To Bok, Perchance to Caw

Photo of a brood of chickens courtesy http://www.haccpeuropa.com/.

Ten Things You Didn't Know About Chickens

1.  There are 150 varieties of chickens.

2.  They can run up to 9 miles per hour.

3.  They can live for up to three days without their heads.

4.  September is National Chicken Month.

5.  The world has more chickens than people.

6.  Chickens speak their own language.

7.  A cross between a chicken and a turkey is called a "turken".

8.  The latin term for a chicken is a "galos domesticos".

9.  The chicken is the closest relative to the T-Rex.

10.  "Alektorophobia" is the fear of chickens.*

*Source:  http://www.youtube.com/.




Today a pastor came to my children's school and delivered a talk about chickens.  He recruited ten volunteers, all relatively small in stature, and asked them to strut around like chickens, flapping their wings, pecking at the ground for food and making their trademark "bok bok" sound.  Then the pastor recruited a tall teacher to act as an eagle and descend on the brood of chickens.  But he was not any ordinary eagle.  He decided to make his home with the chickens, walking instead of flying, pecking at the seed like the chickens, rather than searching for prey, and even "boking" like a chicken.

Finally, a naturalist came along and reminded the giant eagle that he was the king of the birds and that he should act accordingly.  After much coaxing, the eagle took flight, soaring over the land with his giant wings, searching for fish, and "cawing" like an eagle.  He realized his full potential, that God had made him much more than just a chicken. 

We, too, might go through life acting like the chickens, running around with our heads cut off.  But we have been given such talents and resources.  With God's love and direction, we no longer need to peck at the ground like chickens, but rather soar like the eagle.

Photo of hawk courtesy http://nathistok.bio/.

God's Helpers

He could not send us here alone
And leave us to a fate unknown;
Without providing for His own,
The outstretched arms of mother.

God could not watch us night and day
And kneel beside our crib to pray,
Or kiss our little aches away;
And so He sent us mother.

And when our childhood days began,
He simply could not take command.
That's why He placed our tiny hand
Securely into mother's.

The days of youth slipped quickly by,
Life's sun rose higher in the sky.
Full grown were we, yet ever nigh
To love us still, was mother.

And when life's span of years shall end,
I know that God will gladly send,
To welcome home her child again,
That ever-faithful mother.

George Wiseman

Ballad of Birmingham

"Mother dear, may I go downtown
Instead of out to play,
And march the streets of Birmingham
In a Freedom March today?"

"No, baby, no, you may not go,
For the dogs are fierce and wild,
And clubs and hoses, guns and jails
Aren't good for a little child."

"But, mother, I won't be alone.
Other children will go with me,
And march the streets of Birmingham
To make our country free."

"No baby, no, you may not go
For I fear those guns will fire.
But you may go to church instead
And sing in the children's choir."

She has combed and brushed her night-dark hair,
And bathed rose petal sweet,
And drawn white gloves on her small brown hands,
And white shoes on her feet.

The mother smiled to know that her child
Was in the sacred place,
But that smile was the last smile
To come upon her face.

For when she heard the explosion,
Her eyes grew wet and wild.
She raced through the streets of Birmingham
Calling for her child.

She clawed through bits of glass and brick,
Then lifted out a shoe.
"O, here's the shoe my baby wore,
But, baby, where are you?"

Dudley Randall

Photo of four girls killed in Birmingham Church bombing on September 15, 1963 courtesy www.english.illinois/edu.

I saw four little girls sitting on a wooden bench in an old yellow brick church in Brantford this week and I thought of four little girls sitting in an old red brick church in Birmingham almost 50 years ago.  The main difference between the two groups of girls is the colour of their skin.  The Brantford girls don't have to worry about a group called the KKK.  They don't have to worry about dogs and guns and hoses and tear gas.  They don't have to worry about which fountain they drink at or which stores they shop in or which restaurants they eat at or which libraries they borrow books from or which schools they attend.  Their parents don't have to worry about the right to vote or whether they will be paid less for a job because of their skin colour or which neighbourhoods they are allowed to live in.

The Birmingham girls had a much different life fifty years ago.  Their city earned the nickname "Bombingham" after the forty-plus racially motivated bombings that had taken place there since World War I.  Alabama's governor, George Wallace, known for his pro-segregationist views, resisted black leaders' attempts to integrate Birmingham, announcing in September of 1963 that the city needed "a few first-class funerals" to stop integration. 

Only a week later, four KKK members complied by planting a box of dynamite under the steps of the 16th Street Baptist Church, a meeting place for civil rights activists like Martin Luther King Junior and Ralph Abernathy.  The Sunday School children, heading downstairs at 10:22 am, never got to hear the sermon "The Love that Forgives" since the bomb exploded.  The dynamite blew a hole in the back of the church, destroyed the steps, and shattered every stained glass window but one, showing Christ leading the children.  Twenty-two people were injured.  Four girls died including Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley.

