Mummies of the World

Mummies of the World

By Jay           

It’s about time I wrote something else on this blog.  I don’t know how many people actually take the time out to read these entries, but the brothers can’t be blamed for trying. 

            This is something that has been kicking around in my head for a while now, and I figure now is better than next week or even next month though I should have written it in January, 2012 when it was still fresh in my mind.

            Last year, in downtown Charlotte, they had the Mummies of the World exhibit, and my wife (fiancé then) and I were eager to go and see what all the fuss was about.  We were fortunate to get tickets for Christmas, and so we went a few weeks later.  Unfortunately, we went on a Saturday when everyone else was there.  I detest crowds, especially when you’re crammed in and people are waiting for you to move, which was exactly what was happening the moment we arrived.  I felt like I was part of this big squirming worm as we waited in line to get in.  When I go to museums, I don’t like the feeling of people on all sides of me.  Who does?  I want to take the time to enjoy the exhibits without feeling the pressure of stepping aside.  Ah, well!...

            Finally, we reached a point where our tickets were stamped, and we were corralled into an area and pressed together with the rest of the mass who were there to view the mummies.  A young woman, probably just out of college, greeted everyone and gave us a brief background on what we were going to see.  She also stressed viewing the mummies with respect, and reminded us that we were in the presence of those who had once been alive.  I wondered if there was anyone among us who was so desensitized to death as to believe that what he was going to see was not a dead body.  And then I wondered something else…

            What was I doing there?

            I was holding the hand of my fiancé as if we were about to go on a peaceful stroll through a beautiful garden.  But in a moment we were going to be viewing dead bodies  --  shells which once contained living, breathing souls just like all the eager, well-fed people in the room waiting to view them.  The official exhibition catalog opens with what is defined as Mummy Ethics.  This states:

 

“All of the mummies and artifacts presented in the “Mummies of the World” exhibition have been held and established in well-respected European museum and university collections for a century or more and have a traceable provenance.  They were acquired at a time when collection of archeological objects and human specimens were a common practice.

Our goal in our exhibit presentation is to advance the relevance of anthropology in ancient global cultures, and to provide visitors with an educational and scientific window into the cultures, history and lives of the people who came before us.

We present “Mummies of the World” recognizing that ethical guidelines of global museum partnerships demand that human remains are treated with respect and dignity, taking into account the interests and beliefs of the social, ethical and religious groups from which the human remains originate.”

 

            This was essentially a euphemistic way of saying, “Hey, people!  It’s okay to go in and gawk at a bunch of desiccated corpses!  Don’t feel guilty!  Enjoy yourselves!”  Okay, this is a poor paraphrase, but you get the picture.

            I wondered how many of those who actually viewed the mummies visited for “educational” reasons.  How many of us were there to peek into the “scientific window” so that we could learn about “the cultures, history and lives of the people who came before us”?  I don’t deny there is a lot to learn from studying the dead.  It is very important for anthropology, archaeology, biology, and a host of other scientific disciplines.  But what could Joe Public actually get out of this besides satiating his morbid curiosity? 

            The exhibit was small but very interesting.  One of the exhibits that I remember was that of a mummified cat that had been found in Schwerin, Germany.  I remember gazing at it and thinking of my own cat at home.  I gazed at its savage looking teeth, once used to rip, tear and shred some poor and unfortunate mouse or bird back in the 1800’s. 

            Another particularly macabre looking mummy was an exhibit called “The Detmold Child.”  He was encased in a glass case and appeared to be in either a sitting or crouching position.  His eyes were shut and lips were closed.  The entire lower part of his face had puffed out and settled into his shoulders, so that he seemed to be without a neck when viewing him from the front.  He also had a full head of brown hair.  If I only had that much hair on my bald scalp after 6500 years!

