Yesterday's gone, sweet Jesus, and tomorrow may never be mine

Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve. Doddering old 2023 is on its last legs and will soon be replaced by a brand new year, 2024. Accordingly, we have just the thing for your listening and viewing pleasure while you attempt to navigate this always-treacherous transitional period. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to:

A Festival Of Auld Lang Syne Performances

Our first number will be on the musical saw with accordion accompaniment, plus there is a bit of the human voice. From 2006, here is someone named Nicki Jaine on both the saw and the vocal, accompanied by Roy Ashley on accordion, with Auld Lang Syne #1 (2:43).

Next, we travel through both time and space to Detroit, Michigan, in the year 1987 to hear the young Aretha Franklin and Billy Preston sing a Motown version of our festival theme, Auld Lang Syne #2 (2:07). For some unknown reason there is a brief appearance by comedian David Brenner at the end of the performance.

As we continue to mellow and chill and let the old year slip away, here with Auld Lang Syne #3 (4:52) is saxophonist Kenny G -- you may skip this video only if you majored in jazz saxophone in college and feel that Kenny G sold out for commercial success.

To close our Festival we reach all the way back to 1953 and the old master himself. Here are Guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadians with what must surely be the schmaltziest version ever recorded -- Auld Lang Syne #4 (2:10), complete with chromatic runs.

Our Festival is now at an end. If we have done our work properly, your transition from 2023 to 2024 will be a smooth one. You may now return to your normal life, where you are free to choose any kind of music that helps you get through your day.

Now go forth and multiply get one for the Gipper hold your head up high and face tomorrow with confidence.

Lord, for my sake, teach me to take one day at a time.

[Editor's note. I have published this post several times over the last 16 years of blogging, and it fairly begged to be brought out again from the archives for newer readers. I have edited it slightly so that the dates are current. For all of 2023's disturbing headlines and armed conflicts, it had some special high points for our family -- our oldest grandson and his wife presented us with our first great-grandchild, our two youngest grandsons both got married, and still another of our grandsons became engaged and completed college. Mrs. RWP (the lovely Ellie) and I pray that everyone who comes here will enjoy good health, happiness, and prosperity in the coming year. --RWP]

Backward, turn backward, O Time in thy flight

I don't know whether you have noticed (yeah, right) but I am a curious person. I don't mean that other people find my ways curious (I can hear some of you saying, "Oh, yes, we do") but that I was born with enough natural inquisitiveness that I like to know answers to questions that other people aren't even asking. "Curiosity killed the cat" is an old saying, but as Mrs. RWP often says, finding out brought it back.

When I wrote the line in the previous post about the earth proceeding in its orbit around the sun at just the right pace, it made me wonder how many miles forward in its orbit around the sun does the earth move in one day? I suppose I could look it up somewhere, but I wanted to try to figure it out by myself using facts we were taught in school.

Here are the facts one must know to determine the answer to my question:

1. Earth's orbit around the sun is not circular, it is elliptical. However, we will treat it as a circle so as not to confuse ourselves further.

2. We need to determine the circumcerence of the circle, that is, the length of Earth's orbit in miles.

3. You may have heard the term πr² (pronounced "pie are square". My dad always insisted that pie are not square, pie are wedge-shaped, but I digress.) Since πr² is the formula for determining the area of a circle and we want to determine the circumference of a circle, πr²
is of no use to us. We need a different formula. The formula we need to use is 2πr where r is the radius of the circle.

4. It just so happens that the distance from Earth to the sun, 93 million miles, is also the radius of the circle whose circumference we are trying to determne. This distance is also what astronomers have dubbed an Astronomical Unit (1 AU), but this bit of trivia is irrelevant for our purposes today.

5. Pi, as we all should know, is 3.14159

We are now ready to do the math/maths, which is/are:

2 × 3.14159 × 93,000,000

and we find that the distance the Earth travels in its year-long orbit around the sun (that is, the circumference of a circle with a 93,000,000-mile radius) is 584,335,740 miles.

It is then a siimple matter of dividing this number by the number of days in a year (use either 365 or 365.25, whatever floats your boat, it doesn't matter to me one iota) to find that our planet is hurtling forward through space about 1.6 million miles every single day.

That is an interesting fact, but here's one that is even more interesting: our movement along the path of orbit around the sun is in a counter-clockwise (British, anti-clockwise) direction.

I don't know why, but learning this astounded me in the same way earlier peoples must have been astounded to learn that the sun does not rise in the east and set in the west, but that our planet is spinning from west to east.

Heretofore I have assumed that clockwise is the natural direction of things. Clocks move forward for a reason, to keep track of the passage of time. And though we can move mechanical timepieces backward, time itself cannot move backward. It keeps moving forward regardless of our actions. We cannot reclaim past moments but nowadays we can record them as they occur using fairly modern inventions the ancients never dreamed of and preserve them for future generations to peruse and, hopefully, enjoy. Maybe that's the lesson of Earth's orbit. Even though its motion runs counter to our feeble understanding, time itself keeps moving forward.

That's all I can drum up for today, folks. I hope each one of you has a merry Christmas and, in case I don't post anything in the next few days, a very happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year.

Has anything astounded you lately?

Today is…

...the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere and the summer solstice in the Southern Hemisphere; that is, the first day of winter and first day of summer, respectively, in those two parts of the world. Here in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia, USA, where I live, near 34°N latitude, the sun rose at 7:40 a.m. and will set at 5:31 p.m., giving me slightly less than 10 hours of daylight and leaving me with slightly more than 14 hours of darkness (night). It is the shortest day and longest night of the entire year. Everything north of the Arctic Circle has 24 hours of darkness. At the same time, in the suburbs of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, where kylie lives, near 34°S latitude, the opposite happened; the sun gave her about 14 hours of daylight, leaving her with about 10 hours of darkness. It is the longest day and shortest night of the entire year. Everything south of the Antarctic Circle has 24 hours of sunlight.

There is a word that describes everything I have told you so far.

Normal.

Fot earthlings, terrans, creatures like us, that is. Any Martians or Venusians or Jupiterians who happen to be visiting among us would find it abnormal. Their normal is a whole different kettle of fish set of circumstances.

In case you hadn't noticed, today is also the first day of the rest of your life. Cherish it. Be thankful for it. Spend it wisely, as it will never come again.

The earth will do its part by continuing to spin at just the right speed, tilt at just the right angle, and proceed in its orbit around the sun at just the right pace so that conditions are right for you to do likewise tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.

"While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease." (Genesis 8:22)

Here they are at last, multiple Brunhildas

During December in other years I have blogged about St. Nicholas (Dec. 6th), St. Lucy (Dec. 13th), Beethoven's birthday (Dec. 16th), Hanukkah (date varies), and, of course, Christmas Eve, Christmas, Boxing Day, and New Year's Eve (dates do not vary). This year those are all out the window, gone with the wind as it were, and I find myself blogging instead about multiple Brunhildas.

Yes, Virginia, there are multiple Brunhildas (some with alternate spellings).

I was not aware of this phenomenon until I revealed that one of the answers I knew that no other contestant knew on Jeopardy! on November 30th was "Who is Brunhilda?" and reader Emma Springfield commented, "As far as Brunhilda, there are more than one of them, so I would like to know the clue." I replied that the clue mentioned valkyries.

I was going to include all the gory details here in one post but that made for a very long post. So I decided instead to include links and ignore the fact that I did the heavy lifting and all you have to do is tap your finger.

To read about Brunhilda the bird species, CLICK HERE .

To read about Brunhilda the valkyrie of Norse mythology and Wagnerian opera fame, CLICK HERE .

To read about Brunhilda the ship (SS Brunhilda), CLICK HERE.

To read about Brunhilda the Frankish queen, CLICK HERE .

To read about Brynhild the novel by H. G. Wells, CLICK HERE .

To read about Brunhilda the asteroid (123 Brunhilda), CLICK HERE .

There is also a comic-strip witch character named Broom-Hilda, but I'm not going to go there. You can look her up yourself if you are interested.

If you are the type of person who never clicks on links, at least check out the bird species and maybe the asteroid. And if there are still more Brunhildas, I ask Emma Springfield to tell us about them in a comment. I'm officially exhausted.

Attention: Graham Edwards

I want to assure you, Graham, that I did not check your maths (in the U.S. we say your math) because I was aware instantly that the difference between 2023 and 1907 is 116. No calculations were necessary, either mentally or with benefit of paper and pencil, and if a mental calculation did occur it happened so rapidly and automatically that the result obtained bordered on what some might call intuitively obvious, except perhaps to children in primary school.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. I have better things to do than sit around fact-checking everything I read, and if you give me a few minutes I'm sure I will think of some of them.

P.S. - A very happy what-would-have-been-his-birthday to your father.

I can’t get to multiple Brunhildas just yet

...because something else, or rather someone else, caught my attention. Since I have never been one to leave a rabbit trail unexplored, off we will now go into the wild blue yonder (how's that for a mixed metaphor?) at least for a little while.

