This is Local London: HISTORY: Memoirs tell of brotherly love during First World War
THE great-nephew of a man who was killed during the First World War has uncovered his great-uncle's life story.
Martin Cearns, 65, of Baldwin's Hill, Loughton, found the memoirs of his great-uncle Fred Cearns, while clearing out his childhood home in Chigwell five years ago.
They were written a few months after his great-uncle died at the battle of Passchendaele in Belgium in 1917 by his younger brother, Percy, before being printed and bound.
Mr Cearns believes they stayed on a bookshelf at his parents’ old home in Meadow Way for nearly 100 years.
He discovered the book while cleaning out the house before it was sold in 2005 and decided to have them published for a wider audience.
“I never knew it existed,” he said. “It was in a rather dull brown cover and I’m grateful I didn’t throw it away.
“When I read it, I thought ‘what a tremendous story’ and I thought it had a wider appeal.”
Although Passchendaele, officially known as the Third Battle of Ypres, became famous for the massive number of casualties and the deep clay mud the troops had to deal with, Mr Cearns said what stood out for him was the account of his great uncles’ time away from the horrors of the front line.
“What I found incredible was Fred and Percy were both in France and Belgium in 1916 and 1917 Percy was a dispatch bike rider and he kept on meeting up with his brother Fred.”
He said the brothers, who grew up in Plaistow as part of a family of 13, would even go to restaurants and the cinema together while they were not fighting.
“They were able to go around the French country lanes. He’d find his brother’s battalion and described him having picnics in the fields with cakes from their mum at home.
“You couldn’t imagine that in the horrors of the First World War that someone could get on his dispatch motorbike and meet up with his brother.”
Fred Cearns was killed in Passchendaele in August 1917 aged 28 and his body, like those of many involved in the battle, was never found.
The memoirs also speak about his time playing for the reserves at West Ham United football club before the war and the family connection has continued, with his great-nephew acting as a director for the club for nearly 30 years.
His book, called The Love of a Brother, from Plaistow to Passchendaele, is available from Epping Bookshop in the High Street or online from www.postmaster.co.uk/~cearnsbooks/205960 costing £10.
Proceeds will go to the charity Help for Heroes.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Monday, April 11, 2011
Undaunted Author of ‘War Horse’ Reflects on Unlikely Hit
New York Times: Books: Undaunted Author of ‘War Horse’ Reflects on Unlikely Hit
LONDON — Before it was made into a hit West End play, before it was bound for Broadway, before it was set to be Steven Spielberg’s next big movie, “War Horse” was a slim, powerful children’s book about a young man and his beloved horse on the front lines of World War I.
Published in 1982, the book was a “huge nonevent” at the time, according to its author, Michael Morpurgo; it drew better reviews than his earlier works but relatively little sales. It did get nominated for a big national prize, which it failed to win. Mr. Morpurgo, transported to the ceremony in a limousine, found that the car had mysteriously dematerialized during the evening; he left by subway.
Undaunted, he kept writing and publishing, sometimes two or three books a year (he has now written more than 120), and his reputation grew. From 2003 to 2005 Mr. Morpurgo was Britain’s third children’s laureate (a post similar to that of poet laureate, but for children’s literature), an honor befitting someone who had become one of the country’s best loved and most visible children’s authors. But while many of his books were hits, “War Horse” seemed destined for noble semiobscurity. “If sales ever reached 1,500 copies a year, I would be surprised,” Mr. Morpurgo said.
But that all changed in 2007, when a dramatic version of “War Horse” opened at the National Theater. Starring, as the horses, life-size puppets created by the Handspring Puppet Company of South Africa, the play was a huge, emotional triumph, leaving audiences wrung out and weeping. It transferred to the West End, where it is still selling out. It opens Thursday at Lincoln Center Theater in New York, where Mr. Morpurgo will be in the audience. And in December the film version, directed by Mr. Spielberg and starring the British actors Jeremy Irvine, Benedict Cumberbatch and Emily Watson (and a cast of real horses), is to open in the United States.
The cause of all this excitement is 67 years old, acutely modest and delightfully chatty, able to turn almost any observation into an entertaining anecdote. Dressed the other day in a beret, rumpled Nantucket-red pants and a matching Nantucket-red safari-style jacket (equally rumpled), he seemed alternately thrilled, surprised and amused by what had befallen a book he wrote so many years, and so many books, ago.
