February 20, 2006: The Eighteenth Day I Knew Andrew, Part Two

Anne-Sophie's Christmas stay with the Van Z's was not a happy one--for all parties, as it turned out, except perhaps for Andrew, who almost immediately, on the very first day, started to make fun of her, and to her face.

To make a long story short, Anne-Sophie was an absolute pain from the moment her plane landed in Minneapolis.

All of the family members arrived on the same early afternoon--coming in from New York (Alec and Lizbeth and Tim), Washington (Andrew), Denver (Alex) and Los Angeles (Anne-Sophie) so that Mr. and Mrs. Van Z could pick up everybody with one trip to the airport in two cars.

Mrs. Van Z had prepared a nice lunch for everyone, and it was waiting for them at home, but Anne-Sophie insisted upon being taken to a restaurant for lunch, even after being told that a nice lunch awaited her at home. Alec and Lizbeth could not go to a restaurant, what with the baby, so Andrew drove Alec and Lizbeth and Tim home in one car and Mr. and Mrs. Van Z and Alex and Anne-Sophie went to a restaurant in the other car so as to please Anne-Sophie.

Anne-Sophie embarrassed them, exceedingly, at the restaurant, complaining nonstop about the food and the service. Mr. Van Z said it was one of the most embarrassing moments of his life, and that they should never have gone to a restaurant where people knew them.

When they got home, Mrs. Van Z showed Anne-Sophie to her room, where there was a fresh-flower arrangement for her. "Get these out of here--I might have a reaction!" Anne-Sophie shrieked, and Mrs. Van Z had to get rid of the flowers. Alec, Lizbeth and Andrew all knew how to mimic Anne-Sophie, and they re-enacted this scene with glee.

Then Anne-Sophie complained about the Christmas tree--"I might have a reaction!"--and announced that she could not go into the living room unless they got rid of it. "Great!" said Andrew. "Then we'll call this the safe zone!" Every time Anne-Sophie was in the downstairs hall and passed by the living room, she held her head back and dramatically refused to breathe, so Andrew started doing the same thing whenever he passed by the living room, too. And Alec and Lizbeth and Andrew all imitated Anne-Sophie doing her "I dare not breath" gestures.

After her first night in Minneapolis, Anne-Sophie announced that she did not like her room--she could not sleep because she could hear the grandfather clock in the hall ticking outside her bedroom. Consequently, Mrs. Van Z changed her room for her.

After her second night in Minneapolis, Anne-Sophie announced that she did not like her second room, either--she could hear the wind outside blowing against the dormer windows. Mrs. Van Z, once again, changed her room for her.

After her third night in Minneapolis, Anne-Sophie announced that she did not like her third room, either (which was right across the hall from Andrew's room)--because Andrew made "strange noises" at night.

Alas, by this point, Anne-Sophie had gone through all the available rooms, and Mrs. Van Z told Anne-Sophie that she had nothing more to offer her. Anne-Sophie herself suggested that she be given the room being used by Alec and Lizbeth and Tim--which apparently she had wanted all along for some reason, or so Andrew thought--and Mrs. Van Z was on the verge of turning this room over to her, too, when Mr. Van Z stepped in and told Anne-Sophie that, if she could not accommodate herself to one of the three available rooms, he would take her to a hotel. Andrew's suggestion was that Anne-Sophie move to the basement--no ticking clocks, no dormer windows, no "strange noises"--and he asked her if she needed any help packing up her things for the move to the basement.

Anne-Sophie refused to help around the house, and she showed no interest at all in the baby. She never held the baby once. She would only speak to Mrs. Van Z when she wanted something, and she never uttered a syllable to Lizbeth the entire time she was there. Andrew said that was because Anne-Sophie knew that Lizbeth was a psychiatrist, and that Anne-Sophie feared that Lizbeth would officially declare her "wacko" on the spot.

Anne-Sophie did not want Alex to leave the house, so Alec and Alex and Andrew could not go visit their friends or go play basketball or go swimming or go anywhere or do anything. On the couple of occasions on which Alex did leave the house without her, Anne-Sophie threw a fit.

Anne-Sophie did not like the food, and was always asking that special things be prepared for her. Anne-Sophie would get up late, and come downstairs around lunchtime, and then want breakfast. On the third morning, at lunchtime, she told Andrew she wanted him to prepare her some breakfast. "What do you want?" he asked. "Anything with lime in it" she answered. "Great! What about scrambled eggs with lime--I can do that!" he said.

On Christmas morning, Anne-Sophie stayed in the hall while everyone else was in the living room opening presents. During this time, Andrew kept making funny sneezing noises until his Dad told him to stop it, but his Dad was laughing, all the same.

On Christmas day, for Christmas dinner, Anne-Sophie looked at the huge spread of food and said that she feared she would not be able to find anything she could eat. Andrew told her "Well, let's see--there are only about seventy things here for you to choose from. If you can't find something you can eat here, sweetheart, I can rustle you up a bowl of Science Diet!"

On Christmas night, around 8:00 p.m., Anne-Sophie told Alex that she was hungry, and that she wanted to go out to a restaurant and get something to eat--"maybe get some Thai food".

Andrew told her "Today is Christmas Day. It is 8:00 o'clock at night on December 25. This is Minneapolis, Minnesota. How many Thai restaurants do you think will be open in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Christmas night?"

"Well, maybe we could just do carryout, then" Anne-Sophie ventured.

"And these restaurants are going to be open for carryout business only, on Christmas Night?" Andrew asked her. "Knock, knock, is anybody home? Anybody at all in there?" And he knocked on his head.

On December 26, Anne-Sophie told Alex, at lunch, how disappointing she had found Christmas day. "It was not at all what I expected" she said. "And what, then, did you expect?" asked Andrew. "I thought we would go golfing or something, and then have a nice lunch somewhere" Anne-Sophie said. "Well, tell you what" said Andrew. "Why don't you let me drop you off at the golf club right now--it's 22 degrees, and there are four inches of snow on the ground--and I'll come back and pick you up in five hours. How's that? Ready to go?"

One night the men were all watching a basketball game downstairs in the family room, and Anne-Sophie was watching, too, because she always stayed near Alex. She asked Alex to take her somewhere. "Like where?" he asked. "Maybe we could go to a modern-dance performance?" she asked. Andrew's interjection was "Great! Minneapolis is a hotbed of modern-dance activity at Christmas time. What a great idea!"

On another night, Anne-Sophie complained that she found the conversation boring, and she asked everyone to talk about something interesting. Andrew said "Great! Let's get started now on that conversation we've been saving for years, the dialectics of Kierkegaard! You go first, Anne-Sophie! You're the guest!"

Anyway, no one else but Andrew would take on Anne-Sophie. The culmination of this story was at New Year's, at 6:15 in the morning, "when Andrew drove her out", as Alec and Lizbeth said.

All throughout the holiday, to spare his mother, Andrew had got up at 5:00, ran the dog to get him taken care of, made coffee for everyone and took the coffee upstairs, along with the newspapers, and laid this stuff out on a chest in the upstairs hall for everyone to access as they got up. Then Andrew would go back downstairs to be ready to make breakfast for everyone as they assembled, one by one, in the kitchen.

On that morning, he had taken the coffee and newspapers upstairs, and he noticed Anne-Sophie poking around inside a hall closet.

"Is there anything I can do for you?" he had asked her.

"Yes" she said. "First, what ARE those strange noises you make in the middle of the night?"

"You probably heard Rex yawning. As I told you, he sleeps in my room. Dogs make yawning noises at night, even while they sleep."

"Well, I listened outside your door for over an hour last night, trying to figure out what those noises were, and they did not sound like dog noises to me."

"You stood outside my door for over an hour last night, listening for noises? Doesn't that strike you as a rather odd thing to do?"

"Well, I was trying to figure out what those noises were."

"And is that why you are looking in the closet? Strange noises in there, too?"

"No, I am trying to find some soap. I don't like your soap."

"You don't like our soap? What's wrong with our soap?"

"I don't like it."

"What kind of soap were you looking for?"

"Well, I don't know."

"Well, let's see here, I see that we have Ivory, Safeguard, Zest and Irish Spring. You can't use any of this?"

"No, I need special soap."

"So what kind of soap do you need?"

"I don't know, but I can't use any of this."

"I can't believe you. You don't like anything. You don't like your room, you don't like our food, you don't like our Christmas tree, you don't like our friends, you don't like our relatives, you don't like our pastor, you don't like our dog, you don't like our Christmas presents, you don't like Alex to leave the house, you don't like anyone to watch television, you won't talk to anyone but you say our conversations are boring, you won't lift a finger to help out, you treat my mother like a servant, you pretend the baby doesn't exist, you haven't said one word to Lizbeth since you walked in the door. And now you don't like our soap!

