I’ll be in Scotland afore ye

(Photo by John Sarver, 30 September 2012)

I wanted to show you this photo, even though it’s a bit blurry,
of my friend F.M. Moore, Jr. -- it was taken last Sunday evening when about 20 of us gathered at a restaurant to celebrate his 80th birthday. The restaurant was a very good Italian one. I find it quite amusing, however, that the birthday celebration of a man who for many years directed large church choirs was held in a place named Altobeli’s.

You probably noticed that my friend is not wearing what the well-dressed Atlantan usually wears -- a straw hat, faded denim overalls, no shirt, bare feet, and some hay between the teeth -- but is decked out instead in full Scottish regalia. The outfit is authentic. F.M. told us that he had wanted it from the minute he saw it in a store in Edinburgh, Scotland, several years ago. His daughter purchased it as a surprise for him, but he never wore it until last Sunday.

F.M. has been called only that -- F.M. -- his entire life. No one, not even his daughters, seemed to know his full name, and he never divulged it. Maybe no one ever asked. It is not unusual in the American South for a man to go by his initials only. I went to school with a D.K. and a J.W. and an L.W., and my daughter-in-law’s grandmother’s second husband was called H.O., just like the tracks in model railroading. But I digress. F.M. is one of the world’s great story tellers, and one day not too long ago when he was telling a story that involved his parents, he happened to mention that their names were Leona and Frank. Something clicked in my brain.

“F.M.,” I said, “is your name Francis Marion?”

He looked quite surprised and said that it was. He asked me how I knew that.

I really don’t know how I knew that, except that Frank is sometimes used as a nickname for Francis, F.M. is a Junior, and the only Francis M. I ever heard of in my entire life is the American Revolutionary War military leader, General Francis Marion of South Carolina, who practically invented guerilla warfare and is known as the Swamp Fox.

At the end of his birthday evening, F.M. divulged his name to the guests. So far, though, no one has dared called him the Swamp Fox.

So now I know two Francis Marions. One of them is crafty and one of them -- I refer you to the photograph -- is drafty.

Let's hear it for autumn and also for James Whitcomb Riley

My new cyberfriend LightExpectations blogged about autumn today. This post is for her, and it is also for Jeannelle of Iowa, but I don’t know whether she still reads my blog.

It is also for all you city people who never lived on a farm, and all you highly educated folks out there who probably think you’re better than everybody else but still could learn a thing or two.

The following poem by James Whitcomb Riley, which hearkens back to a simpler time and a more agrarian society, may be just what the doctor ordered:


When the Frost is on the Punkin
by James Whitcomb Riley (1849 - 1916)

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock,
And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin’ turkey-cock,
And the clackin’ of the guineys, and the cluckin’ of the hens,
And the rooster’s hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;
O, it’s then the time a feller is a-feelin’ at his best,
With the risin’ sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest,
As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.

They’s something kindo’ harty-like about the atmusfere
When the heat of summer’s over and the coolin’ fall is here —
Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossoms on the trees,
And the mumble of the hummin’-birds and buzzin’ of the bees;
But the air’s so appetizin’; and the landscape through the haze
Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days
Is a pictur’ that no painter has the colorin’ to mock —
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.

The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn,
And the raspin’ of the tangled leaves as golden as the morn;
The stubble in the furries — kindo’ lonesome-like, but still
A-preachin’ sermuns to us of the barns they growed to fill;
The strawstack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed;
The hosses in theyr stalls below — the clover overhead! —
O, it sets my hart a-clickin’ like the tickin’ of a clock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.

Then your apples all is gethered, and the ones a feller keeps
Is poured around the cellar-floor in red and yaller heaps;
And your cider-makin’s over, and your wimmern-folks is through
With theyr mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and sausage too!...
I don’t know how to tell it — but ef such a thing could be
As the angels wantin’ boardin', and they’d call around on me —
I’d want to ’commodate ’em — all the whole-indurin’ flock —
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.


If I had to pick my favorite part of that poem besides the frost and the punkin and the fodder and the shock, it would have to be the rooster’s hallylooyer.

According to that Wikipedia article, Riley’s chief legacy was “his influence in fostering the creation of a midwestern cultural identity and his contributions to the Golden Age of Indiana Literature.” I don’t know about you but I didn’t even know there was such a thing as Indiana Literature, let alone a whole Golden Age of It. It seems we all can still learn a thing or two.

James Whitcomb Riley was not a great poet, but he is an interesting one. Back in the day, we had to read the poem above in school and also his “Little Orphant Annie” with the end of each stanza warning that the Gobble-uns’ll git you ef you don’t watch out!” -- I thought you might like it as Halloween approaches.