He had had his doubts about whether “War Horse” would work onstage. When he first heard of the plans to use puppets, he said, he thought it sounded disastrous, “like a joke.” But he calmed down when he saw the result: life-size puppets that move, whinny, startle and nuzzle so much like real horses, they seem to be fully realized characters.
Mr. Morpurgo’s novels, set all around the world, tend to focus on some favorite themes: humans’ extraordinary bond with animals, children’s courage in adversity, and the power and wonder of nature. Many have gone on to win awards, and four have been nominated for the Carnegie Medal, Britain’s best-known children’s literature prize.
“He’s the most respected British children’s writer working today, whether he’s writing for very young readers or for teenagers,” said Jon Howells, a spokesman for Waterstone’s book chain. “He’s a very powerful, very evocative, very insightful writer. He doesn’t patronize or condescend to his readers, and they really respond.”
“War Horse” is published by Scholastic in the United States, with more than 500,000 copies in print, said Kyle Good, a spokeswoman for the publisher.
Why has “War Horse” broken out in such a big way? The story resonates now more than when it was written, perhaps because of the era we live in. “In 1982 the only war in Britain was the cold war,” Mr. Morpurgo said. “But times have changed in the last 15 to 20 years. War does seem to be endemic. When it’s possible to do it, we seem to do it. It never ceases to amaze me that we fall into that trap again and again.”
The book, which has been called a great argument for pacifism, is written from the point of view of Joey the horse. It was inspired, in part, by a series of conversations Mr. Morpurgo had had years ago in his village, Iddesleigh, in Devon, with an elderly man who had served in a cavalry unit in World War I. “He told me with tears in his eyes that the only person he could talk to there — and he called this horse a person — was his horse,” Mr. Morpurgo said.
From the Imperial War Museum, Mr. Morpurgo learned that between one million and two million British horses had been sent to the front lines in the first World War, and that only 65,000 or so had come back. He resolved to write about them but struggled to find the right voice.
Then one evening he was at the farm he and his wife run in Devon, where poor children come to work with animals. (There are now three in Britain, and one in Vermont.) He was passing through the stable yard when he saw one of the children, a troubled boy who had a bad stutter and had not uttered a word in school in two years, standing head to head with a horse.
“He started talking,” Mr. Morpurgo recalled. “And he was talking to the horse, and his voice was flowing. It was simply unlocked. And as I listened to this his boy telling the horse everything he’d done on the farm that day, I suddenly had the idea that of course the horse didn’t understand every word, but that she knew it was important for her to stand there and be there for this child.” That became Joey’s role in “War Horse” — observer and witness as much as protagonist.
Mr. Morpurgo’s books have been set in jungles, on islands and in communities torn up by the Arab-Israeli conflict and by the 2004 tsunami. His most recent book, “Shadow,” tells the story of an Afghan boy who flees to Britain, only to be put in a detention center as he fights to stay in the country. One of Mr. Morpurgo’s many campaigns has been to end the practice of incarcerating children in such centers.
He is in demand as a speaker and an advocate for, among other things, libraries, literacy and the rights of children. But it may well be that “War Horse” is his defining piece of work.
“All this should have happened 30 years ago,” he said recently. “It’s all come at completely the wrong time. But better late than never — although I don’t think my wife thinks so, sometimes.”
LONDON — Before it was made into a hit West End play, before it was bound for Broadway, before it was set to be Steven Spielberg’s next big movie, “War Horse” was a slim, powerful children’s book about a young man and his beloved horse on the front lines of World War I.
Published in 1982, the book was a “huge nonevent” at the time, according to its author, Michael Morpurgo; it drew better reviews than his earlier works but relatively little sales. It did get nominated for a big national prize, which it failed to win. Mr. Morpurgo, transported to the ceremony in a limousine, found that the car had mysteriously dematerialized during the evening; he left by subway.
Undaunted, he kept writing and publishing, sometimes two or three books a year (he has now written more than 120), and his reputation grew. From 2003 to 2005 Mr. Morpurgo was Britain’s third children’s laureate (a post similar to that of poet laureate, but for children’s literature), an honor befitting someone who had become one of the country’s best loved and most visible children’s authors. But while many of his books were hits, “War Horse” seemed destined for noble semiobscurity. “If sales ever reached 1,500 copies a year, I would be surprised,” Mr. Morpurgo said.
