Here’s a good reminder.  Before we continue our story, here’s one last look at the Paradise Theater today in it’s sad state, although still loved by the guys:

You can see why Tom couldn’t find it his last trip to Cotter.  He’d remembered it being large and majestic.  A proud Paradise Theater most grand.  But, let’s move on.

The “boys,” including cousin Oliver, lived in Cotter for over eight years.  “Tommy” was the youngest, at 2, when they moved there.  Cousin Oliver was 5, Jimmy was 7 and Dickie was 17, going on 18.

Times were good when they moved there in 1946.  WWII was just ove, it was a big railroad town, and business was booming.  (See here.  You’ll be glad you did.)  There was even a big railroad roundhouse at the edge of town.  Anyone remember those?

The U. S. government was also employing masses of workers to build the Bull Shoals Dam on the White River just north of Cotter.  It was an impressive project, employing hundreds and hundreds of people, taking several years to complete.   It was started in 1947 and completed in 1951.  President Truman came to Cotter on the train to dedicate the dam and Tom remembers seeing him.

But, then, times got tough.  Workers left in droves and the railroad roundhouse shut down.  Tom’s dad fell on hard times, as well, and lost both the Paradise Theater and one he owned in a nearby town.  He kept running and managing theaters, though, driving around to several different little towns in the area, having four or five he ran over the years.

Mr. Andrews also had to make trips to Memphis and other places in managing the theaters he did and was gone a lot.  Tom’s parents divorced when Tom was eight, but they stayed in Cotter for a couple of years longer.

As the tides of fortune came and went, the Andrews family moved around within the town a lot.  So, when we were there we had to tour all around town to try to find them all.  There were so many and of such diverse nature that the boys had trouble recalling them all, needing cousin Oliver’s input, as well.

The main one they remembered was their first.  Here it is with Oliver (l.) & the “boys” standing in front.

Here are a couple more views.

As you can see, it was a typical frame house of the times.  The elderly man who lives there now welcomed us all in when the boys knocked on his door to explain the commotion out front.  Although the man is very proud of him home and how well he’s taken care of it, the boys were most disappointed that all of the rooms and walls had been moved around and changed for other uses.  Nothing was in the same place, although they had fun remembering exactly how it was and what was where.

I thought two of the most delightful remembrances were of the neighborhood.  (Besides where all of the girls lived, as all four of them seemed to have plenty of girlfriends!  I was not surprised, since they were all very good looking as boys and quite charming, even then, I hear.)

The first was the culvert down the hill, under which Oliver and Tom remembered playing, using it as their tunnel.

The second I mentioned before.  The scary church high on a corner just like the one picture below up from the house . . .

except that the “scary” one has a big tower rising over the vestibule with high dark green/blue/red very Gothic stained glass windows, as well large Gothic windows all around.

According to Tom, when he was little, he & his mother walked several blocks to the First Baptist (Southern Baptist, it declares proudly on the front) Church . . .

and had to pass the  scary church.  Tommy, being curious, asked his mom why they didn’t go there.   The Methodists worshiped there, she told him, but the way she said the word “Methodists” as they passed, along with the looks of the building, little Tommy was most uncertain about and suspicious of Methodists for many years to come.

There are a lot more houses and stories in Cotter, but I’ll save some of those for next time.  As you think back on your young childhood, do you have memories like Tom’s and his brothers and cousin?  Places you played, things you mistakenly thought, the size of things around you?

Share some of your childhood memories with me (& Tom) today.  Please!!

Stay tuned.  Lots more to come.  (Can you believe we did all of our tour in four days and it’s taking me three months + to tell it?)

To be continued . . .

If you are a movies lover, you absolutely MUST not only see this film, but buy it to add to your collection, however small or large, to watch over and over whenever you are in that certain  mood when no other film will suffice.

Anyone who has ever been to movies as a child and been charmed by the magic upon the screen will fall in love with this charming, nostalgic tale, chronicling one child’s journey into adulthood as a passionate lover of films.

