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In tonight’s program between 9 and 11pm, a gift of gloves is mentioned in a famous writing. Having to travel to as many hockey arenas with my son’s teams as I have over the years, my gloves have certainly earned their keep. It’s cold enough tonight to wear your warmest pair if you need to venture out.

The oldest book I have in my collection is called The Wonderful, The Curious, and the The Beautiful In The World’s History by John Clark Ridpath and published in January of 1891. In it is The History of Gloves.

“It has been supposed that gloves are noticed in the 108th Psalm, where the royal prophet declares that he will cast his shoeover Edom; and still further back, in the time of the Judges, where, in Ruth iv.7, the custom is noted of a man taking off his shoe and giving it to his neighbor as a pledge for redeeming or exchanging anything. The reason for this supposition is based upon the fact that the word usually translated shoe is by the Chaldeans rendered glove. Casaubon is of opinion that gloves were worn by the Chaldeans, from the word being explained in the Talmud lexicon as ‘clothing of the hand.’

“Xenophon, as a proof of the efficiency of the Persians, observes that, not satisfied with covering their heads and their feet, they also guarded their hands against the cold with thick gloves. Athenaeus speaks of a celebrated glutton who always came to table with gloves on his hands, that he might be able to handle and eat the meat while hot, and thus devour more than the rest of the company.

“These authorities show that the ancients were not strangers to the use of gloves, though their use was not common. We can more clearly trace the early use of gloves in northern than in southern nations. When the ancient severity of manners declined, the use of gloves prevailed among the Romans; but not without some opposition from the philosophers. Musonius, a philosopher, who lived at the close of the first century of Christianity, among other invectives against the corruption of the age, says, ‘It is shameful that persons in perfect health should clothe their hands and feet with soft and hairy coverings.’ Their convenience, however, soon made the use general. Pliny the younger informs us, in his account of his uncle’s journey to Vesuvius, that his secretary sat by him ready to write down whatever occurred remarkable; and that he had gloves on his hands, that the coldness of the weather might not impede his business.

“Favin observes, that the custom of blessing gloves at the coronation of the kings of France, is a remnant of the eastern practice of investiture by a glove. A remarkable instance of this ceremony is recorded. The unfortunate Conradin was deprived of his crown and his life by the usurper Mainfroy. When having ascended the scaffold, the injured prince, lamenting his hard fate, asserted his right to the crown, and as a token of investiture, threw his glove among the crowd, entreating that it might be conveyed to some of his relations, who could revenge his death. It was taken up by a knight, who conveyed it to Peter, king of Arragon, who in virtue of this glove, was afterward crowned at Palermo.

“As the delivery of gloves was once a part of the ceremony used in giving possession of property of any kind, so the depriving of a person of these was a mark of divesting him of his office. The Earl of Carlisle, in the reign of Edward the Second, was condemned to die as a traitor for holding correspondence with the Scots. Among other marks of degradation, it is related that ‘his spurs were cut off with a hatchet, and his gloves and shoes were taken off,’ etc.

“The use of single combat, at first designed only for a trial of innocence, like the ordeals of fire and water, was in succeeding ages practised for deciding rights of property.

“Challenging by the glove was continued down to the reign of Elizabeth, as appears by an account given by Spelman of a duel appointed to be fought in Tothill Fields in 1571. The dispute was concerning some lands in the county of Kent. The parties appeared in Court and demanded single combat. One of them threw down his glove, which the other immediately taking up, carried it off on the point of his sword, and the day of fighting was then appointed, but the Queen adjusted the affair by personal interference.”

There were superstitions associated with gloves. This is an excerpt from Superstition And The Superstitious by Eric Maple and published in 1971 by A. S. Barnes and Co., Inc., New Jersey. “Clothing in particular derived much of its occult properties as the direct result of its tactile relationship with the body and in the past was supposed to be endowed with a distinct magical connection with the parts that it covered. Looked at in this light we can perhaps see why the glove has played so great a role in popular superstition, for it covers the hand which is not only the symbol of labour but of authority. Traditionally a glove served as the gage of battle and represented love, greeting and power and thus its role in social history must have been immense. While glove superstitions as a whole have in some respects diminished to the degree that the glove has become less common as an article of dress, one in particular is so well entrenched in popular custom to be worthy of special mention. It is a common belief that to pick up one’s dropped glove brings bad luck, but on the other hand should any other person do so and give it to its owner he may anticipate a pleasant surprise. This is without doubt a relic of the old gage of love motif in which the gallant who picked up his mistress’ glove could expect to receive from her as his reward some very positive token of her affections.”

That is why a glove would still make a very personal gift at Christmas.

