Povey Prattle

BEN  "If I want to sleep this way I'll  darn  well sleep this way". ADELAIDE " If Ben abandons his crate I'll be more than glad to make it my squat"

One day when I was aged about fourteen or fifteen I was at the home of my good friend Stephen Meyer.   His parents had gotten out of Germany "just in time"  in 1939. I was browsing through one of their books and came across a picture of z cremation oven in a Concentration Camp.    I could not bear to look at it, and I slammed the book shut. I was tempted to do the same when coming upon grainy black and white pictures of public lynchings in a book I read last week. The Book is "Blood at the Root", by Patrick Phillips  (published by W R Norton and Co in 2016). "Blood at the Root"is the harrowing take of the ethnic cleansing of Forsyth County, GA, where, in 1912,  all Negroes  (the word of that era)  were slaughtered, or driven out with great violence, often with the blessing of the white Church Pastors. Despite  Federal Civil Rights legislation,  Forsyth County was proud to be a "Whites Only" County as recently  ...

I knew Rula Asfour, her husband and two daughters when they were part of the St. James's, Cambridge MA Episcopal Church, and I was the Rector.  It was a sad day for the congregation, but a  great day for the Asfours when they decided to return to the Lebanon.  In about 2003/4 I was privileged to visit them, only to have a most wonderful two weeks during which I met many members of their wonderful extended family (Rula's mother made the best Tabbouleh I have ever eaten), and to visit places such as Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, Baalbeck etc, and up into the mountains from which we could see the then peaceful Syria. Lebanon is a small country with a storied history  (Phoenicians, Greeks,Romans, Ottoman Turks, Crusaders, French etc etc) and a bewildering (for European minds) mixture of Christians, Muslims, Druze & c. Most of all I will never forget the enjoyment of the fabled middle eastern hospitality, and  the gorgeous, gracious and good  opportunity to meet man...

I grew up about a mile away from Eastville Stadium, deep in the heart of the East  Bristol (UK) working classes. Eastviille Stadium in the olden days. You can see the dog track Back then the Stadium was the home of the Bristol Rovers Football (Soccer) Club;  I think too  of Motor Bike "Speedway" racing, and of GREYCING. South Bristol also had a Greycing Track in the Knowle district. Newspaaper ad. for Greycing  (In this case, not in Bristol As a kid I had no idea what "Greycing" meant whether in Eastville or Knowle..  It was a while before I cottoned on to the fact that it was shorthand for Greyhound Racing. (The Eastville Stadium is now the home of an IKEA store;  the Knowle Stadium  is most likely a site for homes.  Such is the typical  fate for  former places of the cloth-capped working class men in the U.K.). My newly beloved Greyhound rescue BEN was once a racing dog here in SRQ. The document I received tod...

I took myself to Church for the 8:00 a.m. service this morning, leaving Ben in his crate. In my absence, and due to separation anxiety, he trashed his favourite pillow which I had foolishly left atop his crate. The solution to this problem is clear. I simply cannot go to Church again. 😎