But that all changed in 2007, when a dramatic version of “War Horse” opened at the National Theater. Starring, as the horses, life-size puppets created by the Handspring Puppet Company of South Africa, the play was a huge, emotional triumph, leaving audiences wrung out and weeping. It transferred to the West End, where it is still selling out. It opens Thursday at Lincoln Center Theater in New York, where Mr. Morpurgo will be in the audience. And in December the film version, directed by Mr. Spielberg and starring the British actors Jeremy Irvine, Benedict Cumberbatch and Emily Watson (and a cast of real horses), is to open in the United States.
The cause of all this excitement is 67 years old, acutely modest and delightfully chatty, able to turn almost any observation into an entertaining anecdote. Dressed the other day in a beret, rumpled Nantucket-red pants and a matching Nantucket-red safari-style jacket (equally rumpled), he seemed alternately thrilled, surprised and amused by what had befallen a book he wrote so many years, and so many books, ago.
He had had his doubts about whether “War Horse” would work onstage. When he first heard of the plans to use puppets, he said, he thought it sounded disastrous, “like a joke.” But he calmed down when he saw the result: life-size puppets that move, whinny, startle and nuzzle so much like real horses, they seem to be fully realized characters.
Mr. Morpurgo’s novels, set all around the world, tend to focus on some favorite themes: humans’ extraordinary bond with animals, children’s courage in adversity, and the power and wonder of nature. Many have gone on to win awards, and four have been nominated for the Carnegie Medal, Britain’s best-known children’s literature prize.
“He’s the most respected British children’s writer working today, whether he’s writing for very young readers or for teenagers,” said Jon Howells, a spokesman for Waterstone’s book chain. “He’s a very powerful, very evocative, very insightful writer. He doesn’t patronize or condescend to his readers, and they really respond.”
“War Horse” is published by Scholastic in the United States, with more than 500,000 copies in print, said Kyle Good, a spokeswoman for the publisher.
Why has “War Horse” broken out in such a big way? The story resonates now more than when it was written, perhaps because of the era we live in. “In 1982 the only war in Britain was the cold war,” Mr. Morpurgo said. “But times have changed in the last 15 to 20 years. War does seem to be endemic. When it’s possible to do it, we seem to do it. It never ceases to amaze me that we fall into that trap again and again.”
The book, which has been called a great argument for pacifism, is written from the point of view of Joey the horse. It was inspired, in part, by a series of conversations Mr. Morpurgo had had years ago in his village, Iddesleigh, in Devon, with an elderly man who had served in a cavalry unit in World War I. “He told me with tears in his eyes that the only person he could talk to there — and he called this horse a person — was his horse,” Mr. Morpurgo said.
From the Imperial War Museum, Mr. Morpurgo learned that between one million and two million British horses had been sent to the front lines in the first World War, and that only 65,000 or so had come back. He resolved to write about them but struggled to find the right voice.
Then one evening he was at the farm he and his wife run in Devon, where poor children come to work with animals. (There are now three in Britain, and one in Vermont.) He was passing through the stable yard when he saw one of the children, a troubled boy who had a bad stutter and had not uttered a word in school in two years, standing head to head with a horse.
“He started talking,” Mr. Morpurgo recalled. “And he was talking to the horse, and his voice was flowing. It was simply unlocked. And as I listened to this his boy telling the horse everything he’d done on the farm that day, I suddenly had the idea that of course the horse didn’t understand every word, but that she knew it was important for her to stand there and be there for this child.” That became Joey’s role in “War Horse” — observer and witness as much as protagonist.
Mr. Morpurgo’s books have been set in jungles, on islands and in communities torn up by the Arab-Israeli conflict and by the 2004 tsunami. His most recent book, “Shadow,” tells the story of an Afghan boy who flees to Britain, only to be put in a detention center as he fights to stay in the country. One of Mr. Morpurgo’s many campaigns has been to end the practice of incarcerating children in such centers.
He is in demand as a speaker and an advocate for, among other things, libraries, literacy and the rights of children. But it may well be that “War Horse” is his defining piece of work.