***

Don Jackson

“Eccentricities of genius”. A line from Charles Dickens who we remember fondly at this time in the year. There is a fine line between eccentricity and genius in some cases, but not all…

Do you remember the TV series called The Millionaire? An extremely wealthy benefactor made it his passion in life to give away large sums of his money. It was up to his assistant to seek out the beneficiaries of his generosity. In some ways the millionaire in the series was unconventional. The millionaire was also male, but I recently read that it is affluent women who are the most giving. Thomas Stanley in his sequel The Millionaire Women Next Door, said that on average, they donate 7% of their annual incomes to charity. At the time of this writing, that was three times the rate donated by the average American family. I wouldn’t consider that eccentric; I’d call it just plain generous…

In the first hour of tonight’s program, I mention the life of a true eccentric, William Blake. He wrote poems that had a mystical quality to them. He was also haunted by gods and angels, and he had a strange passion for Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost‘ that I explain in detail. I also mention the fact that Paradise Lost seems destined to make it to the Big Screen sometime in the future.

His torments got me to thinking about some of the world’s unambiguous eccentrics. The Globe and Mail’s Social Studies column published on November 8th featured some information from an article that was written by Nigel Farndale in The Sunday Telegraph. He mentioned the aristocrat Jack Mytton (1796-1834) who had a fondness for his 2,000 dogs. He fed them steak and champagne.

Another eccentric mentioned in that same Globe and Mail column back in July liked to do monkey impressions. He once convinced some Spaniards that he was, in fact, the Duke of York. He then proceeded to dive head first into a rather large punch bowl that was filled.

But the one that really caught my eye was a Hindu Ascetic mentioned in the Los Angeles Times and that same column by Michael Kesterton in 2004, this man had spent 19 years, and had covered thousands of miles, ‘rolling like a log along India’s roads’. He had done this to promote world peace…You could just imagine what he must have endured on the hot asphalt in the blistering heat of midday…He was called ‘the rolling saint’.

As I said at the beginning, there is a fine line between genius and eccentricity…Some, it seems, have regularly crossed that line many times throughout history. Maybe William Blake wasn’t that strange after all…

****

Don Jackson

“I followed the sound of a jukebox coming from up the levee…” A lyric from the song “Somewhere Down The Crazy River” composed by Robbie Robertson. I’ve always liked the song for the atmosphere that it creates. Who hasn’t been tempted to enter an establishment because of the cacophony of sounds and gaudy lights of a jukebox?

Elvisrecords were a staple in the old jukes. So, too, were Carl Perkins, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and so many others. I’m sure you remember your “song” ready to be played every time you and your date wanted to dance.

When I played drums in a band, a few years before I got into radio, the guys would take their earnings from a dance and head to a little restaurant on the street where I grew up. There we would have something to eat and we would also feed coins into the jukebox in our booth. We’d talk over the songs we played and dream about the day when one of our original songs might get a play on the radio and in a jukebox.

In one of the most popular tv series, one that paid tribute to an earlier time, Ritchie and the “Fonz” would end up at the diner. It was usually left up to the “Fonz” to bang the jukebox–just so–to get a song for free. (I think he used his feet to kick the machine in one special spot to get the music to play.) The series was, of course, Happy Days. That 70’s Show was also a tribute to a time when jukeboxes were starting to finally wind down.

Now we go into nightclubs and listen to music played by a dj who is sometimes even more popular than the songs he’s spinning on his turntables. In sports bars we have other entertainment to fill the background.  In these mega-sports bars it’s mostly a visual medium with large-screened tvs playing whatever sporting event that happens to be on cable or satellite. You can even play trivia along with thousands of other people all over the continent using a portable device that’s brought to your booth. Again, you watch the results on a large-screened tv.

Occasionally you will find a retro-themed restaurant that has those small jukeboxes on the wall in each booth. You can still get “three plays for a quarter” in the one that’s close to where I live. If you don’t like the music coming out of the small speakers you can put your quarter in the slot, make your selection, and in time your favorite songs will play. In fact, most of the songs in this one restaurant are all the old classics we used to listen to when we fed the machines our coins. It’s not yet a lost art.. You just have to look for them if you’re nostalgic for the sound of a jukebox.

The jukeboxes that really bring back the memories are not only the ones on the wall of a malt shop booth. The one I’m also remembering in this blog took up major floor space in some corner of a dimly lit establishment, like a honky-tonk, playing the hits and lighting up the dancers who swayed in front of it. You might get nostalgic every time you see a movie that features a scene in a dingy bar off to the side of some lost highway. The star might walk up to the machine in a dark corner, look over the selections, drop some coins into the slot and begin to move to the music pounding out of the speakers.  Lucy Katlin in the column Elements of Style in the October 1987 issue of GQ magazine, made this telling observation about the jukebox itself: “Confidants in love-laced intrigues, grand maestros of barroom bacchanalia, stolid consolation to the lost and lonely, …”

As late as the 1980s, it was estimated that in the U. S. there were no more than 80,000 light-ups. You might think that a lot, but consider this. In the era when jukeboxes were at their peak, there were at any given time close to a half a million in operation. This was according to Charles R. Cross in an article in the December 1982 issue of Esquire magazine.

