This is not an official blog of the City. It is the work of Mark Kapel who is solely responsible for content.

Search This Blog

Friday, June 28, 2013

Oakland County Fourth of July Fireworks starting tonight June 28th and ending Saturday July 6th

These listings  are made available to us  by Michigan Fireworks  Displays, the most extensive directory of it's kind we have ever seen. There you will Find Fireworks Displays for Memorial Day, 4th of July, New Year's Eve, and information on Carnivals, Snow Festivals & Sporting Events.
            Michigan Fireworks Displays
The only requirement for us to use the data is that we credit it's source and link to it. A link is provided at the end of this blurb, and under  the  listing the left hand "Oakland  County". and the left hand "share" which we assume will  allow you to share listings with family and friends. There is also a link  at the end of all Oakland County Listings. You will want to visit Michigan Fireworks Display's web site often. Firework events can be sorted by Date, City, or county. Currently on Michigan Fireworks Display in addition to summer events you will find listing of Firework events held in fall and early winter of 2012. As soon as time and dates for these autumn events are announced  in 2013 they will replace last year's listing. For now they remain and show  what to look  forward to.

Last but not least please  be advised that firework events are often subject to weather cancellations or date changes. Michigan Fireworks Display, with a small staff and a big area to cover can not inform, or update you or be responsible for said. To link to Michigan  Fireworks Displays Click Here

Currently listing 519 Fireworks displays in Michigan for 2013



  1. Oakland County

We're NEW and IMPROVED for 2013! Also there's now a FAQ

Listed By Date


Date:  June 26, 2013 at 10:06pm
Where: Borden Park
1400 East Hamlin Rd 
in Rochester Hills, Michigan 48307
Find more fireworks displays in Rochester Hills, Michigan


Date:  June 27, 2013 at Dusk
Where: Sibley Park
48900 Pontiac Trail 
in Wixom, Michigan 48393
Find more fireworks displays in Wixom, Michigan


Dates:
  • June 28, 2013 at Dusk
  • June 29, 2013 at Dusk
Where: Seymour Lake Township Park
2795 Seymour Lake Road 
in Oxford, Michigan 48371
Find more fireworks displays in Oxford, Michigan


Date:  June 28, 2013 at Dusk
Where: Red Run Golf Course
2036 Rochester Road 
in Royal Oak, Michigan 48073
Find more fireworks displays in Royal Oak, Michigan


Date:  June 29, 2013 at Dusk
Where: Brandon Middle School
609 S Ortonville Rd 
in Ortonville, Michigan 48462
Find more fireworks displays in Ortonville, Michigan


Date:  June 29, 2013 at Dusk
Where: South end of the lake.
White Lake Rd 
in Highland, Michigan 48356
Find more fireworks displays in Highland, Michigan


Date:  June 29, 2013 at Dusk
Where: Shot from Higgins Island
in Lake Sherwood, Michigan 48181
Find more fireworks displays in Lake Sherwood, Michigan


Date:  June 29, 2013 at Dusk
Where: Over Shadow Lake
3100 Pond 
in Leonard, Michigan 48367
Find more fireworks displays in Leonard, Michigan


Date:  June 29, 2013 at 10:00pm
Where: Milford High School
2380 South Milford Road 
in Highland, Michigan 48357
Find more fireworks displays in Highland, Michigan


Date:  June 30, 2013 at 10:00pm
Where: Civic Center Park
360 W 13 Mile Rd 
in Madison Heights, Michigan 48071
Find more fireworks displays in Madison Heights, Michigan


Date:  July 3, 2013 at Dusk
Where: Lincoln Hills Golf Course
2666 West 14 Mile 
in Beverly Hills, Michigan 48025
Find more fireworks displays in Beverly Hills, Michigan


Date:  July 3, 2013 at Dusk
Where: Lincoln Hills Golf Course
2666 West 14 Mile 
in Birmingham, Michigan 48012
Find more fireworks displays in Birmingham, Michigan


Date:  July 3, 2013 at Dusk
Where: Over Sylvan Lake
in Sylvan Lake, Michigan 48320
Find more fireworks displays in Sylvan Lake, Michigan


Date:  July 3, 2013 at Dusk
Where: Launched from the center of the lake
425 Glengary 
in Wolverine Lake, Michigan 48390
Find more fireworks displays in Wolverine Lake, Michigan