            I looked over to see a middle aged couple gazing at an exhibit called “The Tattoo woman.”  Apparently, this mummy had been found in Chile and was dated to the 14^th century.  From the side, you could almost mistake her for a young woman with long hair who was sitting down with her knees pulled up to her chest.  A direct view showed a ghastly, bony corpse with the imprint of her (presumably) burial cloth patterned into the mummified flesh of her face.  The couple was gazing at the morbid figure with blank and unreadable expressions as if they were viewing a print of a still life, their arms around each other’s waists. 

            But the most disturbing mummies were left for the end.  I guess the directors of the exhibit still believe in the old motto SAVE THE BEST FOR LAST.  These mummies were called “The Vac Mummies” and consisted of husband, wife, and their infant child.  Apparently, the Orlovits family had been found in a crypt in Hungary in 1994.  Michael Orlovits, the father, appeared the least mummified.  He was laid out in a replica of the military uniform in which he had been buried.  His face, which was nearly skeletal, held an almost painful expression -- almost as if he were attempting to retain the remaining flesh which still clung tenaciously to the bone.  Veronica Orlovits, Michael’s wife, appeared more composed and comfortable with her situation.  She was laid out in her best white Sunday dress and bonnet.  Her arms and hands were folded over her stomach in such a way as to suggest complete repose.  Even her face, which was more preserved than her husband’s, simply gave her the appearance of one who had been sleeping for a very long time.  It was only her mouth, which was slightly upturned that seemed to suggest disgust with her condition and a distaste for the natural condition of death and the process of decay.  The infant, Johannes Orlovits, was situated in the middle of his parents.  He was wearing a child’s gown and bonnet, and like his mother, his tiny hands were resting peacefully upon his chest.  His gray face appeared to be made out of clay rather than mummified flesh, and the black empty holes where his eyes had been gave him a singularly resigned expression – as if he had not even attempted to comprehend the bewilderment and confusion of his single year on planet Earth.

            When we left the exhibit, we had to leave through the gift store where there was everything from paperweights to pens to children’s games.  Of course, I went to the books where I purchased Mummies of the World: The Official Exhibition Catalog as well as a much larger and more detailed volume called simply, Mummies of the World (This is where the “educational” value of the exhibit was richly detailed!).  If only the mummies knew how profitable their corpses would become. 

            This brings me back to my main point.  Why did I go?  I still don’t have an answer for that.  Was it because my brother, Craig, gave me the tickets for a Christmas gift?  I probably would have gone anyway.  Then why?  Was it simply just the morbid curiosity of seeing dead people?  Am I nothing more than a shallow minded, nosy looky loo?  I don't know!  I think I’ll go with the Mummy Ethics.  That sounds good to me!

 

 

   

              

A Lost Moment In Time

By Craig: The other day I was sifting through some old boxes looking for a certain document when I happened to stumble upon an old photo album that I had made when I was about ten years old. A lot of the photographs have become dislodged from the corners that they had been set into. However, overall, the photographs were in pretty decent shape considering the rough condition of the album. Some of them had been bent and tossed around. In fact, when I removed the album from the box a few of the photographs came tumbling out as if they were telling me "okay! okay! we have had enough! It has been 30 years since someone has looked at us! As I flipped through the fragile cardboard pages one of the photographs caught my attention. It was a photo taken by my father with my old Kodak camera back in 1978. The image was taken at summer camp in Gardner Massachusetts. I can remember the day well. It was a rainy day and a fairly miserable one at that. It was one of those days where the sky couldn't make up it's mind whether to clear up and dry everyone off with a blazing sunshine, or keep drowning us with vicious cloudbursts! Finally, it decided to drown us, but for some oddball reason none of really cared...We were having too much fun.

 

 

The photograph is hazy. The image is blurred. The human figures small and faceless, their identities eradicated by time. Only the bell bottomed trousers and the period cars give it a hint as to the time and era that this grainy image was captured. Disco was the craze. Jimmy Carter was the U.S. President. The New York Yankees with the late Thurman Munson behind the plate were three months away from winning another World Series, and weeks away from Bucky Dent's five minutes of fame. Does anyone remember Buck Dent?