Would there be justice for the Birmingham girls?  Robert Chambliss was arrested shortly after the bombing, charged and put on trial for the crime.  However, he was only found guilty of possessing dynamite and sentenced to six months in jail and a $100 fine.  Chambliss was retried in 1977 and finally convicted of the murders, this time going to jail for life.  In 2001 the FBI announced that the crime was committed by a KKK splinter group called The Cahaba Boys.  Thomas Blanton and Bobby Frank Cherry were finally arrested and charged with the murders.  The final member of the group, Herman Frank Cash, had already died of natural causes in 1994, never seeing a day in jail. 

This week, the four Brantford girls left the old yellow brick church in one piece.  But may we never forget the four Birmingham girls who never got to leave the old red brick church that day in 1963.



N.B.  Here are some other materials about the Birmingham Church Bombing:

1.  The Watsons Go to Birmingham -- 1963 (a novel by Christopher Paul Curtis)
2.  "Birmingham Sunday" (a song recorded by Joan Baez in 1964)
3.  "4 Little Girls" (a documentary by Spike Lee)
4.  Until Justice Rolls:  The Birmingham Church Bombing Case (Frank Sikora)

Black Blizzard

On May 11, 1934, "dust lodged itself in the eyes and throats of weeping and coughing New Yorkers" who strolled down Madison Avenue.  Tourists on the observation deck of the Empire State Building could hardly see more than a wall of haze.  Darkness descended over the city at noon.  Was it local pollution?  No, for the same dust blew across Beacon Hill in Boston, Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C. and Peachtree Street in Atlanta.  In fact, even ships 300 miles off the Eastern Seaboard had dust covering their decks.  The origin of the dust was 2000 miles away in an area which would soon become known as "The Dust Bowl".  On this day, Americans would endure the violent storm that would become a symbol of the Dirty Thirties, a black blizzard.

Back in the 1800's, the Great Plains were covered by prairie grass which the buffalo would graze on.  However, as pioneers pushed the frontier further west, they settled the land, and plowed the fields.  During World War I, the demand for wheat skyrocketed and by the 1920's, American wheat production increased by 300%, thanks in large part to the newly invented tractors. 

In 1931, the Great Plains was hit by a severe drought.  In 1932, fourteen dust storms raged across the prairies.  By 1933, the total number of storms had doubled to 28.  Although the dust storms decreased in number the following year, they increased in intensity.  As migrants from Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Kansas, and New Mexico headed west to California to look for work picking fruit, the dust headed east.  Three hundred and fifty million tons of silt landed on major cities like New York, Boston and Atlanta. 

The great dust storm of May 11, 1934 was a reminder to the city dwellers that their country cousins were not fairing so well.  Hugh Bennett, a soil conservation advocate employed by the government, was in a meeting in Washington D.C. that day, pleading with United States Senators to support his plan to preserve the soil.  At first, he got little support; however, by midday, a massive wind whipped up and the sky turned black.  To rest his case, Mr. Bennett pointed out the window, saying:  "There goes Oklahoma!"  Finally, in 1935, President Roosevelt had federal regulations passed to ensure crop rotation, grass-seeding and new plowing methods be used by American farmers.  However, it would not be until the Fall of 1939, with the end of the drought, that America would find true relief.

Photo of dust storm in Oklahoma in the 1930's courtesy http://static.ddmcdn.com.

 

Floating Palaces

According to http://shareranks.com, the world's top ten ocean liners in history are:

1.  Titanic (1912)

2.  Olympic (1911)

3.  Queen Mary 2 (2003)

4.  United States (1952)

5.  Nieuw Amsterdam (1905)

6.  Normandie (1932)

7.  Queen Mary 1 (1934)

8.  Bremen (1929)







9.  Queen Elizabeth 2 (1969)

10.  Lusitania (1906)

Art Imitates Life

Robert Munsch, born and raised in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, worked in a daycare for years.  In the mid-seventies he moved to Canada where he found a job at the University of Guelph.  His boss's wife read one of his stories and suggested that he seek a publisher, but he declined.  Then his boss made the suggestion, giving him two months off to devote to writing.  Mr. Munsch explained that he relaxed for two months but on the last day, he mailed out ten manuscripts:  nine were rejected, but one was accepted, Mud Puddle, about an Oregon girl that he met on a nursery school playground who was playing in a giant mud puddle.

