by Richard K. Munro

I once asked my Highland grandfather if it bothered him that most of his grandchildren did not speak Gaelic or have any interest in Scottish Heritage. He said it would bother him if had no grandchildren at all. In a long journey, some things must be left behind.

In a long journey, one has to carry the essentials: The ability to communicate, the ability to adapt, the desire to work, the necessity to love and serve others. To enjoy things of beauty like nature, music, and sport. To dread God and obey his commandments.

THOMAS MUNRO SR with his beloved FUZZY picked up
as a puppy in GALVESTON, TEXAS 1923. Inseparable for almost 20 years.

By Richard K M unro

THOMAS MUNRO Sr. August 1914

Dec 22, 1886 was THOMAS MUNRO Sr.’s birthday.

I asked him when I was a young boy how he celebrated Christmas as boy (he was boy apprentice at sea). He said he “cleaned up the drunken vomit of the gude for nocht (good for nothing) sailors.” When we watched westerns he would say of the bad guy with a black hat “Aye, he’s the BADJIN (Bad ane). Shane, now he is the GOODJIN “(good one). He would say AYE IT’S TIME FOR THE GUDE WARDS (good words/ prayers). When I was sad and disappointed he would say. Och man, it’s no the end of the WARLD!!! AYE!!! Dinna fash yersel!

(DON’T WORRY). This too shall pass.

And you know what they say: being born in a garage doesn’t make you a car. I wouldn’t mind visiting Scotland again (I haven’t been there since 2005 and have been lucky enough to have visited it a few times 1967-2000 as well) but I have no burning desire to return and no family and few friends to greet me.

Cianalas is the Highland word for it -that place you are connected to by heritage where joy and sadness mingle.

But it is quite true. You can’t go home again.

The greatest distance between two points is time. New York, Glasgow, Argyll, Inverness, Glenties, Ferindonald represent lost worlds to me. So is Seattle, Washington where we lived for seven years.

There is some warmth of memories in all of those places -places where my family lived for over one thousand years but I know them well enough to know they all belong to the past and are not likely to have any place in my future and the future of my children.

They are now part of Yesterday’s Seven Thousand Years.

We may sing of them and memory remembers the ghost of a tune and the ghost of a kiss and the Silent Ones.

But the Silent Ones greet forever as they greet no more.

Gars ye tae greet,aye. “But the broken heart it kens no second spring again thought the waeful heart cease not from its greeting.” (grieving; lamenting -that’s Scots dialect)

But then I am speaking only to myself.

“The world is hard and cruel. We are here none knows why, and we go none knows whither. We must be very humble. We must see the beauty of quietness. We must go through life so inconspicuously that Fate does not notice us. And let us seek the love of simple, ignorant people. Their ignorance is better than all our knowledge. Let us be silent, content in our little corner, meek and gentle like them. That is the wisdom of life.” (The Moon and Sixpence, W. Somerset Maugham)

It is sad when you know your mother’s email and phone number and you know no matter how long you wait there will never be a return message or call.

Phone numbers disconnected and ideas for conversations that would never take place. The past is a door that is irrevocably shut closed.

I used to call my mother long distance at least once a week and she would say “this is costing money” and I told her it was cheaper than a cocaine habit and in any case I know each day is a gift.

I told her I would call her now for a modest amount. The time is coming, I said to her, that no matter how much I would spend the door would be locked and the phone disconnected. She would be silent on the line for a moment. She understood.

Life and love are just a brief moment in time.

My mother used to say that. I half believed it.

Now I have learned it.

I thought winter would never come but winter came and the snow is general.

Love those about you and tell those dear ones in your life that you LOVE THEM often and NOW. And of course, NE OBLIVISCARIS do not forget. Remember them always.

[originally published at The American Conservative–to honor my daughter’s eleventh birthday. This year, she would’ve been sixteen]

Had things worked or happened differently, I would be celebrating the eleventh birthday of my daughter, Cecilia Rose Birzer, today.  I can visualize exactly what it might be like.  A cake, eleven candles, hats, cheers, goofiness, photos, and, of course, ice cream.  I imagine that she would love chocolate cake–maybe a brownie cake–and strawberry ice cream.  Her many, many siblings cheer here, celebrating the innumerable smiles she has brought the family.  As I see her at the table now, I see instantly that her deep blue eyes are mischievous to be sure, but hilarious and joyous as well.  Her eyes are gateways to her soul, equally mischievous, hilarious, and joyous.  She’s tall and thin, a Birzer.  She also has an over abundance of dark brown curls, that match her darker skin just perfectly.  She loves archery, and we just bought her first serious bow and arrow.  No matter how wonderful the cake, the ice cream, and the company, she’s eager to shoot at a real target.  

