I’m posting again, give me a cookie! Today is the best day ever. Why? It’s Valentine’s Day. No, that does not mean I have a Valentine. As has happened every year of my life I’m alone on Valentine’s Day. I’m not a misanthrope, not having someone special is not a good thing. So why is this the best day ever? They gave us chocolate at school. I didn’t have anyone special in my life yesterday either, but I also didn’t have chocolate. They even had Reese’s hearts. It gets even better. One student was given chocolate and didn’t want it, so I had hers. Another student gave me four kisses. Chocolate of course, the other kind would get me fired. When I had my break I got to the teacher’s lounge and scored the last hot chocolate! Can wonders never cease? Can a day get any better? Well yes it can. The school had a candygram service for the students. One of mine sent me a candygram! It’s signed and everything.
Do you like the bottlecap privacy censor?
I say what matters is food but having a student send me a valentine means a lot to me. It’s gratifying to know you touched someone’s life. She’s getting an A so this was not about getting on my good side.
Speaking of my good side, last night I made French fries in my air fryer. They were crispy on the outside and creamy on the inside, that is perfect. I’m going to have t0 buy more beef gravy for poutine. Almost as exciting I’m getting a new oven. Our old one broke a month ago and we were told we had to wait for a part to fix it. We waited, and waited, and waited. We kept on complaining to the super. Finally my roommate contacted the building management and we aren’t getting a replacement part, we are getting an entire new stove. I’ve been dining off stovetop cooking for so long, now I have two options, an oven and the air fryer. I suspect it will be a gas range but I don’t know for sure. I have to leave school early tomorrow to let them into the apartment. I’m not complaining about that. I’m going to celebrate with the half a steak I have in the freezer. I must remember to take it out when I get home. I don’t cook that primarily in the oven but in a cast iron skillet. I finish it off in the oven. I’ll make fries to go with it.
Tonight I’m off to On Your Radar. I don’t have time to go home in between. I’ll go shopping at Trader Joe’s and then get dinner. I feel like all I can talk about today is food.
I recorded Gord’s Gold last night. You can listen on Folk Music Notebook on Thursday night and that reminded me of the thing I wanted to write about today, Marian Anderson’s concert at the Lincoln Memorial in 1939. I’m playing a song from that on the show this week. This is the story my father told me as a kid, he must have thought it important that I know about it. My guess is that he was prompted by hearing a recording of Marian Anderson on the radio, probably on WQXR, the very station I’m listening to as I write this. My father got the important parts of the story right. I didn’t trust my father’s memory, let alone my own, so I did some research.
Marian Anderson was acknowledged as the greatest contralto of her time. She was invited by Howard University to play in Washingt0n DC. They needed a large venue for the expected audience. The only place suitable in DC was Constitution Hall which was owned by the Daughters of the American Revolution. The DAR would not let them use the venue, why? Marian Anderson was black. The DAR had a policy of not allowing black performers. Black patrons were segregated from the whites in the audience. They had to sit in the concert hall equivalent to the back of the bus. This was the established practice of an ostensibly patriotic organization in the seat of American liberty. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, to her great credit, immediately resigned from the DAR. She publicly rebuked them in her weekly column. In those times taking that position took courage.
Walter White, of the NAACP, not Breaking Bad (I make that joke on the show too) had the idea of holding the concert outdoors, the first major outdoor concert in the City’s history. They needed to find a place for it; that was arranged by Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes.
When the day came, 75,000 people, of all races, gathered on the Great Mall to hear the Great Lady. Harold Ickies introduced her and she took the stage. Without speaking a word she launched into her first song, America, you probably know it as My Country Tis of Thee. After “America,” she sang an aria from La Favorite by Gaetano Donizetti, then Franz Schubert’s Ave Maria. She ended the concert with three spirituals, “Gospel Train,” “Trampin'” and “My Soul is Anchored in the Lord.” It was only a 25-minute show but I’d have loved to have been there. Here’s a video that includes her singing and more of the story.
A friend posted that a Florida school library removed a copy of Roberto Clemente: Pride of Pittsburgh from the shelves because it ran afoul of Governor DeSantis’s “Anti-wokeness bill.” The book’s sin? It talked about the young Clemente dealing with racism. It’s not banned, but it’s off the shelves “pending review.” They feel the need to protect children from hearing about racism. My father did the exact opposite. He wanted me to hear about Anderson’s travails. And here’s the thing, that did not make me less patriotic, it made me more. How can you not feel love of country when hearing Andersson’s rendition of America? She felt it. If we keep kids from knowing of the evils of the day, and today, how will they ever learn to appreciate the greatness and heroism of Marian Anderson, Walter White, Eleanor Roosevelt and Harold Ickes. Good must be contrasted with evil to shine its brightest. If you don’t feel this, watch that video again. Be grateful that you live in the same universe as Marian Anderson.
I know I’ve come a long way from chocolate and air fryers but who knows when I’ll be able to write again. I think it is important you know about Marian Anderson and chocolate.
Wise Madness 