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Ask my Wednesday composition students what C&P means. I am going to be that from now on when I look at everyone’s blogs! Be warned!
BTW, the C&P has nothing to do with the poor chap who slipped on the ice. I give credit for this photo to the blog I most often frequent at Lucianne.com. I’m wondering if the photographer helped him up from after his fall. Reminds me of sidewalks in Kyiv tonight.
Last night I watched a 1980 movie which showed a very young Anthony Hopkins, as the idealistic and merciful medical doctor. I thought maybe I could parallel this true real life story of the “Elephant Man” to the nation of Ukraine. I know there are other European nations that are horrified with what Ukraine stands for such as the Chernobyl disaster, its brand of Ukrainian mafia, the white slave traffic and its dark history during communism. However, I know Ukraine has long been taunted and kicked around as Joseph Merrick had been throughout his childhood. Unfortunately, his physical appearance only worsened from age two until he died at 27. At one climactic point in the movie Joseph Merrick rasps out to those chasing him, “I am NOT an animal, I am a human being!” This movie is NOT for the faint of heart, it takes GUTS to watch it.*
What I think the Orange Revolution was telling the rest of the world was that Ukraine is NOT a stillborn or backward nation but rather a country with a long and very distinguished history. The medical doctor in the movie was trying to give this young man dignity. The doctor marvelled that after his being on display as a freak in a circus, Joseph Merrick was a person with soul, with integrity even with class.
Several times while watching the movie I wanted to shut it off, I was so pained to see the brutality dealt this man and yet Joseph Merrick was meek and absorbed all the abuse, he never fought back. The best part of the movie was that he recited the 23rd Psalm and also out of cardboard built a model of a prestigious London cathedral. Joseph Merrick was NOT an imbecile or a freak but rather a gentle soul. Yet, at some point, he had to speak out.
So too with my composition students, they must not let the world say that their country is a freak or backward but they must speak out in their writing, their OWN writing!!! It will be awkward at first, especially in a language not their own but once they build confidence like Joseph Merrick did, then maybe they can write in Ukrainian about their proud history, the TRUE accounts that are walking around still in their grandparents’ memories.
*I checked this video of “Elephant Man” out at the British Council.
Last March 8th I got the doll my niece is holding for Intl. Women’s Day. I could not wait to give it to her and so when I did, I couldn’t believe how much she resembled the doll. My niece IS my doll. I entered this photo in a Amateur Photo contest with KLM and will see if it is a winner in March. My perspective is that if you don’t enter contests, you won’t likely win a prize. But if you enter a contest, chances are you MIGHT win a prize. So simple and that is why I’m hoping ALL my students whether camera buffs or not, will enter in the first annual WIUU contest that has a deadline looming March 20th.
“Bob, the Cat” was the 
Third prize winner in the “Animal” category of a Photo competition last spring; it was cropped from a much bigger photo. We don’t know where poor Bob is, he has been missing for half a year.
Yesterday we had the privilege of hearing an inspired talk by Ukrainiac telling about her grandparents in Ohio who took care of three British children ages 5, 10 and 12 during WWII. These childrens’ adventure started when they crossed the Nazi infested waters of the Atlantic Ocean and became acquainted with their new, American foster parents (Ukrainiac’s grandparents) in 1940. The children were reunited with their biological parents in England at wars end. The letters that were exchanged by both sets of parents and the three children were preserved in the British parents’ attic and compiled into a book in 1990 by the youngest daughter of the family, Jocelyn Statler. The book is titled Special Relations: Transatlantic letters linking three English evacuees and their families, 1940-45.
Ukrainiac emphasized the power of the written word by showing us this book that had actual handwritten letters in children’s scrawl and photos of the key actors and how they revealed what life was like during the war over 60 years ago. The war ravaged England and reading Ukrainiac’s book ravaged my heart. I’ve been thinking, what would it have been like for Ukrainians to send their children away from their native country hoping that their children would find LIFE in another strange land that was considered safe? What letters are left to show a Ukrainian mother’s desperation of finding out how her child was faring away from her maternal love? What father in Ukraine was writing home to his loved ones with a protective paternal love while he was fighting on the Front for the Soviet’s Great Patriotic War? Are there any letters left to pore over to find such facts?
One of the students told of her grandmother not releasing any precious, fragile letters that her grandfather had written during the war. If only this student could get to them and reveal in English what were the commonplace things going on during her grandparents’ time. Another question put to Ukrainiac was how does one know something written is worthy of being read later and when should it be written? The answer Ukrainiac gave to those who came to hear her explain “Why We Write!” is that whatever words that are written now WILL be valued by generations to come.
The reason we will have another “History Matters” event on April 17th is to capture the stories of grandparents or older members of Ukrainian society and to document what every day events they underwent. (I might add, there was nothing ordinary about the tragedies that Ukraine went through, all the more reason to get the stories while those living testimonies are still alive to ask!)
I John 1: 12-14
Clyde “Upside-Down” Pangborn was born in 1894 and was known in the 1920s for his barnstorming skills and his daredevil antics. He and co-pilot Herndon tried to beat the “around the world” record of Pilots Post and Gatty of 8 days, 15 hours and 51 minutes but failed in 1931. Unfortunately, Pangborn and Herndon were a month behind and got stuck in Mongolia, then Siberia and ran into trouble with the Japanese authorities for taking photos from the air of the Japanese military fortifications. They were imprisoned and fined before they were released. Upside-Down Pang did make the world record of shortest time over the Pacific Ocean but he was not to be as famous as Charles Lindberg who had become an overnight sensation when he crossed the Atlantic Ocean in record time in 1927.
http://www.Centennialofflight.gov/essays/Explorers_Record_settersandDaredevils/PangbornEx14.htm
Another old photo from our family album. I wonder how many will enter photos of their pets in the First Annual WIUU photo contest? My photo of our cat Bob won 3rd prize last year. We named him “Bob” because he reminded us of Bill Murray in the movie “What About Bob?” Another movie that didn’t make it into my list of Top Ten favorite movies.
Thanks to my sister Katherine who scanned many family photos on our father’s side; she is busy researching that side of the family. My dear Grandpa who built our house in 1915 stands beside his new Ford car. Also, he is reading a newspaper in the living room.
“Hate” may be too strong a word because I actually do use Wikipedia just to get background information but it can’t be trusted. I was embarrassed for a friend of mine in Minnesota who used it as one of her references in her Ph.D. dissertation. Her advisor was as ignorant about computers and what Wikipedia is all about as my friend was. Years down the road when people look at my friend’s Bibliography, they will wonder how she ever got a Ph.D. with inserting encyclopedia information into her research.
Sorry, looking at encyclopedias is NOT research, it is just getting a reference that might not be entirely accurate or true. Digging in archives and getting oral interviews from people who have witnessed an event is what research is all about!!!
For fun, I invite you to look at the new page I created about Famous Aviators in the early 1930s. You can even check these names out in Wikipedia but never let me catch my students using it for their final research paper!!!
It really was the golden age for pilots because they were trying to beat “round-the-world” records and many of the pilots flew over Siberia. I’m just wondering what these adventurers saw during the early 1930s. Did these pilots take photos of the conditions of those Ukrainians or Russians being punished and who were sent to Siberia? Were the aviators aware of the 1932-33 forced famine happening in Ukraine? What do my students’ grandparents know about the early pilots in the USSR?
This subject will be fun to explore and we can explode some of the myths created and perpetuated on Wikipedia!!!
True History Matters 