“All this should have happened 30 years ago,” he said recently. “It’s all come at completely the wrong time. But better late than never — although I don’t think my wife thinks so, sometimes.”
Sunday, April 10, 2011
This day in History: April 10, 1916
On January 17, 1916, department store manager Rodman Wanamaker hosted a luncheon for a group of New York-area golf professionals and well-known amateur golfers at the Taplow Club in New York City.
The purpose of the assembly was to converse on the subject of forming a national association that would promote interest in golf, as well as to help elevate the vocation of golf professionals. Subsequent meetings were held over the next two months, and on April 10, 1916, The PGA of America was created via the 35 charter members signing the constitution and by-laws.
The purpose of the assembly was to converse on the subject of forming a national association that would promote interest in golf, as well as to help elevate the vocation of golf professionals. Subsequent meetings were held over the next two months, and on April 10, 1916, The PGA of America was created via the 35 charter members signing the constitution and by-laws.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Veterans of the "Great War" deserve better
NorthJersey.com: Veterans of the "Great War" deserve better
JANOSKI, STEVE
JANOSKI, STEVE
'World War I is abstract in the minds of many — a long-ago war fought on European soil that that is permanently overshadowed in the pages of the history books by its much larger sister war, fought just 21 years later.'
Americans have never been too good at remembering our history. From the condos that decorate some of the Civil War's major battlefields to the callous disregard given to historic buildings that lie in the way of "progress," we've always been a nation that's looked more toward the future than the past.
Although that philosophy might be part of the reason that we've risen (as a country) to the heights we have in a relatively short period, there are also certain instances where this can lead to neglecting portions of our past that should have been honored more appropriately.
Unfortunately, when Corporal Frank Buckles passed away on Feb. 27, we lost our chance to show the last American veteran of World War I that our neglect was in fact a mistake, and that we would fix it as soon as we could by making a monument to those who fought in what is becoming a forgotten war.
World War I is abstract in the minds of many — a long-ago war fought on European soil that that is permanently overshadowed in the pages of the history books by its much larger sister war, fought just 21 years later.
The people who fought in it, though, were real people — like my great-grandfather who, although he died long before I was born, was part of the artillery corps in France.
When I look at the rolls of his regiment or the yellowed letters he sent home from the European front, that war becomes tangible — no longer dry pages in a history book, but something that really happened, that somebody had to live through.
The war, however, was always real for Buckles. He had gone to France as an ambulance driver at just 16 years-old, and saw first hand the devastation that the "War to end all wars" wreaked on men.
Before his death, Buckles had been a proponent of creating a national monument on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and was the honorary chairman of the World War I Memorial Foundation.
Edwin Fountain, who sits on the board of directors for the Foundation, said that although a memorial exists in Washington to the "Great War," when it was originally dedicated in 1931, it was only meant to commemorate the 499 residents of that city who became casualties — not for the plethora of other Americans who died in the green fields of France.
Over time, as other war monuments were erected to honor the following wars of the 20th century, the WWI monument was neglected, and fell into disrepair — a terrible sin that has disrespected every one of the 5 million men who served in the war, and the 116,000 who never saw home again because of it.
Buckles called not only for the restoration of the D.C. monument, but also that it be rededicated as a national memorial. As the last members of the "Lost Generation" began to pass into history, he finally got some attention,
In 2009, he spoke to lawmakers in Congress about the need for a memorial — at the time, he was 108 — and for once, Congress listened.
Since then, Fountain said, about $7 million in stimulus money was secured in order to restore the monument in a way that will be tastefully done.
"We don't want to detract at all from the existing monument, because it's very peaceful, and it's been tucked off in the trees," he said. "It has a very different feel than the other (monuments.)"
"We want to add statues that will give it a national component, but would still be deferential to the original (purpose)," he said.
Restoration is currently underway, but Fountain said that only half the mission is completed, as the site still must be rededicated to recognize it as a national memorial.
Legislation is slowly making its way through Congress that would accomplish this, and Senate Bill No. 253 is a bipartisan effort that would authorize the establishment of this national memorial.
In the House of Representatives, the act is called, appropriately, the Frank Buckles WWI Memorial Act.
