"The Debate - Some Quick Reactions"

 This is short – just over 500 words – and it was done quickly, so there are bound to be errors, in facts along with grammar and syntax. Please excuse them.

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“The Debate – Some Quick Reactions”

June 28, 2024

 

“I really don’t know what he said. I don’t think he knows what he said.”

                                                                                                                                 Donald Trump

                                                                                                                                 CNN Debate

June 27, 2024

 

Is this the best we can do? We are a nation that produced the Constitution, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Marshall Plan. As a country with not much more than one hundredth of today’s population we elected Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Madison as President. With one tenth of the population, we nominated and elected Lincoln. More recently, but with still a smaller population than today, men like Roosevelt, Truman Eisenhower and Reagan campaigned and were elected to the nation’s highest office. And today – despite our history, diverse population, educational systems, free press, inventiveness, and role in the world – we look to re-nominate Joe Biden and Donald Trump? How has such a great nation fallen so far? 

 

The moderators, while colorless and humorless, pretty much stuck to their program. They asked questions about Ukraine and Israel, abortion, January 6, climate, the border, their age and fitness, the opioid crisis, and childcare. Trump was asked if he would accept the election results regardless of the outcome. He finally answered yes, so long as the election was fair and above board. Biden was asked about his fitness. His slurred and hesitant response, when he wasn’t searching for words, and his vacant stare seemed to answer the question. A low point came when both men argued about their golf handicaps – each claiming a number in the mid-single digits. Silly me, I had assumed they were too busy to spend time on the golf course.

 

Nevertheless, the two contestants acceded to expectations. Neither expressed a lightness of touch, a sense of empathy, or even a connection with the televised audience. Neither offered a vision for the America they would like to see. Trump came across as angry – though more controlled than he has been – but reminding one of the schoolyard bully who, after taunting his classmates during recess, tells the teacher of all the positive things he has done. Biden’s speech was confused and hoarse – we were told (after the fact) that he had a cold – hesitant and wandering. His eyes suggested that nobody was home. His non sequitur, “Look, we finally beat Medicare,” was telling. Trump’s quote in the rubric above is something many of is felt.

 

My initial reactions: Embarrassment, for our nation in the eyes of the world that these two men represent the finest we have. Anger, at Biden’s advisors and family for allowing him (or encouraging him?) to pursue a second term. Disappointment, at mainstream media for refusing to disclose Mr. Biden’s cognitive deterioration, something many have suspected, but which remained hidden to their viewers and readers.

 

At this point it is unknown how many people watched the debate or what the consequences will be. As for Mr. Biden, instead of dispelling concerns regarding his fitness to be President, the debate accentuated them. I suspect the biggest takeaway will be that Democrats will re-think their choice for nominee.

"Power is Their Goal"

 

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Power is Their Goal”

June 24, 2024

 

“Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture

political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the

market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.”

                                                                                                                                Henry Wallace

                                                                                                                                “The Danger of American Fascism”

                                                                                                                                Essay, The New York Times

                         April 9, 1944

 

While Wallace, then Vice President of the United States, was writing of the dangers of Fascism, his words apply today to extremists on both sides of the political aisle – Progressive/Marxists on the left and Neo-Fascists on the right – those who campaign under the mantle of service but who, in reality, seek power for themselves and the state. Keep in mind, at the time Wallace wrote, the Soviet Union, with its Communist ideology and its totalitarian practices, was our ally in the fight against Germany’s Nazis. Because his socialist leanings were not broadly popular, Wallace was dropped by FDR as his choice for Vice President in favor of Harry Truman in the 1944 election. In 1946, in the early days of the Cold War, Wallace left the Democrat Party over Truman’s hard line with the Soviet Union and joined the Progressive Party. 

 

…………………………………………………………..

 

Power is an aphrodisiac, whether exercised by an individual, a cabal, or a mob. It has always existed in politics, in varying degrees. In a letter to Anglican bishop Mandell Creighton on April 5, 1887, Lord Acton (1835-1902) wrote: “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” High political office carries enormous influence – the ability to financially reward backers (as well as oneself) – that many find irresistible. While there are principled individuals who run for office for the purpose of “giving back,” we live in a time of career politicians, those who have spent their careers either in elected or appointed office. We also live in a time of polarization where slogans substitute for reason and violent protests for debate.