Although I like to think I am a fairly observant person who is fairly well-read, I have now reached the age (82 years, nine months) where every day makes me more aware of how little I really do know, the occasional Jeopardy! answer notwithstanding. This time the someone else who caught my attention, thanks to a fellow blogger named Rachel, was Umberto Eco. I had never heard of him even though he has been famous in certain circles for 40 years, ever since his book The Name Of The Rose was published.

Rachel mentioned that she was reading another of his works, How To Write A Thesis. Here is an excerpt from Rachel's blog:

"I wrote the introduction to my essay this morning between Wordle and breakfast or it may have been the other way round. I happened to read Umberto Eco's essay on How to Write a Thesis before breakfast and Wordle and the timing was good where he told me to get all the silly things out of the way in my first draft, read through, and then write the serious version. If I want to throw my chances of a good degree on to the fire, and by all means do so if I want to, then use the silly first version. If I am actually going to give it the respect it deserves then write the serious version now I've got the first out of the way. So that's what I did. And the serious introduction and outline of what I am going to write about looks much more professional and that of a serious MA poetry student. Thanks Umberto. (I wrote the silly version last night. Slept on it and morning came). Umberto Eco is an Italian writer and philosopher."

I thought Eco's advice to write your silly version first, then write your serious version was good advice indeed, advice that I wish I had encountered before writing Billy Ray Barnwell Here: The Meanderings Of A Twisted Mind that I converted into a blog at www.billyraybarnwellhere.blogspot.com (q.v.).

I decided to look Umberto up, found several articles about his How To Write A Thesis, and opened one. The first words actually written by Umberto Eco tbat I ever read besides the ones referred to in Rachel's blog hit me in the face like a wet dishcloth:

"You are not Proust. Do not write long sentences."

My alter ego Billy Ray Barnwell could have benefited from reading Umberto Eco. It is great advice, right up there with the famous "Omit Needless words" section of Strunk and White's The Elements Of Style. The fact that Eco also wrote "You are not e. e. cummings" will be left to another day to be dealt with.

Our foray into this part of the wild blue yonder is now ended. If anybody decides to check out my other blog (it's a Rolls-Royce), it will have been worth it.

Multiple Brunhildas will have to wait

...because Mrs. RWP and I watched the 1980 film Somewhere In Time the other night on the freevee (formerly IMDb) movie channel and I need to discuss something with you.

It starred Christopher Reeve (fresh from his 1978 success as Superman) and Jane Seymour (born Joyce Penelope Wilhelmina Frankenberg and still more than a decade away from being selected for the title role in the television series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman).

Somewhere In Time is the unlikely story (warning; spoiler ahead) of a handsome young playwright who manages to travel back in time from 1980 to 1912 in order to pursue a romance with a beautiful and talented actress. This unlikely scenario requires complete concentration and self-hypnosis on the part of the playwright, who divests himself of all modern inventions, clothing, and accoutrements in order to achieve his not-to-be-denied desire, except, oddly enough, the cassette-tape player that plays his self-hypnosis spiel over and over. Lo and behold, wonder of wonders, he succeeds. The audience is required to suspend disbelief and go with the flow. After an all too brief but highly amorous night spent in each other's arms, the young playwright is snatched from his lover's presence and hurled back to the present (1980} when he finds a 1979 Lincoln-head penny in a pocket of his turn-of-the-century suit.

Okay, I get that it is pure fantasy and I understand how the spell was broken by the presence of a coin from the future. What I don't understand, however, and this is what I wanted to discuss with you, is why a music box playing "Eighteenth Variation on 'Rhapsody on a Theme By Paganini', Opus 43" by Sergei Rachmaninoff (and repeated by a full orchestra at several emotionally-charged moments) did not rip Mr. Reeve from Ms.Seymour's presence long before the offending penny showed up. The reason for my suspension of my suspension of disbelief in this particular instance is that Mr. Rachmaninoff did not compose that piece of music until 1934, which, unless I am sadly mistaken, was 22 years after 1912.

Do you agree or disagree? Please tell me in a comment and give reasons.

Footnote. That music by Rachmaninoff has been included in weddings all over America in the decades since the film because Somewhere In Time has been loved by so many impressionable young and not-so-young brides-to-be.

We will get to multiple Brunhildas eventually unless we are distracted by Field Of Dreams or Purple Rose Of Cairo or Big Fish or....

The eyes of Texas may or may not be upon you

One of my favorite (British, favourite) activities as a youngster in Texas seven decades ago was learning about the night sky (Northern Hemisphere version) by gazing at it with my father. He showed me Orion the Hunter's shoulders (the stars Rigel and Betelgeuse), knees, and the three stars in Orion's belt. He showed me Canis Major with Sirius (the "Dog Star") at Orion's side. He showed me red Antares in Scorpius, the constellation that actually resembles a scorpion with a curled tail, and Leo the Lion, and the Big Dipper in Ursa Major. He showed me how I could extend a line through the Big Dipper's two front stars to find Polaris, the North Star, at the end of the handle of the Little Dipper in Ursa Minor, and how if I extended the imaginary line an equal distance beyond Polaris I would see a big letter W in the night sky that is the constellation Cassiopeia.

Some of you know that I was diagnosed with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in 2017 and that I have been receiving injections in both eyes every couple of months to try to slow or possibly even halt the degeneration of my vision and save what remains instead of slowly going blind.

About a year ago I was dismayed to realize that I could no longer see Orion's belt. My vision is currently at the point that I can see only four objects in the night sky: the moon, the planet Venus, the planet Jupiter, and Sirius, the "Dog Star", which is the brightest star of all. I can no longer see Orion at all, or any other stars or constellations, for that matter. My daytime vision is actually still pretty good.

On a happier note, I knew three answers on Jeopardy! tonight that none of the three contestants knew:

Who is Minnie Pearl?
What is a cloche?
Who is Brunhilda?

Thumb-twiddling time

It was north Georgia's coldest morning of the season this morning when I took Abby out to perform her necessaries. This morning's low temperature was 23°F (-5°C). Having put on a pea coat, a scarf, and a toboggan, I looked quite dashing, I thought, although no one was looking. After living in south Florida for several years, where the weather is always tropical, I was happy to move to Atlanta, which enjoys four actual seasons, none of them extreme in the way, say, Phoenix. Arizona and Fargo, North Dakota are extreme. Last winter we had only two hard freezss. The first occurred on Christmas Day. The second, which occurred just before the vernal equinox in March, turned 2023 into The Year Of No Gardenias.

By this afternoon it had warmed up to 53°F (11°C) with prospects of warm spell, cold spell, rinse, repeat happening with regularity over the next few weeks. Pneumonia weather, Mrs. RWP calls it.

As you have undoubtedly discerned, I have nothing of interest to share with you today.

Keep on keeping on. Things can only look up from this nadir of my blogging career.

This just in: The highest temperature ever recorded in Phoenix, Arizona was 122°F (50°C) and the lowest temperature ever recorded in Fargo, North Dakota was -39°F (-39°C).

And the caissons go rolling along

My continued apologies to everyone who reads this blog for what must surely seem to have become my new modus operandi, namely a haphazard and sporadic approach to replying to your comments. Family obligations during this Thanksgiving week certainly haven't helped. Please be assured that each person who comments here is very special to me. But since it is also true that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, I can only quote another Latin phrase seldom heard nowadays, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. I shall attempt to do better (translation: answer more promptly) but I cannot promise because I may be sliding slowly into senility.

The Times They Are A-Changin' Department: My country, the good old U S of A, seems to be going to hell in a handbasket, and not so slowly either. More of a headlong rush, if you ask me. Open antisemitism, which sane people thought had disappeared or gone deeply underground with the fall of the Third Reich in 1945, is back with a vengeance. It seems especially strong among college students at elite, liberal universities, fueled by radical faculty members. Raucous public protests have occurred in major cities. When asked by reporters to comment on the situation, the president's press secretary deflected and discussed strategies to combat Islamophobia. There are several extremely pro-Palestinian members of Congress (most notably Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), the common denominator being the D for Democrat) but for now both the House of Representatives and the Senate are still overwhelmngly pro-Israel, as are 70 to 80% of the country according to recent polls. I'm glad we have a First Amendment to our Constitution that guarantees freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and freedom of peaceful assembly, but the 'woke' crowd and the 'cancel culture" folks have a radical agenda and seem determned to have things their way regardless of what anyone else thinks, callng them racist and Nazis and destroying our country in the process.

Our 2024 election season looms, so the next year will be crazy. That is all I'm going to say about that.

I really don't want this blog to change into a political blog, but my brain is rebelling today. Perhaps it is reacting to too much L-tryptophan in the Thanksgiving turkey.

Far left Democrats of an antisemitic bent should probably skip the next paragraph.

I see that Hanukkah this year begins at sunset on December 7th and ends at nightfall on December 15th, so do not wait until the week before Christmas to wish any Jewish friends and colleagues a Happy Hanukkah or they will think you are well-meaning but ill-informed (and they would be right).

Welcome back, far left Democrats. I see by the old clock on the wall that it is time to heat up some more Thanksgiving leftovers, so I will sign off for now.

Strange but true, scout’s honor/honour

North Carolina and South Carolina both have towns named Beaufort. The one in North Carolina is pronounced BOH-furt and the one in South Carolina is pronounced BEW-furt.

