Thanksgiving

Da girls and I drove up to Charleston to spend Thanksgiving with Patti, Jeff, Molly, and Matt. Thanksgiving was a lovely day to drive with hardly any other cars on the road. Hope it is as nice driving home on Monday.  Patti made a delisharoony feast for us. Friday we went to town to shop at small businesses then up to the cemetery to visit the family, then rode bikes in Kanawha City for chili dogs, then home for leftovers.

Saturday, we watched the WVU football game at a sports bar and later attended a lovely dinner at Edgewood CC for Molły and Matt. There were lots of old friends there not only of mine but of my mother's. There were several distant cousins as well. Unfortunately, we took no pictures.

Here's a pic of Dad's grave stone provided by the military.

Of course, the Gov't did not add the requested line that his ashes were scattered at sea. But at least there is a marker keeping Pie's company in the Mountain View Cemetery.

Every time I go to Charleston I start tearing up when I drive near the Kanawha River. I think of all the folks I will not get to see rather than focusing and the ones I am fortunate to see. I wish I were able to go back in time to hug folks in the past. To see me as a little girl living in my world. I wish I would have an hour at different times. One would be Christmas shopping on Capital St. circa 1965; one would be getting ready for Xmas around 1958 with the Kanawha School festive sing then coming home to our house on Quarrier St. to get the tree decorated while Mom is making shortnin' bead cookies; and one would be attending Aunt Canky's King and I performance in 1961. I also would have liked to attend one of those Light Opera Guild cast parties held at our house with pianos in the parlor and den, organ in the dining room, and accordion in the kitchen and everybody singing. Often my great Uncle John would come over and bring his big cards with the words and he'd play the piano and we would all sing all the old songs and new show tunes.  

There are times in NYC, Yonkers, and College Park I'd like to revisit as well: going to the Xmas Eve service in Manhattan and coming out to a heavy snowfall (I think that was the first time I sang In the bleak mid winter); hearing Christine Sperry make her entrance as Mabel in Pirates of Penzance; and meeting Paul McCartney ad John Lennon. I would like to hold little ML and rock her in the chair to awaken her for breakfast and getting ready to go to daycare; and to hear one of Moody's great sermons at St Andrew's and feel the electricity his spoken word. But since I cannot go back in time, I must take advantage to hug the folks I see now and to let them no how wonderful they are.

Before coming to WV this week, Rob and Linda visited me for two nights. We did some reminiscing and ate lots of good food, I worked with them at NCHS.

Rhodes School

It was 48 years ago that our family left WV for NYC.  I was in high school and my brothers were at Brown University. Dad got a job at Pearson Keating Consulting as a head hunter.  Mother got a transfer to Travellers Insurance Co. on 42nd street.  We rented a lovely apartment at 89th and First Ave in Manhattan.  I interviewed at several upper East-side schools but decided to attend Rhodes School on W 54th street. Or perhaps my parents decided on it. Why? Because the building was a Stanford White -designed residence. The school left that building a decade or so after I graduated then it closed. I happened to google the address (11 W 54 Street) and found it was on the market for $59 million. 

"The neo-Georgian limestone and brick residence was designed by the architectural firm McKim, Mead and White known as the pre-eminent architects of their day responsible for the finest New York landmarks, including the University Club a few doors down and the New York Public Library. The residence was built in 1896 for James J. Goodwin, a cousin and business partner of JP Morgan. Most recently the property housed the headquarters of the US Trust Company. The building was designed as a double house with a three-bay residence at No. 11 and a two-bay residence at No. 9 with the entrance to No. 11 centered creating one symmetrical whole facade. The palatial property included eleven master bedroom suites, eleven additional staff bedrooms and twelve fireplaces."

Granted, the rooms did not look quite this good when I was there but the basics were there like the paneling, the fireplaces, the staircases, etc.  The great rooms on the parlor floor housed the administration offices. But all the other rooms were classrooms.  I spent a lot of time staring at the woodwork and the windows.  The school itself was quite enjoyable. The teachers were much better than the ones I had in Charleston. It was a fairly liberal philosophy with many international students.  They were the only school who would allow me to be a year ahead in math and a year behind in Latin. The other schools wanted me to go back a year to which I would not agree.  I ended up graduating after my junior year by taking senior English and American History during the summer. I had a sufficient number of credits due to my time in WV. Commencement exercises were held at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. 

