Ithaca Bound

As I write this, it is Thursday morning, the 6th of November. The History Net Today in History website that I turn to each morning reminds me that it is the birthday of John Philip Sousa (1854-1932), the beloved composer of some 140 stirring American marches, including the most beloved and stirring of them all, "The Stars and Stripes Forever." How ironic that this man who wrote so many of our definitive American patriotic marches that have served to send so many off to war ...As I write this, it is Thursday morning, the 6th of November. The History Net Today in History website that I turn to each morning reminds me that it is the birthday of John Philip Sousa (1854-1932), the beloved composer of some 140 stirring American marches, including the most beloved and stirring of them all, "The Stars and Stripes Forever." How ironic that this man who wrote so many of our definitive American patriotic marches that have served to send so many off to war was born just five days before the now annual observance that we call Veterans Day! Sousa wrote other forms of music, of course, some of which also were very well received in his day, but it is the marches that have made his name immortal.

It is not the rousing marches, though, that I will be playing or singing next Monday evening, when I do a program I call "Songs of Peace and Freedom" for the Calumet Lutheran Camp in West Ossipee. Rather, the program will reflect a vision of a world that is always possible, if we all would strive to make that world the kind of world so many of us say we would like to see.