Thursday October 2nd. The last rays.

Written by Jack van Ommen on October 2nd, 2014

The sun loses its warmth quickly in the late afternoon. But one lonely Harbor Seal, the Terns and Mt. Rainier is soaking in the last rays of the late summer sun. We are promised one more sunny day tomorrow but then it looks like summer will have said its last good byes. I bought a few more warm clothes yesterday at Goodwill. And yesterday morning I used the little electric heater I had bought there for $6 a while back. It works great and warms up the cabin in a few minutes. I still need to try out the Force 10 kerosene heater. Maybe this weekend when I may not have access to electricity.

I have been watching on line, I have no TV, the protests in Hong Kong and I am hoping and praying that this will be the beginning of freedom for the Chinese in Hon Kong and eventually on the mainland. It is incredible the ingenuity, cohesion and restraint these, mostly, young people are displaying. There is lots of singing and I swear that I heard a group of young women, in the background, sing part of Mozart’s requiem. But when I went back on line to re-listen the NPR reports I could not find it. Did anyone else hear this? This would be a coincidence since Bill McGlaughlin on NWPR(adio) in his Exploring Music program has been featuring several of the Requiem masses, Mozart, Berlioz, Verdi and Faure. In my book “The Mastmakers’ Daughters” I write about the four women who were part of my mother’s group of prisoners in the NAZI concentration camp Vught. They sang the “Dona Nobic Pacem” from Mozart’s Requiem to the men that were being led out of the bunker on their way to the firing squad. My very first choir experience was singing Mozart’s Requiem at Easter time 1969 in Belgium. My wife was in her last days before the birth of her first pregnancy. And whenever I hear the “Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini” it brings back strong and happy emotions. She remains a true blessing to many. The most moving experience I had during the four years in Europe was participating in a hundred voices performance of Gabriel Faure’s requiem on May 4, last year. This is the day before the 5th of May which Holland celebrates as the end of the second World War. On the fourth of May they commemorate the victims of the war.

Common Terns with an occasional Caspian Tern and a Gull

Common Terns with an occasional Caspian Tern and a Gull

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