It used to be that jukebox operators did not have to worry about performance rights. Lucy Katlin wrote, “For years jukebox operators were exempt from performance royalties. But with an overhauled copyright law in 1976 came an $8 dollar annual fee on every coin-op phonograph.” At the time of this writing it had jumped to $63. As Lucy Katlinwent on to write, “Throw in the initial investment of about $2,500 dollars (for a box that can return about $50 dollars a week) and you’ve got yourself a mighty expensive barroom doodad. For many proprietors, jukes were just more trouble than they were worth.” And you can now understand why you don’t find too many of them operating, except in the basement rec room of a home where the owner has lovingly restored a model he or she has found either in an antique shop, or tossed unceremoniously on a junk-heap somewhere. One person’s junk is another’s treasure…

Today you can buy a cd jukebox for your den or rec room. You can program it to play onlyyour favourites, but something might still be missing–probably a little of the magic we remember. Do a search on the internet and you might see a little of that magic in articles and photos of the big jukeboxes we remember.

Some radio networks in the U. S. use computer-controlled cd jukeboxes.

In some out of the way places in the United States and here in Canada you’re more than likely to stumble upon one still in operation. If you did a lot of traveling in the past, you might be nostalgic for those old roadside diners you frequented for meals. These were fixtures on every major roadway a long time before there were the fast food restaurants of today. You might be remembering counters covered in formica, coffee that was strong enough to keep you awake on your drive, and booths along the large picture window where you could watch the traffic on the highway while listening to your songs on the jukebox. It seemed the jukebox was just as much of a fixture as the salt and pepper shakers and the napkin dispensers.

Automobile magazine recently reported that most of the diners that did well between the 1940s and the 1960s are either boarded up or have disappeared entirely to make room for the newer restaurant chains. Because baby boomers are such a nostalgic bunch, some companies have made a business of fabricating replicas of the classic diners we all remember. I would imagine that, given the choice, some people might choose to grab a burger at one of these replicas.

Maybe some day you’ll be nostalgic for your Walkman or your cd player, a favorite boom-box, an i-Pod or a cellphone that you can download your favorite tunes on. It’s the same feeling some people have for the old jukebox they remember on their dates. That could be part of the reason why we like putting coins in “one-armed bandits” in casinos. Old habits die hard.. The music we expect to hear is the ringing of the bells in the slot machine as the coins fill the tray below. The jukebox was a much better bet. At least you got something for your money.

The date was November 23rd, 1888, that the first jukebox was installed in an establishment in San Francisco. One can only imagine how archaic that beast must have been.  It might have been nothing more than a penny to listen to a scratchy disk through the ear-piece of an old wind-up phonograph that must have seemed the latest in technology at the time.

 ***

Don Jackson

“‘Can you see anything?’ Lord Carnarvon asked. ‘Yes,’ replied Howard Carter, peering through the small hole with the aid of a candle, ‘Wonderful things!’ Although this sounds like the beginning of a 19th century thriller, these words marked the culmination, in 1921, of a 10-year search for the tomb of King Tutankhamun…” An excerpt from an article called Viewpoints: Art and Artists: Tut: Uncommon by Harry Herbert Sloane and featured in the winter 1978-1979 issue of GQ magazine.

Candlelight seems always to be the best illumination when trying to unlock the mysteries of the ages. Now it would be easier to bring electric torchlight to help us to see through the opening of a tomb at an archaeological dig, but it just wouldn’t have the same effect…

Our images of those who deciphered the hieroglyphics of the ancient Egyptians in the flickering light of a candle seem to be imprinted on our minds, much like the after-image burn that the candle leaves. Any other light just doesn’t seem “right” for the translating of the lore and secrets of an ancient society.

 Indiana Jones in Raiders Of The Lost Ark would have been just as surprised at the moving floor below him, as he peered down through the opening, if he had tried to illuminate the interior with a simple candle.

Long before there was electric light, it was either the weak light of a lit candle or firelight that helped to banish the darkness in a home. I’ve often said on the radio show that a candle’s flame can be almost as mesmerizing as the light generated by a fireplace. It’s very relaxing to sit back and watch a candle burn slowly, even if you’re only savouring the moment alone. It can transform one’s mood on long, dark winter nights. And if you’re really quiet, not only is the visual effect soothing, the sound of one burning can also be heard.

This is a quote from the 1989 edition of The Friendship Book of Francis Gay, published by D. C. Thomson and Company. Gay tells us of a famous lamp. “…the famous gold lamp designed by the sculptor Callimachus over 2,300 years ago, and which used to stand at the Acropolis in Athens. Once filled with oil, it was said that it would burn for a whole year. There are various things which can burn for us many months–if we will let them, and they will lighten our whole life–faith, hope, and love, for example.”

This is a poem that was posted on a few web sites. It’s author is Unknown. “In my hands I hold a candle / Whose flame is small to see / And if I give but one light to you / My life is filled for me. / But … / In your hands you hold a torch / For many eyes to see, / So hold it tight that they may light / Their candlewicks from thee.”