She’s at that perfect age, still a little girl with little girl wants and happinesses, but on the verge of discovering the larger mysteries of the teenage and adult world.  She cares what her friends think of her, but not to the exclusion of what her family thinks of her.  She loves to dance to the family’s favorite music, and she knows every Rush, Marillion, and Big Big Train lyric by heart.  She’s just discovering the joys of Glass Hammer.  As an eleven-year old, she loves princesses, too, and her favorite is Merida, especially given the Scot’s talents and hair and confidence.  She has just read The Fellowship of the Ring, and she’s anguished over the fate of Boromir.  Aragorn, though.  There’s something about him that seems right to her.

If any of this is actually happening, it’s not happening here.  At least not in this time and not on this earth.  Here and now?  Only in my dreams, my hopes, and my broken aspirations.

Eleven years ago today, my daughter, Cecilia Rose Birzer, strangled on her own umbilical cord.  That which had nourished her for nine months killed her just two days past her due date.

On August 6, 2007, she came to term.  Very early on August 8, my wife felt a terrible jolt in her belly and then nothing.  Surely this, we hoped, was Cecilia telling us she was ready.  We threw Dedra’s hospital bag into the car as we had done four times before, and we drove the 1.5 miles to the hospital.  We knew something was wrong minutes after we checked in, though we weren’t sure what was happening.  Nurses, doctors, and technicians were coming in and out of the room.  The medical personnel were whispering, looking confused, and offering each other dark looks.  Finally, after what seemed an hour or more, our beloved doctor told us that our child–a girl, it turned out–was dead and that my wife would have to deliver a dead child.  

We had waited to know the sex of the baby, but we had picked out names for either possibility.  We had chosen Cecilia Rose for a girl, naming her after my great aunt Cecelia as well as St. Cecilia, the patron saint of music, and Rose because of St. Rose of Lima being the preferred saint for the women in my family and because Sam Gamgee’s wife was named Rosie.

I had never met my Aunt Cecelia as she had died at age 21, way back in 1927.  But, she had always been a presence in my family, the oldest sister of my maternal grandfather.  She had contracted tetanus, and the entire town of Pfeifer, Kansas, had raised the $200 and sent someone to Kansas City to retrieve the medicine.  The medicine returned safely to Pfeifer and was administered to my great aunt, but it was too late, and she died an hour or two later.  Her grave rests rather beautifully, just to the west of Holy Cross Church in Pfeifer valley, and a ceramic picture of her sits on her tombstone.  Her face as well as her story have intrigued me as far back as I can remember.  Like my Cecilia Rose, she too had brown curly hair and, I suspect, blue eyes.  She’s truly beautiful, and her death convinced her boyfriend to become a priest.

The day of Cecilia Rose’s death was nothing but an emotional roller coaster.  A favorite priest, Father Brian Stanley, immediately drove to Hillsdale to be with us, and my closest friends in town spent the day, huddled around Dedra.  We cried, we laughed, and we cried some more–every emotion was just at the surface.  I’m more than certain the nurses thought we were insane.  Who were these Catholics who could say a “Hail Mary” one moment, cry the next, and laugh uproariously a few minutes later?  Of course, the nurses also saw just how incredibly tight and meaningful the Catholic community at Hillsdale is.  And, not just the Catholics–one of the most faithful with us that day was a very tall Lutheran.

Late that night, Dedra revealed her true self.  She is–spiritually and intellectually–the strongest person I know.  She gave birth with the strength of a Norse goddess.  Or maybe it was just the grace of Mary working through her.  Whatever it was, she was brilliant.  Any man who believes males superior to females has never seen a woman give birth.  And, most certainly, has never seen his wife give birth to a dead child.  Cecilia Rose was long gone by the time she emerged in the world, but we held her and held her and held her for as long as we could.  With the birth of our other six children, I have seen in each of them that unique spark of grace, given to them alone.  Cecilia Rose was a beautiful baby, but that spark, of course, was absent, having already departed to be with her Heavenly Father.

For a variety of reasons, we were not able to bury her until August 14.  For those of you reading this who are Catholic, these dates are pretty important.  August 8 is the Feast of St. Dominic, and August 14 is the Feast of St. Maximilian Kolbe.

Regardless, those days between August 8 and August 14 were wretched.  We were in despair and depression.  I have never been as angry and confused as I was during those days.  Every hour seemed a week, and the week itself, seemed a year.  I had nothing but love for my family, but I have never been that angry with God as I was then and, really, for the following year, and, frankly, for the next nine after that.  We had Cecilia Rose buried in the 19^th-century park-like cemetery directly across the street from our house.  For the first three years after her death, I walked to her grave daily.  Even to this day, I visit her grave at least once a week when in Hillsdale.  In the first year after her death, I was on sabbatical, writing a biography of Charles Carroll of Carrollton.  Every early afternoon, I would walk over to her grave, lay down across it, and listen to Marillion’s Afraid of Sunlight.  Sometime in the hour or so visit, I would just raise my fist to the sky and scream at God.  “You gave me one job, God, to be a father to this little girl, and you took it all away.”  In my fury, I called Him the greatest murderer in history, a bastard, an abortionist, and other horrible things.  I never doubted His existence, but I very much questioned His love for us.

