THE LOST (But Sometimes Found) ART OF SERENDIPITY

Ah, serendipity. All by itself, the word strikes a pleasant note. We use it to mean the knack of making desirable discoveries by accident. Webster’s tells the first use of this word was by Horace Walpole (1717-92). In a letter to the American educator Horace Mann, Walpole said he formed it from the Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip, whose heroes "were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of." Serendip is an old name for Ceylon, now Sri Lanka.

 

Serendipity can’t be described as just dumb luck. The real secret to it is to be on the alert and ready for opportunities to do something different.  My husband and I have had many serendipitous experiences in our travels.  One fine May afternoon, way back when, after our first pub lunch and a lovely jaunt around southern England visiting Bodiam Castle, Battle (the Battle being the Battle of Hastings) and Rye, we got back to our base in Tenterden, Kent. We wandered off the High Street to the railroad station, part of the Kent and East Sussex Railway. We were admiring a lovely old train when we were approached by a charming man who asked us if we would like an adventure. Later we learned that the restoration and preservation of the light railway and its rolling stock was an entirely volunteer effort, and that part of their fund raising effort was to serve dinner in an authentically restored Pullman car. Here’s the serendipitous part: someone had had to cancel several bookings he’d made for dinner on the Wealden Pullman, and there were a few reservations on offer. We jumped at the chance.

Returning to our B & B to change into proper dinner attire, our host congratulated us on our fortune, admitting that he’d not yet had his own name come up on the waiting list. The bookings for this popular excursion, then run only on warm-weather Saturdays, were next to impossible to get. We understood why as the trip and the dinner progressed. Rolling serenely along through the countryside, seated at a table for two, we enjoyed a delicious four-course meal, served to perfection by perfectly-uniformed volunteer waiters, complete with aperitifs and wines, port and cigars. We passed on the cigars. It certainly was just by accident that we turned up at the railway station at the right time, and I don’t think it took too much sagacity to take the chance for a different dining experience: we had to have diner no matter what. The picture I took of Frank, seated across the table, shows a smile of absolute delight and contentment. 

 

Serendipity was disembarking last from a cruise ship in Bergen, Norway, but finding ourselves first to be shown to a waiting taxi. Serendipity was arriving at the ornately Victorian Papplewick Pumping Station in Nottinghamshire on one of the few days in the year when they bring James Watt’s huge beam engines up to full, working steam.  It was deciding to go to a bullfight in St. Remy-de-Provence, and finding ourselves at a wonderful, elaborately-costumed ceremony on what turned out to be the re-opening day of the refurbished arena.

Of course we’ve missed what might have been serendipitous moments by being there too late: “you should have been here last week,” or too early: “can you stay until next week when…comes to town?” But we never dwell on what we might have been. After all, it isn’t as though we were sitting idly, twiddling our thumbs and waiting for things to happen. No, we’ve been very serendipitous in that respect.

EGGS ENCORE

   

In the first essay for May you read that eggs are back in favor, how easy they are on your budget, and the basic ways to cook and enjoy them. Now we’re on an egg-stended journey to see how eggs figure into our lives in other than culinary ways.

Never mind which came first, the chicken or the egg, the egg was around long before man even thought of that question.  The recurring egg-chicken-egg cycle was and still is fascinating. From ancient times the egg was revered in most cultures as a symbol of rebirth. The egg has inspired everything from the original L’eggs package, to jelly beans, to those fabulous Fabergé eggs.             

Birds eggs come in all sizes, from the huge ostrich egg, equal to 18 to 24 chicken eggs, down to the minute bee-hummingbird’s egg, no bigger than a pea.  Colors: Easter eggs aside, eggs come in a variety of colors from the most common white to black, with a rainbow of colors in between. Some are spotted or mottled, some are plain.  All are beautiful.  All are edible. Most eggs are egg-shaped, but the eggs of guillemots and some other marine birds are pear shaped and pointed so that they will roll in a circle, but won’t roll off the cliff ledge where they are laid.

One of the earth’s perfectly packaged foods, enjoyed by most omnivores, eggs are nutritious and delicious. They are useful in cooking and the manufacturing of products such as cake mixes, salad dressings, noodles, and cosmetics and medicines.  They have antimicrobial properties and antioxidant properties. The whole egg is useful, from the whites and yolks on out to the shells which can be ground for fertilizer and animal feed.
 