"IF YOU NEEDED SPECIAL SOAP, YOU SHOULD HAVE BROUGHT IT YOURSELF OR AT LEAST TOLD US IN ADVANCE SO WE COULD GET YOU SOME! NOW WHAT KIND OF SOAP DO YOU NEED? WHAT KIND OF SOAP DO YOU NEED? BECAUSE I'M GOING TO GO TO THE STORE AND GET IT FOR YOU RIGHT NOW! IT IS 6:15, AND THE STORE OPENED AT 6:00, AND I AM GOING TO GET YOU YOUR GOD-DAMN SOAP RIGHT NOW! SO TELL ME, YOU STUPID GIRL, WHAT KIND OF SOAP IS IT YOU NEED?"

Well, Andrew woke everyone up--everyone opened their bedroom doors and came out into the hall to see what was going on, and Anne-Sophie started crying and went back into her room.

And Anne-Sophie left for the airport later than morning, three days earlier than scheduled, "because Andrew had been so mean to her and ruined her Christmas holiday" at least in Lizbeth's funny and snide way of saying it.

So, Silvio, I learned what Andrew meant when he had told me that Genghis Khan would make a favorable impression upon his family after the dreaded Anne-Sophie. And all three of them loved telling different facets of this story. The way they told the story was absolutely hysterical, and clearly "The Tale Of Anne-Sophie" is now one of their favorite "family" stories--I could easily see that. I wish that I had been there at Christmas to observe it all myself.

After dinner, we had to make preparations to get on the road back to Washington, so the first thing we both did was to hold the baby for a bit, one last time, and we both kissed him. We got our stuff together and, while we were doing so, Alec asked Andrew to come with him for a moment. They went into Alec and Lizbeth's bedroom for a few minutes, and then they both came out.

Alec and Lizbeth both told us what a wonderful weekend they had had, and they said we both were much better conversationalists than Tim, which they welcomed. They said we had to come back soon, and see something of New York next time. And when we finally left, Lizbeth kissed and hugged both Andrew and me, and Alec hugged me--the first time he had given me a hug--and he hugged and kissed Andrew over and over. And we left.

And I was very glad that we had spent our three-day weekend in New York. I think that was the best choice for both of us.

On the way home, I asked Andrew what Alec had said to him when they were alone.

He said that Alec had wanted to know what their Dad said on the phone, and that Alec had wanted to know how to respond to certain questions he suspected their Dad would direct to Alec.

"Like what?" I asked.

"Well, Alec had already guessed what our Dad had said" Andrew said "And he just wanted confirmation of that."

"So what did your Dad say?" I asked.

"Well, you can probably guess most of it" Andrew said "From my answers to him."

"And what about what I cannot guess?" I asked.

"He asked me to withhold any intimacy, until he and I talked, in person" Andrew said.

"He really asked you that?" I asked.

"Yes" Andrew said.

"And Alec guessed that?" I asked.

"Yes" Andrew said.

"Why did he ask that?" I asked.

"Oh, it could be for several reasons" Andrew answered. "It could be because he knows your Dad, it could be because he thinks I am too young or too unprepared, it could be because HE is not prepared for this, it could be because he thinks he needs to meet you first, it could be . . .heaven only knows."

"So what did you tell him?" I asked.

"I told him I truly was not prepared to answer that question, and that I would have to think about it" Andrew said.

"So, what do you mean by that, Andrew?" I asked.

"Well, I was trying to tell him . . .I told him I couldn't give him an answer . . .I told him I needed to think before I could provide him with an answer to that question . . .That's all."

"So you are awaiting for your Dad's Seal Of Approval to carry on, and your Dad's Seal Of Approval of me, before we do anything--is that what you are saying?" I asked.

Andrew looked at me, and he looked somewhat hurt, and I immediately said "Oh, Andrew, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it that way."

"Joshua, I don't know what I'm going to do. You heard what I said to him. I made no representations, no representations of any sort."

Andrew did not say anything for a few minutes, and then he said "I, for one, will be curious to see what YOUR Dad says tomorrow. Aren't you?"

"Sure" I said.

"Well, I am going to make a prediction, right now" said Andrew.

"And your prediction is . . .?"

"That our fathers will speak by phone tomorrow morning, at their offices, before you call your Dad. That they will sound each other out, indirectly, to find out what the other knows or suspects. That when you call your Dad at Noon, he will ask you to withhold intimacy until after Spring Break, and that he will insist that you return to Oklahoma for Spring Break. That tomorrow evening I shall receive a phone call from my Dad and that he will . . .not insist, but very, very strongly encourage . . .that I delay intimacy until after Spring Break, and he will very strongly encourage me to return to Minnesota for Spring Break. That is my prediction . . .And, further . . .in my case alone . . .I believe that my Dad will pressure me to agree not to be intimate with you until . . .I talk to him about it, face to face . . .and until he meets you . . .and perhaps until your father meets me, which my Dad may insist upon. Of course, on that last point, that would require your father's full complicity. And if that happens, then that means, definitely, that they ARE talking to each other, and in great detail, and not in indirect generalities."

"Andrew, I don't think they would go that far" I said.

"Well, you know your Dad, and I don't" he said. "I could be wrong. But I know my Dad . . .and I think that is what he is shooting for."

"Why would he do that?" I asked.

"Because he knows that I am returning to live at home after June 1, and he believes, by buying time, that I will return home and live at home forever and ever, with him and my Mom, guarded from the cares of the world, until I am too old to have sex, at which point it would not matter to him any more, and then he could die peacefully, with his mind at rest. That is what is in his mind."

"And you are going to let him get away with that?" I asked.

"I never said that" Andrew said. "I made a prediction. You asked me what I thought would happen, and I told you what I thought would happen."

"So WHAT are you going to say to your father if he DOES ask those things?" I asked.

"Well, Josh, I am thinking about that as we speak. And I think I know what I am going to say to him."

"Well . . ." I said.

"First, on answering his question, I think I am going to have to tell him, with all due respect, that I am prepared to have intimacy right now, and that if it is of such great importance to him to talk to me face-to-face prior to any intimacy between us, that he had better make flight arrangements as soon as possible and get to Washington in a matter of days. But I am going to make it clear to him that I would provide him with that face-to-face discussion ONLY because of its apparent importance to HIM, and not because of its importance to me."

"And what will he say?" I asked.

"He will say to hold everything for another ten days, and to get myself on a plane to Minneapolis on Friday night, March 2, and he will say that I am merely being difficult, on purpose, by refusing to wait for another ten days, until Spring Break, to have this discussion with him. Of course, among other things, what he is truly hoping for is a cooling down period of two weeks, two weeks that will encompass MY Spring Break and YOUR Spring Break. And I think he will try to sell this idea to your Dad. He can be very convincing."

"You know, you may be right" I said.

"Well, I KNOW that's what he's going to try" said Andrew. "Whether he can sell that idea to your father, I have no idea. But I assure you that that is what is in the back of his mind. And he thinks, by asking me that question today, that I, out of consideration to him, will do nothing . . .no intimacy . . .until he and I talk. He thinks, by virtue of making the request, that I must go along with his thoughts, out of respect for him, whether or not I answer the question. He has put the burden on me, and he knows that fact--boy, does he know that fact. He has sort of made this a point of honor now between us, and he has put the onus on me whether to break that honor or not. Oh, Josh, he's GOOD at this! He knows how to mess with my mind!"

"And you're going to let him get away with this?" I asked.

"I didn't say that" said Andrew. "I just said he is very good at making this an honor issue, and placing the burden on me."

"Well, I think we should make love tonight, Andrew. Let's make love tonight! Then we can make love every night. I want to make love tonight. And forget your father! Forget your father and forget my father, too!" I was getting really irritated, as you can see, Silvio, and tired of so much pondering.

"But I think there's a better way" said Andrew.

"You're still thinking, aren't you?" I asked.

"Yes. What about this? You talk to your father tomorrow, as scheduled. Find out what he has to say to you, and what he wants from you. And LISTEN to him! Josh, LISTEN TO HIM! He might have very good advice for you, or instructions, or whatever you want to call it. He may give you a perspective you had not thought of before, a perspective that will change your way of looking at this. Please listen to what your father has to say."

"And then what?" I asked.

"You call me after you talk to your father. And we discuss what he has had to say to you."

"And then what?"

"And if, after that call, you still want to carry forward, then we make plans to go to Westfields, the minimum-security prison, for next weekend. And if we want to make love while we are at Westfields, we do. And if we don't, then we don't, in which case, no harm, no foul."

"And what about your Dad" I asked. "What are you going to say to him, so that you have not committed an 'honor' violation?"

"If you want us to carry things forward after talking to your Dad, then I will make reservations at Westfields for us. Then I will call my Dad at his office tomorrow afternoon, and tell him that you and I are going out of town this weekend--so he cannot accuse me of sneaking out of town without his knowledge, which was a crock, as he darn well knew that I would most likely be visiting Alec and Lizbeth this weekend--and that I will be unable to provide him with an answer to his question."