 

Power and the corruption that often accompanies it are not limited to one party. But single party states and cities, with an absence of competition, are more likely to attract corrupt individuals. A Wikipedia map of the U.S. shows twenty red states, twenty blue states, with seven others either leaning red or blue, and three that are purple. Of the five most populous states, three are blue – California, New York and Pennsylvania – one is red – Texas – and one is purple – Florida. BallotPedia notes that seventeen of the country’s twenty largest cities are Democrat-run. Corporate monopolies are not good for consumers, and government monopolies are not good for citizens.

 

Every ten years Congressional district maps are re-drawn. They must be contiguous and they are supposed to comply with the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Nevertheless, Sam Levine writing in the February 17, 2022 issue of The Guardian claimed that only 27 of the 335 [out of 435] congressional districts that had been drawn thus far were considered competitive. The Cook Political Report, in looking at 2024 races, confirms that report, as they showed only 22 [out of 435] seats as being tossups. An earlier study – June 25, 2021 – from Yale University argued that the rise in safe seats has led to political polarization. Whatever the cause, single-party cities and states are unhealthy, as they lead to power and corruption. And our very size has made governing less personal. With a U.S. population of just under four million in 1790, the House of Representatives was comprised of 105 members. The Reapportionate Act of 1929 capped the size of the House at 435 members. Today, despite the addition of Alaska and Hawaii as states in 1959, and a population almost tripling in the past 95 years, the number of House seats remains 435. 

 

This concern for the power of the state is not new. George Orwell’s two masterpieces Animal Farm (1945) and 1984 (1949) warned of totalitarianism. Like all those of his generation, he had seen despotism come from the right by way of Fascism and Nazism and from the left via Communism. He was a self-described democrat-socialist, but his alertness to the excesses of political power informed the books he wrote. 

 

America’s founding fathers were well aware of the threat of tyranny, which is why they designed a government with three co-equal branches – executive, judicial and legislative. The purpose – to avoid a concentration of power. The Founders had considered the risk of what John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) later called in his 1859 essay On Liberty a “tyranny by the majority,” where the many can oppress the few. To address that concern, the legislative branch – the most important as it is the branch closest to the people – was divided into two bodies: a Senate, with two per state, and a House whose membership is proportionate to population, and they created an Electoral College to elect the President. (Keep in mind, Virginia, from which four of the first five Presidents came, was the largest state in 1789, so that was a selfless act.)

 

In our country, power is supposed to be reserved for the people. Free speech is integral to our individual freedom – not the freedom to falsely call out “fire!” in a crowded theater, but the ability to express opinions without being censored by “thought police” for not conforming to the “right” political ideology. Today, sadly, differences of opinions can be a mark of infamy. When I once criticized President Obama for some policy decision, I was labeled a racist. Can we not criticize women without being called a misogynist? Or a Muslim without being called out as Islamophobic? Or a Black without being termed a racist? In a November 29, 1947 letter to the New York Herald Tribune, E.B. White wrote: “One need only watch totalitarians at work to see that once men gain power over other men’s minds, that power is never used sparingly or wisely, but lavishly and brutally and with unspeakable results.”

 

Nevertheless, and in spite of my concerns, most people in the United States remain, in my opinion, centrist. Certainly, there are those with extreme opinions; they exist on both sides of the political divide. Agitators abound, and identity politics has driven us into corners where we are only comfortable with those like us, whether an identity is based on nationality, gender, race, religion, or ideology. Politicians favor compartmentalization, perhaps because it is easier to appeal to specific issues rather than to speak broadly to the opportunities available to those with aspiration, drive and ability. For the nation to succeed, it needs people from all backgrounds and with myriad specialties, and it needs to ensure that all young people are given a good education, one that teaches them to think independently, not conform to a preferred ideology.

 

Democracy is collaborative, not efficient. It is all right when legislation does not get passed. A smaller, less intrusive government is preferable to a large one. The buildup in debt has been ignored by both parties, a possible pending calamity. Still, I recognize there is much good government does, that we could not exist without it. But I also know that individual freedom is placed at risk by those desiring power, a risk ignored by leaders in Washington today. Personal power and wealth are the goals of too many who run for high office. And bureaucrats are their silent abettors, as they thrive on an ever-expanding government.