Date:  July 3, 2013 at 10:00pm
Where: Founders Sports Park
36000 W. Eight Mile Road 
in Farmington Hills, Michigan 48331
Find more fireworks displays in Farmington Hills, Michigan


Date:  July 4, 2013 at Dusk
Where: Clawson Park
1098 N Bywood Ave 
in Clawson, Michigan 48017
Find more fireworks displays in Clawson, Michigan


Date:  July 4, 2013 at Dusk
Where: Launched from a barge on Lake Orion
in Lake Orion, Michigan 48359
Find more fireworks displays in Lake Orion, Michigan


Date:  July 4, 2013 at Dusk
Where: Clintonwood Park
6000 Clarkston Rd 
in Clarkston, Michigan 48348
Find more fireworks displays in Clarkston, Michigan


Date:  July 4, 2013 at 10:00pm
Where: Springfield Oaks County Park
12451 Andersonville Road 
in Davisburg, Michigan 48350
Find more fireworks displays in Davisburg, Michigan


Date:  July 4, 2013 at 10:05pm
Where: Rackham Golf Course
10100 W 10 Mile Rd 
in Huntington Woods, Michigan 48070
Find more fireworks displays in Huntington Woods, Michigan


Date:  July 5, 2013 at Dusk
Where: Dequindre at 10 Mile
in Hazel Park, Michigan 48030
Find more fireworks displays in Hazel Park, Michigan


Date:  July 5, 2013 at 9:30pm
Where: Over the beach area
1480 W Romeo Rd 
in Leonard, Michigan 48367
Find more fireworks displays in Leonard, Michigan


Date:  July 6, 2013 at 9:30pm
Where: Groveland Oaks Park
14555 Dixie Highway 
in Holly, Michigan 48442
Find more fireworks displays in Holly, Michigan


Date:  July 6, 2013 at 10:00pm
Where: Maceday Lake
Maceday Lake Road 
in Waterford, Michigan 48329
Find more fireworks displays in Waterford, Michigan


 To link to Michigan  Fireworks Displays Click Here
Posted by at No comments:

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Bloomfield Hills City Open House Set for Sunday September 22nd 1pm-5pm.


 This information comes to us from the St. Hugo's Herald (Parish Bulletin) Sunday June 23nd Edition.. The City has been
remarkably mum about the 2013 City Open House event  which will happen in 86 days. It was first proposed and spearheaded by resident Mary Juras.  


Initial  published reports early in the year hinted at some of the events and stressed that all would be accomplished without any cost to the City.  An organizing meeting with possible participants was scheduled for March. The Mayor got involved  and (not necessarily) ipso facto nothing more was heard. Until  now.


The event is a massive  expansion of last year's very successful  Public Safety Open House which was also scheduled for late September.   The  Public Safety  (Police and Fire) Open House will again be a major attraction  of the event. This time however other  city attractions and landmarks will be participating as well. They include  Christ Church Cranbrook,  Cranbrook House and Gardens, The Cranbrook Art Institute and Science Museum, and the Village Club which where Brunch will be served.

 As part of the event St. Hugo of the Hills  will be showcasing the Historic stone Chapel. If you were married there you probably didn't get a good look at it. A docent guided tour  is scheduled for 2pm and  self guided tours will be  available all day from 1pm to 5pm.

 The St. Hugo Herald  article concludes by urging everyone to save the date and plan to attend with your family in September.






Posted by at No comments:

Join the Bloomfield Historical Society and recieve cards and invitations like the one below in the mail !



But you don't have to join to enjoy Saturday 
at the Craig Cabin which open to the public and free of charge !





Join Us
The Bloomfield Historical Society is dedicated to fostering an appreciation of the rich history of the Bloomfield Township area by identifying, promoting, and conserving our heritage. We encourage research to educate and engage all generations.   Note the “Bloomfield Blossoms” book offering on the “What’s New” page.
Are you curious about the history of Bloomfield? What was life like in 1830 when the census showed only 30 families living in the area? How did we change from an area of farms and orchards to become home to some of the most important industrialists and philanthropists in the 20th Century?
Who we are:We’re a young and growing Society. Founded in 2004, we came together because of our interest in the history of the Bloomfield area and the people who played a part in making it what it was, and is today.
What we do:We respond to the curiosity of our members. We co-sponsor a series of programs centered on our local history. We raise awareness of Bloomfields past to inform its future.
What you can do…Join us! Download our Membership Form and join us in preserving our history.  If you have any questions, please email us.

