The hands of time

We'll all be moving our clocks ahead tonight as we spring forward into daylight saving time.

Which reminds me of the General Assembly.

As a reporter for WTVR TV, I covered the state legislature for a few years back in the early 1970s. Things were different then. Conservative Democrats controlled both houses at the Capitol, and there were so few Republicans that they could have caucused in a closet.

Relations between the factions at the General Assembly were slightly more civilized. Senators and delegates prided themselves on being gentlemen and in behaving in a gentlemanly manner. (In 1970, there were no female senators. If memory serves, there was one woman delegate, Mrs. Eleanor Sheppard, who represented Richmond.)

But more to the point, they got things done on time.

Almost always.

On several occasions that I recall, one house or the other just couldn't finish its business by midnight on the last day.

So someone would turn back the official clock in the House or the Senate by an hour or so in order to preserve the fiction that the rules were not being violated.

Think about that. A General Assembly session might be extended by as much as an hour or two.

Nowadays, we're lucky if the legislature doesn't extend its work by a month or two. Today was the day the current session was supposed to end, but there's no state budget for the next two fiscal years yet in sight.

So both houses have agreed to a special session in order to hammer out a spending plan. Lord knows how long it will take them.

It's no longer sufficient to turn back the hands of the official clock.

Now they have to rip whole days from the calendar, or weeks or -- heaven forbid -- months in order to preserve the fiction that the House and Senate are capable of meeting a deadline.

The road to Toledo

I was introduced to the fine arts by accident, through my high-school Spanish textbook.

(That says a lot about the state of art education in public schools then, and now.)

The book was "El Camino Real" ("The Royal Road") and it was what we used in Señora Kersey's class at Hermitage High School in the late 1950s.

Inside the front cover was a full-page color reproduction of an oil painting, "The Burial of the Count of Orgaz." It was a dense Spanish Renaissance work by El Greco, which we knew meant "The Greek."

Leaving aside the obvious appeal of any word vaguely resembling "orgasm" to a high school kid, the painting intrigued me because I didn't understand it, because I had no clue as to who the Count of Orgaz was or why his burial was being commemorated, and because I knew next to nothing about El Greco.

I saw the picture of the painting every time I opened my Spanish textbook.

As the months progressed, I learned more. The Count of Orgaz was a pious knight who lived in the Spanish town of Toledo in the 14th century. Legend has it that Saint Stephen and Saint Augustine descended from heaven to help with his burial. One of the Count's bequests was to the town's church.

Fast-forward 200 years, to the 16th century: The church in Toledo finally got around to honoring the Count by commissioning a painting as part of a project to refurbish his burial chapel. They picked El Greco, a Greek immigrant, to execute the commission. The Spaniards called him El Greco because his real name, Doménikos Theotokópoulos, was more than a mouthful.

El Greco put himself into the painting. That's him, one of the mourners, just to the left of center, looking directly at you.

The painting, which still hangs in the church of Santo Tomé in Toledo, is considered to be one of El Greco's finest works.

Fast-forward again, this time to the 1960s. I saw the original painting.

I went to Spain with my friend Bobby Harris, who was a fellow Air Force medic when I was stationed in Germany. We spent a week in Madrid and Barcelona. Not far south of Madrid is Toledo. I decided to go see the actual painting of the Count's burial.

So Bobby and I boarded a bus on a warm, sunny morning.

Toledo which dates back to the Bronze Age, is a picturesque small city, and its winding, cobbled streets are crowded with tourists. My first sight of the city was breath-taking. It sits on a hilltop, bordered by a river below. When we slowed down on an adjacent hilltop, Toledo looked from afar as though it hadn't changed much over the centuries.

Once in the city, Bobby and I made our way to the church, Santo Tomé. And there it was, hanging on the wall: El Greco's painting of "The Burial of the Count of Orgaz." It was tucked away in a side chapel, in need of a good cleaning, and badly lit. But it was nevertheless a magnificent sight -- and far bigger than I had imagined.

I spent a good quarter hour studying it, and then Bobby and I walked back out into the brilliant sunshine.

It would be another 20 years before I went to work at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, where I learned more than I ever expected to about art and artists during a 33-year career.

They say you never forget your first. And I have never forgotten "The Burial of the Count of Orgaz," from that first look at it in my high school Spanish textbook to the first time I saw the original in a church 10 years later in Toledo.

It was the first time I fully realized that true fine art wasn't just in books. It was real.

Random observations

I usually don't care much for the political cartoons, rants and pithy observations my friends send me via email. But one caught my eye yesterday. It featured an image of Virginia's governor with these words: Republicans want to shrink government until it can fit in your uterus.

I am about to go to the grocery store. When my cart is full, I'll no doubt be stuck once again behind one of those women who hangs her purse from her left arm while holding her keys in her left hand and then unloads her cart using only her right hand -- all while carrying on a conversation with the cashier. It used to drive me mad. Now I just use the time to daydream.

I wish I could come up with a practical reason to buy an iPad. They're so cool. They're also so expensive. I can easily afford it, but my parsimonious gene holds me back. Aside from the cool factor, what would I do with an iPad?

I've found a tattoo artist to interview for my "What's Your Story?" radio series on the Virginia Voice. That should make for an interesting half hour. My dad got tattoos on his upper arms when he was in the Navy during World War II. When he came back home, he never again wore short-sleeve shirts in public. Attitudes sure have changed.

Speaking of "What's Your Story?" I interviewed a woman the other day whose Mexican father was instrumental in rewriting the history of the Alamo. He came across a memoir written by one of Santa Anna's lieutenants who said Davy Crockett and his Tennessee compatriots did not die fighting at the Alamo. He maintained they surrendered and were later executed. Still, Texas historians aren't eager to accept the new evidence.

What with the recent disasters on board the Carnival cruise ships Costa Concordia and Costa Allegra, Carnival's marketing people are facing a mammoth task. I cruised on a Carnival ship back in the 1970s. Crew members were already calling it "the Kmart of the Caribbean."

Today, March 1, was a gorgeous day -- a taste of spring to come. If it's true that when March comes in like a lamb, it goes out like a lion, then god help us at the end of the month.

"Casablanca" is one of my favorite movies. It's beautifully directed and well acted, and the lighting is especially lovely on the Ingrid Bergman close-ups. It was made in 1942, the year I was born. It won Best Picture at the 16th Academy Awards. I watch it at least once a year. "Here's looking at you, kid."

My second favorite political line of the season: Barack Obama and Rick Santorum are both praying for the same thing -- that Rick Santorum will be the GOP nominee.