Veterans Day / Remembrance Day

I was off work today and oh Momma ... how we would have talked about Veterans' Day. Do you remember when you and I used to go to Veterans' Day celebrations? Now you're gone and I just can't bring myself to go without you ...

There's an amazing account of an amazing recording ... truly unique and truly haunting, and very very moving ... of a British gas shell battery near the close of WWI. Teachout's article is at
http://www.artsjournal.com/aboutlastnight/2008/11/tt_the_eleventh_day_of_the_ele.html

There's an amazing story at http://uk.reuters.com/article/UKNews1/idUKTRE4AA28E20081111 that Momma you would have loved.

Poems by Philip Larkin at
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/mcmxiv/ and by AE Housman at http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/housman.html are so moving. At http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/FWW_index.html there is an amazing collection of WWI poems.

Iain Murray at National Review Online shares three poems that are deeply moving:

Wilfrid Owens' "Anthem for Doomed Youth"
Including http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/owen2.html

Laurence Binyon's "For the Fallen"
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/centreright/2008/11/age-shall-not-w.html

Private Isaac Rosenburg's "The Immortals"
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-immortals/

John Derbyshire gives us O Valiant Hearts by John Stanhope Arkwright, a hymn for Remembrance Day. http://www.johnderbyshire.com/Readings/ovalianthearts.html. Momma, you seemed to me to know all the old hymns ... would you have known this one?

There's a wonderful collection of comments and movies and clips at Dirty Harry's Open Thread for the day: http://dirtyharrysplace.com/?p=5577#comments to which I felt moved to contribute this for myself:

Awesome thread. God bless USS Ben, Rather Read’s father, Lord Jiggy ,Carol’s Dad, Major Graham, John McClain’s uncle, and all veterans. Including my Dad, now deceased … he was in Bastogne in the Battle of the Bulge. And never, ever talked about it. Mom said he just once told her that it was hell. Thank God for all those who endured hell so that we can be free today.

I liked The Patriot and We Were Soldiers. Has anyone mentioned The Longest Day? The theme song always puts a lump in my throat, still does. Great movie.

For readings today, I read from Churchill’s WWII memoirs … very moving. Before that, yesterday, I got off work earlyand went to see An American Carol which is still in the dollar theatres around here. For any movies actually in theatres today, my vote would be for this for a good Veteran’s Day tribute flick … if your taste in humor runs to the slightly insane, which mine does. But there’s a scene near the end at the Trace Adkins concert showing soldiers lined up over the years into the Revolutionary past that really brought tears to my eyes.

Happy Veterans Day to all. And to veterans, it’s too small a word, but it’ll just have to do:

*THANKS*

Charles Delacroix

And on this wonderful feast day of that wonderful Soldier of Christ, St Martin de Tours, O Lord I ask your continued blessing for my dear Momma ... and my Dad ... oh Lord ... those two were in so many ways the true WWII generation at so many levels ...

Thank you ... thank you all.

Love in Christ,

Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Martin de Tours

Show Me Another Bunny

Momma you and I loved this ...

http://www.rabbit.org/fun/net-bunnies.html

we would watch and click on picture after picture and laugh and laugh ...

Oh Momma I miss you so so so so so so much ...

I love you

I love you

I hope you're having fun with Spooky and petting her and maybe even watching her chase rabbits and squirrels and laughing right now.

Oh God

Oh God

Have mercy on me and my dear Momma

Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Terese d'Avila

Pepper

Momma, I have a new dog.

She will never ever ever ever be able to take Spooky's place.

But she's a good dog and I think you would like her.

Her name is Pepper and she's about 8 years old. She's a black & white rat terrier ... and she looks really so much like Tippy. Tippy was a black & white fox terrier ... we had in the early 1960s. Lost in Tripoli ... in about 1967 or 1968 or so.

But Momma you would like Pepper. I got her on Sunday ... and took her to visit you ... and she is so full of energy and she likes hot dogs and she likes attention and being petted ... you would love her.

O Momma I miss you.

I miss you so much.

Lord Jesus Christ Son of God Have Mercy on Me and on my Momma.

I love you Momma

I love you Jesus

Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Teresa of Avila

Foot Rubby Downs

I was just thinking about foot rubby downs. Oh Momma. You always loved those. Foot rubby downs and back rubby downs.

O Momma I miss you.

I miss you so much.

Lord Jesus Christ Son of God Have Mercy on Me and on my Momma.

I love you Momma

I love you Jesus

Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Teresa of Avila

Bunny Rabbit

Momma I saw a bunny rabbit in the back yard this evening ... it was nibbling from grass at the edge of the yard. I kept going back and it stayed there most of the evening. I even avoided going into the back yard so as not to frighten it away.

I thought of you ... Momma how you and I would have talked about that rabbit.

I miss you Momma

I miss you and love you

I love you Jesus

Thy Will be Done

Charles Delacroix
Sunday 28 in OT

Casablanca is the Best

Casablanca (1942) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034583/ won overwhelming #1 status as best movie of all time in a BAFTA membership vote a few years ago, according to BJ Wexler.

I see the Writers Guild of America voted the screenplay the best of all time in April 2006 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/4890590.stm ... but I can't find the BAFTA award. It's not listed in IMDb.

Ah well. Casablanca has my vote for best of all time. Perhaps yours too Momma ... perhaps not ... but oh we both loved this movie ...

For me most of all perhaps because it is so much a delightful, tortured, romantic, wonderful masterpiece of your generation Momma ...

I love you Momma

I love you Jesus

I love you

I love you

I love you

Casablanca: "One of the most cherished movies of all time"

The OETA Movie Club is showing Casablanca tonite ... and "the popcorn man", BJ Wexler, describes this wonderful classic as "one of the most cherished movies of all time" ... I couldn't agree more.

Oh Momma oh Momma oh Momma ...

How I wish you were here to watch this with me ... as we have so many times before ... oh Momma ...

Oh Momma

Oh Momma how I miss you

I miss you so so so so much

I miss you

O Lord Jesus take good care of my Good Momma

Oh what a good movie

About your generation oh Momma

The Greatest Generation

Indeed

Charles Delacroix