Daniel Greene

Tag: history

  • Tribute to Navajo Code Talkers

    This giant sculpture at the corner of Central & Thomas in Phoenix, AZ is a tribute to Navajo Code Talkers. I didn’t know that when I took the photo the other day; I just wanted a shot of a landmark I’ve always admired but never known anything about. Yesterday, I braved the 108º heat to take a photo of the plaque. I’m sharing it because I think it’s important to know this bit of WWII history.

    Here is the inscription on the plaque:

    Tribute to Navajo Code Talkers

    This tribute represents the spirit of the Navajo Code Talkers, a group of more than 400 U.S. Marines who bravely served their country during World War II.

    Their mission: to utilize the Navajo language in the creation of an unbreakable secret code. Between 1942 and 1945, the Navajo Code Talkers used this code, and their skills as radio operators, to provide a secure method of communications vital to America’s victory.

    Among many Native Americans, the flute is a communications tool used to signal the end of confrontation and the coming of peace. This tribute represents the advancement of peace for all future generations.

    This is the first permanent tribute to honor the Navajo Code Talkers.

    "Tribute to Navajo Code Talkers" by Doug Hyde, 1989. Commissioned through the Heard Museum by Best West Properties, Inc. and the Koll Company.

  • Was Canonized Saint at Milan Conference?

    When I heard last week on NPR that an Italian priest who “helped the deaf” in the late 1800s had been canonized as a saint, I couldn’t help wondering: was he at the Milan Conference of 1880, a conference of “educators of deaf-mutes” who moved to forbid sign language and mandate oralism.

    Filippo Smaldone lived from 1848 to 1923 in Italy, and the infamous Milan Conference was held in 1880. According to one source, he founded “institutes for deaf-mutes” (not necessarily a disparaging term back then) in 1885 and 1887, but he had already worked with “deaf-mutes” as far back as the 1870s. He might truly be worthy of sainthood if he had rebuked the Milan Conference and promoted deaf people’s preferred mode of communication, but somehow I doubt that happened, because that would have gone totally against the grain.

    Just think what an irony it would be if our dear Father Smaldone had been one of the killers of sign language and “got away with murder” by being canonized as a saint!

  • The arts are in my blood

    Okay, maybe I’m bragging a little, but I would like to tell you something about my family and their involvement in the performing and visual arts.

    • My grandmother on my mother’s side was a singer who performed in vaudeville. She toured the Orpheum circuit as Linda Preston with comedian Gene Sheldon. If you have an Orpheum theatre in your town, chances are she performed there! She was also a member of SAG under the name Audrey Arent, and she did a Mitchum deodorant commercial and appeared as an extra in the movies King Kong (1976), Network, and The Turning Point.
    • My grandfather on my mother’s side was Johnny Drake of The Modernaires– yes, Glenn Miller’s Modernaires who appeared in The Glenn Miller Story.
    • My grandmother on my father’s side, Helene Greene, was an interior designer and an award-winning painter.
    • My grandfather on my father’s side, Ernest Greene, played trumpet and harmonica in jazz bands as a young man.
    • My mother, Jonni Greene, sang in musicals throughout high school and junior college. She has sung in choruses of one form or another since I was 10.
    • My father, Andrew Greene, took some painting a sculpting courses and supported a friend in teaching and promoting her art classes.

    I am grateful to my family for passing down their tradition of performing and visual arts, and for encouraging me in my artistic endeavors.