Robert Munsch says "it takes at least 200 tellings for a story to get really get good".  The children's author finds much of his material in real life when he tells his stories at schools, libraries and daycares. Many of his characters really do exist.  For instance, Robert wrote Love You Forever after his wife suffered two stillborn births in 1979 and 1980.  Happily, the Munsch's successfully adopted three healthy children in subsequent years.  Ribbon Rescue is based on a girl wearing a dress with ribbons who attended one of his story-telling sessions.  Lighthouse is about two children he met in Pontiac, Michigan.  Boo! is about a little boy named Lance who loved Halloween whom the author met at Lloyd George Public School, right in front of the Hamilton steel mills.  More Pies! is a story he used to tell about a boy named Samuel at lunch time; however, he did not actually know a Samuel.  So he waited for a fan mail letter, amongst the 10,000 a year he received, from a Samuel.  Soon he had his Samuel, and he added a little brother just like Samuel's real life brother.  Andrew's Loose Tooth, is based on both a boy from Fort Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan who was missing his front teeth, and Mr. Munsch's son, Andrew.  Stephanie's Ponytail is based on a girl with a ponytail sticking right out of the top of her head who attended one of the author's story-tellings.  While helping his friends host a birthday party for their daughter Kirsten whose mother was expecting a baby, Robert got the idea for the story Baby Alligator about a Mommy who goes to the zoo rather than the hospital and comes home with an alligator.  The inspiration for The Sandcastle Contest was twofold:  first, Robert's daughter Tyya loved to build sancastles; secondly, the Munsch's neighbours, the Luttman's, used to pack up everything but the kitchen sink and tie it to the top of their camper every summer when they went on vacation.  Thomas' Snowsuit was based on a Halifax classroom full of students garbed in snowsuits after Robert had told them every story he knew and had to come up with a new one off the top of his head.  Too Much Stuff is based on a girl named Temina whom the author met on a plane ride who unpacked her suitcase full of dolls; the book was almost called Temina's Dolls, but the publisher didn't think that boys would read such a title.  Madison from Orangeville was Robert's inspiration for Look at Me about a girl with a flower painted on her face. 

Robert Munsch has found the secret to entertaining stories:  humour is one of the ingredients; a good plot is another; but also genuineness.  He knows that real people make real stories.  To date he has published about 50 stories and written many more.  And it all started with a mud puddle.

Image of Robert Musnch and his characters courtesy www.practical-homeschooling.org.

"The Juggler" by Jacqueline

We arrived at Heritage Street United Church promptly at 9:15.  Opening the double doors of the yellow brick building, we discovered Jacqueline's friends waiting in the foyer.  The four of them sat on a big wooden bench, braids and buns bobbing, and legs swinging, as they chatted merrily.  We parents checked to make sure they had their songbooks.

We tiptoed up the steps of the church where we met a worker at the top and each girl gave him her name.  Then we waited as someone finished playing their piece.  The double doors to the sanctuary opened and in we walked, the girls taking a seat in one pew and us in another.  What a magnificent building!  The tall stain glassed windows harkened back to yesterday.  The dark stained wooden ceiling looked just as solid as the day it was constructed.  History was in the walls of that church:  I spotted a plaque dedicated to the soldiers who served in the first World War with the heading "Methodist Church".  By the Second World War, it had become a United Church. 

My thoughts were interrupted when the Kiwanis Festival official called the girls to the front:  Jacqueline, Leah and Madalyn (Laurelei was in another category).  While Rob thought the church would be full, it was almost empty.  Ironically, an empty church can be just as intimidating as a full one.  However, Jacqueline had no time to ponder this since she was the first to perform.  Clad in a peasant blouse and black tights, she walked with surprising poise to the front, announced her piece in a tiny voice and then sat down at the piano.  I sat in the pew with my eyes closed, more nervous than the pianist.  But as Jacqueline played, she gained confidence.  She hit the right notes; she found the right tempo; she remembered the staccato notes.  With the exception of a slip towards the end, she played flawlessly.  Then she settled back into the pew as the adjuticator penned some copious notes.

Jacqueline's friends also played their pieces well, showing great poise.  Then the adjudicator came to the front with her notes in hand.  She praised the girls for their performances and gave suggestions for improvement.  Jacqueline graciously accepted her first prize red ribbon.  But she was quick to congratulate the other girls, saying that they had more difficult pieces than hers.

Outside one of the mothers took photos of the foursome beside the Kiwanis Festival sign, cars whizzing past in the background.  We hugged and congratulated our daughter and then said goodbye.  She was on her way to Tim Horton's with the other girls to celebrate, her red ribbon in her hand.

Congratulations, Jacqueline!



                              


Photo of Heritage United Church (formerly Colborne Street United) courtesy http://heritageunitedchurch.ca.