Time Flies When You're Having Fun Department: Dick Van Dyke is 98 years old. Nancy Sinatra, Frank's daughter, is 82. Jerry Mathers of Leave It To Beaver fame is 75.

Despite her popularity, I have never heard Taylor Swift sing nor do I know what she looks like. I have not studiously avoided her career but neither have I made any effort to follow it either.

The city of Reno, Nevada is farther west than Los Angeles, California. It's true. The former is at 119°49'19" West longitude; the latter is at 118°15' West longitude.

Even though (a) the Atlantic Ocean is east of North and South America and (b) the Pacific Ocean is west of North and South America, the Pacific end of the Panama Canal is actually east of the Atlantic (okay, Caribbean) end. Look it up on a map.

When a well-known person dies, one would think that newscasters would know how to pronounce his or her name. But noooo. Rosalynn Carter, wife of President Jimmy Carter, died this afternoon and many of the people reporting her death over the telly said RAHZA-lynn (as in Rosalind Russell) but as all Georgians know, it's ROHZA-lynn (as in Rosa Parks).

Maybe I'm being overly sensitive because I lived in Boca Raton, Florida for seven years. People who weren't residents mispronounce it all the time. It's not Boca Ra-TAHN, people, it's Boca Ra-TOHN.

Today is the 160th anniversary of the day in 1863 when Abraham Lincoln went to an address in Gettysburg.

Keep those cards and letters coming.

Miscellany

Solomon Grundy,
Born on Monday,
Christened on Tuesday,
Married on Wednesday,
Took ill on Thursday,
Grew worse on Friday,
Died on Saturday,
Buried on Sunday.
That was the end
Of Solomon Grundy.

Two recent answers on Jeopardy! that I knew but none of the contestants did include Albrecht Dürer and James Fenimore Cooper. The clues mentioned Praying Hands and the Leatherstocking Tales.

Rachel used the word "toff" in her post today. Since I had never encountered the word before, I did the following search:

toff definition

Below, verbatim, is the answer I received from a dictionary website that shall remain nameless:

toff meaning: 1. a rich person from a high social class. 2. a rich person from a high social class.

I am confused as to which meaning Rachel meant.

Unless I am mistaken, this Wednesday is the 60th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It was a cataclysmic event in our nation's histoey. I remember it like it happened yesterday.

The Ides of November

Do you remember the song "Scarborough Fair" that Simon and Garfunkel sang several decades ago? When it runs through my head, as it sometimes does, I usually get the second line wrong. For some strange reason, instead of singing:

Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme

my brain remembers it as:

Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, cheese, rosemary, and thyme

This glimpse into my daily life is not a lead-in to anything. I'm not going anywhere with it. I just felt like sharing it with you today. If you detect some deep psychological meaning or flaw in my make-up, please share the details with all of us in a comment.

Gene Simmons and all the members of Kiss, or Heath Ledger as The Joker in the Batman movie, now there are guys with the possibility of flaws in their make-up.

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Moving right along....

Since many or even most of you don't seem to care for geography or quizzes, and especially geographical quizzes, today's Geographical Momennt (yes, we're going to have one) is not a quiz but a simple, straightforward presentation I call Obscure Countries And Their Obscure Capitals. The format is Country (Capital):

Uzbekistan (Tashkent)
Turkmenistan (Ashgabat)
Kyrgyzstan (Bishkek)
Tajikistan (Dushanbe)
Eswatini (Mbabane, Lobamba)
Azerbaijan (Baku)
Lesotho (Maseru)
The Gambia (Banjul)
Malawi (Lilongwe)
Tuvalu (Funafuti)

An alternate name for the preceding list might be Places I Never Heard Of or, a little more eruditely, Places With Which I Was Heretofore Unfamiliar.

If you haven't yet found something to be thankful for this Thanksgiving, be thankful I didn't ask you to match capitals to all 195 countries recognized by the United Nations.

Yea, verily.

I can't believe that the month is half over already and this is only my second post. There are just 40 days until Christmas, which fact should not give you merely pause but yet another reason besides the existence of this post to fear, as did Julius Caesar of old, the Ides of November.

Or something like that.

As Tigger always said, Ta Ta For Now.

The power of suggestibility

Instead of our regular geography lesson today, class, we're going to have a pop quiz. Let's begin.

1. Ougadoudou, Bobo-Dioulasso, Kougoudou, and Ouahigouya are:

a. Four people groups in Papua New Guinea
b. Four cities in Burkina Faso
c. Four languages spoken in Ghana
d. Four islands in the Malay/Indonesian archipelago

2. Sekpele, Lelemi, Siwu, and Tumulung are:

a. Four people groups in Papua New Guinea
b. Four cities in Burkina Faso
c. Four languages spoken in Ghana
d. Four islands in the Malay/Indonesian archipelago

3. Buka Buka, Legundi, Sebesi, and Sebuku are:

a. Four people groups in Papua New Guinea
b. Four cities in Burkina Faso
c. Four languages spoken in Ghana
d. Four islands in the Malay/Indonesian archipelago

Before proceeding, let's review your answers to the three questions posed above. There is still time to change your answers if you are unsure of them.

I'll wait.

The correct answers are 1-b, 2-c, and 3-d. Let me now ask you a final question.

4. What are Bonete, Tupungato, Sajama, and Palcaraju?

If, thinking logically, you said to yourself "Okay, if 1 is b and 2 is c and 3 is d, the answer to 4 is "a. Four people groups in Papua New Guinea" you would be wrong.

Actually, question 4 is not related in any way to questions 1, 2, and 3. Notice that I didn't repeat choices a, b, c, or d.

Bonete, Tupungato, Sajama, and Palcaraju are mountain peaks in the Andes range of South America.

"No fair," some of you are saying, "you led us astray." I did not lead you astray. You were led astray by falling into a pattern and being susceptible to suggestion.

I learned about this all-too-human tendency of ours in the eighth grade when our teacher, Mrs. Mary Lillard, asked the whole class to answer in unison out loud the principal parts of various verbs in English class.

"Be" said Mrs. Lillard and we said "Am, was, been."

"Go" said Mrs. Lillard and we said "Go, went, gone."

We went through quite a few verbs that day, both regular and irregular, when Mrs. Lillard must have had a twinkle in her eye.

"Only three more," she said. "Sink."

"Sink, sank, sunk," we said.

"Drink" said Mrs.Lillard and we said "Drink, drank, drunk."

"Think" said Mrs. Lillard and the whole class, warming to the task and brimmng with confidence, called out in unison "Think, thank, thunk."

The absurdity of it hit us almost immediately and we burst into laughter. From that day until now I have always tried to stay alert for pitfalls when answering a question.

Zounds! Gadzooks! and other expressions of surprise and delight

...such as Glory be! and Ye gods and little fishes!

I find that I am once again able to create blogposts using my computer screen and QWERTY keyboard! Not only that, but I can once again reply to comments from you, my vast reading public (yeah, right) on my my own blog!

Enough already with what my son-in-law would call a plethora of exclamation points. Let us continue in a more sedate fashion.

The sea-change occurred when I humbled myself and decided to take Tasker's and Rachel's suggestions and sign on to Google via Chrome. Shortly after resetting my Google password, what to my wondering eyes should appear but a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer the world the way it used to be before I was so rudely interrupted.

I really prefer to use Mozilla Firefox and DuckDuckGo and will continue to do so for all activities except blogging, as Google and Microsoft and who knows what else have long-since fallen into the nasty habit of tracing one's every step. This doesn't happen, I am assured, with Mozilla Firefox and DuckDuckGo. I'm just saying. If you prefer to keep doing things your way, be my guest. More power to you.

Any hoo, I am back in harness and hope to blog more frequently now that my fingers can move at their accustomed speed, something they could not do on an iPhone screen.

That's all for now. Keep your powder dry. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.

Trust me, my giddiness will pass. It always does.

P.S. I saw a meme on Facebook the other day that I want to pass along to you. It said "I do not celebrate Halloween for the same reason that Satanists do not celebrate Easter. Light has no fellowship with darkness."

Three completely unrelated paragraphs

My thanks to reader Terra for suggesting that the names P.G. Wodehouse and G.K. Chesterton be added to the list of people known by their initials. I thought also of W.E.B. Du Bois (American Socialist), who didn't occur to me earlier.

My thanks to reader Jenny The Pirate for her own very interesting blog that for some unknown reason I can no longer access. Did she remove the blog altogether? Did she change it into a private blog? I want you to know, Jenny, that I thoroughly enjoyed listening to and watching the video clip of your son performing Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Major, Opus 26 by Sergei Prokofiev at the Cleveland Institute of Music. It was brilliant, mesmerising, a virtuoso performance. I'm sure you must be very proud of that young man's musical accomplishments, and you have every right to be.

Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana (no relation to John Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, who went on to occupy the highest office in the land), is proof positive that freedom of speech is alive and well in the United States of America. I know this because with my own eyes and ears I saw and heard Senaror Kennedy say on television yesterday, "President Biden is older than the Adirondack Mountains" and he went on to say that the president's nominee to become U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Jack Lew, is absolutely the wrong man for the job and that if Lew had been alive when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor he would have recommended creation of a commission to determine what the U.S. had done that offended the Japanese.

