Don’t blame me, I saw it on Facebook

...and I didn't laugh out loud but my eyes twinkled and I smiled for a long time; it was the sort of low-key humor (British, humour) I love:

A mnemonic for remembering the names of the five Great Lakes of North America:

"Lisa Likes Licking Lettuce Lightly"

Lake Superior
Lake Michigan
Lake Huron
Lake Erie
Lake Ontario

Isn't that helpful?

In the past, American schoolchildren were taught to think of the word HOMES because the names of the lakes are indeed Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior. However, HOMES refers to the lakes in random order.

Perhaps one of the following senetences would work better because the lakes are referred to in geographic order from west to east:

Saying Mnemonics Helps Everybody Out
Some Men Hate Exercising Outdoors
Sarah Made Henry Eat Octopus
Spencer Meanly Hid Elizabeth's Oboe

Here's proof:

You are invited to submit your own mnemonic for the names of the Great Lakes in a comment. I will publish it unless it is lewd, crude, rude, salacious, or obscene, in which case it will never see the light of day. I alone will be the judge of what is lewd, crude, rude, salacious, or obscene.

English Is Strange (example #17,643) and a new era begins

Through, cough, though, rough, bough, and hiccough do not rhyme, but pony and bologna do.

Do not tell me about hiccup and baloney.

Hello, friends. Something BIG has happened since the last time we met here. I received notification a few weeks ago (as some of you may have) that Microsoft's support for Windows 10 is ending on October 10th and all of us who use it need to upgrade to Windows 11 post-haste asap very soon or suffer the consequences. Microsoft took a quick look at my computer's innards and told me that my computer was not upgradeable (is that a word?) because it lacked storage space or speed or something and I would need to get a new computer post-haste asap before October 10th if I expected to keep up with those in the know.

My older son, who is a bit of a high-tech guru, went to work immediately to find a replacement for me. Let me rephrase that. To find a replacement for my computer. Yesterday he came over with a little box about the size of a bar of soap, which he assured me was the entire computer (except, of course, for the monitor, the printer, the keyboard, and the mouse).

So as of yesterday I have a brand new computer equipped with Windows 11. It is made by GEMTEK and is, as I mentioned before, about the size of a bar of soap, a little larger than a computer mouse. Time marches on, and so, apparently, does computer miniaturization.

I remember when computers filled whole floors of buildings. I remember Windows 3, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME (Millenium Edition) 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, yada, yada, yada. For that matter, I remember OS/360 PCP, OS/360 MFT, OS/360 MVT, 7090, 1460, 1401. I remember unit record equipment: 024, 026, 029, 083, 407, 552, 557. I remember the 010 for making binary patches to punched card decks. I remember punched cards, paper tape, magnetic tape. I remember carbon paper. I'm so old I remember treadle sewing machines.

So it is not just English that is strange. The whole world is strange nowadays. Don't even get me started on gender dysphoria and the misuse of pronouns.

What do you find strange in today's world (not wrong, necessarily, just strange) given your advanced age?

If you are not of advanced age yet, don't worry. You will get there soon enough.

Ring out the new, ring in the old

Under the equal time clause of the blogworld constitution, I now present for your amusement and consideration, a list of things that are old:

Old Spice (an after-shave lotion)
Old Orchard Beach, Maine
Old Hickory (nickname of U.S. President Andrew Jackson)
Old Kinderhook (nickname of U.S. President Martin Van Buren)
Old Ironsides (nickname of the USS Constitution, a naval vessel)
Auld Lang Syne (a song sung at midnight on New Year's Eve)
Old Grand-Dad (a brand of bourbon
Old Man River
Old Dominion (the U.S. state of Virginia)
Old Mother Hubbard
Old Faithful (a geyser in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming)
The Old Man And The Sea (a book by Ernest Hemingway)
The Old Curiosity Shop (a book by Charles Dickens)

Perhaps you can think of a few more.

Truth In Blogging Department. As far as I know, there is no blogworld constitution, and it therefore follows as the night the day that there is no equal time clause.

There is nothing new under the Sun

So wrote the author of Ecclesiastes three thousand years ago.

Oh, yeah? I can think of a few:

Nee York
Nieuw Amsterdam (original name of New York)
New Jersey
New Hampshire
New Mexico
New Orleans, Louisiana
New South Wales, Australia
New Brunswick, Canada
New London, Connecticut
New Smyrna Beach, Florida
New Paltz, New York
New Albany, Indiana
New Bern, North Carolina
New Rochelle, New York
New Braunfels, Texas
New Port Richey, Florida
New Delhi, India
New England (six states in northeastern U.S.)
New Guinea
Newfoundland, Canada
New Zealand
Newcastle upon Tyne, England
Newburgh, New York
Newport, Rhode Island
Nova Scotia (New Scotland), Canada

and let us not forget the New Testament and the New Christy Minstrels. There are probably lots of others too, but these are enough to prove my point.

Maybe the writer of Ecclesiastes was just having a bad day.

