I, Don[ald J.Trump] Quixote (a self-assessment)

...or How He Probably Sees Himself, in two parts.

A. Part 1.

To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go

To right the unrightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest
To follow that star
No matter how hopeless
No matter how far

To fight for the right
Without question or pause
To be willing to march into Hell
For a Heavenly cause

And I know if I'll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my rest

And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unteachable star.


B. Part 2.

Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning on an ever-spinning reel
Like a snowball down a mountain, or a carnival balloon
Like a carousel that's turning running rings around the moon
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face
And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space
Like the circles that I find in the windmills of my mind.

Like a tunnel that I follow to a tunnel of its own
Down a hollow to a cavern where the sun has never shone
Like a door that keeps revolving in a half-forgotten dream
Or the ripples from a pebble someone tosses in a stream
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face
And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space
Like the circles that I find in the windmills of my mind.

Keys that jingle in my pocket, words that jangle in my head
Why did summer go so quickly, was it something that I said?
Lovers walking along a shore and leave their footprints in the sand
Is the sound of distant drumming just the fingers of my hand?
Pictures hanging in a hallway and the fragment of a song
Half-remembered names and faces, but to whom do they belong?
When I knew that it was over I was suddenly aware
That the autumn leaves were turning to the color of her hair!
Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning on an ever-spinning reel
As the images unwind, like the circles that I find
In the windmills of my mind.


[Editor's note. My apologies to (1) Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616), author of Don Quixote, (2) Mitch Leigh and Joe Darion, composer and lyricist respectively of the 1965 musical production Man of La Mancha, (3) composer Michel Legrand, French lyricist Eddie Marnay ("Les Moulins De Mon Coeur", 1968), and English lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman ("The Windmills Of Your Mind", 1968. For this post I have changed the perspective from second person (you, your) to first person (I, my) in an attempt to get inside the head of one Donald J. Trump (1946-present), of whom you may have heard. I do want to point out, solely in the interest of accuracy, that the French lyrics speak of the windmilles of my heart while the English lyrics speak of the windmills of your mind, which may or may not be significant. I'm not sure I achieved what I set out to do, but it was an interesting exercise nonetheless. --RWP]

Of the people, by the people, and for the people

Today is what used to be celebrated in this country as Lincoln's Birthday because Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the United States from 1861 to 1865, was born on this date in the Year Of Our Lord 1809 in a log cabin in Kentucky. The anniversary of his birth now receives scant attention, if any in the media and among the populace. How soon we forget. I mean come on, people, he freed the slaves.

In addition, the birthday of George Washington, first in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen, used to be observed on February 22nd. But both Lincoln and Washington have been relegated to the ash heap of history and replaced in our national conscience and calendar by something called Presidents Day that occurs on the third Monday of February so that federal employees could have yet another three-day weekend. That's not according to me, that's according to Lyndon Baines Johnson. This year the date is February 17th and all US presidents will be remembered as great citizen-patriots, every last one of them, or so we are encouraged to think.

This post is (a) deadly serious, (b) mildly iconoclastic, (c) excuciatinly accurate, (d) a pathetic attempt at humor (British, humour). Pick one.

More completely unrelated ABCs

A. The English language contains lots of words from other languages. Many of them are food words found in restaurants (quesadilla, tortilla, taco, enchilada, coq au vin, beignet, croissant, filet mignon, wienerschnitzel, ravioli, spaghetti, fettuccine, tiramisu, teriyaki, hibachi, won ton, wok, I could go on). Wines come to mind also (cabernet sauvignon, cabernet blanc, pinot noir, chardonnay, champagne, chianti, zinfandel, rosé) but many ordinary, everyday words that have nothing to do with food or drink have been absorbed into English from other languages as well. Such words are referred to as loanwords. Here are a few of them:

shampoo
khaki
hula
sombrero
karaoke
salsa
chutzpah
dinghy
banana
penguin
divan

Can you think of others?

B. On January 1, 2023 at phrasedictionary.org, writer Chris Drew wrote, "Similes are like little linguistic gems that help us vividly describe the world around us." I would delete the word "like" (thereby turning it into a metaphor) and just say that similes are little linguistic gems that help us vividly describe the world around us. At least, they can be if they are fresh. Sometimes, though, they grow stale. Sometimes they become clichés. Here are a few that come to mind:

as cool as a cucumber
as cold as ice
as hot as hell
as warm as toast
as soft as a baby's bottom
as hard as a rock
as quiet as a mouse
as high as a kite
as drunk as a skunk
as happy as a clam

I have no idea how happy a clam is or how drunk a skunk can be.

Again, can you think of others? Remember, this is a G-rated blog, by and large. Yorkshire Pudding, this means you.