My initial reaction

Some people are known by their names and some are known by their initials only. I have known several individuals over the years who used their initials, including:

O.M. Nessler (a classmate's older brother)
D.K. Ward (a classmate)
L.W. West (a classmate)
C.B. Gilstrap (my childhood barber)
H.O. Watkins (my daughter-in-law's grandmother's husband)
F.B. Griffis (our church organist's husband)
F.M. Moore, Jr. (choir director and friend for 45 years)

F.M.'s long-dead father was not called F.M. Moore, Sr., however. He was called Frank, which led me some 35 years into my friendship with F.M. to ask him if his name might possibly be Francis Marion. He admitted that it was. My hunch was right. Francis Marion was an American Brigadier General during the Revolutionary War that George III inspired. Marion was nicknamed "The Swamp Fox" for introducing guerilla-like tactics into modern warfare in, of all places, South Carolina.

Lots of people in all walks of life go by their initials. Here are some of them:

J.R.R. Tolkein (author)
K.D. Lang (singer)
A.E. Houseman (poet)
A.A. Milne (creator of Winnie the Pooh)
e.e. cummings (poet)
Y.A. Tittle (professional football player)
J.K. Rowling (author)
N.T. Wright (theologian)
I.M. Pei (architect)
C.S. Lewis (author)
T.S. Eliot (poet)
S.I. Hayakawa (author, academic, politician)

Consider also P.D.Q. Bach, R.E.O. Speedwagon, T.J. Hooker. That last one is a fictional police sergeant played by William Shatner in a television series of the same name. When Agatha Christie created fictional characters she gave them names. Jane Marple. Hercule Poirot. If names work for Agatha Christie, they ought also to work for writers of television scripts.

On second thought, if my parents had named me Clive Staples or Yelberton Abraham, I might prefer to use my initials too.

Time out

In an old episode of Matlock that Mrs. RWP and I were watching recently, Ben Matlock's young assistant, Cliff Lewis, asked eccentric FBI Agent Ed Wingate how to proceed after he (that is, Cliff) received a kiss on his cheek from Matlock's private investigator Jerri Stone and wondered whether she might be interested in him romantically.

"As the old saying goes, 'Slow and steady wins the race'", said Wingate, an obvious reference to Aesop's well-known fable The Tortoise and the Hare. Cliff looked confused and replied, "I thought it was 'the race is to the swift'".

Cliff was mistaken.

Sometimes people think I have a photographic memory. I do not, though my memory is very good. (I hasten to add here that several decades ago in Florida my friend Gene H. told our mutual friend Dick V. that I had a photogenic memory.)

A very wise man, possibly King Solomon, wrote a very long time ago (3000 years) that "the race is not [repeat, NOT] to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned, but time and chance happen to them all". You can find it in a book we now call Ecclesiastes.

All I'm saying is that when an actor portraying a minor character in a decades-old semi-popular television series speaks words written by a scriptwriter who didn't do enough research, I not only notice, I tell my friends about it.

As you may have surmised by now, this post is unimportant in the overall scheme of things, and totally without redeeming social value, but my hope is that it managed to take your mind off the world's troubles for a few minutes.

P.S. - In spite of my very good memory, my inability to reply to commnts on my own blog or leave comments on anyone else's blog continues. Tasker Dunham suggested that it might be because I do not sign on using Google Chrome. I prefer using Mozilla Firefox and DuckDuckGo, so perhaps I am shooting myself in the foot.

I’m not trying to be morbid or anything

...but for the past week or so death and dying have been on my mind quite a lot. Not my death or my dying, please note, and I fervently hope and trust my own death is still quite some time in the future. No, I've been reminded by the calendar of the deaths of several people in my life.

On September 26th I saw a post on Facebook about the funeral the day before of a friend of ours for more than 45 years from a former church, with whom we had lost touch.

On September 27 I remembered that in 2018 our 53-year-old niece was found dead on the floor of her bedroom by her widiwed mother about an hour after midnight. Our niece had recently separated from her third husband and moved with Simone, her German Shepherd dog, into her mother's home. Simone, who always slept in the same room as our niece, had come into the mother's bedroom and awakened her.

On September 28 I remembered that in 2015 Mrs.RWP's 84-year-old brother died after having been placed on "at-home hospice" with visiting nurses for about a month. He was the father of the niece mentioned earlier and it was his death that made a widoe of his wife, also mentioned earlier, to whom he had been married for 64 years. She herself died in bospice in November 2020 during the pandemic.

October 1st would have been the birthday of the niece that I mentioned above who died five years ago a few days before her 54th birthday.

It occurred to me on October 2nd that the day was the birthday of my youngest step-brother who died of a massive heart attack at the age of 54 in 1996.

Also on October 2nd, our oldest son called to let us know that his father-in-law, a retired physician, had died peacefully in his sleep during the pre-dawn hours. His wife called 911 when she discovered that he was not breathing. He was 87 years old.br>
October 4th is a day I always remember because it marks the anniversary of the day my mother died in 1957. She fought cancer for eight years before succumbing.

I guess I have reached the stage in life when deathdays are more common than birthdays. They occur with increasing frequency; at least it seemed so this week. There have been a whole slew of them.

A day in the life, and another, and another

Being one of the last of the big-time spenders, I took my wife out to breakfast yesterday at one of the local fast-food drive-through establishments that sells hamburgers most of the time but also offers a breakfast menu during the morning hours. The breakfast menu includes various kinds of croissants and biscuits and "French toast-stix", stuff like that. Our own particular favorite (British, favourite) fast-food breakfast is a sausage-egg-and-cheese croissant with hash rounds (finely chopped fried potatoes formed into miniature patties that are known in some places as tater tots) and coffee that would never be mistaken for the world's best. We are gluttons for punishment, evidently.

At the fast-food place, three men were solving the world's problems at a nearby table very loudly, oblivious to other diners who simply wanted a quick, quiet breakfast. They spoke at length of Russian oligarchs and the Crimea and billions of dollars and things one of them called unconstitutional. They never mentioned several currently pressing topics but they came across as self-assured, arrogant, convinced of their own opinions. This didn't happen in Washington D.C. but in a fast-food place in snall-town America. I mentioned to Mrs. RWP that they reminded me of a comedian on television many years ago who told the host of a talk show that in his marriage he made all the big, important decisions, and that his wife made all the small, unimportant ones like what city they would live in, how many children they would have, how much they spent on a house, what kind of car they drove. The host of the show said, "What decisions do YOU make?" and the guy said, "You know, big ones like should Red China join the United Nations?".

After finishing our breakfasts, Mrs.RWP and I went to Home Depot and picked out a new washer and dryer that will be delivered and installed on Saturday. Our old dryer finally breathed its last a day earlier after 20 years of faithful service. It left us with two loads of wet clothes (one in the dryer and one in the washer waiting its turn) to be dried the old-fashioned way. We haven't had a clothesline or clothespins in a very long time but we did have a collapsible drying rack in the garage that proved to be up to the task in our emergency.

We decided to replace our 20-year-old washing machine as well because it might last five more years or it might last five more minutes. We justified our decision in the spirit of killing two birds with one stone, so to speak.

Today, we are looking forward to meeting our second son and his wife tonight for dinner at a Mexican restaurant. We don't get to see them often enough.

Tomorrow, which will be yet another day in our lives, will be the 16th anniversary of the birth of this blog. If this blog were a person, it could get a driver's license.

P.S. - The comments-answering situation continues to be a problem and Google is not helping. He/She/It no longer seems to like me. I will keep trying to solve the dilemma but progress is slow. All in all, I seem to be an ignoramus,-a,-um. I do appreciate everyone who comments.

Curiouser and curiouser

Today for some unknown reason I have been able to leave comments on both Hilltophomesteader's blog and Tasker Dunham's blog using my iPhone but not on anyone else's or even anyone's else.

I just heard on Fox News that a woman's fiancé exchanged her wedding dress for one his mother liked better. My advice to the woman is to run as fast as you can away from that fellow. Do not pass GO; do not collect two hundred dollars.

Note to the non-French-speaking among my readers as well as those who strive for accuracy in reporting: A man is a fiancé; a woman is a fiancée. A person with gender dysphoria can go either way. I'm just saying.

That's all folks. What can I say? It's Sunday afternoon.

Ford, GM, and who?

I seem to be increasingly out of touch. Last week it was the word Eswatini, the new name of Swaziland, that caught me by surprise. Now it is American automobile makers.

From time immemorial (okay, for the last hundred years or so) the "Big Three" American auto makers have been Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler (more recently known as Daimler-Chrysler after the German company Daimler-Benz as in Mercedes Benz either acquired or merged with, take your pick, Chrysler).

Over the years, Ford made Fords, Mercurys, and Lincolns; General Motors made Chevrolets, Pontiacs, Oldsmobiles, Buicks, and Cadillacs; and Chrysler made Plymouths, Dodges, and Chryslers. Other manufacturers came and went. Studebaker, Nash, Hudson, Packard, Pierce-Arrow, Stanley Steamer. Gone, all of them, while the Big Three more or less thrived, with the notable exceptions of their Oldsmobile and Plymouth lines.