 

Our current choices for President – two aging men, both seduced by the prospect for power and buoyed by mindless, uncritical followers and partisan media. Together they reflect a sad picture of today’s politics: A Hobson’s Choice for a center-based electorate. As Gerard Baker wrote recently in The Wall Street Journal “…we suspend our doubts, swallow hard and make our imperfect choice.”  

"Glimpses of an Uncharted Life," Richard H. Shriver

 Today is Juneteenth, the day we celebrate the end of slavery in the United States.

 

As I write in the first paragraph, Dick Shriver is a friend. I met him several years ago when he and his wife Barbara moved to Old Lyme. Through his invitation, I sat on the board of MCCD for seven years, an organization he created in 2012, whose mission is to help those in need.

 

Dick is a modest and selfless man. His generosity can be measured in the time he has taken with two of my grandchildren, one who lives here and another in the form of a pen pal. Those facts and my friendship certainly influenced my purchase of his book. However, I have finally read “Glimpses” after sitting on my desk for the past five years, reluctant to pick it up less it compared poorly with others that I have read. I needn’t have been concerned. 

 

The photo is of the cover of the book – not a good one, as I am the photographer.

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Burrowing into Books

Glimpses of an Uncharted Life, Richard H. Shriver

June 19, 2024

 

“After a few decades of foreign development experience late in the last century, I became

increasingly convinced that it was foolish for the United States to provide foreign assistance

without understanding beforehand substantially more than it did about local cultures and histories.”

                                                                                                                                Richard Shriver (1934 -)

                                                                                                                              Glimpses of an Uncharted Life, 2017

 

We are comprised of inherited genes, but we are also formed by experiences. It is the latter that is the subject of this autobiographical sketch from a remarkable individual I am privileged to call a friend. 

 

This book offers brief looks into the author’s varied careers. Trained at Cornell (where he was an all-American lacrosse player) as an engineer and mathematician/statistician and following four years in the U.S. Airforce (where he trained on the T-38), in 1960 Dick Shriver began work with Standard Oil of New Jersey (now Exxon). Six years later he opened his own consulting firm. In 1976, he accepted a position with the U.S. Department of Defense. In 1985, after a stint at the U.S. Treasury Department, Dick was asked to chair the first world conference on counterterrorism, which followed the 1983 suicide bombing of the marine barracks in Lebanon. Endowed with a generous dosage of curiosity, he had always wanted to understand how companies work, how government works, and how the world works.   

 

This book follows his odyssey – though not in chronological order – to satisfy that curiosity. Even before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 – from a life dependent on the State to a life in freedom – Dick had been interested in how such a change would affect people. It was dramatic and, initially, difficult. He writes: “The life expectancy of males in Russia (I assume the same was true for Ukraine) dropped from sixty-four in 1990 to fifty-eight by 1995, almost a statistical impossibility.” Learning to live in a market economy (which, in time, brings higher living standards and better health), after having lived in a command economy for three generations, required learning new skills. That is where Dick saw opportunity.

 

To help Eastern Europeans learn the benefits of free-market capitalism (and how to cope with change), Dick joined the International Executive Service Corps (IESC) in 1992; they opened twenty offices in ten former Soviet republics. Then, concerned as to whether the money raised was getting to the right people or whether it was aiding future oligarchs, in 1995 he applied for a grant from the Christian A Johnson Endeavor Foundation, so that he and his wife could re-locate to and open an office in Ukraine, which he did, in Lviv where he and Barbara lived for eight years. As well, he spent time in Moscow and in the Baltic states.

 

In his mission to help understand and improve lives of those from the former Soviet Union, in 2003 Dick served as provost of Berlin’s European College of Liberal Arts (now called Bard College Berlin). It is a small college – forty-nine students from twenty-two countries studying in English for one year. He writes: “We may offer the richest multicultural experience of any institution in the world.”

 

These few words of mine hardly give justice to this book or its author, whose curiosity and drive continue. In 2012, in retirement in Old Lyme, he founded MCCD (Mentoring Corps for Community Development). In 2019 he became publisher of a new magazine about the Connecticut River, Estuary. And last year, at age 90, he coached the Old Saybrook High School’s girl’s lacrosse team. Dick Shriver has indeed led an uncharted (and remarkable) life. This book provides more than a glimpse.

"A 65th Reunion"

Seven of us, out of a class of 80, trudged through the sunshine on that comfortably warm June day to attend their 65^th reunion from what was then Williston Academy and is today the Williston Northampton School in Easthampton, Massachusetts. Remarkably, none of us were placed “on bounds.” The youngster – third from the left – is the author of this essay. 