If you feel you just can’t get enough of James Whitcomb Riley, here is a link to 449 of his poems (he wrote more than a thousand, the majority in dialect) that should prove you wrong.

Electoral College for Dummies (2012 edition)

[Editor’s note. This post is almost identical to an earlier post of mine called Electoral College for Dummies that I sprung on an unsuspecting world created on November 3, 2008, except for one important difference. The little green map has been updated to reflect the current makeup of the electoral college, which has changed since the last presidential election because of the decennial re-apportionment (now there’s a mouthful) following the census of 2010. --RWP]

I am assuming here at the beginning of this post (always a bad idea) that you already know two things:

(1) That when you cast your vote one month from tomorrow (or earlier in some states) you will not be voting for the candidates whose names are on the ballot but for a slate of electors who will represent your state in something called the electoral college, and...

(2) That the number of electoral votes a state is entitled to cast in the electoral college is determined by adding together the number of its U.S. Senators (there are two from every state) and the number of its U.S. Representatives to Congress (one from each congressional district, the total number of which can change every ten years based on the state’s official population as reported in the most recent U.S. Census, which may not bear much resemblance to the state’s actual population).

I have to assume you already know these things because you cannot learn them from the article I am about to share with you. So, dear reader, if you are a real glutton for punishment and are wondering how in the heck that electoral college thing works, reproduced below is the complete text of an article at a website called www.electoralvote.com, with its original paragraphing and spacing intact.

All righty, then, class, let’s begin:

Electoral College

The United States Electoral College is the official name of the group of Presidential Electors who are chosen every four years to cast the electoral vote and thereby elect the President and Vice President of the United States. It was established by Article Two, Section One of the United States Constitution, which provides for a quadrennial election of Presidential Electors in each state. The electoral process was modified in 1804 with the ratification of the 12th Amendment and again in 1961 with the ratification of the 23rd Amendment.

The Electoral College is administered at the national level by the National Archives and Records Administration via its Office of the Federal Register. The actual meetings of electors in each state are administered by state officials. The Presidential Electors meet in their respective state capitals in December, 41 days following the election, at which time they cast their electoral votes. Thus the “electoral college” never meets as one national body. They ballot for President, then ballot for vice president. Afterward, the Electors sign a document called the Certificate of Vote which sets forth the number of votes cast for these two offices and is signed by all Electors. Multiple copies of the Certificate of Vote are signed, in order to provide multiple originals in case one is lost. One copy is sent to president of the Senate (i.e. the sitting Vice President of the United States); the certificates are placed in two special mahogany boxes where they await a joint session of the new Congress where they are opened and counted. Candidates must receive a majority of the electoral vote to be declared the president-elect or vice-president-elect. If no candidate for President receives an absolute electoral majority 270 votes out of the 538 possible, then the new House of Representatives is required to go into session immediately to vote for President. (This would likely just occur when more than two candidates receive electoral votes, but could theoretically happen in a two-person contest, if each received exactly 269 electoral votes). In this case, the House of Representatives chooses from the three candidates who received the most electoral votes, but could not establish a majority of votes in the College. The House votes en-bloc by state for this purpose (that is, one vote per state, which is determined by the majority decision of the delegation from that state; if a state delegation is evenly split, a deadlock normally results, and that state is considered as abstaining). This vote would be repeated if necessary until one candidate receives the votes of more than half the state delegations -- at least 26 state votes, given the current number, 50, of states in the union. If no candidate for Vice President receives an absolute majority of electoral votes, then the United States Senate must do the same, with the top two vote getters for that office as candidates. The Senate votes in the normal manner in this case, not by States. It is unclear if the sitting Vice President would be entitled to cast his usual tie-breaking vote if the Senate should be evenly split on the matter. If the House of Representatives has not chosen a winner in time for the inauguration (noon on January 20), then the Constitution of the United States specifies that the new Vice President becomes Acting President until the House selects a President. If the winner of the Vice Presidential election is not known by then either, then under the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, the Speaker of the House of Representatives would become Acting President until the House selects a President or the Senate selects a Vice President. On the one hand, the Twelfth Amendment specifies that the Senate should choose the Vice President, and it does not admit of a time limit on the selection process. On the other hand, the Twenty-Fifth Amendment allows the President to nominate a Vice President if a vacancy should occur. As of 2006, the House of Representatives has elected the President on two occasions, in 1801 and in 1825. The Senate has chosen the Vice President once, in 1837.

[end of article]

There now, isn’t that simple?

Here’s a pretty map to look at until your head stops spinning:

I think the map will enlarge if you click on it.