That all came crashing down around my ears today when I heard a news broadcaster say that the strike by the United Auto Workers Union, now in its sixth day, has spread to more locations and "is affecting all three of America's big auto makers, Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis".

What? Who? I looked it up and found that Chrysler, Fiat, and Maserati are now considered Stellantis brands.

Well, blow me down. You could have knocked me over with a feather. The world marches on. Belize hasn't been British Honduras in a very long time and India may soon become Bharat. Like I said, out of touch.

That being said, do you need to brush up your Shakespeare? Which of the following statements did Hamlet say?

1. Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him well, Mercutio.
2. Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him well, Horatio.
3. Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him well, Ophelia.

If Lady Macbeth was correct, all the perfumes of what country could not sweeten her little hand?

According to Romeo, the light that through yonder window broke was _______ and Juliet was _______.

Finally, do you know, without looking it up, who wrote the song "Brush Up Your Shakespeare" for a Broadway musical?

Until next time, I remain your out-of-touch but indefatigable (accent on the third syllable) roving correspondent.

A happy autumnal equinox to each of you.

One does what one can and hopes for the best

My inability to reply to comments on my own blog or to leave a comment on anyone else's blog from my iPhone continues.

Aside: My mother, God rest her soul, invariably said "someone's else" and "anyone's else" because, she said, her English teacher in high school was actually from England and that's what SHE said, along with some veddy British pronunciations like strawbree, dictionree, and stationree. (End of Aside)

I do not have a problem commenting when using my desktop computer but unfortunately I am in front of it less and less nowadays and find myself relying more and more on my iPhone, even for composing blogposts. It's a Catch-22 situation if there ever was one. I am reminded, and I don't know why, of the short story "The Gift of the Magi" by William Sidney Porter (he is probably better known by his nom de plume, O. Henry) in which a woman cuts off her beautiful long hair and sells it to a wigmaker in order to have enough money to buy her husband a watch fob for his gold pocket watch, and the husband sells his gold pocket watch in order to have enough money to buy his wife a set of combs for her beautiful long hair. Maybe that's not a Catch-22. Maybe it's what computer programmers call a "deadly embrace" that can occur when two programs cannot proceed because each is waiting for the other to complete an action.

This post is taking much longer to write than I anticipated.

Anyway, in the meantime, until the problem is resolved, if I want to comment I must do so inside my blogposts, so here goes.

In her blog, Rachel Phillips recently referred to herself as "an alumnus, if that is the correct word" of a particular university. No, Rachel, and I hope you see this, that is not the correct word. You are not an alumnus, and here's why. Latin is a highly inflected language where, in addition to verbs being conjugated, nouns are declined. First declension nouns are feminine; nomimative case singular ending is -a and nominative case plural ending is -ae. Second declension nouns, on the other hand, are masculine; nominative case singular ending is -us and nominative case plural ending is -i. There are three or four other declensions as well, but I won't burden you with them.

To keep it as simple as possible:

One female graduate is an alumna.
Several female graduates are alumnae.
One male graduate is an alumnus.
Several male graduates are alumni.

These four words are pronounced, respectively, in Latin, as uh-LOOM-nuh, uh-LOOM-nigh, uh-LOOM-nus, and uh-LOOM-nee but they are usually pronounced differently in English, which can cause even nore confusion..

It's okay to be confused. Hardly anyone gets these particular words right. The only reason I do is that I had a very good Latin teacher, Mrs. Elizabeth Beaver. at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, way back in the 1958-59 school year. I did not graduate from Southwestern and therefore am not an alumnus, merely an ex-student.

In her Cowboys blogpost, Emma Springfield called the raspy-voiced actor who played Jingles on the Wild Bill Hickok TV show by his first name only, Andy. He was Andy Devine, whose career, I discovered, included appearances in no less than 10 feature-length western films starring Roy Rogers and three starring John Wayne that you may remember: Stagecoach, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and How The West Was Won. My favorites were Roy Rogers and Hopalong Cassidy. Emma left Gene Autry off her list but he was also quite popular.

Kylie in Australia said she often wonders how the ancients figured out what causes pregnancy since, with a nine-month interim, the whole cause and effect thing isn't exactly obvious. That is a very good question and certainly more interesting to ponder, I must admit, than why a circle is divided into 360 degrees.

Here's a shout-out to jabblog, a fairly new reader and leaver of comments. And it's always good to hear from Tasker and Terra and Jinksy and Graham and Red. Hilltophomesteader is probably too busy milking goats and feeding chickens and making applesauce and canning green beans and entertaining grandchildren to have much time for commenting these days. We miss her.

This new method is rather clunky and inefficient, but it's better than nothing.

I hope you agree. Let me know if you don't.

We are not as smart as we think we are

Sure, with every passing year more knowledge becomes available to humanity in general, but most people don't care about expanding their horizons. Most people are too busy idolizing the latest pop-singing boy band or swooning over the latest movie heartthrob or twerking (or frugging or watusiing) their way through their otherwise humdrum existence.

The people of antiquity, people who lived hundreds and thousands of years ago, the people we think we are so much smarter than, they're the ones I find fascinating.

Who first looked into the night sky and saw not only a hunter with three stars in his belt but also a dog at his side?

Who decided to divide each day into 24 hours and each hour into 60 minutes and each minute into 60 seconds?

Who decided that a mile would consist of 5,280 feet or that there are 240,000 miles between the earth and the moon?

Who first discovered that meat and different kinds of vegetables tasted much better when cooked in or over a fire?

Who first noticed that seasons rolled around on a regular basis and kept count of the number of days in a year? Same thing with the phases of the moon and the number of days in a lunar cycle?

Who decided that men's shirts would button left over right but that women's shirts (okay, blouses) would button right over left?

Who decided that a circle would have 360 degrees?

Lots of common, everyday things we never think twice about were not common until someone thought about them for the very first time.

Here's a fun fact: In 1791 the French National Assembly defined a meter (well, no, actually, it was a metre) as one ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the North Pole. I wonder how they knew that.

Merrily we roll along

Here are the answers to the preceding post's challenge to match 23 new countries with 14 old countries:

1. Northern Rhodesia became Zambia.
2. Czechoslovakia became Czechia and Slovakia.
3. Ruanda-Urundi became two countries, Rwanda and Burundi.
4. East Pakistan became Bangladesh.
5. Southern Rhodesia became Zimbabwe.
6. Yugoslavia became seven countries, Slovenia, Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Croatia.
7. Ceylon became Sri Lanka.
8. Tanganyika and 9. Zanzibar combined to become one country, Tanzania.
10. Siam became Thailand.
11. Upper Volta became Burkina Faso.
12. Ivory Coast became Cote d'Ivoire.
13. French Indo-China became theee countries, Viet Nam, Cambodia, and Laos.
14. Nyasaland became Malawi.

Thank you, kylie in Australia, for suggesting that I check out the game of Globle if I liked Worldle. I did and I love it! I suddenly remember my dad telling me that a person can't love something if it can't love back, you just like it a whole lot. Globle is now one of four games I play daily, the others being Worldle in English, Worldle in French, and J!6. That last one is an extension of the day's Jeopardy! categories for the addicted.

Here is a list of siblings who had careers in the entertainment industry:

1. Joan Fontaine and Olivia de Havilland.
2. Jayne Meadows and Audrey Meadows.
3. Jack Narz and Tom Kennedy.
4. Shirley MacLaine and Warren Beatty.
5. James Arness and Peter Graves.
6. Loretta Lynn and Crystal Gayle.
7. Dolly Parton and Stella Parton.
8. Ron Howard and Clint Howard.
9. Derek Hough and Julianne Hough.
10. Donnie Osmond and Marie Osmond.
11. June Havoc and Gypsy Rose Lee.
12. Constance Bennett and Joan Bennett.
13. Chico, Harpo, Groucho, Gummo, and Zeppo Marx^*.
14. Dick Van Dyke and Jerry Van Dyke.
15. Tommy Dorsey and Jimmy Dorsey.
16. Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby and Bob Crosby.

^*The real names of the Marx Brothers were Leonard, Adolph, Julius, Milton, and Herbert.

Other show-biz siblings include the Andrews Sisters, the McGuire Sisters, the Lennon Sisters, the Ames Brothers, the Pointer Sisters, and the Osmond Brothers. The Gumm Sisters performed during the days of vaudeville but only one of the sisters continued to perform after the other sisters stopped. We know her as Judy Garland.

I admit it. This whole post is, to quote Tasker Dunham's words in a recent comment on this very blog, about as much use as being able to program in COBOL^**.

^**COmmon Business-Oriented Language

I love maps, masks not so much

I am still getting used to the fact that Burma changed its name to Myanmar (it happened in 1989) but I was very surprised to learn yesterday that the little country of Swaziland (it's completely surrounded by South Africa) changed its name to Eswatini in 2018. Were you aware of this? I have never heard the word Eswatini before. Where have I been for the last five years?

