Attention Must Be Paid

Ordinary lives of ordinary people can be made into high art.




Russell Banks

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Hello Lily

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It all began with Figaro. He was a character invented by the French playwright Pierre Beaumarchais (1732 - 1799). He wrote three plays on the subject of Figaro who was essentially a barber, a simple but clever man with wit and intelligence who eventually worked his way up to a position of power and influence. Beaumarchais' plays were originally produced prior to the French revolution in which he was involved and also in the American. revolution.



It was said that the French aristocracy would come and see the plays and laugh at the preposterous idea that a simple man, a commoner, should attain such power and be so capable of wielding it. Soon however the revolution came and the aristocrats had stopped laughing. Figaro was a prophetic character. Which makes one stop and pay attention..



It took some time before Beaumarchais' idea caught on. French and Italian opera was still being written about kings, queens, nobles and holy men until

Giacomo Puccini whose characters were ordinarily people with real stories. One of his most famous operas is Madama Butterfly about a Japanese girl who marries an American naval officer thinking he will return to her and the love affair will last forever.. When he finally does return, with his American wife, the poor girl kills herself. That opera is very popular in the US even though it doesn't paint a good picture of us. It makes one stop and pay attention.



One of the greatest American plays is "Death of a Salesman" written by Arthur Miller and first produced in 1949 on Broadway It starred Lee J. Cobb and Mildred Dunnock. Willy Loman is a traveling salesman, he, his wife and two sons are trying to make a go of it in an uncertain world and it's a desperate struggle. It is a prophetic ploy for sure since it is the recessions this country has suffered that has created many Willy Lomans. Vacillating between useless bravado and depressing failure he eventually kills himself just as the mortgage is paid off and they are"free and clear." Willy says through the play "attention must be paid."



Aristocrats may lead extraordinary lives, but it's the ordinary people who tell the true stories of life.



Dana Bate - The Vagabond

Never give up.

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Ordinary Heros

You can be just an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated, to reach challenging goals.

Sir Edmund Hillary
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Hello Jen
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Question: What is a 33 year old New Zealand beekeeper doing over 29,000 feet in the air?

Answer: He's standing on top of the tallest mountain on the Earth.

At 11:30 a.m. on May 29, 1953 Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay stepped on to the top of Mount Everest.

He wasn't Sir Edmund until he got to England and met a young woman named Elizabeth who had just been inaugurated Queen Elizabeth II. And she quickly knighted him.

Hillary had been climbing mountains since his youth and had, in fact, made several expedition climbs around Everest and other areas in the Himalayas before he ever set foot on the summit of Everest.

That brings to my mind so many other people, ordinary people, who do something extraordinary once that makes them famous. And I sometimes wonder what the rest of their lives were like.

How many other miles did the legendary messenger Pheidippides run before he was picked to bring the news of the successful battle of Marathon to the Greeks?

How many races did Roger Bannister run and win before he stepped across the finish line in less than 4 minutes?

How many hours did Neil Armstrong spend learning about space travel before he stepped on the moon?

How many wounds did Florence Nightingale patch up before she established her nursing school in England and write the book on contemporary nursing?

How much danger and brutality did Harriet Tubman endure before she escaped and began to rescue hundreds of slaves through the Underground Railroad?

How many hours did Rosa Parks spend sitting at the back of the bus before she took her rightful seat at the front?

These were ordinary people, like you and me, "sufficiently motivated" as Hillary put it, to face a challenge and win, not because they wanted to be famous, but because they believed in themselves and what they were doing.

There are many other heroes in the world who will never be famous, but whose lives are histories of problems solved, difficulties overcome and challenges met. Each of us may have an opportunity to join them. If it occurs, take it.

DB - Vagabond Journeys, and
never give up.
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