Home  >> Stories  >> The Tale Spinner #2016-50

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IN THIS ISSUE

• Mike Yeager pays tribute to Leonard Cohen
• This heroic story is about a missed opportunity to help
• Burke Dykes sends these thoughts from George Carlin
• Shirley Conlon forwards a piece about judging values
• Shirley also sends a short story about a post tortoise
• Sites are suggested by Barbara Wear, Judy Lee, and Tony Lewis

Mike Yeager pays tribute to a Canadian folk singer:

SO LONG, LEONARD

I first heard Leonard Cohen when I was stationed at Fort Hood Army base in Texas. I had a year left to serve. My unit was filled with Intelligence personnel, back from Vietnam like myself. The Army didn´t really know what to do with us. I was a POW Interrogator and Order of Battle Analyst and in Texas there wasn´t much need for my expertise, so they put me to work in the motor pool. I kept track of and ordered parts for vehicles.

I shared an open bay on the second floor of an Army barracks with a bunch of guys and two of them became good friends. Both Phil and Tony were excellent guitar players. In the evenings we would sit on the edge of one of our bunks and they would play music. Tony was a polished musician, having played in the LA clubs before being forced into the Army. Phil played an old Martin D-28 and finger picked like Mississippi John Hurt. I loved their music and wanted in. They helped me pick out a guitar in a Killeen music store and began teaching me how to play. I picked up some music books to help with the process and one of them was the "Songs of Leonard Cohen."

Tony was knowledgeable about all the folk artists of the time and he introduced me to the music of Eric Anderson, Phil Ochs, Hoyt Axton, Jackson Browne (Tony knew Jackson from the LA circuit and they exchanged songs before Jackson had his first album out,) Tom Rush, and Leonard Cohen. Leonard had two albums out in 1969, "Songs of Leonard Cohen" and "Songs from a Room." I loved his music. Unlike American music, his songs sounded more like the French singers, Jacques Brel and Edith Piaff. I guess this isn´t surprising, since he came from Montreal.

I loved his poetry of existential/religious/symbolic language. He was intellectual and classy, in his natty attire, a "continental" man. The guitar music in his songbook was in tablature, which shows you exactly where to put your fingers on the strings. Many of the songs were easy to learn on the guitar and I spent hours painstakingly learning a bunch of them.

The songbook also contained biographical information about Leonard and pictures of his house on the Island of Hydra, Greece, with Marianne, his beautiful Norwegian girlfriend and muse. For a twenty-one- year old boy back from the war and soon to be free with plans of travel and college, I was enchanted by Leonard and his lifestyle. I wanted to be him or some version thereof.

Years later I got the chance to see him live. In 1993, Katie and I drove up to Vancouver, BC, to attend a Leonard Cohen concert. Even then Leonard was not widely known in the US. His songs were not top 40 material. This was before his song "Hallelujah," from his 1984 "Various Positions" album, became a huge hit. At the time his most famous song probably was "Suzanne," made popular by Judy Collins on her 1966 album In "My Life" and Leonard´s first song on his first album. Here´s the last verse:

Now, Suzanne takes your hand and she leads you to the river
She´s wearing rags and feathers from Salvation Army counters
And the sun pours down like honey on our lady of the harbor
And she shows you where to look among the garbage and the flowers
There are heroes in the seaweed, there are children in the morning
They are leaning out for love and they will lean that way forever
While Suzanne holds her mirror
And you want to travel with her, and you want to travel blind
And you know that you can trust her
For she´s touched your perfect body with her mind.

To my surprise, the concert at the Orpheum was packed and the audience knew the words to most of the songs. Like Joni Mitchell and Neil Young, Leonard was Canada´s own. With an exceptional back-up band and angelic-sounding women singers enveloping and surrounding his low gravelly voice, his songs filled the beautifully ornate theater. It was definitely one of the music concert highlights of my life.

Leonard has been part of my life since I was twenty. I wish I could have thanked him personally.

First verse of his song "Anthem" from the album "The Future." A very timely message:

The birds they sang
At the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don´t dwell on what
Has passed away
Or what is yet to be
Yeah the wars they will
Be fought again
The holy dove
She will be caught again
Bought and sold
And bought again
The dove is never free

Ring the bells (ring the bells) that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything (there is a crack in everything)
That´s how the light gets in

Thank you, Leonard.

From Heroic.Stories, here is a note from an anonymous woman in the U.S.:

A MESSAGE FROM YOUR NEIGHBOUR

I cannot walk very far without tiring out or just plain collapsing, because I have multiple sclerosis along with post polio syndrome. I drive an old junker car, and one day I just had to go to the supermarket; they had a sale on I couldn´t pass up. I took my car, and when I came out of the supermarket, the car would not start. I was in a tizzy.

I went inside to use the telephone to get AAA to come out and start my car, but there was a young lady there who said she would come around and jump my car battery. She got a gentleman from the back of the store whom she called "Grandpa." They brought her car around and got my car started.

I was on my way ... or so I thought. I was repeating the entire time, "Just let me get home," because obviously the battery was giving out again.

I had just turned onto my street, 11 blocks from my home, when the car died again. I got out, put the hood up, and hoped someone would stop. No one stopped. Guys going to work came by and waved, but they didn´t stop.

One of my neighbours came by and said she couldn´t stop because she was late for something or other, and that I should walk back home to get my husband. I can´t walk that far.