 

  Only one of the tiny figures can be identified. A boy wearing a blue scout uniform and a yellow jacket can be seen near the middle of the photograph. His blazing wavy red hair standing on top of his head like an Olympic torch. He has broken into a run! He is on a mission. He is racing! He wants to win! He is me!  I forget the particulars. It was some sort of relay race. I was running toward a table to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Did I run back? Did I tag someone? I probably tagged my brother and he raced to the table and spread the jelly on the sandwich. Did anyone eat the sandwich? Did we win? It is strange how memories of events in ones past are only fragmented. Perhaps this is why we take photographs...to jog our pathetic memory banks. In the background there can be seen five other human figures. They all seem to be interested in the boy in the yellow rain jacket running at top speed toward something undefinable...something hazy...something blurred. That would be their recollection if somehow they could be identified and asked "What were you doing here?" There were hundreds of people at camp on that long ago day. Besides myself, does anyone else remember it? Would I remember that day if I did not have the photograph to refresh my memory? Over a third of a century has passed since the skinny boy in the yellow jacket raced toward a date with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He is still running today....He will continue to run...and run....and run...from the specter of time until, one day...he will run no more.

 

 



 

 



A Certain Encounter: The Man In The Front Pew

By Craig: One of the things that we all share as we pass along on life's short journey are interactions that we have with our fellow brother's and sisters. We start out as young babes under the loving care of a mother or father, or perhaps someone else...we all have different experiences. The world to a young tot is a compact thing. The child carefully observes his surroundings and learns from them. The people in the child's immediate circle are the ones that create the biggest influence. However, as the child enters school and meets new people he or she is confronted by new challenges. The path then leads to adulthood and finally old age. Along our wandering and weary path people come and go...some...never to return...They have a different path to follow than your path. That is the way of life.

     Every human on Earth is linked to everyone else through an intricate web of greetings, meetings and friendships which makes humankind a truly unique and compact body. In other words, I shook the hand of the hand of the hand that shook Napoleon Bonaparte's hand. However, before I digress into further absurdities I will get to the meat of this post and relate the history of the subject...The Man in the Front Pew. I will relate the details of this man's existence only as it relates to me, for I am wholly ignorant of any other aspects or knowledge of his life.

      When I was ten or eleven years old my twin brother and I became altar boys at our local church. It was a small parish with two resident priests. One of the priests (the head vicar) was an intelligent, kind man who would have given you the shirt off his back. The other priest was an elderly French-Canadian gentleman who interjected his sermons with humour and wit and was frequently somewhat drunk. When it was time to pour the wine and water I would pour every last drop of wine into the chalice. My brother, standing beside me would tilt the water and let a mere drop fall into the chalice before the old Frenchman would slap his hand lest the water dilute the effects of the wine! Perhaps he needed this boost to get him through the end of the Mass...I don't know....Anyway, my brother and I would spend a good portion of the Mass seated on cushioned chairs flanking the priest. Being twins, we were like a matching set of cards. I can remember going through the motions during the Mass. I suppose some naïve people in the church thought that we were two pious children. However,  I spent most of the Mass reflecting on all of the things that I would do outside afterwards! Sorry Jesus, but an 11 year olds mind is easily distracted, unless the 11 year old was a precocious one of pure genius and piety, the child has anything but pious thoughts running through the mind. I surely was no precocious genius! On the contrary, I was rebellious and rather hard headed. Anyway, as I would sit there next to the priest waiting for the Deacon to finish a reading I would scan the assembly and observe all of the pious and not so pious faces. Most of them were familiar to me, for I had been going to this church since I was five. There was the little old lady with the smoky colored veil who must have performed the sign of the cross a billion times during the Mass. There was the perfect couple Biff and Jane with their 8 kids who always sat next to the front so that everyone could see them. Biff, with his straight jet black hair and square jaw sitting bolt upright holding his wife's hand and seemingly engrossed in the sermon, but in reality was thinking about how he could get the big business deal done the next morning. These days he might be caught taking a peak at his I-Phone. Then...there was The Man in the Front Pew...He was an elderly gentleman, perhaps in his late 70s or early 80s, rather smallish with an olive complexion as if his antecedents might have come from the Mediterranean. Indeed, he himself might have hailed from that part of the world. I had no way of telling. I never once heard him speak. Was he mute? Probably not, but his speech is not what interested me. It was the regularity of his attendance. He always wore glasses with thick rims, and his eyes sat behind them like two giant ones that might have belonged to a bug...or better put, a fly. Indeed, I often had an absurd notion that he might sprout wings and fly up out of the pew where he would buzz around the church waking the lethargic ones out of their slumbering state.
"BZZZZ...Have some respect!" He would buzz in their ears.