Here are some egg-cellent Questions and Answers about eggs:

What connection does Michelangelo’s Last supper have with eggs?  The mural was painted in egg tempera – a mixture of pigments, oil, vinegar, and egg yolk.

What connection do eggs have with your T-bone steak?  They aid in the preservation of bull semen for artificial insemination.

What connection do eggs have with your flu shot? Fertile eggs are used in the manufacture of vaccines.  Eggs are also used in testing to feed laboratory animals and as a growth base for micro-organisms.

What do eggs have to do with your glass of wine?  The enzyme lysozyme from the egg white is being used in place of sulfites to inhibit lactic acid bacteria in wine, and to enhance its taste and color.  It is also used in the ripening of some cheeses.

What do eggs have to do with your daily beauty routine? Aside from the egg facial mask you might use, egg membranes are used in testing cosmetics for possible irritating properties.

What will eggs have to do with your dishwasher? Proteins from egg whites are being studied in the preparation of biological polymer films for use in water-soluble packaging like those for dishwasher and laundry packs.

What connection do clowns have with eggs?  A new member of Clowns International registers the design of his makeup on an egg.  A display of hundreds of them can be seen at the Clowns Museum in Somerset, England.

Why do chickens lay eggs?  If they drop them they’ll break.

THE HANDWRITING ON THE WALL

A mere coincidence: In today’s Parade Magazine, Marilyn vos Savant answered the question “Do you think we should continue to teach our children cursive handwriting?”  Her thoughts and mine are in agreement. I had this essay ready to post at a later date, but today is as good as day as any.  Happy Mother’s Day.

 

The ‘handwriting on the wall’ may literally spell the doom of cursive penmanship. Not in the near future, but it is extremely likely that cursive is going the way of the dodo.  Contrary to popular belief it is still widely taught – but that’s “widely”, not “universally”.  Where it is taught the teachers try to give at least fifteen minutes a day to the subject, but with all the claims on their time and the increasing amount of material to be taught that fifteen minutes can quickly shrink to zero. In the long run it may not be necessary at all.

 

I am often complimented on my handwriting, but these days most of my handwriting is on memos to myself, grocery lists, greeting cards, and the very few checks I write. Both my parents had good penmanship, so maybe it is in my genes, but a large amount of credit goes to the nuns who taught me in the first few grades of elementary school.  Every once in a while I write a really good t, and I say to myself: “Sister would like that one!” I once had to cover the blackboard with t’s as a punishment for doing them incorrectly.  Those of you who had nuns in school, did you ever know one who didn’t have good handwriting?  Those nuns had nuns.

 

I’ve got two older grandchildren who were first taught printing, then cursive in New York.  Their two younger sisters were taught only printing in Texas. Even before I look at the signature, I’ve no trouble telling who is writing to me when they send a note.  The younger girls are just as quick and facile with their printing as the cursive two. By the time they have to begin signing for things – licenses, voting, passports, and the like – their hand-printed signatures will be perfectly unique. 

 

Printing can be as distinguishable and individualized as cursive. There is no law that a signature must be in cursive.  To the contrary, in commercial law, any name, word, or mark used with the intention to authenticate a writing constitutes a signature.  Many times when I was in banking I had to witness and attest to a “signature”, a mark that was just an X. 

 

In many instances, printing is much more clear and readable than cursive.  It’s good that our doctors no longer give us handwritten prescriptions.  There should be no ambiguity about what meds are to be dispensed.  They can send prescriptions on-line or, barring that, provide us with a machine-printed sheet to bring to our pharmacist.

When I cast my thoughts ahead several years I can envision a time when we’ll never have to take pen in hand at all.  Police in many areas are now able to enter the pertinent information into a hand-held device and print out a speeding ticket for you. Many computers have speech recognition input capabilities: the words you speak are printed on the screen. You may have encountered another type of speech recognition, perhaps when phoning your credit card company.  It’s annoying because we’re not accustomed to talking out loud and replying to a computerized voice – annoying, but it does work.

 

Electronically-encoded finger prints, retina prints, our voice pattern, or even our DNA might one day be our own inimitable signatures.  Anything that now comes in the mail - catalogs, cards, bills, or notifications of any kind - will come to us on line.  Like cursive writing, paper itself may be becoming obsolete.  That should save a lot of trees.