"And what will that do?" I asked.

"That tells him two things. First, it tells him that . . . it tells him . . .it tells him that we are probably going to be intimate this coming weekend, but it also tells him that we are not going to be intimate UNTIL the weekend. Second, it tells him that he is not going to get an answer from me on his question, which means that the effective answer is "no", and that I am letting him know that I do not feel bound to him, as a point of honor, on the question any more. He will understand the significance of what I say. He will understand, fully."

"And then . . ." I asked.

"The ball is back in his court. He will argue the proximity of Spring Break, the fact that there is no need to rush things, and anything else he can throw at me. He will be subtle, but very good at making his point, and will try to make me feel very guilty and very disrespectful of him if he does not get what he wants. Oh, he's good at this, I assure you. But I will try to leave the ball in his court."

"Andrew, I don't understand. So, what does all this mean?" I asked.

"It means that, if YOUR father cannot dissuade you tomorrow, that I am prepared to carry forward, unless MY father is able to dissuade me tomorrow, with new and better arguments than the ones he posed today. And we have one great thing in our favor, at least in terms of dealing with my father" Andrew added.

"What's that?" I asked.

"He is very uncomfortable talking about sex" said Andrew "And he talks about it only in the most indirect, opaque way."

"So now I know where you get that trait" I said. "Only teasing."

"So you don't like any of this, do you?" Andrew asked.

"No, Andrew, I don't" I said. "I think you're both crazy. I think we need to make love, and make love now. Tonight. Everything will change as soon as we do. Stop the car!" And I laughed.

"You can wait until this weekend, Josh, can't you?" Andrew asked.

"No, I can't" I said.

"And you do not understand at all how my father, by posing that question, put the burden on me to provide him with an answer, and that, until I provide him with an answer, I am honor-bound not to undertake any actions?" Andrew asked.

"If I were you, I'd call him right now, and give him the answer, and tell him ‘no’, that it's really none of his God-damn business" I said. "You have your cell phone."

Andrew looked at me, Silvio, and there was a gleam in his eye. "You know, Josh, I just might do that" he said. "I am going to pull off at the next rest stop, and let you drive. You know how to drive standard transmission, don't you?" he asked.

"Of course" I said.

"And I will call him while you drive" Andrew said.

And Silvio, that's what we did. Andrew took the next exit on the New Jersey Turnpike, and we traded places and I took the wheel.

Andrew immediately started to call his Dad, and I said "Wait. Wait until I get out on the Turnpike." I said that so that I would have time to get into fifth gear, and then have my right hand free to put my hand on Andrew's knee or his leg or his neck or his head or whatever I thought I needed to touch, while he was on the phone, to remind him that I was now more important to him than his Dad.

Andrew dialed his parents' number and the line was busy. "He's talking to Alec now" Andrew said.

Andrew then dialed Alec's number, and the line was busy. "See, I was right" he said.

Andrew then dialed Lizbeth's cell number and she answered. Andrew did not even say "hello" to her. "Can you do me a favor, Lizbeth?" was the first thing he asked her.

"Ask Alec and your Dad to get off the phone so that you can call home?" she asked.

"Yes" Andrew said.

"Hold on for a second" is what Lizbeth told him, and apparently she told Alec that Andrew wanted to talk to his Dad and that he needed to hang up the phone. She came back to the phone and told Andrew "the line's free" and Andrew thanked her, and he called his Dad.

This call was a lot different than the call I experienced in the afternoon. That three-part call--Andrew beginning by letting his Dad ventilate, Andrew initiating the transition to less than full agreement, and Andrew then making his own arguments--was totally different than this call.

Andrew got straight down to business. "Dad, I have been thinking of the question you asked me to answer, and I told you then that I was not prepared to provide you with an answer at that time. I have been thinking about that question ever since, however, and I am prepared to answer your question now."

And Andrew paused, and his father apparently said something.

Then Andrew said "Thank you, Dad. I appreciate that. As you know, there is only one answer I can give you to that question, and that answer is "no". That is the only possible answer a son can give to a father on a question like you posed, assuming that the necessary formalities on "the birds and the bees" have already been disposed of. And you and I disposed of those particular formalities long ago, and now it is my time to make these sorts of decisions on my own. If I were younger it very well might be different, but I am 25. And at age 25, these sorts of issues are my own to deal with now, and these sorts of decisions are my own to make now. I have always valued your judgments and opinions, and I always WILL value your judgments and opinions--always--but on a particular matter like this, a matter that involves feelings--primarily feelings, if not exclusively feelings--I have no choice but to go with my own judgment here, as it is my feelings that are involved as well as the feelings of another human being who means very, very much to me. That does not necessarily mean that I am making the right judgment, that does not necessarily mean that I am making the best judgment, that does not necessarily mean that I am making the same judgment another person might make under identical circumstances, but that does mean that I am making my own judgment and, on this issue, it MUST be my judgment and mine alone. I am sure you understand that, Dad, and I think, on reflection, you will agree with me."

And Andrew stopped. I thought, Silvio, that Andrew had been extremely eloquent. I was dumbfounded at how eloquent he had been.

Then Andrew said into the phone "I appreciate that, Dad. That is very magnanimous of you. I hope you know that you are the world's best father. You know I love you very much. I could not possibly love you more than I already love you."

And his Dad said something else.

"Well, it is interesting you asked that. I believe that Joshua will be talking to his father tomorrow, because I think that Josh’s father wants to have a serious talk with him. But, Dad, PLEASE keep in mind that we are not at that stage yet. If it gets to that stage, of course I would want you to meet Joshua and to get to know him and to spend lots of time with him. But I fear that you and Josh’s Dad may be way ahead of US in that regard. Way, way ahead of us."

And at this point, Silvio, I put my hand on Andrew' leg and started rubbing it, and I started vigorously shaking my head "no" back and forth.

After listening to his father say something else, Andrew said "Dad, have you forgotten how slow-moving I am in that regard?"

And, Silvio, at hearing this, I started vigorously shaking my head "yes" up and down.

"So, Dad, you have nothing to worry about. Everything will be fine. And I hope my answer is satisfactory to you, and that I have expressed it in a satisfactory fashion. That was my intent."

Then Andrew's Dad said something else.

"Yes, I would love to."

"Hi, Mom. Are you taking care of Dad?"

Andrew talked to his mother for five minutes, but not with reference to anything concerning me or our situation. Andrew's mother obviously did not ask about any of these issues, or even touch upon them.

When they call was over, Andrew put down the phone.

"Yippee!" I started whooping. "You listened to my idea, you son-of-a-gun, and it worked! It worked! It really worked! What do you have to say, 'Baby Brother'?" And I grabbed Andrew's head and started wildly massaging it.

"What do I have to say? I'm exhausted. That's what I have to say. Utterly exhausted."

"Is it always like this, dealing with your father?" I asked.

"More than I would like" said Andrew. "And he is worried that I am not doing the right thing. But he also knows now that this is my step to take, and he withdrew from the battlefield tonight, graciously. As I said to him, that was very magnanimous of him. It was my reference to 'feelings' that did the trick. He understands feelings. He understands the importance of feelings."

"From what I know about him, he has always struck me as ultra-rational, almost devoid of feelings" I said.

"That's because you don't know him" Andrew said. "He is one of the most loving people on the planet. His exterior is very formal, very correct, very cool, very urbane, very considered--but he is a man of the deepest feelings. He has the deepest feelings for my mother and for all three of his children. He has the deepest feelings for Lizbeth and Tim. And, if we stay together, Josh, he will have the deepest feelings for you. And he shows his feelings within the family, but never outside the family. He gives lots of affection, enormous amounts of affection, in his own way."

"How did you know to stress the issue of 'feelings' with him" I asked.

"Because my mother's family did not want her to marry him, thinking he was not good enough for her" Andrew said.

And, Silvio, Andrew began to cry. Literally, tears flowed out of his eyes down his face. I was shocked. I had never seen him cry before, and I thought that Andrew would be incapable of crying so nakedly. I put my arm on his shoulder, and I wanted to kiss him, but I had to keep my eyes on the Turnpike.

"Do you want me to pull over?" I asked.

"No" Andrew said. "And excuse me for being so silly, but things got to me for a minute there."

And after a few seconds, Andrew said "I will explain to you why I cried, if you want to know."

I said "Well, if you want to tell me. You don't have to, Andrew, if you do not want to."

"No, it does not bother me. Things just got to me there for a minute."

He paused again, and took a deep breath.

"Short version. Very, very short version. My father came from a very poor family, farmers. They had no money and he had to put himself through school and then he had to put himself through law school. He always had to work while he was in school, sometimes at two and even three jobs just to scrape by.

