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Tossing Pebbles in the Stream

This blog is my place to sit and toss pebbles into the stream. The stream of Life relentlessly passing before us. We can affect it little. For the most part I just watch it passing and follow the flow. Occasionally, I need to comment on its passing, tossing a pebble at it to enjoy the ripple affect upon Life's surface.

Saturday, March 12, 2011



Make This the End of Winter!

In spite of it being another mild Winter with less snow than normal, I am tired of Winter and wish it were over. I must be getting old.

This is normally a nice time to enjoy the Winter season. The weather is mild enough that one can be outside enjoying activities ( ice fishing, snowmobiling, skiing, Winter camping, snowshoeing, etc) without having to fight the cold. In fact, on a sunny day one can get sunburned from the warming sun and the glare from the snow. I think I need to get myself together and get out and enjoy the weather. I could be suffering from cabin fever!

We were supposed to have rain that would wash away much of the last of the snow. Instead, the percipitation came in the form of snow, the wet sticky kind. Not a lot, normally, but in a Winter drought it was a good amount.

















This is looking toward town just after the plow passed. For a road that only has three homes beyond mine and where there is little traffic, we do get good service at having the road cleared of snow.


















This is the road during the snow storm. It is looking up the road toward the bush. My neighbour's house a quarter of a mile away is not visible.

I have been reluctant to post much lately. Let's blame it on the weather and my mood. There certainly are a lot of issues to rant about both in the US and Canada., not to mention the rest of the depressing suffering world. It just seems too much trouble to put my thoughts together.

Yesterday, something caught my eye and imagination. It is fascinating how one's exploration of the Internet leads one on. It began by noticing a CNN article on unpublished photos of Hitler by Eva Braun.

I decided I would like to see them and went to the Life.com site they were on. While there I notice another series of photo of Hitler's lovers over the years. This was a fascinating group of women. I visited some sites on them , in particular on Eva Braun and her family. My over all suprise is that almost half of the women Hitler was involved with died a violent death. Most by suicide. His young niece, with whom he had an infatuation may have been killed by Hitler. Not a nice guy. . .well we know that all by now.

One of Hitlers lovers was Unity Mitford, ( this video is one of five about her relationship with Hitler) an English minor noble woman. She tried to kill herself and failed. She may have had a child by Hitler, which she gave up for adoption. I how fascinating is that as a footnote to history.) She came from a fascinating British family which was both famous and infamous, for writings and politics. There were six sisters and a brother in the family. North Americans of my age may remembered Jessica Mitford, who moved to the United States and wrote a book on the funeral business."The American Way of Death". Several of the sisters were writers, not quite as famous as the Bronte sisters but all fascinating.

What interested me was the politics of the family. Two of the sisters, Unity being one of them, and the brother, were fascists and admired Hitler. Jessica was a communist. She shared a bedroom with Unity a young woman. Apparently, they have a line drawn down the middle of the room with memorablilia of Lenin and company on one side and Hitler, et. al. on the other. It must have been an arena of interesting debate.
If you want to read a little on this fascinating family and group of sisters you could start here and here. Here is a interesting essay of the sisters.

Of course, you could google each of the sisters. Don't you just love the easy access to material on the Internet that would have required hours searching through a library.

What really peaked my interest was that the father of the family, David Freeman-Mitford, Second Baron of Redesdale, owned gold property North of where I live in the Timmins-Kirkland Lake area goldfield. He visited this area often.

Now if you enjoy ironies in history how about this one. Unity, their daughter who became a party girl with Hitler was conceived in Swastika, Ontario. It is a small town near Kirkland Lake on the Northern Ontario Railroad line. It had it name long before the Nazi's adopted it and to this day are proud of it. They resisted changing it during the war.
I just love discovering these little footnotes to history. It enlives the dreary days of Winter.


4 Comments:

At 12:04 p.m., Blogger Anvilcloud said...

What would possess a woman to be a consort to Hitler? Shudder.

Weather-wise, I think this is the hardest time of year. We feel like winter should be over, but it's not spring yet. I walked on some very cold days in January and early February, but I lost my mojo as winter lingered even though it's warmer now.

 
At 2:49 p.m., Blogger KGMom said...

I agree that it is amazing how the internet pulls us in. NO wonder it's called the WEB. We all end up ensnared.
I can easily spend an hour when I went looking for just one wee bit of information.
A while back I had read something about the Mitford sisters--though I missed the Hitler connection.

 
At 7:34 p.m., Blogger Ginnie said...

Very interesting info, Philip. You did a lot of research for this. I hope your cabin fever will be over soon. I remember that very well from my years in New York and Massachusetts.

 
At 11:20 a.m., Blogger Caddie said...

I can very well get lost for hours on the web. I love the ability to search with just a click; its really amazing. Only with numbbuttness do I return to my senses.

Internet? Its an addiction, I tell you! Pure gluttony for learning.

Winter certainly puts up a fight before losing out finally. Yay.

 

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