Sir Winston Churchill builds a garden wall. — International Churchill Society
“While my father was constructing the red brick walls which now surround the garden, he had the delightful idea of building a little cottage in the line of the wall for Sarah and me; it was meant for us both, but Sarah, who had started boarding school in 1927, outgrew its pleasures fairly soon, and this charming dwelling became known as the Marycot.” — Mary Churchill Soames
A Father and a Bricklayer
[click to read]
Prior to his leadership as Prime Minister during the Battle of Britain, Sir Winston Churchill served as Chancellor of the Exchequer under Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin. Baldwin saw that the pressures of government service were weighing on Churchill and suggested a sabbatical at the estate of Chartwell.
“Do remember what I said about resting from current problems. Paint, write, play with your dams (water features of the estate). But a big year will soon begin and much depends on your keeping fit.” — Stanley Baldwin
So Churchill continued to work several hours a day on government finances, but set them aside to engage in recreation. He most enjoyed working with his daughters, who helped build the little house; six year old Mary in particular.
He wrote to his wife, who was traveling with Sarah, the older daughter: “Mary’s house is growing and I hope to have a treat for you when you come… Mary has taken the greatest interest in the work and has laid the foundation stone with great ceremony.” (read more)
My Japanese Footbridge. — Photo by Bob Kirchman
I’m In My Garden
…and I’m thinking of Sir Winston Churchill. He was puttering in his garden, building the little playhouse for his daughters and preparing, perhaps unawares, for his moment in history. A stepping stone elsewhere had some lichen on it that suggested Claude Monet’s lilly ponds at Giverney.
I’m musing on the place of gardens in history. I move the little stone to a place beneath the footbridge. I’ve promised myself though, that this will remain a dry garden. I have enough things to water already. A poem by Musō Soseki comes to mind:
Musō Soseki (1275–1351), Japanese Zen master, calligraphist, poem writer, and garden designer.
A virtuous man when alone loves the quiet of the mountains.
A wise man in nature enjoys the purity of water.
One must not be suspicious of the fool who takes pleasure in mountains and streams,
But rather measure how well he sharpens his spirit by them.
— Musō Soseki
My ‘Monet Stone.’ — Photo by Bob Kirchman
I’m thinking it a good thing to simply savor the pleasures of such ‘wasted’ time. It has been a contentious and difficult four years for the American people. It is not unprecedented. I think of 1968 with its riots and assassinations. I was in high school. It was a terrible time.
Then three astronauts orbited the moon on Christmas Eve. They sent back that stunning photo “Earthrise” — the earth rising above the cold grey lunar surface. There, looking so properly small in the black sky, was the beautiful garden planet that is our fragile home.
There for a brief moment, humanity was in one photo (except for three of us). We remembered our shared destiny — our shared hopes. Someone wrote to NASA; “You saved 1968.”
And so I stand in my little garden, seeing the draw of the beautiful that has been a comfort to us in many difficult times before. I know many of us breathed a sigh of relief at the election results, but I know many are troubled. I’m not getting wrapped up in a lot of post election commentary right now, but I’d like to offer this piece written by David Limbaugh before the election on “X” or “Formerly Known as Twitter.”
It is significant in that it turns away from the name-calling and looks at the concerns many had in this, another “1968 moment.” I wish our legacy media would wrap itself up in some of Elon’s space triumphs like it did with circumnavigating the moon in 1968.
We are a better people than we report ourselves to be.
On the eve of the 2024 election, David Limbaugh wrote THIS on “X:”
“I strongly believe Trump is going to win decisively for the following reasons. I began this tweet with the intention of summarizing my thoughts in a simple tweet, but quickly discovered that wasn't possible. What follows is just what poured out without any planning or organization -- just off the top of my head as fast I could type it, so I hope it's coherent. Here goes:
Trump has outworked Kamala and has been abundantly transparent and authentic (especially seen in his long-form interviews and even his sometimes meandering speeches, i.e., the weave, as opposed to the closeted Kamala who is deliberately inaccessible and wholly inauthentic. I will add that in his long form interviews Trump, without the media filter, comes off as wholly authentic and remarkably knowledgeable on a wide and surprising number of subjects. In the process he has shown himself to be the opposite of the ogre depicted by Democrats.
Trump has built an extremely competent, impressive, and diverse team, with high profile Democrats, former Democrats, independents and business-people.