     Bug man always wore a large wooden cross around his neck. I often wondered if he might have carved it himself. It was unusually large for an object to be worn in the manner that he was using it. It would have been about the size of one that you normally would have seen above somebody's bed. The little man was always alone, and seemed to attend every Mass whether it was the early one, the High Mass, or even the Vigil Mass the night before. He was ubiquitous, yet I never saw him at a function other than a Holy Mass...It was as if he somehow formed from the pew itself just before the Mass started and then after the Mass had ended would recede back into it until the next one. He always sat in the same place...front pew...port side of the altar. He would, therefore, be the first to receive holy communion.

     I served in the capacity of Altar boy for about 4 or 5 years. In all this time the man in the front pew never failed to show up. What was his history? Did he have a family? Had he ever been married? Did he have any kids? I never knew. I moved away from this area and it would be over a quarter of a century before I returned to this church, and it was quite by accident. A couple of years ago I made the trek north to visit my aunt. One day I decided that I would show my son where I grew up, so we drove the twenty or so miles and merely drove around as I pointed out the places that I had lived, and where I had gone to school. I decided to take a detour back and inevitably by some quirk ended up getting lost...Or was I lost? It had been years since I had been to this area and things had changed. I was suddenly able to orient myself when I came out on the road where the church was. It is still there, unchanged from the days when I attended Mass there. I thought about going in, but decided that we needed to get back as it was getting late in the day. A short time after we passed the church a large horse fly had somehow managed to find its way into the truck and was making a nuisance of itself......

Elements of Time: The Fate of Man?

By Craig: It was a dream unlike any other. It happened sometime after the witching hour, but the exact time now eludes me. Perhaps it was early on in the night, or maybe I dreamed it right before dawn. It was a dream, yet it might have been a vision. It spoke to me through a voice that only I could recognize. It is hard to explain...for it was my dream, and even the dreamer cannot remember every sharp detail. It took shape out of a hazy fog which slowly dissipated until I could make out clear images. I became aware of my surroundings rather suddenly. I was floating in the sky...above the trees, but not so high that I could not clearly see the ground and its features. I was on Earth...I knew that it was in the future, but I had no way of ascertaining how far in the future until I rose much higher...but this would come later. I was traveling at a slow speed over a lush green forest. It was a hardwood forest, primeval in its look dominated by massive red and white oaks...their trunks so thick that a small car could pass through them. I was looking at a virgin forest. It was the kind of forest that the pilgrims encountered when they landed off Plymouth in 1620...unblemished...untouched, not yet raped by man. It was the forest of the Brothers Grimm...Young Goodman Brown, and Goldilox...I descended into the trees and observed the sounds of the forest primeval. A woodpecker performed his business sounding much like a jackhammer on a crowded city street.  A faint chirping sound brought me to a thick branch of a chestnut tree which reached out of its trunk like a giant's arm ready to do battle. There, I saw three yellow heads bobbing up in down in their nest looking for their mother. First one, then another, and finally a third which flapped its little wings as if it might be saluting my ghostly presence. But of course, it could not possibly see me. I was but a soul flying invisible, unburdened by the corporeal body to which I am normally attached.