The timing of this remembrance is auspicious, as we are just back from Darien, Connecticut where we attended the high school graduation of a granddaughter who is off to Notre Dame in the fall.

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

More Essays from Essex

“A 65^th Reunion”

June 16, 2024

 

“I count myself in nothing else so happy as in a soul remembering my good friends.”

                                                                                                                               William Shakespeare (c.1564-1616)

                                                                                                                                Richard II

                                                                                                                                Henry Bolingbroke speaking

                                                                                                                                Act 2, Scene 3

 

On June 7, Caroline and I drove to my high school’s 65^th reunion in Easthampton, Massachusetts, home of the Williston Northampton School, but what had been Williston Academy. Those 65 years have passed quickly, except when parsed and we enumerate some of what has transpired. 

 

In 1959, Dwight Eisenhower was in his 7^th year as President. There was no internet, and the first cell phone, a Motorola DynaTAC 8000X, was fourteen years in the future. The population of the United States was a little more than half of what it is today. The average age of an American in 1959 was 29.5 years versus 38.9 years today, with life expectancy of 69.9 years against 79.1 years in 2023. A year’s tuition in 2024 at Williston cost $76,600; in 1959, the cost was around $1,500 – suggesting an increase of about four times the rate of inflation – a trend consistent with almost all of America’s private schools and colleges.

 

Another way of looking at how long those sixty-five years have been is to recognize that 65 years before the 80 of us in the class of 1959 graduated was 1894, a time when horse-drawn carriages carried our fore-fathers along unpaved streets. 

 

………………………………………………………….

 

While we had driven up on Friday afternoon, we only arrived at the school on Saturday in time for lunch. (It happened that our youngest son was at Deerfield – about twenty miles north – for his 35^th reunion. And since he was one of the speakers, we wanted to hear him.) Back at Williston, walking across the quad, with the Homestead – once home of the school’s headmaster – on our right, Memorial Hall (Memorial Dorm where I lived for two years) on our left, I sensed being a student again, but with my wife on my right and a hesitancy in my step I was quickly brought back to the present.

 

Seven from our class returned, coming from California, Texas, New York and Connecticut. We had nametags with our yearbook photos, so the grizzled faces would be recognizable as the youths we once were. We did not know how many of our classmates were deceased, but a guess was about twenty-five. It was fun to catch up with people we had known in school but who had gone on to different lives and careers – jeweler, entrepreneur, actor, banker/insurance, lawyer, teacher and stockbroker. We recalled school days, but we also talked of lives lived since – of wives (four were present), children and grandchildren, of jobs, travel, hobbies and interests, but not of politics. Among us we had two or three dozen grandchildren, doing our share to help the Country grow. Impressive was the realization that four still work – perhaps not as hard as they once did, but keeping busy. (And that does not include one whose photography continues to win prizes, nor the thirty-seven essays I have written so far this year.)

 

What we have in common were formative teenage years, and memories of those boarding school days.   

"Things Our Grandchildren Will Never Know"

This essay was a joy to write, remembering long-ago days, places, and things. It is short – 413 words – so should not tax your patience. 

 

It is fitting to send this essay today, as my wife and I leave later this morning for my 65^th high school reunion in Easthampton, MA – then home to Williston Academy, now the Williston Northampton School.

 

Sydney M. Williams 

 

More Essays from Essex

“Things Our Grandchildren Will Never Know”

June 7, 2024

 

“…one way or another we forge ahead, 

picking up wisdom along the way…”

                                                                                                                Geoffrey Moore (1946-)

                                                                                                                The Infinite Staircase, 2020

 

Whether wisdom is garnered as generations advance over time, I leave to the more learned, people like Geoffrey Moore whose book was worth the $26.95 cost. What I do know is that technological advancements have been remarkable, at least since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. My paternal grandmother, born in November 1875, was 18 when the Duryea brothers introduced the first American-made gasoline-powered car. She was 93 in July 1969 when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin strolled on the moon – an event inconceivable to her as a child.

