My friends at NING did this blog about Manny's Virtual Wall of Fame! written by Mackenzie Cooper

Our friends at Ning wrote a piece about The Virtual Wall of Fame for their blog! Check it out:

Manny's Music, a musical instrument store in New York City opened by Manny Goldrich, closed its doors at the end of May after nearly 75 years of business. The store, long known as a landmark and icon, was a frequent stomping grounds for musicians from the Who to Paul Simon to Jimi Hendrix and had over 5,000 photos of musicians covering the walls.

When filmmaker Sandi Bachom heard that Manny's Music was closing, she decided "there had to be a way to pay tribute to such an important chapter in American musical history closing." So she got introduced to Manny Goldrich's granddaughter, Holly, to discuss filming a documentary. After talking it through, they hit upon a new idea: create a social network on Ning "for lovers of Manny’s to share their memories of a place so dear to their hearts," Sandi said.

Sandi and Holly named their social network Manny's Virtual Wall. Their vision was to scan photos from the walls of the music store and film video interviews with some of Manny's regulars to share on the social network, and they quickly began tracking down musicians to interview for the project. The closing of Manny's and the new social network was even featured in the New Yorker.

Videos on Manny's Virtual Wall play an important role. Sandi has interviewed dozens of musicians and Manny's regulars and uploaded them to the social network, from this clip of James Taylor remembering his first visit to Manny's to Paul Simon reminiscing about buying his first guitar there when he was 12 to Tim Robbins discovering his father's photo on the walls of the store shortly before it closed.

"My favorite are the first interviews I did with Henry Goldrich talking about The Beatles, The Stones and Hendrix, The Who," she said. " This is a man who played such an important role in these musician's lives, all the artists we know as superstars, Henry sold them their first guitars and, in some cases, gave them credit when they had no money so they could buy their first instruments. This is hugely important and a great story to tell."

Sandi has also said that "the best part about the social network is uploading my video interviews the same day, and being able to upload YouTube videos of performances of all the artists we interview or who blog," and she's created Pages to organize multiple videos and other information for each artist featured.

With the help of the Tab Manager, Sandi named the photos tab on the social network the "Wall of Fame," and started uploading the photos that lined the walls at Manny's, including signed promotional shots of The Beatles, U2, and Bob Dylan. Members also began uploading their own photos and memories from Manny's, and even connecting with childhood friends.

"It makes me very proud to have been a part of this, to have facilitated, in some small way, a place to share these feelings, which would have not been possible were it not for Ning," said Sandi.

MY UNCLE DUDE BACHOM'S FIRST... AND LAST MISSION: December 20, 1942

Lt Witt Crew:Mission #7 303rd Bomb Group, "The Hells Angels", 20 December 1942, in B-17F "Zombie" (359BS) BN-W. Shot down by enemy fighters and ditched in the English Channel- All ten crewmen were Killed in Action.

Five days before Christmas, December 20, 1942, my uncle, Thomas "Dude" Bachom flew his first, and last, mission with the 303rd Bomb Group known as "The Hells Angels" when his B-17 bomber, "The Zombie" was shot down over the English Channel.  He was 19 years old.

66 years to the day, December 20, 2008, I just got off the phone with Tech Sergeant Charles Terry, now 87, took this photograph of my uncle, on the right. Not only did he train with my uncle Dude in Austin, Texas, but he was in the B-17 bomber, "The 8 Ball" in front of Dude when he was shot down 66 years ago today!

When I asked the historian of the 303rd Bomb Group, website (http://www.303rdbg.com) if the man who had sent us this photograph 10 years ago might still be alive, he responded with a phone number saying, "Why don't you give him a call and make all our Christmases?"

So, with heart pounding, I dialed the number....

"Hello, is this Charles Terry? This is Sandi Bachom, Dude Bachom was my uncle!" He answered in a sprightly voice as if I was asking him what he had for breakfast....

"That plane was right behind me when it got shot down.  I was looking right at it."

"You sent us a photograph of you and my uncle, he had flaming red hair cut in a Mohawk, do you remember that?"

"I sure do." he laughs.