More than 3,000 years after the youngest king to rule Egypt was wrapped in linen and buried in his gold death mask, his face was finally revealed to the public. It was unveiled earlier this month. King Tut now lies in a climate-controlled glass case instead of a quartz sarcophagus in order to better preserve his fragile remains. Thousands of tourists visit the tomb every month and experts feared the body would eventually crumble to dust. Two years ago, scientists began restoring the mummy that had been damaged when Carter first discovered and opened the tomb 85 years ago. Zahi Hawass, in charge of Egyptian antiquities, described King Tut’s face this way, as he stood in the hot tomb: “It has magic and it has mystery.”

Merle Shain in her book, Hearts That We Broke Long Ago, a Seal Book published by arrangement with McClelland & Stewart, Limited wrote, “It is better to light candles than to curse the darkness.” Some lines later she continues, “We can be lights for each other, and through each other’s illumination we will see the way.”

Speaking of curses…

The most famous curse, that seems to have little or no merit, would have to be the one that was associated with the opening of the tomb of King Tut. “Death shall come on swift wings to him that toucheth the tomb of the Pharaoh.” That was a hieroglyphic inscription supposedly found inside the tomb. In the Reader’s Digest Almanac Of The Uncanny, there is a whole section devoted to the question about animals being psychic. There might be more truth to this phenomenon than any ancient curse. “In 1923, four months after the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in Egypt, as the expedition’s sponsor, Lord Carnarvon, died in Cairo, his dog–5,000 kilometres away in England–yelped once and died.”

 ***

 Don Jackson

e.e. cummings wrote, “a wind has blown the rain away and blown / the sky away and all the leaves away, / and the trees stand. / i think i, too, have known autumn too long.”

“It took only a single flake to freeze my mind in the snowy night, / A few clangs to smash my dreams among the frosted bells, / And the stove’s night fire fragrance too is melted away, / Yet at my window the moon climbs a solitary peak.” Han-Shan Te-Ching (1546-1623) from Mountain Living, translated by James M. Cryer.

 Adelaide Crapsey in a poem called November Night from the collection Verse published by Alfred A. Knopf, wrote, “Listen… / With faint dry sound, / Like steps of passing ghosts, / The leaves, frost-crisp’d, break from the trees / And fall.”

 Yesterday during all that rain I was out in the garden by the pond shutting down the waterfall and cleaning the filters. I had left the pond open longer than maybe I should have this year anticipating the kind of late autumn we had last year. I thought I could get away with running the pond filters for a while yet before having to clean and dry them for winter storage. The dire forecast about last night’s winter storm gave me no choice but to head out in the pouring rain to do the last remaining chores. It’s also the reason why there was no blog entry yesterday.

 We have a huge magnolia tree that was planted when my daughter was born. It is now fourteen years of age. Every spring and summer it brings forth the most magnificent blooms that are waxy to the touch but extremely fragrant. It is the first perfume that comes from our gardens when the year begins to emerge from its winter hibernation. If you look back through my blogs you will find photos of the blooms this tree rewards us with every spring. It is so tall that it now towers well above the second storey of our house. You can just imagine how many leaves there are to rake up. We also have a huge linden at the far corner of our property that was no doubt planted shortly after the first owners moved in. It, too, drops enough leaves to fill many yard waste bags. Our chestnut tree that is now tall enough to afford some privacy for our swimming pool dropped most of its leaves a few weeks back.

I found some interesting information concerning the number of leaves that certain trees put forth. If you have found raking to be back-breaking labor this year, it might have a lot to do with these figures, and depending on how many mature trees there are in your neighborhood. This called Tree Facts by Magazet in the 1983 Canadian Farm and Home Almanac. “We don’t vouch for these figures but they are interesting: A good-sized poplar tree has 70,000 leaves; an apple tree, up to 100,000; a birch, 200,000; a fifty-foot sugar maple, 162,500; an average oak, 700,000; an American elm, more than 5,000,000–enough to cover almost a mile of forty-foot highway. A Monterey pine is credited with 8,000,000 needles. The white pine’s foliage would cover fifteen times the area overshadowed by its branches. And a 200-foot Douglas fir of the far west provides, it seems, a leaf surface encompassing 30,000 square feet, or nearly three-quarters of an acre.” Stanley Kunitz wrote, “Unless the leaves perish, the tree is not renewed.” (Something to remember when you’re raking the leaves and pine needles.)

 There is a wonderful line by Edna St. Vincent Millay that reads, “Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree, / Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one, / Yet knows its boughs more silent than before…” The boughs are just as silent after the leaves fall. The music they made when the winds rustled them is just an echo now. But they certainly make one final grand gesture before they go silent, by displaying some of their most spectacular colours. It’s almost music for the eyes. You might remember the music the angels heard when they gathered on the beach at sunrise and sunset in the film “City of Angels,” and how the fallen angel, Messinger, felt so lonely even among his former comrades because he could no longer hear it. I sometimes feel that way in November as my ears strain to hear the faint song of summer.

