What is so rare as a day in June?

Above is a photograph of the sophomore class of Jenkintown High School, Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, from the 1926 JHS yearbook. In other words, this is the Class of 1928 when they were in the tenth grade. (For non-U.S. readers, high school covers four years, grades 9 through 12, and the classes are known as freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors.) The photograph also appeared as the illustration for the month of June in a 1975 pictorial Centennial Calendar that was issued to commemorate the first one hundred years of the Jenkintown School District.

Jenkintown, a Philadelphia suburb in Montgomery County, came into being around 1790. I have no idea how Jenkintown educated its youth prior to 1875. My guess is there probably was a school, but not an official School District.

An aunt who lived in Jenkintown sent me one of the calendars when it was published, but I managed to lose track of it over the years, helped along by several family moves. About a year ago, thanks to the internet, I was able to obtain another copy from the Old York Road Historical Society for six dollars.

I was very happy to get it, too, because in the front row, third from the left, the girl wearing the dark dress is my mother, Ruth Silberman, eighty-five years ago, at age 16.

If you click on the photograph you will see the people's faces better and be able to read their names. I remember hearing my mother speak of her friends Jeannette Creamer (pronounced KRAY-mer, first row, fourth from left), Helen Keiser (second row, third from left), and Norman Land (back row, fourth from left). Norman later worked at the U.S. Post Office in Jenkintown, and I met him there on a trip to Jenkintown from Texas with my mother in 1955 when I was 14.

In my next post, I shall show you something even rarer than a day in June.

All former redneck farm kids will love this.

[Editor’s note. The following is not original with me. I received it in an email from my friend Carolyn Scott. --RWP]

Dear Ma and Pa,

I am well. Hope you are. Tell Brother Walt and Brother Elmer the Marine Corps beats working for old man Minch by a mile. Tell them to join up quick before all of the places are filled.

I was restless at first because you get to stay in bed till nearly 6 a.m., but I am getting so I like to sleep late. Tell Walt and Elmer all you do before breakfast is smooth your cot, and shine some things. No hogs to slop, feed to pitch, mash to mix, wood to split, fire to lay. Practically nothing.

Men got to shave but it is not so bad, there’s warm water. Breakfast is strong on trimmings like fruit juice, cereal, eggs, bacon, etc., but kind of weak on chops, potatoes, ham, steak, fried eggplant, pie, and other regular food, but tell Walt and Elmer you can always sit by the two city boys that live on coffee. Their food, plus yours, holds you until noon when you get fed again. It’s no wonder these city boys can’t walk much.

We go on ‘route marches,’ which the platoon sergeant says are long walks to harden us. If he thinks so, it’s not my place to tell him different. A ‘route march’ is about as far as to our mailbox at home. Then the city guys get sore feet and we all ride back in trucks.

The sergeant is like a school teacher. He nags a lot. The Captain is like the school board. Majors and colonels just ride around and frown. They don’t bother you none.

This next will kill Walt and Elmer with laughing. I keep getting medals for shooting. I don’t know why. The bulls-eye is near as big as a chipmunk head and don’t move, and it ain’t shooting at you like the Higgett boys at home. All you got to do is lie there all comfortable and hit it. You don’t even load your own cartridges. They come in boxes.

Then we have what they call hand-to-hand combat training. You get to wrestle with them city boys. I have to be real careful though, they break real easy. It ain’t like fighting with that ole bull at home. I’m about the best they got in this except for that Tug Jordan from over in Silver Lake. I only beat him once. He joined up the same time as me, but I’m only 5’6’ and 130 pounds and he’s 6’8’ and near 300 pounds dry.

Be sure to tell Walt and Elmer to hurry and join before other fellers get onto this setup and come stampeding in.

Your loving daughter,
Alice

Geographical oddities

We learned in our last session, class, that there was once a Farther Pomerania but there was never a Nearer Pomerania. Today we will learn about several other geographical oddities.

