Browsed by
Author: Anne Cassidy

Russian Rhumba

Russian Rhumba

Comments 0 Comment

We lost Dad eight years ago today. He was spared the pandemic, the University of Kentucky’s Thursday night loss to the St. Peter Peacocks in the first round of NCAA basketball, and now, the worst street fighting in Europe since World War II. 

I wondered this morning, what he would say about Ukraine? I imagine he would think we should be doing more, but he would also recognize the difficulty and delicacy of the U.S. position.

I do know he would be retelling one of his favorite WWII stories, about the time he visited Mirgorod as part of the shuttle bombing missions known as Operation Frantic. 

Dad was in the second of those runs, which departed England on June 21, 1944, part of a task force that included 114 B-17 bombers and 70 P-51 fighters, which Dad (and many others) called “little friends.” I probably owe my existence to these little friends since their addition to the war halted the unsustainable losses of the heavy bombers and their crews. 

Dad’s plane, part of the 95th Bomb Group, landed in Mirgorod, which, as Dad later wrote in an article he called “Russian Rhumba” published in a bomb group newsletter, proved to be a good decision. The 43 B-17s that landed in Poltava were destroyed in an overnight raid by the Luftwaffe, and, says Dad, “it didn’t take a Ph.D. in foreign affairs from Harvard to see the outrageous deception of our Russian allies.” 

Dad ended up flying deeper into the Ukrainian section of the Soviet Union, landing in what was then known as Kharkov and spending a few days with Russian soldiers. One of them “wanted to exchange firearms with me,” Dad wrote. “I was wearing a G.I. 45 and he was wearing a Russian issue. Needless to say, I had to say nyet to that proposal.”

Reading this story, so full of “Dad’isms” that make me smile and cry at the same time, is a good thing to do today, when our hearts reach out to the descendants of those people my father met so many years ago.

Northwest Passage

Northwest Passage

Comments 0 Comment

I hadn’t intended it, but on Wednesday I nearly walked around Lake Audubon. I’d started with nothing more than a different route: down Glade to the nature center, along paths untrodden for years. But that road led to a paved path, then a waterside trail, then a bridge I hadn’t known was there.

When I found a street again, I was past the high school, on my way around the lake.  This was significant, my version of the northwest passage. I could now (sort of) circumnavigate the lake where last summer I felt briefly lost. 

Further proof that my ambles have purpose if not destinations, and further proof, also, that my home is Reston. But more on that later. 

To Be in Ireland

To Be in Ireland

Comments 0 Comment

On this day of gray skies and soft rain, it’s not hard to see the green fields of Ireland, the shaggy cliffs, the ever-present sea, the darling lambs. 

It’s not hard to imagine climbing the hill to St. Benan’s church on the isle of Inishmore, a place so silent and still, so holy, that even the most committed skeptic could not fail to be moved by it. 

It’s not hard to wish I was in Ireland again, knowing that St. Patrick’s Day is probably the day you should least want to be in Ireland … but wanting to be there just the same. 

A Cry in the Night

A Cry in the Night

Comments 0 Comment

I was awakened at 4 by the barking of a fox. This is not a rare occurrence. What made it memorable was how close the fox seemed to be. Right beneath the bedroom window from the sound of it. 

For years after we moved here I thought this sound was the screech of an owl or some kind of wounded animal, so distressed did it seem. It troubled my sleep, made nightmares of my dreams. The night itself seemed to be speaking, issuing a warning, sounding an alarm.

I know now that this howl is the bark of a fox, going about its foxy business, further proof of the wild kingdom that flourishes just outside these four walls. 

I no longer fear this sound, even if it wakes me up.  I just read for a while to settle my jangled nerves, taking comfort in the fact that we share this place with the animals who were here before us.

Leaving Normal Behind

Leaving Normal Behind

Comments 0 Comment

Trading this…

For many of us, today marks two years since we left normal life behind.  March 15th was a Sunday in 2020, and the Monday that followed was a workday unlike any other I’d experienced. 

