If you don't know what ephemera means, follow Rowan and Martin's advice from Laugh-In days and look it up in your Funk & Wagnalls. For the record, we never owned a set of Funk & Wagnalls. We owned a 20-volume set of The Book of Knowledge and a 20-volume set of the Grolier Encyclopedia. At school I used the World Book Encyclopedia or the Encyclopedia Americana or the Encyclopedia Britannica, but even the school library didn't have Funk & Wagnalls. You can safely assume, therefore, that I have never looked up anything in my or anybody else's Funk & Wagnalls.
Be that as it may, it can now be revealed that north Georgia is having its second snowfall of the season today as we speak. The first one occurred about two weeks ago and any trace of it has long since disappeared. Our area receives a lot more rain than snow in wintertime, and if the temperatures dip at the same time, we often get ice on the roads and the sidewalks and the trees and the cars. When it gets really bad, branches and even trees come crashing down. Life often comes to a complete stop until the ice melts and the debris is cleared away.
Moving right along, our oldest grandson turned 20 years old today and is no longer a teenager. On top of that, he is currently "batting a thousand" on his college's baseball team. I'm not kidding:
Sorry for the blurriness. I think my hand must have been shaking upon this momentous occasion. The baseball season has just begun and the team has won all three games played to date. Since Elijah played on the Junior Varsity team last year (which his school calls the Varsity Reserve), none of those Freshman-year statistics are included. Batting 1000 (that is, 1.000) is a very rare thing that cannot be sustained for very long. Ted Williams of Boston Red Sox fame, one of the best baseball players who ever lived, finished his career with a .344 batting average, meaning he got a hit about once out of every three turns at bat. In 1941, he posted a .406 batting average, making him the last Major League Baseball player to bat over .400 in a season.
The snow has turned to sleet. It may be a while before Elijah's career can resume.
P.S. -- This is my 1,500th post. It took only 8 years, 4 months, and 12 days to get here. The celebrating may now begin.
1500 posts? I am not a third the way here.
ReplyDeleteYou are a much more diligent blogger.
EC (Sue), thank you, but diligent is probably not the correct word. It comes out to one every other day, but since in the last year or two I know I haven't posted that often, I must have been a busy bee in my blog's early days. It's tiring even to think about it.
ReplyDeleteEphemera is one of my favourite words.
ReplyDeleteWell done Elijah!! And well done you too sir!! That's a books worth at least, and one worth reading too. *lets off some party poppers, and then wheels in a giant cake with 1,500 candles on it -the cake bursts open and Snow jumps out clad in a cheer leaders outfit (his choice), singing The Star Spangled Banner and finishing by doing the splits*
Congratulations! X
Congratulations to Elijah. I hope a get to see him in Spring Training one day....This make Mr. Brague VERY happy!!!!
ReplyDeleteAC (Michelle), thank you from both of us (Elijah and me)! One blogger screen indicates 1500, another indicates 1499, and still a third indicates 1498. So perhaps the cake is a bit premature.
ReplyDeleteReamus (Michael), thank you for not pointing out that Elijah has played in only one game and has had only one time at bat (AB). I hope you get to see him in Spring Training one day too!
Whoah! Party time in the streets of Sheffield, Yorkshire, England as we celebrate your 1500th blogpost! I have written to Queen Elizabeth II asking if you could be knighted. Sir Robert Brague has a nice ring to it.
ReplyDeleteYorkshire Pudding, thank you for bringing me to the attention of Her Majesty. I have been notified by the Home Secretary that I shall not be knighted by Her Majesty, but I am most definitely considered benighted by Her Majesty.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations Mr Brague. Have you done a word count? It can be a little bit scary when you you realise you have written several novels worth of prose for no pecunary reward.
ReplyDeleteBut we aren't in it for the money, just the royal patronage. If I were you, I'd hold out for a peerage. Lord Brague of Cherokee County has a nice ring to it.
Shooting (Ian), thank you all the way to darkest Lancashire. We don't have peerages on this side of the pond. The most I could hope for is Commissioner of Water & Sewers.
ReplyDelete“…Georgia is having its second snowfall of the season today as we speak.”
ReplyDelete"We"? Are you off your medication again?
“This is my 1,500th post. It took only 8 years, 4 months, and 12 days to get here. The celebrating may now begin.”
Not until you pass out the cake, the punch, and the party hats.
P.S. "Lord Brague of Cherokee County has a nice ring to it."
ReplyDeleteYou know, of course, that they ran out all of the Cherokees. It's an example of white man's humor to destroy every last vestige of something, and then to name a county, a town, or a street after it.
“the cake bursts open and Snow jumps out clad in a cheer leaders outfit (his choice), singing The Star Spangled Banner and finishing by doing the splits*”
ReplyDeleteIs this your way of saying that I look hot, and if it’s my choice about the costume, why do I have to wear anything? Are you turning prudish in your old age, or do you simply worry about being overcome with passion? I propose that we hold the event in the “fellowship hall” of Rhyme’s church, and no one who was there would ever look at Rhymes in the same way again. In fact, he might have to more to Oregon. Lotta Joy is already going to live in my driveway and run an extension cord out to her car so she can read at night, but it’s a double driveway, so I see no reason why Mr. and Mrs. Rhymes couldn’t live there too just so long they kept the volume down because being awaked at all hours by rap music (so called) really and truly wouldn’t work for me. By the way, you could fly to Mexico, sneak across the border, buy and old clunker, and live in driveway alongside Rhymes and Lotta.