Celebrating Our Bright Lights

Dear grandsons,

I forget that I write this column for you, the reason I wrote "For a Dignity Deserved." I'm masked and sitting in your dinning room typing this. W, you're upstairs attending school virtually, and M., you are outside with Nana working on a bird feeder. Your Dad is at the doctor's, and your Mom went for a run.

In this COVID-19 world, our worlds have shrunk. We social distance. We don't hug and kiss as we usually do. We don't touch when playing or having conversations. We don't see relatives frequently, and our relationships with friends become virtual.

Our pandemic-enforced cloister shuts out much of the world. We can remember those around us and those who came before us if we read, digitally or in-print Both work equally as well. (Forget social media. Too much crap is posted by lonely, frighteningly, intellectually stifled individuals on both sides of the political spectrum.)

I discovered two such people recently.

Lawrence Brooks, the oldest living World War II American veteran (on the left in the picture), will turn 111 on September 12. For five years, the National World War II museum in New Orleans has celebrated Brooks's birthday. The pandemic has changed this year's celebration. Gone are the cakes and the band. The museum has asked that Americans send a birthday card. Let's celebrate Mr. Brooks and send him a card: The National WWII Museum, c/o Happy 111th Mr. Brooks!, 945 Magazine Street, New Orleans, LA 70130.

Lawrence Brooks on left.

I'll bet that you did not know that one of the great inspirations of Beethoven's life was of African descent and an astounding concert violinist who held the courts of Europe in awe by his virtuosity. His name: George Bridgetower. He gallivanted with the maestro They drank in taverns and they whatever in the whore houses. Beethoven was so impressed by Bridgetower that he dedicated the "Kreutzer” Sonata to him. He toured Europe. He played with the Prince of Wales's concert band. He might have studied with Franz Joseph Haydn. He might even have played a role in pulling Beethoven out of his suicidal funk when he discovered was going deaf.

George Bridgetower on left, Beethoven on right