 This is a poem called The Oak-Leaves by Edna St. Vincent Millay, published in Collected Lyrics published by Harper. “Yet in the end, defeated, too, worn out and ready to fall, / Hangs from the drowsy tree with cramped and desperate stem above the ditch the last leaf of all. / There is something to be learned, I guess, from looking at the dead leaves under the living tree; / Something to be set to a lusty tune and learned and sung, it well might be; / Something to be learned–though I was ever a ten-o’clock scholar at this school– / Even perhaps by me.

“But my heart goes out to the oak-leaves that are the last to sigh / ‘Enough,’ and loose their hold; / They have boasted to the nudging frost and to the two-and-thirty winds that they would never die, / Never even grow old. / (These are those russet leaves that cling / All winter, even into spring, / To the dormant bough, in the wood knee-deep in snow / the only coloured thing.”

For the past month, I have been raking and bagging the leaves for pickup. After the last few leaves are down, it is usually a signal for me to begin the preparations for winterizing the pond. I felt bad having to disturb the koi and the goldfish. They are already deep in their winter hibernation. When the water temperature gets cold enough, their systems begin to slow down. We stopped feeding them sometime back when the water got cold enough. We have a spring and fall food supply that is easy on their digestion. They build up their stamina with their summer diet to last them over the course of our long Canadian winter. They go into a deep sleep that will see them through until the spring. People ask me why we leave them outside for the winter. This natural cycle allows them to grow hardier and more disease-resistant. I carefully pulled up the deep water filter that feeds the waterfall and cleaned it. I put in the heater that floats on the surface to keep a hole in the ice. I was soaked to the skin but the job had to be done, and after all the freezing rain that blanketed everything in sight in a thin layer of ice this morning, I was glad that I had finished the last of my autumn duties the day before.

 I may put off this one last chore for another reason. When I finish, I know that summer has truly left for warmer climes. There will be no more soft summer breezes for butterflies and dragonflies to float upon, no more quiet afternoons to enjoy outdoors, no more perfumes from summer flowers to scent the air. It’s like the sound of a door closing behind you to do this kind of work.

 Michael Pollan from Second Nature published by the Atlantic Monthly Press wrote, “A garden that never died eventually would grow weary. Robbed of springtime, unacquainted with the extraordinary perfume that rises from the soil after its had its rest, the garden winter does not visit is a dull place. The return every spring of earth’s first freshness would never be kept if not for the frosts and rot and ripe deaths of fall. So when I go out from the garden for the last time in autumn, I leave the gate open behind me.”

***

Don Jackson

I left out one of the most important features of the pencil during tonight’s show… the eraser… and I’m not talking about the movie…

 As Jean Paschke said in an article called “The Lowly Pencil” in the 2006 edition of The Alminac For Farmers and City Folk, “Although much earlier, in 1770, the rubber eraser had replaced breadcrumbs as a correction material, it wasn’t until 1858 that Hyman Lipman of Philadelphia made erasers standard equipment on pencils.”

How could I have neglected to mention erasers? I must have erased it by mistake…

There was one other quote in the article worth mentioning.

Henry Petroski wrote a book called, “A History of Design and Circumstance.” In it he talked about the most important feature of the pencil, “The very commonness of the pencil, the characteristic of it that renders it all but invisible and seemingly valueless, is really the first feature of the successfull engineering. Good engineering blends into the environment, becomes a part of society and culture so naturally that a special effort is required to notice it.”

***

Don Jackson

“I am the magical mouse / I don’t eat cheese / I eat sunsets / And the tops of trees.”–Kenneth Patchen from the first stanza of “The Magical Mouse” published in 1952.

The Guardian came up with some absolutely incredible data. I found it quoted in the Globe and Mail’s Social Studies column written and compiled by Michael Kesterton. “Last year, enough digital information–from e-mails and blogs to mobile phone calls and photos and TV signals–was generated to fill a dozen stacks of hardback books stretching from Earth to the sun.” This information came from the technology consultancy IDC. Think about it. In technology terms that’s 161 billion gigabytes. They’ve actually come up with the term, “exabytes.” Consider this as well.. “The sheer amount of data that has been created by the digital age becomes clear when comparing it with the spoken word. Experts estimate that all human language stored since the dawn of time would take up about five exabytes if stored in digital form. In comparison, last year’s e-mail traffic accounted for six exabytes.” Not five …but six! Is it any wonder that some of those e-mails go astray or get lost in the sheer load of “0’s” and “1’s” flying through cyberspace.

Sometime back, I read that there were more than 800 million pages available for viewing on the internet. Add one more for the page you’re reading right now…

 According to the journal Nature and once again the Social Studies column of the Monday September 27th, 1999 issue of the Globe and Mail, “Any two randomly chosen web pages are, on average, only 18.59 clicks away from one another. The average web page contains seven links.” In 1990, John Guare, wrote, “Everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation. Between us and everybody else on this planet.”

It was Canadian writer William Gibson who coined the phrase “cyberspace.” I’ve often wondered if he gets any residuals for its overuse.