Click on story to enlarge 
Posted by at No comments:

Public Safety Officers Chris Furlong and Rick Mattot Commended for Top Notch Police Work.


Officer Furlong
At a recent City Commision Meeting. Chief David Hendrickson commended Officers Furlong and Matott for making significant arrests.  

 Like you see on  TV from Columbo to Elementary, Officer Chis Furlong, was able to put his skills, training, and power of observation to good use in turning a routine traffic stop into an  arrest.
Officer Mattot

A   more dramatic incident, widely reported in local  newspapers occurred in Bloomfield Township. According to the newspaper accounts at  approximately 10:45 pm a woman leaving a store at Long Lake and Telegraph  en route to her car in the parking lot  was pushed  from behind to the ground  by two  assailants who then with her purse ,fled in a vehicle.That vehicle would be stopped by officer Rick  Matott. He had been   monitoring Township radio calls and using his powers of observation was able to put the pieces together and make an arrest  of the alleged perpetrators.

 " It  was your guy that did that (made the arrest) ", Township Police  Chief Geof Gaudard  respectfully told Chief Hendrickson when they met at a meeting.
If the name is  Mattot  is familiar  it is because Mattot's father, Chief Rick Mattot  just retired after 31 years of service to City of Bloomfield Hills. In a career than went from 1982 to 2013,  Chief Mattot rose from an entry level dispatcher to Chief in 13 years . He also helped the City in a pinch by serving  a number of years as  both  City Public Safety Director and City Manager.



Posted by at No comments:

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Baldwin New Titles 6/25/201



Beautiful Day by Erin Hilderbrand:  Gathering on Nantucket for a wedding planned to the letter by the bride's late mother, the Carmichaels and the Grahams hide their scandal-ridden, crumbling lives from the blissfully unaware, happy couple.
Check Availability 



Sisterland by Curtis Sittenfeld: When the strongest earthquake in U.S. history occurs just north of their St. Louis home, Kate and Jeremy find the disaster further complicated by Kate's twin sister's prediction about a more powerful earthquake.
 Check Availability

Tell Me by Lisa Jackson: The most hated woman in Savannah, Georgia, is about to be set free. Twenty years ago, Blondell O'Henry was convicted of murdering her eldest daughter and wounding her two other children. The prosecution said that beautiful, selfish Blondell wanted to be rid of them to be with her lover. Now Blondell's son, Niall, has recanted his testimony and demolished the case. Reporter Nikki Gillette is determined to get the true story, and not just for professional reasons. Blondell's murdered daughter, Amity, was Nikki's childhood friend. The night she died, Amity begged Nikki to meet with her, insisting she had a secret to tell, but Nikki didn't go. Her guilt is compounded by other complications--Nikki's favourite uncle, Alexander, was the attorney who helped save Blondell from execution. And rumours swirl that he was one of her many lovers. Nikki's fiancé, Detective Pierce Reed, is concerned she may be compromising the case. As she digs for answers during one of the most sweltering summers in Savannah's history, he also worries for her safety. Everyone involved seems to have secrets, from Blondell's old boyfriend and his fundamentalist, snake-handling in-laws to the cop who led the original investigation. Check Availability

 
The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (DVD): When a street magician's stunts begin to make their show look stale, superstar magicians Burt Wonderstone and Anton Marvelton look to salvage their act, and their friendship, by staging their own daring stunt.
 Check Availability 




Phantom (DVD): At the height of the cold war, the world holds its breath when a Soviet submarine armed with nuclear missiles goes missing in the Pacific. On board the vessel, the battle-tested captain and a rogue KGB agent are waging a life-and-death game of cat and mouse. With enemy forces closing in and time running out, the captain fights to keep control with nuclear Armageddon hanging in the balance.
 Check Availability
Posted by at No comments:

Sunday, June 23, 2013

44th Annual St. Hugo Altar Guild Rummage Sale This Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Donations Still Accepted till 6 pm Today.


































