Winston Churchill was right

Winston Churchill (1874-1965) said many memorable things, including something about "blood, toil, tears, and sweat" and "an iron curtain has descended across the Continent" and "I never stand when I can sit, and I never sit when I can lie down", but today I want us to think about and explore a little bit the saying that England and America are two countries separated by the same language.

[Editor's note. Except it probably wasn't Churchill at all who made that remark. It has been attributed to several people including George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, and others. No one knows for certain who said it first, but in his 1887 short story, "The Canterville Ghost", Oscar Wilde did pen the following: "Indeed, in many respects, she was quite English, and was an excellent example of the fact that we have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language." —RWP]

Elsewhere in past posts we have mentioned some of the things Brits and Yanks refer to differently, such as lorry (truck), napkin (diaper), biscuit (cookie), cookie (cracker), cracker (noisemaker), lift (elevator), fag (cigarette). The list goes on and on. And we have talked about our differences in spellings and word endings, such as -ise (-ize), -re (-er), -our (-or). At the risk of repeating myself, the list goes on and on.

Today let's explore two more areas, music and money.

Most people in America, musical or not, are probably familiar with musical notation in the form of notes on a staff preceded by a treble clef or a bass clef. (There is also a clef that is referred to as alto, tenor, or baritone clef depending on where it is placed on the staff, but we won't go down that particular rabbit trail.) And most of us know that these notes have names like whole note, half note, quarter note, eighth note. There are even briefer increments of time (that is, faster notes when strung together) known as sixteenth note, thirty-second note, and sixty-fourth note. Okay, so maybe most people in America don't know that at all, but stay with me for a minute.

In Britain, the people don't know any of those names. Instead, their naming system for the very same squiggles on a musical manuscript are breve (whole note), minim (half note), crotchet (quarter note), and quaver (eighth note), and the even briefer notes are called semi-quaver (sixteenth note), demisemiquaver (thirty-second note), and—God help us all—hemidemisemiquaver (sixty-fourth note).

Since there is a semibreve or whole note that equals four beats in 4/4 time, it follows as the night the day (thank you, Laertes) that there must also be a breve or double whole note that equals eight beats in 4/4 time. And there is.

I'm feeling faint. Let us move on to money.

Britain changed its currency to the decimal system more than 50 years ago, and now there are 100 pence to the pound, but I distinctly remember a time when 12 pence made a shilling and 20 shillings made a pound sterling. The pound sterling was worth five American dollars ($5.00 USD) and a shilling was about the same value as our American quarter (a quarter of a dollar). Americans had dollars, half-dollars, quarters, dimes (ten cents), nickels (five cents), and pennies (one cent) and used a cent sign (¢) for all coins less than a dollar; the Brits used 's' for shillings and 'd' for pence. In my tireless research I learned that 's' and 'd'were used to refer to shillings and pence, respectively, because in Roman times coins of similar values were called in Latin solidus and denarius. England also had a half-penny coin which was abbreviated 'ob' for the even smaller value Roman coin obulus.

The pound began losing value and for quite a while its value was about $2.40 USD, which made the shilling worth slightly more than an American dime. Nowadays the pound is worth $1.34 USD, making the no-longer-produced shilling worth 6.7 cents or slightly more than an American nickel.

I also remember that the Canadian dollar was worth $1.10USD for a long time, but today it is worth 71 cents. Another rabbit trail.

Don't even get me started on weights and messures.

I will close by wishing you a Happy Columbus Day or a Happy Indigenous Peoples Day on Monday, whichever you prefer to celebrate.

Blogging can be so educational. For example, this week I learned fron jabblog's blog's comment section that a great many people did not know that such a thing as a digital piano existed.

Until next time, I remain your intrepid roving correspondent,

rhymeswithplague

Rabbit Trails R Us

About a month ago I said that a new era had begun because our oldest son brought over a new computer (a teeny-tiny one) equipped with Windows 11 to replace the Hewlett-Packard All-In-One I had been using that was equipped with Windows 10. Microsoft had informed me that it was ending support for Windows 10 on October something-or-other and after running some diagnostics also told me that my HP could not be upgraded to Windows 11.

Remember?

Well, forget all of that. After just a couple of weeks of learning to use Windows 11 with my new teeny-tiny GEMTEK from Taiwan, the computer apparently gave up the ghost (technical explanation: BIOS couldn't find the hard drive for reasons unknown to me).

So my son took the GEMTEK back and I am once again using Windows 10 on my HP, which I had not disposed of but put in an inconspicuous corner of the bedroom awaiting ultimate disposition. I'm so glad I did that. Apparently there was an uproar among users of Windows 10, who make up over 50% of Microsoft's customers and of that portion over 25% could not upgrade, enough of an uproar that Microsoft decided to offer a free one-year extension of its support of Windows 10. All my son had to do was push a key or two to accept the extension and I'm good to go. Apparently. God willing and the creeks/Creeks don't rise.

In other words, if I had done nothing, I would have remained in good shape without all the stress and strain of the past month trying to adjust to Windows 11. My son suggested I go with Macintosh but I am an old dog who resists new tricks for the most part.

If you ask me, it's proof in our own day that the French are right: Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose (The more things change, the more they remain the same).

For some reason I cannot begin to fathom, the whole experience brought to mind the song "Try To Remember" from The Fantasticks, a 1960 off-Broadway production:

Try to remember the kind of September
When life was slow and oh, so mellow.
Try to remember the kind of September
When grass was green and grain was yellow.
Try to remember the kind of September
When you were a tender and callow fellow.
Try to remember, and if you remember,
Then follow.

Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow,
Follow, follow, follow, follow.

Try to remember when life was so tender
That no one wept except the willow.
Try to remember when life was so tender
That dreams were kept beside your pillow.
Try to remember when life was so tender
That love was an ember about to billow.
Try to remember, and if you remember,
Then follow.

Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow,
Follow, follow, follow, follow.

Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow,
Follow, follow, follow, follow.

Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow,
Follow, follow, follow, follow.

Deep in December, it's nice to remember,
Although you know the snow will follow.
Deep in December, it's nice to remember,
Without a hurt the heart is hollow.
Deep in December, it's nice to remember,
The fire of September that made us mellow.
Deep in December, our hearts should remember

And follow.

(end of song)

My trivia-soaked mind reminds me that Jerry Orbach of Law And Order fame was the first performer ever to sing that song in the original off-Broadway production of The Fantasticks in 1960. My mind is beginning to fail me, however, because I also remember actor Jack Palance reciting the lyrics but can't remember whether he did it on The Merv Griffin Show or The Jack Paar Show. Also, a pretty lade with blond hair (that really narrows it down) sang the song on television way back when but I cannot recall her name. She later worked as an actress on one of the afternoon soap operas, either General Hospital or As The World Turns or All My Children. I told you my mind was going.

I must try to remember and follow it.

Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow,
Follow, follow, follow, follow.

This is definitely one of the weirdest posts I have ever written, if I do say so myself.

Do not call the men in the white coats just yet, as I have an awful lot of living left to do.

Faw down go boom

That phrase from my early childhood popped into my mind the other day when my foot missed the curb (British, kerb) completely and I went airborne. Flailing wildly, trying to keep my balance, I was unsuccessful and landed KERSPLAT! on the pavement, face first.

I am recuperating. I am very thankful that my injuries turned out to be minor. No broken glasses, no shards of glass protruding from my eye, no broken bones in the face or jaw, no teeth knocked out. Just a few painful scrapes and bruises on my hand, knee, leg, and eyebrow ridge. My right side has ached for several days with what I presume are bruised ribs. My right leg still aches from knee to ankle. I couldn't pick up anything with my right hand for a few days but it's gradually getting better. I can make a fist now but it hurt too much to make one when I first tried.

I am alive. In the few seconds I was falling and failing to remain erect, and also at the moment of impact, I wondered if I would be.

Life is what happens to you while you're making other plans.

Today is the 68th anniversaro of the day in 1957 that my mother finally succumbed to the horror of metastatic cancer after a long battle. She was 47.

I am 84.5 years old. I have a wife, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren. I have a roof over my head, food on my table, and shoes on my feet.