"He met and fell in love with my mother, and she fell in love with him. Her family thought that he was interested, not in her, but in her money. But they were wrong, totally wrong. My father was not interested in her money, he was interested in her. He has always worshipped my mother and he has always had the deepest feelings for her. That is still true today.

"Her family did everything possible to dissuade my mother from marrying my father. They were very mean to him and very insulting and very demeaning, even vicious. It was my father's deep feelings for my mother that got him through those early years. Otherwise, he could never have survived that horrible time.

"Of course, they got married and had three kids, but still my mother's family acted as if my father was dirt, despite the fact that he was more intelligent and had more character and was more hard-working than just about anyone in the Twin Cities, let alone any of my mother's own siblings. And my mother's own siblings always have treated my father horribly, as did her own mother and father. In fact, her own parents never visited Mom and Dad's first house until Alec arrived, and they only came because they wanted to see their grandchild.

"My Mom's family, many of whom are now deceased, never made peace with my father, but they all lived to see what my father did with himself, and they all lived to see what a happy household and what a happy family he and my mother had created, on their own. The household and family my mother and father created were far better than the households and families my mother's siblings achieved, and in their later years those siblings grew very bitter over this fact. They could not help but see that my Mom and Dad were so happy, with each other and with their children and with their lives in the community.

"And what got my Dad through the worst of those years was his feelings for my mother, without which he could not have kept going. He is a man who understands the importance of deep feelings.

"And when I mentioned feelings to him, Joshua, and pointed out the importance of feelings in dealing with the question he posed to me, he understood. He understood, because of his own feelings. And that's why he dropped the issue.

"And I was crying, Joshua, for two reasons: first, I was crying because I was going through, in my mind, everything my father had suffered through; second, I was crying because I felt so ashamed in using the tool of 'feelings' with him in making my argument--I feel that I took advantage of him by using that tool, and I feel so ashamed, because I fear that somehow I cheapened that discussion and misdirected it to my own ends."

And Andrew was weeping, uncontrollably, when he said this, and I started crying, too, because I felt so badly for him. He obviously has the deepest feelings and the deepest respect for his father, and I admire that very, very much. I love my father, too, Silvio, but I have nothing like the deep bond with my father that Andrew shares with his father.

After about ten minutes of silence while getting over this point, Andrew said to me "And, Joshua, I need to tell you something, so that you don't think I am some sentimental and weepy fool."

"Tell me" I said.

"My father WAS entirely wrong on the issue he was raising with me, entirely wrong, and he DID need to be told that he was entirely wrong. Don't get me wrong, I made the right decision in telling him that I could not give him what he wanted. I have no regrets about that. I only regret that I had to use a cheap shot to make him see that he was wrong. Alas, nothing else would have worked--he would not have dropped the issue. I would still be talking to him, right now, otherwise."

We listened to music for the rest of the trip. We listened to Haydn symphonies--you know, "cheerful, ear-catching reflections of The Age Of Enlightenment, free of the mournful Weltschmerz and Wanderlust of so much 19th-Century German music", to quote Andrew.

We stopped in Maryland to get some coffee and use the washrooms, and Andrew gave me a wonderfully cheerful kiss and an affectionate arm-and-neck hug before we got out of the car.

Then we continued back to Washington, with Andrew driving again, and we went to my house, and we turned in almost as soon as we arrived. It was almost 1:30 a.m., and we talked quietly in bed for 30 minutes, between kissing and nestling against each other.

Andrew told me what a wonderful weekend he had had with me, but he said that for next weekend he wanted to spend it all with me, alone, and that he thought Westfields was ideal for that. "We don't even have to mix with any of the other prison inmates, except in the dining room" he joked. "How do you think that sounds?" he asked me.

"I'm ready to go there tonight" I told him.

"Well, tonight's Monday, so can you wait until Friday?" he asked me. "That's only four more days."

"I'll wait" I said.

And he kissed me, and kissed me, and kissed me, and he put most of his body on top of mine, and he put his arms beneath me, and we went to sleep.

A Week's Respite--And A Thanks

Everything is ready for our week at the lake.

Last weekend, we took care of much of the preparation, and late last week we tidied up a few loose ends.

Everything—food, clothes, toys, sporting gear, incidental items—is packed in hampers, ready to be loaded into the cars early tomorrow morning.

Last weekend, Andrew’s older brother took care of Andrew’s and my living arrangements for the next three years. He went up to Boston, and arranged for us to rent a basement apartment in a house owned by one of his former Stanford classmates.

Andrew and I will have our own entrance. The apartment has three small rooms: a living room, a small kitchen, and a bedroom (plus a bath). Only the living room has windows, but Andrew’s brother says it will be perfectly sufficient for our needs. The apartment is in a very safe neighborhood and in a location convenient both for my daily trek to law school and Andrew’s daily trek to work.

I’m pleased Andrew’s brother took care of the housing situation for us. He told us, months ago, to leave the apartment search in his hands, and we were happy to do so. Because he lived in Boston for four years while obtaining his undergraduate degree, and because he knows former classmates living in Boston, and because he knows persons working in the Boston offices of Wall Street firms, he said it would be easy for him to locate a suitable apartment for us with a few phone calls.

He was right about that—and we thank him for looking out for us.

A Weekend Hard At Work

On Friday night, Andrew and I moved over to his parents’ house for the weekend so that we could help get some things done around the house and yard before everyone arrives next weekend.

We were very, very busy.

We mowed and trimmed the lawn.

We trimmed bushes and shrubbery.

We did touch-up painting on windows and garage doors.

We cleaned the outside deck off the kitchen.

We cleaned upstairs bedrooms and bathrooms.

We waxed the kitchen floor.

We cleaned the downstairs family room.

We did laundry.

We visited five food stores, buying food for our upcoming week at the lake, and we packed the non-perishables in food hampers.

We packed our own clothes for the lake.

We packed the dog’s things for the lake (Science Diet, heartworm pills, playthings).

We gave the dog a bath.

By the time all this had been accomplished, the weekend was over. Andrew and I are looking forward to going to our offices tomorrow, because we will be able to get some rest.

Lorca's Grave

Our Saturday and Sunday were nice.

On Saturday, Andrew and I went over to Andrew’s parents’ house. We did yard work in the morning and washed the cars in the afternoon. Needless to say, we played with the dog all day and kept him amused (and he kept us amused, too).

Andrew’s mother gave us a lunch of sesame chicken and a salad that was one-quarter diced tomato, one-quarter diced cucumber, one-quarter diced green onion and one-quarter diced hard-boiled egg.

In the afternoon, in addition to washing the cars, Andrew and I ran some errands for his Mom and Dad, making a trip to the local garden center and making a trip to the local home-improvement center. We picked up a few items for some work we have planned for next weekend.

Andrew’s mother gave us steak for dinner Saturday night. She served the steak with baked potato and steamed broccoli, before which she gave us one of her most elaborate garden salads. For dessert, she gave us pineapple cheesecake, homemade.

Andrew and I have been working on our Southern England itinerary for the last couple of weeks. We are exactly halfway through our upcoming trip. On Saturday night, we worked on day nine, which will be spent in Plymouth.

We have been talking on the phone and exchanging email messages and exchanging IM messages every night with my sister and Andrew’s brother, selecting adventures that will be of interest to everyone.

Much of Saturday night was spent choosing which particular boat cruise of Plymouth Harbor to take (we settled upon one that includes Plymouth Sound and the Plymouth Naval Dockyard), deciding how much attention to devote to Plymouth Hoe (an entire afternoon), trying to figure out whether there is any possible way to finagle a tour of The Royal Citadel (there isn’t, short of joining The Royal Marines), and trying to find something to do in Plymouth in the evening (we chose a new play to be performed by an experimental theater troupe).

Andrew and I are having a wonderful time organizing our itinerary, and everyone is getting very excited. I think ours will be a marvelous trip.

Yesterday, after church, Andrew’s parents, our landlady and Andrew and I spent the afternoon and evening out. We attended a matinee performance of William Gillette’s “Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure” and an evening performance of Thomas Kilroy’s “The Secret Fall Of Constance Wilde”. Between performances, we ate Shepherd’s Pie for dinner at a British restaurant downtown.

The Sherlock Holmes play was sort of fun. Park Square Theater, wisely, offered a modern adaptation that tightened the text and quickened the pace of the original drama, surely too creaky for present-day audiences. It was an engaging production and an engaging afternoon, although I doubt that any of us would ever want to see this play a second time.

“The Secret Fall Of Constance Wilde” at the Guthrie Theater, on the other hand, was a major disappointment, if not an out-and-out disaster.

There may or may not be a decent play lurking in Kilroy’s material, but no one could possibly make a judgment about that question based upon this production, given that it was so severely misguided.

There are only three speaking parts in “The Secret Fall Of Constance Wilde”—Lord Alfred Douglas, plus Oscar and Constance Wilde—but the three speaking actors were completely overwhelmed by four puppet characters that engaged in an onstage pantomime throughout the performance. This dumb show was inane, if not offensive, and it destroyed whatever credibility and rhythm the play and the performance managed to build now and again.