 

Nevertheless, the past is always present, a whiff of nostalgia for things we once knew – things that our grandchildren will only read about in books or see in museums:

                

                In our homes:                                                                                In our dress:

          Dial telephones                                                                    Galoshes                                   Suspenders                                                                          Fedoras

                                Cloth diapers                                                                         Suspenders        

                                Ice trays                                                                                             

                                Super 8 film                                                                                     

                                Clothes lines                                                                  In Our Cars:    

          TV aerials/rabbit ears                                               Road maps                                            Ash trays                                                                  Hand-cranked windows                                                                                                          Re-treaded tires            

                                                                                                                  Manual gear shifts                                                                                                                             Bench-like front seats 

                In Office Buildings:                                                                                    

                                Elevator attendants                                                                  

                                Typewriters/carbon paper

                                Adding Machines

                                Switchboards                                                                                                

                

Will our children and grandchildren ever make a call from a phone booth, dance to a jukebox, lace up ski boots, play tennis with a wooden racquet, listen to records on a victrola, or fly on a DC-3? Will they ever see one of these ads that were once ubiquitous on country roads?

 

“If you

Don’t know

Whose signs

These are

You can’t have 

Driven very far

Burma Shave”

 

The list is incomplete, as memory fails. I did not, as I could have, include the ice box or wood stove in my parents’ kitchen, or the hand-cranked phone in the hall. Some people keep the past.

 

Most of us – certainly I do – lack the imagination to foresee how the future will unfold. We – or at least I do – talk unintelligibly of artificial intelligence and self-driving cars, but most of us think, as Will Parker sang in Oklahoma, “They’ve gone about as fer as they can go.” Seven stories was tall for a building in 1906 Kansas City. And Burj Khalifa in Dubai, at 160 stories, seems about as high as a building ought to be. But aren’t records made to be broken? Creative destruction is all around us, alive and well.

"The Verdict - Some Thoughts"

 It is unusual for me to send an essay in the afternoon, but circumstances make it more palatable. Early tomorrow morning, my wife and I have a Pilates class. Friday morning I am hoping to send an Essay from Essex, “Things Our Grandchildren Will Never Know.” Later that morning, we are driving up to my 65^th high school reunion.

 

…………………………………………………………

 

Eighty years ago tomorrow about 133,000 Allied troops sailed across the English Channel on approximately 7,000 vessels, accompanied by 11,000 planes to attack five beaches on the Normandy coast – Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword. The purpose: to liberate Europe from Nazism. They were met by around 50,000 German troops who manned machine guns above the beaches, firing down on disembarking soldiers who also had to contend with heavy equipment and mined beaches. 4,414 Allied soldiers died on that first day, including 2,501 Americans – men who gave their lives on blood-soaked beaches thousands of miles from families and homes, so that others – people they never met – might live freely. The commemoration tomorrow marks one of the greatest sacrifices any people have ever made. 

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Thought of the Day

“The Verdict – Some Thoughts”

June 5, 2024

 

“’Let the jury consider the verdict,’ the King said, for about the twentieth time that day.

‘No, no!’ said the Queen. ‘Sentence first – verdict afterwards.’”

                                                                                                                           Alice in Wonderland, 1946 (my copy)

                                                                                                                            Lewis Carroll (1832-1898)

 

While the charges against Donald Trump were more severe than stealing tarts, there is no question that the trial was politicized. And there is a question as to whether he received due process, as explained by David B. Rivkin, Jr. and Elizabeth Price Foley[1] in the June 5, 2024 edition of The Wall Street Journal. Nevertheless, Mr. Trump was convicted by a jury of twelve ordinary people, seven men and five women, a panel of jurors agreed to by both prosecution and defense. Like it or not, their decision is something we should respect. As British Member of Parliament Daniel Hannani wrote recently in The Telegraph: “Laws on their own are not enough. A free society rests also on conventions, precedents, unwritten rules. Losers are expected to accept the result, winners to exercise restraint.”

 

But jurors are not omniscient and judges have biases, which is why our legal process allows for appeals, and one can certainly expect Mr. Trump’s lawyers to appeal the decision, and we are free to argue as to whether the charges should have been brought in the first place. The law is not perfect, but justice is supposed to be blind; it should not be weaponized for political gain. Regardless, a civilized society must accept a trial’s outcome, just as it must accept the decision of elections, else anarchy reigns and totalitarianism looms. There is a process that should be followed.