C. For the last six weeks, Storyworld has been sending me one question a week as a prompt for writing pieces that will be compiled into a book at the end of one year. As you may remember, our oldest son subscribed to this project for me as a Christmas gift. That is the reason my blogposts have slowed to a crawl. I'm not going to share what I have written but I thought I would let you see the questions that Storyworld has sent to me so far:

1. What's something you've made that you feel especially proud of?
2. What was your mom like when you were a child?
3. How did you get your first job?
4. How did you meet your spouse? When did you know that you wanted to marry them?
5. What song always brings back a particular memory?
6. Where were you when you found out that JFK had been assassinated? How did it affect you?

It's going to be interesting just to see what questions I will be asked as the weeks go by. I hope they don't interfere with my blogging to any great extent.

D. February is a big birthday month in our clan of 22 souls. We have birthdays on the 4th, 6th, 9th, 18th, and 20th, and by "we" I mean (in no particular order) my son, my grandson, my great-grandson, and the wives of two grandsons. I have always been a card sender but the world is working against me, both by increasing the size of my family and by increasing the cost of a postage stamp. Seventy years ago a first-class stamp cost 3¢ but now one is 73¢.

On that happy, clamlike note I will bring this post to a close so that we can ponder the great mystery of life together.

The ABCs ain't what they used to be

A. Which one of the following phrases is not like the others? Give reasons for your answer.

Every Good Boy Does Fine
All Cows Eat Grass
Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally
Good Boys Do Fine Always

B. I have begun carrying a dime and two pennies with me at all times. I carry the dime because John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937), who was a multi-billionaire, gave away dimes to people for many years and a popular song during the Great Depression was called "Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?" I hope to be able to say, "Why, yes, I can" if anyone ever asks. I carry the pennies in case anyone ever says to me, "You aren't worth two cents" I will be able to reach into my pocket and prove them wrong. Am I losing my mind?

C. I learned a new word today. Acyrologia. It means the inexact, inappropriate or improper use of a word. Malapropisms, which we discussed in other posts, are examples of acyrologia in speech but acyrologia also occurs in writing, often in the form of homonyms (words that sound alike but are spelled differently) of the word intended. Here is a wonderful piece on acyrologia I found on Facebook that is itself an illustration of acyrologia.


acyrologia
"An incorrect use of words -- particularly replacing one word with another word that sounds similar but has a diffident meaning -- possibly fuelled by a deep-seeded desire to sound more educated, witch results in an attempt to pawn off an incorrect word in place of a correct one. In academia, such flaunting of common social morays is seen as almost sorted and might result in the offender becoming a piranha. In the Monday world, after all is set and done, such a miner era will often leave normal people unphased. This is just as well sense people of that elk are unlikely to tow the line irregardless of any attempt to better educate them. A small percentage, however, suffer from severe acyrologiaphobia, and it is their upmost desire to see English used properly. Exposure may cause them symptoms that may resemble post-dramatic stress disorder and, eventually, to descend into whole-scale outrage as they go star-craving mad. Eventually, they will succumb to the stings and arrows of such a barrage, and suffer a complete metal breakdown, leaving them curled up in the feeble position." (author unknown)


I spotted 23 instances of acyrologia in that paragraph and listed them in the first comment. Before peeping, how many instances did you find?

Happy end of January to you. In China, it is now the year of the snake. You have been warned.

One can only hope

I have noticed in news stories lately, whether on radio, on television, on websites, or in print, that every time someone's death is announced, one of three words is invariably used. Everyone, it seems, is iconic, legendary, or beloved nowadays. Some of the announcements manage to work in all three adjectives. Why is that, I wonder? Is anyone with the least-bit recognizable name or who has achieved some measure of popularity in life automatically iconic, legendary, or beloved? I think not, but then I am not part of Generation Alpha, Gen Z, Gen Y, Gen X, or even the Baby Boomers. No, dear reader, I am an official dinosaur, and having been born before World War II began (at least on this side of the pond) I am therefore a member of what is called The Silent Generation.

As you may have noticed, I am anything but silent.

Members of my generation are shuffling off this mortal coil at what seems to me to be an alarming rate. I hope I am going to be around for some time yet. One day last week I realized that my 83rd birthday was exactly 10 months ago and my 84th birthday was exactly two months hence. My mind went into overdrive and I suddenly realized that my age in the decimal system that day was 83.83, which I found satisfyingly symmetrical.

No, I am not weird. Why do you ask?

I further hope that someone, if only here in blogworld, will remember this post and refer to me after my demise as--wait for it--iconic, legendary, and/or beloved.

Maybe I am a little bit weird.

Closed captioning is still cuckoo

We talked in a post not too long ago about the deficiencies of the current state of the art of voice recognition software (VRS) and closed captioning (CC).