 

 

 

I took two city buses to go to school and to return in the afternoons. I really enjoyed looking out the bus windows onto Central Park on the way down and all the store windows on the way home.  I would get off the 86th street crosstown bus at First Ave and walk up the 3 blocks on the way home. I'd usually stop at the German Bakery for some fresh crumb cake to nosh on til Mother got home.  I would then look out our windows on the 18th floor at all the city lights coming on. It got dark early in November in NY.

 

I made a few friends: Gail Klerman from Valley Stream, Nancy Andriani from West Village, and Mary Livadas from 88th and York.  Mary and I sometimes rode the bus together. Gail died of an aneurism her freshman year at college.  I don't know where the others are today.  I likewise do not know where my teachers are now.  My math teacher was a hunk and dapper dresser; my English teacher looked like Julie Christie and had us reading Malcolm X in place of Silas Marner; and my Latin teacher was most avuncular.  Most of the yearbook notes written to me related to my going to be a star of stage and screen.  Every Wednesday I would buy a copy of Variety to keep up with the biz.  Well that didn't happen, but I had my moments in the PALS plays at ML's school!

 

Mary L. and me changing classes in the main reception area

 

Halloween 2015

Pics from neighborhood party... the bottom one is Eliza, me, and Joyce.

Jack o lanterns from Fearrington Village and Mary Laurel and Arlo.

And Ben in costume,

Al-Andalus History

This is a brief history of the Moors in Iberia.  The Islamic world incorporated Hispania after Romans, Carthaginians, and Visigoths had sequentially settled the area.  Muslims and Berbers from the Morocco area (Maghrib) crossed the Straits of Gibraltar to the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula about 600 AD. They found Old Roman aqueducts, building and road foundations and some buildings left by the Visigoths.  Life was good so they settled. In 755 AD, an Umayyad prince, Abd al-Rahman from Syria, whose mother was a Berber, escaped an inter-Arab massacre by the Abbasid and headed west across Northern Africa and across Gibraltar.  He picked up followers along the way to help him negotiate a takeover in Córdoba. He became the founder of a Muslim dynasty in Iberia that lasted about 3 centuries. He established many good things such as libraries; translations of Greek texts into Arab and Hebrew; and religious freedom for Christians, Hebrews, and Muslims. He built mosques and brought vegetation from his homeland like cedars and palms.

The Abbasids that murdered his family to take over lead for all Muslims moved the center from Damascus to Bagdad putting some space between the Moors and remaining Muslims. In succeeding centuries other Muslim factions that were more and more fundamentalists invaded from Northern Africa.  The Almoravids and Almohads sought payment from people of the other faiths. Eventually, the Catholics from northern Spain added these Muslims to the Crusade.

Al-Andalus included cities as Seville, Toledo, Córdoba, Malaga, Valencia, and Granada. One by one they were taken in battle during the reconquest by kings of Castile, Leon, and Aragon until finally, only Granada was still under Moorish rule in their great fortress Alhambra. It was built by the Nasrids during the 13-14 centuries. Frequently the Moors would make a treaty with other folks to help them fight off some current foe.  And frequently the allied army would decide to take their friend's land as well.  This happened with other Muslim factions and with catholic rulers.  The last sour deal was with King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile in 1492. Without any fighting, Boabdil, the last Nasrid sultan, handed the keys of Alhambra over to the Catholic Monarchs on the condition that Muslims would have freedom to worship and live in Andalusia. After agreeing and taking over the palaces in Alhambra, they changed their mind and required conversion or exile.  They also exiled all the Jews who would not convert.  The Inquisition was started to discover which of the converted Moors and Jews were really still practicing their faith. The scientific and philosophical books in the Moorish libraries were burnt and the Arab language and dress were banned.

The Capitulation of Granada, Francisco Pradilla Ortiz (1848-1921)

The farewells of King Boabdil at Granada, Alfred Dehodencq (1822-1882). The spot from which Muhammad XII looked for the last time on Granada is known as “the Moor’s last sigh”.

 

Spain tour

Sim and I took an 8-day tour to Spain including Madrid, Toledo, Córdoba, Seville, Granada, Valencia, and Barcelona. It was a bus tour of Andalusia run by Globus Tours.  This area of Spain was under control of the Moôrs for about 500-800 years.  For a large part of this time, Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived in a culture of tolerance and enlightenment. In 1492, Spanish Catholicism won the last Moorish holdout in Granada expelling both Moors and Jews.  Mosques became cathedrals and Arabesque palaces were taken over by stern, fundamental catholic nobles.  I wanted to visit this area after reading Ornament of the World by Maria Rosa Menocal.  Now I'm reading Washington Irving's Tales from the Alhambra. I recommend both books.  I have also been a big fan of medieval Sephardic music and flamenco dance, not to mention tapas.  A brief history of the area is provided separately.

