They entered the NCAA tournament a #8 seed. True, they had just beat Duke on their home court the last game of the regular season, but you would not have been crazy to think that was a kind of miracle that one could not expect to be repeated. But they have demonstrated a determination and toughness in their five tournament games thus far (Marquette, Baylor, UCLA, St. Peter's, Duke) that most people, especially the professional sports writers and commentators, had not suspected was there. It turns out that when the team first met for practice last fall, they found that their new coach, Hubert Davis, had pinned up a photo of the Superdome in New Orleans on their lockers. That is where the championship game is being played. He had planted the seed of their being in the championship game way last fall, and held that out as a possibility through thick and thin all season. They had some really pathetic games during the regular season, but that did not destroy their hope. Coach Davis turned them into learning opportunities. The team gradually learned to trust one another, to step up and make an extra effort when needed, and have the confidence that if they tried hard, they would succeed. It's very interesting to compare the actual statistics for UNC and Kansas now. UNC has the edge in several categories and overall, they are essentially equal. Yet at this very moment, Carolina is ranked #16 in the KenPom national rankings (the most widely used rankings), and Kansas is ranked #3. In the tournament, Kansas is a #1 seed and Carolina is a #8 seed. It doesn't make any sense. They have beaten Duke twice in the last two games, yet today, Duke is ranked #8 in the nation, and Carolina #16. It is not unreasonable to think that there is a bias at work there. This may actually work to Carolina's advantage. Other teams may underestimate them to some extent. If you read body language last night (and even more last month when UNC played Duke on their home court), Duke clearly expected to win. That last game was Coach K's last game on his home court. He is retiring, and they had a huge celebration planned to honor him after that final home game - a game no one (at Duke, that is) expected Carolina to win. And I think Duke thought they would win last night. They had just defeated Villanova in the Elite Eight - a powerhouse team that has been national champion several times. Villanova had beaten Carolina and won the championship back in 2016. Last night's game was a real nail-biter. I think the lead changed 19 or 20 times, and there were something like 8 or 9 ties in the course of the game. I.e., it was a CLOSE game all the way. And Duke almost always pulls out a win in close games. That is their reputation. So - Wow! and Amazing! Either team could win tomorrow night. Coach Davis has to be one of the very few coaches in history to take his team to the championship game in his first year as coach. And maybe the very first to do so with a team ranked #37 at the end of the season.

UNC players celebrating after last night's win over Duke. Go Heels!!

Yesterday and Today

Yesterday we had a normal start to. the day - working on our word games - Spelling Bee and Wordle both of us and for Ellen, Qaurdle (the same game as Wordle but with four games going simultaneously)- but we were anticipating meeting Mark Kennedy and Cathy Rude at the Putney Coop at 11:30a.m. Mark and Cathy live up north in South Hero, VT - about as far north as you can get and not be in Canada- but they were driving south to Connecticut to visit family, and wanted to stop by and see us. I first met Mark in - I think- 2002, at the Vermont Conference Annual Meeting. As I recall, we sat at the same table at a meal got to talking and really hit it off. Back then I was still grieving the loss of Shirley, and eager to meet new friends. Back then, Mark was married to Judy with two children, Anne and Joseph, 10-12 years old (I think). Not long after that initial meeting, Mark and his family went through a traumatic time, the break-up of Mark and Judy's marriage. I won't go into detail, but I got to know and appreciate Mark and his children under unusual circumstances for a couple of years. Meanwhile I met Ellen, Mark met Cathy, things settled down and Ellen and I attended Mark and Cathy's wedding up north. Since then we have visited them once in South Hero, but mostly they have visited us down south here - usually on their way to see family farther south. Of course by now, Anne and Joseph have gone to college and are leading independent lives in other parts of the country. We got a call from Mark saying they were running a little late and would arrive at the Coop at noon. They did, and they treated us to lunch in the Cafe there. We had a good visit and learned about Anne and Joseph, and also Paul, Cathy's son. Anne works at Camp Pinewoods in the summer - the camp I went to the summer after Shirley died in 1998; Joseph lives in Littleton, CO, not far from Katie, and Paul is learning to fly! Not sure i will ever see them again, but you never know! Yesterday was actually Joseph's birthday, so our lunch was in celebration of him.

Cathy, Mark, me and Ellen at the Putney Coop******************************** Today, we went to an all-Balkan concert that Mary Cay and Magda put on at the Westminster-West church. Two accordions and two marvelous voices, beautifully matched and blended. W-W church was as full as it could be and still provide some physical distance between people, all wearing masks. A lovely concert, many of the songs familiar to us and we had a word sheet and could sing along. It was fun! Eliza and Nancy T were also with us. And Robin was there selling Ukrainian eggs - her efforts, and Carole Crompton's, have raised $4500 for the International Rescue Committee work with refugees in Poland. Wow!

Magda and Mary Cay******************************************* Tonight, it is UNC vs. Duke in the Final Four and we are headed to the Bergh's to watch. Kansas is whopping Villanova as I write, so if the Heels win, they will meet Kansas in the Championship game.