The man on the back of the Clapham Omnibus lives in Peoria, Illinois

In a comment on my last post, longtime reader Graham Edwards, who happens to live near the town of Stornoway on the Island of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, mentioned "the man on the back of the Clapham Omnibus" and then added parenthetically "(a reference which I think I am correct in saying you have used in the past)".

Readers in the U.K. may find this hard to believe, but Graham's comment is the first time in my entire lifespan of 80 years, 1 month, 7 days that I have ever encountered the phrase "the man on the back of the Clapham Omnibus". I have never seen it in print or heard it spoken and I am not clairvoyant enough to have used it in the past. Graham, you obviously have me confused with some other rhymeswithplague.

So for those of you who are scratching your heads, here is your reading assignment for this beautiful April afternoon:

• If you live in the United States, read The Man On The Clapham Omnibus.
• If you live in the United Kingdom or one of the Commonwealth Nations, read Will It Play In Peoria?
• If you have no idea what I'm talking about, read both articles.

Graham did pay me a compliment, saying, "I do enjoy your precise use of words." I am not nearly as precise as my English friend Doug Braund, whom I met around 1967 in Poughkeepsie, New York, where I had begun working for IBM two years earlier. I thought of Doug when Graham mentioned the word omnibus. Doug was on temporary assignment in Poughkeepsie from the IBM laboratory at High Wycombe in England, and he was very precise. He was modern enough to say bus instead of omnibus, but when he wrote it on paper I noticed that he was careful to write it as a contraction, 'bus, instead of the more common word, bus.

I have no idea how I remembered that today, but didn't it fit nicely into this post?

Life is a symphony, or not

I'm not very good at multi-tasking, and since I'm involved with several things at once just now and trying to cope with them all simultaneously, my brain tends to get frazzled and wants to fight back by shutting down altogether. "Stop the world, I want to get off!" it cries, and not much gets accomplished when that happens.

I like to read one book at a time, so naturally I am reading two at present. Over a year ago when Mrs. RWP and I were visiting our daughter's family in Alabama, I noticed Sam's copy of To Kill A Mockingbird and asked if I could borrow it if he was through with it. He was, and I did. I read it when it was first published nearly sixty years ago and I thought it would be interesting to re-visit it now that I am past eighty. I laid it aside in a drawer when we returned home and didn't find it again until last week. The other book I have begun, which was sent to me over a year ago as well by my blogger friend Snowbrush out in Oregon, is The Long Loneliness, the autobiography, as the cover states, of "the legendary Catholic Social Activist" Dorothy Day, who was born in 1897 and died in 1980.

Since Mockingbird is fiction and Loneliness is non-fiction, I am hoping to navigate them more or less simultaneously, although literally simultaneously would be something of an impossibility.

My daughter, who began chemotheraphy for breast cancer two weeks ago today, lost much of her hair yesterday. Fortunately, the wig she had ordered arrived in Friday's mail. We had made the 3-1/2 hour drive over on Thursday to keep her company while her husband was teaching a class in Mississippi and we returned to north Georgia on Saturday afternoon. We had a good visit although she has already begun to experience some side effects from the chemo. Her next treatment is a week from today and will continue every three weeks until July, at which time the oncologist will assess the situation. That is on our mind at all times.

I am scheduled to receive injections in both eyes on Wednesday (intra-vitreous injections, they're called) for the macular degeneration that was first diagnosed in 2017. These injections typically occur every four to six weeks. Our son, who has been transporting us to these treatments, is without a vehicle at the moment. A deer ran out of the woods and collided with his car recently and the repair shop had to order replacement parts from Japan to repair some of the damage said deer caused. If his car is not ready today or tomorrow, I will need to make other arrangements. I can drive myself when only one eye is being treated but not when both eyes are being treated. Mrs. RWP doesn't drive any more. A neighbor who had been very helpful and more than willing to assist underwent surgery for anal cancer recently and is now wearing a colostomy bag, so though her spirit is willing, her flesh is weak. I am hoping to hear from my son soon so that I can ask the doctor's office to treat one eye only this week and make a follow--up appointment for the other eye for next week. This novel way of solving my dilemma also means that I will be required to pay two co-payments to the doctor instead of one.