I am blessed, even if occasionally I faw down go boom.

I believe that the Lord protected me even though He did not suspend the Law of Gravity just for me.

Another opening, another show

Today I woke up thinking about concerts, plays, and musical productions I have seen in person during my life. I remember the following, but the list is probably incomplete and the items are not presented in chronological order:

1. Liberace in concert at TCU in Fort Worth. His brother George was there too, playing violin.

2. The First Piano Quartet at TCU in Fort Worth.

3. South Pacific at the Texas State Fair Musicals in Dallas. It starred Mitzi Gaynor as Nellie Forbush and Kay Armen as Bloody Mary.

4. Victor Herbert's operetta Naughty Marietta at the Texas State Fair Musicals in Dallas. I can still hear Patrice Munsel singing "Ah, Sweet Mystery Of Life, At Last I Found You".

5. Amahl And The Night Visitors by Gian-Carlo Menotti at Arlington State College (now UTA) in Arlington, Texas.

6. Man Of La Mancha starring Jack Cassidy at Midnight Sun Dinner Theater in Atlanta.

7. The Rainmaker at Harlequin Dinner Theater in Atlanta.

8. The Fantasticks in 1975 at the Academy Theater in Atlanta.

9. Hello, Dolly! starring Carol Channing at the Fox Theater in Atlanta.

10. Don't Drink The Water, a non-musical play by Woody Allen, at a theater in Manhattan in 1967. It starred Lou Jacobi, Peggy Cass, and Anita Gillette.

11. Evita at a small theater-in-the-round in Atlanta around 1988.

12. You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown, a play based on Charles Schulz's comic strip Peanuts, at (I think) the Strand Theater in Marietta, Georgia.

13. The Great Divorce, a play based on the book by C.S. Lewis, at the Alliance Theater in Atlanta.

14. The Screwtape Letters, a play based on the book by C.S. Lewis, at the Ferst Center For The Performing Arts in Atlanta.

15. My Fair Lady starring Noel Harrison (son of Rex Harrison who originated the role of Henry Higgins) at the Parker Playhouse in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

16. Dave Brubeck, Stan Getz, and Gerry Mulligan all in the same evening at the Fox Theater in Atlanta during an Atlanta Jazz Festival around 1979 or 1980.

The 16 items above were all professional productions. Items 1-5 occurred during the 1950s. I have seen many amateur productions as well, including:

17. Oklahoma! at the Murray Arts Center in Kennesaw, Georgia.
18. Fiddler On The Roof at the Murray Arts Center in Kennesaw,Georgia.
19. Little Women at the Murray Arts Center in Kennesaw, Georgia.
20. Our Town at the Murray Arts Center in Kennesaw, Georgia.
21. H.M.S. Pinafore at Jacksonville State University in Jacksonville, Alabama.
22. Cabaret at Jacksonville State University in Jacksonville, Alabama.
23. Beauty And The Beast at the Murray Arts Center in Kennesaw, Georgia.
24. Handel's Messiah in Omaha, Nebraska; Boca Raton, Florida; and a few other places.
25. Bach's Magnificat in Arlington, Texas.
26. Mendelssohn's Elijah in Atlanta, Georgia.

My daughter saw Cats on Broadway and has seen national touring productions of Les Miserables several times.

Everyone's interaction with the arts is unique. I'm sure my list pales in comparison to what or whom some of you have seen.

Speaking of seeing, I once saw Ronnie Millsap walking down a concourse at the Atlanta airport, and I once saw Angie Dickinson and Burt Bacharach eating dinner at a restaurant in Manhattan, and I once sat in an auditorium not far from Irving Berlin. I suppose those don't count since the people mentioned were not performing their craft at the time. Oh, I almost forgot that I also breathed the same air as Dick Clark when I was 17 and spent an afternoon on American Bandstand at a television station in Philadelphia. Just one more sign of advancing age, I guess; my memory is starting to go.

I would love to hear about your concert- and play-going experiences in the comments section.

Happy Blogaversary to me

Today (September 28, 2025) is the 18th anniversary of the day I started this blog back in 2007.

When I started I had no idea that I would still be at my post (pun intended) all these years later. Yet here we are, I writing and you reading.

The thingamajig over there in the sidebar shows that I have 140 followers, but most of them are no longer actively participating. There are only a few of you who comment regularly nowadays, but I am not deterred by that fact. So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. Oh, wait, that was Nick at the end of The Great Gatsby.

Some of my early readers are dead and I know it—Dr. John Linna of Neenah, Wisconsin, for exampe, and good old Putz who was really David Barlow out in Utah—and some just faded away like General Douglas MacArthur after he was fired by Predident Harry Truman. And some, I'm sure, took one look and left for greener pastures immediately.

There will be no balloon drop, no blasting of celebratory horns, no high-kicking chorus line. Just a moment of quiet reflection and gratitude for good times gone by and good times yet to come, shared witn an audience I've never met.

Thank you, current crowd (among whom are Janice, Emma, Kylie, Ellen, Terra, Graham, Keith, Tasker, and until she disappeared without explanation, Rachel). We few, we happy few, we band of bloggers.

Year 19 is about to begin. Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines!

Join the Navy and see the world, even Narragansett Bay

When my dad married my stepmother in 1958 I gained four step-sibllings: Bobby Gerald (21), Clarence Edward (20), Patsy Louise (17), and Billy Russell (15). I was 17 too, three months older than my new stepsister (but do not wonder, we were not each other's type) and I went overnight from being an only child to being the middle one of five offspring in our newly blended family. Since there was already a Bob in the family, my new stepmother began calling me Bob Jr.; the name stuck and I am still called that to this day.

In 1960 I played the piano for the wedding of Bobby Gerald and his bride Linda, and they recently celebrated their 65th anniversary. The other siblings have all passed on now, as has my stepmother who died in 2004. Mrs. RWP (the lovely Ellie) and I have not been back to Texas since her death but we stay in touch with Bobby and Linda about once a month by telephone.

Recently Linda called to say that while going through some papers in an attempt to do some decluttering she found an old letter I might like to see because it mentioned my Dad around the end of World War II. I asked her to send it to me and it has arrived.

At the upper left of the faded envelope, the return address read:

NAVY DEPARTMENT
_______________
USS PCE 869
c o Fleet Post Office
New York, N. Y.
__________________
OFFICIAL BUSINESS

and the envelope was addressed to:

Mr. Roy Wisner
Corning Glass Works
Central Falls, Rhode Island

There was no zip code because zip codes had not been invented yet.

I didn't recognize the name, neatly typed using an old-fashioned typewriter. I wondered what sort of letter this might turn out to be.

Inside, typed on U.S.S. PCE 869 letterhead, was the following:


24 August 1945

Dear Roy:

This will introduce to you, Clifford Brague, who has just been honorably discharged from the Navy under the point system. For personal reasons, he wants to make his home in Pawtucket or Providence now that he is out of the service, and I have referred him to you with the thought that you could use him in your shop organization.

Aboard ship his work has been in the operation, maintenance and repair of diesel engines and ship's auxilliaries. He has been one of our leading men for some time and his work has been exemplary in every respect. He is completely reliable and his personal integrity is unquestionable. If you have any opening in the organization in which he might fit, I would appreciate your giving him every consideration. You would not regret it, I am sure.

Before coming into the Navy in December, 1942, Mr. Brague worked for the Century Ordnance Plant, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. His work there was strictly along the machine shop line, in the set up of production jobs for machine operators. In the event that you do not have an opening in the type of work for which he is qualified, you are probably in a position to give him some very good leads on some other good stable organizations in the area. I know you will give him any help possible.

Sincerely yours,

Don Shoemaker

(end of letter)


I know that before the war Dad worked at Dearborn Brass Works in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Perhaps this had become the Century Ordnance Plant mentioned in the letter. Such things were common during the war. For example, the IBM building in Poughkeepsie, New York, where I worked in the 1960s had produced rifles during the war instead of accounting machines. And I know that after our family moved to Fort Worth, Texas, in August 1947 my dad found work at Consolidated Vultee Aircraft (known as Convair, which later became General Dynamics) and held that job until his death in 1967. I never thought about it before, but I have no idea where Dad worked in Rhode Island after leaving the Navy. My mother went to work daily at the Coats & Clark Thread Factory and my Dad went somewhere to work as well, but I have no idea whether Mr. Wisner hired him at Corning Glass Works or he found work elsewhere. A strange gap in my knowledge. I never realized it before.

