tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4120420138626307236.post7140054513407981953..comments2018-04-17T08:23:25.250-07:00Comments on The Whole Kipp and Kabuldle: Opening My EyesStephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17597787165512642036noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4120420138626307236.post-17041002443282317272009-09-30T20:32:43.544-07:002009-09-30T20:32:43.544-07:00The focus on the arts in the midst of war, chaos a...The focus on the arts in the midst of war, chaos and some would say hopelessness reminds me of Joseph Heller's 1946 Pulitzer A Bell for Adono. Heller was a war correspondent assigned to a tiny Italian village decimated in the conflict. He trailed a young major Joloppo, assigned to oversee the restoration. One of his first acts was to gather some of the townspeople and to ask what they most needed. "A bell, mister...a bell for our church." Joloppo thought they were mad. They hadn't burried some of their dead, they had nothing to eat and had barely the clothes on their backs. He learned though that for 700 years, their bell had sounded the beginning and end of each day, announced births and weddings...even called the men in from the fields. A few weeks before the end of the fighting, Mussolini confiscated the bell and had it melted down for bullets. The bell meant life, and the chance for normalcy. Joloppo radioed a buddy in the Navy and had a ship's bell refitted for the church tower. They broke all kinds of rules getting it off the seas and into the church; but with the ringing of the bell, life returned to Adono. This story took on a deeper meaning for me upon returning from a community development project in very rural Idaho...a town built by the homestead act near the shores of the Snake River. I organized a "vision fair" that had people buzzing about education and jobs and kids and downtown redevelopment. The most concrete outcome, though, was the restoration of the old Theatre where Wild Bill Cote and later some of the greats of vaudeville used to perform...ok, but not the economic recovery my rescue fantasy had me harbor. On the way home, I read the Times obit for the real Major Joloppo and discovered how he had revisited the town after he retired from Con Ed and they'd rung the bell for him every hour for 6 days. He could still hear it in the nursing home, and felt it was the greatest thing he'd ever done. So caligraphy and wood carving in the midst of roadside bombs? Maybe Heller saw something worthy of the Pulitzer even before he wrote it.mikekipphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02698889780540393411noreply@blogger.com