    Wait. What's this? I heard a noise, like a rumble from afar. What it was I could not tell, but it was getting closer...and now it was right under me! Wild horses! The Kentucky Derby of the future! Minus, of course, the throng of people, and the track and stands. Like Eohippus of old, here they were, darting here, darting there, around trees they went, hundreds of them. Some of them were black, some white, some different shades of brown and grey. Soon, however, they had all passed leaving nothing but the trampled earth behind them. My friend the woodpecker, had barely flinched in his business as if nothing else mattered in the world, and indeed, at this time in the distant future...nothing did!

     I decided to fly higher...way above the trees. Soon the tree tops amalgamated with the rest of the landscape until I was so high that I could no longer discern shapes...only colors. Green, black, grey, brown, yellow, what's this! blue?.. It was the ocean! I rose so high that the continents began to take shape. Yes...There was North America...South America...Africa, and Western Europe. But something was wrong. Something was not quite right...The continents seemed further apart...and Lo! some of the real estate was missing. Where was Florida? It wasn't there...And the west coast of North America was fragmented. Indeed, it appeared as if a big gaping sea had carved itself between the Rocky Mountains and California. I was somewhat disturbed...This was not my time...not my world. It was foreign to me. I lowered myself back above the tree tops and soared through the sky like a freebird. As I sailed effortlessly through the sky I now became aware of something that had been grasping at the handle of my mind.
"Where was man?"
"Where were the great cities and towns created by man?"
"Where were the great monuments erected by man throughout the eons?"
There was no trace of my species. They had vanished...seemingly swallowed by time...perhaps devoured, bones and all, the dusty remnants disseminated across the globe by the elements from which they arose.  BUT WAIT! WHAT'S THIS! A lone figure...an animal of some kind...lurking behind a large boulder. It was almost human in form, but grotesque in it's hairy bloated appearance. And the stench...it was overpowering...and although I was but a spirit it somehow managed to permeate my wispy soul in a manner that I could not readily explain. The lone figure squatted on it's haunches with its overgrown head and large gaping mouth open as if ready to consume whatever came its way. It stole a suspicious glance at a cave entrance from which two more of these hideous beasts emerged, their posture and movements were curious to say the least, sometimes walking upright, sometimes on all fours. They made horrible guttural sounds, and were soon joined by the suspicious looking brute that had been hiding behind the boulder. It now dawned on me with horror and disgust that what I was looking at were the descendants of man. Carnivores...savages...self consuming brutes that had regressed back to what they really were. Appalled at this future apparition I quickly rose into the sky until I was traveling through interstellar space. Earth, nothing but a tiny dot, a microcosm that stood as a blemish among all of the stars, planets, and cosmic dust that make up our universe.

Pope Formosus and the Cadaver Synod

By Craig: One of my many fascinations for as long as I can remember have been lists, or chronologies of events that have taken place in our worlds remote past.I can remember memorizing the Presidents of the United States from a place mat at a hotel breakfast table in Washington D.C. back in 1975. I was not even seven years old at the time, but it wasn't hard for me to take in all the names and dates. This led to other chronologies like the Kings and Queens of England which I memorized from a set of postage stamps that I somehow acquired when I was nine. I learned their names, William the Conqueror, Richard the Lionheart, Richard III, so on and so on....all the way up to Elizabeth II, who, I guess, will always be Queen since she was then...and still is. Then came the Roman Emperors starting with Caesar and ending in the year 476 with Romulus Augustus. Imagine having a powerful name like that! With a name like Romulus Augustus one might think of some powerful entity wielding a heavy sword and ruling with an iron fist. Unfortunately for Rome, Romulus was a nothing more than an effete, sickly teenager who surrendered hundreds of years of Roman rule to the barbarian hordes.