"We used to play cards together.  One time we were weathered in, it was raining like crazy.  We just got paid, we all played Black Jack and him and I cleaned out everybody, we had money coming out of our ears.  He went down the next mission."

"It was TODAY, December 20 and you were in front of him?" 

"We had to bail out of our plane that same day too.  I was radio operator on "The 8 Ball". Oh, I can still see "The Zombie" in my vision if I close my eyes, it was on fire."

I asked Charles how many from his group were still alive,"Well, I got six Christmas cards this year, all from widows."

Most of the guys, like Charles, signed up December 8, 1941...the day after Pearl Harbor. They were all teenagers.

The story of this photograph is nothing short of a miracle. It is of my Uncle Dude Bachom, (the tall red headed guy with the Mohawk), two months before he was killed on his first mission in WWII, shot down over the English Channel, his body, nor those of the other 9 crew members were ever found. 

The "original" photograph, was sent to my then husband, 10 years ago when he forwarded my essay "Flanders Fields" to the 303rd Bomb Group website. It was then we were sent a hand written letter and this photograph of Charles Terry, the man who took the photo along with precious recollections of my uncle, my fathers only and younger brother, who was killed in action two years before I was born, a gift beyond measure.....he not only trained with Dude in Austin, Texas, but he was in the plane in front of  him when he was shot down!

The gift of this photograph represents, not only a glimpse into a man whom I never knew, the man whose name is etched on the silver rattle given to me by him when I was born in 1944....two years after his death, but it is frozen forever, the moment..."just before"....





It is finding the words written by my grandmother's cousin, Lt Col John McCrae "just before" he wrote "Flanders Fields". It is the moment "just before" an untimely death, it is the moment "just before" my friend Werner Reich was liberated from Auschwitz, it is the moment "just before" I was hit by a car, it is the moment "just before" my last drink, it is the moment "just before" the inspiration, the art, the creation, it is the moment "just before" firefighters ran into those burning towers....it is September 10, 2001.



"I wish I could embody on paper some of the varied sensations of that seventeen days... Seventeen days of Hades! At the end of the first day if anyone had told us we had to spend seventeen days there, we would have folded our hands and said it could not have been done."
~Lt Col John McCrae, May 2, 1915 Ypres, Belgium

My Grandmother, Catharine MacKenzie McCrae's cousin John, wrote "Flanders Fields" in WWI for a fallen comrade. I wrote the essay below on Memorial Day of 2002 after meeting a man from near Flanders, who had brought his two small daughters all the way from Belgium to pay their respects to Captain Patty Brown and the men of Ladder 3, who lost half their house the morning of September 11.



When he mentioned where he was from, I said a distant relative had written the famous WWI poem, "Flanders Fields". Upon returning, he sent me the story of how the poem came to be.

"On the first of May 1915 the British withdrew from the deepest point of Ypres Salient in Belgium. The Germans taking this as a sign of weakness, took the offensive again in the morning of May 2nd, they overwhelmed the allied forces at the channel leper-Yzer with shell fire. During this bombing a shell came down at the feet of Lieutenant Alex Helmer, 2nd battery, Canadian Filed Artillery) which killed him immediately. WHen the bombing stopped his comrades gathered what was left of his body which was torn to pieces. They put the remains in sandbags and made a rough human form on an old army blanket which they fastened with safety pins. A bit past sundown the same day, Alex Helmer was buried at the quickly increasing ccemetary of Essex Farm. At the burial was also present, Major (and later Colonel) John McCrae. McCrae tried to say some fragments of the Anglican Service for the Burial of the Dead but was so overwhelmed with emotions that he stopped halfway. The exact details of which happened then is a bit confused. However it is certain that within 24 hours McCrae, inspired by the death of his friend, penned one of the most famous poems resulted from the first World War..."In Flanders Fields"

“FLANDERS FIELDS” by Sandi Bachom
Memorial Day 2002

On Memorial Day, as a child, I recall frayed old men in tattered uniforms handing out Red Paper Poppies on the corner of Hollywood and Vine. And as I dropped a dime into the bucket, a donation to the veterans of past wars, I was more enamored with the brightly colored lapel garnish than with any deeper significance.

It was tradition on this day, during the Assembly in the Auditorium of Cheremoya Grammar School, for a poem to be read, “In Flanders Fields”.