44 years ago was 1969,and a rather eventful summer. which among other things included  the Moon Landing, the Miracle Mets and Woodstock . 

 Today, almost a half century later the St. Hugo's rummage sale continues as one of the summer great events. Many floors of  bargains  are arranged by department and every day is a themed event. 

 Wednesday is the Charity Preview and Silent Auction which could include priceless antiques, and more. Admission is $2  for the 6pm-9pm event. It is understood that there is a 25 percent mark up.

 Thursday doors open at 9am. The half off  price sale is 3pm to 7pm. Admission is free.

 Friday is Bag Day  the Sale starts at  9am and ends at noon as does the 44th edition of the St. Hugo Rummage Sale.
Thinking of donating ? Follow the signs on Opdyke past the big Church, up the hill to front door parking at the school. Chances are  before you can open your trunk  a volunteer will come to assist with carrying items in. A tax receipt for your donation is also available at the door. Donations are being accepted up to 6pm this evening.
Posted by at No comments:

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Downtown Bham Blfd Magazine Touts Township Fire Dept. Trashes City Public Safety Dept. City Mayor and Chief Take issue. We adjudicate.

(City of) Bloomfield Hills Public Safety emergency training is at the lowest possible level to maintain public safety(combined  police and fire) organization accreditation as medical first responders. Neighboring Bloomfield Township Fire Department has 63 firefighters  who are all trained as paramedics  the highest level.
  -Downtown Birmingham Bloomfield Magazine (Current issue).

 Actually  it is  a little more complicated than the editorial suggests.

 Bloomfield Hills Township  is a community with  a Police Department of  70 sworn officers  and Fire departments with 60 uniformed  career firefighters and officers. They are how ever separate units. The 63 paramedics mentioned are probably attached to the Fire Department  and as paramedics are the highest trained in terms of study or training hours in the emergency medical service hierarchy.  Township Police and Fire serve a community in excess of  40,000 residents.

 The City of Bloomfield Hills has according to it's web site has a Public Safety Department which is  a  "combined police and fire department serving the residents of Bloomfield Hills Michigan. (The Department) has one station which is located at City Hall. The Department  boasts 26 state certified sworn police officers who are also state certified firefighters and state certified medical first responders along with four civilian personnel assigned to the Communications/Records section.  The Public Safety Department serves a City of less than 4,000 residents.

 When you call 9-11  the Township they will dispatch either Police or Fire.  In the City the  all responding officers are police, fire,and  state certified medical first responders.









For medical transportation and advanced  emergency medical services en route  the City contracts with Star Ambulance  Their units are staffed by  a Paramedics and  EMT personell. An EMT officer is the next step up from first responder. Starr offers both Basic Life Support, and Advanced Life Support unit Ambulances

 If the term "first responder" sounds familiar  it may be a result of the bombing at the Boston Marathon. First responders were integral part of the EMS efforts there and today according to the Boston Globe many first responders are being recognized for their contribution in a special  ceremony at Boston Harbor.

 While  First responders lack the training of Paramedics, who lack the training of ER doctors, who lack the training of specialist physicians,   First responders   have become  an essential  part of Emergency Medical Services whose job is to get  the injured or the ill  to the Hospital. The vital role of  first responders  is that they are the first on the scene and they are mobile.  

 In the  City of Bloomfield Hills  first responders who are also Police Officers and for that matter firefighters, cruise in cars. 

 Not a duty you would associate with your average  fire department. In fact the civillian response to the vehicles of  the two public safety branches is  exactly the opposite. 

 People get out of the way of Fire Engines  but if they need help and see a police car they flag it down.

 For these reasons and new ones like large scale medical emergencies caused by terrorism or natural  disasters (Sandy Hook Hurricane or Oklahoma Tornadoes) the state of Michigan  is emphasizing  both  citizen disaster preparedness and First Responder training. 

 You can see this by playing around with variants  of " First responders  in Michigan" in your favorite search engine.

 Oakland Community College in training utilized by area Police and Public safety departments, teaches would be First Responders basic airway management, CPR  and AED, Oxygen therapy, patient immobilization, patient triaging for multiple trauma victims, and assisting EMT's and Paramedics during advanced care.

 Chief  Hendrickson told the City Commission that the City's first responders means  trained personnel are on the scene in  two and a half minutes as opposed a generalized  average of five minutes. 

