Recently I received three e-mails from a colleague I worked with in the mid 1970's, one a very funny joke, the other two not so funny. In fact, the other two were downright irritating and I told him so. It's not that they were off-color (I'll admit to telling an occasional dirty joke, in the proper company, of course), that they were strongly political in one direction or other, or that took the Lord's name in vain. No, they were both stupidly inaccurate.
Bald Eagles
The first had six photographs of a gathering of bald eagles feeding on fish that had been tossed out on what appears to be a snow-covered beach at St Louis, MO and nearby Alton, IL in January of 2012. The accompanying story told of the eagles being unable to find fish in the river (assumed to be the Mississippi) because the weather was so cold that all the fish were staying in the bottom of the river. Several things caught my attention. The first was that in two of the photographs, the river was so wide that you could not see the far bank. Second, photographs taken from a different angle showed mountains on the far side of the river.
Lets take a look at that. Do you remember the winter of 2012? St Louis recorded the second warmest average daytime high in the past twenty years. For those who have not visited the area, the Mississippi at St Louis is about a third of a mile wide. No matter where you stand, you can see the far bank. As for mountains, the tallest thing in view from St Louis is the now vacant Spivey Building in East St Louis, a towering 14 stories or so above street level. That part of Missouri and Illinois is flatter than a bluegrass tenor – there are no mountains.
So I did a little bit of on-line research. It turns out the photographs were taken in Alaska in the town of Homer which is indeed on the ocean and has a bay. On a spit of land at the entrance to that bay is the Salty Dog Saloon and the Happy Face Restaurant, both of which provide beautiful views of the Pacific Ocean and the mountains across the bay. Back in the 1970's, Alaska's Eagle Lady, one Jane Keene, worked in a fish processing plant and took some leftovers home to toss out to see what would happen. The eagles came and she kept on doing it, sometimes tossing out a much as 500 lbs in one day, until she passed on, at age 85, in 2009.
The real story is so much nicer than the made-up one.
Taps
The second irritating e-mail said, “Many of you may never have heard taps played in its entirety, for all of the men and women that have died for you to have the freedom you have in America . This is an opportunity you won't want to miss and I guarantee you'll never forget. Amazingly beautiful, Melissa Venema, age 13, is the trumpet soloist. She is also from Holland .
Here is Taps played in its entirety. The original version of Taps was called Last Post, and was written by Daniel Butterfield in 1801. It was rather lengthy and formal, as you will hear in this clip, so in 1862 it was shortened to 24 notes and re-named Taps.
Melissa Venema is playing it on a trumpet whereby the original was played on a bugle.”
That all sounds so innocent and sincere, doesn't it. I learned the words to “Day is Done” when I was in grammar school. The tune is the “Taps” we all know from military funerals. There are no more notes. The reference to Last Post is inaccurate – that is a similar bugle call played over the graves of British soldiers only since 1885. Exact authorship of “Taps” is unknown, and while Daniel Butterfield has been acknowledged as one of those involved, it most certainly did not happen in 1801 when he worked for American Express, sixty-one years before it was ever played following the Peninsula Campaign in the American Civil War.
The music played so nicely by the young woman from Holland is in reality Italian pop music from the 1960's written by Rosso and Brezza named Il Silenzio. Folks in my generation may remember the instrumental as an American pop hit of 1965 played by Roy Etzel. At least one reference says its thematic melody may be an extension of a bugle call used by the Russian composer Tchaikovsky to open his Capriccio Italien. Bottom line? It isn't Taps. Never was.
In this case, we have an absolutely stunning piece of music played so well by a young teenager in front of a nationally known and respected orchestra and some idiot without a single bit of respect for music or history writes a piece of drivel tying it to a bugle call known by everyone in the country.
If a reader should like to hear the music referenced here, I offer the following web sites.
Andrea Venema, Il Silenzio - www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4l3Rgq-L1M
Roy Etzel, Silencio – musictonic.com/music/Roy+Etzel#v=t_yr31SvDxQ
Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra – Capriccio Italien - youtube.com/watch?v=6HRjigDjrKc
Jan Villaneuva - Taps - youtube.com/watch?v=Nhtr5J00ntA
Why do I allow myself to get so involved in disclaiming the two e-mails? I'm not sure I can answer that, but in the interest of accuracy, I find them abhorrent and I wanted to say so. The bald eagle is our national bird and should be treated with respect, not be made the subject of a pack of untruths told for no good reason. If you want to write a piece of fiction, make a story up all you want, but don't try to pass someone else's photographs off a something they so clearly are not. Taps is known everywhere and is almost always guaranteed to dampen my eyesight, but to make up a story about a totally different song and then tell me it is Taps in its entirety is simply unforgivable.
There. That's off my chest.
