Talk of the Town - Win with Winnie September 26 2001

In a time of crisis, we crave eloquence.

Crave away. The age of the well-crafted speech, the finely honed phrase, is dead. Over the years, one by one, our education system has junked the fundaments that once were the building blocks of great oratory: Latin, Greek, elocution, being able to spell C-A-T.

In the old days — the really old days — legend has it that Demosthenes, that great Greek orator, put pebbles in his mouth to improve the quality of his speech. You don’t find dedication like that anymore. Or cracked molars.

Our modern-day leaders don’t spend much time worrying about how they sound. It’s all they can do to remember the names of everyone in the Cabinet. Woodrow Wilson was the last president to actually write his own speeches, but what else can you expect from a former college professor?

It makes me nostalgic for my Sir Winston Churchill record. You heard it a lot around our house in the summer of 1965. Produced by National Geographic and released as a square of black vinyl tucked in the magazine, it provided a stirring aural account of the late prime minister’s funeral.

Churchill, who loved pomp and circumstance, actually helped plan his own last rites, an endeavor he jovially dubbed “Operation Hope Not.” There was plenty of time to get ready; Winnie lived to be 90.

Narrated in the classically clipped tones of David Brinkley, the record was a blend of military marches, sumptuous choral music and eulogies for the man who, perhaps more than any other, embodied civilization’s struggle against an onslaught of fanaticism. Each flight of Churchillian oratory was followed by a loud cannon salute.

“We shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills, we shall never surrender.”

BOOM!

“Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however hard and long the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.”

POW!

“Let us brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and all its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’”

BANG!

As a kid, I would not — could not — stop playing this record. I played it so much that the sheet of vinyl wore out and I bought a second copy of the same National Geographic just to have the record again. Picture a demented 7-year-old marching around a fairly small abode, a thumping brass rendition of Chopin’s “Marche Funebre” or a lush version of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” (Sir Winston’s favorite) pouring forth from our hi-fi as my mother tried to watch “Days of Our Lives” in the next room.

“I come here,” intoned Gen. Eisenhower (on my record; he never appeared on “Days of Our Lives”) “to exalt the memory and extol the virtues of my old friend, Winston Churchill.”

KA-BAM!

I really loved the cannon fire. It was the same thing that got to Mom. Maybe it was because her soap opera had reached a juicy crossroads and she couldn’t hear the TV. Maybe it was because I had played the Churchill record five times in a row, at top volume, after coming home from school that day.

“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”

BANG!

A shell-shocked woman appeared.

“That’s it!” Mom yelled. “Turn that thing off! I’m sorry he’s dead, but enough is enough! It’s even made me hate Eisenhower, and I voted for him. Twice!”

My Churchill record was laid to rest, and I was busted down to my next favorite recording, a collection of song parodies by Allan Sherman titled “My Son, the Nut,” a phrase my parents were no doubt deploying at this time. The closest Sherman’s album got to Churchillian grandeur was “Won’t You Come Home Disraeli?”

But for a long time thereafter, if anyone asked me what my favorite song was, I always piped up: “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Adults always thought that was a howler.

Now I know we don’t live in an age of eloquence anymore, and some derogatory stuff has come out about Old Winston. He drank a lot more brandy than he should have, and it turns out there was an actor who impersonated him on the radio during World War II.

I don’t care. Thirty-six years later, I remember the words. Not exactly, but enough. Here’s how it reads in Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations:

“Do not let us speak of darker days. Let us speak rather of sterner days. These are not dark days, they are great days, the greatest our country has ever lived; and we must all thank God that we have been allowed, each of us according to our stations ... to play a part in making these days memorable.”

And pour the prez a brandy before his next TV appearance.

Sir Glen Slattery lives in Alpharetta.??