I do find it very satisfying to learn that my dad received such a glowing recommendation from Don Shoemaker but I am in the dark as to just who Shoemaker was, whether the ship's captain or someone in another position. Whatever else my dad may have been (I have talked about our relationship elsewhere on the blog), he was definitely a hard worker, a man of integrity, and honest as the day is long.

At the end of the war, the USS PCE-869 was sold to the Republic of China (that is, Taiwan) and continued to be of use until it was decommissioned and ultimately scrapped in 1971.

Dad's floating home spent time in both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, escorting other ships part of the way to the European and Pacific theaters of operation. It traveled through the Panama Canal, and sailed as far north as Greenland. I think he had shore leaves in Portland, Oregon; San Diego, California; south Florida; Norfolk, Virginia; and New York City. His ship was sometimes employed as a "sub chaser" ("sub" being short for submarine). Years afterward, Dad relived in his nightmares the dropping of depth charges and seeing dead bodies floating up to the surface. During Dad's final days in the Navy, his ship was at Quonset Point, Rhode Island.

Below is a photo of the vessel where my Dad and about 80 other men lived and worked from 1943 through 1945:

Uncle Sam wanted him, and he went, enlisting at the age of 36. He was older than the captain of his ship. Most of the guys were half his age and called him "Pop". He talked about the Navy every single day of his life after he left it.

Don’t blame me, I saw it on Facebook

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

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

"Lisa Likes Licking Lettuce Lightly"

Lake Superior
Lake Michigan
Lake Huron
Lake Erie
Lake Ontario

Isn't that helpful?

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

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

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

Here's proof:

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

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

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

Do not tell me about hiccup and baloney.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ring out the new, ring in the old

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

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

Perhaps you can think of a few more.

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

There is nothing new under the Sun

So wrote the author of Ecclesiastes three thousand years ago.

Oh, yeah? I can think of a few:

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

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

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

The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on

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

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

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

But no, nada, zilch, nothing.

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

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

But that's just me.

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

Travel alternatives for your consideration

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

Friends, have you been...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A, B, C, D, and so on

A. Here are some songs whose titles mention a house, part of a house, or objects found in a house:

How Much Is That Doggie In The Window?
Open The Door, Richard
House Of The Rising Sun
This Old House
Bless This House
Come On-A My House
Old Rocking Chair's Got Me
Get Up, Get Up, Get Up, Get Up, Get Up, Get Out Of That ..... Bed
Dancing On The Ceiling
Deck The Halls With Boughs Of Holly
Someone's In The Kitchen With Dinah
Stairway To The Stars
My Grandfather's Clock
Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor On The Bedpost ..... Overnight?

B. Here are some songs whose titles mention fruits and vegetables:

Don't Sit Under The Apple Tree With Anyone Else But Me Yes, We Have No Bananas
Cherry Pink And Apple Blossom White
Life Is Just A Bowl Of Cherries
Shoo Fly Pie And Apple Pan Dowdy
I Heard It Through The Grapevine
Lemon Tree Very Pretty
Strawberry Fields Forever
I Found My Thrill On Blueberry Hill
Orange Colored Sky

C. No composers or lyricists were harmed during the compilation of the two lists above.

D. Setting aside the fact that all the songs in B above mention fruits and not a single one mentions vegetables, I wonder if you noticed what I noticed about every single item in both lists above, namely that every single song mentioned in A and B above is an OLD song, VERY OLD. I suppose, no, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt. that the reason for this phenomenon is that I also am OLD, VERY OLD.

E. You don't have to agree so readily.

F. Your assignment, should you choose to accept it (remember Mission Impossible?) is to come up with more recent entries for both categories.

G. Changing directions, I tend to pay attention to detail (one has to when one writes computer programs) and don't like inaccurate statements in the media. Here's one that has been bothering me lately:

In a television commercial soliciting donations to a charity that provides food to the elderly in Israel, the voice-over man said, "Scripture says that joy can come in the morning" and then tried to guilt viewers into responding. Ethics aside, I just want to point out that Scripture does not say joy "can come" in the morning. Verse 5 of Psalm 30 says "weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning." Not can come. Comes. There's a difference.

Until next time, I remain
Your intrepid online pointer-outer,
rhymeswothplague

Maybe the more it changes, the more it doesn’t stay the same

Although the New Testament was written originally in Greek, it is not the scholarly classical Greek of antiquity but Koine Greek, the language of ordinary people in the street. Furthermore, the first major translation of the Bible into Latin is called the Vulgate because it used the language of common people. (The word vulgus in Latin simply meant common, long before our English word 'vulgar' took on its modern meaning.)

Having said all of that, I have noticed that much of the gospel music enjoyed by the American wing of the evangelical Protestant world (of which I am a part) likewise employs something less than the King's English. Here are some examples:

"Can't nobody do me like Jesus"
"Ain't no grave gonna hold my body down"
"Ain't no power on earth can tie me down"
"I wouldn't take nothin' for my journey now, gonna make it to Heaven somehow"
"If it wasn't for the lighthouse, where would this ship be?"
"Gonna lay down my burden down by the riverside, ain't gonna study war no more"
"I've got a mansion just over the hilltop"

But would using grammatically correct language result in an improvement?

"Nobody can treat me like Jesus"
"There isn't any grave that can hold my body down"
"There isn't any power on earth that can tie me down"
"I wouldn't take anything for my journey now, I'm going to make it to Heaven somehow"
"If it weren't for the lighthouse, where would this ship be?"
"I'm going to lay down my burden down by the riverside, I'm not going to study war any more"
"I have a mansion just over the hilltop"

In a word, no.

In fact, to many Christians who are familiar with the original wordings (among whom I include myself), the rewritten versions sound stilted and artifical, even pedantic.

With the possible exception of the one that mentions a lighthouse.

Plus the fact that double negatives like 'ain't no' and 'can't nobody' actually make a positive that says the very opposite of what one intended.

I guess you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

But those writers of the New Testament were onto something.

Pedantically yours,
rhymeswithplague

They say things happen in threes

...but in the past few days four prominent celebrities from the world of entertainment have died:

• Ozzy Osbourne, British heavy-metal rocker, 76.
• Malcolm-Jamal-Warner, American actor (can you say Theo Huxtable?), musician, and poet, 54.
• Hulk Hogan, professional wrestler, 71.
• Chuck Mangione, jazz trumpeter, 84.

The causes of their deaths were said to be Parkinson's disease (Osbourne), drowning (Warner), cardiac arrest (Hogan), and natural causes in his sleep (Mangione).

I'm sure Mr. Mangione's 'natural causes' included a cardiac arrest similar to Mr. Hogan's. The only difference seems to have been that one was awake and one was asleep when his heart stopped beating.

I don't mean to be macabre but I found the reportage interesting.

At my age I find everything interesting.

Tomorrow is Mrs. RWP's 90th birthday and the celebrating has already begun. A neighbor threw a surprise party yesterday that included two bouquets of a dozen roses, a gift certificate to a restaurant, home-made pizza, and a rasberry white chocolate mousse cake from the best bakery in the county. On Wednesday another friend took us to lunch at our favorite Chinese restaurant. Tomorrow our immediate family members are coming over to celebrate and cook for us too, but they decided not to surprise us.

I'm glad. We wouldn't want their showing up at our door unannounced to trigger a cardia arrest.

There I go being macabre again.

A thousand pardons. I'll take your shocked looks under advisement for composing future posts.

Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité!

Happy Bastille Day!

Look it up.

After not having seen Jeopardy! at all in several months (can you say 'cold turkey'?), I watched an episode on Friday and knew three answers none of the contestants knew, namely:

What is Bewitched?
What is Bonanza?
What is (are?) the New York Mets?

The three contestants were all Gen Z'ers, and host Ken Jennings said they made him feel old.

Me too.

Of course, I am old, but that is beside the point.