 

The outcome of the trial in “deep blue” Manhattan was predictable; though many of us hoped for a Henry Fonda-like character from 12 Angry Men to appear among the jurors, to at least create a hung jury. That did not happen. However, the consequences of the decision to try Mr. Trump in the first place may have the most long-lasting effect. Alvin Bragg, the New York County District Attorney who led the prosecution, had campaigned for office by claiming, in words reminiscent of the Soviet Union’s Lavrentiy Beria (or emanations from the Queen of Hearts), that he would prosecute Donald Trump – first the man, then the crime. He did, and he won. But did he let the genie of more political dissension escape from the bottle?

 

As the first prosecution of a presidential candidate, the trial set a precedent and will be studied for years by legal scholars. Perhaps we have crossed a Rubicon? We will have, if it becomes standard to try political opponents, in order to keep them off the campaign trail and the ballot. We will have forsaken our liberal constitutional heritage, and we will have destroyed democracy. For just as no one is above the law, the law must be exercised evenly and equitably. There is risk that we have entered a time when political victors find it okay to try and jail their opponents – a practice common in totalitarian states like Communist China, Venezuela, and Cuba, and as it was in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in years gone by.

 

Both political parties have violated norms and to the extent that both candidates reflect the United States today, one can understand why so many feel dispirited. We once looked up to our political leaders. Can we now? Are Biden and Trump men we admire? We were once taught manners and rules of behavior; we were taught to be self-sufficient if and when able; to be responsible for our behavior; to be respectful and tolerant of others, and to practice humility and restraint when personal success was ours. Do these characteristics apply to either man? These are values once learned in homes and in schools. They should be restored.  

 

Nevertheless, I remain optimistic about our country, that reason and commonsense will prevail, that when we reflect on the uniqueness of this nation and how fortunate are we to live here, we will give thanks. But it cannot be denied that hatred has infused our society, preventing courteous discourse and reasoned debate. Our culture has become invidious. As part of a poll of 18-30-year-old registered voters, Blueprint Polling found that 65% of those polled agreed strongly or somewhat that “nearly all politicians are corrupt, and make money from their political power” – only 7% disagreed. Using public funds for private gain is the mark of a banana republic, not a representative democracy. Each side blames the other. We once thought of ourselves, first as Americans and only secondly as members of a specific political party, or of a particular ethnicity or gender. Identity politics has been a curse.

 

While our nation is not as fractured as it was in 1861, it is moving in that direction. While Democrats achieved their goal of having former President Trump convicted as a felon before the election, in doing so they further divided an already ruptured nation. Justice will not be served until appeals are made – almost certainly after the election. Nevertheless, it is fitting at this time to repeat the closing paragraph of Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural: "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

 

While this trial and its verdict, in my opinion, is a blight on our country, the United States is unique among nations. It is a “land of opportunity,” which is why so many seek these shores. We should take pride in our country. Something that we often forget is that those of us who live here are fortunate. Never forget that.

"he Adventures of Sally," P.G. Wodehouse - A Review

Peggy Noonan’s weekend column in yesterday’s The Wall Street Journal struck a chord: “We Are Starting to Enjoy Hatred.” I fear there is truth in what she writes. But laughter, boldly, confronts hatred. William James (1842-1910), father of modern psychology and author of The Varieties of Religious Experiences allegedly once wrote: “We don’t laugh because were happy – we’re happy because we laugh.” I have found that to be a truism, whether laughter comes from being with family and/or friends, from watching a Mel Brooks movie, or from reading one of P. G. Wodehouse’s delightful books. Laughter is also healthy; it is good for one’s stomach muscles.

 

My essays are not critical reviews. I only write about books I have enjoyed. This one is short – less than 450 words – but I hope contagious.

 

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Burrowing into Books

The Adventures of Sally, P.G. Wodehouse

June 2, 2024

 

“A sweet-tempered girl, Sally, like most women of a generous spirit, had cyclonic potentialities.”

                                                                                                                                The Adventures of Sally, 1922

                                                                                                                                P.G. Wodehouse (1881-1975)

 

P.G. Wodehouse is best known for his 1915 creation of the pleasant but dim-witted Bertie Wooster and his pedantic and brainy (fish-eating) valet Jeeves. But at the time this book was written, Wodehouse – aged forty – had also become a big name on Broadway, where he collaborated with Jerome Kern and Guy Bolton. In 1920, he had written the lyrics for the show Sally, which ran for 570 performances. Unsurprisingly, much of this story revolves around the theater: “The world of the theatre is simply a large nursery and its inhabitants children who readily become fretful if anything goes wrong.”