 That readiness, combined with the City's small size and access to major roads means in five minutes  instead of help just arriving, the patient could be en route to a hospital.

 In emergency health care the best system is the one that works the best. That certainly would seem to require. mobility and quickness as well as ability to think outside the box.
Posted by at No comments:

Monday, June 17, 2013

"Single Selfishness and Compulsive Greed" explained in great detail by author Thomas Wolfe.

First edition coverTo make a long story short I am not well versed in English  Literature. 
In the  sixth grade I did read The Human Comedy by William Saroyan which I regard as the great American novel.

  In College the English Department and I quarreled over such things as late papers. I left in a huff and went to Slavic Studies Department where they were rolling out an  extensive Russian Literature in English translation Curriculum. There I was always good for a B and sometimes but rarely an A.

 Later in mid life I did read the complete works of Shakespeare. I also enjoyed the writng of George Orwell and the novels Evelyn Waugh.

 Still my knowledge of the English Language as Literature (except when it is translating Russian) is extremely limited. Therefore  it never ceases to amaze me when I stumble across a rather brilliant work of literature in original English.

 My parents liked the American writer Thomas Wolfe (1900-1937 Author of  four novels,  Look Homeward Angel,Of Time and the River and published posthumously, The Web and The Rock and You can't Go Home Again.

 In  fact Thomas Wolfe  and  College Basketball may have been the reason why my parents retired to Chapel Hill North Carolina, home of the University of North Carolina. Thomas Wolfe was a graduate of UNC and in his very autobiographical novels he referrers to the town as "Pulpit Hill."

 Ever since the early 1960's It was my Mother's contention  that we were living in the last days of the Roman Empire. The reason? Single selfishness and compulsive greed. Read Thomas Wolfe, she would say.

 I was in college before I really started listening to my mother.  By then Thomas Wolfe was old. There was another writer a Tom Wolfe who wrote The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test but that was something different.

 My mother warned me that reading the original Thomas Wolfe would not be easy. In fact he wrote in all directions at once and benefited from a brilliant editor Maxwell Perkins  who put much of what Wolfe wrote together in a coherent form. I think she expected me to try reading Thomas Wolfe novels  but I didn't which was probably a disappointment.

 She passed away in 1997. My father gave me a xerox copy of a page from a book that he said she wanted read at her funeral. A passage was marked off and I was given the honor of reading it. I wasn't sure I could manage without going to pieces but my wife showed me how to read the piece properly. I tried to get her to read it. She is good at that sort of thing but she said it was my place to read it. Somehow I managed the feat. After the service people complimented me(?) on selecting "Thomas Wolfe at his best."

 In reality the only  Thomas Wolfe I could actually claim to know the short story entitled, "Who Knows Brooklyn ? Only the Dead Know Brooklyn."  The story was written entirely in the long gone Brooklyn dialect where the neighborhood "Bensonhurst" is pronounced "Bensonhoist" It concerns a man  who rides the subway with a map trying to learn Brooklyn. The locals laugh at him.  The Borough is too big and there isn't enough time on this earth to do it that way. Anyway until you are dead you really won't know Brooklyn and even after death you won't know everything.

 The expression single selfishness and compulsive greed is easier, to comprehend.We used it in a story about the possible closing of the Troy Library two years ago. The other day we got a search query containing just those five words. We shudder to think someone was looking to us for enlightenment. We put those five words back into Google to see what turned up and we got last page of 