Tour route

We arrived in Madrid on Saturday and met the other 41 people on our tour followed by a welcome dinner at our hotel (Hotel Agumar).  It's very near the Prado where we saw wonderful paintings by Goya, El Greco, and Velasquez.  We heard lots about King Felipe II who moved the capital from Toledo to Madrid in 1561. There were portraits of Juana Loca who was the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. She was also the sister of Catherine of Aragon which the guide made no mention of. Juana was married to Felipe the Handsome (a Habsburg so their son, Charles V, was Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire). There were lots of portraits of Habsburg and later Bourbon kings of Spain. There was a room dedicated to Goya's Black Paintings which show how depressed he was after his wife died. El Greco's paintings were mostly religious with thin elongated Jesus and angels.  Just for context purposes, Felipe  II was married to Mary Tudor for her last few years as Queen of England and is also responsible for sending the Armada to the English Channel during Queen Elizabeth's reign.

Monument to Cervantes in Madrid

We went to Toledo where we ate lunch (chicken croquettes, gazpacho, and a chocolate-covered palmier) and took a walking tour of the Moorish, Catholic, and Jewish sections of the city situated on the Tagus River (La Tajo).  We toured the cathedral, a church with an El Greco painting, and a synagogue built the Moorish style (Santa Maria La Blanca).

Former synagogue and mosque, Santa Maria La Blanca in Toledo

 

Bridge over Toledo's Tagus River

 

Toledo view

Jewish Quarter in Toledo

Maimonides, 11th C Jewish physician and philosopher to the Caliph

For dinner we ate at a tapas place close to our hotel called Casa Ricardo. The food was wonderful! We had braised leeks with romesco sauce, grilled quail with fried potatoes, Tiger shrimp cooked in garlic butter, chocolate mousse, olives, bread, and sangria. This was the best meal we had in Spain and the best chocolate mousse ever!

Monday, we rode the bus to Córdoba for a walk through town and a tour of La Mesquita which was an Arabic mosque turned into a catholic cathedral.  Actually, the catholic baroque choir and chancel were built in the middle of the Moors' great mosque which has rows and rows of red and white Romanesque arches. Then on to Seville for dinner buffet at the hotel (unremarkable). 

La Mesquita (Great Mosque), Cordoba

Ceiling in La Mesquita, Cordoba

Mihrab entrance in La Mesquita, Cordoba

Romanesque arches in La Mesquita

La Mesquita

By the old bridge across the Guadalquivir river,

 

Tuesday we toured Seville including Real Alcazar which was built in the mudejar style (royal palace built for catholic King (Pedro I) by Moorish architects and artisans in 1366-1427), and the cathedral where some of Christopher Columbus is buried. We had tapas near the hotel (potatoes in aioli; tostadas with Goat cheese, pimentos, and carmelized onions; and a cazuelita of French fries with chorizo and an egg). Dinner was at a Flamenco show, ole! I looked but did not see Leporello, Figaro, or Carmen anywhere. Nor was there a statue of the Commendatore. There was a bullfight ring and a plaza of Donna Elvira (who was a 16th C lady). 

 

Real Alcazar (Royal Palace) in Seville

Tomb of Christopher Columbus in cathedral in Seville

La Giralda (minaret altered with bell tower top) at the cathedral in Seville

 

Flamenco show in Seville

 

Wednesday we rode the bus to Granada and toured Alhambra. This was the whole reason I wanted to come on this trip. This Palatine city was built in the 1200s and 1300s by the Nasrids and was the last Moorish holdout against the Catholic reconquest of al-Andalus.  The same architect and technicians who worked on the Seville Alcazar built Alhambra. In 1492, Boabdil handed the keys over to Ferdinand and Isabella on terms that the Moors would have religious freedom. But alas, the Catholic Monarchs changed their minds later and told both the Moors and the Jews they had to convert or leave the country. The Jews had to leave by August on the anniversary of the destruction of the second    Temple in Jerusalem. Some Jews stayed and "converted" but most fled thru France to the Netherlands or back to Jerusalem. The Moôrs went to Morocco.  

