Our Beloved Blue-Eyed Brother, Charles, With Whom We Are Well Pleased

Summary: Our beloved blue-eyed brother, Charles, with whom we are well pleased, was the guiding inspiration for the Met Opera and Astronomy posts on Earth and Space News.

Grandma Blue Eyes and brown- or hazel-eyed Grandpa August had five brown- or hazel-eyed children; Charles, son of their brown/hazel-eyed son Edward and his brown-eyed wife, is the only blue-eyed inheritor among generations of Grandma Rose's descendants; table of probabilities of offspring eye color according to parental eye color in humans; March 26, 2021, table: Pablo Carlos Budassi (Unmismoobjetivo), CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons

Our beloved blue-eyed brother, Charles, with whom we are well pleased, guided the creation of the Met Opera and Astronomy posts on Earth and Space News.

Earth and Space News publishes Met Opera posts every Monday. The Astronomy posts publish every Wednesday.

Through his dedication, and despite health concerns, the Met Opera and Astronomy posts for Earth and Space News have been completed for 2022 and beyond. His legacy for 2022 enriches Earth and Space News with 52 Astronomy posts and 37 Met Opera posts.

The Met Opera posts already are scheduled for every Wednesday in 2022, from Jan. 3 through Sep. 12. The posts for Jan. 3 through June 6 cover the Saturday matinee radio broadcasts for the 2021-2022 season. The posts for June 13 through Sep. 12 consider various themes and aim to maintain interest in opera over the summer, between seasons.

For example, eight of the summer Met Opera posts present the history of Richard Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg in the opera company's repertoire. The eight posts are scheduled for June 13 through Aug. 1.

The first of the eight posts reveals the historical opera's early insertion into Met Opera's repertoire. Met Opera hosted the opera's United States premiere on Monday, Jan. 4, 1886, in the opera company's third season.

Seven posts focus on Met Opera's current production of Die Meistersinger. Austrian opera and theater director Otto Schenk's new production of the atypical Wagnerian opera received its Met Opera debut Thursday, Jan. 14, 1993. The debut occurred 107 years after the opera's United States premiere and marked the opera company's 379th performance of Die Meistersinger. Successive posts detail the production's six revivals.

The eight posts provide background for the seventh revival of Schenk's Meistersinger production. The seventh revival was staged in October and November of the current season, 2021-2022.

The Astronomy posts for Earth and Space News consider two moons in the solar system. Earth's moon qualifies the third planet from the sun as the sun's nearest planet orbited by a natural satellite. Titan occurs as the largest of 82 moons (53 confirmed and named; 29 awaiting confirmation) associated with sixth planet from the sun Saturn. Titan rates, after first-place Jupiter's Ganymede, as the solar system's second largest natural satellite.

The year's posts on Earth's moon concern eclipses and the unusual category of minor features. The year's eclipse quartet features two partial solar eclipses and two total lunar eclipses. Supplemental posts situate the eclipses within their respective Saros series.

Nineteen of the moon's 95 minor features are profiled in the last half of 2022. The minor features have been assigned first-name designations.

The first half of 2022 examines three features on Saturn's Titan. Saturn's largest moon contains 13 albedo features, four large ringed features and three hydrocarbon seas.

The diversity of themes in the Astronomy and Met Opera posts scheduled for Earth and Space News in 2022 exemplifies Charles's extensive knowledge of astronomy and music. He was blessed with a phenomenal memory, an articulate inquisitiveness and an invaluable, encyclopedic, multi-disciplinary understanding of the world. He expanded and refined his great mind through chess, which he first played, at a young age, with our father. His expertise at playing marbles, which he learned via our father's antique marble set, developed our brother's powers of concentration, coordination and observation.

His impressive intellectual prowess occurred within the context of his good-natured personality. His sense of humor was expressed in jokes, riddles and word plays that exhibited an astute grasp of languages. His cartoon synopses of literary classics were exquisitely and hilariously drawn. His humor was never at the expense of anyone or anything.

Charles had a great interest in sports. Charles's interest in sports included providing fascinating background information and statistics on events and players.