Fountain asks that citizens call their senators and congressmen and ask that they support the bill, which would finally give these brave men the posthumous honors that they all deserved to see with their own eyes.
I have to agree with him… it's only 93 years late.
Book Of A Lifetime: The Great War and Modern Memory, By Paul Fussell
The Indedependent: Book Reviews: Book Of A Lifetime: The Great War and Modern Memory, By Paul Fussell
As a history undergraduate I took a paper called "Business, Literature and Society, 1848-1914", in which we read masses of novels by Disraeli and Mrs Gaskell and Dickens about the Industrial Revolution and put them alongside the social and political history with which they dealt. Fiction as a primary source enchanted me, and the paper, with its complex and reciprocal overlaps and undertones, seemed a splendid way to learn about both history and literature.
Paul Fussell, in The Great War and Modern Memory, operates in a similar manner. "This book is about the British experience of the Western front," he writes, "and some of the literary means by which it has been remembered... I have tried to understand something of the simultaneous and reciprocal process by which life feeds materials to literature while literature returns the favour by conferring forms on life. And I have been concerned with something more: the way the dynamics and iconography of the Great War have proved crucial political, rhetorical and artistic determinants on subsequent life. At the same time as the war was relying on inherited myth, it was generating new myth". It makes me yearn now for a companion paper: "War, Literature and Society, 1910-1939".
Fussell observes humanity observing, the hows and to-what-ends of the work of Sassoon, Graves, Blunden, David Jones, Rosenberg and Owen. It is a history book; a personal introduction to the minds and methods of these wonderful writers; criticism; a threnody. He gives an account, for example, at once merciless and tender, of the great clichés of the Great War, from the obvious (poppies, birdsong over the ruined battlefield) to the ones you hadn't even quite clocked as cliches (young men swimmming in rivers, sunset blazing a gilded reflection from flooded shellholes, letters). With astonishing perspicacity, he identifies them, analyses them and explains why we love them; why they have proved so rich and so powerful for so long.
The book was published in 1975; every sentence remains strong, valid and beautifully put: "Every war is ironic because every war is worse than expected... Its means are so melodramatically disproportionate to its ends... Eight million people were destroyed because two people, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his consort, were shot... But the Great War was more ironic than any before or since. It was a hideous embarrassment to the prevailing meliorist myth... It reversed the idea of Progress."
So what precisely did I learn from this book? That war, this one especially, of its nature destroys that which it's trying (at best) or claiming, or purporting, or pretending (all too often), to protect. At national level this is important, today as then. At the level of the individual, it is shattering. This is what Daddy wasn't talking about, when he never talked about the war. I couldn't have written my book without it.
'My Dear I Wanted to Tell You', Louisa Young's novel of the First World War, is published by HarperCollins
As a history undergraduate I took a paper called "Business, Literature and Society, 1848-1914", in which we read masses of novels by Disraeli and Mrs Gaskell and Dickens about the Industrial Revolution and put them alongside the social and political history with which they dealt. Fiction as a primary source enchanted me, and the paper, with its complex and reciprocal overlaps and undertones, seemed a splendid way to learn about both history and literature.
Paul Fussell, in The Great War and Modern Memory, operates in a similar manner. "This book is about the British experience of the Western front," he writes, "and some of the literary means by which it has been remembered... I have tried to understand something of the simultaneous and reciprocal process by which life feeds materials to literature while literature returns the favour by conferring forms on life. And I have been concerned with something more: the way the dynamics and iconography of the Great War have proved crucial political, rhetorical and artistic determinants on subsequent life. At the same time as the war was relying on inherited myth, it was generating new myth". It makes me yearn now for a companion paper: "War, Literature and Society, 1910-1939".
Fussell observes humanity observing, the hows and to-what-ends of the work of Sassoon, Graves, Blunden, David Jones, Rosenberg and Owen. It is a history book; a personal introduction to the minds and methods of these wonderful writers; criticism; a threnody. He gives an account, for example, at once merciless and tender, of the great clichés of the Great War, from the obvious (poppies, birdsong over the ruined battlefield) to the ones you hadn't even quite clocked as cliches (young men swimmming in rivers, sunset blazing a gilded reflection from flooded shellholes, letters). With astonishing perspicacity, he identifies them, analyses them and explains why we love them; why they have proved so rich and so powerful for so long.
