[Magdalen] The 18th of April

[James Oppenheimer-Crawford]

In the time honored tradition of Pastor Weems!

We Xtians should not even blink an eye at historical inaccuracies, since
they mean nothing, compared to what that august poem means.

I remember standing at the Bridge that arched the flood, having traveled
the road that in theory was the modern version of the oxcart path the
British followed. The path ridden by Revere (if his name wasn't Revere [it
wasn't] who really cares? We went an' got our guns, wrote the second
amendment and the rest, as they say...

One profoundly sad thing is that they don't write poems the way they used
to.

I found this out while on a cruise from Saktpeterburg to Moscow. I was
talking with one of the crew about Yevgenii Yevtushenko.
She asked his name again, and then googled him on her phone. Then she
realized to some extent that he had been a noted personality, but the fact
that he was almost like a god for the poems he wrote -- that is all gone
now. I was very sad at that moment.

I committed his poem Karyera to memory. I can still remember a lot of it.
Shostakovitch included it in symphony based on the poems of Yevgenii.

Nobody writes poems of that scope anymore. Here or in the land formerly
known as CCCP.





James W. Oppenheimer-Crawford
*“A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved,
except in memory. LLAP**”  -- *Leonard Nimoy

On Tue, Apr 17, 2018 at 3:28 PM, cantor03--- via Magdalen <
magdalen at herberthouse.org> wrote:

>
>
>
> This poem, "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" was one of
> many my father (born: 1880) memorized when such was
> common in USA grammar schools (His school in the
> fields of Southwestern Minnesota).
>
> He often coughed up this poem even when it was not
> related to anything at hand, but he had a peculiar method
> of delivery on the portion that goes,"On the 18th of April
> in 75, Hardly a man is now alive...........(long pause, then
> he continued)  WHO remembers that day. (as though asking
> a question) and then pretty much as written by HW Longfellow.
> There are apparently many historical inaccuracies in the
> Longfellow version.
>
> Revere was a silversmith, and a good one, too.  His parents
> were of Huguenot origin just as my father's side, though DNA
> analysis shows that after 16 generations since 1688, I only
> have 1% French Huguenot genes.
>
> "Listen my children and you shall hear......."
>
>
>
>
> David S.
>