                                         

 

Update on March 9, 2013.  You may want to read this article,

The Curse of Cursive.  Quite interesting.

IN PRAISE OF EGGS

I’ve never needed a reason to celebrate eggs: you’ll always find a few dozen of them in my refrigerator. I had to chuckle when I saw the admission at incredibleegg.org that the egg industry celebrates National Egg Month in May, so soon after Easter, because sales have slowed and they want to remind everyone of the “many benefits of the incredible edible egg.” Now, I could have sent you right to their website and have no further need to keep writing, but that would have laid an egg as far as I was concerned. 

First, let’s deal with that problem of the cholesterol in eggs.  Yes there’s quite a bit, but in 2001 nutrition researchers at Kansas State University published the first evidence that the body’s absorption of cholesterol is significantly reduced by another compound in the egg: lecithin.  More research has been done in the intervening years, and for our purposes it suffices to say that the egg now enjoys a relatively clean bill of health – that is, if you handle them and cook them properly.  Don’t leave eggs out of their carton in the fridge.  The carton keeps the eggs from absorbing odors from nearby foods, and keeps them fairly well protected from breakage. It’s also smart to store them on the lowest shelf of the fridge, along with the milk and other dairy products, because that’s the lowest, coolest section.

Years ago, a dairy man taught me way to go beyond the visual check for cracked eggs: two by two, rock the eggs toward each other to be sure they are loose in their little niche.  If it’s broken, it won’t take long for egg-white to dry and cement the egg to the carton.  Pound for pound, eggs are the cheapest form of protein. A dozen large eggs weigh about a pound and a half.  Compare them price to the price of meat or fish per pound and you’ll be delighted.

I usually buy jumbo eggs. Ounce for ounce, I find them a better buy than regular.  A dozen jumbo eggs will weigh 6 to 12 ounces more than a dozen regular eggs, and they make for more in my favorite dish of soft-boiled eggs.  O.K., there are more calories too, but only 96 versus 70.  One thing cooks must remember about jumbo eggs is to adjust for them in recipes.  In standard recipes, where certain number of eggs is specified, they mean regular eggs.  I’ve got to do a bit of math to make adjustments.  More isn’t necessarily better. Three jumbos for four regulars is easy to remember, but come the holidays, with so much baking, I give in and by regular eggs.

On to the cooking: cookies and cakes and such aside, the motto for cooking eggs is “Low and Slow”.  Never rush an egg, moreover, never boil an egg.  Bring eggs just to the boil, turn off and cover them, and time them accordingly: 2 to 4 minutes, depending on how soft you like them, up to 15 minutes for hard cooked.  Boiling ‘hard-boiled’ eggs just gets you that green ring around the yolk.

Eggs poach at just a simmer, baked eggs cook at a relatively low 325°. Unless you really like the taste of browned omelets or scrambled or fried eggs, cook those slowly too. Medium is as high as you should go. 

Because they’re back in our good graces, there are now egg recipes galore available in print and on the internet.  Now that you know that eggs are back in favor, how easy they are on your budget, and the basic ways to cook them, we’ll proceed to a few ideas a on how to make some easy dishes.  Breakfast, lunch or dinner, you can always depend on eggs to come through when all else fails.  They are Mother Nature’s original convenience food.

Let’s begin with breakfast.  Short of “heart attack on a plate”, a great heap of greasy foods piled inches high, eggs can be part of a smart breakfast.  Many studies show that kids do better in school and are more alert if they’ve had some protein for breakfast.  Why wouldn’t that hold true for seniors too?  You may not want to have them every day, but perhaps three times a week will do you.   Knowing all the ways that a single egg can be turned into breakfast, you could go for several weeks and not repeat a meal. Add some ham or a piece or two of bacon, and the numbers multiply.  If you consider the eggs in pancakes, waffles and French toast in there too, the number of choices grows and grows.  For Sunday morning, perhaps with company coming, you might go all out with Eggs Benedict, or a wonderfully stuffed omelet, or one of the many varieties of stratas.  One thing’s for certain, you should never be bored with breakfast.

Now let’s do lunch.  The French invented one of the tastiest lunches around: Croque Madame.  A Croque Monsieur is a hot, crunchy ham sandwich, grilled with cheese on top. Add a nicely done fried egg on top of that, and the Monsieur becomes a Madame. The name might translate as Mrs. Crunch.  As you may guess, there are endless variations on this theme, with changes of meat, changes of bread, and changes of cheese – but always a melty one.  How about some sliced tomato? Madame’s name might change with the variations, but her constant is the fried egg.