Several things got me through that first year: most especially my wife and my children as well as my friends.  There’s nothing like tragedy to reveal the true faces of those you know.  Thank God, those I knew were as true in their honor and goodness as I had hoped they would be.  A few others things helped me as well.  I reread Tolkien, and I read, almost nonstop, Eliot’s collected poetry, but especially “The Hollow Men,” “Ash Wednesday,” and the “Four Quartets.”  I also, as noted above, listened to Marillion.  As strange as it might seem, my family, my friends, Tolkien, Eliot, and Marillion saved my life that year.  I have no doubt about that.  And, nothing gave me as much hope as Sam Gamgee in Mordor.  “Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while.  The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty forever beyond its reach.”  As unorthodox as this might be, we included Tolkien’s quote in the funeral Mass.

A year ago, my oldest daughter–the single nicest person I have ever met–and I were hiking in central Colorado.  We were remembering Cecilia Rose and her death.  Being both kind and wise, my daughter finally said to me, “You know, dad, it’s okay that you’ve been mad at God.  But, don’t you think that 10 years is long enough?”  For whatever reason–and for a million reasons–my daughter’s words hit me at a profound level, and I’m more at peace over the last year than I’ve been since Cecilia Rose died.  I miss my little one like mad, and tears still spring almost immediately to my eyes when I think of her.  I don’t think any parent will ever get over the loss of a child, and I don’t think we’re meant to.  But, I do know this: my Cecilia Rose is safely with her Heavenly Father, and, her Heavenly Mother, and almost certainly celebrating her birthday in ways beyond our imagination and even our hope.  I have no doubt that my maternal grandmother and grandfather look after her, and that maybe even Tolkien and Eliot look in on her from time to time.  And, maybe even St. Cecilia herself has taught my Cecilia Rose all about the music of the spheres.  Indeed, maybe she sees the White Star.  Let me re-write that: I know that Cecilia Rose sees the White Star.  She is the White Star.

Happy birthday, Cecilia Rose.  Your daddy misses you like crazy, but he does everything he can to make sure that he makes it to Heaven–if for no other reason than to hug you and hug you and hug you.

by Richard K. Munro rmunro3@bak.rr.com

We Munros were a theater, concert, art and movie-loving family. I have always loved movies but it was not until 1978-1979 that we began collecting movies on VHS and later DVD and BLUE RAY. I still prefer having a pristine version of a classic movie with all the extras so that I can learn the back story of the film, the director and the actor. I have a book that belonged to my father and there is an inscription that says: “To Dad and his magic box and all the joys it unlocks.” Dad always called the VCR “Munro Theater” or the “Magic Box.” That is an allusion to an old British Technicolor film with Robert Donat as William-Friese-Greene, one of the pioneers of movies and color film. Of course, it is an example of a movie my father talked about and when it came on TV he encouraged us to watch it. My parents loved all the arts but music, drama, and poetry were their favorites. But it had to be the Seventh Art (the movies) they loved the most and they shared this love with the family from our earliest years.

By contrast, my father had a very utilitarian view of cars. He had a free and clear 1954 Ford for almost 20 years. Then he bought a red Opal. He bought a 1964 Chrysler Station wagon for my mother that we had for years and Pamela drove it off to California where it died. The only time I went to the car dealership with my father was twice. Once in 1972 when he bought a Chrysler New Yorker, new. A nice car but not super luxurious. Then my father some years later went to a VW dealer who offered my father $50 for the used Chrysler, a V-8 engine in good condition -only about 60,000 miles. My father said, “You have to be kidding.” The man said, “No one wants a gas guzzler like that anymore.” My father turned to me and said, “Do YOU have $50?” I said, “Probably not, maybe $30.” My father said, “Give me the money!” I did -in front of the salesman. My father said the car is yours.” That car I eventually drove west via Texas. The point is my father didn’t care about ostentatious cars. He did care about art, literature, books, theater, and good movies. And that plus travel is where he spent most of his money.

My father and mother must have visited Greece two or three times, Italy two or three times, Spain about half a dozen times, France several times, and Germany, where my sister and brother-in-law eventually lived about twenty times. My father saw the best opera in all the great European capitals. We saw plays in Dublin, London, and New York. They went to Shakespeare Festivals. My father never once as far as I know, saw an NBA basketball game or an NHL Hockey game but he was very fond of baseball saw many World Series Games (1949-1969), and enjoyed World Cup Soccer as well, which was his favorite sport as a boy. But my father always had a great love of the movies, not television per se but the movies.

My parents went to see a movie on their first date (Wendy Hiller in MAJOR BARBARA with Rex Harrison and Robert Morley). Kay Brennan and Ruth Munro went to the movies and theater after graduating from Manual Training High School in 1933. My father also graduated from MTHS the same year and they had some of the same teachers but did not have any classes together and they did not meet until 1940!