     Another one of our worlds fascinating chronological achievements is the list of Popes. Yes, there have been 266 of them, from St. Peter all the way to the current Pontiff, Francis. Now I admit, I have never been able to memorize the entire list of Roman Bishops. I'll give an A+ to anyone that has. However, I do know a lot of them, along with some interesting facts. for instance, did you know that one Pope (Stephen VI or VII, depending on the list of Anti-Popes) had his predecessor's corpse (Formosus) exhumed and placed on trial? This event has come down in history known as The Cadaver Synod. From what I gather, Pope Stephen was a fruitcake. He should have been placed in an insane asylum rather than being elevated to the highest level of the Church. Of course, in those days, and for centuries before and after the Cadaver Synod which took place in 897, most of the Popes were anything other than humble, holy, imitators of Jesus Christ. Some of them were thief's, and even murderers. One of them, Urban VI enjoyed hearing the tormented screams of political rivals whom he was having tortured by various barbaric methods.

                                       The Cadaver Synod of 897 by Jean-Paul Laurens

      The Cadaver Synod took place in Rome in January 897. Pope Stephen had been elected Pope after the sudden death of the aged Pope Boniface VI who had reigned for less than a month after Formosus had passed. Stephen immediately set out to denigrate the memory of Formosus, a man that he considered to be a blasphemer who had openly sought the Papacy. Formosus' rotting corpse was charged with perjury. The trial was nothing more than a sham which was supported by Stephens political allies, who have traditionally been thought to have been the true instigators of the trial. Apparently, the Holy Roman Emperor, Lambert of Spoleto had a grudge to settle with the dead pontiff. He had been crowned Emperor by Formosus early in that pontiff's reign only to have Formosus later openly support another candidate, the Frenchman Arnulf. This interpretation of the motive for the trial has been challenged in recent years, but whatever the reason it remains one of the Papacy's most macabre spectacles. Formosus' body garbed in his papal robes was propped on a throne, apparently in front of a jury of his peers who were most probably active supporters of Stephen, or perhaps Lambert. A priest or a Deacon was appointed to answer for the mute corpse. Not surprisingly, Formosus was found guilty. The three fingers of his blessing hand were cut off, and his stripped body unceremoniously cast into the Tiber river where it was later supposed to have been retrieved by a supporter and given a proper burial. It was said that certain miracles occurred shortly after the body appeared on the banks of the Tiber.

      When I first read about the Cadaver Synod many years ago I was fascinated by the story. Imagine sitting on the jury of this most gruesome trial... I find myself sitting amongst a number of hard looking men, singular in their appearance, as if they all had been bred from the same wicked home. The defendant had not yet arrived, but was soon announced preceded by a nauseating odor that soon permeated even the airy hall in which the trial was to be held. The grinning corpse with its hoary beard still attached to the vestiges of whatever flesh remained was seated on a mock throne brought in by four unfortunate paupers who did not seem too pleased with the task that had been delegated to them. A fleshy looking monk with a toothy smile, dressed in a brown habit darted behind a curtain in back of the stinking mass of bone and flesh. He was to answer for the deceased. My eyes were fixed on the corpse, who I almost expected to get up, wield a sword, and start cutting down his accusers like the skeletons in the Ray Harryhausen movie Jason and the Argonauts.

"How to you plead?" asked the prosecutor, who was a tall bearded Bishop in a white robe.

After a moment of hesitation, as if the corpse itself were deliberating over the question, an answer came forth from behind the curtain, though it appeared to issue from the corpse itself.

"Guilty!!!!!" was the response.

The accusations were brought forth by the bearded Bishop and witness' were called in. All of them attested to the accused's ambitious nature which went against the tenets of the Church.

"You are a heretic!!! What does the jury conclude in regard to this fraud and perjurer who has even admitted his guilt with his plea?" asked the Bishop with a gleeful twinkle in his eye.

"Guilty!!!!! was the unanimous response minus one, who quite naturally happened to be me.

With the verdict in, Pope Stephen arose from his tall papal chair and pointed an accusing finger at the hapless remains of Formosus who seemed to be not only grinning mockingly at him, but at each and every person in the hall.