There are two things the website neglected to tell us:

(1) Nowhere in the process does it say that the slates of electors in each state must vote for the candidate who received the most popular votes in their state on Election Day; each elector can actually do as he or she jolly well pleases.

(2) If those two special boxes aren’t mahogany, the whole election is null and void and has to be done over.

(Note to the gullible: Only one of the two preceding statements is true.)

Now that you are no longer a rank dummy on the subject, you may have thought of a question or two concerning the electoral college yourself, such as: What was the original process before the Constitution had any amendments? How did the the 12th amendment change the process? How did the 23rd amendment change the process? What about the District of Columbia? Why was there no Presidential Succession Act until 1947? Which two presidents were selected by the House of Representatives in 1801 and 1825? Which vice-president, and whose, was selected by the Senate in 1837? What does quadrennial mean?

As they used to say on Mission Impossible, your assignment, if you choose to accept it, is to find out for yourself the answers to these questions.

Here are the original cast members of Mission Impossible. Instead of worrying about how well your candidate will do, try to name them all without help. Can you do it?



If your head is starting to spin again, put it between your legs for a couple of minutes, take two aspirin, and call me in the morning. Or you could try gazing at that map again.

[Update from 2008. It has now been exactly four weeks since the election and absolutely no one has bothered to try to identify the cast members of Mission Impossible. So, in the interest of spreading knowledge and truth everywhere, I will. In no particular order, they are Peter Graves, Barbara Bain, Greg Morris, Martin Landau, and Peter Lupus. There, now, that wasn’t so hard, was it? Barbara Bain and Martin Landau were husband and wife, and Peter Graves was the brother of James Arness of Gunsmoke fame. Also, Warren Beatty is Shirley MacLaine’s brother, and for the really ancient among you, Ricardo Montalban married Loretta Young’s sister, and Olivia de Havilland (Melanie Wilkes to Leslie Howard’s Ashley in Gone With The Wind) was the sister of Joan Fontaine (Jane Eyre to Orson Welles’s Rochester in Jane Eyre). Not a single one of those fascinating tidbits of show-biz trivia has anything to do with either Mission Impossible or the workings of the Electoral College. --RWP, 12/2/2008]

I don’t mean to sound maudlin, but...

...fifty-five years ago today, at around 7:45 a.m. Central Daylight Time on a Friday morning, my mother died in St. Joseph’s Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas, on October 4, 1957. She was 47.

I was 16. I was at home alone getting ready to leave for school. I had been a Senior for about a month. My dad had left the house about 6:15 that morning to ride in a car pool to work at the General Dynamics aircraft factory, 34 miles away, with three other men from our community. Dad had worked there for ten years. I think the car pool stopped by St. Joseph’s on the way home from work Wednesday afternoon so that my dad could have a short visit with my mother.

I had not seen her since the preceding Sunday afternoon because she had wanted me to concentrate on my school work. We did not own a car and depended completely on others for transportation. There was no public transit between our rural community and downtown Fort Worth, which I think was about 14 miles away. Someone had taken my dad and me after church to the hospital for a visit. Mama had been there for about a month at that time, and her condition was worsening. When I was seven or eight years old, she learned that she had breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy of her right breast and the removal of lymph nodes from her right side and armpit. In those days people said if you lived five years after cancer surgery, you were cured. After seven years had gone by, Mama’s abdomen began to swell and more cancer was discovered. The doctors at St. Joseph’s inserted an irradiated gold needle into her abdomen -- I’m unclear as to what was really going on, whether it involved cobalt or some other form of early radiation therapy -- but she was unable to tolerate it, so they stopped the treatment and said she had about a year of life left.

I was dressed and waiting for Mrs. Brockett, a teacher who lived on our lane, to come by and take me to the high school, which was two miles away. The telephone rang about 7:30; I picked it up and said, “Hello?”

A female voice said “Mr. Brague?” and since my dad had gone to work and I was the only Mr. Brague around I said “Yes.” The voice identified herself as someone from St. Joseph’s Hospital and said, “If you want to see your wife you need to get here soon because she’s not going to last very much longer.” I said, “I’m her teenaged son. You want to talk to my dad.” I gave her the telephone number where he could be reached at General Dynamics and hung up the phone.

Everything after that is a blur.

I didn’t go to school that day. I don’t remember that I talked to Mrs. Brockett but I must have. I sat there weeping and remember being especially devastated that I hadn’t seen my mother for five days and that she died alone. After an hour or so a couple of neighbor women came in and began sweeping the floors and dusting the furniture and washing the dishes. My dad came home about midday, I think, though I have no idea how he got there.