Or maybe that is the point. At least I know what Bastille Day is.

Seacrest out.

It drives me crazy

...when place names are mispronounced by news readers on television.

For example, yesterday the small town of Alvarado, Texas, was in the news. This town is very close to Mansfield, Texas, where I was raised or reared or grew up or however you think I should say it. Amost everyone who mentioned the town on television news broadcasts mispronounced it. For the record, even though in Spanish Alvarado rhymes with bravado, and even though the town was named after Alvarado in the Mexican state of Veracruz, the correct pronunciation of the town in Texas rhymes with Play-Doh or Day-Glo or Laredo, take your pick. All day long on the news channel the people were saying 'al-vuh-RAH-doh' until 4 p.m., when Will Cain, a man who actually is from Texas and broadcasts from Texas, said 'al-vuh-RAY-do' and I felt vindicated. At 7 p.m. I heard Laura Ingraham say it correctly too, but everyone else was back to 'al-vuh-RAH-do'.

I have friends from California who become agitated when people say Paso Robles wrong. Robles does not rhyme with 'go blaze' but with the English word 'nobles'.

I guess it depends on whether you aim for Spanish purism or go with the flow of the local populace.

There is Spanish and then there is Spanish.

In Texas, the San Jacinto monument near Houston is pronounced 'san juh-SIN-toh' or even 'san juh-SIN-tuh'. But actress Betty White, who lived in California, referred to it once as 'san hah-CHEEN-to', which I guess is technically correct but made Texans everywhere roll their eyes.

I have the strange feeling we have discussed these things before, but I may be mistaken.

Waxahachie (another town in Texas) is not WACKS-uh-hatch-ee, it's WALKS-uh-hatch-ee.

The G in Nacogdoches is not pronounced. And the word sounds nothing like the town of Natchitoches a few miles away in Louisiana even though they are named for the same Native American tribe (I think). In Texas it's 'nack-uh-DOH-chiz' and in Louisiana it's 'NACK-uh-tish'. I'm not even kidding.

The Brazos River in Texas is 'BRAZZ-us', not 'BRAH-zose'.

People in Illinois do not pronounce the S in the name of their state but a lot of other people do.

In Florida, Boca Raton is not 'boh-ka ruh-TAHN', it's 'boh-ka ruh-TONE'. Trust me, I lived there for six years.

Don't even get me started on Mackinac Island, Michigan, or Sault Ste. Marie (also in Michigan), or Dahlonega, Georgia, or Poughkeepsie, New York, or Puyallup, Washington.

In North Carolina, the town of Beaufort is 'BOH-fort' but the South Carolina town of the same name is 'BEW-fert'.

Call me anything you like (and I've been called a lot of things), just don't call me late for dinner.

What place-name mispronunciations get your knickers in a twist dander up?

It's funny (funny peculiar, not funny ha-ha)

...how some facts stick in the brain and others don't. Take addresses, for example. I know that my aunt lived at 405 West Avenue in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, before moving to 403 Linden St. and I know that her telephone number was TUrner 6-9280 before there was ever such a thing as an area code. She has been dead since 1987.

My grandfather lived at 321 Runnymede Avenue in Jenkintown for many years before moving to my uncle's house at 325 West Avenue, a block from my aunt. My grandfather died in 1970 and my uncle died in 1983.

I remember that after Mama, Daddy, and I moved from 61 Larch St. in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, to Fort Worth, Texas, on a train (it took three days) in August 1947, when I was six, we stayed for a few days at the Majestic Hotel, then rented some rooms in the Arlington Heights section of the city, and eventually rented a whole house at 2332 Chandler Drive East. Had we stayed there, I would have eventually graduated from Paschal High School, but we didn't stay there. A few months later my parents bought an old house on three acres of land outside of Mansfield, Texas (population 774). Our address was Route 1, Box 59. A few years later, without ever having moved an inch, the countyside around Mansfield had grown so much that our address was changed to Route 1, Box 92.

Our first telephone in Mansfield was mounted on the wall and did not have a dial. It was equipped with a hand-operated crank on the side to ring the operator, who completed the connection through, I suppose, a switchboard. Our number was 157J-3. The -3 meant that because we were on a "party line" of at least eight families the indication of an incoming call to our house was three short rings. That operator really earned her money. The telephone company eventually replaced the crankbox on the wall with a phone that sat on the desk; it had a handset we picked up to talk through and listen with but it didn't have a dial. The operator came on the line when a person lifted the handset from its cradle and would complete the connection. Eventually we got still another telephone with both a handset AND a rotary dial. Our telephone number was not nearly as long as my aunt's TUrner 6-9280, no sir, it was short and sweet, 4726. As fans of Hee-Haw will remember, that is an even shorter phone number than Junior Samples had (BR549).

Nowadays we enter numbers into our smartphone's directory and just press the name of the person we want to reach. Or we can simply say, "Siri, call Grandma." As a result, I don't know anyone's telephone number any more.

We've come a long way, baby.

I think.

In the U.S., people say "Hello?" but in the U.K. they say "Are you there?" (or used to). Someone I know used to say "It's your nickel, start talking" and someone else said simply "Speak." It takes all kinds.

I will now close this fascinating post (I can hear you yawning) by telling you the first words spoken into a telephone mouthpiece, according to what I read. In a demonstration to others of his new invention, Alexander Graham Bell said to his assistant, Thomas A. Watson, who was in another room, "Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you." It happened in Boston, Massachusetts, on March 10, 1876.

You may also learn something about vegetables

In a comment on the preceding post, kylie (a longtime reader who lives in Australia) asked, "How on earth does one diagram a sentence?"

Two things about kylie became immediately obvious to me:

1. She is much younger than me.
2. She never studied English grammar under Mr. D.P. Morris in Mansfield, Texas, USA.

i did a little searching online, and out of all the tutorials I found I like the following article best:

Diagramming Sentences 101: Step-by-Step Guide

If anyone out there is wondering, like kylie, how on earth one diagrams a sentence, click on that link and you will find out.

You may also learn something about vegetables.

Much ado about nothing

I have been posting to this blog for nearly 18 years now. I have published so many posts and discarded so many potential posts that it is difficult to remember what I have actually told you versus what I may have intended to tell you but thought better of and discarded before it ever saw the light of day. Adding up all of the yearly totals in the archive list over there in the sidebar produces the number 2,286 posts, and doing the math (British, maths) reveals that my average annual production of blogposts is 127 posts. Some years are higher than others, of course, and some are lower. In fact, dear reader, that is the very definition of average.

For a while I included Feedjit in the sidebar and enjoyed keping count of the number of countries from which readers came and seeing the little flags Feedjit displayed. If memory serves (and it obviously doesn't), the country count was either ninety-something or one hundred thirty-something. After a while the little game I had invented lost its attraction and I deleted Feedjit from the sidebar.

For a long time I didn't include labels in my posts, then for another very long time I did, then for a third very long time I didn't again, and now I do when I remember to.

Please don't tell me I shouldn't end a sentence with a preposition. Someone once criticized Winston Churchill for doing so and he replied that that was the sort of criticism up with which he would not put. I think that people who never end sentences with prepositions don't know what language is all ABOUT, and don't know what prepositions are FOR.

You may try to diagram the sentences in the preceding paragraph if you care to, but no extra credit will be given.

Why am I telling you all this?

I don't know, but a shrink (British, psychologist) could probably give you reasons. I could even recommend one, my first cousin, Dr. Philip F. Caracena, but since he died in 2016 at the age of 81 he probably isn't taking new patients at this time.

I am in rare form this afternoon.

I think the reason is that I am composing this post on my desktop computer's keyboard rather than on my smartphone, and my fingers can almost keep up with my mind on a full-sized keyboard. They lag disappointingly behind my mind when I'm using my smartphone keyboard. Ergo, I am somewhat giddy at being able to keep up with my thought processes (I am a fast typist) and am capturing all the flotsam and jetsam along with the pithy stuff.

If you have encountered any pithy stuff so far, please let me know where it is.

I will now close and post this, my 2,287th post, because Mrs. RWP (the lovely Ellie) and I have to get ready to go to our friend's house later today for homemade pizza and root beer floats. The basic food groups are so important, n'est-ce pas?