I really believe that it was the film “2001” that may have been the origin of the term “com” that we know now as “dot com.” If not the true origin then it was probably the first to present it to a mass audience. If you look carefully at the screens of “Hal,” the highly sophisticated 9,000 computer aboard the spaceship going to the outer planets in the solar system, you will see the terms “com” and even “ATM” coming up from time to time. We may not have progressed as far in the 21st century as Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke envisioned when the film was released in 1968, but they were way ahead of the mark with terms that would be part of our everyday language. Listen for these words around you in your workplace or even at home.

I recently did a program based around the Star Trek phenomena. In one episode of The Next Generation, the Enterprise is having its computer system upgraded. The beings in charge of the upgrades communicate in English with the crew but communicate with each other in computer language. It’s not such a stretch of the imagination to consider the possibility that one day we might give up the spoken word in favor of a direct mind link with our computers. ..And then there will be seven “exabytes…”

In another episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, we see an open book under glass in the ready-room off the main bridge. In Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the future, books had all but disappeared. In an episode of Enterprise, the last Star Trek series in the franchise, technology is being bartered between the crew and an alien species. The Earth vessel receives upgraded technology and the alien species is allowed to download Earth’s classic literature from the starship’s computer database. The alien captain was quoting lines from some of the great works of fiction before the episode ended. I always worry what would happen if a virus would work its way into a major database in the future and erase the entire collection of the written word of the planet. In the past, the great Alexandrian Library was sacked and most of the scrolls destroyed by a zealous group opposed to the idea of a storehouse of the world’s knowledge. Very few writings actually survived the destruction.

Carl Sagan in the companion volume to his popular PBS series, Cosmos, published by Random House, wrote: “We know of a three-volume history of the world, now lost, by a Babylonian priest named Berossus. The first volume dealt with the interval from the Creation to the Flood, a period he took to be 432,000 years or about a hundred times longer than the Old Testament chronology. I wonder what was in it.”

I wonder, too… It was the first great storehouse of knowledge of the known world, now lost for all time. We need to keep hard copies as backup in the event of a catastrophy. Sometimes even the hard copies get destroyed, not by the hands of man, but by Nature. I remember an antiquarian bookseller in the French Quarter of New Orleans. He had aisles and aisles filled with shelves that contained very rare books. I wonder how many survived the flooding and the wrath of Hurricane Katrina. All those irreplaceable volumes. I still hope there are other copies in old bookstores somewhere in the world.

There is a certain tangible pleasure to be derived from holding a very old book in one’s hands that fingers on a computer keyboard or mouse just can’t duplicate. E. Annie Proulx, in a speech, and quoted in the Points To Ponder column of the May 1996 issue of the Reader’s Digest said: “Books give aesthetic and tactile pleasure, from the dust-jacket art to the binding, paper, typography and text design, from the moment of purchase until the last page is turned. Books speak even when they stand unopened on the shelf. If you would know a man, look at his books, not the software.”

 November 17th marks the anniversary of the patent for the computer mouse…

 ***

 Don Jackson

“Life is a gift to be used every day, / Not to be smothered and hidden away; / It isn’t a thing to be stored in the chest / Where you gather your keepsakes and treasure your best; / It isn’t a joy to be sipped now and then / And promptly put back in a dark place again.

“Life is a gift that the humblest may boast of / And one that the humblest may well make the most of. / Get out and live it each hour of the day, / Wear it and use it as much as you may; / Don’t keep it in niches and corners and grooves, / You’ll find that in service its beauty improves.”–Life by Edgar A. Guest from his collection “You” published in 1927 by the Reilly and Lee Company.

The radio show tonight, between 9 and 11pm, has its start in humble beginnings. It reminds me of this last will and testament left by a man of very humble means. It was  printed in a newspaper column a very long time ago. One woman had saved the faded clipping for years and was mentioned by Francis Gay in one edition of his “Friendship Book.” My source for it was “The Treasure Chest” edited by Charles L. Wallis and published in 1965 by Harper and Row Publishers. This beautiful collection was sent to me by a listener some years back.

Charles Lounsbury put this in his will: “I, Charles Lounsbury, being of sound mind and disposing memory, do hereby make and publish this, my last will and testament, in order, as justly as I may, to distribute my interests in the world among succeeding men.

“That part of my interests which is known in the law and recognized in the sheep-bound volumes as my property, being inconsiderable and of no account, I make no disposal of it in my will.

“My right to live, being but a life estate, is not at my disposal, but, these excepted, all else in the world I now proceed to devise and bequeath.

“Item: I give to good fathers and mothers, but in trust for their children all and every, the flowers of the fields and the blossoms of the woods, with the right to play among them freely, according to the custom of children, warning them at the same time against the thistles. And I devise to children the banks of the brooks, and the golden sands beneath the waters thereof, and the odors of the willows that dip therein, and the white clouds that float high over the giant trees. And I leave the children the long, long days to be merry in, in a thousand ways, and the night, and the moon, and the train of the Milky Way to wonder at, but subject, nevertheless, to the rights hereinafter given to lovers.