What does this movie have to do with our Andrews’ memories tour to Cotter, Arkansas last fall?  This movie could chronicle Tom’s childhood there from the time he was 2 until he was 10 (1946 to 1954) when he, too, became a passionate lover of film at The Paradise Theater, which his dad owned.

The theater was built and opened in 1931.  Take a close look, because it’s hard to recognize today:

The theater is still there today, but not in quite the form it was then.  In fact, when Tom went to Cotter for a few hours about 10 years ago while on a business trip nearby, he could not find the “big” theater he remembered from his childhood anywhere.  Until he stood down the street on the corner and looked back to see there were two small doors in the front of a small building in the middle of the block.

Here it is now:

The ticket booth in the center is long gone, as well as the upper small windows (see it brand new, above).  The owner of the hardware store to the right in the photo owns the Paradise Theater and wants to restore it.  (It looks like a monumental task to me, and one I highly doubt shall ever be done, sadly.)  He showed us all the information he had on it and let everyone peek in from the front and back.  It is too fallen into decay and disrepair to be able to enter safely.

Here’s the historical marker on the front:

I have a photo of Tom standing next to it, but the look on his face is too sad to share.

Here’s a view from the back.  Notice the square hole in the middle of the photo that goes down to the basement.  See it?

The side wall of the theater was to the right above, and the screen just to the left in the photo, running from the top of the photo to the bottom (the theater was “sideways”  from the front of the building).  When Tom was six years old, he was in the theater with his little friends and told them he could disappear around the right side of the screen and “magically” come out the other side (which sounds impressive when you’re six years old).

He disappeared all right.  He went running lickety-split around the back of the screen and promptly fell through the open trap door to the basement, splitting open his chin on a nail and knocking him out cold.

When he came to, the movie was running and he staggered up and out, blood streaming down his shirt from his chin, crying loudly as he stumbled up the aisle.  He could have been a creature from a sci-fi/horror movie of those days.  (Another great film that those of you growing up in the 50s and 60s during the cold war/early sci-fi films must see is John Goodman’s 1993 “Matinee.”  It is hilarious, taking place in south Florida during the Cuban missile crisis when Goodman – a film promoter – comes to town to wire all of the seats in the local movie theater for a sci-fi film “Mant” – a radiation induced part man/part ant.   Rent it today!)

His mom had to take him over to Gassville to the hospital (remember those two posts here & here) to have several stitches in his chin.  To this day, he has a scar and a bit of a crooked chin (which just makes him that more endearing).

This will be it for today.  To get the full experience of Tom’s growing up in The Paradise Theater beyond what I’ve written here, rent the two movies I suggest above.  You’ll be glad you did.

Next time, we’ll further tour Cotter, seeing the houses the boys lived in there, along with the “scary’ Methodist church up on a corner near one of their homes.  Stay tuned.

To be continued . . .

[Note:  Just ignore the gray "box" across the bottom that will go away in seconds.  Second, when the "ads" start across the bottom, hit the x box in the right corner to shut them down.  It's worth that bit of work to hear these guys.  In fact, you'll want to watch them 2 or 3 times!]

Click here to view the embedded video.

Cheers!  And many blessings to each of you today!  Dee

Click here to view the embedded video.

Being in the middle generation between an elderly parent and grown children with young families many times – as has been lately – brings about all kinds of family crises.  Add to the mix siblings, nieces and nephews, even a grown grandchild with a little girl of her own and life can become a whirlwind.

It has been thus now for the past several months, more so now than ever, and I begin to wonder who I really am, you know?  I have to shift gears so often and quickly that I forget whether I am a mom talking to a grown son or an aging daughter talking with her own mom and sometimes the lines become blurred.

I find myself wanting to just dictate to those around what they should be doing, how to do it, when to do it and let’s just be done with it.  I grow impatient with all of them and think that somehow they should just be me, so as to act accordingly.

How foolish I am in thinking those things, but I think human.  I don’t even have a clear path before me some days, much less for anyone else.  I flounder and fail.