Consider plain and simple scramble eggs on buttered (always buttered!) toast. You’ve done up the eggs ‘low and slow’. Now, while there is some creaminess still in them, you might want to blend in a bit of grated cheese or a pinch of herbs for a different flavor. You might want to add some chop up leftovers. Warm them up first so that your eggs don’t go cold. Again, anything from the breakfast repertoire can be moved up to lunch.

And they can be moved up to dinner too. For his birthday dinner every year, my Dad would ask for bacon and eggs, fried potatoes, and stewed tomatoes. Breakfast for dinner, with or without the addition of a vegetable or salad, is so easy to do.  Quiche Lorraine has a certain set of ingredients associated with its eggs: onion, bacon and Swiss cheese. A quiche by any other name, you choose one, with a chopped up selection from the fridge, makes for a wonderful supper. There could possibly be more calories in that quiche crust than in the filling, so if you’re watching carbs or calories you might consider the crust-less frittata.  Just as good, just as easy.

In recipes, eggs serve more functions than any other ingredient.  They act as a binder in cookies, cakes, and even in meat loaf. They glaze baked goods, thicken sauces and fillings, and give a lift to soufflés and sponge cakes.  They are delicious all by themselves. Outside of the Easter basket they may not be as decorative as something from Fabergé, but they certainly are worth celebrating.

IN YOUR EASTER BASKET

                

Today’s array of Easter goodies just boggles my mind. Who would want all that junk? From themed clothing, to masses of stuffed animals, on to fully loaded and cellophane-wrapped baskets, the sales start right after the St. Patrick’s Day green stuff is pulled off the shelves. Again, the ka-ching of profit rears its ugly head. Nothing’s new there; it’s just on a larger scale. But I can calm myself in the midst of all the commercialism by remembering the Easters of my childhood. 

I’ve always loved Easter. Sometimes it came around when there was snow on the ground, but usually it was in the warmth of spring.  My sister and I loved shopping for our new Easter outfits, especially the hats. While the coming holiday meant the small sacrifices of Lent – not too burdensome for most of us kids – we could also look forward to Easter baskets. 

I know that many kids’ parents did up the whole Easter basket, compete with hard boiled eggs.  Maybe they wanted to have all the fun, but it certainly can be a big mess.  At our house, Mom would hard boil the eggs then sit us down at the newspaper-covered kitchen table with crayons, wire dippers, and coffee cups filled with hot water and a touch of vinegar.  We dropped in the color tablets, let them dissolve and then went to work. We’d make crayoned designs on the eggs and dip them in our favorite colors.  Sometimes we dunked each end in a different color to get a third color band in the middle. Sometimes we messed up and dunked the whole egg several times, and those were usually nasty looking.  But we did have fun. Of course we always wrote our own name on at least one egg. We tried to make our own eggs identifiable so that later on we wouldn’t eat one of the other’s eggs by mistake – that would have been ‘gross and disgusting’.

On the Paas Easter egg dye website I learned that they go back 125 years, and that coloring eggs goes back to the Persians of 3000 BCE. I do remember our Greek neighbors cooking goose eggs and dying them with red onion skins for Greek Orthodox Easter.  Then they polished them with some bacon grease for a beautiful display. It was neat to have two Easters while we lived in that neighborhood: lots of wonderful and different foods. I vaguely remember the bread and a good soup, and other delectable things on the table. 

But back to the baskets. The Easter Bunny is like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy: even when you become one of those characters for your own family you still cherish a bit of their magic in your own heart. On Easter morning most of our eggs found their way into our baskets, and the Easter Bunny had made a visit.  On a bed of shredded, soft, always green waxed paper, there might be a chocolate lamb and several chocolate-covered, egg-shape marshmallows, and in the best of times there was big sugar panorama egg.

Even in the slimmest of times though, we always found a chocolate bunny in our baskets.  There is an official ritual for chocolate bunnies: you must eat the ears first. Yes, it’s true, trust me.  I’m sure it’s all because they are the handiest part to shove in your mouth.  Next comes the tail.  It’s just has to be that way.  The rest gets broken up and eaten willy-nilly, but stretched out over as many days as possible before Mom says “enough is enough,” and puts the baskets away until next year.