Then a pickup truck came along, driven by a lady I had never seen before. She asked me if anyone was helping me. I was near tears and told her no, no one would stop. She asked what she could do for me.

I asked if she would go to the end of the street. If there was a blue truck in the parking lot, then please knock on the first door and tell my husband my car was broken down a few blocks away.

She did just what I asked, then went on her way. She asked for nothing; she just wanted to help. My husband was home, and luckily his brother was visiting. They came down, hooked a chain to my car and pulled me home. The alternator was out, which is why the battery had died so quickly.

Later I timed the drive to my house, up to my door, and back to where I was stranded. Without speeding, it took two minutes. My neighbor was convinced that she could not have taken two minutes out of her schedule to help me. Yet a lady who didn´t even know me helped get me back home.

It is truly a terrible feeling to be stranded with people driving past you, and be unable to walk anywhere because of a disability. However, the lady who did help me out "recharged" my faith in people who are strangers.

ED. NOTE: To comment on this story, or to tell your own story, or to get a free subscription to the site, click on http://www.HeroicStories.org.

Burke Dykes forwards this piece which is attributed to George Carlin:

PARADOX OF OUR TIME

We have taller buildings, but shorter tempers; wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints; we spend more, but have less; we buy more, but enjoy it less.

We have bigger houses and smaller families; more conveniences, but less time; we have more degrees, but less common sense; more knowledge, but less judgment; more experts, but more problems; more medicine, but less wellness.

We spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry too quickly, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too seldom, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.

We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values.

We talk too much, love too seldom, and lie too often.

We´ve learned how to make a living, but not a life; we´ve added years to life, not life to years.

We´ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbour.

We´ve conquered outer space, but not inner space; we´ve done larger things, but not better things; we´ve cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul; we´ve split the atom, but not our prejudice; we write more, but learn less; plan more, but accomplish less.

We´ve learned to rush, but not to wait; we have higher incomes, but lower morals; more food but less appeasement; more acquaintances, but fewer friends; more effort but less success.

We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but have less communication; we´ve become long on quantity, but short on quality.

These are the time of fast foods and slow digestion; tall men and short character; steep profits, and shallow relationships.

These are the times of world peace, but domestic warfare; more leisure and less fun; more kinds of food, but less nutrition.

These are days of two incomes, but more divorce; of fancier houses, but broken homes.

These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one-night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill.

It is a time when there is much in the show window, and nothing in the stockroom.

Shirley Conlon shares this thoughtful piece:

REALIZE THE VALUE IN YOUR LIFE

To realize
The value of a sister/brother
Ask someone
Who doesn't have one

To realize
The value of ten years,
Ask a newly
Divorced couple.

To realize
The value of four years,
Ask a graduate.

To realize
The value of one year,
Ask a student who
Has failed a final exam.

To realize
The value of nine months,
Ask a mother who gave birth to a stillborn.

To realize
The value of one month,
Ask a mother
Who has given birth to
A premature baby.

To realize
The value of one week,
Ask an editor of a weekly newspaper.

To realize
The value of one minute,
Ask a person
Who has missed the train, bus or plane.

To realize
The value of one second,
Ask a person
Who has survived an accident.

Time waits for no one.
Treasure every moment you have.

You will treasure it even more when
You can share it with someone special.

To realize the value of a friend or family member:
LOSE ONE.

Remember. Hold on tight to the ones you love!

On a lighter note, Shirley sends this story:

THE POST TORTOISE

While stitching a cut on the hand of a 75-year-old farmer, the doctor struck up a conversation, which eventually got around to Donald Trump and his role as the Republican Nominee for President: "Well," said the farmer, "as I see it, Trump is like a ´post tortoise´.´´

Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked what was a post tortoise, and the old farmer replied, "When you´re driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a tortoise balanced on top, that´s a post tortoise."

The farmer saw the puzzled look on the doctor´s face, so he explained: "You know he didn´t get up there by himself; he doesn´t belong up there; he doesn´t know what to do while he´s up there; he´s elevated beyond his ability to function; and you just wonder what kind of dumb ass put him up there to begin with."

SUGGESTED SITES

Barbara Wear sends the URL for a 49-plane flyover by radio-controlled model airplanes at a football game at Arrowhead Stadium:

Barbara also forwards this link to a video of the Nordic Fiddlers Bloc from the Shetland Isles, Scotland, playing an unnamed Shetland reel:

Judy Lee sends this link to a video of two musicians playing "The Sugar Plum Fairy" by Tchaikovsky on a glass harp composed of wine glasses filled with water:

Tony Lewis forwards this link to the Red Russian Army Choir and the Leningrad Cowboys´ spirited rendition of "Delilah," which incidentally has created an ear worm in my head:

This song by Leonard Cohen was written in memoriam to Marianne, his long-time love:

If you support proportional representation and are having trouble answering the questions in the Liberal government´s "conversation on electoral reform," click on this site for suggestions:

A photographer took before and after pictures of the same groups of people 30 years apart, which clearly show the effects of time:

Watch this hunter struggle to release a deer´s leg from a wire fence in which it had become entangled:

This 17-year-old Egyptian teenager has discovered how to convert plastic into biofuel, and won a European award for young scientists:

I wonder if the above process is the same as that invented by Mr. Akinori, whose machine converts plastic back into oil:

A South African dog training facility is currently teaching 200 dogs and their handlers how to jump out of helicopters to capture poachers who are illegaly hunting game in Kruger National Park:

To check out the features of the "freedictionary," which changes daily, go to