Capitol Hill Blue Forums Hot Topics & Breaking News The RoundTable Round Table for Week of July 25 - 31, 2010

I am posting for Mellow Julia who is tied up this weekend.
My best to you, my friend. I hope it went ok.


Good morning, good evening, good morning again, and welcome to the Round Table for the week of July 25.




(The photo is for Olyve, who is bemoaning the swift demise
of summer, while I claim that it is still July.
We'll compromise on late summer...)


.



Events of July 25:
Estelle Getty, born 1924, actress almost until her death in 2008.

Steve Goodman, songwriter, born 1948, died 1984; responsible for this. Arlo made it famous - but Steve wrote it.




1965 Folk-rock begins, Bob Dylan uses electricity at Newport Folk Festival and music is never the same again, so they say.








Events of July 26:
A stellar date; look at all these births:



Now, that's a birthday party I'd like to see. Maybe.



Big day in history, too:
1953 Fidel Castro leads attack on Moncada Barracks, begins Cuban revolution
1948 Pres Truman issues Executive Order No. 9981 directing "equality of treatment & opportunity" in the armed forces" - let's hope the final pieces are in place soon
1947 Department of Defense established - did you know some of us here are older than the DOD? I didn't.

1952 Evita Perron died on this day in 1952.






Every year on this date, we post this link (and a cold mug of Terrapin) for Olyve, who is very fond of Grateful Dead member Brent Mydland. Mydland died at age 38, but fortunately he had enough time to write this song for our Olyve.

Some things don't need to change.






Events of July 27:

Some people are agents of change. Norman Lear changed broadcast tv for good - and probably for better - with tv shows like "All in the Family," "Sanford and Son," "The Jeffersons," "One Day at a Time," "Maude," and "I'm tired of typing tv titles."

I would much rather have the scripted honesty of an Archie Bunker than a theoretically-unscripted reality show. See for yourself.

1922 Norman Lear TV writer/producer (All in The Family)


Lear also founded "People for the American Way."

Events of July 28:
1866 Beatrix Potter England, children's author (Tale of Peter Rabbit)
1887 Marcel Duchamp painter (Nude Descending a Staircase)


1907 Vivian Vance Cherryvale Ks, actress (Ethel Mertz-I Love Lucy) ; died 1979





1655 Cyrano de Bergerac French dramatist/novelist, dies in Paris
1750 Johann Sebastian Bach German composer (Art of the Fugue), dies at 65
1971 Diane Arbus photographer, commits suicide at 48



Events of July 2:

1805 Alexis de Tocqueville France, statesman/writer (Democracy in America)
1892 William Powell - I love the Thin Man movies, and given the economy maybe their time has come round again. Nick and Nora are responsible for my martini habit.






1938 Peter Jennings

1957 Jack Paar's Tonight show premiers
1981 Prince Charles of England weds Lady Diana Spencer


1974 Cass Elliot singer of Mamas & Papas chokes to death at 30 in London

Events of July 30:

1818 Emily Bronte
1863 Henry Ford
1945 David Sanborn, saxophonist
1958 Kate Bush Plumstead England, singer/songwriter (Wild Things)

1729 City of Baltimore founded
1839 Slave rebels, take over slaver Amistad
1983 Lynn Fontanne, Broadway's premier actresses, dies at 95

7/31
1912 Milton Friedman economist (Nobel 1976)
1944 Geraldine Chaplin Santa Monica Ca, actress (Dr Zhivago, 3 Musketeers)
1951 Evonne Goolagong Cawley Australia, tennis player (Wimbeldon 1971)

1953 Dept of Health, Education & Welfare created
1970 Chet Huntley retires from NBC, ends "Huntley-Brinkley Report" This is the last few minutes of that broadcast. One of the comments says "How odd! Not a single woman's name in the credits!"

1556 St Ignatius of Loyola founder of Society of Jesus (the Jesuit order) dies in Rome.


Speaking of change
This weekend we are selling my childhood home. My parents built the present house, using walls and foundations of the house my great-grandparents built. It's been in my family for four generations.

We've been preparing for this all summer.

A lot of people have lived in that house; I only knew a few of them. Some were happy and wanted to stay there; others, unhappy, couldn't wait to leave. My father was born in that house; years later, his grandfather died there, in the same bedroom.My siblings and I grew up there, but then we moved out, moved away, started lives of our own.

It's empty right now. Every person who has ever lived there has moved on. Think about that for a minute: that's really what we do with homes. We live in them for awhile, and then move on - sometimes to new places or new lives, sometimes to cemeteries. Whether we own or rent the roof over our heads, we're really just tenants, just there for awhile.

I'm becoming reconciled to the idea that it's time for new tenants in that house - tenants who will replant the garden, trim the trees, pick the peonies, wallpaper the back bedroom. Hang sheets on the clotheslines. Occupy it.

It's time to move on.

He wrote that song for his daughters. He always kept their photos on his key boards when he played.
This was just a couple of months before he died.

If he had to go...what a legacy.
I hope those girls are ok. Feel his love.
He was just about the finest key board player I've ever heard.

Thank you, Mellow.

That's a wonderful opener, Mellow. And I sort of know how you feel. We didn't have my childhood home as long as you did-just two generations. But 5 1/2 years ago, we knew it was time to move on. I lived there from 1962, when my parents purchased the house, until 2004. It was a bittersweet move.

And what we do with lives, roles we play, maybe even souls or essences. Made me tear up.

Beautiful group of words--IMHO.

Not even if the sparks are there?

Martha - thank you. That means a great deal, coming from you.

And thanks to all of you. It was exhausting, and teary, but not heartwrenching, not the way I thought it would be. (But I'm very glad not to have to do it a second time!)

I too thought it was a beautiful touching tribute, Julia.
I'm glad it's over for you and wasn't quite as bad as you had thought.

Even though it's blazing hot here (close to 100), the sun is different. Things smell different. The pine needles are falling.
But more importantly, seasons in a college town revolve around the students.
Not only is Halloween candy out at the grocery store but the Bulldog paraphernalia is bulging. Everything is even more red and black.
Classes start mid August so leases start Aug 1.
The football countdown clock is on.
Soon Larry Munson calls will be on the loud speaker at the store too.
Sidewalk mattress stands will go up.

Yep....Fall is in the air!

Except for one hot week, summer has yet to really get going here. Mild upper 70's day after day.

Hear it is because the Pacific Ocean is colder than normal here in California.

For the first time in my memory, public high schools will start off on August 11th, almost a month earlier than usual. I am going to take my nephews shopping for backpacks and shoes. School will get out later, as well-the last week of June. The school district is lengthening Thanksgiving vacation to a full week, and adding a week to both the winter vacation and spring vacation. This was because so many parents took their kids out early, and the schools were losing their attendance money.