* " better than Louis XIV." John D. Ogden

( Click for background music to this post.)

Louis XIV

Versailles

Versailles

Stokowski

Gratitude (Giving Thanks)

I had a doctor’s appointment in Windsor, Vermont this morning and drove the 20 miles listening to Bach's Oboe and Violin Concerto on public radio (click the video here) As I pulled into the parking lot the Bach ended its 13.50 minutes.  

I realized that I had just listened to musical beauty which at one time a few hundred years ago, was reserved for aristocracy and kings, now available free to anyone with a radio.

In the early 1940’s the conductor Leopold Stokowski, speaking about musical performances on radio, predicted that there would be a time when the average citizen was surrounded 24 hours a day by music of his/her choice.

That was before iPods and cell phones;  even before CD’s and walkmen.

Stokowlski the prophet.

A professor  of mine, John D. Ogden, who had a PhD from Yale in Romantic Literature, once said in exasperation when I was spouting off about poverty in America,  that " the average American lives better than Louis the XIV.”

I had to ask him “How?”

Central heat

Plumbing

Refrigeration

Washing machines / Dryers

Beds

Permanent press clothing

Clean water

Baths

Health care

Dentistry

Lice control

Bedbug control

Personal hygiene

·        Soap

·        Deodorant

·        Mouthwash