It is hard these days to even find a moment in which to reflect on the deeper values in my life – being God’s bewildered child, striving to do to all, but not even taking very good care of myself in the process.

My pinched nerve in my neck from last spring/summer began flaring up again Sunday.  Not terribly painful – yet – and not at all, I hope, so I started sitting in traction again this morning.  I tried to do so all day yesterday, but urgent family matters intervened.

I could not even get out of traction this morning before new ones arose.

Upon getting a couple of those “sorta” settled, I decided to watch the video above by Casting Crowns and to remember who I really am and how things really are with me.

I hope you will join me today in praising God and thanking Him for all we have in our lives – even the troubled times – because He is always here with us and will help us and lead us in all we do if we will turn to Him.

Many blessings to each of you today!  Dee

P. S.  Hope to be back next time with more of our Arkansas Memories Tour.

One of the biggest blessings came yesterday about noon when Rebecca called me to tell me she’d had a CT scan early yesterday morning, that the abscess in her right kidney was completely gone and the radiologist took the drain tube out of her kidney that came out on her back, with a tube down her side that had been draining pus for a week and a half.

We all rejoice in this good news for her.

Yet, she has a long way to go, being still on antibiotic and having to take iron tablets three times a day because she is very anemic and they have not yet determined the cause.  She tires very easily and must rest a lot.

Also, there are a couple of major rifts in our family right now that are beyond my comprehension or understanding.  Tom struggles to understand, as well, as he holds me close as I grieve and cry out to God for wisdom to know how best to be His servant to everyone around me, beginning with my children.

Yet, I am strengthened and uplifted  – rested now – by your ongoing prayers for us.  God is the source of my peace as I have spent the past two days here at home alone in silence in a beautiful place of meditation on this earth.

I sat here at my desk yesterday afternoon looking out my long window, open to the cool breezes coming from our front porch and the woods across the road (to the east).  A small nearly black bird with dark gray breast – a kind I have never seen before – came and perched on the edge of the porch just outside my window and sat for the longest time.

He chirped loudly and clearly and I watched him until he flew away, thanking God for sending him to me to consider.  God’s small winged bird that He watches over just as He watches over me.  I felt an overwhelming sense of wonder that God loves me so.

So, I leave you with another song today – and video.  It is Chris Tomlin singing “Amazing Grace,” but with beautiful lyrics and music of his own added that make it even more inspiring.

May God richly bless you each with His peace today in all things, even in times of greatest hardship, as He has me.

Dee

Click here to view the embedded video.

President Herbert Hoover,
of Carrie Jacobs-Bond

[Note:  I sure hope someone appreciates this post.  I've spent about 6 hours total putting this together, including over 4 1/2 hours today!  Sheesh!  Sometimes I just can't help myself, wanting to do quality, well-crafted work on interesting topics.  I even (just now) edited this note, for goodness sakes!]

Imagine being a young woman trying to build a music career in a time when there was no such thing as music videos, CDs, iPods, iPhones, internet, YouTube, world wide instant communication – not even radios!  Radio broadcasts would not begin commercially (the first in Philadelphia) for another 30+ years, and then, only for those close enough who had electricity and enough money to buy them.

This was the world of Carrie Jacobs-Bond (1862-1946), who began as a struggling young widow of 26 in the early 1890s in Janesville, Wisconsin,* then Chicago, trying to make enough for she and her young son to live on with her talents as an accomplished singer, pianist and writer.

In a time long ago and radically different from our own, Bond scored three greatest hits** known far across our land and Europe, one becoming an “anthem“# of American troops in both World War I and World War II – “A Perfect Day.”  (See last post.)   She traveled extensively across the U. S. and Europe in World War I , performing many concerts for the troops, singing and playing “A Perfect Day,” herself.