Although he displayed an interest in a range of sports, he favored baseball. A symmetry in his life occurred with the winning of the 2021 World Series by the Atlanta Braves in the last week of his life. His attending a Braves game with our father numbered among his many halcyon memories of our extraordinary father. Back then, the game had taken place in Milwaukee as the Boston Braves (1871-1952) played as the Milwaukee Braves from 1953-1965. The Milwaukee Braves relocated to Georgia to become the Atlanta Braves in 1966.

Charles also liked to bowl and to play golf and tennis. For water sports, he swam and boated.

The kitchen was one of the settings for Charles's aesthetic sense. His creations were prepared perfectly and presented appealingly. His in-demand recipes include beef bourguignon, skillet chicken with carrots and red potatoes, chop suey and yule logs. His yule logs were works of art. Although he favored herbal teas, his hosting talents included making superb coffee.

Charles also expressed his aesthetic sense with his appreciation of snow globes, a favorite family ornament. He never passed a snow globe without picking it up, gently shaking it, returning it to its place and watching the snowfall.

He always had time to appreciate nature. He enjoyed cycling and long walks.

There is so much to remember and miss about our beloved blue-eyed brother. We will miss his voice, just as we miss our father's voice. He always spoke clearly and succinctly. His superb musicianship, as composer, historian, instrumentalist, performer and theorist, included perfectly-pitched singing as well as musical notations of bird songs, feline meows and wind sounds around and through the branches and leaves of various tree species. His discerning analyses of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's music provided fascinating and illuminating insights into the Classical Era composer's genius.

Felines, who are treasured members of our family, always have enjoyed Charles's company. They particularly enjoyed snuggling next to, or on, him as he read or during family film nights. Charles's feline family, currently composed of Brindie, Brindet, Pumpkin ("Punkin"), Tikka and Clinkerina, deeply miss him. He was predeceased by the feline Great Ones: Calico and her kittens, including Caliquina and Merlino; Augusta "Gusty"; Grey; Rennie; Rosy; Lynx; Sweetie Pie and Mors.

Our beloved blue-eyed brother, Charles, with whom we are well pleased, is irreplaceable in his familial roles as brother, son, grandson, nephew and cousin. Family, friends and strangers were reassured by and impressed with his calm personality, faith, great inner strength, intelligence, reliability, resilience and wisdom.

We gave our beloved blue-eyed brother a number of nicknames: Chalres, Chas (Chaz), Chuck Frank, Chuckity (Chuck-ih-tee), CFER (see-fur) and Frère (French: "brother"). CFER referenced his initials and also his facility with ciphers and codes, inherited from our wonderful father.

Our beloved blue-eyed brother, Charles, was unique in all aspects of his life. Genetically, he was the only one of Grandma Rose's descendants who inherited her beautiful blue eyes. We fondly nicknamed her Grandma Blue Eyes, and our maternal grandmother, brown-eyed Laura, was known as Grandma Brown Eyes.

The blueness of Charles's eyes often changed from baby (light, not pale) blue to navy (deep blue) to azure (sky blue). Baby blue, the usual color of his eyes, conveyed his bravery, faithfulness and loyalty as well as his interests, especially in music. Deep blue seemed to be associated with thoughtfulness. Sky blue expressed humor.

"Nemophila menziesii 7790.JPG," March 18, 2015, photo of baby blue eyes wildflowers (Nemophila menziesii) in Lancaster, California, by Walter Siegmund: Walter Siegmund (Wsiegmund), CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

"Nemophila menziesii 7790.JPG," March 18, 2015, photo of baby blue eyes wildflowers (Nemophila menziesii) in Lancaster, California, by Walter Siegmund: Walter Siegmund (Wsiegmund), CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nemophila_menziesii_7790.JPG

Grandma Blue Eyes and brown- or hazel-eyed Grandpa August had five brown- or hazel-eyed children; Charles, son of their brown/hazel-eyed son Edward and his brown-eyed wife, is the only blue-eyed inheritor among generations of Grandma Rose's descendants; table of probabilities of offspring eye color according to parental eye color in humans; March 26, 2021, table: Pablo Carlos Budassi (Unmismoobjetivo), CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Offspring_eye_color.png