The book was published in 1975; every sentence remains strong, valid and beautifully put: "Every war is ironic because every war is worse than expected... Its means are so melodramatically disproportionate to its ends... Eight million people were destroyed because two people, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his consort, were shot... But the Great War was more ironic than any before or since. It was a hideous embarrassment to the prevailing meliorist myth... It reversed the idea of Progress."
So what precisely did I learn from this book? That war, this one especially, of its nature destroys that which it's trying (at best) or claiming, or purporting, or pretending (all too often), to protect. At national level this is important, today as then. At the level of the individual, it is shattering. This is what Daddy wasn't talking about, when he never talked about the war. I couldn't have written my book without it.
'My Dear I Wanted to Tell You', Louisa Young's novel of the First World War, is published by HarperCollins
Monday, April 4, 2011
Brown - Vimy Ridge: Remembering our fallen soldiers
WaWaNews: Brown - Vimy Ridge: Remembering our fallen soldiers
The battle of Vimy Ridge is one of the greatest battles in Canadian history. For the first time in the Great War, all four Canadian divisions fought together on the same battlefield. Canadian valour and bravery brought about an incredible victory, not only for Canadians, but for the entire allied force.
Although the war would continue another 18 months, Vimy marked the first major step back by the German Army since 1914. Both British and French forces had tried unsuccessfully to take the ridge earlier during the war. However, it was the Canadian Corps who would successfully accomplish this task. In the spring of 1917, the turning point commenced in WWI. On April 9th, after careful training and rehearsal, the Canadians attacked. The battle lasted five days. The corps suffered 10,602 casualties: 3,598 killed and 7,004 wounded, but by nightfall on April 12th, the Canadians were in firm control of the ridge. Their success at Vimy earned the Canadians a reputation as an unswerving fighting force. The sense of achievement and national pride created by this victory gave Canadians a great feeling of self-confidence and helped create a new sense of identity.
The Canadian National Vimy Memorial is Canada’s largest and principal overseas war memorial. Located on the highest point of the Vimy Ridge, the memorial is dedicated to the commemoration of the Battle of Vimy Ridge and Canadian Expeditionary Force members killed during the First World War. It serves as the place to commemorate Canadian soldiers who lost their lives in France during the First World War with no known grave.
It has often been said that Canada’s sons left their homes as young colonists but returned as Canadians. Vimy is indeed the birthplace of “Canadian Nationhood”. May they rest in peace- Never to be forgotten.
The battle of Vimy Ridge is one of the greatest battles in Canadian history. For the first time in the Great War, all four Canadian divisions fought together on the same battlefield. Canadian valour and bravery brought about an incredible victory, not only for Canadians, but for the entire allied force.
Although the war would continue another 18 months, Vimy marked the first major step back by the German Army since 1914. Both British and French forces had tried unsuccessfully to take the ridge earlier during the war. However, it was the Canadian Corps who would successfully accomplish this task. In the spring of 1917, the turning point commenced in WWI. On April 9th, after careful training and rehearsal, the Canadians attacked. The battle lasted five days. The corps suffered 10,602 casualties: 3,598 killed and 7,004 wounded, but by nightfall on April 12th, the Canadians were in firm control of the ridge. Their success at Vimy earned the Canadians a reputation as an unswerving fighting force. The sense of achievement and national pride created by this victory gave Canadians a great feeling of self-confidence and helped create a new sense of identity.
The Canadian National Vimy Memorial is Canada’s largest and principal overseas war memorial. Located on the highest point of the Vimy Ridge, the memorial is dedicated to the commemoration of the Battle of Vimy Ridge and Canadian Expeditionary Force members killed during the First World War. It serves as the place to commemorate Canadian soldiers who lost their lives in France during the First World War with no known grave.
It has often been said that Canada’s sons left their homes as young colonists but returned as Canadians. Vimy is indeed the birthplace of “Canadian Nationhood”. May they rest in peace- Never to be forgotten.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Vets of the Great War were the true tough guys
Kansas City Star: Vets of the Great War were the true tough guys
So I could have sworn I saw a headline last week announcing that Chuck Norris, that paragon of manly grit, had just turned 70.
But when I checked into it I discovered other stories announcing that he had turned 70 on the same date last year.
