Remembrance of things past (part 17,643)

Today, June 6th, is not only the 73rd anniversary of D-Day in 1944 (young readers should google it) but also the 59th anniversary of the marriage of my dad, Clifford Ray ("Ted") Brague, to Mildred Louise Williams Houston, my stepmother, in 1958.

The wedding took place in the little Methodist Church -- note that I did not say United Methodist Church; that entity did not come into being for another ten years when the big Methodist Church, which itself had been a merger of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Methodist Episcopal Church South, and the Methodist Protestant Church in 1939, merged in 1968 with the much smaller Evangelical United Brethren (EUB) -- in Coppell, Texas, way up in the northwest corner of Dallas County. Back then, Coppell was a village of about 600 people with not even one traffic signal. Now its population is estimated to be more than 41,000 human beings and an unknown but surely formidable number of cats, dogs, and other assorted pets. There are lots of traffic signals. The marriage between my dad and my stepmother lasted three months shy of nine years, when my dad succumbed to pancreatic cancer at the age of 60 in March 1967. My stepmother eventually married again to John Wesley Fuller and lived until 2004, passing away at the age of 89.

On that same day in 1958, June 6th, Claire married Dr. Doug Cassen on As the World Turns, a television soap opera loved by my mother when she was alive and also by my new stepmother. It was probably the only thing they had in common.*

I do not know why I remember such things. I just do.

*besides my dad, of course.

If you're not musically inclined, you might want to skip this one altogether...

and even if you are (musically inclined), it may still prove confusing. But just in case anyone wants to sing the door song, "One Door And Only One (And Yet Its Sides Are Two)" from my New Year's Day post, here are the notes in the melody line, in the key of F:

F-C-C-F-F-C, C-F-G-A-Bb-C,
D-Bb-D-C-A, F-G-G-A-G.
F-C-C-F-F-C, C-F-G-A-Bb-C,
D-Bb-D-C-A, F-A-A-G-F.

Rhythm, rhythm, how to convey the rhythm. I'll use H to indicate a half note, Q for a quarter note, E for an eighth note, and S for a sixteenth. If an E is followed by an S, the eighth was really a dotted eighth. Ready? Here's the rhythm for "One Door And Only One":

Q-E-S-E-S-E, S-E-S-E-S-H,
Q-E-S-Q-E, S-Q-E-S-H,
Q-E-S-E-S-E, S-E-S-E-S-H,
Q-E-S-Q-E, S-Q-E-S-H.

Is everything perfectly clear?

We also sang another song back in that little Methodist church in the 1950's. We sang it for both Sunday School and Vacation Bible School simply by changing the word "Sunday" to "Bible."

Step, step, step, step,
We're going to Sunday School.
Step, step, step, step,
We're going to Sunday School.
We're going there to work and play,
We're going there to sing and pray,
Step, step, step, step,
We're going to Sunday School.

Using our now tried-and-true method, here are the notes (again in the key of F) for "Step, Step, Step, Step (We're Going To Sunday/Bible School," followed by the rhythm pattern:

C-D-E-F, F-A-Ab-A-Ab-A,
C-D-E-F, F-Bb-A-Bb-A-Bb,
Bb-A-G-F#-G-C-A-G,
A-G-F-E-F-A-F-D,
C-D-E-F, F-A-F-G-E-F.

Q-Q-Q-E, S-E-S-E-S-H,
Q-Q-Q-E, S-E-S-E-S-H,
S-E-S-E-S-E-S-E,
S-E-S-E-S-E-S-H (held),
Q-Q-Q-E, S-E-S-E-S-H.

I believe someone in that little Methodist church, possibly Mrs. Sally Huffman, wrote both songs and also a little poem that was used for birthdays. During Sunday School opening exercises, for which all ages were present, people who had celebrated a birthday during that week walked forward and placed an offering in the flower-fund jar, then turned and faced the congregation to receive the following birthday blessing, recited by young and old alike, en masse:

Many happy returns of the day of thy birth,
May sunshine and gladness be given;
And may the dear Father prepare thee on earth
For a beautiful birthday in Heaven.

Something else I believe: They don't make churches like they used to. [Update. Someone told me that "that little Methodist church" now has more than 3000 members and is the biggest church in town.]

Thoughts on New Year's Day

"In Roman mythology, Janus was the god of gates, doors, doorways, beginnings, and endings. His most apparent remnants in modern culture are his namesakes: the month of January and those caretakers of doors and halls, janitors.

"Janus was usually depicted with two faces looking in opposite directions and was frequently used to symbolize change and transitions such as the progression of past to future, of one condition to another, of one vision to another, the growing up of young people, and of one universe to another. He was also known as the figure representing time because he could see into the past with one face and into the future with the other. Hence, Janus was worshipped at the beginnings of the harvest and planting times, as well as marriages, births and other beginnings. He was representative of the middle ground between barbarity and civilization, rural country and urban cities, and youth and adulthood."

So says Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia.

Change. Transitions. I am reminded of a verse in the New Testament, 2 Corinthians 5:17, which states, "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." Just like Janus, we can look into the past with one face, an old one, and into the future with another face, a brand new one, but only if we are in Christ and have become new creatures. This, by the way, is not self-reformation or turning over a new leaf; this is asking Jesus Christ to give us a new life. Lot's wife, who had her own way of doing things, looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt. And even though it is not we who change ourselves, we do have a role in the process. The Apostle Paul said, "I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 3:13-14)

And speaking of doors, I'm also reminded of a little song we used to sing in the children's department of the First Methodist Church in Mansfield, Texas, way back in the 1950's before the United Methodists were United:

"One door and only one,
And yet its sides are two:
Inside and outside,
On which side are you?

One door and only one,
And yet its sides are two.
I'm on the inside,
On which side are you?"

Your reading assignment for today is the Gospel of John, chapter 10.