But one of my father’s many jobs in the 1930s was as a movie usher in a cinema (I forget which one I think it was the Roxy in Manhattan a huge movie palace). So he learned something about projecting movies and saw many movies dozens of times. In those days a hit movie might run for 26 weeks 52 weeks or more! So when it came the top movies of the 1930s Dad was practically an expert. He knew when they premiered and where and which one was a hit and which one won Oscars etc. He saw Hollywood Stars in person such as Clark Gable who was promoting a new movie called Red Dust (later remade in color as Mogambo by John Ford).

In those days Hollywood stars would make personal appearances in the big movie houses (that had 2500-4000 seats or more) in big cities like New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Francisco. And of course in those days almost all the stars began on Broadway. Today there are stars like Kristen Bell (FROZEN) who began on Broadway but also Meryl Streep (whom we saw live on the stage on Broadway in 27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Chekov’s THE CHERRY ORCHARD. My father saw Leslie Howard and Humphrey Bogart in the original stage version of Sherwood’s excellent play THE PETRIFIED FOREST, he saw Walter Houston on the stage (and met him), ABE LINCOLN OF ILLINOIS (also by Sherwood) with Raymond Massey (he reprised the role for the film) both my parents saw Maxwell Anderson’s fine play Mary of Scotland (1933-1934) with Helen Hayes; Katherine Hepburn played Mary in the movie version (1936).

 My mother and father were fond of British films so I was familiar with many of the stars in the show like Robert Donat (The 35 Steps; The Ghost Goes We West; The Inn of the Sixth Happiness) Peter Ustinov (Spartacus; Quo Vadis; the Sundowners), Laurence Olivier (Rebecca, 49th Parallel, Spartacus) Glynnis Johns (49th Parallel, Mary Poppins, The Sundowners, Rob Roy the Highland Rogue) Dennis Price (Kind Hearts and Coronets), Marius Goring (A Matter of Life and Death or Stairway to Heaven). My father considered these the great directors: David Lean, John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, John Houston, Charlie Chaplin, Fritz Lange, Stanley Kubrick, Frank Capra, George Cukor, William Wyler, Richard Attenborough, and Michael Powell. He never cared really for Cecil D. Demille (The Ten Commandments).

We always looked for stars and my father and mother talked about them and gave us a backstory. Such as Hollywood star Robert Montgomery ( NIGHT MUST FALL/ HERE COMES MR. JORDAN; THEY WERE EXPENDABLE; he was the father of Elizabeth Montgomery of Bewitched). Montgomery was a volunteer ambulance driver during the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940, a US Naval officer in the Pacific, and at D-Day; my father knew him during WWII and had a framed picture that said, “To Tom from Bob Montgomery.” Later Montgomery was a media TV advisor to President Eisenhower, and you can see him in the first-ever color broadcast of a president on 22nd May 1958. The USA started broadcasting color in late 1953 and some live news events or sports events were broadcast in color such as the World Series. Color videotaping began in the USA in 1958 and the footage with Montgomery and Eisenhower is the earliest known color videotape to exist. It is interesting to me that my kinsmanNorman Eliasson knew Ike personally at Columbia in the later 1940s and my father had met Robert Mongomery who was one of his favorite actors.

Another WWII veteran we heard about was Jimmy Stewart (IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE; THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER) who enlisted in the Army Air Corps and led bombing missions over Nazi Germany. Sadly his stepson, also a patriot, was killed in action during the Vietnam war. Clark Gable was considered the King of Hollywood; both Dad and Kay saw him in person in New York. Kay took this photo in about 1940.

  Gable had been married to CAROL LOMBARD one of the most elegant beauties and comediennes. She was killed in a plane crash while selling war bonds. He was to have gone on an early flight but she and others gave up their seats to servicemen. She never lived to see the triumph of her last film TO BE OR NOT TO BE one of the funniest satires of theater, WWII and the Nazis ever made. After her death, CLARK GABLE, though over 40 years old volunteered for the US Army Air Corp where he supervised training films and also flew combat missions over Nazi Germany.

Claude Raines (Casablanca), Ronald Colman, and Basil Rathbone (Robin Hood/Sherlock Holmes, The Last Hurrah) were all decorated WWI veterans serving in the London Scottish and Liverpool Scottish. Roland Colman was a real family favorite in films like LOST HORIZON, TALE OF TWO CITIES, CHAMPAGNE for CAESAR, A DOUBLE LIFE -his Oscar-winning role. Colman also recorded all the Sonnets of Shakespeare and my father had all his records and later made tapes. I used to make my father laugh by imitating Colman’s dreamy English accent. “My dear…perhaps I could be a WRITER. And if I were king, I would to all the world happiness bring.”I have listened to Colman’s recordings of Shakespeare dozens of times.

One of the nice things about Audible is the chance to hear educated British speakers and some of Colman is available also. We always had some books or poems on records but cassettes really were somewhat cumbersome and fragile. You couldn’t take them in cars because they literally would melt with the heat! LPs are in fact more durable and have better sound.