Truth in posting: No alcohol was consumed during the creation of this post. I'm just happy to be alive.

Ah, yes, I remember it well

Whether you know it or not, June 23, 1969 was a very important day. On that day IBM (International Business Machines) "unbundled" its software and services from its hardware. Up until that day, if you bought IBM hardware, you also were required to buy IBM software. With a stroke of the pen at IBM's corporate headquarters in Armonk, Westchester County, New York, and a little help from a lawsuit initiated by the United States Department Of Justice, the computer software industry was born.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

I thought you would want to know.

After being honorably discharged from a four-years-and-nine-months stint in the United Stated Air Force, during which time I had received training as a computer programmer, I was hired by the IBM Corporation on November 1, 1965, and began working for it/them in Poughkeepsie, New York. Almost exactly three years later, the company transferred me to its brand new faciliy (evidence: we were housed in temporary trailers for months until the new building was built) in Boca Raton, Florida.

On February 1, 1969, I flew to Stockholm, Sweden, and worked at the IBM facility on Lidingö until March 1, at which time I flew back to Boca Raton (and, boy, were my arms tired).

The next big date in my work history for I've Been Moved is the "unbundling announcement" (as it was called) on June 23, 1969. Later events inclue my transfer to Atlanta, Georgia in 1975 and my resignation from the company in 1978, and my re-entrance into the company in 1997, and my retirement from the company in 2000. None of this is probably of any interest to anyone but me.

As a matter of record, I also posted about the unbundling in two other posts, in 2014 and 2016. You can read those posts if you type "unbundling" into the search box at the top left of the blog's header. You may even learn what a troglodyte is.

Onward and upward to more important things, or as Buzz Lightyear often said, "To infinity and beyond!"

That is, Ta-Ta For Now.

Nostalgia Porn, anyone?

I am not a fan of "country music" because I often find it twangy and nasal and performed poorly. But I heard a song recently that has been around since 1972 that I really like. You may have known it for years but it was brand new to me.

Someone said many years ago that a great country song consists of three chords and the truth. That phrase is now inscribed on a wall of the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tennessee.

When brothers Harold Reid and Don Reid wrote the words that became "Class Of '57" they documented truth.

"Class Of '57"

Tommy's selling used cars, Nancy's fixing hair
Harvey runs a grocery store and Margaret doesn't care
Jerry drives a truck for Sears and Charlotte's on the make
And Paul sells life insurance and part-time real estate

Helen is a hostess, Frank works at the mill
Janet teaches grade school and prob'ly always will
Bob works for the city and Jack's in lab research
And Peggy plays organ at the Presbyterian Church

And the class of '57 had its dreams
Oh, we all thought we'd change the world with our great works and deeds
Or maybe we just thought the world would change to fit our needs
The class of '57 had its dreams

Betty runs a trailer park, Jan sells Tupperware
Randy's on an insane ward and Mary's on welfare
Charlie took a job with Ford and Joe took Freddie's wife
Charlotte took a millionaire and Freddie took his life

John is big in cattle, Ray is deep in debt
Where Mavis finally wound up is anybody's bet
Linda married Sonny, Brenda married me
And the class of all of us is just a part of history

And the class of '57 had its dreams
But living life day to day is never like it seems
Things get complicated when you get past eighteen
But the class of '57 had its dreams
Oh, the class of '57 had its dreams

(end of song)

Truth in blogging: I was not a part of the class of '57, I graduated in the class of '58. But the song resonated with me nevertheless. Apparently I have reached the age where what might be described as Nosalgia Porn is attractive. My date on the night we graduated actually was named Brenda, but she didn't marry me.

No matter when you graduated, I think every class has had its dreams, and every class looks back with a combination of fondness, accomplishment, failure, and regret.

What thinkest you?

To hear the song performed, and performed well, enter Class of 57 Brothers Of The Heart into your favorite (British, favourite) search engine.

Food for thought, episode 17,643

I have wondered about something for a long time that I think we have never discussed on this blog. Let's discuss it today. It's the little word 'as'.

Say what?

Let me explain. I'm referring specifically to the word 'as' found in the middle of a particular sentence in the middle of what Christians call The Lord's Prayer. If you're unfamiliar with that prayer, it's the one that begins "Our Father which art in Heaven, hallowed be The mame."

Here is the sentence I'm talking about:

And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

Some traditions use this wording intead: And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

But what does that 'as' mean exactly? Here are some possibilities:

1. Because.
2. Only to the same extent that (and not one whit more than).
3. At the very same instant that (and not one second sooner than).
4. At some future unspecified time, possibly just before I take my last breath or even later such as on a Day of Judgment).
5. Inasmuch as (that is, since).
6. For it is our intent to (even if we never actually get around to).

My mother would often say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Let that sink in.

Perhaps I am overthinking this. Perhaps it is enough simply to note that immediately following the 'Amen' on that prayer in the sixth chapter of Matthew's gospel are the following words:

'For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will forgive your trespasses: But if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive you.'

It is sobering to contemplate on a day when a great deal of so-called "mostly peaceful" but often quite violent "protest" is being predicted and even encouraged in some quarters.

Perhaps we ought to stop saying 'God bless America' so much and start praying 'God save America' instead.

P.S. - Today is (a) Flag Day, which commemorates Betsy Ross presenting George Washington with the first American flag on June 14, 1777; (b) a military parade in Washington D.C. in observance of the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army, which the Continental Congress in Philadelphia established on June 14, 1775; and (c) the 79th birthday of President Donald J. Trump, who was born on June 14, 1946. These are apparently occasions of either pride and happiness or hate and disgust, depending on one's political views.

Today is an important anniversary

(Editor's note. This post from the archives was originally published in 2009. --RWP)

On June 6, 1944, D-Day went forward as planned, World War II eventually ended, and names like Eisenhower and Churchill made their way into the history books.

On June 6, 1958, in the early afternoon, on the soap opera As The World Turns, Claire finally married Dr. Doug Cassen. Claire was the mother of Ellen Lowell who was a friend of Penny Hughes who...it really is too complicated to explain.

I don’t remember the former event (I was only three) but I distinctly remember the latter because at seven in the evening on the same day, my dad and stepmother were married in one of the smallest churches I ever saw (Methodist, before they merged with the Evangelical United Brethren and started calling themselves United Methodists) in one of the smallest towns I ever saw (Coppell, Texas, population approximately 600). Dad was 52. Mildred was 43. I was 17. Two weeks earlier I had graduated from high school in a town 30 miles away. Two months before that my dad and stepmother had been introduced by one of her brothers-in-law who worked at the same aircraft plant as my dad. Five months before that, on October 4, 1957, the day the Russians launched Sputnik, my mother had died after an eight-year battle against cancer.

Suddenly I was no longer an only child living with a widowed father, I was the middle one of five children. Suddenly I had two new older siblings (Bob and Ed) and two new younger siblings (Patsy and Billy). Suddenly I had a new name to avoid confusion (Bob Jr.). Suddenly I was no longer two thousand miles away from any aunt, uncle, or cousin. I had four new aunts (Cleo, Margaret, Faye, and Sue) and their husbands (Romie, Fritz, Oliver, and Jack) and five new uncles (J.D., Russ Jr., Marvin, Billy, and Freddie) and their wives (Ovaline, Dorothy, Thelma, LaWanda, and Martha) and an endless supply of new cousins (Kenneth, Janice, Jerry, Jimmy Wayne, Mike, Gary, Helen, Carol, Libby, Danny, Larry, Daisy, Ray, Brenda, Connie, Cindy, Barry, Terry, Jeff, Paula, Russ, and a few I have probably left out). And even though both of my grandmothers had died before I was born and one grandfather whom I had never met died in Iowa when I was seven and my other grandfather whom I had seen only once when I was 14 lived far away in Pennsylvania, I had a brand new set of grandparents (Russ Sr. and Virginia). And every last one of these new relatives lived nearby, and they were used to getting together often. It felt a lot like this:

...only bigger. Don’t bother clicking; it’s futile.

All of my new ready-made family absorbed my presence rather easily (what's one more among so many?) but for me it was a real culture shock at the time.