I was only briefly puzzled by the discrepancy before it hit me like a roundhouse kick to the jaw.
Chuck Norris doesn’t age. He endures.
OK, that’s my lame contribution to the canon of sayings about America’s premier hard guy.
But as tough as Chuck Norris is, or is supposed to be (Bruce Lee did jack him up pretty good in the movie “Return of the Dragon,”) I think even he would concede that the recently departed Jack LaLanne was a true example of American manhood.
I mean Churck Norris may have been a world champion karate fighter, but I don’t believe he ever swam underwater the length of the Golden Gate Bridge or towed 65 boats weighing thousands of pounds like LaLanne did.
Once he did 1,000 push-ups in just over 20 minutes.
I’m pretty sure I haven’t done 1,000 push-ups in the last 20 years.
As a kid I remember watching LaLanne’s TV show, although I can’t recall if I tried to exercise along with him. That show ran for decades and in recent years, LaLanne was known for hawking juicers and promoting healthy diet.
It worked for him. He lived to be 96.
But as fit and healthy and awe-inspiring as LaLanne was, I think he would have conceded that another recently departed American was more deserving of our respect and admiration.
When Frank Buckles died last month at the age of 110, he took the personal memories of a generation with him.
He was the last of the Doughboys, the young men of a bygone time who were hurled into the maelstrom of filth and gore that was the Western Front in World War I.
“Heroes” like Norris and LaLanne are one thing.
But we shouldn’t let the passage of time obscure the true heroism of men like Buckles. He may never have personally stepped into no-man’s land where young men fell in droves as machine guns scythed through their ranks, but through his longevity he came to represent them all.
It was a brutal, dehumanizing hell and Buckles was the last of millions who endured it.
I had just finished reading a book about the Doughboys when news came of Buckles’ death, so the vivid descriptions of that long-ago war were fresh in my mind.
I suspect, that even at 110, they were still fresh in Buckles’ mind, too. Those are the kinds of experiences that you wouldn’t forget.
And neither should we. They were the true tough guys among us.
So I could have sworn I saw a headline last week announcing that Chuck Norris, that paragon of manly grit, had just turned 70.
But when I checked into it I discovered other stories announcing that he had turned 70 on the same date last year.
I was only briefly puzzled by the discrepancy before it hit me like a roundhouse kick to the jaw.
Chuck Norris doesn’t age. He endures.
OK, that’s my lame contribution to the canon of sayings about America’s premier hard guy.
But as tough as Chuck Norris is, or is supposed to be (Bruce Lee did jack him up pretty good in the movie “Return of the Dragon,”) I think even he would concede that the recently departed Jack LaLanne was a true example of American manhood.
I mean Churck Norris may have been a world champion karate fighter, but I don’t believe he ever swam underwater the length of the Golden Gate Bridge or towed 65 boats weighing thousands of pounds like LaLanne did.
Once he did 1,000 push-ups in just over 20 minutes.
I’m pretty sure I haven’t done 1,000 push-ups in the last 20 years.
As a kid I remember watching LaLanne’s TV show, although I can’t recall if I tried to exercise along with him. That show ran for decades and in recent years, LaLanne was known for hawking juicers and promoting healthy diet.
It worked for him. He lived to be 96.
But as fit and healthy and awe-inspiring as LaLanne was, I think he would have conceded that another recently departed American was more deserving of our respect and admiration.
When Frank Buckles died last month at the age of 110, he took the personal memories of a generation with him.
He was the last of the Doughboys, the young men of a bygone time who were hurled into the maelstrom of filth and gore that was the Western Front in World War I.
“Heroes” like Norris and LaLanne are one thing.
But we shouldn’t let the passage of time obscure the true heroism of men like Buckles. He may never have personally stepped into no-man’s land where young men fell in droves as machine guns scythed through their ranks, but through his longevity he came to represent them all.
It was a brutal, dehumanizing hell and Buckles was the last of millions who endured it.
I had just finished reading a book about the Doughboys when news came of Buckles’ death, so the vivid descriptions of that long-ago war were fresh in my mind.
I suspect, that even at 110, they were still fresh in Buckles’ mind, too. Those are the kinds of experiences that you wouldn’t forget.
And neither should we. They were the true tough guys among us.
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