Our little dog has decided to go on a hunger strike of sorts and is eating far less than usual. We have tried giving her dry kibble, kibble with goat's milk, and kibble with pumpkin puree, but it is anyone's guess from one day to the next whether she will eat her food. She was a little on the pudgy side anyway, so losing two pounds of her fifteen in the past month may not be a bad thing, but one tends to worry about one's furry pets.

I don't want to sound like a whiner, a complainer, a lily-livered low-life of a specimen of humanity who doesn't realize that lots of other people have far worse things to deal with, but neither am I ready to sing tra-la-la with Pollyanna and accept whatever comes my way as being the best of all possible worlds. (I have no idea whether Pollyanna sang tra-la-la, but it sounds good, doesn't it?)

Another Dorothy, Dorothy Parker. wrote the following:

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Roumania.

In case you are wondering why I would include those particular lines in this post, you can find out by reading this.

On the eighteenth of April in seventy-five,

...hardly a man is now alive,
who remembers that famous day and year.

Truer words were never spoken, because the year under consideration is not 1975 or even 1875.

The year under consideration is 1775. The man who could remember that famous day and year would now be equally famous for being the oldest person alive today.

I'm just saying.

Do you know who wrote the poem?

Do you know the title of the poem?

Do you know in which U.S. state the action described in the title occurred? (This is sort of a trick question.)

No fair looking things up.

Meanwhile, in Texas...

...it's bluebonnet time!

That is my sole surviving stepbrother, Bob Houston, who turned 84 in January, sitting in a field of bluebonnets this week near Ennis, Texas.

The photo was taken by Bob's lovely wife, Linda. I do not know and cannot explain why Linda was not the one sitting in the field and Bob was not the one taking the photograph. Life is strange in many places, but never stranger than in Texas.

The bluebonnet, which is the state flower of Texas, blooms in March and April each year.

A frond in need is a frond indeed

I am hoping that Spring has finally sprung in north Georgia. In my part of the globe, weather-wise, March is always a bit iffy but April is more reliable. So far this year I have spotted jonquils, daffodils, tulips, phlox, forsythia, azaleas, Bradford pear trees in full blossom, dogwoods (both pink and white), flowering peach, tulip trees (more accurately, magnolia x soulangiana), and redbuds (which are fuchsia, not red). I'm eagerly awaiting more of our annual outburst of local flora.

When we lived in Florida (in the 1960s and 1970s) the flora were more exotic -- ixora, hibiscus, bougainvilla, oleander, Confederate jasmine, poinsettia, and I was told that Florida had 26 different kinds of palm trees.

I am in the habit of verifying statements of fact hat I make because I don't want to be guilty of misleading you. So immediately after telling you there were 26 kinds of palm trees in Florida (of which I can name only royal palm, coconut palm, sago palm, cabbage palm, sabal palm, and alexander palm), I turned to my old friend Wikipedia. Speaking of being told something, I am told that Wikipedia is not considered a reliable source because it can be so easily edited by just about anybody, but old habits die hard. I did not find how many kinds of palm trees there are in Florida, but I did read that there are 2,600 species of palm trees in the world. By doing the math we say with confidence that 1% of them can be found in Florida. That fact, for good or ill, is now stuck in my head, along with the BBC's report from 2015 that Scotland has 421 words for snow.

Here is a photograph of a coconut palm on the island of Martinique:

That photograph makes me happy. I'd like to be there right now.

Here's a link showing some but not all of the different kinds of palm trees found in Florida.