Early Republican voting has dramatically increased.
Trump is ahead or even in the polls, which hasn't happened for Republicans in years, and dwarfs his polling compared to 2016 and 2020.
Trump has reached incalculable numbers of common people and people who aren't as political as some of us -- through high profile podcasts and other interviews. It' not just the Joe Rogan interview and endorsement which are glorious, but I haven't heard many people talking about the significance of Elon Musk's reach through 200+Million X followers. And Elon is a prolific pro-Trump and anti-Kamala tweeter. He constantly points out the dangers in a Kamala win and her threat to free speech and election integrity.
The value of Elon Musk's endorsement and stumping for Trump cannot be measured. The guy is a powerhouse and a genius whose alignment with Trump on cutting government waste is phenomenally encouraging.
Trump has been much more disciplined in the conduct of his campaign than he was the other two times.
Trump rebuilt the RNC with a highly competent and trustworthy team that has focused on voter turnout and election integrity.
The Harris team was been so egregiously fake and dishonest that even CNN has called them out a few times.
Trump survived two assassination attempts and with the first one showed his resolve, stamina, commitment and fearlessness like few before him.
Kamala is running on the worst record of any administration, possibly even including Jimmy Carter, who got his doors blown off by Reagan.
Likewise, Kamala manifestly has no new ideas and she twisted herself in pretzels for all to see in trying to distinguish herself from Biden while claiming there was nothing she would change.
Kamala is monumentally unimpressive in even the least challenging interviews, which is why she's done so few of them. And on the stump, she's nasty, incessantly lies with claims objectively disprovable. She and her supporters and surrogates have insulted the intelligence and independence of minorities and attempted to shame them into voting for her -- not because of the strength of her policies but because of their skin color or gender.
Blacks and Hispanics are moving toward Trump, which is just one component of a major realignment that Trump has engineered. Trump has even made inroads into the Jewish vote because of Harris/Biden's mistreatment of Israel, and apparently Trump, ironically, has picked up some Muslim support as well.
Despite their lame gasps at class warfare, Democrats no longer represent the common man -- the "working" class. Exacerbating this problem for Kamala is the plethora of endorsements she has received from elites and celebrities, which is probably as negative as it is positive for her.
The only arrows Kamala has in her quiver are to paint Trump as a threat to "democracy," and an enemy of women. Trump already served four years without showing any signs of autocracy or tyranny. And, his own public pronouncements on abortion belie the claims they lodge against him on this issue.
Kamala et al are so bankrupt on policy that they have had to lie about their position and Trump's position on policies. They lie about darn-near everything, to be honest.
People are hurting economically with inflation and the rest and Democrats ask them not to believe their lying pocket books. But personal experience trumps fake statistics every time. And boy have their statistics been fake, from inflation to jobs reports, and Dems have been caught red-handed manipulating those figures.
Perhaps more important than all of the above combined is that Democrats have embraced every insane cultural and political idea of the extreme left, from social issues to climate and energy to the border. People are horrified about the border invasion and the breakdown of law and order in this country, which were both directly orchestrated by Democrats. Sane and reasonable people know that these problems will just get worse if Kamala, God forbid, wins. And speaking of minorities and economically suffering people, Harris has shown that she prioritizes illegal immigrants to minorities and other Americans. The cavalier waste of money on these illegals is one of the most outrageous things they've done, not to mention fiscally suicidal and unsustainable.
I'm sure there are tons of other reasons but I didn't make a checklist and am just dashing those off that come to mind.
Undergirding all of these reasons is my faith in God and my belief that He is not done with America. By that I mean that we cannot sustain this nation as the shining city on the hill if the Democrats' policies aren't reversed posthaste. The debt and border alone are existential threats that must be dramatically reversed and that will not happen under Democrats, as they've made perfectly clear. And I believe God knows that a majority of Americans reject the demonic ideas that permeate much our culture and cherish Him and religious liberty and the entirety of America's liberty tradition and rule of law.
While I recognize there will be shenanigans, I don't think Democrats can do enough to undermine this tidal wave.
I realize I could be wrong about everything, but if I am and Kamala wins I'll be worried a lot more about what that will mean for the country I love and my family, friends and present and future generations of Americans than any impact my wrong predictions would have on my reputation LOL.
God bless America and please give us another chance at new beginnings and to live in line with Your will.” – David Limbaugh