“Item: I devise to boys jointly all the useful idle fields and commons where ball may be played; all pleasant waters where one may swim; all snow-clad hills where one may coast; and all streams and ponds where one may fish, or where, when grim winter comes, one may skate; to have and to hold the same for the period of their boyhood. And all meadows with the clover blossoms and butterflies thereof, the woods and their appurtenances, the squirrels, and birds, and echoes, and strange noises, and all distant places which may be visited, together with the adventures there found. And I give to said boys each his own place at the fireside at night, with all pictures that may be seen in the burning wood, to enjoy without let or hindrance, and without incumbrance of cares.

“Item: To lovers I devise their imaginary world, with whatever they may need–the stars of the sky, the red roses by the wall, the bloom of the hawthorn, the sweet strains of music, and aught else by which they may desire to figure to each other the lastingness and beauty of their love.

“Item: To young men jointly, I devise and bequeath all boisterous inspiring sports of rivalry, and I give to them the disdain of weakness and undaunted confidence in their own strength. I give them the power to make lasting friendships, and of possessing companions, and to them exclusively I give all merry songs and brave choruses to sing with lusty voices.

“Item: And to those who are no longer children or youths or lovers, I leave memory, and I bequeath to them the volumes of the poems of Burns and Shakespeare and of other poets, if there be others, to the end that they may live the old days again, freely and fully, without tithe or diminution. To our loved ones with snowy crowns I bequeath the happiness of old age, and the love and gratitude of their children.”

 Who could contest a will like that?

 It’s interesting to note that this last will and testament was written by a man who died in a mental health institution in Illinois, in 1916.

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 Don Jackson

 ”I went to the Garden of Love, / And saw what I never had seen; / A Chapel was built in the midst / Where I used to play on the green.

“And the gates of this Chapel were shut, / And ‘Thou shalt not’ writ over the door; / So I turn’d to the Garden of Love / That so many sweet flowers bore;

“And I saw it was filled with graves, / And tomb-stones where flowers should be; / And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds, / And binding with briars my joys & desires.”–William Blake

 When my wife and I moved here in 1990, we lived in a small community that was close to a very old cemetery. On Sundays in autumn, we would walk the paths that wound their way beneath towering trees that were probably planted when the cemetery was founded. It seemed that no sooner did you pass through the old iron gates, all the noise of traffic and the city lessened. On our walks we passed by plots and headstones that dated back to the 1800s. There were also above-ground tombs with iron gates. Interred in these mausoleums are some of the pillars of the community. I immediately recognized the names engraved in the stone and marble above the doors. On every one of the graves we passed was a name and a few dates; the date of birth and the day of death were recorded. Some had faded due to time and the elements but the details could still be made out. There wasn’t one grave, no matter how old, that didn’t have the name of the person who lived his or her life to the fullest. To find a grave without a name you would have to look somewhere else…

 My wife received this in her e-mail just the other day. It is “Author Unknown.” I wanted to share the gist of it with you now that Remembrance Day has passed. Since this arrived in her e-mail, you may have received a copy of it with the powerful photos that accompanied this writing. If not, it’s worth searching the net for them.

 This writer begins by saying that one night on the game-show Jeopardy, the final question was something to the effect, How many steps does the guard take during his walk across the Tomb of The Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery? Apparently all three contestants missed it… This writer had the answer, as well as some other fascinating details about those who devote a great portion of their lives to this respectful duty.

 The guard takes 21 steps. It is to signify the twenty-one gun salute, the highest honor that is given to any military or foreign dignitary interred there.

 This writer also included these facts. After his about-face, the guard hesitates 21 seconds before the return walk, to once again signify the twenty-one gun salute.

 You will notice that the guard’s gloves are wet. There is a very good reason for this. It is done so that he does not lose the grip on his rifle. The rifle itself is carried on the outside shoulder away from the tomb. Once he completes his march, he does an about-face and again moves the rifle to the outside shoulder.

 The guards are changed every thirty minutes, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. This is a duty that requires very dedicated military personnel. These are the requirements for duty at the Tomb:

 * His height must be between 5′ 10″ and 6′ 2″ and his waist must not exceed 30″.

 * Those who volunteer for this duty must commit two years of their time, live in the barracks located beneath the tomb, and they must promise not to drink any alcohol whatsoever, on or off duty, for the rest of their lives…

 * The shoes are specially made. They feature thick soles as insulation against the heat and the cold. The heel plates are made of metal and extend to the top of the shoe. This is to ensure the loud “click” when the soldier comes to a halt.

 * The uniform is wrinkle-free. There are no folds or lint on the garment. The guards dress for duty in front of a full-length mirror. Five hours each day is spent preparing the uniform for guard duty.

