This is the blog for the Bentari Project.
Friday, February 14, 2014
This is a true story about a man who called his wife “Beanie” on account of her string-bean figure. The soft-spoken, dignified lady loved her man and all his endearments. The love story of Richard and Mildred Loving made history. [1] Richard, a white man, had married his beloved Mildred, an African-American woman. After two-years of dating, the cou...
Read full postSaturday, February 01, 2014
Pete Seeger died on Monday, January 27, 2014—the same day as my most recent blog entry—a musical post in honor of my Dad’s birthday. Pete was and always will be an icon in American musical heritage. While pop and I were not musically endowed in terms of talent, we both loved music. And I loved Pete Seeger. I loved him from the first time his influe...
Read full postMonday, January 27, 2014
Sukiyaki [1] (Original title “Ue o Muite Arukou” by Kyu Sakamoto [2] , 12/10/1941—8/12/1985) This song holds one of my earliest musical memories. I would listen to an instrumental version over and over sitting on the floor in front of the hi-fi that mom won in a radio contest. Mom and dad kept a dozen or so 72 rpm albums. Sukiyaki was on one record...
Read full postSaturday, January 18, 2014
Words shared between Bill Moyers [1] and Bentari Project hero Dr. Jane Goodall [2] . BILL MOYERS: But does the meaning come with the DNA or is it something we create out of life? As you have created meaning with your life? JANE GOODALL: I don't think that faith really can be scientifically explained. And I don't want to explain this whole life busi...
Read full postSaturday, January 11, 2014
—from Bentari —Hans and Karl, who fought in the battle, later correspond with Bentari and narrator Max Farleigh: One thing amused the Germans and they shared it with me in a letter not very long ago. It seems that one of the most recent letters from Bentari was full of odd questions. It seems that the young student-athlete had recently read an essa...
Read full postFriday, November 29, 2013
From Bentari, Chapter 2, “My Struggle” (Uncle George tells the narrator Max Farleigh about the friendly youth Bentari who was at the steamboat landing to greet Max on his arrival): “And you’ll be surprised to find that at times he seems to even speak with the jungle beasts.” Here is a Thanksgiving gift for Bentari Believers—a story about those who ...
Read full postMonday, October 07, 2013
Glencoe Elementary School in Portland, Oregon [1] was a super place for me to get started being educated. My mom and aunts and uncle went to Glencoe, and now my grandchildren are learning about their world in the same classrooms and hallways and on the same black-topped playgrounds. The school wasn’t perfect during my years there, not that any scho...
Read full postSaturday, October 05, 2013
You know, the very first germ of a seed of an idea for this adventure story occurred to me when I was in the 8th grade at Glencoe Elementary School [1] in Portland, Oregon. Here is Chapter 1 of Bentari . I hope you like it! The Calm Belgian Congo, north of Mbara Territory—April, 1943 Sometimes the calm occurs as the sun first breaks across the east...
Read full postSaturday, October 05, 2013
One hundred million years had come and gone since the forest and the grasslands had begun debating their boundaries in these tropics. This little savanna had seen her children go through many changes in that time, and some changes were extraordinary. Take the rock hyrax, for example. Presently, this tiny rock dweller is the closest living relative ...
Read full postSaturday, October 05, 2013
Suddenly, a beautiful morning calm occurred. The boy sat still atop the turret of the once deadly German tank to view the jungle’s silent majesty. The moment’s symmetry filled his breast with awe. How he loved the glory of all the teeming life around him. His lips rose involuntarily into a gentle little smile. He was so happy. If only Mother and Fa...
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