The Beatles Meet Ed Sullivan and Other Associations

Fifty years ago I saw my wife (she wasn’t my wife then) standing by her locker in the high school where we both attended.  I didn’t know her name; I didn’t know her friends and we had no classes together. It took me awhile to learn her name and about six months later, and at the end of the school year, I asked her out on a date. OK, I was a little shy back then. Nevertheless, what Beatles song does that scenario bring to mind? (The photo included in this post is of her, not by her locker, but a few of years later.)

Also, fifty years ago, 'Yesterday' was still 2 years in the future. The British Invasion was underway and the linch pin to that event was the Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964. Mind you, Ed Sullivan was not exactly cool in the minds of baby boomers still in high school, but he did bring to his show cutting edge performances that drew viewers to watch his show on many Sunday nights. Their appearance on the Ed Sullivan show signaled a legitimacy of sorts that this group had promise beyond one long playing (LP) vinyl album. I remember watching the Sullivan show that night and even buying the Beatles album, ‘Meet the Beatles.’ The album contained several memorable songs, including ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand,’ ‘I Saw Her Standing There,’ ‘and ‘All My Loving.’  What could not be known was that the Beatles would press 2 or 3 albums per year over the next six years, each with memorable songs and considerable sales. Their impact on the world of music was inconceivable at that time. Who could have known the songs that were in them: ‘Love Me Do, ‘Can’t Buy Me Love,’ ‘Hard Day’s Night,’ ‘And I Love Her,’ ‘Eight Days a Week,’ ‘I Feel Fine,’ “Ticket to Ride,’ ‘Help!,’ ‘Michelle,’ ‘In My Life,’ ‘Drive My Car,’ ‘Nowhere Man,’ 'Yesterday,' ‘Day Tripper,’ ‘Eleanor Rigby,’ ‘All You Need Is Love,’ ‘With a Little Help from My Friends,’ ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,’ ‘Strawberry Fields,’ ‘All You Need Is Love,’ ‘Come Together,’ ‘Hey Jude,’ ‘Here Comes the Sun,’ ‘Long and Winding Road’ and 'Let It Be,'.... All were still to be written and sung.

What I am remembering here is the unknowable potential they had.

 

Events in my life are associated with their music. Maybe they define in some ways those events. Funny things stick in my mind, like the ride in my uncle’s convertible one night as he drove over an eastern Tennessee mountain listening to ‘The Yellow Submarine,’ or the time early one morning I spent with a friend looking off a mountain bluff watching the cars below and talking about their album, Revolver. And then there was going to a Ravi Shanker at concert, because of his influence on the Beatles.

 

I think about this unknowable potential in the people around me. I ponder it when I am at the grocery check-out, at the coffee shop, and as I greet people entering my church.

 

Now the Beatles also made mistakes. They lived hard. They were also flawed. They, like us, went astray at times. And they, like us have also paid dearly. They had success. They had money, women and adulation. There was also this war. They had failures. The pulls on their lives were unimaginable. They grew up and some have died. They are like us, but what I want to say more than anything, they had incredible potential. They sang to their potential, saying much about our lives and culture. They shaped our culture. In 1969 they broke up. And so life is not so simple. It all takes a toll on the energy of life. They have a legacy.

 

A few weeks ago I served in an inner city project with the church my son and his family serve. The people there seem to get it. They see people living in the inner city as real people with hopes, dreams and most importantly potential. They love family, neighbors and the opportunities to serve also. What songs will they write and what will they sing? What are you writing and what are you singing about? The possibilities? There may even be a marriage in the mix.

 Scripture

Joseph is sold into slavery. – Genesis 37.28

After becoming Pharaoh’s son, Moses fled from Pharaoh to the wilderness of Midian. – Exodus 2.15

David was Jesse’s youngest son and was but a shepherd. – 1 Samuel 17.14-15; 17.33

God does not look at the things men look at. Instead, He looks at the heart. – 1 Samuel 16.7

Jesus, the son of an ordinary Jewish couple, was born and placed in a manger. – Luke 2.7

Jesus confronts Paul about Paul’s persecution of Christian believers. – Acts 9.4

Peter denies he knows Jesus. – John 18.25

 

He who has hope in Him becomes as He is. - 1 John 3.3

The Sandhill Crane Lands in East Tennessee

Recently I was able to go to Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge in East Tennessee. It is approximately 30 miles north of Chattanooga and lies at the confluence of the Hiwassee and Tennessee Rivers. It is also a winter migration stop-over destination for Sandhill Cranes (Grus Canadensis). The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA) manages the area and has an observation platform there.

Migratory Sandhill Crane reside there from as early as late-October to as long as late-March each year. So if you would like to see Sandhill Crane, along with eagles and a few whooping crane, this might be a destination for you. 

To get there you might want to consult TWRA’s website: tnwatchablewildlife.org. I’ve included a photo of the intersection of Blythe’s Ferry Road and Shadden Road. The view is of Blythe’s Ferry Road from Shadden Road. Turning right, and following signs takes you to the observation platform on Priddy Road. The platform is open during daylight. Turning left takes you to the Cherokee Removal Memorial Park and beyond the park, Blythe’s Ferry on the Tennessee River. The museum building is open Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

 Both the wildlife observation platform and the memorial park provide an educational opportunity to students of American History and specifically the period of time during Presidents Jackson and VanBuren and to students of migratory wildlife. Both are free.

