There is a pretty good story about this guy, named Claude.  It starts out with him attending Temple College.  Through that experience… young Claude attempts to broaden his mind and his own world perception.  But, oh-oh.  He is hit with a monkey wrench in the scheme of things.

It was his Dad.  Yepppers.  Old Claude’s father decides to expand the family farm.  So, now….. Claude is obligated to leave university and operate the old Eee-I-Eee-I-Ooooh.

Things go from bad to worse. Once pinned to the farm, Claude marries Enid Royce…. but the whole marriage deal is a bust.  Enid… is more interested in political activism and such. So… Enid tanks on the whole deal and takes a slow boat to China.

But the story doesn’t end there.   Claude moves back to his family’s farm.  Ho freaking hum.

As World War I begins in Europe….the family is entirely fixated on the excitement… and the fighting abroad.  So….. low and behold…. when the United States decides to enter the war, Claude enlists in the US Army.

Now Claude thinks he has found a purpose in life. He thinks he has risen far beyond the drudgery of farming and marriage.  Claude thinks his new quest is ALL that…. and then some.

There is a big old influenza epidemic and of course… all the continuing hardships of the battlefield. Yar.

But old Claude Wheeler feels like he has never, ever, mattered more.

And how does it all end?  Oh… you know.  Claude chases his vague notions of purpose and principle.  And all of this….  culminates in a ferocious front-line encounter with an overwhelming German onslaught.

And that is all I will tell you about that story.

You see…It isn’t my story.  A woman named Willa Cather made it up.  And then she wrote it down.  She wrote it down so good… that she went and won a Pulitzer Prize in Literature in 1922 for her work.

Willa was one heck of a woman.  A real free thinker… a bit of a pathfinder… and a very gifted writer.  Her life is filled with interesting  bits and pieces.  She never married.  No rugrats either.  She had several significant relationships with women throughout her life… including Edith Lewis.

Cather’s relationship with Edith Lewis began in the early 1900s.   People probably called them a couple of “spinsters” or something.

The two women lived together in a series of apartments in New York City……from 1908…. until the writer’s death in 1947. For a long time… the two of them lived at No. 5 Bank Street in Greenwich Village. They had to move…. when the apartment was scheduled for demolition during construction of the Seventh Avenue subway line.

Cather died of a brain hemorrhage.  And Edith Lewis handled the Estate.  There are many around today that question whether or not Cather was a lesbian.  I don’t know why it matters, really.  But there seems to be quite a dispute over the matter.

At any rate.  Strong, pioneering woman.  Smart. Talented.  Great writer.  Yes… she could spin a big web of a story.    I think she is one of those people I would like to  talk to… if the Time Machine ever gets up and running.

But back to the point of all of this.  Today is Willa’s birthday. December 7th, 1873.  And that’s all I know about that tonight.

“Put your talent into your work, but your genius into your life” – Oscar Wilde