Another WWII veteran we heard about was David Niven (SEPARATE TABLES his Oscar-winning role with Wendy Hiller (also won an Oscar) Rita Hayworth, Deborah Kerr, Burt Lancaster, Rod Taylor, AROUND THE WORLD in 80 DAYS, 55 Days At PEKING, The Guns of Navarone, ENCHANTMENT and one of my mother’s favorite movies STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN or A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH. Niven was a REAL hero, not just a movie hero (he served as a Major in the Commandos as well as the HLI serving in total of 11 years in the British Army.

If you read my friend Andrew Robert’s great biography on Winston Churchill, which I helped edit in 2017-2018, you will see a few Hollywood and movie star mentions. On page 697 Andrew added Tyrone Power as the star of BLOOD AND SAND (which was a favorite of Churchill’s. These Hollywood details were not in the original manuscript. I think I was more familiar with classic movies than Professor Roberts but of course much of this knowledge I owed to my father. I told Roberts Tyrone Power was a star on Broadway but like Niven, he was the kind of man Churchill would have admired -he left Hollywood to volunteer as a Marine aviator, saw action in the Pacific (shot down at Iowa Jima), and remained in the Marine Reserves until the end of his life (even during the Korean War). I also believe Churchill saw Power on the stage in the 1950s in MISTER ROBERTS (He was not in the movie version). I learned this from my father so Dad would have smiled to see the reference. It is the same with the references of Leslie Howard who personally knew Churchill and who worked undercover for MI6 in Spain and Portugal. Page 426 has a note I suggested. Churchill made an allusion in one of his letters to “Gone with the Wind” and the note says “Margaret Mitchell’s novel, published in 1936 was in the process of being made into an Oscar-winning movie, starring Clark Gable, Churchill’s favorite actress Vivian Leigh and his friend Leslie Howard.” On page 760 Roberts says “the splendid propaganda movie IN WHICH WE SERVE” which I also suggested as both a fine movie and one of the great WWII films. I double-checked every date, literary reference, and movie reference in the book and many many commentaries and suggestions some of which were incorporated or which influenced his final manuscript. Roberts was very appreciative and said, in his dedication to my autographed edition, “Thank you for helping SO MUCH with this book.” So some footnotes on Condor FW planes, the Punic Wars, John F. Kennedy, and the USA electoral college owe a lot to me. It is a great book and Roberts deserves all the credit in the world but I did help on what will probably be the greatest Churchill biography of this century. It is a modest feather in my cap.

My father bought his first color TV in late 1959. For most of my early life, we had only one TV so we usually watched things together, especially on Saturday night. Saturday mornings Pat and I as I have mentioned elsewhere often would see cartoons (many in color but not all). NBC Saturday Night at the Movies was the first TV show to broadcast in color relatively recent feature films from major studios though most were still Black and White The series premiered in 1961 and ran until October 1978 so it covered my entire youth before VHS or DVDs or cable was available. It began with a roll of drums (later they gave it other theme songs) . It was probably our favorite all-family activity and I remember some of the movies vividly such as the tip-top western GARDEN OF EVIL (with Gary Cooper, Susan Hayward, and Richard Widmark), directed by Henry Hathaway That was one of those films that never seemed to be on TV again and I think I only saw it twice my entire life until I bought the DVD (it was never on VHS). I remember seeing THE DESERT FOX also directed by Henry Hathaway (the Story of General Rommel with James Mason) and it made a great impression because it had the July 20, 1944, Hitler assassination plot but also because my father told stories of guarding Afrika Korps prisoners in 1943 in New Orleans when he was a Sgt in the Military Police. And Auld Pop (Thomas Munro, Sr) talked about when he took German prisoners at 2nd Ypres (He had good relations with German Pow’s and had some trench art -ashtrays- made of artillery shells. The following week I went to the local hobby store to buy packs of AIRFIX AFRIKA KORPS and 8th Army toy soldiers. I refought dozens of desert battles plus Tobruk, El Alamein, and so on. A curious detail is Mrs. Rommel gave her husband’s scarf for Mason to use in DESERT FOX and in its quasi-sequel THE DESERT RATS.

 I used to play toy soldiers with Christ Tabbert (our neighbor) who was the son of tenor William Tabbert (of South Pacific fame). I loved war movies like WWI WHAT PRICE GLORY (John Ford) with James Cagney, adventure movies like DESTINATION GOBI (Richard Widmark), spy movies like FIVE FINGERS (James Mason). My mother liked musicals (I paid less attention to them usually playing with toy soldiers on the carpet) but WITH A SONG IN MY HEART (Susan Hayward) and There IS NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS. One of my favorites was the baseball comedy IT HAPPENS EVERY SPRING with Ray Milland (DIAL M FOR MURDER). I was so taken by it that I read the book by Valentine Davies when I was only seven or eight years old. I was a precocious reader. I read Caesar’s Gallic Wars when I was 9 and Xenophon’s Anabasis when I was 10. I read Alan Moorehead’s books (from my father’s library) on the Desert War (the March to Tunis).

