THE COLOUR BLUE, THE BLUE BARQUE/BARK AND THE LIFESPAN

by Russ Baird


I first encountered the term "blue bark" when booking a service flight.  One that I tried to get a seat on, was in "blue bark status" and not available.  Asking, I learned that use of that plane that day was related to a military funeral.  Someone had completed his life span.

No doubt, there were people in his family feeling blue.
I felt blue because I couldn't get a ride.  I've felt blue about other things, and so have enough people that I am sure Randy Bachman could devote at least three of his CBC Radio "Vinyl Tap" programmes to songs that contain the word "blue". "Got the Lonesome Blues" is a clear enough title, showing a likely cause and the idea of what blue means.  "Blue Bayou" is not so clear just from the title, which could suggest a small bay with water more blue than what one sees elsewhere. Of course, the song could show us that the writer has a secluded place where he goes when feeling down, and it happens to be a bayou.
There is a whole category of music called The Blues, and Canada has its own awards programme for blues artists, the Maple Blues, much touted on CBCs Saturday Night Blues programme by Holger Petersen.  Holger came from Germany to Edmonton and fell in love with the genre, and has had that radio programme since 1987.  A favourite cd is Oscar Peterson with Ella Fitzgerald at The Bluenote. Mississippi Delta Blues is a category, and there are many regional styles like that one. Misfortune, betrayal, and regret are major sources of feeling blue, and blues music. When the blue bark comes home at the end of a lifespan, regret is often thick and deep.
WC Handy claimed that an itinerant guitar player at the train station in Tutwiler Mississippi inspired him to become the Father of the Blues. He made Beale Street Blues in 1921, and that Memphis street is "mecca". 
St Louis Blues is not only a musical genre, but an NHL hockey team. Winnipeg's hockey team flag also is primarily blue, and that colour is in the name of its CFL team, the Blue Bombers. Bombers come out of the blue, and their arrival does not get people singing "Blue Skies" but wondering if their lifespans are about to end, except of course when they are flying home, and Winnipeg is the home of the Air Force. The football team name was however, inspired by The Brown Bomber, nickname of boxer Joe Louis. Other blue Flyers include The Blue Angels US Navy airshow and that Blue Bird of Happiness, the most popular song of the first half of the twentieth century, later surpassed by "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". 

We have blue moods, blue garments, and blue jewellery.  We even have blue suede shoes. There, the colour is bright and does not imply any sadness. Sporting a sapphire would bring joy to many.
Probably the most common colour for men's suits, is blue, and it is cheerier than the almost-as-common, gray. Blues-and-grays is the walking out dress for a soldier, when he can take off his military uniform, but still be identified with his service, likely wearing his regimental crest and buttons on it, and, at something like a blue bark event, his medals.
Eliza Sherman's hymn Blue Galilee has these words, "Upon thy waves blue Galilee, I see a barque toss restlessly", and "My Beautiful Blue Boat Home" is in the Unitarian song book. Persians honour the end of a lifespan with blue, which in the West is a colour of love, stability, confidence, faith, heaven, and intelligence. 
There are many Shades of Blue, even a tv series by that name, like another called The Blue Bloods  The "boys in blue" are the police, and a family of them are cast as the blue-blooded aristocracy of New York.  Among the shades are indigo, azure, powder, sky, teal, and baby. Ol' Blue Eyes was Frank Sinatra. True blue is a desirable item for any resume.
In the spectrum, far away from red, we have blue, violet, and ultraviolet.  Cyan gives the blue in the CMYK four colour printing system, and mixes with magenta and yellow to form the other colours. There is also a political spectrum from red to blue, ie from liberal to conservative or, some might say, magnanimous to tight-fisted.
 
The Blue Max is a 1966 movie involving a German medal, a Swiss model (Ursula Andress), George Peppard, and Baron Von Richtofen. Snoopy wore no blue when he took on The Red Baron. It was a blue day when Charles Schulz, his creator, fulfilled his life span on Feb 12, 2000. The Red Baron finished his lifespan when shot down by Canadian Lt Roy Brown on the Somme, April 21, 1918. Snoopy and the Peanuts crew all had to take the blue bark home with Schulz when he died.

"The Bluebells of Scotland" is a favourite tune, (and where indeed, has "My Highland Laddie Gone"?) Dora Jordan of Waterford Ireland wrote it in 1801, Her birth name was Dorothea Bland, which is not blue and not at all colourful. She had ten children with the English King William 1V., but they were not married, so none of them could succeed him at the end of his royal life span. Victoria, a legitimate niece, got the job.
Amethyst blue is an odd colour, one of the two colours of the Queen's Rangers, along with goddess Diana's hunter green. Before I was transferred to that regiment, I was one of those who made fun of their fuschia accoutrements, for that is how amethyst blue looks to me.
We have royal blue, of course, and steely blue, and even blues registered to and owned by certain companies.  I remember Alcan insisting that I use theirs in an ad they placed on my Montreal map.
In Canada, we had a war of the blue beers, Labatt and O'Keefe, before they all bought each other up
Blue Boy is a famous painting, and a Blue Christmas impends at the Unitarian congregation, where perhaps there will be the Elvis song, Blue Christmas
Even God, as Krishna, is often pictured blue
The Great Blue Whale and Paul Bunyan's ox, are Blue
What has become of the baseball Blue Stockings? Still in Utica, if you were missing them from the coloured footwear list of teams, Redsox, Whitesox, etc.
Are there still, occasionally, blue babies?
Lavender Blue may be an anthem as well as a colour. 

Greece, Finland, Israel,Honduras, Scotland and Quebec on their flags have blue with just white, while Sweden, Europe and Ukraine add  yellow instead of white. Half of the US states have flags on which blue dominates, Oregon, Alaska, SC and Indiana having added only white. In blue Toronto, we have the Blue Jays, the Maple Leafs (colour them blue) and the Varsity Blues. The name "Blue Toronto" arose from its blue laws, which were deemed repressive. Those date from the Third Council of Orleans  which began on May 7, 538, and were proclaimed by the Emperor.

The blue flame is a symbol of gas heating, and indicator of safe burning,  Did Bluebeard have a flaming blue angel when he drank Curacao, that island's blue liqueur?
And then there is the bluing of steel. Bluing is done on rifles, and on laundry.
On Blue Christmas, who will have The Lonesome Blues?