"Sever the fingers of his hand that blessed, and dispose of this trash." exclaimed the vindictive smiling Pope. He glanced around the hall and his eyes met with mine, and his smile immediately vanished.

"And also dispose of this friend of the heretic!" He exclaimed, pointing a bony finger at me.

With horror I began looking for an exit, and soon found myself in full flight down the great hall in which this mock of a trial had taken place. I was soon being pursued by a number of angry soldiers with pikes, and a few monks who had taken off their sandals and began hurling them at me in a ludicrous attempt to arrest my escape. However, these old medieval chaps had no way of knowing that I can run a mile in five minutes and some change, so they had no chance of catching this son of Mercury! As I dashed around a corner and exited the great hall into the courtyard I noticed a bony looking fellow dressed in pontifical garb motioning for me to escape down a certain alley. It was Formosus!  He gave me a hollow wink and a thumbs up, as I passed him, and with this I disappeared down the alley and back into the 21st century.

Elements of Time: The Rusty Car In The Woods

By Craig: When I was a kid I can remember playing in the woods with my brother and my friends. In those days the world was huge. The woods foreboding and mysterious. This was especially true once you lost sight of your house. The further we ventured from our place of security the more enigmatic the terrain became. There was an open patch of grass which I imagined had been created by giants who had destroyed all of the trees and used it as a place to rest their weary gargantuan bodies. However, it was not the giants, or the strange noises that you might hear in the woods and try and discern the source that were the most mysterious. No, it was something solid... something old...something in the state of decay.


 The old car sat rusting about 100 yards from the road. I was told that it was a Model T Ford, but no one seems to know how it got there, or why it was there. Trees had grown all around the hulking mass of rusted metal that had once served a useful purpose. In fact, I distinctly remember a tall pine tree growing through where the engine block once sat...long since removed by some forgotten hand that had probably utilized the various parts. The rubber tires had disintegrated in a previous decade, so it sat on its bare rims looking forlorn and sad. Alas! Where was the glass? It too was missing. Countless New England winters, falling branches from trees, and mischievous kids with rocks from a bygone day had settled that. I wondered how it got there. There was no road, or even a trail that led to the spot. Trees and thick brush had grown up all around it. Was it a time traveler? Who had drove it to it's final resting place, and why there? Was it because it was so out of the way? It's final run had obviously occurred in my grandparents time. To me...that may as well have been in the Devonian times when trilobites ruled the earth.

During the six years or so that I lived near this decaying relic I became a common visitor. I can remember sitting on its rusted frame, a nine year old boy pretending to drive it back onto the road from which it had last departed a half century before. I would sit there and think about the time from when this car was in its hey-day. It was a hot summer day. The car was shiny and new and I tested its horn which sounded like a foghorn from a ship! The tires...They were there! rubber United Royal Cord Tires! I drove it onto the main highway and pulled it into the General Store where a bearded man was listening to the radio. In a crackling voice Calvin Coolidge was addressing the nation. I listened for a minute or two before examining the glass counter top that protected the candy underneath. Was that a Baby Ruth candy bar? I attempted to gain the attention of the bearded gentleman, but of course he could not possibly see me. I was a ghost...a time traveler from another age whose sentimental leanings had landed him here in a time other than his own. A newspaper on the wooden counter had a headline Dempsey beats Willard!!!! I left and walked out onto the newly paved street lined with tall elms from which their canopies gave plenty of shade to walkers on their late afternoon sojourns. And there! the patrolman on his beat! I knew him! It was old Mr. Johnny who lived down the street, but he looked different...younger...more full of youth and vigor. I did not belong here. This was not my time. I found my automobile...yes...MY automobile, for I was to be the last one to drive it. I admired its shiny hood...why it looked as if it had just come out of the factory in Detroit. I climbed in, tooted the horn and drove off down the road. However, something was wrong...the paint...it started peeling off, slowly at first, and then faster...and what's this...RUST! At first only small patches appeared, but soon the car started belching a thick white smoke. I had to get it back....back to its proper place. The scenery began to change. The farmland with the ubiquitous New England stone walls began turning into wooded forests. There it was! A small lane and I barely had time to maneuver the smoking jalopy back to its final resting spot before the forest encroached all around us. It disintegrated before my eyes, and I found myself back in my own time seated on this bucket of rust...a metallic can slowly being reclaimed by the elements from which it was molded. The same elements that will reclaim each and every one of us as we advance down the endless corridor of time.

