Time and Time Again
The theme of this newsletter is time. It just came out that way as you will see. Since the height of Covid in 2020, I have shared our town's events through the seasons.
What I love about living in a town like ours, where people come together to celebrate the season's events, is the sense of timelessness in these cycles.
What I love about living in a town like ours, where people come together to celebrate the season's events, is the sense of timelessness in these cycles.
Harvest season and harvest dinner, Thanksgiving, town-decorating day for Christmas, Christmasfest with Cowboy Claus, the Ovando School Christmas play. Hauling in the wood, chopping the kindling for winter fires. Snow and more snow and cold. We got down to - 40F last winter. Calving season. Town clean-up day in April, sprucing up for visitors. Planting, when weather finally permits. The Ovando School May Day Tea. And maybe in June, surely July, the sounds of lawn mowers, smell of fresh grass, and people out and about greeting each other. The campers, boats, rafts being towed through town to the Blackfoot River or nearby lakes are sure sign that summer is here. We've just had our 4th of July Parade and the town was brimming with happy people. The bicyclists are here! The great Tour Divide racers came through at the end of June. They overnite here in the teepee or the shepherd's wagon or the hoosegow or anywhere they please to pitch their tents.
There is something special coming up. I will let the Town Cryer announce it.
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There is something special coming up. I will let the Town Cryer announce it.
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100 Year Celebration
Come join us for a spectacular event at the Ovando Elementary School Gym!
We are thrilled to celebrate a century of memories, laughter, and learning. This in-person gathering with live entertainment featuring western entertainer Dave Stamey. Whether you're an alumni, a current student, or a friend of the school, this is an event you won't want to miss.
Let's come together to reminisce, catch up with old friends, and create new memories that will last another hundred years.
Mark your calendar and get ready to party like it's 1922! Proceeds from the concert will benefit the Ovando School Arts program.
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Come join us for a spectacular event at the Ovando Elementary School Gym!
We are thrilled to celebrate a century of memories, laughter, and learning. This in-person gathering with live entertainment featuring western entertainer Dave Stamey. Whether you're an alumni, a current student, or a friend of the school, this is an event you won't want to miss.
Let's come together to reminisce, catch up with old friends, and create new memories that will last another hundred years.
Mark your calendar and get ready to party like it's 1922! Proceeds from the concert will benefit the Ovando School Arts program.
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Ovando's First School
Ovando School Today
The school has had as few as 8-10 students, K thru 8, and its graduating class averages between 1 and 3. But the town has stepped in to support it, as well as funding outside resources in music, art, and science. Physical education in the winter is cross-country skiing! Students receive an exceptional experience at Ovando's school. I first learned the early history of the town from a 5th grade project in the 1950s to interview the town's old timers. The postmistress loaned me her mimeographed sheets of their reports, which are now more formally available at the museum.
Right now there is a history project on display throughout the town, created by 5th and 6th graders. They made life-sized figures of historical citizens from old photographs and wrote historical information to accompany each one. They are strategically placed around the town. This is how the school often combines social studies, English, history and art in a single project for several grades! They even had cards made of a "self-guided tour" around town, available at the Blackfoot Store. The Museum and Historical Society pitched in to help them. In the picture below, Silas Hessler and Audrey Stevenson stand beside their portrait of Harry Morgan, an early game warden in Ovando. The figures were made out of recycled plywood, painted with outdoor paint, then framed and sealed.
Entertainment for the 100th Anniversary celebration will feature a Montana favorite, Dave Stamey. Here is a sneak preview of this talented Western folk singer.
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From time past to future times, there is already a new telescope in the making! The Euclid Space Telescope. We've been given this preview of the next project.
From time past to future times, there is already a new telescope in the making! The Euclid Space Telescope. We've been given this preview of the next project.
The long-awaited James Webb telescope has not disappointed! It has opened up vast new horizons and is reshaping the way we see the universe! NASA has just celebrated its 2-year anniversary.
With our knowledge expanding so swiftly, plans are already being made for a future trip to Mars and visionaries like Jeff Bezos are talking about trillions of people living in space. Can you imagine? Well he can!
So we have this capacity to celebrate our past while creating our future through advancing technologies. But here is something amazing, where future (AI) meets past. New techniques are applied to bring to life those fuzzy jerky old films near the turn of the last century. It's a real treat to watch these.
First, here is France in 1896.
Now New York City in 1911.
To complete our world tour, the next is not in color but has been similarly enhanced and I find it beautiful and fascinating. It is "Around the World in the 1890s."