You Can't Go Home Again, by Thomas Wolfe

48. Credo

I have never before made a statement of belief [George wrote in his conclusion to Fox], although I have believed in many things and said that I believed in them. But I have never stated my belief in concrete terms because almost every element of my nature has been opposed to the hard framework, the finality, of formulation.
Just as you are the rock of life, I am the web; just as you are Time’s granite, so, I think, am I Time’s plant. My life, more than that of anyone I know, has taken on the form of growth. No man that I have known was ever more deeply rooted in the soil of Time and Memory, the weather of his individual universe, than was I. You followed me through the course of that whole herculean conflict. For four years, as I lived and worked and explored the jungle depths of Brooklyn — jungle depths coincident with those of my own soul — you were beside me, you followed, and you stuck.
The Magical Campus: University of North Carolina Writings, 1917-1920
You never had a doubt that I would finish — make an end — round out the cycle — come to the whole of it. The only doubt was mine, enhanced, tormented by my own fatigue and desperation, and by the clacking of the feeble and malicious little tongues which, knowing nothing, whispered that I would never make an end again because I could not begin. We both knew how grotesquely false this was — so false and so grotesque that it was sometimes the subject of an anguished and exasperated laugh. The truth was so far different that my own fears were just the opposite: that I might never make an end to anything again because I could never get through telling what I knew, what I felt and thought and had to say about it.
That was a giant web in which I was caught, the product of my huge inheritance — the torrential recollectiveness, derived out of my mother’s stock, which became a living, million-fibred integument that bound me to the past, not only of my own life, but of the very earth from which I came, so that nothing in the end escaped from its inrooted and all-feeling explorativeness. The way the sunlight came and went upon a certain day, the way grass felt between bare toes, the immediacy of noon, the slamming of an iron gate, the halting skreak upon the corner of a street car, the liquid sound of shoe leather on the pavements as men came home to lunch, the smell of turnip greens, the clang of ice-tongs, and the clucking of a hen — and then Time fading like a dream, Time melting to oblivion, when I was two years old. Not only this, but all lost sounds and voices, forgotten memories exhumed with a constant pulsing of the ‘brain’s great ventricle, until I lived them in my dreams, carrying the stupendous and unceasing burden of them through the unresting passages of sleep. Nothing that had ever been was lost. It all came back in an endless flow, even the blisters of the paint upon the mantelpiece in my father’s house, the smell of the old leather sofa with my father’s print upon it, the smell of dusty bottles and of cobwebs in the cellar, the casual stomping of a slow, gaunt hoof upon the pulpy lumber of a livery stable floor, the proud lift and flourish of a whisking tail, and the oaty droppings. I lived again through all times and weathers I had known — through the fag-ends of wintry desolation in the month of March and the cold, bleak miseries of ragged red at sunset, the magic of young green in April, the blind horror and suffocation of concrete places in mid-summer sun where no limits were, and October with the smell of fallen leaves and wood smoke in the air. The forgotten moments and unnumbered hours came back to me with all the enormous cargo of my memory, together with lost voices in the mountains long ago, the voices of the kinsmen dead and never seen, and the houses they had built and died in, and the rutted roads they trod upon, and every unrecorded moment that Aunt Maw had told me of the lost and obscure lives they led long, long ago. So did it all revive in the ceaseless pulsings of the giant ventricle, so did the plant go back, stem by stem, root by root, and filament by filament, until it was complete and whole, compacted of the very earth that had produced it, and of which it was itself the last and living part.
You stayed beside me like the rock you are until I unearthed the plant, followed it back through every fibre of its pattern to its last and tiniest enrootment in the blind, dumb earth. And now that it is finished, and the circle come full swing — we, too, are finished, and I have a thing to say:
I believe that we are lost here in America, but I believe we shall be found. And this belief, which mounts now to the catharsis of knowledge and conviction, is for me — and I think for all of us —— not only our own hope, but America’s everlasting, living dream. I think the life which we have fashioned in America, and which has fashioned us — the forms we made, the cells that grew, the honeycomb that was created — was self-destructive in its nature, and must be destroyed. I think these forms are dying, and must die, just as I know that America and the people in it are deathless, undiscovered, and immortal, and must live.
I think the true discovery of America is before us. I think the true fulfilment of our spirit, of our people, of our mighty and immortal land, is yet to come. I think the true discovery of our own democracy is still before us. And I think that all these things are certain as the morning, as inevitable as noon. I think I speak for most men living when I say that our America is Here, is Now, and beckons on before us, and that this glorious assurance is not only our living hope, but our dream to be accomplished.
I think the enemy is here before us, too. But I think we know the forms and faces of the enemy, and in the knowledge that we know him, and shall meet him, and eventually must conquer him is also our living hope. I think the enemy is here before us with a thousand faces, but I think we know that all his faces wear one mask. I think the enemy is single selfishness and compulsive greed. I think the enemy is blind, but has the brutal power of his blind grab. I do not think the enemy was born yesterday, or that he grew to manhood forty years ago, or that he suffered sickness and collapse in 1929, or that we began without the enemy, and that our vision faltered, that we lost the way, and suddenly were in his camp. I think the enemy is old as Time, and evil as Hell, and that he has been here with us from the beginning. I think he stole our earth from us, destroyed our wealth, and ravaged and despoiled our land. I think he took our people and enslaved them, that he polluted the fountains of our life, took unto himself the rarest treasures of our own possession, took our bread and left us with a crust, and, not content, for the nature of the enemy is insatiate — tried finally to take from us the crust.
I think the enemy comes to us with the face of innocence and says to us:
“I am your friend.”
I think the enemy deceives us with false words and lying phrases, saying:
“See, I am one of you — I am one of your children, your son, your brother, and your friend. Behold how sleek and fat I have become — and all because I am just one of you, and your friend. Behold how rich and powerful I am-and all because I am one of you — shaped in your way of life, of thinking, of accomplishment. What I am, I am because I am one of you, your humble brother and your friend. Behold,” cries Enemy, “the man I am, the man I have become, the thing I have accomplished — and reflect. Will you destroy this thing? I assure you that it is the most precious thing you have. It is yourselves, the projection of each of you, the triumph of your individual lives, the thing that is rooted in your blood, and native to your stock, and inherent in the traditions of America. It is the thing that all of you may hope to be,” says Enemy, “for”— humbly —“am I not just one of you? Am I not just your brother and your son? Am I not the living image of what each of you may hope to be, would wish to be, would desire for his own son? Would you destroy this glorious incarnation of your own heroic self? If you do, then,” says Enemy, “you destroy yourselves — you kill the thing that is most gloriously American, and in so killing, kill yourselves.”
He lies! And now we know he lies! He is not gloriously, or in any other way, ourselves. He is not our friend, our son, our brother. And he is not American! For, although he has a thousand familiar and convenient faces, his own true face is old as Hell.
Look about you and see what he has done.
______________________________________________________________
Dear Fox, old friend, thus we have come to the end of the road that we were to go together. My tale is finished  and so farewell.
But before I go, I have just one more thing to tell you:
Something has spoken to me in the night, burning the tapers of the waning year; something has spoken in the night, and told me I shall die, I know not where. Saying:
“To lose the earth you know, for greater knowing; to lose the life you have, for greater life; to leave the friends you loved, for greater loving; to find a land more kind than home, more large than earth 
“Whereon the pillars of this earth are founded, towards which the conscience of the world is tending — a wind is rising, and the rivers flow.”