Andrew said that the puppet device had been borrowed from English National Opera’s production of “Madame Butterfly”, unveiled in London in 2005, which used puppeteers to portray the child of Cio-Cio San. However, the puppeteers in “Madame Butterfly” were onstage only for a small portion of that London production. By contrast, in Minneapolis, the puppeteers were a constant, never-ending (and irritating) presence. Whoever came up with such a dumb idea?

The answer to that question is Marcela Lorca, the director of the production. Lorca is a choreographer, not a stage director, and her stage skills—such as they are—are restricted to movement and the visual aspects of a production. In terms of illuminating a text and developing a theme, she is totally at sea, and it showed, in spades, throughout the performance.

“The Secret Fall Of Constance Wilde” is a text-driven play. Further, it is a very site-specific play (late-Victorian London and its literary world) and very time-specific (the 1890’s). At the Guthrie, we were served up “Contact” with dialogue, given an ambience that was pure Los Angeles and Oh-So-Very-2008. This made utter hash of the play’s text and themes.

It was a major and obvious mistake for the Guthrie to have offered this assignment to Lorca (whose native language is Spanish; she is Chilean), and it was a major and obvious mistake not to have scrapped the puppeteers. “Constance Wilde” was the worst rot I have ever seen on the stage of the Guthrie.

The production was also miscast. The actor portraying Oscar Wilde should have been replaced, because he never for a moment suggested that he was in possession of a brain, let alone great wit. The actress portraying Mrs. Wilde was not quite such a cipher, but a competent director would surely have worked with her on the character (and the text), and would have helped her expand upon what is merely a one-note portrayal.

Apparently there was a lot of behind-the-scenes controversy during the rehearsal period for this production, and many people at the Guthrie strongly believed that Lorca should have been replaced very early in the rehearsal process. Lorca was never able to come to terms with the subtlety of the text and she was never able to evoke the time and place in which the drama is set.

For some reason, Joe Dowling, Artistic Director of the Guthrie, decided to stick with Lorca, and the sad result is there for everyone to see onstage. Coming from America’s leading theater company, “Constance Wilde” is an embarrassment.

This production should have been buried.

Elwood P. Dowd

Andrew called me at my office this afternoon, and wanted to know whether I felt like doing something this evening after work.

“Like what?” I asked him

“Like see ‘Harvey’, as we thought about doing last weekend” he answered. Andrew was referring to the fact that he and I and our landlady had planned to catch a performance of “Harvey” last weekend—until our landlady had learned that word-of-mouth about the production, within the Twin Cities theater community, was decidedly negative.

“How will we get home?” I asked him. I was referring to the fact that bus service home would have ended hours before the conclusion of a performance of “Harvey”.

“We can catch a ride home with my Mom and Dad” was his response. Andrew was referring to the fact that, this being Friday night, his parents would be in town for Friday night’s subscription concert by the Minnesota Orchestra.

“Let’s do it” was my answer.

So Andrew called his parents (Andrew’s Mom and Dad were home this afternoon; his father had taken the day off) to make sure that they were planning to attend tonight’s Minnesota Orchestra subscription concert (which they were, since this is the final week of the season).

In fact, Andrew’s parents had been planning to drive into town very early and to have dinner downtown before the concert, owing to a major downtown bicycle event that would require several street closings and play havoc with downtown traffic for several hours in the late afternoon and early evening.

The result: Andrew and I went to see “Harvey” tonight—plus we had a wonderful dinner before the show.

We ate dinner with Andrew’s parents at an exceptional seafood restaurant. It was a very elegant and very fashionable establishment, with fine silver, fine glassware, fine cutlery, fine linen, and stately but understated décor. It was a magnificent restaurant.

The menu offered nothing but the freshest seafood, flown daily to Minneapolis. The menu changes literally each day, depending upon that day’s availability.

We ordered Oysters Rockefeller, followed by Rainbow Trout accompanied by sour cream-and-onion mashed potatoes and steamed asparagus with Hollandaise Sauce. For dessert, we ordered Crème Brulee.

It was a superb dinner.

After dinner, Andrew and I headed over to Theater In The Round for a 7:30 p.m. curtain, while Andrew’s parents walked to Orchestra Hall for the 8:00 p.m. concert. Both performances were scheduled to conclude at roughly the same time, 9:45 p.m., so we did not have to worry about anyone having to wait when it was time for us all to meet up again and head home.

I’m glad Andrew and I saw “Harvey”. Neither of us had seen the play before—or even the film version, for that matter.

The play is very old-fashioned, and very predictable, but for all that it remains an enjoyable and durable vehicle, and I can understand why “Harvey” is periodically revived by professional companies.

“Harvey” is a play that lends itself particularly well to amateur performance, because its characters are all “types” rather than individuals, and therefore lie well within the talents of amateur performers. “Harvey” is, I understand, one of the most frequently-performed plays by high schools and amateur theatrical societies, and this is easily accounted for.

The Theater In The Round production was OK. There was a little over-acting, and a little under-acting, and some of the jokes and some of the situations were staged a little too broadly and a little too obviously, but the material came through, all in all. It was not a bad way to spend a Friday night.

Tomorrow Andrew and I are going to go over to his parents’ house to do some yard work and wash the cars and get a “dog fix”.

On Sunday, we will be doing the “theater day” we had planned but cancelled last weekend, but with some modifications to our original plans.

We will make it an “1890’s Britain” day, and attend two plays about events, imaginary and otherwise, from that time and place.

First, we will catch the Sunday matinee at Park Square Theater of “Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure”. In the evening, we will catch “The Secret Fall Of Constance Wilde” at the Guthrie Theater. Between shows, we will maintain the chosen theme of the day by having dinner at a British restaurant downtown. Our landlady will join us for this “theater day”, and so will Andrew’s parents.

It should be fun.

Summer Travel Plans

Over the course of the last ten days, Andrew and I—and everyone else—have made our travel plans for the summer.

Over Memorial Day weekend, Andrew and I consulted with his brother in Denver about summer travel. We consulted with my sister about summer travel while we were visiting my family in Oklahoma (one of our graduation gifts to my sister is a summer trip). We have been consulting with Andrew’s parents, too, about summer travel. They are keen to go somewhere.

We have continued to consult with everyone about travel plans, nonstop, for the last ten days, and on Sunday we made our decision.

The outcome of the consultations: we will take only one trip this summer, but we will make it a significant one, and all six of us will go together. Our destination will be Southern England.

Andrew’s brother, who loves Great Britain, will be delighted with this vacation, even though he has already seen practically everything we plan to visit (and seen everything more than once in the case of most attractions).

My sister initially seemed cool on the idea of Southern England, but when she started reading about what we might visit there, she became more and more enthused to the point that now she is ready to leave tonight.

Andrew’s parents look forward to a couple of weeks in Southern England, both because they have not visited Southern England in many, many years and because they heard about the many interesting Southern England travel experiences Alex and Andrew enjoyed in years past. They will be able to experience these pleasures themselves this year with their sons, with the added advantage of not having to worry about hotels and transportation and such, since Alex and Andrew—those two old travel pros—will take care of all the planning.

I will be delighted to visit Southern England, because I have never visited any part of the U.K. except for London.

Andrew is perfectly happy to visit Southern England again—he says he is content to visit everything a second or third or fourth time, and that I will love everything we plan to visit, and that my sister will love everything, too. He also says that his parents will enjoy this vacation very, very much, and that Southern England is perhaps the best destination we could have chosen for our time period, the first two weeks in August, when it will be better to be in the English countryside than in London.

We will depart Thursday evening, July 31. We will spend eighteen full days in the U.K., and fly home on Tuesday, August 19.

Andrew and I have been assigned the responsibility of confirming opening days and times, as well as researching the histories, of the many sights on our list. We will do that over the next month or so. We will enjoy doing that.

We will visit abbeys, cathedrals, churches, castles, museums, towns and villages, historic attractions, and see a great deal of the English countryside.

It should be a lot of fun.

Riveting Magnetism And Drama

I am not knowledgeable about art, and I was never much of a museumgoer until I met Andrew.

However, the second day I knew Andrew (February 4, 2006), he took me to the National Gallery Of Art in Washington, and he and I spent a quiet afternoon there. I wrote about that afternoon on my blog entry of August 1, 2007.

I had been to the National Gallery on one occasion prior to that afternoon, but I had found the National Gallery to be overwhelming, and not much fun, and I had never bothered to return until that afternoon with Andrew.

Going through a museum with Andrew was about 100 times more interesting than going through a museum by myself, as I was to learn that afternoon. Andrew is very knowledgeable about art, and very knowledgeable about history, and he is able to connect the two disciplines in a completely captivating fashion that instantly renders both fields more engaging.