 

You may recall I wrote a post pertaining Sandhill Cranes in 2009 (May 2, 2009). The images of Sandhill Crane included in that post were of non-migratory Sandhill Cranes on the west coast of Florida. As a point of review, many of the photos were of  a pair of Sandhill Cranes sitting on a nest in which a colt was hatched.

The Sandhill Crane is a spectacular gray bird, standing 4 to 5 feet tall with a wingspan of 5 to 6 feet. They weight 10-15 pounds. The call is best described a bugling or trumpeting and can be heard at distance. On the day I was there, a single whooping crane was in the field with the Sandhill Cranes. Most notably it has a scarlet red cap on its head. The population midday was guesstimated to be 3000 birds. Toward evening and early morning the number may be ten-fold at 30,000 birds. They can be seen feeding in the marsh areas, and adjacent grain field. They eat seeds, berries, grains, insects, worms, amphibians and small mammals. As a species, Sandhill Cranes are long-lived (living 20 years of more). Their reproduction rate is considered low with only one nest in 3 producing a chick that survives. A nest will consists of only 1 to 2 eggs. A pair of Sandhill Crane mate for life. The migratory Sandhill Cranes that winter or stop-over in Tennessee nests in the Great Lakes region of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

Blythe’s Ferry on the Tennessee River is historic from the standpoint that it is the general site where Cherokee Indians crossed the river in their forced migration to Oklahoma. On the day of my visit I encountered a bird enthusiast with a spotting scope who kindly pointed out 5 American Eagles just up-stream.

 

The area in Tennessee I visited providing suitable Sandhill Crane winter habitat is located in back water of Chickamauga dam. According to one source the area became a wintering stop-over site in the 1990s.  This made me wonder, “Did Sandhill Crane use the area before the reservoir was created in 1940?” At the observation platform I encountered another bird observer who believed Native Americans who lived in the area before their removal used the long, straight Sandhill Crane bills for either ornamental or utilitarian purposes. If this is true, Sandhill Cranes may have wintered in the area prior to the 1990s. It appeared to me that the bill of a Sandhill Crane could do considerable damage to anyone attempting to molest a bird.

 

You may also recall that in November of 2013 the TWRA established a hunting season on Sandhill Crane in Southeast Tennessee. The season began Thanksgiving Day and was to close January 1, 2014. Permits, stamps and licenses were required, limit hunters to three birds and requires hunters not to hunt within the refuge.  

The hunt was controversial due to the fact the Eastern Population of Sandhill Cranes had declined significantly to only 25 breeding pairs in the 1930s. Fortunately, migratory Sandhill Crane populations have recovered to over 85,000 birds.

 

The Tennessean newspaper reported on January 10, 2014 that 118 Sandhill Crane were ‘bagged’ in the first season although 1200 harvest tags were issued. TWRA officials found no evidence that the birds would be scared from the area, noting that hunting does not occur within the refuge, only outside of it. Hunters reported that the bird is difficult to hunt because “one day they fly one direction, the next day another.”

 

For those interested, a Sandhill Crane Festival is held annually near the Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge. This year (2014) it is scheduled the weekend of January 18-19, 2014 in the Birchwood community. It is a celebration of thousands of sandhill cranes and numerous other water fowl. The nearby Cherokee Removal Memorial will host Native American performances and demonstrations on both Saturday and Sunday.

 

 

 

The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA), the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and other agencies provide considerable information on the Sandhill Crane which is available on the web.

Scripture

God set the birds to fly above the earth and across the expanse of the heavens. He created them all. Genesis 1.20-21

Man may eat any clean bird. Deuteronomy 14.11

The great sea creatures, beasts and birds praise the Lord. Psalm 148.7-10

The stork, swallow and crane keep the time of their migration, but people do not know the rules of God. Jeremiah 8.7

The birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap. Matthew 6.26

Walt Disney, Ms. Goff and Mr. Banks And a Review of Sorts of a Book by Ian M. Cron

A few days before seeing the movie, “Saving Mr. Banks” I had finished reading “Jesus, My Father, the CIA and Me” by Ian Morgan Cron, who had an alcoholic father. The book was about his struggle to know who his father was and understand his relationship with him. The book was a self-described “memoir of sorts” and like the movie’s flashbacks, there were many memories that the author revisited in the book. I believe that those who have survived an upbringing in a family with an alcoholic might relate to many of the issues Ian Cron struggled with for many years. Ms. P.L. Travers (Ms. Goff) might have benefited from reading Cron, but if she had there may have never been a movie called “Saving Mr. Banks.”