The world map has changed significantly since I studied geography in school, at which time Alaska and Hawaii were not states and the US flag had 48 (not 57) stars.

Can you match the old names of the countries in A with their new names in B?

A -- Northern Rhodesia, Czechoslovakia, Ruanda-Urundi, East Pakistan, Southern Rhodesia, Yugoslavia, Ceylon, Tanganyika, Siam, Upper Volta, Ivory Coast, French Indo-China, Zanzibar, Nyasaland

B -- Tanzania, Slovenia, Bangladesh, Serbia, Zambia, Kosovo, Sri Lanka, Czechia, Viet Nam, Rwanda, Malawi, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Zimbabwe, Cote d'Ivoire, Slovakia, Cambodia, Montenegro, Burundi, North Macedonia, Burkina Faso, Laos, Croatia, Thailand

I realize that there are 14 names in A and 23 names in B, but that is just part of the fun. There will be no names left over if you answer correctly.

Which brings us to Worldle. Not Wordle. Worldle. I love Worldle. I have absolutely no interest in Wordle, or Sudoku for that matter, but I play two versions of Worldle every single day, one in English and one in French. The goal is to identify a country by its shape, and in the French version you also are asked to identify its neighbors (les voisins) by their shapes, its capital, its flag (le drapeau), and its approximate population. Great fun for nerds like me. Most challenging to someone who took a single year of French is trying to locate the French name of the country one needs to type from a long alphabetized French list. It can give the brain, not to mention the scrolling finger, a workout because, well, just look:

South Africa is Afrique du Sud
Western Sahara is Sahara Occidental
North Korea is Corée du Nord
South Korea is Corée du Sud
United States is États-Unis d'Amérique
Netherlands is Pays Bas*

*literally, Low Country

On the subject of masks, for most of my life I have assumed something about masks that turns out not to be true at all. I have assumed that when I wore a mask I was protecting myself from things other people had like germs and contagious diseases. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Actually it's just the opposite. When you wear a mask you aren't protecting yourself from other people, you are protecting other people from you. You are not protected unless the other person is wearing a mask. This may seem obvious to you but I was oblivious. So doctors and nurses in operating rooms are not protecting themselves from the patient's contagious disease, they are attempting to keep the sterile area uncontaminated for the patient's benefit.

Live and learn.

My continued apologies that my inability to reply to comments seems to be the new normal around here. I will try to catch up in an actual post.

P.S. -- I know the US flag has 50 stars, not 57. That was a poke at President Obama.

This actually happened

My dog and I have conversations. I talk to her and she talks to me. Not really, of course. When we talk, I provide both sides of the conversation. This one occurred this morning:

Me: You're my girl.
Abby: Yes, I am.
Me: You're a good girl, Abby.
Abby: I agree.
Me: You're my chunky-wunky.
Abby: No, I'm not.
Me: I thought you were. What are you then if you're not my chunky-wunky?
Abby: Look around. It's the Good Old Summertime. Isn't it obvious? I'm your tootsie-wootsie.

We have exchanges like this all the time. Don't tell me my mind is going. It probably already went.

The meanderings continue

This week I threw away an unopened can of Lucky Leaf lemon pie filling. Before you accuse me of being wasteful, I will tell you why I did it.

• It was old. It had been sitting on the back of the pantry shelf since Hector was a pup for a very long time.
• It was dented. I don't remember having dropped it so the possibility of botulism reared its ugly head.
• It instructed me to do so itself. I found the following words stamped on the bottom of the can: "Best if used by 10-1-2016".

Since that was nearly seven years ago, I tossed the can into the trash. To be honest, though, it wasn't just wasted food. It was wasted money. I hate that.

I promise (or at least I will try) not to waste any more food or money in the time I have left.

According to the people who monitor the U.S. Census Bureau's International Data Base (IDB), the population of the world will reach 8,000,000,000 (that's billion, with a B) in October 2023. If people are born at a steady rate throughout a year (they probably aren't), simple math tells us that every single day nearly 22,000,000 people on this planet celebrate their birthdays. Despite that fact, during my 82 years so far on planet Earth I have met only two people who have the same birthday I do, Juanda Seeton of Mansfield, Texas, and Allison Summersill of Cumming, Georgia. I'm not saying there aren't others, I'm just saying I haven't met any.

World War II ended 78 years ago. The war in Europe ended in May 1945 and the war in the Pacific ended for all practical purposes in August after the first atomic bomb destroyed Hiroshima on the 6th and the second atomic bomb destroyed Nagasaki on the 9th. Japan formally surrendered aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945, exactly 78 years ago this Saturday.

Do the math. The very youngest of the more than 16,000,000 Americans who served in the military during World War II -- that is, someone who entered the military on his or her 17th birthday on September 1, 1945 -- is now 95 years old (78 + 17). So how can "hero flights" ferrying participants to Normandy for D-Day observances (June 6, 1944) or Honolulu for Pearl Harbor Day observances (which occurred even earlier on December 7, 1941) occur with such frequency and be displayed on evening news telecasts?

I will tell you how. We are a big country to start with (335,000,000), plus people are living longer all the time. In 2010, for example, the decennial U.S. Census found 425,000 persons 95 or older. By 2020 the number had increased to 631,000 (a 48% increase in that particular age category).

I heard someone say recently on television that "we are losing U.S. veterans of World War II at the rate of 12,000 to 15,000 per month". If every single one of those 631,000 oldsters were military veterans (they aren't) and the death rate I heard is true (it may not be), they will all be gone in 3½ to 4½ years.

I love statistics of this sort.

But you knew that.

Advice columnist Ann Landers once wrote, "If life hands you a lemon, make lemonade". Apparently she never heard of World War II or Lucky Leaf lemon pie filling.

Summer meanderings

1. Do you know what the followimg individuals had in common?

Mary Ann Evans
Nathan Birnbaum
Eric Arthur Blair
Jacob Gershwin
Prince Albert, Duke of York
Amantine Lucile Aurora Dupin de Francuiel

The answer is that they were all called George. They were George Eliot, George Burns, George Orwell, George Gershwin, George VI, and George Sand. The first and last were women.

Some other Georges were born George. George Gobel, George Jessel, George Hamilton, George Gordon (Lord Byron), George Calvert (Lord Baltimore), and David Lloyd-George come to mind. Even Boy George (a singer) and Gorgeous George (a professional wrestler of a bygone era) were real Georges (George Michael and George Wagner, respectively).

Here's a bonus fun fact: Phyllis George was Miss America of 1971 and later became the wife of the governor of Kentucky.

2. The woke crowd have come up with another new name for something. In addition to telling us to say "egg producer" instead of woman and "sperm producer" instead of man, the self-proclaimed language police and culture influencers now say that the correct way to refer to cow's milk is "bovine mammary secretion".

Moving right along...

3. Our brand-new great-grandson is one month old already. The time is flying. Before we know it he will be finishing his schooling, and I hope I am still around to see it. I read today -- I don't know whether it is true -- that 99% of all the people born in the world between 1930 and 1946 are dead. If you are between the ages of 77 and 93 you are part of "the fortunate 1%" who are still alive. It is a sobering fact to contemplate. I have never been part of such an elite group before. I don't know whether to say "God bless us every one" or "Sic transit gloria mundi". I am suddenly reminded that when a Georgia farm woman in one of Flannery O'Connor's short stories said, "The monks of old slept in their coffins" her hired worker's wife replied, "They wasn't as advanced as we are."

I think that's enough meandering for today. Meandering takes us down some strange roads. Your comments, as always, are not only welcome but also eagerly awaited.

Things could be worse

Most of you are aware, I'm sure, that George Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty Four and that Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World. Both books describe a fictional dystopian socirty set in the future, and those societies are quite different, as described in the following excerpt from Neil Postman's 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death:

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much [information] that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumble-puppy.

As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." "In 1984 [sic]," Huxley added, "people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure." In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us."

(end of excerpt)

So, friends, if you are interested in knowing the sort of dystopian future other writers have envisioned, you might want to seek out the titles listed below in addition to the two discussed above:

Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank (1959)
The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2006)
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (1953)
This Perfect Day by Ira Levin (1970)

...and by the time you have finished reading them all, the present state of the world will seem positively idyllic.

A new chapter begins

It's true. Last Sunday, Mrs. RWP (the lovely Ellie) and I met our first great-grandchild, a boy, our baby's baby's baby. He was 10 days old, having arrived on July 20th. He is perfect and has lots of dark hair.

We are over the moon. This is the first time since my grandfather died in 1970 that our family has experienced having four generatios alive at the same time. It is a momentous occasion, to be sure, for all concerned.

So here are a few photographs of the new mom and dad, the new paternal grandparents, and the new paternal great-grandparents:

I'm sure there must be other things going on in the world, but right now I don't care about any of them.

Odds and ends

As we all know, meanings of words often change over time. Originally, Hamburger meant a resident of Hamburg, Germany, and Frankfurter meant a resident of Frankfurt, Germany. They were not foods you like to eat at a backyard cookout. Also, it hasn't been all that long ago that 'gay' meant happy.