The country of Mongolia was formerly known as Outer Mongolia. There is no country called Inner Mongolia, but there is an Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in the People’s Republic of China. The natives call it Öbür mongγol (in Mongolian cyrillic script: Өвөр Монгол) from the Mongolian öbür mongγol, where öbör can mean south, inner, front, bosom, and breast. I am not making this up.

There are both Outer Hebrides islands and Inner Hebrides islands off the coast of Scotland. The word is pronounced HEB-rih-deez, not HE-brides. HE-brides are what New York will soon be having plenty of, as the New York State Legislature legalized gay marriage just this week.

Here are the Outer Hebrides:

and here are the Inner Hebrides:

(Maps copyright by Wikipedia user Barryob, used by permission under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2)

I have decided not to show you any New York Hebrides.

In Marietta, Georgia, where I used to live, there is a Roswell Road and also a Lower Roswell Road. People refer to Roswell Road as Upper Roswell Road all the time to distinguish it from Lower Roswell Road, as though the word Lower in Lower Roswell Road did not distinguish it enough, but the words Upper Roswell Road do not appear on any map or street sign. In Cherokee County, Georgia, where I now live, there is a Union Hill Road and a Lower Union Hill Road, but not an Upper Union Hill Road. The people in Cherokee County, however, never refer to Union Hill Road as Upper Union Hill Road. In this respect, the people of Cherokee County have more smarts than the people of Marietta.

Another geographical oddity in Georgia is the naming of roads between towns. In Marietta, for example, there is a road called Canton Highway that goes toward Canton and in Canton there is a road called Marietta Highway that goes toward Marietta. They are two ends of the same road, but they do not meet. Instead, there is a middle stretch of the same road called Holly Springs Parkway that joins the two end sections together. This sort of phenomenon, with the exception of naming the middle section Holly Springs Parkway, happens all over north Georgia. Cumming Highway in Canton is called Canton Highway in Cumming. Dallas Highway in Marietta is called Marietta Highway in Dallas. This is all well and good, and even charming in a mundane, unimaginative way. But even though in Roswell the road to Alpharetta is called Alpharetta Highway, people in Alpharetta call their end of the road Atlanta Highway. Alpharettans just have to be different.

If I may be permitted to insert a personal anecdote, many years ago Mrs. RWP and I attended Mt. Paran, a large church in Atlanta. A few years later, because the church was growing, a second campus was purchased in Marietta and named “Mount Paran North.” Several years later, we began attending a church in Roswell and so did quite a few other people from the Atlanta church when gasoline prices began to climb and travel grew costly. Eventually our little church experienced enough growth to build a new, larger facility. On the dedication day of the new Roswell church, Dr. Paul L. Walker, the longtime senior pastor of Mt. Paran, was the main speaker. I was, as usual, playing the piano. As Dr. Walker arrived on the platform before the service began, he recognized me and was surprised to see so many friends from the old days. I couldn’t resist. “Just think of us as Mt. Paran Farther North,” I quipped. I hadn’t thought of that in years until putting together this post.

In his cartoon strip Li’l Abner, cartoonist Al Capp created a Lower Slobbovia but not an Upper Slobbovia. However, Lower Slobbovia was sometimes called Outer, Inner, Central, Upper, or Lowest Slobbovia. Here is the Slobbovian national anthem:

We are citizens of Slobbovia
(Oh, that this should be happening to us!)
We are giving you back to the Indians
(But they are refusing, of cuss!)

PTUI on you, Slobbovia!
We are hating your icebound coast
Of all the countries in the world
WE ARE HATING SLOBBOVIA MOST!!

But of all the soul singers in the world who sing about geographical places, we definitely are loving this one (2:48) most.

So ye take the High road, and I’ll take the Low road, and I’ll be in the Outer Hebrides, or possibly Alpharetta, afore ye.

Where is Pomerania anyway?