Invariably, my grandmother, Catharine Mackenzie McCrae Higgins, would tell me the same story, of how her cousin, John McCrae, had written this poem during WWI. To this 10 year old, there was a modicum of cache attached to the fact that I was a distant relative of so famous a person. But “Ike” was President and we were far enough away from WWII, the ‘last great war’, for any of this to have real meaning for me. And so, it is the Red Paper Poppy that I recall.

As the years passed, Armistice Day, (The 11th Hour of the 11th Day of the 11th Month, marking the end of World War I.), gave way to Veteran’s Day and Decoration Day became Memorial Day, which in turn became ‘The beginning of summer.’

“In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amidst the guns below.”

In all true art, there is no expiration date. Words and music born out of the artists pain, become an immortal and timeless Anthem for the reader. The great gift and healing of art is this harmonic connection with our collective grief, words WE would have written if we could summon them. The perfect words. This is the healing of art. As if to say, “You are not alone. I have gone before you and I have felt your pain and I have survived.” This is the legacy between the lines. Hope.

“In Flanders Fields” was a eulogy for a fallen brother. Although it was written in 1915, its significance and melancholy, ring even truer on this Memorial Day, in which we honor those who have made the ‘supreme sacrifice’ for their country.

My Uncle, Sgt.Thomas F.(“Dude”) Bachom’s, name is carved into the cold marble of the “Wall of the Missing” in Ardennes, France. “Dude” was a radio operator and flew with the “303rd Bomb Group” known as the “Hells Angels.” He was shot down over the English Channel eleven months after he joined what was then known as The Army Air Corps, December 20, 1942, he was 19 years old.


Captain Patty Brown, whom I met only once, was a Marine and Vietnam Veteran with two tours and a Silver Star to his credit. But it was as a Captain of Ladder 3 in the FDNY, that Patrick laid down his life in defense of his country, on September 11, 2001. He was 48 years old.


For the thousands who unwittingly laid down their lives that day and for the countless ‘crosses row on row’, may I share a Red Paper Poppy and this beautiful poem as a prayer, in Memory of all the Blessed Souls who have passed, whom we honor today.

In Flanders Fields
Lt Col. John McCrae
Whose body lies in Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amidst the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

LAUGHING IN HELL: UNCLE DUDE BACHOM'S FIRST AND LAST MISSION: December 20, 1942
belgium, dude_bachom, flanders_fields, mccrae, memorial_day, patty_brown, poem, war, WWI

ROSEMARY WOODS, Blockbuster and "THE BAD LIEUTENANT"

Right around the time when the frighteningly ubiquitous Blockbuster Videos started popping up like "Triffids" on every corner, it came to my attention, the arbiters of good taste and late fees, were editing their rentals.

Someone in my office had rented Abel Ferrar’s masterpiece of self-annihilation and redemption, "The Bad Lieutenant", remarking that Harvey Keitel’s penis was missing. That the offending scenes were capriciously and surreptitiously guillotined, peaked my interest.

Was there a correlation, that a graphic rape of a nun on an alter, seminal to the moral core of this man’s torture, was all but eliminated from the Blockbuster version? Was it sheer coincidence that, "The Last Temptation of Christ" was conspicuously absent from the shelves of Blockbusters?

Like a crazed member of HUAC, I set out to do a little side by side demonstration of my own.

I rented "The Bad Lieutenant" from Blockbuster and the now defunct, Palmer Video. I taped the first 20 minutes of "both" films, with fascinating results.

The only indication on either box, was the running time, 10 fewer minutes on the Blockbuster version and an "R" rather than the "NC17" of the intact version, no doubt a nod to Mr Keitel’s penis. But was there something more sinister afoot?

Granted, Harvey Keitel loves to brandish his mighty (?), albeit flacid, sword. "The Bad Lieutenant", "The Piano" and, if I’m not mistaken, "Holy Smoke" or perhaps I was just averting my eyes because I was afraid he was going to do it again. The Triple Crown of flashing.