In case palm trees don't float your boat, try these fascinating posts by two of my favorite blogging friends:

1. Vagabonde's current post: Picasso in Nashville, the weather and Paducah, KY

2. Tasker Dunham's current post: Salman Rushdie: Midnight’s Children

Maybe you will find a new frond, er, friend.

How’s that again?

Today I'm going to tell you something I learned during the pandemic that you may have already known and I probably should have known but didn't have a clue about.

Before I do that, however, I ask that you not criticize (British, criticise) me for having ended a sentence with a preposition. Someone has said that a person who criticizes another person for ending a sentence with a preposition doesn't know what language is all about and doesn't know what prepositions are for. To the stubbornly pedantic, I quote Winston Churchill, who, when he was taken to task for ending a sentence with a preposition, said, "That is the type of errant pedantry up with which I will not put."

What I learned during the pandemic that you may have already known but about which I didn't have a clue is this: I thought that people wore masks to protect themselves from others. Nay, not so (as the angel said to Abou ben Adhem). When a person wears a mask, I learned, the person protected is the other person, not the mask-wearer. It is apparently what you breathe out, not what you breathe in -- what you exhale, not what you inhale -- that the medical community fears.

It is a concept I struggle to understand. It seems counter-intuitive. Maybe I am just thick of skull.

Don't answer that.

Turning from that topic, let us consider closed captioning.

Although it is a great invention and technological advance that helps many, the shortcomings and foibles of closed captioning can be downright amusing. Here are some examples of nearly-but-not-quite-accurate transcriptions that Juanita Hughes, a local historian and retired head of the Woodstock Public Library, saw on Atlanta newscasts and weather reports and shared in a recent newspaper column entitled "Live closed captioning often a source of humor":

• riots and undressed (riots and unrest)
• The Cab County (DeKalb County)
• Calm County (Cobb County)
• Alfredo Highway (Alpharetta Highway)
• police in pursuit of lawbreakers can no longer taste (chase) them
• Wait Green Road (Wade Green Road)
• windshield factors (wind chill factors)
• boaters went to the polls today (voters)
• a surgeon cases (a surge in cases)
• Madonna vaccine (Moderna)
• source of female (source of email)
• Tiger's accident could have caused (cost) him his life

In addition to the list above, here are two more that I saw with my own eyes while viewing our church's Sunday morning worship service via live streaming before we received our vaccinations:

Among God's attributes are His omnipotence, His omnipresence, and His ammunitions (omniscience).

Even the benediction was not immune:

The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you, the Lord lift up His continents (countenance) upon you, and give you peace.

P.S. -- Today, April 10th, would have been my mother's 111th birthday. Some days, though I'm a mere 80, I know how 111 would feel. I'm thankful that today is not one of them.

A bend in the road

This faded picture is my favorite photograph of our children when they were young. It must have been taken around 1972 or 1973 as the children are about 8, 7, and 5 years old. Our older son is on the right:

Today they are 56, 55, and 53. Mrs. RWP sewed our daughter's dress herself, which was a rich blue and included beautiful smocking on the front, which somehow didn't get included in the photograph.

Today our daughter begins chemotherapy for cancer in her left breast. She first felt a "knot" or lump about a month ago and since that time has had a mammogram, an ultrasound, and an MRI. They caught it early, so the prognosis is good. Her lymph nodes are clear and her right breast is clear. Last week she had a port installed and received an iron infusion because her hematacrit (red blood cell level) was on the low side. Her genetic testing came back clear except for one mutation in a recessive gene that the doctor says has no effect on her current situation. The three markers of estrogen, progesterone, and HER2 were tested as well; the first two were negative and the third one was positive. I've told you everything I know to this point.

Our daughter's husband is driving them to the cancer center in Birmingham, an hour and a half trip, as I sit here writing this post. My wife and I prayed for her this morning. A lot of people are praying for her today.

I hate that this has happened to her. If I could, I would gladly take her place.

I am a Christian believer, but I became very angry with God at first. I said, "You took my mother; are you going to take my daughter too?" and I also said, "The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away, yes, but I don't have to like it."