Alhambra, Granada

 

Court of Myrtles, Alhambra

Tile wall base in Alhambra

Wall design, Alhambra

Court of the Lions, Alhambra

Ceiling in the Hall of Two Sisters, Alhambra

 

View from Alhambra

Alhambra had a palace for foreign dignitaries to meet, a palace for his wives and concubines and children, and a palace for himself. Each had a beautiful courtyard with fountain and orange trees. The ceilings looked like stalactites made of plaster. Arabic writing from the Quran covered the walls along with intricate geometric plaster patterns. No likenesses of humans or animals were allowed. The tile floors would have been covered by rugs and pillows.  The three things most necessary for Moorish design were water, vegetation and light. The exterior of the buildings was very plain but the interior was highly designed following those principles.  Elaborate gardens surrounded the palaces and extended beyond the original fortification walls to a hunting lodge for the sultan. They used gravity and pipes to move all the water down the mountain for irrigation and fountains -no pumps. Granada is surrounded by the snow-covered Sierra Nevada mountains and is about 2300 ft above sea level.

View of Granada

View of ancient wall and snow-capped Sierra Nevadas

In the afternoon we toured a monastery filled with Baroque filigree, gold leaf, and painted icons. We also visited the chapel where Ferdinand and Isabella are buried along with their daughter, Juana Loca and Felipe I. Their son, Charles V HRE, came only once to Granada but he had a round Italian palace built in Alhambra, founded a university and hospital in the city, and ordered elaborate setting for his parents and grandparents sarcophaguses.  We had tapas of cheeses and meatballs and walked back to the hotel. My feet hurt!

 

Just a quick note about 1492: Columbus sailed from near Seville down the Guadalquivir River with the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria across the Atlantic to Hispaniola and Cuba. He returned with some natives which he took to the Catholic Monarchs for their Baptism. He convinced his patrons that their further funding would lead to massive conversions in the New World. He had a contract with them that provided him with 10% of goods obtained and a viceroy title. After returning to Hispaniola, he was arrested and tried for treason and stripped of title and possessions.  He died in the west and buried but bones kept moving until some were returned to Seville.  Again, Ferdinand and Isabella were untrustworthy religious fanatics.  Their empire grew dramatically and they became very rich due to Columbus' "discovery". The crops alone included corn, potatoes, tomatoes, and tobacco. They also started the Inquisition, 'nuff said!

On Thursday we took an all-day bus ride to Valencia which is on the Mediterranean Sea. We toured the city and had some horcheta which is a tuber called tiger nuts, made into a drink or ice cream: supposed to boost your energy and lower blood pressure and cholesterol. We walked by the Serrano  Gate which is 15th century entrance to the city.  Serrano is the name of nearby mountains. We saw the bell tower for St. Catherine's and a former minaret turned into a catholic bell tower. The city has many bridges but they redirected the Turia River around the city after a devastating flood in 1958. They have several fascinating buildings designed by Santiago Calatrava in 2005 such as an opera house, garden, bridge, and science buildings. For dinner we had paella including a black squid version, a vegetarian version, and a version with shrimp and chicken.

Narrowest house in Europe 3 feet, Valencia

Serrano Gate, Valencia

Calatrava promenade , Valencia

 

Paella in Valencia

On Friday we drove up to Barcelona for the final two nights of the tour. On our free time, we had the lunch special for 9 euros near the hotel and took the city buses up to Gaudi's Park Güell and walked up to a high point over looking the sea and city. We didn't buy a ticket for the inside stuff as we would have had to wait 2 hours. Sim talked to multiple Israeli's in Hebrew on the bus and in the park. It was quite an adventure. For dinner we enjoyed some tapas at El Patron a few blocks from the hotel. We had a salad with figs and buffalo mozzarella, vegetable tempura, garlic shrimp, Catalan bread with tomato, and sangria.

 

View from Park Güell

Gaudi's benches at Park Güell

View of Barcelona from top of Park Güell

Park Güell, Barcelona

 

Saturday we took a walking tour of the gothic area including the old cathedral and Gaudi's new cathedral. We walked around Las Ramblas then walked all the way back to the hotel.  There are patisseries on every block everywhere in Spain. I don't know how folks stay so slim here.  We had a farewell dinner on the waterfront then packing and early to bed as we are up at 3:30 am to go to the airport. Their time changes so we actually get another hour to sleep.

Gaudi's cathedral, La Familia Sagrada

 

Gothic cathedral, Barcelona

 

Palace in Barcelona

Las Ramblas in Barcelona

 

Market in Barcelona

 

Street in Gothic section of Barcelona

 

Barcelona house designed by Gaudi