Across the Great Divide (Kate Wolf)

Kate Wolf died the year I discovered her music, over 20 years ago now. I never got to see her perform in person, but I listened to her music and learned many of her songs that I later went on to perform myself in concerts. I have been told that I sound like her, which I consider the highest of praise.

I am posting a video of me singing her song "Across The Great Divide" that I recorded yesterday.

(For all you tech nerds and geeks out there: I recorded this in my garage on my Mac desktop. I used IMoveHD, with a Shure8900 microphone plugged into an imic that was plugged into my Mac. Combine this with my isight that has the light attachment, and it worked like a dream!)

My grandfather, Jock (1934)

My grandfather, Jock (1934) Originally uploaded by musicmuse_ca

From my grandfather’s obituary (Montreal Star, 1935):

 “....at the outbreak of war (WWI), he acted as a recruiting officer for the Irish Rangers and eventually went overseas with them., transferring to the 14th Battalion, Royal Montreal Regiment and serving 17 months in the trenches. He took part in many important battles. 

 

He was gassed in 1918 and invalided home. He never recovered from the gas poisoning, and suffered from tuberculosis. But he was always of a cheerful disposition and never complained, and frequently used to meet his many friends about the city with a joke and a smile. He was attacked by cancer of the jaw and went to the hospital for radium treatment, but despite every attention, he gradually became worse and was taken to his home July 12, there to remain until his death Tuesday morning.....”

Of Feather Boas and Bunnies...

CJ 1988 Originally uploaded by musicmuse_ca

My daughter is going through a rough patch right now. We are close, and always have been. But some things a mom just cannot fix. It is hard to watch her struggle. What can I do to help her come to terms with her crushing disappointment? How do I guide her through the sorrow of not achieving what she had her heart set on for so long? 

I wish it was as easy as it used to be when she was little. All she needed then was a feather boa and a bunny to make her day! Now her world is so much more complicated.

Melrose Abbey

Melrose Abbey in Black and White
Originally uploaded by musicmuse_ca

Melrose Abbey in Black and White

(photo taken by Beth Kotkin, 8/2004)

Melrose, along with the other Border Abbeys of Dryburgh, Jedburgh and Kelso, had been repeatedly attacked and burned during the Border Wars between Scotland and England. The rest of the destruction was done during the Scottish Reformation, when many Scottish Catholic Abbeys were defaced of all "idolatry".

This beautiful shell is all that remains of what once was a thriving community of industrious monks. For a time before the bloody Border Wars that devastated this region, it was the center of knowledge and commerce in the British Isles. Ideas, books, scholars and goods were exchanged directly from Melrose with major centers of European learning during the "Dark Ages".

My most ancient Scottish ancestor, Gualter (William) de Somerville, was from a Norman family that came to England from Normandy with William the Conquerer in the invasion of 1066. He fought at the Battle of Hastings, and was rewarded with lands first in Northern England (which his descendants lost in punishment for being part of the revolt of English Lords against the Crown in 1213 that led eventually to the signing of the Magna Carta). Gaulter de Somerville came North to Scotland with David I in 1107, and was awarded lands there as well.

He was buried somewhere here in this cemetery while the church was first being built in 1142...

I stayed in a b&b in Melrose for a week during the Fall of 2004, so I had plenty of time to explore the area while I was in town. I walked the length of the graveyard many times in search of his grave, and looked at as many of the ancient headstones as I could.
Many of the graves are extremely old and the stones are very friable. Their markings have worn off over the centuries. I do not know which one was his or even if his grave had been marked at all.

But it gave me comfort to know he was there somewhere, and that he had walked these same lands almost 900 years before...