[This post is a logical extension of the preceding post, in which I happened to mention in passing that the Seven Years’ War is known in Sweden as the Third Pomeranian War. --RWP]

According to Wikipedia, Pomerania is “a historical region on the south shore of the Baltic Sea. Divided between Germany and Poland, it stretches roughly from the Recknitz River near Stralsund in the West, via the Oder River delta near Szczecin, to the mouth of the Vistula River near Gdańsk in the East. It is inhabited primarily by Poles, Germans and Kashubians.”

Kashubians? Never heard of ’em. Back to Wikipedia I went.

Kashubians and Slovincians (the latter regarded themselves merely as Lutheran Kashubians) speak Kashubian and Slovincian, respectively. Slovincians are grouped with the Kashubians as Pomeranians. Similarly, the Slovincian and Kashubian languages are grouped as the Pomeranian language. Pomeranian influenced the formation of such Polish dialects as Kociewski, Borowiacki, and Krajniacki, and several expressways in Chicago. Everything in this paragraph is true except the part about the expressways in Chicago. I made that up.

The Kashubians even had their own flag:

Notable Kashubians include Józef Borzyszkowski (1946- ) historian, politician, founder of the Kashubian Institute; Hieronim Derdowski (1852–1902) poet, humorist, journalist; Jan Drzeżdżon (1937–1992) novelist; and Swantopolk II (1195–1266) powerful ruler of Eastern Pomerania. Apparently no notable Kashubian was powerful enough to convince the Kashubians, Slovincians, and Pomeranians to include a few more vowels in their language.

Speaking of Pomerania, Eastern Pomerania was also called Farther Pomerania but Western Pomerania was never, ever, called Nearer Pomerania. Nearer to or farther from what, I have no idea.

The city of Szczecin is the main urban center in Western Pomerania. If you know how to pronounce Szczecin, you’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din. Click on that link to read Rudyard Kipling’s poem in its entirety, or click on this link to see the trailer for the 1939 movie Gunga Din starring Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Joan Fontaine, and, in the title role, Sam Jaffe, who many years later played Dr. Zorba on the TV series Ben Casey. None of this has anything to do with Pomerania.

Here is a scene in Szczecin. After you have seen it, you will be able to say truthfully that you have seen a scene in Szczecin:

The name of the entire region is derived from Old Slavic po, meaning “by/next to/along” and more, meaning “sea”. Thus “Pomerania” is literally “seacoast”, referring to its proximity to the Baltic Sea.

Finally, here is a rare glimpse of typical daily life among the people of Pomerania (3:11).

It has taken all the gumption and personal resolve I could muster and every fiber of my being to refrain from including a picture of a dog.

This has been another educational post from Rhymeswithplague University, your online window into all things worthy of your attention.

Synapses of the world, unite!

According to the statistics section of my blog, I have written 763 posts (not counting this one) since September 28, 2007. This made me think, naturally, of the French and Indian War.

Do not look at me like that with those rolling eyes. It makes perfect sense.

The French and Indian War lasted from 1754 until 1763 -- note those last three digits, 763, which are the same as the number of, oh, forget it -- and was also known as the Seven Years War, even though if you subtract 1754 from 1763 you will get, let me see now, nine years. This is both confusing and completely unrelated to the fact that September, which is the ninth month of the year, was in fact the seventh month of the Roman calendar (in Latin septem means “seven” and septimus means “seventh”) until 153 BC, when the beginning of the year was changed from Kalendas Martius (1 March) to Kalendas Januarius (1 January), but that is neither here nor there. Well, actually it was there, but it’s not any more. Another story I have read explaining the reason September became the ninth month instead of the seventh is that two months were inserted into the Kalenda calendar to honor Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar, namely July and August. The Romans, usually so thorough, apparently figured they had done enough damage and decided not to rename September November, rename October December, rename November Undecimber, and rename December Duodecimber. If you don’t have a clue what I am talking about, clicking here will help.