I was at home — and so was everyone else, of course. It seemed then like a snowstorm without the snow, a temporary break from routine. 

Little did we know how the virus would upend our lives,  how it would take the weak and terrify the strong, how it would deepen the political divide and turn our downtowns into ghost towns. 

But all that and more was in store for us on that March Monday, two years and a lifetime ago.

... for this.
… for this.

The Lexingtonians

The Lexingtonians

Comments 0 Comment

Yesterday’s memorial service paid tribute to a husband, son, brother, uncle, cousin and friend. But most of all, it paid tribute to an artist.

My cousin Pat was a painter, musician and filmmaker. He was, as many recalled, a man who created the life he wanted to live … and managed to live it in the town where he was born.

I think many of us in the audience thought about our own lives, weighed them against his, measured the tradeoffs, the staying put versus the leaving.  

My cousin Brian, Pat’s brother, summed it up best when he spoke: “Today I’m not just proud to be a brother, I’m proud to be a Lexingtonian.”

And though the family members in attendance now reside in Brussels, Paris, California, New York, Michigan, Virginia, Ohio,  Maryland and D.C.,  yesterday we were all Lexingtonians. 

Winter Again

Winter Again

Comments 0 Comment

From shorts to shudders: that’s what the weather has given us in the last 24 hours. Yesterday, Lexingtonians were bopping around in t-shirts and cut-offs. Today they’re donning parkas and gloves.

For many people in the middle to eastern half of the country, Standard Time is going out with a bang — wind chills in the teens and (at least in Lexington) five or so inches of snow on the ground.

It’s a good day to stay inside and visit with family, which is what I’m doing. 

The sun is bright and there’s a warmup in the forecast but, at least for now, it’s winter again.

(You’d have to look hard to see crocuses blooming today.)

Back in the Bluegrass

Back in the Bluegrass

Comments 0 Comment

By Winchester the land has changed, has taken on the open feel of the Bluegrass. It’s close in Mount Sterling, but not quite there. 

So I felt myself exhale a little when we got to that point on our drive yesterday, savoring that feeling of home.

It’s a feeling I’ve been enjoying all day. 

Spring Break

Spring Break

Comments 0 Comment

The very idea of it seems far-fetched. It is too early for spring, too early for a break. But break time is is, at least for the student part of my life. 

There was no class Tuesday evening, though I prepared for it anyway since my break, which starts today, will get me home just in time for Tuesday class next week. 

Because as it turns out, I am taking a “spring break,” though one I wish I wasn’t. I’m heading out today to Kentucky for my cousin’s memorial service: a talented man gone far too soon. 

The trip will have its share of sadness, then, but also its share of joy, visiting with family I don’t often see. A break in many senses of that word: a road trip, a respite, a departure from the ordinary. 

Walking and Belonging

Walking and Belonging

Comments 0 Comment

In his book The Walker: On Finding and Losing Yourself in the Modern City, Matthew Beaumont describes walking as s socially and psychologically meaningful activity.  Authors make cities seem new and strange when they wander through them on foot. And they have their characters do the same.

So just as Charles Dickens ambled along the lanes of Victorian London, so too do some of his characters, including Mr. Humphreys of The Old Curiosity Shop.  Apparently, Dickens walked for the same reason many of us do: to calm himself down, to ease tensions. 

Beaumont examines city walking in the work of Edward Bellamy (Looking Backward), H.G. Wells (The Invisible Man) and others, illuminating both the texts and the walking in the process.

 I take issues with one of Beaumont’s major points, though, which is to see walking as a symbol and a symptom of not belonging: the solitary nighttime stroller at odds with the world he lives in (and it often is a “he” since women’s nocturnal walking opportunities are more limited than men’s). 

From my suburban vantage point, walking is an activity that encourages belonging because it engenders understanding. How can we care about a place that we do not know, and how can we know a place that we never see … except as it streams by outside our car windows?