Mr. Holland’s opus

My - My apologies for my tardiness, and uh, Principle Walters, I’d like to know. Yes, I brought a note for my mother. Mr Holland had a profound influence on my life, on a lot of lives, I know. And, yet, I get the feeling that he considers a great part of his own life misspent. Rumor had it, he was always working on this symphony of his and this was going to make him famous, rich - probably both. But Mr Holland isn’t rich and he isn’t famous, at least not outside of our little town. So it might be easy for him to think himself a failure. And he would be wrong, because I think he’s achieved a success far beyond riches and fame. Look around you. There is not a life in this room that you have not touched. And each of us is a better person because of you. We are your symphony, Mr Holland. We are the melodies and the notes of your opus. And we are the music of your life. Mr Holland, we would now live to give something back to you, to you and your wife, who, along with you, has waited 30 years for what we are about to hear. If you will, would you please come up here and take this baton and lead us in the first performance ever of “The American Symphony” by Glenn Holland.

Gertrude Lang

Relish Moment

Tucked away in our subconscious is an idyllic vision. We see ourselves on a long trip that spans the continent. We are traveling by train. Out the windows, we drink in the passing scene of cars on nearby highways, of children waving at a crossing, of cattle grazing on a distant hillside, of smoke pouring from a power plant, of row upon row of corn and wheat, of flatlands and valleys, of mountains and rolling hillsides, of city skylines and village halls.But uppermost in our minds is the final destination. On a certain day at a certain hour, we will pull into the station. Bands will be playing and flags waving. Once we get there, so many wonderful dreams will come true and the pieces of our lives will fit together like a completed jigsaw puzzle. How restlessly we pace the aisles, damning the minutes for loitering --waiting, waiting, waiting for the station. "When we reach the station, that will be it! "we cry. "When I'm 18. ""When I buy a new 450SL Mercedes Benz! ""When I put the last kid through college. ""When I have paid off the mortgage!""When I get a promotion.""When I reach the age of retirement, I shall live happily ever after! "

Float

THE WAR went on, successfully for the most part, but people had stopped saying “One more victory and the war is over,

” just as they had stopped saying the Yankees were cowards. It was obvious to all now that the Yankees were far from

cowardly and that it would take more than one victory to conquer them. However, there were the Confederate victories in

Tennessee scored by General Morgan and General Forrest and the triumph at the Second Battle of Bull Run hung up like

visible Yankee scalps to gloat over. But there was a heavy price on these scalps. The hospitals and homes of Atlanta were

overflowing with the sick and wounded, and more and more women were appearing in black. The monotonous rows of soldiers’

graves at Oakland Cemetery stretched longer every day.
Confederate money had dropped alarmingly and the price of food and clothing had risen accordingly. The commissary was

laying such heavy levies on foodstuffs that the tables of Atlanta were beginning to suffer. White flour was scarce and so

expensive that corn bread was universal instead of biscuits, rolls and waffles. The butcher shops carried almost no beef

and very little mutton, and that mutton cost so much only the rich could afford it. However there was still plenty of hog

meat, as well as chickens and vegetables.
The Yankee blockade about the Confederate ports had tightened, and luxuries such as tea, coffee, silks, whalebone

stays, colognes, fashion magazines and books were scarce and dear. Even the cheapest cotton goods had skyrocketed in

price and ladies were regretfully making their old dresses do another season. Looms that had gathered dust for years had

been brought down from attics, and there were webs of homespun to be found in nearly every parlor. Everyone, soldiers,

civilians, women, children and negroes, began to wear homespun. Gray, as the color of the Confederate uniform,

practically disappeared and homespun of a butternut shade took its place.
Already the hospitals were worrying about the scarcity of quinine, calomel, opium, chloroform and iodine. Linen and

cotton bandages were too precious now to be thrown away when used, and every lady who nursed at the hospitals brought

home baskets of bloody strips to be washed and ironed and returned for use on other sufferers.
But to Scarlett, newly emerged from the chrysalis of widowhood, all the war meant was a time of gaiety and excitement.

Even the small privations of clothing and food did not annoy her, so happy was she to be in the world again.
When she thought of the dull times of the past year, with the days going by one very much like another, life seemed to

have quickened to an incredible speed. Every day dawned as an exciting adventure, a day in which she would meet new men

who would ask to call on her, tell her how pretty she was, and how it was a privilege to fight and, perhaps, to die for

her. She could and did love Ashley with the last breath in her body, but that did not prevent her from inveigling other

men into asking to marry her.