And it isn't just time that brings change. So does distance. A boot and a bonnet in the UK are known as a trunk and a hood in the US, a biscuit is called a cookie, and a napkin is called a diaper. If Graham Edwards is to be believed (and there's no reason why he shouldn't be), the word 'lavaliere' is unknown to people in Scotland.

Read the following poem:

Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace.
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go.
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child works hard for a living.
And the child born on the Sabbath day
Is bonny and blithe, good and gay.

I'm pretty certain that the writer of that poem was not suggesting that children born on the Sabbath day are members of the LGBTQIA+ community.

All that aside, the big news of the week in these parts is that our first great-grandchild has been welcomed into the world. Mother and baby are doing well. The baby, a healthy boy weighing six pounds, seven ounces, and sporting a headful of dark brown hair, has been named Banks. His great-grandpa, an old-fashioned sort of guy, would not be surprised if the next child born in that family is named Grocery Stores.

I'm kidding.

But you can't deny that just as times change and meanings of words change, even so do names that are popular for giving to new members of the human race change also. Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher who lived around 500 BC, said that the only permanent thing is change. He had a point.

As much as the name Banks surprised me, I am grateful that our new descendant was not named Mephibosheth or Tiglath-pileser.

She’s a young thing and cannot leave her mother

I hate earworms with a vengeance, with every fiber of my being. I cannot overstate this. A fragment of a tune or a lyric gets stuck in one's my brain and plays itself over and over and over again, driving one me to distraction.

It happened again recently, starting up without warning in the middle of the night. All I could think of for several hours was "Can she bake a cherry pie, Billy Boy, Billy Boy? Can she bake a cherry pie, charming Billy?" It went away eventually, but not until the middle of the next afternoon.

In other news, I continue to enjoy watching Jeopardy! but am making a concerted effort not to burden you with it. You can rest assured, however, that I remain at my post, yelling at my television set five evenings a week, important things like "What is a highboy?", "Who are C.S. Lewis and J.R.R.Tolkien?", "What is a hatrack?", and "What is the Rhine?" while the real contestants stand mute.

Today, le quatorze juillet, is the 234th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, a major event in the French Revolution. I wonder if Marie Antoinette could bake a cherry pie.

Words I haven’t heard in years and other items of interest

In 1952 two men named Johnny Standley and Art Thorson produced a 45rpm comedy recording called "It's In The Book". It featured a sermon-style presentation of "Little Bo-Peep" on Side A and a song entitled "Grandma's Lye Soap" on Side B. Here's the song:

1. You remember Grandma's lye soap
Good for everything in the home
And the secret was in the scrubbing
It wouldn't suds and couldn't foam.

Refrain:
So sing right out for Gramdma's Lye Soap
Good for everything, everything in the place
The pots and kettles, the dirty dishes
And for the hands and for the face.

2. Little Herman and brother Thurman
Had an aversion to washing their ears
Grandma scrubbed them with the lye soap
And they haven't heard a word in years. (Refrain)

3. Mrs. O'Malley out in the valley
Suffered from ulcers, I understand
She swallowed a cake of Grandma's lye soap
Has the cleanest ulcers in the land. (Refrain)

The last part of the second verse popped into my head today and I suddenly thought of quite a few words I haven't heard in years:

lavaliere
antimacassar
humidor
gramophone
impetigo
mercurochrome
merthiolate
culottes
campho-phenique
ipana
brylcreem
toadstool
Gentian violet
dirigible
ecru
snood
heliotrope
taffeta
organza
Saint Vitus' dance
faille
cotillion
dirndl
mustard plaster

What are some words you haven't heard in years?

You probably know that the months of July and August were named in honor of Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar, but did you know that although Julius Carsar said "Veni, Vidi, Vici" (I came, I saw, I conquered), Mrs. Julius Caesar said "Veni, Vidi, VISA" (I came, I saw, I did a little shopping).

In other news, this past Tuesday was the Fourth of July here in the United States. Actually, this past Tuesday was the Fourth of July all over the world but it has special significance in the United States where it is celebrated as our day of independence from Great Britain in the days of the late Queen Elizabeth II's great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, George III, some 247 years ago on July 4, 1776. Thus it is, friends, that in just three short years my country will be observing its SEMI-QUINCENTENNIAL (a big word that may or may not catch on).

My personal observance this year included eating a hot dog, not attending a parade, and yelling "Who is Absalom?, "Who is John Singer Sargent?", and "What are the Brandenburg Concertos?" at the television set during periods of complete silence from the contestants on Jeopardy!, and I do not take those freedoms lightly.

I want to end this post by sharing with my vast reading audience (I'm joking, unfortunately) possibly the best four-line poem I have ever read. Called "The Middle", it was written by Ogden Nash, an American who is best known for lighthearted, humorous stuff. "The Middle" is neither lighthearted nor humorous, but strikes a chord deep within us:

When I remember bygone days
I think how evening follows morn;
So many I loved were not yet dead,
So many I love were not yet born.

Our lives are short in the overall scheme of things. Cherish your life and the lives of those you love and have loved, the human beings who preceded you, who are with you now, and who will look back on you as one who preceded them. Like it or not, we are all connected to others.

The list

...of words made from the letters in the phrase MERRY CHRISTMAS has continued to grow. When I mentioned the list to you a few days ago I had found 574 words but as of this morning the total has grown to -- who woulda thunk? -- a whopping 626 words. There may be even a few more but the time has come to bring it to a conclusion and move on to other things. I haven't bothered to put the words n alphabetic order, but you may do it if you want to take the time. Here is my list in the order the words occurred to me:

merry Christ I me my a am as at arm arms army armies may aa mace maces race races racer racers sit sits sat sate sates same tame tames tamer tamers tam tams ram rams cam cams came chime chimes stem stems it its mat mats mast masts cast casts (50) cat cats mite mites smite smites aster asters master masters mist mists mister misters term terms stay stays cherry trey treys tic tics site sites cite cites citer citers team teams ream reams seam seams steam steams steamy stream streams the them they their theism therm therms mystic mystics trim (100) trims cyst cysts misty chat chats hat hats hit hits ham hams sham shams shame shames shamer shamers stammer stammers match matches chimera chimeras mire mires miry ire tire tires sir sirs stir stirs sire sires shirt shirts cash cashes rise rises rim rims rime rimes chaste haste hastes ash (150) ashes stash mash mashes marsh marshes mar mars rash rashes mesh time times timer timers rite rites satire satires stir stirs stirrer stirrers ret rets rest rests try tries sty sties star stars stare stares starer starers tar tars tare tares tear tears rate rates irate imam imams messy mercy (200) march marches marcher marchers starch starchers char chars chart charts arrest arrests heart hearts hearty hear hears shear shears share shares hare hares hair hairs chair chairs reach teach chase chases chaser chasers ate eat eats seat seats sear sears stair stairs rat rats tea teas harm harms (250) harmer harmers charm charms charmer charmers err errs terry tarry tarries hasty stray strays tray trays yea yeas yeas yeasts year years yes say says yet art arts mart marts smarts scam scams scammer scammers camera cameras cay cays scare scares car cars scar scars scary care cares yam yams (300) ray rays raise raises arc arcs crash crashes crasher crashers rhea rheas mare mares scram scrams tam tams ear ears erst mar mars air airs cram craams scream screams cream creams creamy scat scats heist heists cheat cheats east easy chit chits sear sears hart harts harem harems harry harries (350) drare rarer charter charters crass crash crashes crasher crashers share shares sharer sharers char chars chasm chasms hem hems hemmer hemmers trimmer trimmers mr mars tie ties tier tiers rite rites rim rims scrim scrims retch shire shires tram trams mart marts schism mica mice rice he him his her (400) hers shimmer shimmers shimmery smarmy smarmier smarmiest set sets aim aims ace aces meat meats mate mates ahem atheism remit remits remiss resist search chest chests reach charism thrice amity marry marries hysteria hysteric hysterics heir heirs arch arches sherry shir shirs shim shims hermit hermits hamster hamsters thyme raise (450) raises chaise chaises shimmy shimmies carry carries rich richer richest riches sachet sachets shay shays shimmery mayhem smirch smirches charity simmer simmers emir emirs emit emits hire hires hirer hirers crime crimes miter miters martyr cartyrs satry satrys yacht yachts strayer strayers stayer stayers math myth myths mythic schema schemas (500) shirt shirts cart carts trace traces tracer tracers aye ayes essay scythe scythes thesis asset rhyme rhymes rhymer rhymers smith smiths smithy this hate hates hater haters as ha aha hi ahi cashier cashiers racy caste castes hay hey meta carry carries carrier carriers ma mercy mercies emissary amiss miss (550) city hammer hammers trash trashy ashy starry hairy miss mass casher chashers riser risers myrrh misery sitar sitars merit merits itch itches itchy arise arises masher mashers item items crime crimes Amish acre acres shema metric metrics simmer simmers sari saris stymie stymies em ems mesa mesas smash smasher stash (600) sstasher cry cries mastic symmetric ache aches eth eths cater caters Artemis era eras ethic ethics scathe scathes sash miser misers smear smears smeary mime mimes (626)

That's all, folks. Well, probably not. There are undoubtedly some I missed.

You are welcome to point them out to me in the comments.

