young adult

Crowfoot, Chief of the Blackfeet

03.12.2018 by Debby Detering // Leave a Comment

I met Chief Crowfoot in 1997 when we camped with grandchildren in Montana and in Canada. Of course I didn’t meet him in person, because he died in 1890, but I found his biography, and we have driven through the country where he lived. After reading about Crowfoot, I feel as if I had met him.

“Several Blackfeet women and with a boy were picking saskatoon berries when a grizzly bear surprised them. The women dropped their berry bags and ran. The boy tried to fit an arrow into his bow, but the bear swatted the bow away and attacked the boy. Men from the nearby camp jumped on their horses, shouted, and fired their guns into the air to scare the grizzly. Crowfoot ordered warriors to the other side of the grove of trees where the bear was hiding.

“With the whole camp gathered at a safe distance, the [men] rode to the other side of the grove. There, single riders went into the trees and tried to entice the grizzly toward them. When at last the huge beast came into view, the men shouted to Crowfoot, who was waiting on the far side. Quickly he guided his horse into the dense bushes and soon was behind the savage bear. With deadly accuracy, he plunged a spear into the animal and, when his horse became too frightened, dismounted and continued to stab the bear until its lifeless body crashed to the ground…from that time on [Crowfoot] was recognized throughout the tribe as a prominent chief.”

Crowfoot led his people through tragic times in Blackfeet (or Blackfoot) history with dignity and honor.

“Crowfoot learned quickly which white men he could trust, and those men in turn trusted him. Crowfoot foresaw the end of the buffalo, realized that his people could survive only with dramatic changes in their way of life, negotiated for supplies, tools, and food for his people, protested broken promises and fraudulent dealings. He co-operated with the Mounted Police and Indian Department officials, not because he could preserve the Blackfeet way of life, but because it was the only way to help his people.

“Crowfoot expected justice from the whites and demanded it from his own people: he was willing to risk his life for it.”
Crowfoot, Chief of the Blackfeet. He died “beloved by his people, feared by his foes, esteemed by all.”

Trapp Family Singers–and a Fly!

02.26.2018 by Debby Detering // 1 Comment

When the Trapp Family Singers (Sound of Music) began their U.S. singing tour, they expected audiences who would be impressed by their technical skill and the difficulty of their selections. Their audiences agreed that they were exceptionally good singers, but that didn’t mean they wanted to listen to a 45-minute-long piece that they knew nothing about!

Their manager said, “There is something you are lacking…something between you and your audience.”

Then came the fly.

The Trapps were finishing a concert of madrigals and motets, Bach and Mozart. Maria chose a “Jodler” for the encore.

“In yodeling, one has to take a deep breath and then hold out for long phrases at a time. We were just in the middle of it when, oh horror! A fly started circling around my face. I watched it, cross-eyed, and got panicky, I knew very soon I would have to take a deep breath, and what if…

“We took our deep breath and it happened. In went the fly…a good cough would have helped, but to cough the right way on stage is much, much harder than to sing the right way. I outdid myself in not coughing, but I couldn’t help turning purple. I happened to have the leading part in this jodler, the melody; but that mountain call had to be finished without it…My brave children tried not to pay any attention to their choking mother, and when they were finished, I was too—with the fly.“

Maria felt she had to apologize. She announced, “What never happened before has happened now. I swallowed a fly.”

The audience laughed..and laughed…and laughed. When they quieted down, she wanted to make up for the spoiled encore with an Austrian folk song. She explained: “It describes how a young hunter climbs up in the rocks for hours looking for, and finally shooting, a—” The animal she meant was a chamois, but instead she said “chemise.*” Not only the audience, but the rest of the family, shook with laughter.

The missing link had been found–interact with your listeners as if you are at home enjoying a musical party.

A chamois is a kind of deer; its hide is the chamois that polishes a car. A chemise, for those who aren’t familiar with fashion terminology from half a century ago, is a loose-fitting garment that can be a nightgown, underwear, or a simple dress.

John Magee, John Denver, and High Flight

12.05.2017 by Debby Detering // Leave a Comment

John Magee began composing the poem “High Flight” while flying a Spitfire 30,000 feet over England in 1941. He finished it after landing and mailed it to his parents.

John Denver loved flying and was the son of a U.S. Air Force test pilot. John Denver set John Magee’s poem to music. Watch and listen on U-tube. As a bonus, he’s chatting with Bob Hope during the introduction. “High Flight” is also available, in several color and black-and-white versions, on U-tube.

John Gillespie Magee, Jr., enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1940. John had just turned 18. Hitler’s army was bombing England. The United States wanted to stay out of the war, but some Americans thought it was time to join the fight against the Nazi onslaught. John had a special reason to do that because of many happy times with his grandmother in England.

John’s story is well told, with illustrations, in the book High Flight by Linda Granfield.

The pilots needed in England were trained in Canada because German bombing made it almost impossible to practice there. By the end of September, 1941, when John finished training in Canada and was shipped to England, the Battle of Britain had been won and English pilots were fighting the Germans in France. John fought his first air battle near Dunkirk, France, in November.

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the United States entered the war.

On December 11, John was practicing wing formation flying in England. As he descended through a layer of clouds, he collided with a plane below him and was killed instantly.

A few weeks before, he had sent the poem to his parents and a local newspaper published it. It was published again after his death, with a lament for the fallen, and in his parents’ church bulletin. Copies of the poem with John’s portrait and a drawing of his plane, a Spitfire, were sent to every airfield in the British Empire.

Over the next four years, while World War II dragged on, John’s poem gave war-weary civilians, soldiers and pilots, words that lifted their spirits, words that spoke of the glories of flight, not the ravages of war. His words inspired hope and courage.

In 1944, Johns brother Christopher, a sixteen-year-old in the Combat Merchant Marine, stood on an oil tanker deck and heard actor Orson Welles’s voice on the loudspeaker: “I now want to recite for you what I believe to be the finest poem to come out of this war…”

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, –and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of –Wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air…

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark or even eagle flew —
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

You will find “High Flight” printed in air cadet handbooks. Apollo 15 pilot James Irwin carried a copy to the moon. It’s quoted on headstones in Arlington National Cemetery. President Ronald Reagan quoted it after the death of seven astronauts on the Challenger.

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