IT HAPPENS EVERY SPRING was by the same author Valentine Davies who wrote MIRACLE AT 34th Street. I didn’t see Miracle at 34th Street on NBC because I think all “holiday movies” (Wizard of Oz etc) were on CBS usually once a year at Christmas or Thanksgiving. I know I saw the DESERT RATS (1953) because it starred again James Mason, the 8th Army and the Afrika Corps. Another great WWII thriller was DECISION BEFORE DAWN with Richard Basehart and Oskar Werner about a German soldier volunteering to be a spy for the Allies. One might have thought Kay Brennan would say something about this as she had lived in Hungary, Germany and Austria but when it came to her mysterious life and spy pictures she was completely closed mouth. She talked garrulously of baseball films or Bogart films or Westerns but not spy films. My uncle (cousin) Norman Eliasson, who worked for the DOD for 30 years said, Kay Brennan my godmother and her friend Jack Stewart were both spies with the CIA. I knew Jack Stewart well. -I had dinner with his wife (a great baseball fan) many times at his NY apartment. Once, just by chance, I saw him with two younger men walking in Washington DC near Lafayette’s Square. Jack was very surprised to see me but he was very friendly. He introduced each man as Agent X and Agent Y (he used real names I don’t know if they were fake or not). But it was very peculiar. He spent his life at the UN (I had drinks with him there several times(and traveling around the world for the US government. But Norman said the real undercover agent was Kay Brennan. Her cover was she was a photographer and she lived off the rent from the pharmacy and building in Brooklyn she had inherited from her father. But Norman said, for a Commerical photographer, she didn’t have a lot of published works (I did see an exhibition at the Kennedy Center featuring her photos of the Middle East). And she visited almost every British and American Embassy in the world and was on a first-name basis with the Ambassadors. She brought back exotic hats (some of which I have) and fossils.

We may never know.

All I know is when I published an article on Kim Philby (a major Communist spy) she did not congratulate me. She said she didn’t like it. Maybe someone gave her heat for it. She certainly never spilled any beans about him to my parents or me. But she was the very last US citizen to have a drink with him (he escaped by jumping off the balcony then he fled to Russia but some rat line). So who knows? It is one of those Munro family mysteries. We have our share of heroes, madmen, spies, and black guards. Two common strands are pride and boldness (sometimes reckless). The other might be gluttony and periodical laziness unless prodded.’

There were only a few ways to see movies when I was a kid:

1) see it first run at the cinema (if in New York City or Philadelphia, this was a very special event or in the local cinemas in Livingston or Montclair NJ

2) see it on TV usually CBS or NBC if it was a “big movie”

3) see it in an art theater in New York City like the Little Carnegie. NYC used to have a love of “art movie houses” that played older classics, British and Foreign movies. After 1978 we began to watch VHS movies my father taped or professional VHS tapes we bought once the prices came down.

I have great memories of going OUT to the Cinema as a kid (it was a special event) but also watching movies at NBC Saturday Night at the Movies or The CBS late show. Of course, MILLION DOLLAR movie was a series which began in NYC, on local station WOR-TV 9, in 1955 and ran until 1966 It featured top-tier movies (GARY COOPER/ JIMMY STEWART/ JOHN WAYNE) and each feature would run for an entire week, airing twice nightly. So literally, if I were on vacation I could see a movie several times in a week. I also liked the so-called show “The Sons of Hercules” which were color but cheaply made Italian sword-and-sandal films by giving them a standardized theme song for the opening and closing titles. So you could see the same movie two or three times. The theme music was the Tara Theme from GONE WITH THE WIND but I didn’t know this until I saw GONE WITH THE WIND for the first time in 1967 in a cinema.

But rarely if ever did we see movies at school though I can remember a few exceptions. In grade school, we saw DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK (1939) a John Ford film (quite good) about the American Revolution, and in Junior High (Heritage Junior High) we saw two films (after school in the auditorium) I think that were quite popular but campy) FANTASTIC VOYAGE (a science fiction movie) and ONE MILLION YEARS BC. Both films featured RAQUEL WELCH who was the number one sex symbol at that time. In One Million Years BC she said only a few words but showed off her stunning figure in an animal-skin bikini. It seemed every adolescent kind had her poster from that movie. I never had a poster myself but I saw it many times! In High School, the only movie I can remember seeing was LOS OLIVIDADOS which we saw on a field trip to a Spanish movie theater in New York City.