According to our old friend Wikipedia, the war (we were talking about the French and Indian/Seven Years War, remember?) was also known in Sweden as the Pomeranian War, in India as the Third Carnatic War, and in Prussia and Austria as the Third Silesian War. This is approximately as confusing as calling Constantinople Istanbul, calling Bombay Mumbai, calling Hot Springs (New Mexico) Truth or Consequences (New Mexico), and dividing Ruanda-Urundi into two separate countries and calling one Rwanda and the other Burundi, but it is not quite as confusing as calling the old Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic Belarus or calling Burma Myanmar or calling the Hellespont the Dardanelles. If you are really into Greek mythology, my mentioning the Hellespont should bring to mind the legend of Hero and Leander, in which Hero was female, Leander was male, and a lot of swimming was involved. Just like last weekend in the UK. If only Leander had worn an orange hat and a wet suit, perhaps he would not have drowned but would have received a free pair of flip-flops like Daphne did. (Again, clicking on the links will help you understand.)

I have no idea where this post is going. Nor do I know where it came from. Ditto as regards that last paragraph.

The human brain is a funny thing. Not funny ha-ha but funny peculiar. If you don’t believe me, look at this:

I will quit while I am a head ahead.

If you don’t think I am ahead, kindly keep your opinion to yourself.

Until we meet again, please continue sending good thoughts my way and I will do the same back atcha, good buddy (CB* talk for reciprocate). If you have not heretofore been sending good thoughts my way, there is no time like the present to begin.

Or you can entertain yourself by watching this (2:42).

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* by which I mean Citizens’ Band radio. My incurable itch unquenchable thirst for knowledge, however, has led me to discover that CB can mean quite a number of things. Why, just in composing this note I learned that in the UK back in the seventies there was a singing group called Laurie Lingo and the Dipsticks and that Providence, Rhode Island, is known to American truckers as Barftown. Where else, I ask you, would you ever learn such useful and fascinating information? --RWP

Two bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar...

Last Wednesday, Mrs. RWP and I hopped into our 11-year-old car that we have driven for more than 260,000 miles and added another 1,000 miles to the odometer to visit relatives in eastern North Carolina (500 miles there and 500 back). We spent one night in Raleigh (pronounced Rahly by the locals even though I grew up saying Rawly; perhaps our English readers can enlighten us as the place was named after Sir Walter Raleigh) visiting with cousin Amy. Next day we popped in on cousin Nancy and her husband Ronald in Smithfield for a short visit. Finally we arrived at our ultimate destination, the town of Clinton, where Mrs. RWP’s brother and his wife live, to help them celebrate his 80th birthday.

An interesting fact about Clinton, North Carolina, is that it is within spitting distance of Spivey’s Corner, where the National Hollerin’ Contest has been held on the third Saturday in June each year since 1969. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), we could not attend the 2011 version as we had to leave Saturday morning for the day-long trip back to Canton so that I could play chimes/piano/pipe organ (our Yamaha Clavinova is very versatile) at our church on Sunday. I was mildly disappointed and thought of Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road Not Taken.” Mrs. RWP, on the other hand, was very happy.

You know I’m going to include a video clip.

Here it is.

As the 2003 winner said, “I want to thank the Lord because without Him none of us would be here.”

A final comment: The background in the photograph of the birthday cake is a tablecloth crocheted by the honoree’s mother at least sixty years ago. We have one just like it at our house.

Now that and the fact that our brother has reached 80 are things worth hollerin’ about.

Wrap your head around this, if you can.

To say that the email I received recently from my daughter-in-law’s father, a retired eye surgeon, was interesting or intriguing or impressive is woefully inadequate.

Stephen Wiltshire is mind-boggling, truly unbelievable, nothing short of phenomenal.

He also is autistic.

Words fail me.

See for yourself (5:22).

Read more about Stephen here.