Eventually I adjusted and life went on. Sometimes my dad would call my stepmother Ruth by mistake and sometimes she would call him Clarence. My dad lived for nine years after that eventful day in June 1958. My stepmother eventually married again to a man named John and they were together for nearly thirty-five years, and I said all that to say this:

You can get used to just about anything if you put your mind to it.

Eventually I even had sisters-in-law (Linda, Judy, and Beverly) and a brother-in-law (Clyde) and lots of nieces and nephews -- Stacy, Sam, Donald Bruce, Pam, Penny (who is named, and I’m not kidding, after Penny Hughes from As the World Turns), William, and Sandra. And now there are even great-nieces and great-nephews.

But it did take some time to get used to being called Bob Jr.

The two men in the photo above are not Bob and Bob Jr., they are Winston Churchill and Dwight D. Eisenhower.

(Editor's note. Coppell, Texas, is not so tiny any more. According to the U.S. Census Bureau folks, it had about 42,000 residents in 2020. That fact will take me more time to get used to than being called Bob Jr. --RWP)

Sic transit gloria mundi, memento mori, and other Latin expressions

The following three sentences did not originate with me but they provide a good jumping off place (translation: inspiration) for what I want to say today:

In my 20s, I spent a lot of time wondering what other people thought about me.

In my 40s, I didn't care at all what other people thought about me.

In my 60s, I realized that other people were not thinking about me at all; they were much too busy thinking about themselves.

I want to add a fourth item to that list:

In my 80s, I have realized that most of the people I ever thought about or who might ever have thought about me are dead.

One day I will be dead too.

And so will you.

Everybody dies eventually. The mortality rate is 100%.

I hope this hasn't come as a shock to you.

Actress (or more linguistically preferred nowadays, actor) Loretta Swit (Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan in M*A*S*H) died this week but Margaret O'Brien is still alive.

If you don't know who Margaret O'Brien is, look it up in your Funk & Wagnalls.

Dick Martin of the comedy team Rowan and Martin used to say "look it up in your Funk & Wagnalls" on Laugh-In. Today he would probably say to google it. If you have never heard of Rowan and Martin or Laugh-In you are probably a member of Gen Z or Gen Y or Gen X or even possibly a Millennial. If so, you should stop reading the blogs of old people and find a more productive way to spend your time, preferably on something that pays well.

P.S. - Fortunately, for Christians there is the hope provided by the resurrection of Christ. Look it up in your Funk & Wagnalls.

Artificial Intelligence is not perfect quite yet

My desktop computer's screen saver or wallpaper or whatever it is informed me this morning that May 29th is World Otter Day. I don't know why otters would even have a day or why it would fall on May 29th and I'm in no hurry to find out.

Instead, I want to continue a variation of a pet peeve we have discussed in a few previous posts. We talked before about the sometimes laughable, sometimes infuriating inaccuracies that closed captioning produces on one's television screen. Today we will look at a couple of examples that happened on my smart phone when I asked for the lyrics to a song.

From some of the output I received I gather that someone or something (voice-recognition software?) listens to a recording of the requested song and produces a printed copy of what he, she, or it thinks he, she, or it heard.

Here are two sets of lyrics that happen to be gospel songs. One was written by Bill and Gloria Gaither several decades ago as a song for children. The other is a fairly recent song written by their adult daughter Suzanne. I have highlighted the boo-boos (by which I mean obvious errors if one knows the songs) in red:


1. I Am A Promise

[Chorus]
I am a promise, I am a possibility
I am a promise with a capital P
I am a great big bundle of potentiality
And I am learning to hear God's voice
And I am trying to make the right choices
I'm a promise to be anything He wants me to be

[Bridge]
I can go anywhere that He wants me to go
I can be anything that He wants me to be
I can climb the high mountsin
I can cross the White Sea
I am a great big promise you see

and then the Chorus is repeated. There is actually an area on Russia's northwestern coast that is called the White Sea, but it has nothing to do with this song. Instead of 'White Sea' the transcription should have read 'wide sea'.


2. Jesus Is Everywhere

[Verse 1]
In the coldest part of Scotland
The darkest night of the year
I found a church where the lights were dim
And I sat out in the rain
And we sang about a baby
Angel voices filled that place
I could feel the love of Jesus
And the tears ran down my face

[Chorus]
Jesus is in the water
Jesus is in the wine
Jesus is standing next to us
In the noisy Starbucks line
Jesus is in Manhattan
Jesus is in St. Claire
He's waiting around the corner
Jesus is everywhere
Jesus is everywhere
Jesus is everywhere
Jesus is everywhere

[Verse 2]
On a winding street in Venice
On the sunny side of town
Church bells rang out in Saint Loco
So we went in and sat down
We forgot that it was Sunday
The priest was hard to understand
But we heard the word for Jesus
Holding waivers in our hands

[Chorus]

[Bridge] In the darkest hour of nighttime
In the dark night of the soul
In the balmy heat of summer
In the bitter winter cold
In the halls of every mansion
In apartments where you sleep
if You've never gone too far
And you're never in too deep

and then, surprise, the chorus is repeated. Here are the corrections to the red lyrics:

'I sat out in the rain' should be 'I sat down in the rear'.

Anybody with half a brain or any familiarity with either Venice or Christianity would know (or could guess) that church bells rang out in San Marco, not Saint Loco (seriously, Saint Loco?) and Suzanne and her companion were holding wafers, not waivers, in their hands.

Apparently AI doesn't have half a brain just yet.

I am feeling so superior to AI at the moment, but it is probably a bit premature of me to do so. I've heard that AI is a fast learner.

A word to the wise: Hold the gloating until a date to be announced later.

Things that make me go Hmmm #17,643

Some people's identities change more often than I change socks. I'm serious. My friend Patty B____ is now Patty P____ M____ on Facebook. How can anyone find her? My friend Terri H____ is now Terri R____ C____. My friend Clara L____ has changed the most and is now Clara A____ S____ M____. One woman at our church, Paula M____ J____, has an adult son whose surname starts with T. As hawkers often say at sporting events, you can't tell the players without a program.

My wife was never given a middle name, so she started using her maiden name as her middle name after we were married. Both my mother and my daughter dropped their given middle names (one was E____ and one was R____) when they married and, like my wife, began using their maiden names as their middle names. This used to be common for married women to do.

Nowadays there are no rules. One of our daughters-in-law still uses the old method, dropping her middle name T____ and using her maiden name P____ as her middle name and initial. Our other daughter-in-law has always gone by her middle name and never used her first name at all. On social media she is known by her middle name and her married name only, with no reference to either her first name or her maiden name. Among our granddaughters-in-law (we have five), three use the 'first name'-'maiden name'-'married name' pattern, one uses the 'first name'-'married name' (no middle name) pattern, and one uses the 'first name'-'middle name'-'married name' (no maiden name) pattern.

When I worked in Florida years ago, my colleague Frank L____ and his wife divorced and Mrs.L____ was awarded custody of the children. Then my colleague Pete Z____ and his wife divorced and Mrs. Z____ was awarded custody of the children. A little while later, Frank L____ married the former Mrs. Z____, and Pete Z____ married the former Mrs. L____. All of the children attended the same elementary school and some were even in the same classrooms. So the report cards for the Z____ children were sent to the L____ home, and the report cards for the L____ children were sent to the Z____ home. Parent-teacher conferences must have proven interesting for the faculty and administrators at the school.

If you are completely confused at this point, join the club.

I hope this post has given my American readers something to ponder besides our fallen military heroes on this Memorial Day. I further hope that it hasn't given any of my readers, American or otherwise, a headache.

Round and round she goes

Tonight we (Mrs. RWP and I) watched Jeopardy! for the first time in several monhs and the crickets (no buzz-ins from the three contestants but I knew the answers) were out in abundance on the following:

Who is Richard Nixon?
Who is Robert Louis Stevenson?
What is live oak?

The clues were (1) he appointed William Rehnquist to the United States Supreme Court, (2) his poem "Requiem" included the line 'home is the sailor, home from the sea', and (3) a photograph of a tree in a category entitled "L.O."

We also watched an episode of Finding Your Roots, another program we hadn't watched in several months.