Now, when I examine works of art, I see, notice, and observe things I never saw, noticed and observed before. Art-viewing is a much richer experience for me today. Now, one of my favorite activities is visiting museums with Andrew.

That afternoon at the National Gallery Of Art, which we visited purportedly in order to see a Winslow Homer exhibition, Andrew showed me the Gallery’s Van Dyck and Vermeer paintings, after which we viewed the American painting collection. We concluded our visit that afternoon by viewing the Gallery’s collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings.

One of the paintings that most captured my attention that afternoon was Gilbert Stuart’s imposing “The Skater (Portrait Of William Grant)”.

Photos of great paintings do not begin to do them justice, but anyone who has seen “The Skater” in person knows immediately that he or she is in the presence of a great, great painting. Eight feet tall and almost five feet wide, “The Skater” is a canvas on the grandest possible scale, a work of startling originality, and a painting of riveting magnetism and drama.

Stuart had traveled from an America on the brink of war to London in 1775 to apprentice with Benjamin West, the American painter who had moved to London several years before the American Revolution. Shortly after completing his apprenticeship with West, Stuart painted “The Skater”. It was his very first attempt at full-length portraiture and it was to become, after his many George Washington portraits, by far his most celebrated work. Stuart was only twenty-seven years old at the time.

The work’s originality is due to Stuart portraying its subject, Scotsman William Grant, not only in some type of physical activity, but specifically in ice skating. This had never been done before, and it was unprecedented for a grand-manner society portrait.

The subject is presented skating on the Serpentine, the small lake in Hyde Park. The spires of Westminster Abbey are faintly visible in the painting’s background.

The portrait was an immediate sensation in London, and it was included in the 1782 exhibition at The Royal Academy Of Art, a highly-unusual honor for such a young artist. The painting made Stuart’s name in London, and he was soon engaged by other notable personages to paint their portraits. Stuart remained one of the most sought-after painters in London until he returned to America, permanently, in 1793.

The painting remained in the Grant family from 1782 until 1950, when it was purchased from Grant’s descendants by the National Gallery Of Art and shipped from London to Washington, where it has been on display ever since.

The National Gallery Of Art owns 43 paintings by Gilbert Stuart, only a handful of which are on display at a given time. “The Skater”, however, is always on display at the Gallery, one of the museum’s most important (and most popular) American masterpieces. Removing it from the exhibition rooms and placing it into storage, even for a short time, is simply unthinkable.

The painting, justifiably, has become one of the nation’s most beloved works of art.

At The Lake

Andrew and I went up to the lake this weekend, and Andrew’s parents accompanied us (as did the dog, naturally).

We assembled at Andrew’s parents’ house at 6:00 p.m. Friday evening. Andrew’s mother made us all eat a plate of food before we headed out. She had prepared sesame chicken for us, which I had never had before. She served the sesame chicken with pasta, into which was mixed shredded carrots, shredded green beans, shredded red and yellow peppers, and shredded pineapple. There was no pasta sauce, because the tiny bits of pineapple moisturized the pasta and vegetables. It was one of the best things I had ever eaten, and I asked Andrew’s mother why she had not made this before. She expressed great surprise at my question, asking me, quite genuinely, “You mean you haven’t had this before?” I had not, and I told her that I had not. “Either I have not made it for a while, then, or I made it on nights you and Andrew were not here. I’m stunned.”

I was the one who was stunned, actually, because the chicken and pasta were so marvelous. It was the perfect light meal before embarking on a two-hour drive.

The dog ate a plateful of the chicken and pasta, too, and he loved it. Unlike me, it was not the first time he had been served this particular dinner.

He was excited during the ride up to the lake, because he knew where we were going. He loves to spend time at the lake. I think he enjoys time at the lake more than anyone else.

We arrived at the lake just as it was getting dark. First thing, we turned on the water and gas, and ran lots of water through the pipes and faucets. Then Andrew and I removed the sheets from the furniture and quickly vacuumed the floors while Andrew’s mother prepared for us a late supper of omelets with garden vegetables. During this time, Andrew’s father was outside, observing the dog race around the yard and run in circles and roll in the grass.

On Saturday morning, we had to mow the grass, which had already grown quite tall, and do some other yard work. Otherwise we did not do much of anything all weekend. We took the dog for walks in the woods, and played badminton, but otherwise we sat around reading and talking and playing with the dog.

The dog keeps a close eye on the lake, and he always barks at kayaks as they pass. He very seldom goes into the water, because he dislikes getting wet. The exception is when he sees something really interesting in the water that he cannot resist, in which case he will leap in and fetch whatever it is that has captured his attention and immediately return to shore. Most of the time, what he brings back is only a stick.

We returned home last evening, leaving an hour before darkness set.

This week will be a short workweek for Andrew and me, because we have two duties to perform over the long Memorial Day weekend.

On Thursday, Andrew and I will drive to Oklahoma to attend my sister’s high school graduation ceremony. Commencement is Friday evening, and Andrew and I will drive all the way to Oklahoma the day before. We hope to leave home at 6:00 a.m. Thursday morning, and arrive at my parents’ house by 10:00 p.m. Thursday night. It will be a long day, and a long drive.

The morning after my sister’s graduation, Andrew and I will drive to Denver, where we will help Andrew’s brother prepare for his move back to Minneapolis. We hope to leave Oklahoma at 7:00 a.m. Saturday morning, and arrive in Denver by 8:00 p.m. Mountain Time on Saturday night.

We will spend Sunday and Monday helping Andrew’s brother sort through things and pack things for shipping, and we will bring some of his things back with us when we return home on Tuesday. Between shipping some of his things back home, and our bringing some of his things back home with us, he will only need to make one trip when he returns permanently to Minneapolis at the beginning of July.

Andrew and I plan to leave Denver at 5:00 a.m. Mountain Time on Tuesday. We hope to be home by midnight Tuesday night. It will be another long day, and an even longer drive.

It will be a tiring weekend—over 2400 miles within six days—and both Andrew and I must return to work that Wednesday morning.

Consequently, it was good we had a restful weekend this weekend at the lake.

A World Undone

Andrew and I have read so many, many books about World War I and its causes that we almost passed by “A World Undone: The Story Of The Great War, 1914-1918” by G. J. Meyer. It would have been a grave mistake for us to have done so.

World War I has been the subject of a remarkable renewable of scholarly interest over the last decade, and it is interesting to speculate why this is so. I believe there may be several reasons for the rebirth of interest in The Great War.

First, the causes, developments and results of World War II have been rehashed so often and so extensively that there has not been much new to offer on the subject, except for events on the Eastern Front that may now be examined anew in light of recently-opened Russian archives. It is logical, therefore, that scholarly attention has shifted from the Second World War back to the First.

Second, World War II was not the “complex” war that World War I has always been. The causes of World War II were fairly simple and straightforward: it was Act II of The Great War, a continuation of the first great conflagration owing to round one’s unsatisfactory resolution. World War II would never have occurred had World War I’s denouement and end result been an effective final settlement. In contrast, the causes of—and even the necessity for—World War I remain inherently controversial, ripe for constant reexamination.

Third, World War I’s five great European participants—Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Russia, France, Britain—all had vastly different (and logical) reasons for participating in, or avoiding altogether, the tragic conflict. These particular considerations have been the focus of much recent World War I scholarship, especially in the case of Britain, whose participation in the war has undergone the most intensive reexamination and reassessment. No nation on the continent was in a position to sit out the war once it began. Britain, a seafaring nation, had that luxury.

Fourth, World War I was one of those wars that could and should have been avoided, in the eyes of everyone. The conflict produced only one victor, the United States. All European participants lost the war, whether they were declared to be winner or loser at the endless conference that followed cessation of hostilities. How and why the war could and should have been avoided remains the target of current scholarship, and much of this scholarship reaches vastly different conclusions.

It is fitting, therefore, that World War I histories continue to be written and published in substantial numbers, at least in the English-speaking world. Whether French, German and Russian volumes are produced in equivalent numbers I do not know—if published, they are not being translated into English and issued in Great Britain and the U.S.

“A World Undone” is different from the recent John Keegan and Niall Ferguson volumes on the subject, volumes that attempted, with varying degrees of success, to provide a new spin on the causes and effects of the war. (I wrote briefly about both recent Keegan books on October 14, 2007).

“A World Undone” is not a lengthy argument. “A World Undone” is not a veiled rebuttal of other recent books on one or another aspect of the war, nor is it a reply to critics.

“A World Undone” is also not a book filled with brilliant and original insights, providing the reader with fresh and unusual perspectives on the war, its causes and its long-term consequences.

Instead, “A World Undone” is a splendid one-volume history (704 pages) of the conditions that led to war, the missteps and blunders of all participants in that fateful summer of 1914, the constant carnage that typified the war in its fighting stages, and the long and drawn-out aftermath that required three years of negotiations to bring the hostilities to an official—but only temporary, as it turned out—conclusion.