While she had only three “hits,” she wrote and published nearly 200 pieces of popular music  in her lifetime and ended up a multimillionaire, the first made by the time her most popular song, “A Perfect Day” (for which 25 million copies of the sheet music were sold), was published in 1910, when she was 48.  She was known as a singer’s songwriter and countless artists sang and recorded her top three songs.

This fact is amazing, considering the hard times she endured, beginning as a young child when her father died.  By 26 she was widowed, and she and her little son survived on one meal a day, living in one room with no furniture.  Further, she had no formal training as either a singer or pianist (other than a few childhood piano lessons, long after she, a prodigy at age four, could play and perfectly mimic others’ songs).

We think of these times being the times of firsts in many areas for women, yet Bond had many “firsts” of her own.  She was the most successful composer of her time, became the first woman in the U. S. to own her own sheet music publishing company (formed in 1896, when male-dominated publishers in Chicago refused to publish her work) , to earn over $1 million dollars in music royalties and the only woman to own full rights rights to every song, word and piece of sheet music she created, plus all royalties.

While Bond enjoyed many successes, she endured much tragedy and suffering in her 84 years.  She suffered from debilitating rheumatism for years, which for a professional pianist must have been exceptionally difficult. The warm climate was one reason she was at Mission Inn (an exquisite inn/hotel still) in Riverside, California in 1909 when she wrote “A Perfect Day.”

She wrote the lyrics after watching the sun set over Mount Rubidoux from her 4th floor room,  and the tune three months later while touring the Mojave Desert.   Within a year, 8 million copies of the sheet music were sold and 5 million recordings of the song.  The carillon of Mission Inn, home of a vast collection of bells, rang out with “A Perfect Day” at the end of each day for many years. Mission Inn has even named a 4th floor suite in her name.

In what must have been the saddest event in her life, Carrie Jacobs-Bond’s son committed suicide in 1932, at 53, while “A Perfect Day” was playing on the phonograph in his room.

So, it must have been for her, in the end, as well as all who’ve ever heard and loved her “perfect” song, the most meaningful and poignant song of all.  We can only imagine her memories at age 84 of her son and of the thousands upon thousands of young soldiers in two World Wars for whom her song was their anthem.  Those who loved and were lost, those who remained with memories of perfect days together in the past to keep them going on.

I leave you with the renowned Paul Robeson singing “A Perfect Day,” which he recorded just before World War II, no doubt partly for the troops to come in the vast war being thrust upon them.  Take the time to listen and remember.  You’ll be glad you did.

Click here to view the embedded video.

*Read her fascinating story here in Wisconsin Hometown Stories.

**The three were “A Perfect Day,” her most popular song, published in 1910, and her most enduring song, “I Love You Truly,” and “Just Awearyin’ for You,” both published in 1901.

#Read and listen to a recent (August 29, 2009) Weekend Edition of her life on NPR, which shares many of the details of her storied life and career, especially during the two world wars.

I’ve been meaning to post for a day and a half now, from here at my mom’s, but better late than never, right?!

For today, let me share with you a couple of recent photos of my youngest grandson (I have 2 granddaughters younger), Captain America/Power Marine a/k/a Brendan David O’Neil, recently turned 5 (although he was 4 in these photos).

First, I present to you “Captain America a/k/a Superman, Defender of All Things Good and Right” in this world of ours:

Our family is extremely fortunate in that Captain America/Superman has a secret night time life, as well, as “Power Marine,” Defender of the Seas:

But, above and beyond both these “lives,” Brendan lives as the sweetest, gentlest little child of God’s.  I’m tellin’ ya – who could not feel safe and sound in a world that has such sweet, loving, gentle children as Brendan – and he truly is a sweetheart.

So, I leave you all these evening with these thoughts and this blessed song:

Click here to view the embedded video.

God bless us every one, as we journey on this road we call life together in our walk with the Lord.  In Jesus Name, Amen.

Enjoy & praise God for the gifts He has given us.  We are surrounded by greatness.