                                                 

INQUIRING MINDS

Can you see the teapot in this Magic Eye picture?

“Curiosity is one of those insatiable passions that grow by gratification.” ― Sarah Scott    

My Father was an information junkie out of necessity. He was the music librarian for G. Schirmer Inc., the music publishers, and he had to keep up with what was going on in the many worlds of music – opera, Broadway, big bands, recording, concerts, and the like.  The daily newspapers were essential to him. Not only could he read about the performances he wasn’t able to hear and see for himself, he could also keep up with the latest books and sports, news headlines, and, of course, the comics. Along with CD’s, DVD’s, HDTV, and all the latest electronics with all their alphabetic abbreviations, he would have absolutely loved the internet. 

Following in his footsteps, I am an information junkie too – just for fun. When I come upon something new I usually say “When in doubt, check it out.”  I was the owner of an Encyclopaedia Britannica, several dictionaries, a good Atlas, and many other reference books. If I couldn’t cover it at home there was always the local library. Now when I see a good documentary on the telly I often go to the internet to learn more. When I read a good novel and come upon something new to me, I go to the internet.  As a result, I’ve become a font of almost useless information, but then I did say I was an information junkie. I learn a little bit about a lot of things for my own amusement and amazement. I am chronically curious.

You never know where a little extra learning will take you – you too can be amused and amazed.  You football junkies out there – what do you know about the early history of your favorite sport?  You cooks, have you ever read up on the science of why we do what we do in the kitchen?  After the January issue of Living @ Sun City Carolina Lakes did you look up more about the Leader Dog Program?  Did you go on-line to look at any plant or seed catalogs? In February, did you look up more about Ferris Wheels? Do you know how to see what's in the Magic Eye picture above? Next week is National Library Week - take yourself to the library.  Interesting topics are all around us. Pertinent information is out there. All you need is a bit of curiosity. 

You might say that such learning it trivial – yes it is! Just think what a champ you’d be playing Trivial Pursuit. You’d know that horseshoe crabs have blue blood, that the constructed language Esperanto is spoken by up to two million people, that Ozzie and Harriet ran for 320 episodes in the 50’s and 60’s, or that Joe DiMaggio still holds the record for the longest hitting streak. You’d know that the word trivial comes from the Latin for three (tri) ways (via) – a place where roads met and people might have congregated to exchange the news and gossip of the day.

Many retirees use their computers just for emails, and maybe a bit of news and weather and on-line or comparison shopping. There’s so much more on the internet. Let your personal learning curve take a turn for the better. Acquire the habit to “check it out” on the internet.  It is official: according to the Oxford English Dictionary, google is now a verb. Liberal use of googling on Google (even Bing) will usually bring up thousands of references – you can click it and take it from there.

SPRING CLOTHES-KEEPING IN WRINKLE CITY

The other night, my husband and I caught the end of a sports commentary show. (When the one you were watching on ETV or PBS ends early, you catch the end of a number of odd shows.) One young man on the panel was sporting a very, very wrinkled button-down shirt. Where was his mother?? What was he thinking?  What was the producer thinking? To what depths have our dress codes fallen? 

    

We all remember flying in ‘the good days’. We dressed for a plane trip as though we were going to church. Not these days, although I imagine it is easier to go through security checks in slip-ons and flip-flops instead of lace-ups. Flying is certainly more comfortable now that we’ve ditched the suits and ties, the panty hose, hats and gloves, and (egad!) the girdles. Now we dress for flying as though we were going to clean the garage. I’m all for comfort these days, but neat, clean, wrinkle-free comfort. 

We all do it when we’re shopping: we cringe at the dirty underwear showing above a droopy pair of jeans, or the grungy grey bra strap showing from under a tank shirt. We wonder if they really, truly believe they look good. Have you received an email about these folks, or visited The People of Walmart website? Oh, do check it out. You will be amazed, you’ll be truly awestruck, you’ll laugh yourself sick!

        

All this got me to thinking that maybe that wrinkled young man might have just grabbed a shirt from the ironing pile. Perhaps he was just overwhelmed by all the clothes in his closet, and opted to grab and wear ‘old faithful’. It happens to the best of us. While our dress codes have fallen into the depths, our need for clothes has risen to unmanageable heights. Perhaps that guy had so many clothes in his closet that all of them were wrinkled. Nah! That many clothes would act like a press. Relative to the varied sizes of our homes here, I believe the clothes closet space is quite generous. Ah, you disagree?  Ah, you have too many clothes!