It is obvious that some of the scenes were shot twice by Mr Ferrara. The scenes which were altered, in some cases different wardrobe and music, beg a larger question. Certainly, there must be some collusion between the studios and Blockbuster in order to finish two completely separate release prints. But just who’s in charge of what winds up on the cutting room floor? "It seems that the further you go the more confused you get."

For instance, blood and "fuck", or even "fuck" written in blood, are cool with Blockbuster. But not sodomy, or a crucified Christ, screaming on the cross witnessing a rape. Nudity is ok, but only if you’re a chick, i.e. the violated nun appears completely nude during an examination, yet Harvey’s penis is missing. A bizarre double standard if you ask me. Perpetrated, dare I say, by sexually and religiously repressed male censors? Or am I being too harsh?

Are the Oxy Morons of Blockbuster more concerned with religious rather than secular censorship? I’d love to have been a fly on the wall at THAT meeting!

In Abel Ferrar’s original and shocking vision, which was necessary and endemic to depicting the moral decline of Keitel’s character. Putting the "Bad" in the "Bad Lieutenant." There is a Menage A Trois involving two hookers, opening on a nude blonde with a gag or ‘bit’ in her mouth, being mounted, or something to that effect, equestrian style, by a fully clothed female. Various stages of undress ensue. At one point the blonde, wearing only jockey shorts, slow dances with Keitel . Later, a completely blotto, and now infamous, full frontal Keitel. Amoral. Decadent. Naked. Bad.

Now here’s the odd thing, the track is a very sultry version of Aaron Neville’s, "Forever My Darling," which for some inexplicable reason is replaced in the Blockbuster release by an upbeat and peppy, Doo Wop, rendition of "Oh My Little Darlin." In which lingerie clad Menage do a benign Lindy as if at a Sock Hop.

The original rape on the altar is wrenchingly violent, two men, ripping the nun’s Habit revealing bare buttocks, sodomizing (a recurring theme?) and violating her with a cross, a crucified Christ looking on, screaming in anguish at the spectacle. 57 agonizing seconds that seem like 5 minutes.

The Disney version has the nun screaming in close up, while disembodied hands lop her on the head with a cup. The whole sequence is 15 seconds, which seems like, well, 15 seconds.

It remains to be seen if the artist is compromised by these alterations.

Who really wins, who is protected and from what? One thing is clear. Violence trumps deviant sex and blasphemy everytime.

A couple of years ago I was in Los Angeles at a screening of Adrian Lyne’s, "Lolita," with the director doing a Q&A after. He talked about the censors and how a lawyer was in the cutting room at all times making sure no prurient matter involving the pubescent Lolita, was allowed to pass through the Moviola. I guess they must have been at lunch for Claire Quilty’s blood bath, when Frank Langella’s full frontal flapping penis and last gasp of a Bazooka blood bubble (for which I had to avert my eyes), made the cut.

A final note to the keeper of the moral compass at Blockbuster. Call me crazy, but I’d sooner get the image of Harvey Keitel, inflagrante dilecto, out of my head, than this catchy lyric, "You’re little sister she’s so low, she sucked the dick off a little maggot."

"THANK YOU FOR FIRING ME" ....a place to kvetch, mourn, commiserate, and then get on with your new life

Getting fired, losing your job, being terminated, let go, downsized, outsourced, career adjusted, getting the pink slip kiss, the boot, whatever you call it....SUCKS!

Jerry Seinfeld was on Letterman, soon after 9/11 and he said something that really moved me.

"In the Jewish religion, the basic mourning period is the seven days of Shiva. At the end of that you're required to attempt to re-engage with the world and your life as it was. . . .and that's where we come in."

By all means, kvetch, scream, kick things, rant, boo hoo....but give yourself a cutoff point at which to begin your new life!

As one door closes, another door opens, who says you can't have a few laughs while you're stuck in the hallway, make some new friends who are/were, in the same boat and survived, and learn a few tips on how to get out? Which is why I started a new social networking community http://thanksforfiringme.org

I met the legendary Robert Evans on a helicopter flying to JFK many many years ago. I was terrified and he invited me to sit next to him. "What's the most scared you've ever been in your life?" I asked and he proceeded to weave the remarkable, jaw-dropping story of his life, which continued on the airplane for the next 5 hours to Los Angeles. I can vouch for it's veracity, every word appeared in his autobiography years later. I didn't realize at the time what an honor it was to hear a story of such resilience, I did not need it till years later. I found a quote by him recently.

