Jolly Independence Day to y'all!

I cry. What can I say? I get mushy over stuff. I've wept at every patriotic July 4th parade I've ever seen, ESPECIALLY the hometown kind with little kids in wagons draped in bunting and waving flags, that sort of thing. A military color guard waters me up every time. For all of its shortcomings (few of which are lost on me, believe it when I say!) it's not lost on me that I can say so, out loud and loudly, entirely free from worry about being drug out of my bed in the middle of the night by uniformed troopers who will then pile up all my books in the middle of the room and light them on fire.

NOTE: reference Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. If you haven't read it, or haven't read it since required to in high school, get it at the library. And while you're there, see if they have the movie, which is decent. I am SO "Edgar Allen Poe" ....

Anyway, what I'm saying is, I really feel lucky, privileged and happy to live here in America. I know, it's not like I won it by athletic prowess or superior brains; I just sort of fell into it, and in Minot, North Dakota, no less. But I feel keenly aware of How Good I Got It, and mostly of all on the 4th of July.

Tonight, we're following our annual tradition: we go over to Blackhawk Country Club (they let the peasants in for the fireworks). We go real early and put our blanket down at the top of the hill. (It's a fairly steep hill, and they set off the fireworks at the bottom, on the green.) We take a picnic...well, no, at this point it's more of a pique-nique , of little cream-cheese-and-olive finger sandwiches, chips or veggies, ice-cold lemonade and something delicate for dessert. (The tradition was started by Miss Iris von Heliotrope, who - in spite of being a teddy bear - is a naturalized citizen and feels VERY strongly about the holiday.)

Tonight friend Donna is going to join us. After we nosh we'll lounge around, knit, read and gab until The Event. I usually take Miss Iris along, a couple small flags and a mylar pinwheel. (She's very sensitive about sparklers, as she is...you know... furred .)

But there's another tradition that happens NEAR the 4th - and that's the annual patriotic Concert on the Square; this year it was last night (i.e., the 3rd of July). It offers several opportunities for Old-Lady-Blubbering - I love it!

The Concerts on the Square are Wednesday evenings in the summer, and it seems like the whole town turns out. They're held on the lawns around the Capitol, on the Square, and they're very popular. (Yes, I know yesterday was Thursday - the planners forgot to put in for good weather on Wednesday this week, so it was postponed.) Some of the foo-foo places offer box lunches for the occasion, but people usually just bring their own grub. Some folks always spread out a white cloth, use fancy china, crystal wine glasses, &c. It's huge fun. There are always a riot of little children who delight in dancing and enthusiastic flag-waving. So anyway, we went last night.


I of course took knitting; Mr Dearling went on a walking tour before the concert, but I was delightfully entertained by watching my fellow Madisonians disport themselves with merriment and pizza as I knitted. They also played snippets, by way of warming up, starting at around 6:00 pm; the concert starts officially at 7:00. The weather could not have been better (it was that perfect sort of warm-with-cool-breeze evening that inspires Mr Dearling to declare "If there was ever a nicer day than this, it was before I was born!"). By the way - there are strategic speakers placed around by WHA Television, so that you can get the full impact even if you're sitting on the side of the Capitol away from where the orchestra is.

Before Mr Dearling got back, the program began with everyone standing for the Pledge of Allegiance (I cried) and then the "Star-Spangled Banner" (I wept). Then everyone settled down and the music began. (About then, Mr Dearling returned. He said it was "ok", but not brilliant, his walking tour.)

One nice thing about the concert is, you don't have to see anything, so you can have this wonderful live music and still knit or read or doze or play cards or drink wine -- all of which everyone does. (Mr Dearling's reading an excellent non-fiction book about Le Grand Derangement , the expulsion of the Acadians from Nova Scotia and their "relocation" in Louisiana.)

The music for this particular concert always includes medleys of good old American songs and a few Sousa marches, that sort of thing. There's a nice intermission (during which one can avail ones'self of the porta-loos or tidy up the snacks or wossname) and there is always a piece played by the young winner of a music competition; this time it was a very complex piece by Rachmaninoff played by a 15-year-old girl! We couldn't see her, as we were "around the side", but she tickled her some ivories, let me declare! Then they always play a medley of the music for each branch of the Armed Forces (get out the hanky) and ask that those members or veterans in each branch "stand and be recognized". The themes include Army, Coast Guard, Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force. OK, by the end I'm openly blubbering, no sense saying otherwise. Really gets me.

At the end they ask all military personnel and veterans to stand at once, and there is a long, satisfying round of applause. We don't support the War here in Madison, much, but boy do we support our boys and girls in the Service. (I have a grandson in the Marine Corps; haven't talked to him for a spell, but he got an enthusiastic and blubbery round of applause for him, wherever he is.)

