Word: bereft
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Some writers chronicle men on their way up; others tackle men on their way down. Samuel Beckett stalks after men on their way out. Bereft of eternity, he writes of the unending ravages of time. His characters stumble through a sludgy limbo, out of life but not quite into death, "without the courage to end or the strength to go on." Nothing happens; nobody comes, nobody goes. Yet his plays (Endgame, Krapp's Last Tape) and novels (Malloy, Murphy) are metaphors of modern man's spiritual bafflement. "Waiting for Godot" has become a tagline for frustration...
Something Different. Then came the biggest surprise. Britain, said Callaghan, would switch from the traditional pounds, shillings and pence to decimal currency in 1971. By now the Tories were in full cry. "An uproarious farce," shouted Conservative Leader Ted Heath. "The government is bereft of ideas and fuddy-duddy." Wilson buried his head in mock despair and nearly fell off the bench laughing. Above the roar, Economics Minister George Brown could be heard shouting, "We're on our way, brothers...
...where more than 2,000,000 exuberant but respectful New Yorkers crushed to the curbstones. In some places the cheering onlookers were packed five and ten deep along the streets, and Fifth Avenue was a solid sea of faces. But embarrassingly long stretches of the papal route were almost bereft of welcomers, as millions of other New Yorkers apparently used the cool October weather as an excuse to obey police suggestions that they stay home and watch it all on television...
Sexually repressed, still beautiful and inflexibly virtuous, Tula (Aurora Bautista) becomes a spinsterish "Aunt Tula" to her dead sister's small son and daughter. As decreed by custom in a stifling provincial town, she takes the bereft children and her handsome brother-in-law Ramiro (Carlos Estrada) under her roof. She rejects another suitor to fulfill what she sees as her duty, but cannot admit that Ramiro attracts her. Secretly she pores, moist-lipped and breathless, over a packet of impulsive love letters he wrote to her sister years earlier, yet is offended when the man himself appears...
...Frankfurter's first Supreme Court conference, Chief Justice Hughes several times addressed him as "Professor Frankfurter," and then, catching the slip, apologetically retracted the term. Frankfurter interrupted, saying "Please, Mr. Chief Justice, don't apologize. I know of no more honorable title than that of Professor." Bereft of the formal title, Frankfurter nevertheless acted like the teacher he had been. Questioning lawyers who appeared before the Court as he had his students, writing opinions for the Court that might have been learned articles in the Harvard Law Review, Frankfurter served for 22 years...