The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on

Sometimes I wonder how different my life might have been if I had written a book entitled The Lights Of Midlothian.

Sometimes I wonder how different my life might have been if I had written a book entitled The House On Wyncote Road.

Sometimes I wonder why my brain would provide me with book titles without also providing me with material to put between the covers.

But no, nada, zilch, nothing.

As Yul Brynner said when he portrayed the king of Siam in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King And I, "Is a puzzlement!"

I may be wrong, people, but I think the more normal way an author writes is to begin describing a person or a place or an action, let it develop, and not come up with an appropriate title until somewhat later in the process.

But that's just me.

So here's my question for today: If you wanted to write a book based on something important but you can't quite put your finger on it and don't have the slightest idea where to begin or what to say, what would its title to be?

Travel alternatives for your consideration

Except for the final example, this post is an exercise in unsatisfactory substitutions.

Friends, have you been...

LONGING	FORGET	...>
TO VISIT	ABOUT	..GO INSTEAD TO:
Moscow?	Russia	Moscow, Idaho
Paris?	France	Paris, Texas
Athens?	Greece	Athens, Georgia
London?	England	London, Kentucky
Rome?	Italy	Rome, New York
Birmingham?	England	Birmingham, Alabama
Geneva?	Switzeland..	Geneva, Illinois
Hamilton? ....	Bermuda	Hamilton, Ohio
Cairo?	Egypt	Cairo, Illinois
Dublin?	Ireland	Dublin, Georgia
Greece?	the country	Greece, New York
Turkey?	the country	Turkey, North Carolina
Florence?	Italy	Florence, Alabama
Leeds?	England	Leeds, Alabama
Venice?	Italy	Venice, Florida
Plymouth?	England	Plymouth, Masachusetts
Naples?	Italy	Naples, Florida
Stratford?	England	Stratford, Connecticut
Kent?	England	Kent, Ohio
Lebanon?	the country	Lebanon, Pennsylvania
Holland?	the country	Holland, Michigan
Toledo?	Spain	Toledo, Ohio
Monterrey?	Mexico	Monterrey, California
Canton?	China	Canton, Georgia
York?	England	York, Pennsylvania
Bogota?	Colombia	Bogota, Texas
Gloucester?	Englanf	Gloucester, Massachusetts
Panama City?	Panama	Panama City, Florida
Worcester	England	Worcester, Massachusetts
Lancaster	England	Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Palestine	the Middle East..>	Palestine, Texas
Valparaiso	Chile	Valparaiso, Indiana
Cuba	the island	Cuba, Missouri
Venus	the planet	Venus, Texas
Jupiter	the planet	Jupiter, Florida
Paradise	eternal bliss	Paradise, Califonia
Hell	eternal torment..>	Hell, Norway

Wherever you ultimately decide to go, let me be the first to wish you Bon Voyage!

From the archives (May 18, 2021): Nostalgia ain't all it's cracked up to be

From 1965 until 1975, a sitcom called Till Death Us Do Part ran on British television. Its success inspired similar shows in several other countries, including All in the Family in the United States from 1971 to 1979. All in the Family starred Carroll O'Connor and Jean Stapleton in the roles of Archie Bunker and Edith Bunker, respectively, and every episode began with the two of them sitting at their piano, singing this song:

Boy, the way Glenn Miller played
Songs that made The Hit Parade,
Guys like us, we had it made,
Those were the days!

And you knew where you were then,
Girls were girls and men were men.
Mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again.

Didn't need no welfare state,
Everybody pulled his wei.ght.
Gee, our old LaSalle ran great,
Those were the days!

It has now been more than 50 years since Archie and Edith began singing that song. The wonderful days they longed for and missed so much included the years of the Stock Market Crash, the Great Depression, and World War II.

The days many people today seem to long for include the Korean Conflict, the VietNam War, the urban riots during the Civil Rights movement, the AIDS scare. One can almost envision a few years down the road that millennials will be looking back with fondness on good old days like September 11, 2001.

Time plays tricks on people. Many human beings seem to remember only the good and forget the bad, while others do just the opposite, emphasizing the bad and ignoring the good. It is my opinion that both groups are unrealistic in their approaches to living. I will leave it to others to help both groups work out their mental health problems.

I, of course, have the answer. For a dose of real nostalgia, the good kind, let us return to the days of yesteryear (that's a phrase from The Lone Ranger radio program if you didn't know) and go back to the school playground, as we did in this post from 2014, which you should now read, including the comments, before continuing..

Now that I think about it, grade-school recess wasn't always such fun either. I distinctly remember Sidney Usleton sneaking up on me every day during recess in the second grade and choking me from behind. This lasted until I mentioned it at home, at which time my Dad showed me a little jujitsu move he had learned in the Navy that sent Sidney Usleton packing. He never bothered me again. I think our teacher, Miss Elizabeh Nash (younger sister of Miss Erma, the principal) was oblivious to the whole situation.

Do you have good memories or bad memories from grade school?