Meyer demonstrates a grasp of the telling detail as well as a talent for portraying the panoramic sweep of the vast drama, and he displays a deep understanding of the war’s military engagements as well as its diplomatic and political developments before, during and after the hostilities. He also evidences a real talent for bringing both the war’s major personalities to life as well as the national characteristics and considerations of the various peoples involved.

His book is a rich tapestry of event, character and analysis, epic in scope, well-told through a narrative packed with incident and immediacy, demonstrating the skills of a great novelist. This may be the finest one-volume book on the subject ever written.

Despite his studious avoidance of tendentious arguments about the causes of the war or the long-term results of its aftermath, Meyer has much to offer that is not necessarily covered in other volumes or is covered elsewhere in insufficient detail.

He is excellent, for instance, in his discussion of the Alsace-Lorraine issue, inexplicably glossed over in so many other World War I studies. He is equally superb in his treatment of the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Army on the Eastern Front early in the war, a collapse that required the German Army to remove troops from France and to reposition them on The Eastern Front in order to halt and reverse the progress of the Russian Army. The farce (and tragedy) that was Gallipoli is handled well and at length, as is the Armenian massacre. He discusses, in detail, the oft-ignored and mind-boggling failure of General Haig to come to terms with the machine-gun, and to amend his military strategies in order to take into account the lethality of that weapon.

Meyer also discusses at length the reasons why the parties were unable to bring the conflict to a negotiated conclusion once it was underway. He is one of the few writers to credit the Germans for attempting to reach a negotiated settlement as early as 1916. Germany and Austria’s populations were literally starving after the winter of 1915-1916, and Germany was under great pressure from a deprived populace to bring Britain, France and Russia to the bargaining table from 1916 on. Germany’s efforts were completely rebuffed by The Entente Powers. Millions upon millions of lives would have been saved by an early end to the war. Moreover, a negotiated settlement reached in 1916 or 1917 would not have differed significantly from the outcome eventually imposed upon Germany at Paris and Versailles, a final settlement not signed until 1921, three years after the war’s end.

If I have one criticism about the book, it is that Meyer fails to address in a satisfactory manner how and why the fighting finally stopped. Truly, no participant in the war achieved any sort of victory on The Western Front. There was no culminating final battle that settled the affair, allowing one set of participants to emerge a clear victor and another to witness a shattering and irreversible defeat. Instead, the armies on the Western Front, exhausted, simply stopped fighting. Battles sputtered out like an engine running out of fuel.

It was the French Army that mutinied first, but it was the mutiny of the German Army that finally ended the fighting. First one German unit, then another, laid down its arms until the German General Staff had a full-scale insurrection on its hands. Within days of the insurrection, an armistice was declared, the German Kaiser fell from power and sought refuge in the Netherlands, Germany became a nation virtually without a government, the various armies were sent home, and reparations talks began in Paris. Precisely what had happened to cause this extraordinary turn of events?

This is the question that all World War I historians fail to answer in a satisfactory and convincing manner. No one understands, exactly, how and why the great conflagration limped, in its final stages, to expiration. Meyer does not answer this question any better than any other writer who has addressed the subject.

The odd ending to the war is even more remarkable given that the Germans almost won the war during the Spring Offensive Of 1918. For the first time since 1914, the Germans broke the four-year stalemate on The Western Front, plowed through enemy lines and were on the verge of winning the war. Given the swiftness with which the great successes of the Spring Offensive were followed by abject defeat, it is no wonder that the German populace failed to understand why Germany had lost the war and it is easy to comprehend why the German populace was so ready to embrace the “stabbed in the back” theory on which so much of Germany’s politics would be based over the next twenty years.

The carnage of World War I was brutal, even incomprehensible. To this day, the scale of bloodletting remains too shocking to contemplate. The generals in charge of prosecuting the war on behalf of Britain, France and Germany were viewed at the time, and are still viewed today, as little more than hacks and butchers. Most of them lost their reputations while the conflict was underway—and all of them lost their reputations once scholarly studies began to appear after the war. Never was a war more haphazardly prosecuted, with so little value placed on human life. An entire generation of youth from Britain, France and Germany was literally wiped out, a slaughter on a scale so vast that it had never been witnessed before and has never been witnessed since.

I almost weep when I think of the suffering that the young men of Britain, France and Germany had to endure during those terrible years. Nothing is as likely to bring tears to my eyes as thinking about the inhuman events on The Western Front, where as many as 50,000 souls lost their lives in a single day during a gruesome and unending battle of attrition that went on and on, day after day after day, for over four years.

There are monuments to the fallen of World War I in almost every city, town and village throughout Europe. This is so because no locality, and no human being alive at the time, escaped the suffering. Literally everyone had family members or close friends who died fighting in the war.

Andrew finds the most moving such monument to be the Cenotaph in London, situated in the middle of Whitehall. The Cenotaph was designed by architect Edwin Lutyens in 1919. A wood-and-plaster version was erected for the 1919 Remembrance Day observances, and a permanent version, constructed from Portland stone, was erected the following year. The Cenotaph is a series of simple, recessed steles, about eighteen feet high, of the starkest severity, free from decoration except for a stone wreath carved into the base at each end. Imperceptibly, its sides are not vertical—they curve inward as they rise, and all four sides would meet 1000 feet above ground were the monument to reach that height. Only three words are carved on the Cenotaph: “The Glorious Dead”, from Rudyard Kipling, who lost his only son in the war. The London Cenotaph proved to be so popular that over the next two decades it was reproduced endlessly throughout the British Commonwealth, with recreations erected throughout Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, India and South Africa. No version of London’s Cenotaph, however, was ever erected in the United States.

I thought that the Hamburg Ehrenmal was even more moving than the London Cenotaph. The Hamburg Ehrenburg is situated at the water’s edge on the Alster Lake, at one end of the great plaza on which lies Hamburg’s giant Rathaus. It is one of the most beautiful and moving monuments I have ever seen. It is twice as tall as London’s Cenotaph—the Hamburg Ehrenmal is 12.5 meters high—and it is nothing more than a simple white stone stele. It was designed by architect Claus Hoffman and erected in 1932. Its only words appear on one side: “Forty thousand sons of the city lost their lives for you 1914-1918”. On the opposite side is a cartoonish relief of a mother and her soldier son, by sculptor Ernst Barlach, removed by the Nazi’s in 1938 but recreated in 1949. I hate to express agreement with anything associated with the National Socialist regime, but the monument would be far better off without that ludicrous Barlach relief, which adds nothing to the dignity or solemnity of the monument. Our personal observations, while we were in Hamburg, were that people simply and assiduously ignored the side of the monument with the Barlach relief. We did, too.

Meyer is unafraid to criticize the politicians and generals, on all sides, in “A World Undone”. No one is immune from his harsh assessments. One of the strengths of his book is that he is very good at describing the personalities responsible for leading their nations into cataclysm and self-destruction and for making military decisions of astounding brutality throughout the engagement.

He ends his book by telling the reader what became of these various figures—politicians, rulers, monarchs, generals, cabinet ministers—after the war. Hardly anyone with an important role in World War I had a happy or fulfilling post-war life or career; on the contrary, almost all such persons had nothing but tragedy to face in their remaining years.

There was, however, one exception.

That person, the final such figure he addresses in his book, is Winston Churchill. Meyer briefly recounts Churchill’s 1920’s career and his 1930’s “wilderness years”, when Churchill served as an oracle issuing unwelcome warnings about the rearmament of Nazi Germany and the grave threats Hitler and his policies posed to Britain and the world.

Meyer’s discussion of Churchill’s post-war career—and Meyer's book—stops short, abruptly halting at the end of the 1930’s, with Churchill not yet in power and with Europe once again on the brink of war:

“But that is another story.”

A Good Weekend

Andrew’s brother from Denver joined us this weekend, and it was good to have him around for a few days.

He flew in Thursday evening, and Andrew and I and his mother all went to the airport to pick him up.

We had a late dinner Thursday night when we got back to the house: pepper pot roast (slow-cooked with a variety of special black and white ground pepper as well as peppercorns, AFTER having been soaked for a day in a special peppercorn brine), mashed potatoes, homemade butter noodles, steamed peas, corn and carrots, and a fresh pear-strawberry-walnut salad. For dessert, we had homemade ice cream and peanut butter cookies that Andrew’s mother had baked Thursday afternoon.

Andrew’s mother always makes homemade butter noodles for his brother on his first night home. Homemade butter noodles are his favorite food.

Andrew’s mother’s pepper pot roast is stunning, but it is very peppery. Because it has a very strong flavor, it goes best with creamy, buttery foods like mashed potatoes and homemade butter noodles, as well as plain steamed unseasoned vegetables like peas, corn and carrots. It would overwhelm and conflict with any other highly-seasoned foods. Only when the ice cream came along was I at last able to flush the taste of the pot roast from my senses.

