I completely dropped the ball when it came to taking photos at our Saturday workshop in East LA. Suffice it to say that everything was beautiful and we had a small but enthusiastic group of attendees….singers who also happened to be the choir members, and who spent the second half of the workshop rehearsing songs for Sunday service with us.
Service on Sunday was my first time serving as an “official” Lightbearer; this also went quite well. Then, after a brief rest, Dharana and Pritha drove us to Forest Lawn cemetery, so we could visit Yogananda’s crypt. It was so peaceful and inspiring; I was really glad we made the time to go there.
Finally we arrived back at the ashram, ready to join the residents in some major “relax & have fun” time — namely, pizza and a movie! (I was also finally able to remember to take a few pics.)📷
Hanuman, Lucia, and Pritha blessing the pizzaHanuman describing our pizza choices while Lucia and Dharana look onTony, Lucia, Yogini, and Ramesha: ready for the movie, “Encanto”So relaxed and comfortable! Pritha, Dharana, Tony, Lucia, Yogini, and Ramesha’s kneeHanuman and Aumkara, together with Sri Yukteswar
We hadn’t watched “Harold and Maude” in at least fifteen years. Ramesha had seen it only once before, while I’ve watched it probably twenty times since my late teens.
I can still remember hearing about it for the very first time. A friend in our high school church group had seen it and loved it, so he tried to describe it it to me. I was completely baffled and couldn’t imagine why he thought I would enjoy a movie that had to do with suicide!
Of course, I saw it a couple of years later and to this day it remains one of my all-time favorite movies. Largely for its humor, quirkiness, and uplifting Cat Stevens music, but even more for the joy that is Ruth Gordon and for its message that life is meant to be lived.
K. Dolphus Stroud, 1925 high school valedictorian, Palmer High School (formerly Colorado Springs High School)
I’ve never been particularly good at keeping track of extended family. Partly because I have so many of them!
My mother was oldest of ten children, while my father is second oldest of six. So, I had a lot of aunts and uncles, which means a whole lot of cousins!
But the fact is that my mother’s father (my grandfather, Tandy Stroud) was one of eleven children. So, I also had a whole lot of great-aunts and great-uncles — mostly living in Colorado — who I never did manage to get straight in my mind.
Well, come to find out that one of my cousins is in the process of making a movie about my great-uncle, Kelley “Dolphus” Stroud, an aspiring Olympic athlete who had to travel from Colorado Springs to the Olympic trials in Boston on foot when he was denied funding to travel by train due to his race. It’s really quite a fascinating story, as detailed in this article and in the video below.
Making a movie is an expensive proposition. I’ve made a small donation, but I’m mostly doing my part by helping to spread the word.
Yes, it was a day of doing as close to nothing as we’ve done in a very long time.
I did manage to fix simple meals and do dishes. But other than that?
Well, I checked a few emails. I put away some clothes. I read my book. I replied to a few texts. We watched a movie. I read my book. I tried to write a thoughtful blog (but gave up). I subscribed to PBS. We watched an hour-long TV show. We watched a half-hour TV show.
Phil Hewitt & Charley Fosberg*Seated next to guitarist, Grant Geissman*
The other day I realized — out of the blue — that it was fifty years ago this past July when I visited Europe for the first time. The realization gave me pause, perhaps because — despite the passage of so many years — my seventeen year old self suddenly felt very present.
I considered writing about it. I even looked for, but couldn’t find, my photos of the Blue Saints tour, when we spent five weeks traveling and performing in five European countries. But other things came up and I forgot about it.
But then I saw that the movie, “The Exorcist,” premiered fifty years ago today, and more memories came flooding back…
The twenty-five members of the jazz band I was in ranged in age from sixteen to twenty-one or so. I was one of only five girls with the band: two instrumentalists, two singers, and someone in charge of wardrobe.
So, we’re driving first through Belgium, then France, Switzerland, Germany, and Denmark. And at a certain point I notice that Jack Sanford, one of my fellow saxophonists, instead of gazing at the passing scenery has his nose stuck in a book. For hours on end!
I finally ask him what he’s reading that is so gripping and it’s something called “The Exorcist.”
Fast forward to our return to California, when I get hold of a copy of the book and start reading it. Of course, I couldn’t put it down and read into the wee hours of the night. At which point I couldn’t close my eyes to sleep because I was so freaked out.
I finally got to sleep around dawn, waking up later in the morning determined that no matter what I wouldn’t read the book past 3:00 in the afternoon. If I hadn’t finished it by then, too bad, it would have to wait until the next day. Needless to say I was finished by 3:00.
When the movie came out, there was absolutely No. Way. I was going to subject myself to an audio/visual, live action representation of what I had read in that book.
Fifty years later, I’m grateful to say that I don’t actually remember the book in my own mind. Reading the article about the movie I can relate to some of the references, but only in an extremely vague and neutral way.
* By the way, the photos are from a band trip to Washington D.C., I believe the same year as our trip to Europe. In the second photo I’m avoiding the camera while sitting next to Grant Geissman, who went on to have an exceptional career — starting with the Stan Kenton Big Band, then recording with Chuck Mangione (in fact, Grant is the guitarist on the famous “Feels So Good” solo; listen below); and he just went on from there. It’s fun to be able to say “I knew him when!”
We watched “A Man Called Otto” tonight and enjoyed it very much.
Of course, you can’t go wrong with Tom Hanks. We also really enjoyed the supporting cast, especially “Marisol” (played by Mariana Treviño) and an oh-so-elegant kitty.
The movie made us think, as well as evoking a wide range of emotions. There was sadness, for sure, but it was ultimately life-affirming.
One review referred to it as a “tender message of hopefulness and spiritual renewal” and I have to agree.
This was a down-the-rabbit-hole kind of night which started when I read an announcement that one of our friends got a new job working for Born Free USA.
Of course, the song “Born Free” immediately started playing in my mind. It’s the theme song for the movie “Born Free“, which came out when I was around ten years old. I had to immediately research whether there was a connection with Born Free USA, and there was!
Then I had to listen to more songs by Matt Monro, the English singer who performed the movie theme song — what a voice!
Then I had to read more about Joy and George Adamson, the real-life couple who raised Elsa, an orphaned lion cub, and then had to train her to survive in the wild in order to avoid committing her to a zoo.
Then I forced myself to stop so I could write about it all in this blog post. 😅
SONG LYRICS Born free As free as the wind blows As free as the grass grows Born free to follow your heart
Live free And beauty surrounds you The world still astounds you Each time you look at a star
Stay free Where no walls divide you You’re free as a roaring tide so there’s no need to hide
Born free And life is worth living But only worth living ‘Cause you’re born free