Dee

P. S. This hymn is dedicated to all who have lost loved ones in this life.  We shall be with them again in the resurrection!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Tom’s grandson, Julian Nguyen, a 10th grader, was on a Dallas classical radio station Thursday playing an excerpt from a Beethoven Sonata on his violin.  His companion was a young lady who is a pianist and a high school senior. 

The two were featured members on the station’s lunch time program in a big downtown mall and shopping area.  Both students go to the specialized, by invitation only, Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. 

So, take a couple of minutes to listen to their piece.  You’ll be impressed, I guarantee.

Cheers & Blessings to you all today!  Dee

It’s a long story not worth the telling.

But yesterday, and full force today, I’m not feeling well at all with a sore throat and cold like symptoms.  Got it from Tom, I guess.  I feel plain lousy.

In fact, I feel like I’m slip, slidin’ away, as in Paul Simon’s great song (copied in full below), one of my favorites. He says in part, "You know the nearer your destination, the more you’re slip slidin’ away."

Many times, that’s exactly how I feel!

So you ever feel that way?

I can’t explain it, I don’t think.  Or understand it.  It just seems that life gets to be too much sometimes and I don’t know if I’m making any headway or not.  Today is certainly one of those days.  And the past couple of nights have been, too.  I just go to bed, turn out the light, close my eyes and say "God . . . Help me."  I don’t even know what to ask for.  Just help.

What comforts me most is knowing that He does help.  He’s helped the past couple of days in turning hurricane Ike way further south and west of here (slip, slidin’ away), although I don’t wish it upon anyone.  I’m also praying that Ike will falter and downgrade a lot like Gustav did.  Although, you certainly can’t tell that Gustav did in a good many places in south Louisiana, still.  Some people in the lower parishes have not yet been able to come home and New Orleans’ mayor, Ray Nagin, has been worrying that people would be way too tired and financially tapped out to be able to evacuate again so soon.  That’s a very real worry.

We heard on local TV (New Orleans) last week right before Gustav that the average amount families spend when they have to evacuate is $1,000.  That’s a lot, friends.  I was looking earlier today at a photo on the New Orleans’ Times Picayune online showing long lines of people lined up outside to receive food stamps.

I’m sure those people feel as if their lives are slip, slidin’ away, too.

As Christians, I believe we need to seek out and serve as many people as we can find who are slip, slidin’ away.  We each have our own way of doing that and a different circle of people around us from which to choose from, but we first must be aware and looking.

At least, encouraging other Christians around us to do so and help them to reach out to others when we can’t ourselves.  I’ve taken numerous "spiritual" personality and "graces" tests in the past that have just about all shown that my personality and grace is to be an encourager. 

Today, I hope that I may be an encourager to you who stop by here.  I certainly don’t feel like getting out at all and poor Tom had to make his own lunch today because I felt so bad.  But, I’m feeling better enough this afternoon to come in here to "compute" and plan on "fixin’" Tom’s dinner.  

You guys are always a been encouragement to me, so thanks, once again, for that.

And, if you have any words of wisdom for me today about how to overcome my "slip, slidin’ away" syndrome, I’d like to hear them!   

Cheers & Blessings to you all today!

Dee

*Slip, Slidin’ Away – Lyrics and song by Paul Simon

CHORUS:
Slip slidin’ away
Slip slidin’ away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you’re slip slidin’ away

I know a man
He came from my home town
He wore his passion for his woman
Like a thorny crown
He said Delores
I live in fear
My love for you’s so overpowering
I’m afraid that I will disappear

CHORUS

I know a woman
Became a wife
These are the very words she uses
To describe her life
She said a good day
Ain’t got no rain
She said a bad day’s when I lie in bed
And think of things that might have been

CHORUS

And I know a father
Who had a son
He longed to tell him all the reasons
For the things he’d done
He came a long way
Just to explain
He kissed his boy as he lay sleeping
Then he turned around and headed home again

CHORUS

God only knows
God makes his plan
The information’s unavailable
To the mortal man
We work our jobs
Collect our pay
Believe we’re gliding down the highway
When in fact we’re slip slidin’ away