The dog cannot be given pepper pot roast, as it is too strong for him, so Andrew’s mother gave him tiny pieces of cut-up beef, very slightly grilled, along with some mashed potatoes and a few butter noodles. The dog loves mashed potatoes with his meat at dinner, and he was perfectly content with his meal.

He was also happy to eat ice cream and peanut butter cookies for dessert. Peanut butter cookies are his favorite cookies (and Andrew’s brother’s favorite, too). He eats his ice cream from a bowl, but he is given small pieces of cookie by hand. When eating ice cream and cookies, he walks back and forth between his bowl and whomever is feeding him cookie pieces, having a few bites of first one and then the other. It is amusing to watch him enjoy his dessert.

Despite his size, the dog is a very delicate eater. He licks his food from his bowl in tiny, delicate tonguefuls, walking around and around his bowl as he takes one tongueful and then another. He constantly wags his tail while he eats, and he licks his bowl clean and inspects it very carefully when he is finished eating to make sure that he has not missed anything. I was absolutely riveted the first evening I was in Andrew’s family home, observing the dog eat his dinner.

His food is always cut up into very tiny pieces so that it takes him a while to eat it. Otherwise, he might gulp everything down in one bite and then feel cheated and beg at table.

The dog was happy to see Andrew’s brother, jumping all over him and licking him as if there were no tomorrow. For the previous couple of days, we had told him that Andrew’s brother was coming, and I think he understood this. When we left for the airport Thursday evening, we told him that we were going to the airport and that Alex would be with us when we returned, and I genuinely believe that he fully understood all that we were telling him.

We did not get to bed until very late Thursday night, because we stayed up talking until just past 12:30 a.m.

Andrew and I had to work on Friday, so Andrew’s mother and brother went to the care facility on Friday to visit Andrew’s grandmother and to have lunch with her. However, Andrew and I did manage to leave work early on Friday afternoon, and all of us (even Andrew’s mother accompanied us) spent late Friday afternoon with the dog in the park, running him around and playing games with him.

We spent most of Friday evening helping Andrew’s mother prepare dinner. She only prepared three dishes, but all three were sort of complicated, involving only fresh ingredients and taking some serious time and attention to prepare. We did not sit down to eat until after 9:00 p.m.

We had a dinner from Provence: Salade Nicoise, Bouillabaisse and apricot tarts with honey and almonds. The dinner was exceptional, probably superior to anything available in the finest French restaurant.

The dog was given a tart for dessert, but for his main course he was given grilled chicken, cut up for him, because he does not eat salads or seafood. He didn’t seem to mind.

After dinner, we watched a movie on DVD: “Islands In The Stream”, an adaptation of the Hemingway novel published after Hemingway’s death.

I had never seen the film, and I was astonished how fine it was. It is certainly the best film adapted from Hemingway I have ever seen.

Apparently the movie was not well-received on its initial release in 1977, either by critics or movie-goers. It died a quick death at the box office. This is regrettable, because it is an exceptionally fine piece of work.

The director was Franklin J. Shaffner, the cinematographer Fred J. Koenekamp, and the editor Robert Swink, all major talents working at the top of their games. Jerry Goldsmith wrote the musical score. The primary actors are George C. Scott, Claire Bloom and David Hemmings. Scott is called upon to carry the film, and he does so magnificently. Surely this is his finest screen performance. Scott is totally believable and perhaps even inspired in the role of a solitary sculptor working on an island in out-of-the-way Bahamas in 1940, as war clouds gather and as family crises involving children from two failed marriages command his attention.

“Islands In The Stream” is a very subtle and very moving film. The slow pace of the film is what must have prevented it from becoming a major critical and commercial success at the time of its release, although I understand that “Islands In The Stream” is slowly but surely acquiring a high reputation among film scholars and film historians.

It’s a wonderful film.

On Saturday, we had a big, big breakfast—first we ate cereal and fruit, after which Andrew made us scrambled eggs, fried potatoes and bacon, after which Andrew also made us waffles and sausage—and then we spent most of the day outside doing yard work. It was sort of fun because we had three guys to do the work, which was more than enough to keep pace with the dog, who generally tries to undo the work as quickly as it is completed. We had a lot of fun.

We stopped for a light lunch—tuna salad sandwiches, made from the same tuna cooked for Friday night’s Salade Nicoise—and then we worked until late in the afternoon, when we all got cleaned up and went out for the evening.

We went over to Bloomington and first we had an early dinner at Ruby Tuesday. Alex, Andrew and I all ordered the steak-and-crab-cake entrée. Andrew’s mother ordered Parmesan shrimp pasta.

After dinner, we went to see the musical, “The Pajama Game”, performed by the resident company at Bloomington Civic Theater.

I loved the performance—I thought it was top-notch—although the show itself is not good in the least. The score, the lyrics, the book: all are pedestrian.

The staging, however, was clever and imaginative, and the performers were quite good, despite the fact that Bloomington Civic Theater is not a professional company. The company’s performances, however, are fully up to professional standard, and everything about the production was excellent, from the stage design to the choreography to the orchestra in the pit.

I think the fact that Bloomington Civic Theater performs in a state-of-the-art auditorium seating only 366 persons and employs a full theater orchestra for its shows helps make its productions enjoyable and immediate. No amplification is used for the singers, and Broadway-type synthesizers in the pit are verboten. Consequently, Bloomington Civic Theater performances are not “canned”, unlike performances of Broadway musicals in New York, which are pretty deadly.

We all enjoyed the performance very much, and we were pleased that we had made the decision to go see this unremarkable musical, a decision we made more or less at the last minute.

After we arrived back in Edina, we stopped to have dessert before we went home. We stopped at The Cheesecake Factory and had cheesecake. We ordered four different kinds of cheesecake and shared, so everyone got a taste of each: vanilla bean, white chocolate raspberry truffle, lemon raspberry cream, and key lime.

On Sunday morning, Andrew made us omelets with ham, three different cheeses and cream, and he followed that up by making us one of his specialties, apple-cinnamon pancakes, which Alex especially likes.

After church, we did not eat lunch. Instead, we drove straight downtown in order to see two very small temporary exhibitions at the Minneapolis Institute Of Arts: “Visions Of Piety: Devotional Prints In The Counter-Reformation” and “Paris 1900: Graphic Design In Revolt”. It did not even take us an hour to complete both exhibitions, so we spent another hour at the museum in the Ancient Art section, examining antiquities from Egypt, Greece and Rome.

After we had had our fill of the museum, we returned home. It was only the middle of the afternoon when we arrived, and we played with dog and talked and helped Andrew’s mother prepare dinner.

She stuffed and roasted a chicken for dinner. We ate the chicken and stuffing with mashed potatoes, homemade butter noodles, green beans, fried red tomatoes, baked okra and homemade applesauce. We had cranberry-orange bread for dessert.

We spent all of Sunday night talking, and making tentative—very tentative—plans.

Andrew’s brother will be moving back to Minneapolis at the beginning of July. He will be staying with Andrew’s parents until late August. When Andrew and I abscond to Boston, he will move into our apartment.

He does not start his new job until early September, so he wants to do as much traveling as possible during the months of July and August.

Andrew and I have not decided precisely when we will leave our current jobs. We have etched August 1 into our minds, but that is only a tentative date.

We will all spend the first week of July up at the lake—that much is already settled—but Andrew and I are not prepared to spend the remainder of the month of July and most of the month of August traveling, even assuming we would leave our current jobs around July 1, an assumption we are not yet prepared to make.

Alex has lots of travel ideas. In addition to a two-week trip to Great Britain he mapped out several months ago, he wants to make a two-week trip to Toronto, combining Toronto with a lengthy visit to the Shaw Festival in nearby Niagara-On-The-Lake. He wants to make a nine-day trip to Philadelphia-the Brandywine Valley-Wilmington-Princeton-Allentown. He wants to make a two-week trek through Michigan and a corner of Ohio, visiting Detroit-Kalamazoo-Holland-Grand Rapids-Muskegon-East Lansing-Flint-Saginaw-Ann Arbor-Toledo. He is also busy mapping out a plan to see as much as possible of Scotland over a two-week period.

Clearly, he is keen to go somewhere!

Andrew and I are no position to make firm plans at the moment, and we have decided to put him off until Memorial Day weekend, when we will visit him in Denver and when we can begin to make decisions whether and where and when to go.

Andrew’s mother would like to go somewhere, too, because she has not been out of the country since last September, when we visited London. She has Paris and Venice on her mind at the moment, but Paris and Venice are not ideal destinations for the months of July and August, and she is perfectly well-aware of this fact.

At the moment, everything is swings and roundabouts.

All we know for certain, at the moment, is that Alex returned to Denver early this morning and that Andrew’s father will return from Taipei on Wednesday.

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it!