"Nobody who is successful hasn't fallen."

I mean, look at Al Gore, if he was President, he wouldn't have won the Academy Award, Emmy, Nobel Prize, or brought the world's consciousness to global warming! What's in store for you?

I've been hit by a car three times in my life. I've been drunk, sober, hired, fired, rich, poor and now on Social Security, but I never died from getting fired, although it felt as though I would at the time. As a matter of fact, I have never been fired from a job I loved, but then again, I would have stayed married to my ex husband for the rest of my life!

This is a terrible time, of people losing jobs they really love, I mean the really good and talented and brilliant people, people who have never not worked, people who have never been fired!

That’s why I started this site. It happened to me and I was convinced I was going to die. I lost a 30 year career, a 20 year marriage and 9/11 happened the same month. It was like the end of "The Sopranos."

I learned two things:
1. I was not my job, my business card or my paycheck
2. I can survive anything... with laughter.

Sometimes we have to lose everything to reveal our true essence, our purpose.

I love to ask people what they would do if they didn't have to work. I mean what would you do? It's a rare opportunity if you can close the gap between the fear and the desire. And maybe, just maybe, this might be the opportunity of a lifetime to find your bliss, your purpose for being here, a gift wrapped inside the adversity.

This is a truly unique and empowering time, we have so many more options than at any other time in history. For instance, I made this site in one hour! It's free! NING allows you to create your own social network, you can even put a paypal button, or gazillion widgets. You can upload your portfolio, photographs, writings, or, in my case..... 100 videos.

Please join and share your stories of how you cope, or afraid you won't. Ask questions, like "What happens after my COBRA runs out?"and I'm not talking your pet snake.

Just hearing others are going through the same thing, it helps to know you're not alone. it's going to be a tough time, but we can help each other, a problem shared, is a problem halved and we pull each other along by sharing our experience, strength, hope and laughter.

With love and laughter,

Sandi

LAUGHING IN HELL: "THANK YOU FOR FIRING ME" ....a place to kvetch, mourn, commiserate, and then get on with your new life

18 THINGS TO DO IF YOU GET FIRED.....NOW!

1. Write down all the other times in your life you've lost something and how you made it through
2.. Write down your fears, date them
3. Write down the worst case scenario
4. Write down every thing you know and every one you know
5. Join every stupid social networking community that 'friends' you and cannibalize your friends' friends
6. Go to NING.com. Its' FREE and start your own social networking community and invite your friends to join and their friends' friends. Put a paypal button on it and sell something, you're limited only by your imagination.
7. Sell something on ebay. When I couldn't get work, I sold my collection of Bakelite jewelry and vintage clothes and supported myself for 6 months!
8. Write down what successes happened to you NEXT week and envision how it felt. That's how I met Steven Spielberg!
9. Read biographies of people like Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King and Barack Obama and see what they went through before they made it.
10. Fear money never comes
11. People sense desperation, it goes to their fears and that's what they remember about you. Take it from me, I learned the hard way
12. Smile before you pick up the phone
13. If you have an interview or a big meeting. Write down on a piece of paper the END of the meeting and the outcome you want to happen. Trust me, this works, it's how I met Steven Spielberg!
14. After you've finished writing the email, take the last sentence and put it first
15. Watch out for negative self talk, if you catch yourself thinking about all the reasons you can't get work; you're too old, too fat, too whatever. STOP and replace with a reason why you're uniquely qualified
16. What would you do if you didn't have to work?
17. Write a gratitude list
18. Rent funny movies, at the very least it's impossible to be depressed and laugh at the same time

HOW EBAY SAVED MY LIFE!

From my new Social Networking Community "Thank You For Firing Me!"

I've always been really attached to my stuff, But I've learned a couple of things over the years, if you own enough stuff, it starts owning you and if you don't watch out, you're going to wind up a George Carlin routine.

So a few years ago after losing a 3 decade long career in advertising after 9/11, I was in therapy at the time and he says to me when I said I have another month's worth of money to live on....."Sell something!" he said.