This post's title is not strong enough in my opinion. Actually, closed captioning is getting worse with the passage of time. Things I see displayed on my television screen make me want to scream, to pull out what hair I still have, to throw a brick through the set. Fortunately, to date I have managed not to succumb to these urges. My self-control know no bounds.

I will give you three examples from this evening's viewing alone. Two of them are from Donald Trump's remarks at tonight's pre-inaugural candlelight dinner and one is from Sean Hannity's nightly news commentary program.

When Mr. Trump said, "We're going to be so successful. We're going to have so many successes," the closed captioning showed "WE'RE GOING TO BE SO SUCCESSFUL. WE'RE GOING TO HAVE 70 SUCCESSES."

Referring to his plans to issue 200 Executive Orders on his first day in office to undo damage done by the previous administration, Mr. Trump's statement that "By the end of the day a lot of it will be null and void" became "BY THE END OF THE DAY A LOT OF IT WILL BE NOLAN BOYD."

Sean Hannity said that when he began pointing out President Biden's cognitive decline a couple of years ago, "I was excoriated and had the crap kicked out of me by the whole Biden administration" but the closed captioning put it this way: "I WAS EXCORIATED AND HAD THE KOEPKA ACADEMY BY THE WHOLE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION."

Perhaps I shouldn't be so chagrined. Perhaps I should try to look for the silver lining. Perhaps the universe is sending me prompts to write a novel about Nolan Boyd, a student at the Koepka Academy.

Nah.

I just feel sorry for people who have to rely on closed captioning.

Truth is stranger than fiction

What I am about to tell you is true. Or was at the time, as best I remember it. I looked at Google's aerial map of Arlington, Texas, just now and what I'm about to tell you doesn't appear to be true nowadays. Street names have been changed, some streets no longer exist, new streets have been added, and the whole area has been reconfigured due to Arlington's growth. But it was true when I experienced it, so I will forge ahead with this post.

I attended Arlington State College (ASC) in 1959-1960, the year it changed from a two-year junior-college institution to a four-year senior-college institution. It was part of the Texas A&M University system, an arch-rival of the University of Texas (UT) in Austin. So it seems odd that ASC was later absorbed into the University of Texas system and became the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) just as Texas Western University in El Paso became the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) and several other schools underwent the same transformation, which is neither here nor there. Well, actually one is here and one is there. I don't want to go down this rabbit trail further.

Downtown Arlington in those days was centered on a town square. It was so long ago (65 years, God help us all) that I cannot remember whether the square held a park or the city hall building. You would think that I would remember a detail like that, but I don't because we mostly stayed on or near campus except to splurge occasionally and eat at a restaurant. That's not important. What is important and what I'm trying to get to as fast as I can (not fast enough, I can hear some of you saying) is the scheme Arlington used for the naming of streets. It was very confusing, at least to me.

The street along the north side of the square was called North Street, the street along the east side of the square was called East Street, the street along the south side of the square was called South Street, and the street along the west side of the square was called West Street. So far so good. No problem, you say. I continue.

If you think about it, you will probably realize (British, realise) that North Street was an east-west thoroughfare, East Street was a north-south thoroughfare, South Street was an east-west thoroughfare, and West Street was another north-south thoroughfare. Things get interesting from there. I will use abbreviations from here on because that's what was on the green and white street signs at corners throughout the city.

The city planners in their wisdom extended these streets so that in addition to the one-block long North Street there was an E. North Street running eastward and a W. North Street running westward. Using all of the gray matter available to you, you can guess that there might be (and there was) a N. East Street and a S. East Street running northward and southward respectively from the one-block long East Street, an E. South Street and a W. South Street running eastward and westward respectively from the one-block long South Street, and a N. West Street and a S. West Street running northward and southward respectively from the one-block long West Street. Thus the whole city of Arlington was divided into four quadrants (how many quadrants were you expecting?). I found four particular intersections particularly mind-blowing:

• The intersection of E. North and N. East
• The intersection of W. North and N. West
• The intersection of E. South and S. East
• The intersection of W. South and S. West

and trying to give directions to people became problematic at times and even downright silly.

In closing, I also need to tell you that Mrs. Ella Willis, the staunch Baptist landlady of the boarding house I chose to live in instead of a dormitory, attended a big Baptist church on the west side of town, and some of my friends attended another big Baptist church on the east side of town. Interestingingly enough, and this is also absolutely true, the pastor of the Baptist church on the west side of town was named Reverend East and the pastor of the Baptist church on the east side of town was named Reverend West.

I swear or affirm that all of the foregoing is true, so help me God.

This post makes one thing perfectly clear.

It is a slow blogging day in Canton, Georgia.