 

We meet Sally Nicholas, having inherited $25,000 on her 21^st birthday, as she is about to leave Mrs. Meecher’s “select” boarding house in New York. She is engaged to the caddish Gerald Foster and has a brother Fillmore who, at 25, also inherited $25,000. The two are quite different: As for Sally, “she carried youth like a banner.” On the other hand, “Fillmore Nicholas had not worn well. At the age of seven he had been an extraordinarily beautiful child, but after that he had gone all to pieces, and now, at the age of twenty-five, it would be idle to deny that he was something of a mess.”

 

But Sally does approve of her Harvard-educated brother’s choice of mate, Gladys Winch: “And she’s got brains enough for two, which is the exact quantity the girl who marries you will need.”

 

In reading Wodehouse one can always anticipate a happy end; though how the complexity of the plot gets unwound and his characters guided into satisfactory positions is a marvel to readers like me, those of us with Bertie-like minds. The joy of any Wodehouse novel is in the way he offers humor in descriptions, advice and metaphors. A sample from The Adventures of Sally:

                

                “He dug a spoon sombrely into his grapefruit.”

 

“An inscrutable cat picked its way daintily across the road.”

 

               “Chumps always make the best husbands. When you marry, Sally, grab a chump…All the unhappy marriages come from the husbands having brains”

 

                “And quietly and methodically, like a respectable wolf settling on the trail of a Red Riding Hood, he prepared to pursue.”

 

                “Uncle Donald’s walrus mustache heaved gently upon his laboured breath, like seaweed upon a ground-swell.”

                “

I am often asked, which Wodehouse should be read first? My answer: Whichever is nearest.

"June"

 Yesterday I woke thinking of those lines from Hosea: “For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.”  But sitting at my computer I again Googled the song. “June is Bustin’ Out All Over,” and my mood changed. The show Carousel is largely a tragedy, but this song is joyful. I encourage everyone to listen to all eight minutes and forty-four seconds. If it doesn’t bring a smile, nothing will. And it introduces this brief essay (460 words), celebrating the new month.

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

More Essays from Essex

“June”

June 1, 2024

 

“And what is rare as a day in June?

Then, if ever, come perfect days?”

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891)

“June”

The Vision of Sir Launfal, 1848

 

It was June that was on Oscar Hammerstein’s mind when he wrote these lyrics for Carousel in April 1945:

 

“You can see it in the trees

You can smell it in the breeze.

Look around! Look around! Look around!

June is bustin’ out all over.”

 

On June 20th the earth’s northern hemisphere will have its longest day – the summer solstice – when the north pole reaches its maximum tilt toward the sun. For us, that date marks the start of summer, but for many in northern Europe, summer begins (or began) on the first of May, which explains why Shakespeare titled his play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, for the holiday still celebrated by some on the first Saturday after June 20^th. Today June 19^th is celebrated as Juneteenth, to commemorate the end of slavery.

 

June is named for the Roman goddess Juno, wife of Jupiter and goddess of women, marriage and fertility. It is the month when trees are fully leafed and flowers in full bloom. While one can scientifically explain why animals hibernate and perennials re-blossom each spring, anyone who does not see the miracle in nature misses the magic of June. It is a time of renewal, when dreams become life.

 

June was the month when school days ended and summer vacation began, endless days when one was ten. It is the month for graduations, especially high schools and some colleges. It is among the top three months for weddings, the month when “young Virginia creepers/ Have been huggin’ the bejeepers/ Outta all the mornin’ glories on the fence,” and the “sheep aren’t sheepish anymore.” 

 

It was June when I started my first job out of college; it was the month in which I enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserves, and it was the month in which our third and last child was born. It was the month during which two of our children were married, and in which our youngest granddaughter and my father-in-law were born. It was in the month of June that two brothers and two sisters were married. And it was on June 10, 1908 that my grandfather Sydney M. Williams married my grandmother Mary P. Hunnewell.

 

In his 1906 collection of poems, Bird and Bough, John Burroughs (1837-1921) included the poem “June’s Coming:” 

“Now have come the shining days

When field and wood are robed anew,

And o’er the world a silver haze

Mingles the emerald with the blue.”

 

June has arrived, the month that fulfills life’s regenerative promise.