Now I had been collecting vintage clothing, Hawaiian shirts and a huge collection of Bakelite jewelry I had been acquiring for 30 years. But the idea of getting rid of any of it broke my heart.

I got an ebay account, actually, I'd had one for 10 years but only to buy more STUFF! A friend of mine had told me ebay saved her life when her husband lost his job and she gave me a template for selling, which I would be happy to share with you if you email me.

The sting of letting go of my precious possessions was soon soothed by the money flowing into my checking account, and the community and the positive feedback, it's all an amazing and wonderful secret. But at the very least, you could get going TODAY to help you get passed the fear of economic insecurity.

This is what I put up on my ebay store.

*~Without question, ebay saved my life! In the process of letting go of my "stuff, I learned a couple of interesting things. 1) If you own enough "stuff", eventually, it starts owning you! 2) If you haven't worn it or looked at it in 5 years, get rid of it, SOMEBODY on ebay will be thrilled to have it. 3. Out of sight, out of mind, you really don't miss it after it's gone. 4. Besides, if you do miss it, you can always buy it back on ebay! All of the quality Vintage clothing and accessories from the 1940's and the Rockabilly 1950's, Vintage jewelry, Bakelite, Celluloid, Art Pottery, Vintage Designer clothing and Antiques are from my closet, either a family heirloom or purchased by me over the past 40 years! From the bottom of my heart I want to thank each and every ebayer world wide who has given my "stuff" a new home and me, a new lease on life! Sandi~*

I'm a Poweseller and I have 100% positive feedback which is pretty cool. I sold all my Hawaiian shirts and all my Bakelite and my grandmother's bisque doll and the Havilland China my family had schlepped cross country three times since the Civil War....and once it's gone, out of site out of mind. And I figure, if I really want it back, I'll buy it back on ebay!

I had a couple of really wild 'coincidences' happen on ebay. Once when I really needed money, I asked my ex husband if I could see the 3 Tiffany Salts he had bought me for our wedding and anniversary. It was the hardest of all my 'stuff' to release. And that's what you need to do, acknowledge what it represents to you, release it and bless it into the Universe!

So he said fine and knew I needed the money more and besides I could in fact buy them back easily, so I sold them and as luck would have it, all three went to the same guy, so I packed them up and sent them off with blessings and tears.

Three months later, the unopened box is returned with three attempts to deliver! I went onto ebay and he was no where to be found, his account dead, and I was hoping he NOT along with it. So that was just the best, not only did I get the money, go through the experience of releasing them, but I got them back! What a story.

I also sold the Havilland China, and "coincidentally" when I mailed it, it went to a person who lived on Colgate Avenue in the same complex AND street that my grandmother who owned the China lived!!!!!

And remember, you must have something that you don't use, wear or need anymore that someone would cherish. I sell all over the world. Watch "Antique Roadshow" or find an item and then go onto ebay and do some research to see what the going rate is.

I'll help you if you really get stuck.

"FLANDERS FIELDS" For Captain Patty Brown and Tech. Sgt. Thomas F. "Dude" Bachom

I always like to retrace the steps leading up to the miracle. Cleaning out some old files today, I found the story of this poem written by my grandmother's cousin. Although it was written 93 years ago, it applies to any hell that we may be in. And right after he wrote this preamble, he penned one of the most enduring poems in history!

If you had told me two months ago, laying on that Brooklyn street after being hit by a car, I would not walk for two months, I would have availed myself of the cops service revolver right then and there. My friend who was a prisoner in Auschwitz, did not know as he entered hell, when or if, he would ever get out. And then one day, as abruptly as he entered, he was liberated! So it is with all of our personal hells.



"I wish I could embody on paper some of the varied sensations of that seventeen days... Seventeen days of Hades! At the end of the first day if anyone had told us we had to spend seventeen days there, we would have folded our hands and said it could not have been done."
~Lt Col John McCrae, May 2, 1915 Ypres, Belgium

My Grandmother, Catharine MacKenzie McCrae's cousin John, wrote "Flanders Fields" in WWI for a fallen comrade. I wrote the essay below on Memorial Day of 2002 after meeting a man from near Flanders, who had brought his two small daughters all the way from Belgium to pay their respecst to Captain Patty Brown and the men of Ladder 3 who lost their lives the morning of September 11.