I know of some men who are to golf shirts what Imelda Marcos is to shoes.  When you get this many clothes they become a collection, not a wardrobe. You should be displaying the best ones in your living room! Not ready to do that? Well, it’s time to do some judicious editing.  Start with a big plastic bag or two.  All the ousted items are going to get folded and put directly into a bag.  There are several methods for sorting the wheat from the chaff. There’s the old trick of going through the closet and pulling out anything you’ve not worn in a year or two. There’s the ‘three-piles’ method: first pile for old, beyond repair, never liked, too small, too big (this last one never happens to me!), haven’t worn in ages clothing; the second for ‘maybe I can still get some use out of this’ or ‘I’m undecided'; and the third pile for in-style items, classics, must-keep garments.  Perhaps best of all, there’s the spouse method: stand back and let your partner do the gleaning and cleaning out.

    

If you are sentimentally attached to a piece - and this applies to all our possessions, not just clothes - why not take a picture of it, and then you’ll ‘have’ it forever. Then get it into that big, black plastic bag.  Go back and tackle the undecided stuff.  Be big, be brave, make a decision. Do the same culling in the shoe, jewelry, undergarments, and accessories departments of your wardrobe. The custom-closet ads can be a bit ridiculous: who can get along with just those small collections of clothes? But they do have the right ideas for organizing and protecting your clothes. Once you’ve gotten down to the best of the bunch, treat them to proper hangers and garment covers or bags where necessary; shoe boxes, bags, or racks; drawer liners, maybe even some sachet? You’ll add length to the life of the clothes you do keep.

See that?!  You really do have enough closet space in your house! Makes you start to wonder where else in your life you can use these same tactics.

                                                                                          

WHEN I GET TO HEAVEN

Here’s an exercise in creative thinking: what will God have for you to see when you get to heaven?  Over the years I’ve thought of things I’d like to see – places to which I’d have love to have traveled, interesting times gone by, and, especially, loved ones when they were little. I’d like to meet people I’ve never met: my Cherokee great-great-grandmother, my husband’s Dad and grandmother; and some folks I only dimly remember from my childhood.

I’d like to see and follow my Mom when she was around ten or twelve.  I see her, and two of my aunts, in some of the school group pictures I’ve kept.  My Mom is the feisty one in the pictures. In one, she and some of the girls are seated on chairs in the front row.  Only my Mother has her elbows resting on the back of the chair, looking right at you with a “oh really, so what!” attitude.  My aunts are all coiffed and curled, My Mom’s hair is in what she called “a boyish bob.”  I’d like to know that kid.

God is going to have pictures for me of my husband as a little boy.  His father was then Captain on a tug boat in New York City’s Erie Basin.  Before he went to school, and as his Dad said, “forgot everything you’ve ever learned,” he often went to work with his Dad; not every day, but often enough to know all the signal flags and horns and lights.  He kept himself safely tethered to the boat, and even had his own set of foul-weather gear made of that old, sticky rubber stuff.

The cook made sure he ate, and sometimes gave him a treat of “boat pudding”, which was bread, sugar, and milk with some coffee for flavor. He tells tales of hardhat divers bringing up star fish and other treasures from the bottom, and of passing fishermen sending over some of their catch.  He remembers returning in the fog, listening for the echo of the boat’s horn, and being told to keep an eye out because he had “younger eyes.”   He must have been very good on the boat; otherwise he’d never have been there as regularly as he was.  Oh, yes! God will have pictures of that for me.

There are few historical events at which I’d like to have been present or have presented in the hereafter for me, especially knowing what I know now, and having seen so many reenactments, accurate or not, on television.  Whenever I think of these occasions, Lincoln at Gettysburg always comes to mind first and I don’t get far beyond that. It astounds me that the main speaker spoke for two hours and Lincoln, so memorably, for just over two minutes, the crowd hardly hearing him at all.