    EARLY MEMORIES of memorable movie outings included seeing Cinerama movies. These were treated as a big theatrical event, with reserved seating and printed programs, sometimes a live show (such at the RKO Music Hall), and audience members often dressed in their best attire for the evening. People didn’t dress like slobs in those years especially going to the theater or church. I remember seeing movies at the old CRITERION on 1514 Broadway. The very last movie I saw there was with my boyhood friend Tommy Hess and the movie we saw was PATTON (1970) and the year before we saw TRUE GRIT (1969) with his parents who lived in Connecticut. We would sometimes meet in NYC or I would take the train to Stanford. It was a long drive and my parents visited only once or twice. The Criterion was big it had over 1500 seats.

Another theater I remember was the Warner Theater at W. 47th st. My father took my and my school friends to see the 70 mm version of “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. for my 8th birthday in December 1963. I remember he drove us in his station wagon (which he parked at the Port of Authority) and then we stopped at Walgreen’s store so we could buy candy bars to (sneak) into the movie theater. My father didn’t mind paying top dollar for a premiere run but not $5.00 for a chocolate bar. I bought a giant Baby Ruth bar that lasted me the whole movie. When I was a kid I like Juicy Fruit gum, Hershey’s Chocolate, and Baby Ruth bars.

Once we went to the Boyd Theatre in Philadelphia. I think my father had a business associate nearby. The Boyd Theater was the only venue for 3-strip Cinerama movies in the 1950s and 1960s. I remember we visited Independence Hall and saw the Liberty Bell in the morning and then in the late afternoon after a lunch at the legendary BOOKBINDERS we went to see the Western Blockbuster HOW THE WEST WAS WON with Jimmy Stewart, Gregory Peck, John Wayne, Walter Brennan and Debbie Reynolds -SINGING IN THE RAIN)

“How the West Was Won” in 1963 ran for 39 weeks to sold-out houses. My parents had to buy the tickets weeks in advance. Previously The Boyd Theatre hosted many of Philadelphia’s first run 70mm Roadshows like “Ben Hur” (with Charlton Heston appearing in-person to promote the film, 1959), “Judgment at Nuremberg”(1961), “Becket”(1964) and “Doctor Zhivago”(1965). But except for DR ZHIVAGO I didn’t see any of those movies at that time I only heard about them. But my father as he traveled around America (he financed construction and mining equipment as well as diners) he saw movies in all of America’s great movie houses. I know he saw THE SEARCHERS in Chicago with his partner Herb Katcher who was the brother of Leo Katcher (Hollywood writer). I remember them talking about it at the 1407 Club and other great films they saw together. The went on business trips Herb never flew after WW2 and they took the train so they saw films in Chicago or Atlanta like Exodus (my father thought it was only so so), Ben Hur, NORTH BY NORTHWEST, EL CID, The LAST HURRAH, and Judgment at Nuremberg with Spencer Tracey.

We weren’t far from Philadelphia and we went to museums and ballgames there later when my sister Pat went to Swarthmore and after college, she lived in Pennsauken, NJ (South Jersey).
One memorable movie memories was seeing THE LONGEST DAY in December 1962 in NYC also for my birthday. I think I saw it two or three times (once in New York and later in New Jersey). John F. Kennedy loved THE LONGEST DAY and the early JAMES BOND MOVIES. In fact, he helped popularize the James Bond novels in America in the 1950’s and early 1960’s. The last film he ever saw at the White House was FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE.

I didn’t see the early James Bond films like DR NO and FROM RUSSIAN WITH LOVE. But my father did on his business trips. I think my parents thought the films were too sexy for me. They wouldn’t let me see LORD OF THE FLIES either But I do remember GOLDFINGER which we saw sometime after Christmas, 1964 at the DeMille Theater in New York City. To promote the film, the two Aston Martin DB5 sports cars were also showcased at the 1964 New York World’s Fair (which we saw). I had a little toy gold Austin Martin with its ejector sheet. Naturally, I added this car to my African armies and shot out German soldiers dozens of times from high places. I still have it and the ejector seat still works!

Following the opening at the DeMille Theater, demand for the film was so high that the theater stayed open twenty-four hours a day for around-the-clock showings from Christmas Eve straight through until after New Year’s Day. That was unheard of then and would be impossible today but the Demille Theater was the only theater in New York (and I think North America) showing the movie. They say people flew from London or Montreal Canada to see GOLDFINGER. It was a lot of fun a popcorn movie but of course, it was not really a serious movie at all.

I remember the LIFE MAGAZINE ISSUE with cheesecake photos of the Golden Girl. Those movies were quite risque for its time and it was the first time I heard the expression PUSSY GALORE which to me was just a name. A pussy was a cat. My parents laughed but didn’t explain it to me. I didn’t find out until years later when I was in basic training in the Marine Corps.

But that is another story. Let me say I never heard my parents or grandparents curse or use ethnic slurs though occasionally they had to explain them. My mother used to say (of Mr. Brown), “He is a nice Negro gentleman” or “Be kind to the Negro Gentleman.” That was considered polite circa 1960-1963. It was considered bad manners to say “Black” or “African” and no one ever said, “African American”. Some people -my mother’s mother said “Colored People” but my parents told me even that was old-fashioned. They never used the N-word. The first time I heard it was in the movie TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD with Gregory Peck (1962).