This concert always winds up with Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture". Talk about tear-jerker! (Have I mentioned my propensity for Overdramatic Blubbering?) First of all, I LOVE this piece of music. Believe it or not, it creates in me a Deep Yearning for Mother Russia, homeland that I love from a former life as a noblewoman in the elegant Court of Tsar Pyotr Yvanovich (I so made that up, ignore it). Second of all, part of the chorus becomes the song from my old Alma Mater, Macalester College, so it brings up a big burst of Old School Spirit. (OK, so I didn't graduate. That doesn't matter; once a Macite, always a Macite.) And third of all - they really shoot off cannons in the dramatic end part of the piece !! How dramatic is THAT? Most years they fire off the "cannons" from the top of the bank we call "the glass cash register". This year they were on the ground somewhere - and in fact, they used a faster, lighter version of the piece, not so much to my liking. I'm for the heavy, ponderous, dramatic interpretation that summons up the full richness. But it sufficed. I wept, I didn't sob. I like the one where I sob, but it was OK, I liked it well enough.

I am a fan. Of the Concerts. Of Madison. And of America - I'm unapologetic about that.

The Heart Swells....

This may have to be written in chunks - as I write now, I've just heard a piece on NPR about "Scheherezade". It was an interview with a conductor (don't ask me her name, or if it was Scott Simon who interviewed; when you know me better you'll know I have a problem remembering names) about the various movements and themes in the piece.

As a storyteller, of course, "1001 Nights" may be the touchpiece, the standard, although I assume that impending death would be a powerful incentive to keep a story going. But in my youth my ballet master was a fellow who had performed "Scheherezade" with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. He was a genuine Old School Hungarian ballet master - if our developpe was not high enough, a good tap with his stick improved it. We worshipped him. Each year the school produced a performance, but this was no recital with spangles and tambourines. Oh no, it was a full ballet, at Northrop Auditorium on the U of MN campus, with the the orchestra under the baton of Antal Dorati. The costumes were commissioned from New York, the sets painted by a master-painter.... all in all, a full ballet performance of the sort seen in the old theatres of Europe.

And not everyone was in the performance. Oh, no, you had to wait for that moment when, after several years of classes (and you had to be over 13 so that you had the strength for toe slippers) Maestro would come over during class, tap you with the stick and say, "Yes, yes, start coming to rehearsal next week." That was IT! That meant that you could go to the shop where they fitted toe slippers, and you could begin to go to rehearsals, because you were "in the Company". Furthermore, perhaps the very best of all - you could wear pink tights. If you weren't in the Company, you couldn't wear pink tights.

Where all this is leading is, my first (and as it turned out, only) season in the Company, one of the ballets we performed was "Scheherezade." My role was small, but to this day hearing that exquisite music literally makes my heart swell and my eyes water. Maestro danced the Favorite Slave and his ethereal wife (she of the great gentle grey eyes) danced Zobeide, the Princess. Their costumes were replicas of the old Ballet Russe, all gold tissue and loops of pearls, and his makeup included some sort of gold dust which made him gleam. From my first lesson at that ballet school to the last, when college required all of my time, some of my richest of life memories occurred . Some good (that performance); some sad (I lost my mother while studying there); some profound life experiences (my First Serious Beau broke up with me). So hearing the incredible "Scheherezade" is a whole Event.

Thus inspired, I went shopping for small presents for my daughters-in-law who are mothers. While ambling around Target (a favorite sport of mine) I thought I'd check to see if they had a DVD of "Hair". They did. And it was cheap. I bought it. I brought it home and put it in to watch/listen to while tidying up a tad and getting settled to wait for the Lovely Daughter to come over and knit. It must be some weird moon phase, as watching it and hearing that music ALSO really got to me and I wound up sitting down and watching....and crying AGAIN! I am so past menopause (nevermind the hysterectomy) that I can assure you it's not PMS. But that whole hippie thing and anti-war thing and Viet Nam really gets to me, and when Burger gets marched off into the plane I just lose it. I might think it was flashbacks, but I didn't do THOSE kind of drugs in the '60s. I had two bittylittle kids. Is there such a thing as Severe Nostalgia Syndrome? Well, if there wasn't before I declare there is now. And I've got it bad.

Then the Lovely Daughter arrived, bringing my Mothers' Day present a day early. You will so not believe this: she gave me a LILAC!! No, not a bouquet, a whole real TREE! Even it has some flowers on it already with their amazing scent. You can bet that I'm spending time Sunday nestling it into position in the sunny front yard. I LOVE lilacs....my mother had them in our yard when I was a child and....oh oh, the Syndrome's kicking in again. OK, all in all, I've had a truly spectacular pre-Mothers' Day day. All that and some mighty sociable knitting in the bargain. In the greater scheme of things - one powerful mightyfine day.