 * During the first six months of duty, a guard of the Tomb is not permitted to talk to anyone or even watch television. All off-duty time is spent in the study of the 175 notable people who are laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery. The study includes memorizing who they are and where they are interred. President Taft is laid to rest there. So, too, is Joe E. Lewis, the boxer, and the most-decorated soldier of World War II. He was movie star and Medal of Honor winner, Audie Murphy.

 * They cannot use foul language (swear in public) for the rest of their lives and cannot disgrace the uniform or the Tomb in any way.

 * After the two year period is up, the guard receives a wreath pin that is to be worn on the lapel of the uniform. It signifies their service at the Tomb of The Unknown Soldier. There are only 400 presently worn on uniforms today, according to this writer. The guard must adhere to these strict rules and guidelines for the rest of his life or give up the wreath pin.

 After reading this over with my wife, I commented that it would take a very special person to make this kind of commitment. It would be one thing to adhere to these strict regulations for the duration of the duty served at the Tomb, but to follow them over the course of that person’s lifetime describes something of the character of the guard who volunteers.

 You might remember that in 2003 Hurricane Isabelle was making its way up the east coast of the United States and was approaching Washington. Both the Senate and the House were preparing to take two days off due to the storm’s imminent arrival. The writer who compiled the information said that on the ABC Evening News, “…it was reported that because of the dangers from the hurricane, military members assigned the duty of guarding the Tomb of The Unknown Soldier were given permission to suspend the assignment. They respectfully declined the offer. Soaked to the skin, marching in the pelting rain of a tropical storm, they said that guarding the Tomb was not just an assignment, it was the highest honor that can be afforded to a serviceperson.”

“I do not understand … / They bring so many, many flowers to me– / Rainbows of roses, wreaths from every land; / And hosts of solemn strangers come to see / My tomb here on these quiet, wooded heights. / My tomb here seems to be / One of the sights.

“The low-voiced men, who speak / Of me quite fondly, call me ‘The Unknown’; / But now and then at dusk, Madonna-meek, / Bent, mournful mothers come to me alone / And whisper down–the flowers and grasses through– / Such names as ‘Jim’ and ‘John’ … / I wish they knew.

“And once my sweetheart came. / She did not-nay, of course she could not-know, / But thought of me and crooned to me the name / She called me by-how many long years ago? / A very precious name. Her eyes were wet, / Yet glowing, flaming so … / She won’t forget.” –The Unknown by E. O. Laughlin, featured in the collection Best Loved Poems of The American People selected by Hazel Felleman and published in 1936 by Doubleday. This book is always in print and available to be ordered.

 The Tomb of The Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery has been continuously patrolled and guarded by this elite detail since 1930…

 ***

 Don Jackson

 At the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month we pause for a moment’s silence to remember those who have fallen in service to their country. The ultimate sacrifice in order that others may live free.

 My father served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II. He never made it overseas because he was a firefighter stationed at an airfield in Calgary, Alberta, where pilots trained. He told his family all about his training to be a firefighter. He had to sit in a fire-proof suit in the middle of a fire. He had to do all the training a civilian firefighter would need with the added knowledge of aircraft fires. He told us many tragic stories about getting the call to head out to one of the runways when there was a crash. He may not have served on a foreign battlefield, but his service to his country was not diminished by that fact.

 My mother served the war effort in her own way. She worked on the home front making ammunition. She told us stories about being picked up in a bus that had its windows completely blacked out so the workers had no idea what factory site they were being taken to. There was a lot of anxiety about the possibility of sabotage even here at home.

 Some years back when my children were in the early grades of school, I was asked by the Principal to be one of the Remembrance Day speakers. I recounted some of the experiences my parents shared with us about their service to our country.

 I wear my poppy proudly every year at this time and continue to wear it for days after November 11th.

 I was inspired by the fact that all the players on my son’s “AA” Major PeeWee rep hockey team wore poppies all week leading up to Remembrance Day. They wore them proudly on their team jackets to practices and games. My son was in goal last night for a home game. On the way to our arena, he whispered to me that he was going to win the game in memory of his grandparents. I told him it was a wonderful tribute.

 I watched him in goal last night as he played his heart out. He wasn’t challenged often but when he was he was square to the puck in the right position. He only let one slip by in the second period. It was a well-earned goal by the other side. He kept his team-mates in the game as they scored a total of four in three periods of play. They won their game and I made sure I was by the bench when the team came off the ice so that I could congratulate him on his win. I also told him that I felt a presence in the arena while he was on the ice battling hard. My father never lived to see him play let alone know that I would even have a son. He died just a few days before my daughter was born. She is two years older than her brother. My mother got a chance to see him play in House League when he first started. She was a regular fixture at the games and cheered loudly. She passed away before he was picked to play rep. Last night I was sure I felt something of their presence close by. Both would have enjoyed his play and would have appreciated his effort to honor their memory on Remembrance Day.

 ”To you from failing hands we throw / The torch: be yours to hold it high!” The words of John McCrae from the 3rd stanza of “In Flanders Fields,” written in 1915.

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 Don Jackson