When he mentioned where he was from, I said a distant relative had written the famous WWI poem, "Flanders Fields". Upon returning, he sent me the story of how the poem came to be.

"On the first of May 1915 the British withdrew from the deepest point of Ypres Salient in Belgium. The Germans taking this as a sign of weakness, took the offensive agin in the morning of May 2nd, they overwhelmed the allied forces at the channel leper-Yzer with shell fire. During this bombing a shell came down at the feet of Lieutenant Alex Helmer, 2nd battery, Canadian Filed Artillery) which killed him immediately. WHen the bombing stopped his comrades gathered what was left of his body which was torn to pieces. They put the remains in sandbags and made a rough human form on an old army blanket which they fastened with safety pins. A bit past sundown the same day, Alex Helmer was buried at the quickly increasing ccemetary of Essex Farm. At the burial was also present, Major (and later Colonel) John McCrae. McCrae tried to say some fragments of the Anglican Service for the Burial of the Dead but was so overwhelmed with emotions that he stopped halfway. The exact details of which happened then is a bit confused. However it is certain that within 24 hours McCrae, inspired by the death of his friend, penned one of the most famous poems resulted from the first World War..."In Flanders Fields"

“FLANDERS FIELDS” by Sandi Bachom
Memorial Day 2002

On Memorial Day, as a child, I recall frayed old men in tattered uniforms handing out Red Paper Poppies on the corner of Hollywood and Vine. And as I dropped a dime into the bucket, a donation to the veterans of past wars, I was more enamored with the brightly colored lapel garnish than with any deeper significance.

It was tradition on this day, during the Assembly in the Auditorium of Cheremoya Grammar School, for a poem to be read, “In Flanders Fields”.

Invariably, my grandmother, Catharine Mackenzie McCrae Higgins, would tell me the same story, of how her cousin, John McCrae, had written this poem during WWI. To this 10 year old, there was a modicum of cache attached to the fact that I was a distant relative of so famous a person. But “Ike” was President and we were far enough away from WWII, the ‘last great war’, for any of this to have real meaning for me. And so, it is the Red Paper Poppy that I recall.

As the years passed, Armistice Day, (The 11th Hour of the 11th Day of the 11th Month, marking the end of World War I.), gave way to Veteran’s Day and Decoration Day became Memorial Day, which in turn became ‘The beginning of summer.’

“In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amidst the guns below.”

In all true art, there is no expiration date. Words and music born out of the artists pain, become an immortal and timeless Anthem for the reader. The great gift and healing of art is this harmonic connection with our collective grief, words WE would have written if we could summon them. The perfect words. This is the healing of art. As if to say, “You are not alone. I have gone before you and I have felt your pain and I have survived.” This is the legacy between the lines. Hope.

“In Flanders Fields” was a eulogy for a fallen brother. Although it was written in 1915, its significance and melancholy, ring even truer on this Memorial Day, in which we honor those who have made the ‘supreme sacrifice’ for their country.

My Uncle, Sgt.Thomas F.(“Dude”) Bachom’s, name is carved into the cold marble of the “Wall of the Missing” in Ardennes, France. “Dude” was a radio operator and flew with the “303rd Bomb Group” known as the “Hells Angels.” He was shot down over the English Channel three months after he joined the United States Airforce, December 20, 1942, he was 19 years old.


Captain Patty Brown, whom I met only once, was a Marine and Vietnam Veteran with two tours and a Silver Star to his credit. But it was as a Captain of Ladder 3 in the FDNY, that Patrick laid down his life in defense of his country, on September 11, 2001. He was 48 years old.


For the thousands who unwittingly laid down their lives that day and for the countless ‘crosses row on row’, may I share a Red Paper Poppy and this beautiful poem as a prayer, in Memory of all the Blessed Souls who have passed, whom we honor today.

In Flanders Fields
Lt Col. John McCrae
Whose body lies in Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amidst the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

LAUGHING IN HELL: "FLANDERS FIELDS" For Captain Patty Brown and Tech. Sgt. Thomas F. "Dude" Bachom