Now let me say, “Saving Mr. Banks” is a wonderful movie about the making of Disney’s “Mary Poppins” which was released in 1964. “Saving Mr. Banks” the movie, although it is about the movie “Mary Poppins” is not a movie for children. It is an account of the struggle Walt Disney had with the Ms. P. L. Travers (Ms. Goff), author of “Mary Poppins” over the making of “Mary Poppins” the movie. As long as Travers was financial stable, she did not need to concern herself with Disney’s promise to his daughters and his own desire to make a movie about Mary Poppins.

The struggle between Disney and Travers became more earnest if not necessary when her book agent told Travers she was about out of money and that she needed to sell the movie rights. It isn’t clear from the movie to what extent she maintained some control over the making of the movie, because ultimately she was financially dependent on it being done.

The issues between Walt Disney and P.L. Travers center primarily on each other’s rights to have creative control of the end product. According to the movie, Travers believed children should not have everything sugar-coated, that they needed to be confronted with reality so that they might be better prepared for the hard things of life. She believed Disney’s work did little to prepare children to face the realities of pain, struggle and loss. She thought Disney would only trivialize her story and make it syrupy sweet with music and animated characters.

  

Disney, on the other hand, wanted to make Mary Poppins a musical, with animated characters. He believed in giving children happy, sentimental endings. He wanted to inspire and give children hope.

As movie goers will discover, the book "Mary Poppins" is not totally fiction, but based in large measure on the experiences of Ms. Travers (aka Ms. Goff) and her father, who turns out to be the fictionalized Mr. Banks in the movie. Disney discovers this about Travers’ after holding to her expectation that the details of the movie adhere to the circumstances of her fiction. But when he portrays Mr. Banks as “too cruel” she explodes and he realizes that not only is Banks real but other characters are similarly real also. The irony is that in the book, the no-nonsense nanny, Mary Poppins has magical powers.

The writers change the story, realizing now that Mary Poppins came, not to save two children, but to save Mr. Banks from himself. Needless to say, this does not change her mind about the direction of the movie. And again, the writers are exasperated time and again. Disney himself is in search of what motivates her. He takes her to Disneyland to no avail.

Many of the movie reviewers of “Saving Mr. Banks” I read focused on the different perspectives held by Disney and Ms. Travers. In the end, Mary Poppins was a better movie because of their different perspectives. The movie, “Saving Mr. Banks” is a story of that collaboration, if I may call it that, chronicling the dilemma of an author in need of funds, but who wants desperately to preserve with integrity the experience she had with her father, and the creative force embodied by Disney who needed the movie rights of that story to fulfill a promise to his daughters and inspire a generation of children.

The movie resolves the conflict with Disney visiting Ms. Travers in England with the appeal to her that this movie is another storytelling of "Mary Poppins." Disney tells her his story of growing up poor in Missouri. And so the movie was made. It is a movie based on the story of Mary Poppins.

From the reviews I read after seeing the movie many made note of the innumerable flashbacks to Ms. Traver's childhood memories of her father, home life and childhood were shown through the use of flashbacks. However, there were at least two occasions that to me confirmed a struggle of memory and just how she chose to interpret them.

The book, “Jesus, My Father, the CIA and Me” by Ian Morgan Cron, who like Ms. Travers had an alcoholic father, struggled with depression. Cron's book chronicles his progress, lapses, and doubts of self-worth. It's about his memory of his childhood and his father, who was at times employed by the CIA. Like, Ms. Travers, Cron remembers certain things which on reflection and an accumulation of facts sometimes turns memory on itself. He writes that the whole truth is sometimes more than the facts. The whole truth sometimes requires a bit or maybe a lot of faith. There were places in the movie that suggested Ms. Travers, too, struggled with her memories of growing up with a father who was mistreated at work and dependent on alcohol.

From the perspective of the movie I am not sure if Ms. Travers ever settled with the notion that another story could be told of “Mary Poppins” that was as valid as the account held in her mind. Some who knew Ms. Travers say she never liked Disney’s version, but I am convinced that the account of Mary Poppins as told by Walt is the one I prefer. So this is my summary, the movie is about memories and what we make of them.  It may even take a little conflict resolution, but the point is, it's not just getting all the facts we can, but our faith to interpret them. The memories may even struggle within us, like the struggle between Disney and Ms. Travers, but ultimately we choose the end. Let me know what you think.

 Scripture

You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish…the saving of lives - Genesis 50.19-20

Remember and don't forget – Exodus 13.3, Numbers 15.39, Deuteronomy 5.15, 6.12, and 9.7

They piled stones as a memorial after crossing the Jordan River - Joshua 4.3-7

Today you will choose who you will serve – Joshua 24.15

Samuel took a stone and named it Ebenezer to remind them that God had helped them that far – 1 Samuel 7.12

Those who wait on God have hope – Isaiah 40.31

I have hope because God is who I have – Lamentations 3.24

Ten lepers were healed but only one remembered to give God the glory – Luke 17.18

Remembering the benefits to living in his father’s house, he came to his senses - Luke 15.17

Remember the sacrifice of Christ – Luke 22.19

God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them - Romans 8:28

We look to that which is eternal – 2 Corinthians 4.8-18

We do not grieve as others who have no hope – 1 Thessalonians 4.13

We have a reason for the hope that is within us – 1 Peter 3.15