Either we have regressed or everything that goes around comes around.

We have two more graduates in the family as of last week. One of our grandsons received his Bachelor's degree and another grandson received his Master's degree. We have no buttons left.

More memory lane memories

Children can be bullies, and childhood taunts are often cruel and unkind. Here are a few I remember hearing back in the 1950s:

Fatty, Fatty, two by four,
Can't get through the kitchen door.

Here comes the bride
Short, fat, and wide.
Can't get through the church door
She'll have to stay outside.

Happy birthday to you
You live in a zoo
You stink like a monkey
And you look line one too.

That last one was particularly popular in 4th- and 5th-grade during recess.

Mrs. Rhymeswithplague (the lovely Ellie) remembers choosing team members or "It" during playground games by saying "Ink, skink, sky blue, all out but you." In my part of the world (Texas) we were more crass:

Eeny, meany, miney, moe
Catch a [n-word] by the toe
If he hollers, let him go
Eeny, meany, miney, moe

After my time, the vile n-word was replaced by 'tiger' and God was in His heaven, all was right with the world.

Not.

My theory and observation is that childhood bullies left unconfronted and uncorrected grow up to be adult bullies.

My parents taught me that sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.

With all due respect, I think they were wrong.

Before endinng this post I want to wish all mothers everywhere a Happy Mother's Day even if it is not Mother's Day where you are, and I also want to tell you that tomorrow, May 12th, is the 119th anniversary of my dad's birth in 1906. Unfortunately, he died in 1967.

A trip down memory lane

When I was young there was no internet, no X (formerly known as Twitter), no Instagram no Snapchat, no online shopping, no online banking, no Zelle, no Venmo, no Paypal, no electric cars, no hybrids, no bitcoin, no AI, no Apple watch, no Ring doorbell, no cell phones, no anything almost.

What there was was blood, toil, tears, and sweat. Young folk, Winston Churchill said that.

Things have changed massively in my lifetime, not necessarily for the better, even though many labor-saving (British, labour-saving) devices have been invented.

I'm so old I can remember playing with a slinky, a hula hoop, roller skates, a Viewmaster Stereoscope, and pick up stix (little girls played jacks, hopscotch, skipped rope, and pushed dolls around in small baby carriages (British, perambulators).

I can remember gasoline (petrol) costing 17.9¢ per gallon.

I'm so old I can remember when Rosie O'Donnell and Ellen Degeneres were funny.

I remember Dr. Jonas Salk. I remember Betty Furness, Ish Kabibble, S&H green stamps, Kay Kyser's College Of Musical Knowledge. I remember the bouncing ball on Sing Along With Mitch. I remember Jerry Lewis's annual telethons to raise money to find a cure for muscular dystrophe. I remember Ozzie and Harriet.

I remember Roger Bannister breaking the four-minute mile barrier. I remember Mark Spitz. I remember Olga Korbut. I remember Torvill and Dean in lavender costumes dancing on ice skates to Ravel's Boléro.

I remember Roy Rogers and Trigger.

This little trip down memory lane has been provided by a person who in less than two weeks will have been married to the same woman for 62 years. They have gone by in a flash.

Life now includes aches and pains, I am old and wrinkled, and a stranger looks out at me from the mirror.

How to tell if you have Trump Derangement Syndrome

This is an important public service announcement regarding Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS).

In a nutshell, when President Donald Trump is being serious, people with TDS think he is joking; and when he is joking, they think he is serious.

People without TDS know intuitively when President Trump is being serious and when he is joking.

Then there are the people like me who cannot tell but believe that on any particular day and any particular subject President Trump is fully capable of either joking or being serious, and possibly of doing both at the same time. His modue operandi seems to be to run it up a flagpole and see if anybody salutes it.

Here is a self-test to determine your TDS status/susceptibility:

Make Canada the 51st state (joke or serious?)
Buy Greenland (joke or serious?)
Become pope (joke or serious?)
Run for a third term (joke or serious?)
Send U.S. troops into Mexico to destroy drug cartels (joke or serious?)
Take back the Panama Canal (joke or serous?)

If you haven't been paying attention or if you live in another part of the world, these are all topics that have been floated in the first 100 days of what is being called the Trump 2.0 administration. FYI, only 1,361 days remain in the Trump 2.0 administration, including the Leap Day in 2028.

Let the celebrating begin.

It’s Star Wars Day

May the fourth be with you.

Not original with me, of course, but I couldn't resist the urge to say it.

Potpourri #17,643

Today I heard a man on television speaking about deportees say "approximately about 576 people"; a couple of minutes later he said "about 1,154 people" and I felt myself turning into my old high-school English teacher, Mr. D. P. Morris. First of all, the phrase "approximately about" is redundant and should never be used. Say one or the other, but not both. In addition, please don't use the qualifiers except with a non-specific, inexact figure. It is okay in the examples I cited to say "approximately 600" and "about 1,150" but neither "approximate" nor "anout" is appropriate with such specific numbers as 576 or 1,154. It's too bad the man on television couldnt't hear me. He might have learned something. I'm just saying.

Speaking properly used to be the mark of an educated person but those days have gone with the wind. Swearing in public used to be the mark of an uncouth lout but nowadays even our elected representatives in suits and ties do it without a second thought. Interesting. Sad, but interesting.

Someone has said that the only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys. I guess the ability to grow a beard and having the urge to, um, procreate are of no consequence.

On another newscast today a woman said, and I quote, "In 2023 California's budget deficit was $32 billion dollars. In 2024 it doubled to $46 billion dollars." I found myself yelling at the television screen that 32 doubled is 64, not 46. Did the printed copy she was reading contain a typo that she read faithfully without thinking about it or was the copy correct and the reader was dyslexic? We'll never know because the reader didn't correct herself and no one else on the set asked a question or made a comment about the discrepancy.

Today is May 1st, which I just learned is the mid-point between the vernal equinox and the summer solstice. There are three other such mid-points during the year: between the summer solstice and the autumnal equinox, between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice, and between the winter solstice and the vernal equinox. Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to learn the dates on which these mid-points fall and report the information in a comment.

This post will self-destruct in five seconds.

I'm kidding, but didn't it make you think of Mission Impossible?

Two negatives make a positive

That's what I was taught back in the Dark Ages. The word "ain't" was verboten. However, with the continued decline in Anerica's education system and the general dumbing down of the American public over the last several decades, more and more the English language is spoken and written improperly, or if that is too strong a word, without regard for rules.

Instead of saying, "He and I are friends" people will say, "Me and him are friends" (that is, they use objective case when nominative case is called for).

Instead of saying, "The big dog chased her and me down the road" people will say "The big dog chasd she and I down the road" (that is, they use nominative case when objective case is called for).

People who should know better say "ain't" instead of "am not" or "isn't" or "aren't". Grammar teachers shudder.

Double negatives are everywhere, invading even gospel music. Here are four examples that make me cringe:

1. "Ain't No Grave Gonna Hold My Body Down"
2. "I Wouldn't Take Nothin' For My Journey Now"
3. In the song "Rise Again" one line says "ain't no power on earth can tie me down"
4. "He Ain't Never Done Me Nothin' But Good"

To give secular music its due, "Ain't misbehavin', I'm savin' my love for you" goes back generations. George Gershwin put "It ain't necessarily so" into Porgy And Bess.

Some people just don't know better, their schooling having gone in one ear and out the other. Some people know better but just don't care. And neither do they care, apparently, how they might be viewed by others or how unlikely they are to advance in their careers.

Am I being a snob? I hope not. I don't want to be. We strive to be a classless society in the United States, where everyone is equal in the eyes of the law. Nobody should have anything to prove. But maybe one of this country's greatest assets has produced an unfortunate effect. I suppose it depends on how you look at it. Telescopes and microscopes are both very useful for seeing, but they look at different things.

On the other hand, the New Testament was not written in classical Greek but in koine Greek, the common language of the streets. Also, St.Jerome's updating of an earlier Latin version of the Bible became known as the Vulgate because he used the most common dialect among the people.

Is it important or unimportant? A linguistic scandal or much ado about nothing as long as a person can be understood? One wonders. Let me know in a comment what you think.