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Enhanced or unenhanced, the fact that we can see famous people come alive out of the distant past is a privilege that was never available to humans before the late 19th century. To Ari and Judy, two friends who teach classical ballet, here is some very rare footage of the Asaf Messerer star class at the Bolshoi theater in 1983, including the great Maya Plisetskaya.
Now you are ready to appreciate one of my favorite Lucille Ball sketches: Lucy at the Bar
The ballet
Posted by I Love Lucy Was Never just a title on Tuesday, February 19, 2019
One last dance: A memorable scene from Zorba the Greek, with Anthony Quinn as Zorba.
While we are with great moments in cinema, which can remain with us through the wonder of film, video, and who knows what's next, here are some classic moments with Audrey Hephurn. In this one, she is presented the Cecil B. DeMille award by Gregory Peck at the 1990 Oscars. Regrettably the quality is poor but it's quite a gathering of stars of the time. There is better quality in the following interview with Audrey the same year. She had quite an amazing life.
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It appears that anyone who was ever locked down with Covid has been eagerly, even obsessively, taking to the skies. When I've been in airports recently, I find myself wondering if there is anyone living in houses. All humanity seems to be here. In my TSA line.
Most people are hunting the best deals and going with the low-cost airlines, which charge you for sitting down and taking a breath. It's no frills all the way. Count on Carol Burnett and Tim Conway to make a sketch of this. Here it is.
Time now to check in on Our Best Friend - the most faithful and multitalented of all species. They constantly surprise! Here is another family pet caught on the home nanny (Fido) camera expressing himself. Who knew?
But dogs don't just sing and play the piano, they can also dance. Here is proof of this at the Dog Dancing World Campionship. See what a little extra coaching of your dog can do? This comes after you have taught him how to use the crate.
Dogs can learn amazing things, but they can also teach. This dog is teaching a baby how to swing!
But whatever special talents a dog might have, it is the unique gift of being such a rare and faithful friend to us crazy humans that we most value. Here is a rare and remarkable young man who set out to walk around the world and realized along the way that he needed just such a friend. Meet Tom and Savannah.
In the realm of Amazing Humans, have at look at Ilia Malinin at ISU World Figure Skating Championships Montreal.
My last reflection on time is a single human lifetime across its duration. I have two examples that have inspired me.
My favorite singer back in the 1970s was Nana Mouskouri. She was little known here, but in Europe, she sold more albums than any other singer and I believe that record still holds to this day. She sang in Greek (her native language), French, Spanish German and English and produced albums in each. She had a gift for catching the spirit of each nationality that was uncanny. She was introduced into the US by Harry Belafonte. Here they are together singing a favorite of mine. Sorry the visual is poor.
What brought her to mind to include here was coming upon her recently. I had forgotten her and didn't realize she was still alive! Has that ever happened to you? Time has been kind to Nana Mouskouri and she has been kind to time.
Here she is at age 88 singing Amazing Grace with a choir of 100 voices.
Second is a singer very well-known to American audiences indeed! She is country-western legend Dolly Parton, who has also remained vibrantly active into her 70s. Here she is at the beginning of her career, singing with her sisters, Stella and Cassie in 1970.
Now here is Dolly over 50 years later, (age 77!) in this electric performance of her song World on Fire at last year's ACM awards.
Dolly fans may enjoy this recent CBS interview headlined "from fashion to spirituality."
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The natural world has its own form of longevity. Here, from Time Past--that's over 5 million years--is a cave found in 1986 on the Black Sea coast in Romania in one of the most isolated places on the planet. Around 5.5 million years ago it was sealed off from the rest of the world by thick layers of clay and limestone. In an environment of 100% humidity, a toxic atmosphere and a total lack of sunlight, scientists have identified 53 invertebrate species; 37 of the species are not found anywhere in the world. Ah, the tenacity of life! I am full of admiration for it, in spiders, leeches, and indomitable humans.
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Now, from time past and time future, to timeless things.
If you want to step out of tumultuous waves for a bit, to get "far from the madding crowd" to borrow from Thomas Hardy, I highly recommend this lovely film from National Geographic about a man's relationship to an otter. Here is the trailer to "Billie and Mollie." The full documentary is available on YouTube to watch for free.
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I always like to end on a quiet note, so here is a poetry film of Wendell Berry reading his poem "The Peace of Wild Things." This one's for Wayne, who first introduced me to Wendell Berry.
I always like to end on a quiet note, so here is a poetry film of Wendell Berry reading his poem "The Peace of Wild Things." This one's for Wayne, who first introduced me to Wendell Berry.
I wish the peace of wild things for you and yours and cooling summer days.
Sheri Ritchlin
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