At least I think it is the last page of You Can't Go Home Again. I thought my parents, now both deceased, had everything Thomas Wolfe had written but I couldn't find anything in the basement. Of course I recognized the passage marked above which  I read at my Mother's funeral. My father never told me what exactly it was or where it came from other than it was Thomas Wolfe. The autobiographical Wolfe uses the name "Fox" for his editor Maxwell Perkins and refers to himself as "George". In his first novel Look Homeward Angel  he calls himself "Eugene."

While  all famous authors are quoted  it is rare to find two significant ones the same page and significantly the last page of the last work. The book was published three year after the author's death. Maxwell Perkins is believed to have pawed through boxes of the voluminous author's writing and pieced together the author's autobiographical chronology ending in what was obviously intended as a farewell.

I am sure my mother was aware of all that and more.
Of the missing books I am less sure. My father's second wife was not particularly bookish and they might have been tossed. Or in a version I prefer, My father fell victim of a Senior scam. Some kids came by and said they'd put up or take down his storm windows for a nominal fee. It was only after they left that Dad noticed all Thomas Wolfe books were gone. In Chapel Hill North Carolina that would not be that unusual. The kids Probably sold the books to buy basketball tickets.

The Baldwin Library has all of Wolfe's Novels and short stories as well as a literary analysis of Brooklyn the by famous authors who lived there.

Wolfe's legacy is also available for  Barnes Noble or Amazon  E-readers or in  bound volumes in the $11 to $14 range. Both vendors offer substantial samples you can read before you buy. For the experienced Wolfe reader Barnes Noble also offers a $22 book on the University writings of the author 1917 to 1920. (shown above). The introduction is written by an another well known Southern  author Pat Conroy (The Great Santini and Prince of Tides).



Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)