Today is Decoration Day at Bowers Chapel cemetery where my paternal ancestors are all buried going back to the civil war. It is a time of putting flowers on graves and remembering our dead. My sisters and I went yesterday and put flowers on my parents and grandparent’s graves. Over in the Southwest corner of the cemetery rests my paternal line. Going back to the civil war is Benjamin, then James, my grandfather and last my father. My history all in one corner of a small cemetery. Decoration Day is a tradition that is dying out. Families have scattered. The graves are too.
Today’s song, Lorena, goes back to before the civil war and was a popular song for both sides. It is sad and sentimental, there were times when playing or singing it was banned as it was believed to be bad for moral.
Performed by 97th Regimental String Band
Enjoy, Jack
jack, thank you. vey fitting selection for memorial day.
fast forward to WWII
“Lili Marlene”: the song that united Allied and Axis troops (economist.com)
Marlene Dietrich – Lili Marlene – English Version (The Original was recorded in 1944 & released in 1945 on Decca Records) “Lili Marleen” (also known as “Lili Marlene”, “Lily Marlene”, “Lili Marlène” and similar variants) is a German love song which became popular during World War II with soldiers of both sides. Written as a poem in 1915, during World War I, it was published under the title “Das Lied eines jungen Soldaten auf der Wacht” (German for “The Song of a Young Soldier on Watch”) in 1937 and was first recorded by Lale Andersen in 1939 under the title “Das Mädchen unter der Laterne” (“The Girl under the Lantern”). Following the Nazi invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941, Radio Belgrade became Soldatensender Belgrad and played the song frequently to entertain the German armed forces within its reach. It became popular throughout Europe and the Mediterranean among both Axis and Allied troops. In 1944, the Morale Operations Branch of the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) initiated the Muzak Project, musical propaganda broadcasts designed to demoralize enemy soldiers. Marlene Dietrich, the only performer who was made aware that her recordings would be for OSS use, recorded a number of songs in German for the project, including Lili Marleen.
but before that one was WWI’s
The 10 best: first world war music | First world war | The Guardian
come korean war but not so sentimental is
Korean war,one of the most underrated military conflicts of 20th century. Music,Wilf Carter (Montana Slim) – Goodbye Maria (I’m Off To Korea):
take your pick for your favorite ‘nam song
Top 10 Vietnam War Era Songs | Veterans Playlist (thirteen.org)
A tradition I was brought up with is the poppy. My paternal grandfather’s brother, my great-uncle, was killed in WWI. Along with visiting the graves of family we would stop at traffic lights to get our poppies.
wwII had some real tearjerker songs like “I’ll be seeing you” and “we’ll meet again” and “sentimental journey.”
wonder if those would have also been banned in civil war as bad for morale.
Nothing beats a sentimental banjo tune, Jack. Thanks.
really rough to hear
an antiwar song and lament from the 1700’s
My grandparents and I used to fill jars with irises and peonies from the yard, and anchor them to the gravesites with wire coat hangers. Now, there’s no close family in town to decorate them. A cousin-in-law has moved back to the area and does something for my grandparents’ gravesite, but the previous generations go unadorned.
Now, Republicans need to make sure our veterans have what they need while they’re still with us, and we need to stop minting new veterans.
I remember someone selling poppies to benefit something in town, maybe the VFW. Does anyone remember something called “honey Sunday”?
Thanks for that tune, Jack. Soulful and melancholy.
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/netzero-coffee-husks-biochar-climate-reduce-emissions/
“Though public awareness is low, some scientists believe “biochar” is quietly becoming the world’s first major carbon removal success story.”
“The production of biochar is an ancient farming practice dating back thousands of years to the fertile Terra Preta soils in Brazil. A kind of black powder, it is made by heating up organic matter such as wood chips, manure, leaves, or indeed coffee husks, in the absence of oxygen (to prevent its combustion, which would emit CO2) in a process known as pyrolysis. The creation of biochar removes CO2 from the atmosphere, and in doing so, turns the natural decay of organic matter into a carbon-negative process.”
“The logistics of biochar production also mean that rather than massive centralized facilities, the most workable large-scale deployment will require many thousands of mid-sized plants spread across the world, according to Reinaud. “Processing must be close to the sources of biomass, because it’s difficult to transport and costly.”
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/05/28/texas-legislature-paxton-impeachment-charges/
“God, money and Dairy Queen: How Texas House investigators secured the impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton”
“A nefarious kitchen remodel and an extramarital affair. Alleged corruption and threats. God, money and Dairy Queen.”
“…less than an hour after the committee report recommending impeachment was released on Wednesday, Paxton began calling House members attempting to intimidate them into voting against impeachment.”
“I would like to point out that several members of this House, while on the floor of this House, doing the state business, received telephone calls from [Attorney] General Paxton personally, threatening them with political consequences in their next election,” Geren said.
“While Paxton was serving in the Texas Legislature as a state representative a decade ago, he became affiliated with the CEO of Servergy, a McKinney-based software company that courted him as a partner. William Mapp, the firm’s founder and former CEO, had donated to Paxton’s campaign and the two decided to go into business together.”
“At a Dairy Queen, the CEO reportedly said that “God had directed him” to give Paxton 100,000 shares of company stock, which Paxton argued shows the stock was a gift.”
“However, documents … indicate that the stock was, again, for services,” the House Committee’s report said.
“The Servergy relationship became the subject of a felony securities fraud indictment in 2015 that accused Paxton of recruiting investors without disclosing his own investment in the company or attempting to confirm the company’s claims about its technology.”
“According to the SEC, he persuaded five people to invest $840,000 into the company. The case is still ongoing.”
“The House committee’s members said they began probing Paxton’s behavior after the attorney general requested $3.3 million from the state to settle a lawsuit with the whistleblowers fired from his office after they accused Paxton of accepting bribes and other misconduct.”
“Most disturbingly, the settlement agreement was made without prior approval of funds and obligates the Texas taxpayers — not [Attorney] General Paxton — to pay $3.3 million for his actions,” Geren told his House colleagues.”
https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/28/europe/turkey-president-runoff-polls-erdogan-intl/index.html
“President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has won Turkey’s presidential election, defeating opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu in Sunday’s runoff vote and stretching his rule into a third decade.”
“The opposition had described the election as a last stand for Turkish democracy, accusing Erdogan of hollowing out the country’s democratic institutions during his 20-year rule, eroding the power of the judiciary and repressing dissent.”
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