A Time For Everything

If you haven't seen this movie--WHY NOT?

I'd been meaning to watch it for forever and just didn't for various and sundry reasons. Then last Saturday, DD and I sat down to watch something and as we were looking for the movie we intended to watch, the card for this movie popped up and I said that first sentence to DD:

"Ive been meaning to watch that and have just never taken the time."

She suggested we watch it instead, which we did and WOW. I was blown away.

What didn't I love about this? Nothing but the racism as befit the period of the movie, but no helping that. Racism was an unfortunate fact of life then as now.

The performances were fabulous.

The three women showcased by the film, Katherine Goble Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe), represented a cadre of about thirty to fifty Black women who were labeled "Colored Computers" according to the film. The book featured a fourth human calculator, Christine Darden, but she wasn't featured in the film by name.

The composite character of Al Harrison played by Keven Costner turned out to be a good guy, and John Glenn has always been a class act and Glen Powell did him justice.

Again, if you haven't seen this--what are you waiting for. It's currently streaming on Disney +.

Hope you had a great holiday and I hope you enjoy the upcoming weekend.

Take care!

 Happy Thanksgiving!

There are so many things I'm grateful for, including this wonderful four-day weekend, but did you know that the history of Thanksgiving is rather ugly?

Also!

The pilgrims didn't land at Plymouth Rock!! There was no such thing / place until later when the locals area dragged a huge rock into place and just declared it the "arrival" location of our original forefathers in order to drum up tourism to help their local economy...

By this time, I hope we all know the native peoples of America were savagely mistreated and exterminated, much like the Jews were in Europe.

Also...

It wasn't an official holiday until 1870 when Ulysses S. Grant made it one, so, whaaat?

For a look at the sordid tale, visit History This Week.

* * * * *

On to nicer topics...

One of the things I'm thankful for is my kids. All three of them of course, but I only have one living close enough to spend time with. You know her as DD and my Hockey Partner in Crime.

She's my second child and my younger daughter...and today, we're going to spend some more time together...not just at home enjoying a delicious meal, but at the zoo. It's been a while since our last trip and we've been wanting to go and meaning to go and finally we found a good time to go.

So--lol--we're going today!

Hope you have / had / are having a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Yep, those are the opening lyrics of our National Anthem. It's a song near and dear to my heart because I do love America. It has a lot of issues. A lot. But it also has a lot going for it. And also, I sing it a lot during hockey season. I've sung it three times in the last five days and will sing it yet again tomorrow night. :0)

But that's not where I was going. A couple of months ago, I listened to a podcast about the writing of the Star Spangled Banner.

Francis Scott Key was a lawyer and, according to Amazon, an amateur poet. Our anthem began its life as a poem called the "Defence of Fort Henry." Key was being held temporary captive aboard a pair of British ships. He and another lawyer were on a mission of truce at the time the bombardment of Fort Henry began.

As he indicates in the poem, he was watched through night as Fort Henry was being attacked. Watching from the enemy's ship. Key was a guy who lived this, was practically a part of it. He didn't just write an ode to the battle and to America's victory. Knowing all this gives the song a new gravitas for me.

For more information, here's the Star-Spangled Banner's Wikipedia page, and here's the link to the History This Week podcast about the writing of the Star-Spangled Banner "Land of the Free?".

 Have a great rest of your week. See you Friday.