In the later ‘60s and early ‘70s, the era of these big blockbusters was ending. We saw MY FAIR LADY and MARY POPPINS and they were big hits. But the GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD (1965) was not. We went to see the FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE (1964) not bad really but in a practically empty movie theater.

The same was true with KHARTOUM ( a good film with Charlton Heston) though his PLANET OF THE APES was a big hit). We saw the BATTLE OF BRITAIN (1969) but no one went to see it. I remember seeing YOUNG WINSTON (1972)- an excellent film- twice or more but each time in a practically empty theater. When I was in college I saw ISLANDS IN THE STREAM (good film) but now one went to see it and it almost vanished. I also saw THE BRIDGE TOO FAR (a 1977 war drama) but it was a bust (though a fine film); everyone wanted to see STAR WARS which I liked but thought was childish. I always liked STAR TREK more. I remember going alone because I couldn’t even get a date to go with me. But I wanted to see it in a big screen so I did. I now have it’s DVD and of course I read the Cornelious Ryan book it is based on.

    Of course, Spain has a role in my movie-going experience. In 1964 we stayed at the Rex Hotel on the Gran Via (then Jose Antonio) and next to this hotel was a big movie theater called the REX also and it was showing TAMBORES LEJANOS LA MEJOR CREACION DE GARY COOPER (Distant Drums). I remember the huge hand-painted marquee. I remember my father reading it to me from the sidewalk and when the girls went to some modern art museum he took me to see the film which was VO version (in English with Spanish subtitles). I mention this because I was 9 1/2 years old and I could already count in Spanish from 1-20 and repeat back phrases my father would teach me. He wasn’t fluent in Spanish but he could get by as his French and Italian were very good. He could read EVERYTHING and communicate anything he wanted. I was young and foolish and scared off by Spanish seafood (I wouldn’t touch it) so my father and I would go to the California Bar next to the Rex Hotel and I would eat a hamburger. Later at a nice restaurant, I would have bread and butter and french fries.

But I began the habit of going to the movies in Spain and when I lived in Soria (summer of 1973) or traveled in Spain or lived in Madrid I went to see many films (mostly classic films) in dubbed Spanish versions or VO original version. HIGH NOON, DR ZHIVAGO, JOHNNY GUITAR, SPARTACUS, CABARET, SUPERMAN. It’s A MAD MAD MAD WORLD and others. I didn’t have a TV in my room on Calle Las Huertas in Madrid but I saw movies at Bodas Reales, 5. I learned a lot of Spanish by listening to the radio and going to the movies. By the time I studied in Soria, I had studied Spanish formally for five years, got a 5 on the AP Spanish test (they didn’t have Literature in those days), and a 730 on the Achievement Test. I remember years later my own children did much better scoring 760 and 780 and Ana “AP Ana” got a 5 on AP Spanish Literature, AP Spanish, and an 800 on the Spanish Achievement test. So Spanish and language scholarship runs in the family! So even in our travels, movies played a part in our education. When I traveled in Spain I was often alone but I was never alone when I was writing letters, reading or going to the movies! Juanita, my mother-in-law (Yaya) and I and had some good discussions about classic movies. When she was going with her husband she and he saw HIGH NOON (Uno Solo el Peligro) and later JULIUS CAESAR and she said these were among his favorite movies. He played chess and liked to read and had some books in his library like Sinhue the Egyptian (also a movie but so so, Mutiny on the Bounty and The LAST OF THE MOHICANS. I own the leather-bound Carlos Perez volume which my wife Cari gave to me. I offered her 1000 pesetas because I loved reading it but she said that wasn’t necessary and that if I liked it I could keep it. Little acts of generosity and affection moved my heart and of course, I would return to Madrid and Soria again and again. If I could have earned a living there I could have stayed. I was happy living in Spain but of course, everywhere is wonderful if you have a pocket full of Yankee dollars.

Calling money “Yankee Dollars” of course comes right out of John Wayne movie dialogue! There is no question that movies were a big part of my early education and were a hobby I shared with my parents and grandparents and sisters and cousins.

Sometimes were laughed together and once we all sobbed uncontrollably as during David Copperfield (1935). The hero a young boy walked for days and miles to his aunt’s home with almost no food and sleeping on the side of the road and in the rain and he said, “AND I WALKED ALL THE WAY!. ” I will never forget how everyone including my mother’s mother broke down and sobbed and bawled for about five minutes. I think their own struggles and losses made them identify with the main character.

Travels

My wife, Dedra, and I just spent the past week in Pierre, South Dakota. I’m sure Pierre wouldn’t be for everyone, but I love it. I have my chair of contemplation there, and I take daily walks along the Missouri River. The people are incredibly nice (just like my upbringing in Kansas), and I always feel like a member of a small republic when I’m there.

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