Exams......and Ben-Hur.....and Charlton Heston...and other random musings.....

It's exam week here at StoneBridge, meaning the school year is almost over! Hallelujah! But we all have to survive exams first. I'll let you in on a little secret here:


I hate exams.

With a burning passion.

In all honesty I really don't see the use for them. I know it's supposed to test how much they've learned over the semester, but what was the point of all the other tests I gave then? It's so hard to write a fair exam in science too because there's so much material covered. So I make it easy for my students (and myself). I just tell them the exams are the most missed questions from the tests and quizzes with a few that everyone did well on thrown in for easy points. I figure if they knew it three months ago, they probably still know at least part of it now. I know a lot of kids may cram and forget, but that's their issue. Surprisingly, most of my students retain the basic information throughout the year. They're all good kids, but I might be just a bit biased here.

Today was the first day of exams. Mine are always on the last day, meaning I don't have much to do right now. (Work definitely comes in waves around this school - feast or famine). My entire classroom had to be packed up because the room is being renovated this summer (yeah!) so I don't even have much to clean up this year. It was an amazing chance to clean out and throw away a lot of stuff that I inherited when I started teaching here five years ago. I'm as good as a fire when it comes to cleaning! I've managed to get all of my stuff into just these boxes.

Keeping it compact

I still have to pack the textbooks but there are a few books still MIA out there somewhere...

Because I've gotten the packing done, I brought in something else to work on for a while. I had the urge to start a new crocheted blanket. I started it on Sunday and I'm loving how it looks now!

Nice, springy/summer colors

The title of the post had Ben-Hur and Charlton Heston in it. So, I can just see my sister Ivy over at Revealed In Time wondering, "How does that fit into this post?"

A few days ago Ivy and I decided to pull out Ben-Hur and watch it since I had finished all my grading and my exams had been approved and printed. A little girl's-night fun. :). She and I love all of the old epic movies. It's even better if Charlton Heston is in it.

Charlton Heston as Judah Ben-Hur

Charlton Heston was my first Hollywood crush. I loved anything he was in. Still do. Even as a kid I didn't like young actors - I always went for the older guys.

I think I was about 6 or so when I first saw Ben-Hur. I was absolutely mesmerized by the costumes and the music and my mom explained parts of the story when I was confused by something. I distinctly remember sitting on her lap in the rocking chair watching the scene where Judah is being marched to the galleys and they stop in Nazareth for water and the centurion won't let Judah have any. And then the man comes out, and gives him water, and touches his head, and Judah looks up into his face, and for a moment, he's at peace. Even the centurion backs away from the man. I remember asking who the man was and why was the soldier scared of him. He had a sword and the man didn't. My mom just said "Keep watching. You'll figure it out." Later on I did. I was so excited when I realized the man was Jesus - that Jesus had saved Judah's life just by giving him a drink of water.

Judah Ben-Hur looks into the face of his Savior.

The there was the chariot race.

Oh my gosh.

That race.

I was literally jumping up and down during the whole thing shouting for Judah to go faster and getting angrier by the minute at Messala.

Judah during the chariot race

Judah and Messala round the deadly turn.

But I wasn't ready for Messala to get thrown out of his chariot and trampled by the other charioteers. When Messala died I remember looking up at my mom and saying, "He's sad, Mama. Judah's sad that Messala's dead. He wanted to kill Messala, but now he's not happy that he's dead."It was the first time I had ever really seen a story where revenge was a part of it.

I loved the ending of the story. It was simple, but grand and powerful at the same time. Judah tries to give Jesus water as He's being led to Calvary, and in that moment where they look at each other, again, Judah's at peace.

Jesus and Judah

Judah watched Jesus' crucifixion, and there, at last, he finds what he was searching for the entire time. Forgiveness. As Jesus dies and the storm rages, it washes the blood off of the cross an d down into the river and nearby Judah's leprosy stricken mother and sister are healed.

As per the standards of the day, Jesus face was never seen, nor did he speak.

Several years after the movie I read the book Ben-Hur. There was so much more in the story than they could ever fit in the movie. I must have read the thing 50 times since then.

Even more impressive then the book was the story of how it came about.

It was written by General Lew Wallace, a Civil War general who had seen and experienced too much during the war. He believed that God was not involved in the lives of man whatsoever and that any man could have claimed to be the Messiah. He set out to write a book about "another Messiah" to prove his point. He said that he's make him the same age as Jesus, from the same tribe, and just for fun, he'd make him born on the same night.

As Lew Wallace began his in depth research for the book, his attitude and heart were changed. He came to the realization that only Jesus could have been the Messiah. The tone of the book changed and instead of it being about Judah Ben-Hur, the other Christ, it was Judah Ben-Hur, the man saved by Christ. The final title was "Ben-Hur: A Tale of The Christ." Jesus and Judah's stories are told in parallel throughout the book.

Oddly enough, as much as I loved this book, I never owned a copy. I just wore out the library's copy.  A few years ago I was at a homeschool conference in Georgia with my mom and my sister. One of the other vendors was a used book seller and as the conference was shutting down I went over to check out what they had. I had several book in hand when I saw a small green book at the bottom of a box. I picked it up, saw that it was Ben-Hur, and tossed it in my stack.

I didn't really get a chance to look at he book until I got home to Virginia. I could tell it was old by the cover and the pages, but I wasn't ready for what I saw when I looked at the copyright date.

1880.

That was the only date listed.

No second, third, fourth printing.

It hit me that 1880 was the year the book was published. I began to wonder - had I just bought a first edition of Ben-Hur without knowing it?

I started doing a little research. I found that based on the publication date, the dedication, two typos in the book, and the publisher's pages at the end I was indeed the owner of a first edition, first printing of the book, worth around $2,000, possibly more.

I paid $1 for it.

The book and the movie

The inside of the title page, which led me to think that I might have stumbled on something special. 

This is what ups the value of the book. The spine is completely intact as is the gilded print.

So this afternoon, because I don't have any exams to grade yet, but I still have to be at work, I plan on working on the blanket and watching "The Ten Commandments". Yes, I'm on a Charlton Heston kick right now. Another of the great epics, and I love Yul Brynner and Charlton Heston playing opposite each other. They were so different! Heston is calm and confident while Brynner is cocky and arrogant. It was amazing.

My favorite part of that movie though is something that happened behind the scenes.

Yochabel and Miriam set Moses on the Nile

See little baby Moses there? That's Fraser Heston, Charlton Heston's son.

Fraser Heston was about three months old when this part of the movie was filmed, the same age Moses was when he was sent on his trip down the Nile. When Charlton got the role of Moses, Lydia Heston was pregnant. Cecil B. De Mille told her that if the baby was a boy, he wanted to use little Heston as baby Moses. And thus began Fraser's first foray into film. He still works in the film industry to this day.

Charlton and Fraser Heston

Daddy getting Fraser settled

Parents of babies in movies are often called in between takes to keep the baby calm.