A World of Black and White: The Student of Prague

By Craig: I do not watch television anymore. In fact, I no longer have cable. It's not that I can't afford it, but to me it is an unnecessary expense. There is nothing on cable television that is worth watching anyway to justify the expense, except perhaps a few programs on the History Channel or Discovery. When we moved into our new house three years ago my wife insisted on getting a plasma TV. I could have done without it. When I did watch television, I always felt that I was wasting my life. I can't explain why I feel like this, but it might have had something to do with the fact that television takes the creativity out of the human mind. It is like a big leach, sucking the brain cells out of a person's head.

     I was born in 1968. When I was a young boy growing up in the 1970s  I somehow perceived that the world was in colour. To me, any event that occurred before I was born happened in black and white. Most news footage from the years prior to 1968 were in black and white. Most movies and television re-runs before the year 1968 were in black and white. Absurdly I also believed that people walked faster in the old days. Naturally I was real young when these notions crossed my juvenile mind, but I still remember having them. I was nothing but a mere product of my limited experiences. The world evolved from the black and white state to that of colour the moment that I was born. Alas! Everything emerged from the darkness on that September day back in 1968. Should not the whole world thank me for giving them colour? It was an absurd and ludicrous notion, yet to me it was real.

     The other day I was going through a few old cardboard boxes and found a DVD that my brother Jay had given me a few years back. Jay likes the old silent movies from the 1920s, especially Lon Chaney movies. I don't believe that he has watched anything on the screen that was made after 1930, but I can't be sure of this. The movie that I pulled out of the box was called The Student of Prague. I can remember Jay raving about it a few years back, but I had never gotten around to watching it. I guess that I was just too busy to sit down and watch a movie that was made the year my grandmother was born. That's right...The Student of Prague was filmed in 1913, a year before the Great War. It is a German film, sort of a gothic/horror that tells the tale of a poor university student named Balduin (played by Paul Wegener) who makes a bargain with a shady sorcerer in which he receives gold in return for his reflection. Balduin spends most of the movie running from his reflection, and at the end of the movie gets the not so bright idea of shooting it with a dueling pistol...which...of course ends up killing him! Not too smart, but hey, if I were running from my reflection I might resort to the same desperate act. Don't we all at some point in our own mundane lives run from our own reflections?

                                                Balduin Sees His Reflection
                                              (The Student of Prague) 1913

     The movie was only about 40 minutes long and I watched it with my 9 year old son who thought it was interesting. I told him that his great-great grandmother played the organ for silent movies when they were in the theatre those many years ago. He asked me if she played for this movie, but of course I had to answer that I had no way of knowing that. Her name was Cora. I can remember my grandmother talking about her. She died of a Brain Abscess at the tender age of 27 back in 1920. My grandmother who as I already mentioned was born in 1913 had very few memories of her. Although she died 48 years before I was born...when the world was still black and white, an image has formed in my mind. There she sits with her hands on the black and white keys of her chosen instrument. She plays a dirge as Paul Wegener glances in horror at the looking glass and is horrified to see that his black and white reflection is not there! Cora observes the reaction of the black and white audience who sit spellbound by the performance. Eventually the movie ends, as does the scene and the act that makes up the duration of Cora's short life. However,... before the scene closes.... as she leaves the theatre, and walks outside into the balmy air of her black and white world, a faint smile crosses her face as a vision of a futuristic world comes to her....a world of colour, a world perhaps where people will no longer have to run from their own reflections.

                                                             Cora O'Hearn (At the Organ)
                                                                    (1892-1920)