Mama had decided a few months earlier to have a closed-casket funeral service because she had lost so much weight from the disease and didn’t want people gawking at her. My father and I did not go to the funeral home or any wake on either Friday night or Saturday. Mama’s funeral was Sunday afternoon at 3:00 p.m. at the Methodist Church in Mansfield. I do remember that Rev. Ernest Piott spoke and Mrs. Ruth Sprinkle Morris, Doug’s wife, sang “Lead, Kindly Light” and the Albert Hay Malotte version of “The Lord’s Prayer.” I don’t know who played the organ, probably white-haired Miss Cora Galloway, who had retired and whose place I had taken a couple of years earlier.
I know Mama is buried in the Emerald Hills Cemetery in the town of Kennedale, and I know I went there that Sunday afternoon, but I cannot remember going or being there.

Mrs. Sally Huffman, the lady I called my “other mother,” told me later that she had almost called me Thursday after school to see if I would like to go to the hospital that evening to visit Mama, but something came up and she didn’t make the call.

I still wish she had.

When I returned to school on Monday (because my dad insisted that life must go on and we mustn’t take excessive time grieving), people were talking about something called Sputnik that had happened on Friday. I had no idea what they were talking about.

If I have written of this before, please forgive me. There are some wounds that time does not heal.

Parting
by Emily Dickinson

My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If immortality unveil
A third event to me

So huge, so hopeless to conceive
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.


[Note to my readers. If you have left a comment on similar posts of mine in previous years, I am not expecting you to comment again. I just find that I need to remember this anniversary in a public way annually. Thanks for your patience with me. --RWP]

The name Bob is orange

So says my blogging friend LightExpectaions, who is a synesthete, which means she has a condition called synesthesia. There are several types of synesthesia, and hers enables her to see the colors of letters and numbers. I know. I never heard of it either. But it is apparently real. I think this is not the same as those New-Agey types who claim to be able to read people’s auras. They are just plain weird, and LightExpectations has never struck me as weird. She told me a few posts back that the word “lothario” is blue, and who am I to argue?

I just wonder whether all people with LightExpectation’s type of synesthesia see letters and numbers and words the same way or if each person’s color palate is unique to that person. I mean, Joe Blow’s version might see “Bob” as green and “lothario” as purple, and Sally Pimienta’s version might see “Bob” as turquoise and “lothario” as chartreuse.

I know that Wikipedia is not a definitive reference source, but here’s its article on synesthesia if you want to learn more.

All of which made me think of this song, which was sung by Kitty Kallen back in 1962:

“My Coloring Book” (3:18)

I don’t know what color it is, but I found it quite poignant.

Feed the birds. Tuppence a bag.

Shooting Parrots and I had a little exchange in the comments yesterday about how they do money in the UK. You know, tuppence, thruppence, ha’pennies and such. Shillings. Quid. Crowns and pounds and guineas. And all of it is beyond my grasp. It is quite incomprehensible to me.

But I came away from the conversation thinking of Walt Disney’s favorite song.

You know the one.

It’s from Mary Poppins (3:49).

Now, that I can understand.

Five years is a long time, children

It’s how long I’ve been blogging, as of three days ago.

1,827 days (including two extra for leap years 2008 and 2012).

43,848 hours.

2,630,880 minutes.

157,852,800 seconds.

And if you had been paying down our national debt of around $16 trillion at the rate of one dollar per second during that entire time, what would you have?

I’ll tell you what you would have. Children, you would have 101359.25461695959780250967990432 more five-year periods to go before our current national debt would be paid off, that’s what you would have.

But if you were rich, richer even than Mr. Romney, and had been able to pay $100 per second instead of that one measly dollar, you would have paid $15,785,280,000 during the past five years and only 1012.60254616959597802509667990432 more five-year periods to go before our current national debt will be paid off.

I just thought you’d like to know for budget-planning purposes.

But here’s the kicker. If every last one of the 311,000,000 Americans had paid down our national debt of $16 trillion at the rate of one dollar per second during the last five years, we would have raised $49,065,350,400,000,000 by now. That’s $49 quadrillion, children, way more than our national debt. Even more than Michelle Obama spends on clothes.

Isn’t it amazing what we can do when we all work together?

This whole exercise is predicated on each American having $157,766,400 with which to have been paying down the national debt during the last five years.

There’s a fly in every ointment.

[Editor’s note. These calculations do not appear to be correct if you are a resident of a British Commonwealth of Nations country, where what we call a billion you call a thousand million and what we call a trillion you call a billion, and so on. --RWP]