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11472. Macnas - 9/24/2004 8:17:00 AM Pelle
Sad to hear about your aunt, would that we all live as long and as well.
She sounds rather like my Grandmother, another sharp in-her-nineties red. Talking to her is like being able to open the door to the past. 11473. Ulgine Barrows - 9/24/2004 8:18:09 AM Sounds wonderful....
Bring out the turtlenecks! 11474. Ulgine Barrows - 9/24/2004 8:19:50 AM disgusted at the timing 11475. Macnas - 9/24/2004 8:21:49 AM Ha! Real reds were nothing like the 60's pretend fashion socialists. Gran was ordinary in ordinary ways and extraordinary in others, like being one of the first women in the city to own and run her own business. 11476. Ulgine Barrows - 9/24/2004 8:28:38 AM Rainy Day Women #12 11477. SnowOwl - 9/24/2004 8:45:27 AM Mostly I potter, Ulgine. I have grand pretentions to being a wonderful gardener and visions of myself dressed in flowing muslin, wearing a floppy straw hat and carrying a trug filled with flowers, but in reality I'm much more likely to be wearing shorts and a torn tee-shirt. I love my garden, even though it's usually rather a mess.
My father-in-law was a card-carrying Communist - part of the red Clyde. Until my husband was about 10 he really believed that the Uncle Joe whose picture he had to say good night to every night was his real uncle.
He was a wonderful man - sharp as a tack and very well read, although almost entirely self-educated. I've always thought myself fortunate to have known him. 11478. Ulgine Barrows - 9/24/2004 8:54:04 AM Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're tryin' to be so quiet?
-Dylan
11479. alistairconnor - 9/24/2004 10:55:38 AM I knew you must have had a skeleton in the closet, Pelle... a Red under the bed.
I have an extant Communist aunt, in her eighties. Actually it was her late husband, known as Butch, who was the card-carrying one, but Marge has always been very bolshie. 11480. Magoseph - 9/24/2004 11:15:25 AM I have an idea, Ali--I think I'm going to put Pelle on my T list too. Do you think he would mind? 11481. alistairconnor - 9/24/2004 11:21:03 AM The mind boggles, Mago... 11482. Macnas - 9/24/2004 11:21:23 AM Jaysus, does everyone here have old commies in the family tree?
Con??? 11483. Magoseph - 9/24/2004 11:37:30 AM Well, one grand-père was singing L'Internationale wandering in the neighborhood when I was a kid. 11484. Macnas - 9/24/2004 11:48:05 AM Did you know that "The Red Flag" was written by an Irishman? Jim Connell.
My Ma can sing it by heart.
Oh jaysus, there's another red in the family. 11485. Magoseph - 9/24/2004 12:01:48 PM 
The people's flag is deepest red,
It shrouded oft our martyred dead,
And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold,
Their hearts blood dyed its every fold.
Then raise the scarlet standard high. (chorus)
Within its shade we'll live and die,
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer,
We'll keep the red flag flying here.
Look round, the Frenchman loves its blaze,
The sturdy German chants its praise,
In Moscow's vaults its hymns are sung
Chicago swells the surging throng.
It waved above our infant might,
When all ahead seemed dark as night;
It witnessed many a deed and vow,
We must not change its colour now.
It well recalls the triumphs past,
It gives the hope of peace at last;
The banner bright, the symbol plain,
Of human right and human gain.
It suits today the weak and base,
Whose minds are fixed on pelf and place
To cringe before the rich man's frown,
And haul the sacred emblem down.
With heads uncovered swear we all
To bear it onward till we fall;
Come dungeons dark or gallows grim,
This song shall be our parting hymn.
11486. PelleNilsson - 9/24/2004 1:21:07 PM What is the T list? It sounds vaguely ... je ne sais quoi. 11487. PelleNilsson - 9/24/2004 1:28:43 PM And thanks everybody for your kind words. 11488. PelleNilsson - 9/24/2004 1:34:02 PM Do you know what you could do for us, Macnas? You could write a brief history of the Irish fight for independence. Nothing fancy, no need to read up on things. Just retell it as you heard it in school. I, and I think many others, only have a very general knowledge about this, maybe sprinkled with some anecdotal stories of particular events. Besides it would be very intersting to hear iy from the Irish perspective. 11489. PelleNilsson - 9/24/2004 1:34:51 PM Three in a row. I'm becoming jexsterized. 11490. Macnas - 9/24/2004 1:38:43 PM You spammer. 11491. Macnas - 9/24/2004 1:46:58 PM That's a kind of tall order Pelle, but sure why the hell not. Actually, as this is kicking off things in my memory as I type, I think I might put it in childhood memories.
When you are a child learning about things from the past for the first time, that's when it is at it's most evocative.
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