God responded by giving me grace and my heart settled down. That quote about giving and taking away ends with "Blessed be the Name of the Lord." Mrs. RWP and I are praying for Angela today, as we always have every day of her life. There are just a few new details we are including today.

If you are a praying person we ask you to include Angela in your prayers. If you are not a praying person, at least think positive thoughts. If you can't even do that, your heart must be really hard.

On Saturday she did a little "wig shopping" because her hair will probably fall out, but she didn't buy one yet. Much of mine has already done that, so I am in solidarity with her. One of my sons plans to shave his head to show his support.

Angela has a strong support system in the town where she lives, which is about three hours from her Georgia family. She is the principal of a primary school with about 800 students and a faculty and staff of around 80 people. On Friday, all of the adults in the school, including the custodians and the lunchroom workers, wore specially-made tee-shirts as a surprise show of support.

I will close with one of my favorite verses in the Bible, Nahum 1:7 in the Old Testament: "The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and He knoweth them that trust in Him."

There's more than one way to skin a cat

...which being interpreted means if the mountain won't come to Mohammed, Mohammed will go to the mountain.

...which being interpreted means since I wasn't able to show you myself playing "Resurrection Medley", Mark Hayes's arrangement of three Easter songs, I'll just show you someone else playing it:

"Resurrection Medley" (3:10)

Happy Easter!

...which being interpreted means Christ is risen!

Easter season in Out-Of-Tune-Piano Land

Last year, when the whole world was out of tune because of something called the COVID-19 pandemic, I made two little videos, one on Good Friday and one on Easter, of myself playing my out-of-tune piano.

On Good Friday, I played an arrangement by Tedd Smith (he was Billy Graham's pianist for many years) of the hymn "Jesus, The Very Thought Of Thee" (the words of the hymn are attributed to Bernard of Clairvaux). On Easter Sunday, I played "Resurrection Medley", an arrangement by Mark Hayes that is a combination of three Easter songs, two of which are fairly well-known and a third one not as well-known:

"Low In The Grave He Lay" (also known as "Christ Arose")
"Christ The Lord Is Risen Today" by Charles Wesley
"Rise Again" by Dallas Holm

I put them on my Facebook page at the time but did not put them in this blog. Since Easter has rolled around again and our world is possibly more out of tune than ever (some things are worse than a pandemic), this year I want to share them with you.

Even in an out-of-tune world, on an out-of-tune piano, one can still make music.

Update. I have been trying for several hours now to move the two videos from my iPhone photo archive into either a text message or an e-mail so that I can download them to my desktop computer and then upload them into blogger, BUT SO FAR I HAVE HAD NO SUCCESS WHATSOEVER AND I AM FRUSTRATED AND YES, I MAY EVEN BE SHOUTING. You'll just have to imagine them until yours truly becomes more proficient in what should be the most basic of technical tasks.

More proficient, forsooth. It is to laugh.

Sorry.

Apparently the piano isn't the only thing that's out of tune.

No April Fools need apply

Here are the latest crop of you-know-whats¹:

What is Moscow?
What is Catfish Row?
What is incontrovertible?
Who is George Burns?
What is a demon?
What is Vertigo?
What is Malachi?

In the category Russian History, the clue was "Ivan I lived in this city."

In the category Seafood Scenery, the clue was "the waterfront marketplace area where Porgy and Bess lived."

In the category 16-letter Words, the clue was "the kind of evidence that cannot be dismissed."

In the category People Who Lived Past 100, the clue was "this man co-starred in 'The Sunshine Boys' and left without saying 'Good night, Gracie'."

I cannot remember the fifth category or the clue.

In the category The Movies, the clue mentioned Kim Novak and James Stewart.

In the category The Old Testament, the clue mentioned "the last book."

¹A you-know-what is the term I have decided to apply to an answer no contestant on Jeopardy! came up with buzzed in on knew but which I was yelling at my television set.