Krishti u ngjall! Vërtetë u ngjall!

(This post has appeared on this blog twice previously, first on April 12, 2009, and again on April 5, 2015.)

The title of this post is in old-style Albanian, the language my wife’s parents spoke.

Every year, on a certain day, when Mom and Pop were still alive, we would call them in Florida or they would call us in Nebraska or New York or Florida or Georgia (we moved a lot) and whichever party said “Hello?” heard the words, “Krishti u ngjall!”

The response was always immediate from the other person: “Vërtetë u ngjall!”

Phonetically, it sounded something like this:

KRISH-tee oong-ee-AHL! vair-TET oong-ee-AHL!

What a strange thing to do, you might be thinking.

Not at all. If you’re curious what those strange phrases might mean, here is an English translation: Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

The day, of course, was Easter Sunday -- Resurrection Day -- and we were simply doing what Christians have been doing in various places and in various languages for two thousand years.

After Pop died in 1983 and Mom died in 1986, we continued the traditional Albanian Easter greeting with Mrs RWP’s aunt in North Carolina. Now she is gone, too. There is nobody left in the family to speak Albanian to.

So, very early this morning, as the day was beginning to dawn, I said to Mrs. RWP, “Krishti u ngjall!” and she replied, “Vërtetë u ngjall!” Some traditions are worth preserving.

This was not only an Easter greeting, it was something like the communion of the saints, I think. Some of them on earth, and some of them in Heaven. But all in agreement.

In many places around the world, in many languages, many people said these words today. We said them at our own church (Pentecostal, not Albanian Orthodox) this morning. The pastor said, “Christ is risen!” and the entire congregation replied, “He is risen indeed!” The pastor said it three times, and after the third response, spontaneous applause broke out in the choir and among the congregation.

As I said, the communion of the saints.

This afternoon I found on the Internet a photograph of the interior of Saints Peter and Paul Albanian Orthodox Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the church Mrs. RWP attended as a child with her mother, father, and brother. It was the first time my wife had seen this church since 1946. The church is decorated in the photograph, not for Easter, but for another Christian holiday.

Christmas. You may have heard of it.


I thought it would be interesting to post the comments from 2009 and 2015 as well. Here are the ones from 2009:

13 comments:

Reamus said...

We should all keep such traditions alive, Mr. RWP, thank you for sharing a fine post.

April 12, 2009 at 11:32 PM

Pat - Arkansas said...

Alleluia! Alleluia!

April 13, 2009 at 9:52 AM

bARE-eYED sUN said...

beutiful tradition, sentiment and photo. :-)

thank you

April 14, 2009 at 2:10 AM

Jeannelle said...

Oh, Rhymsie, this is a wonderful post! What a treasure to know those ancient Easter words in a unique language! Yes, keep the tradition alive of speaking them.

I woke up too early and decided to change my blogpost to publish on April 15, but after seeing the CHRISTMAS photo on your post, I'm leaving it for today, the 14th.

A belated Merry Easter to you!

April 14, 2009 at 5:25 AM

Egghead said...

What a beautiful gift you gave your wife. That is the sweetest thing I have heard in a long time.

April 15, 2009 at 6:28 PM

rhymeswithplague said...

Thank you to everyone who commented:

Reamus - This tradition will probably end in our family with the two of us. Our children don't speak Albanian, let alone their spouses. Perhaps we can teach the grandchildren, though.

Pat - Arkansas - So you liked it then....

bARE-eYED sUN - Welcome, first-timer! I'm glad you enjoyed the post. Come back often.

Jeannelle - And an even more belated Merry Easter to you!

Egghead (Vonda) - We've been doing this every Easter for 46 years now.

April 15, 2009 at 10:01 PM

Anonymous said...

Krishti u ngjall!

April 19, 2009 at 5:32 PM

A Lady's Life said...

Very beautiful church.

April 21, 2009 at 7:23 PM

RachelS. said...

Dua kishën aq shumë! se foto e kishës është e bukur! Unë jam shqiptare si ju!Kristi Ngjall!

April 14, 2012 at 8:00 PM

rhymeswithplague said...

A Lady's Life, I think so too!

RachelS., thanks for commenting! I used translate.google.com to learn that you said, "I love church so much! that picture of the church is beautiful! I am Albanian like you! Kristi Risen!"

April 14, 2012 at 10:10 PM

Qafzez said...

Krishti u ngjall! Albanian American from Philadelphia and I attend this beautiful Church. I don't speak much Albanian either but we are Albanian Orthodox and its in our soul. Important to pass these traditions on to future generations. Come visit!

May 5, 2013 at 7:24 AM

rhymeswithplague said...

Welcome, Qafzez, to this little corner of Blogworld. Ask some of the very oldest people in your church if they remember Jim and Carrie Cudse (Dhimitri and Ksanthipi Kuci) or Nelson and Christine Pitchi. The names of the children in the two families were Mike, Eleanor, Nancy, and Johnny. These were Mrs. RWP's parents and uncle and aunt. They all moved to North Carolina around 1946.

May 5, 2013 at 8:29 AM

Klahanie said...

What a wonderful, thoughtful tradition to be upheld.

I sense the ambience.

Thank you, my kind friend.

Gary

April 7, 2015 at 10:50 PM

...and here are the comments from 2015:

4 comments:

All Consuming said...

A lovely tradition indeed, and educational for me as well. Do teach the Grandchildren yes! ? And does Mrs RWP speak Albanian too? Or have you said that and I missed it, (brain being slow as it is at present).

April 5, 2015 at 1:54 PM

Yorkshire Pudding said...

Like other Christian festivals or special days, Easter has its origins in pagan history. Oestre was a goddess of the springtime and of hope for the future. (RWP cage now rattled. The beast within growls. Grrrr!)

April 6, 2015 at 6:41 AM

rhymeswithplague said...

All Consuming (Michelle), Mrs. RWP understands spoken Albanian but never learned to speak it (or read it or write it) herself. She and her mom would have the most unusual bilingual conversations, her mom in Albanian and Mrs. RWP in English. It was strange to behold. I have managed to learn a little bit on my own. For example, Mirë mëngjes (Good morning), Unë të dua (I love you), and of course, Krishti u ngjall! Vërtetë u ngjall! (Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!)....

Yorkshire Pudding (Neil), au contraire! I regret to inform you that the beast within is not growling and the RWP cage has not been rattled. Of course Oestre was a goddess of springtime and there is also Ishtar and Astarte and Ashtoreth (some of them are even fertility goddesses). My post was not about them. We didn't wish one another a "Happy Easter"...my post is about the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, not green grass or baby chicks or bunny rabbits. I cannot explain Jesus any more than someone in the dark can explain a flashlight. The Old Testament prophet Isaiah said 700 years before Christ, "The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined. " And that much, as pertains to me at least, is true.

April 6, 2015 at 9:27 AM

Hilltophomesteader said...

Well said, Mr. RWP. My prayer is that all in the darkness will see the light. Sorry to be late, but He is, indeed, Risen, and I am glad.

April 7, 2015 at 1:02 AM

More evidence I am slipping

...can be found in the sad fact that April 18th is now 21/24ths over in my time zone (Eastern Daylight Time, EDT) and I have neglected to tell you that today is the 250th anniversary of Paul Revere's ride, an event that inspired the 19th-centuy Anerican poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) to write a very famous poem called, what else, "Paul Revere's Ride" which begins:

"Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year."

The poem went on to tell of the expected British invasion of the American colonies and how Paul Revere on the opposite shore would be, ready to ride and spread the alarm to every Middlesex village and farm, for the country folk to be up and to arm if his friend would climb to the belfry of North Church and signal him via lantern light whether the invasion was by land or by sea, specifically, one if by land and two if by sea.

You ought to read it sometime.

Revere was a silversmith in Boston, Massachusetts and a member of the colonial group The Sons Of Liberty at the beginning of the American Revolution.

Another 19th-century American poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), wrote another poem to commemorate the Battles of Lexington and Concord that took place the following day. The poem, called "Concord Hymn", begins:

"By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world."

I end this post by telling you that a word that means 250th anniversary is semiquincentennial (literally half-500th).

I will sleep well tonight.