Making a list and checking it twice

A couple of posts back I had some fun tinkering with prefixes and, let's face it, pseudo-prefixes that weren't legitimate prefixes at all. For example, to the supposed base word 'bra' I made the prefixes alge-, penum-, um-, verte-, and ze-. Reader Emma Springfield, who lives so far northwest in Iowa that she can see South Dakota, said her favorite game is to take a word or phrase and see how many words she could come up with. I know I ended that sentence with two prepositions but I'm allowed since I used the Oxford comma earlier in the paragraph.

I decided to try Emma's game for myself and used MERRY CHRISTMAS as the phrase. I think I hit the proverbial jackpot because so far, from two M's, one E, three R's, one Y, one C, one H, one I, two S's, one T, and one A your intrepid correspondent has come up with -- wait for it -- 574 words! I made the hard decision to exclude a few naughty/crude/Anglo-Saxon words from the list, which would have 578 words in all with them included.

I promise to publish my list in the next post. First, however, please try your hand at your own MERRY CHRISTMAS list in the comments section. You may be surprised how fast it grows because plurals do count.

And thinking of Christmas actually made me feel cooler in the 90°F (32°C) weather we've had in Georgia this week.

Seven days make one weak

...especially when one thinks of how many different ways humans have devised to identify the days of the week. According to Ethnologue, there are nearly 7,000 languages in our world. Papua New Guinea alone is home to over 500 of them. Don't worry. I'm not going to go down 7,000 rabbit trails or we would be here all day, all night (Mary Ann), all week, all month, all year. Perish the thought. But I do want to show you what various people call the days of the week.

About half of the people in the world start their week with Sunday, and about half the people in the world (not the same half) start their week with Monday. A few people -- millions, actually, but I'm speaking relatively -- start their week with Friday or Saturday. In many languages the days are named after objects in the heavens (sun, moon), Norse deities (Tye, Odin, Thor, Frigg), or Roman deities (Mars, Mercury, Jove, Venus, Saturn) that also became the names of objects in the heavens. For example, Thursday is named after Thor, the Norse god of lightning, thunder, and storms. It becomes Donnerstag (Donner's day) in German for Donner, god of thunder. A rabbit trail here, the names of two of Santa Claus's reindeer, Donner and Blitzen, are the German words for thunder and lightning. Also, the Germans chose not to honor the Norse god Odin but to call that particular day Mittwoch (midweek) instead.

In the table below, I have begun with the commom abbreviated forms of the days of the week in English.

<----------------Days Of The Week----------------->

English:	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thur	Fri	Sat	Sun
Swedish:	måndag	tiesdag	onsdag	torsdag	fredag	lördag	söndag
French:	lundi	mardi	mercredi	jeudi	vendredi	samedi	dimanche
Spanish:	Lunes	Martes	Mièrcoles	Jueves	Viernes	Sàbado	Domingo
German:	Montag	Dienstag	Mittwoch	Donnerstag	Freitag	Samstag	Sonntag
Italian:	lunedi	martedi	mercoledi	giovedi	venerdi	sabato	domenica

In Albanian, the days of the week are E hënë, E martë, E mërkurë, E enjte, E premte, E shtunë, and E diel. Mars and Mercury are discernible, but something else has happened as well.

In Polish, the days of the week are poniedziałek, wtorek, środa, czwąrtek, piatek, sobota, and niedziela.

In Hawaiian, the days of the week are Po'akahi, Po'alua, Po'akolu, Po'aha, Po'alima, Po'aono, and Lapule.

In Swahili, the days of the week are Jumamosi, Jumapili, Jumatatu, Jumanne, Jumatano, Alhamisi, and Ijumaa.

Did you know there are three systems, all acceptable, for saying "Monday" in Mandarin Chinese? Well, there are. Using Pinyin (romanization of the Mandarin ideographs), they are xīngqī yī, zhōu yī, and libài yī. If in those three phrases you were to replace yī with èr, sān, sì, wù, and liù you would have just indicated three ways to say Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, respectively, in Mandarin Chinese. It is interesting to note that Mandarin does not honor any deity at all; what one actually says is "Day 1" through "Day 6".

In each of the three acceptable ways of indicating days of the week in Mandarin (xīngqī, zhōu, libài) there are two words, neither of which means 7, that one can use to indicate Sunday: rì and tiān. It is therefore entirely accurate and within reason, when you consider that 3 × 2 = 6, to conclude that trying to learn Mandarin Chinese will knock you six ways from Sunday.

The language goes round and round

...and it comes out here at rhymeswithplague blog, where today we take a look at the wonderful world of prefixes and the many possible expansions thereto, depending on what you are prefixing:

• form -- con-, de-, in-, per-, re-, trans, uni-.
• firm -- af-, con-, in-.
• ply -- ap-, com-, im-, multi-, re-, sup-.
• found -- con-, pro-.
• fuse -- con-, de-, ef-, in-, pro-, re-, suf-, trans-.
• phony -- caco-, sym-, tele-, anti-, poly-.
• tate -- agi-, anno-, dic-, es-, hesi-, intes-, lac-, mu-, poten-, resusci-, ro-.
• nate -- abomi-, bicarbo-, carbo-, concate-, desig-, deto-, domi-, elimi-, fortu-, germi-, halluci-, illumi-, impreg-, into-, nomi-, predomi-, reso-, termi-, unfortu-, uri-, vacci-.
• late -- accumu-, ambu-, assimi-, choco-, discombobu-, emu-, extrapo-, formu-, gesticu-, immo-, invio-, muti-, ob-, oscil-, perambu-, perco-, popu-, regu-, simu-, titil-, vio-.
• gate -- fumi-, insti-, investi-, miti-, navi-, obli-, propa-, surro-.
• cate -- abdi-, adjudi-, bifur-, defe-, desic-, forni-, indi-, lubri-, medi-, predi-, repli-, suppli-, va-.
• motion -- com-, de-, e-, loco-, pro-.
• position -- ap-, com-, de-, decom-, im-, op-, pro-, re-, sup-, trans-.
• astic -- bomb-, chili-, dr-, el-, fant-, mon-, orgi-, pl-, schol-.
• gestion -- con-, decon-, di-, indi-, sug-.
• bra -- alge-, penum-, um-, verte-, ze-.

Well, that's enough for now. Your head will stop swimming eventually. You may even want to try playing this game yourself.

This post has been done in a spirit of fun, rather tongue-in-cheek, but my old English teacher, Mr. D.P. Morris, is probably spinning in his grave at my audacity.

My favorite photo of 2023

The photo below was snapped in March of this year at the wedding of one of our grandsons. Mrs. RWP (the fair Ellie) and I won the competition at the reception as the couple who had been married the longest. FYI, two months later (that would be, um, in May) we celebrated 60 years of marriage.

This may also be my all-time favorite post in nearly 16 years of blogging here at rhymeswithplague, in spite of the fact that we have no idea who the wedding guests in the background are. And for those who have been clamoring (clamoring, I tell you) for a recent photo, this is it!

All cities are not created equal

...but some are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, and among these are Life, Liberty, and the ability to attract the Wealthy. My apologies to Thomas Jefferson.

At the end of the preceding post, I included the factoid that New York City has more millionaires than any other place on earth. According to the site where I found that bit of information, the top 20 places of concentrated wealth on our planet are:

Rank	City	Millionaires	Billionaires
#1	New York City, USA	345,600	59
#2	Tokyo, Japan	304,900	12
#3	San Francisco, USA	276,400	62
#4	London, England	272,400	38
#5	Singapore	249,800	26
#6	Los Angeles, USA	192,400	34
#7	Chicago, USA	160,100	28
#8	Houston, USA	132,600	25
#9	Beijing, China	131,500	44
#10	Shanghai, China	130,100	42
#11	Sydney, Australia	129,500	16
#12	Hong Kong, China	125,100	28
#13	Frankfurt, Germany	117,400	14
#14	Toronto, Canada	116,100	17
#15	Zurich, Switzerland	105,100	12
#16	Seoul, South Korea	102,100	25
#17	Melbourne, Australia	97,300	12
#18	Dallas, USA	92,300	18
#19	Geneva, Switzerland	90,300	16
#20	Paris, France	88,600	15

In summary, the 20 cities above are home to 3,259,600 millionaires and 543 billionaires. Any way you slice it, the group represents a lot of moolah.

Other websites have put together other lists that mention other cities, so I suppose the jury is still out. In New York City's case, 345,600 millionaires is a formidable number but it is actually only four per cent (4%) of the city's 8,500,000 inhabitants. Still, if that same percentage of millionaires to population had existed in the little Texas town of 1,000 where I grew up, there would have been 40 millionaires among my neighbors.

I have one thing to say about that.

No way, José.

Speaking of millionaires, today's closing factoid is that former Atlanta Braves baseball player Chipper Jones has downsized. Earlier this month he sold his 23,000 sq.ft. house on 38 acres for $11,750,000 and later the same day paid $5,700,000 for a 9,100 sq.ft. house on 10 acres. Even the ultra-wealthy need to tighten their belts occasionally. And since both properties are right here in Cherokee County he is tecnically a neighbor of mine.