Patsy Cline, Stan Rogers and Shōgun

Leisure time

We got back from the second cataract surgery this afternoon. It went well. I got the patient settled in and went for a walk, cuing up the audio version of Treasure Island. It was so good, I felt sinful! Like eating two pieces of fresh apple pie. I sinned deeply for almost two hours, then headed in.

The Brilliant Wife teed up some music as I made up the cocktails. “Walkin’ After Midnight” came over the speakers.

“I love Patsy Cline,” I said.

“Was the day of her death in a plane crash the ‘Day the Music Died,’” she asked?

The search was on. And what a list of musical artists who died in plane crashes! Turns out Patsy Cline died March 5, 1963 in a plane crash on her way back to Nashville after a concert in Kansas City, Kansas. The last song she performed was “I’ll Sail My Ship Alone.”

The “Day the Music Died” crash was four years earlier, on February 3, 1959, when Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and “The Big Bopper” J. P. Richardson went down in another plane crash, also killing the pilot. Don McLean tagged it as such in his 1971 song “American Pie,” of course.

We started looking at all the great singer/songwriter/artists who died in plane crashes. It’s really a lot! Wikipedia lists 39 musicians killed in aviation accidents, among them Glenn Miller, John Denver, Otis Redding, and Jim Croce.

I immediately recalled Stan Rogers, one of my favorite singer/songwriters of all time. He died in a fire on board Air Canada Flight 797 in Cincinnati June 2, 1983. He was only 33. The fire lead to the adoption of aviation rules making aircraft safer, requiring smoke detectors, strip lights to mark exits, and better evacuation training.

Stan Rogers was a master at the ballad, weaving his poetry and music into a magical web that transports the listeners back to another time and place. His songs celebrate working people: The farmer, the fisherman, the oil refinery worker, the crippled sailor who lost his legs in a senseless war, the wife whose wrinkles refuse to go away. The retired rodeo star trying to protect his cattle from rustlers.

He sings of early Canadian explorers “tracing one thin line … chasing the roaring Fraser to the Sea in “Northwest Passage.” Canadians overwhelmingly voted for it as their alternate National Anthem. Rogers even describes drunken madness during the Yukon winter in “Canol Road.”

But my favorite Stan Rogers theme is Resilience. The need to persevere. To rise again.

Cue “The Mary Ellen Carter”(YouTube). It’s a ballad about a boat that sinks, then is salvaged and raised back to the surface. It ends:

And you, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow
With smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go
Turn to, and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain
And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.
Chorus:
Rise again, rise again - though your heart it be broken 
And life about to end
No matter what you’ve lost, be it a home, a love, a friend.
Like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.

We enjoyed leftovers tonight from the Chicken with Apples and Maple-Lime Sauce post a few days ago. The BW suggests doubling the sauce part of the recipe and also make some rice, or as Renata suggested, risotto. That way there’s plenty of sauce (with the apples!) for leftovers and it will last for several more meals. But it was still fantastic as is! I just wanted more apples with my leftovers!

---

One of our grandkids gave us a subscription to Hulu, and we used it to watch Shōgun. What a great series! We just finished it. The series is pretty true to the original James Clavell novel which came out in 1975. There was a miniseries in the 1980’s but this is much better. The acting is fantastic. Anna Sakai won an Emmy for her portrayal of the interpreter, the first such by a Japanese actress. Cosmo Jarvis does a fine job portraying the English Pilot. It made us want to visit Japan. If you’ve been there what did you think?

It was a good day. Hope you too have a good one~! Thanks for traveling along~!

Please hit the ❤️ button as it helps others find us~!