                                   

More than seeing a single event, I’d like to see how things were made.   It may seem strange, but rather than seeing these things as they are today, I’d like to see the building, the sculpting of the Buddhas of Bamyian in Afghanistan, the Forbidden City in Beijing, the Taj Mahal, the pyramids in Egypt and Mexico, the Nazca lines, and many of the other wonders in our world. I’d like to know about Atlantis: did it exist once?  Did it relate to Noah and the flood? Was Ezekiel’s wheel really an alien space ship? I’d like to see Moses receive the Ten Commandments.  Was the parting of the Red Sea a natural phenomenon?  God’s going to have a big Show-and-Tell for me. 

What will be on your play list?

A WAY WITH WORDS

In 1892 an early version of the Pledge of Allegiance appeared in The Youth's Companion magazine. It read: "I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands; one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." 

I give a silent chuckle when I say our Pledge of Allegiance, any version, because I am reminded of my husband’s hearing one phrase of it as ‘and to the Republic for Richard Stands.’  He also remembers a sign he saw on the way to a scout camp in the mountains: Walter Aviable. Turns out the sign said ‘Water Available.’ 

The same thing happened to us at the bank where I worked for years. The bank president’s secretary wanted the file on Lester Attabush, referred to in a letter to the boss. We looked high and low for hours: couldn’t find it. Finally, in came one of the old bank hands, the one who taught me a debit from a credit and all things financial in between. He took one look at the letter she held and said: “Kathleen, you dummy, it says ‘see letter attached!’” 

Richard Stands=for which it stands, Walter Aviable=Water Available, Lester Attabush=letter attached. These are what are now called ‘mondegreens’, and I’d bet you’ve seen or heard some at one time in your life. Some are misread, but most mondegreens are misheard words. Merriam-Webster’s now lists it as: mondegreen: word or phrase that results from a mishearing of something said or sung - from the mishearing in a Scottish ballad of “laid him on the green” as “Lady Mondegreen.” There are websites devoted to mondegreens, even Mondegreen-of-the-Day calendars.  We all know that “there’s a bathroom on the right,” and “gladly the cross-eyed bear” because “A soft dancer turneth away wrath.”

People like mondegreens because they are a laugh at themselves in what they hear or see.  To have a laugh at someone else you can look up spoonerisms.  Most spoonerisms start out as spoken words. The switching of syllables of a set of words, deliberate or accidental, is named after a Reverend Spooner who was prone to using them inadvertently. As a Warden of New College, Oxford, William Archibald Spooner was a prominent man in Victorian England, so his tendency was widely known.  In reference to the reigning Victoria, he is quoted as saying “Let us glaze our rasses to the queer old Dean” - there’s also a mondegreen there if you really listen.  He is also known to have said “It is kisstomery to cuss the bride” and “Mardon me padam, this pie is occupewed.”

Churchill wrote The History of the English Speaking Peoples, often mistakenly referred to as Peeking Speeples, but who wrote Beeping Sleauty? That was Frederick Chase Taylor, better known on the radio as Colonel Stoopnagle. He would tell fairy tales full of spoonerisms, and Hee Haw’s Archie Campbell would later do it on TV. 

Some phrases such as ‘smart feller’ or ‘shining wit’ are deliberately un-spoonerized, and some, such as ‘bass ackwards’, are spoonerized deliberately.  Shame on them!  Getting into spoonerisms, usually the reversal of first letters or syllables, gets you into the reversal of internal ones: British politician Sir Stafford Cripps was once introduced as “Sir Stifford Crapps.”  From “the Duck and Doochess of Windsor” we go to one of the most noted reversal of syllables: radio announcer Harry von Zell, probably to his eternal mortification, after saying it correctly many times during a tribute piece, referred to our 31^st President as “Hoobert Heever.” 

Starrel, starrel little twink, how high up you am I think. I’m not under the alfluence of incohol, although some thinkle peep I am. Verbal blunders, imagined in mondegreens or actual in spoonerisms, are always good for a small dose of a medicinal laugh.

(originally posted March 9, 2011)

PANTS AWARENESS MONTH - IT'S ANY WINTER MONTH

 

Now, are we talking inner garments or outer?   I’d think the founders of this awareness month would be the manufacturers of outer garments: pants, trousers, britches, slacks, or any full-length bifurcated garments of that ilk. No matter what month, and it really should be a winter month, it gives writers like me the opportunity to take off on the subject.

Wouldn’t it be better if women wore pants and men skirts? Yes and no. Yes, because, when you think about it, pants would be more protective than skirts for women, and, in the same area, skirts would be safer for men. No, because it just hasn’t worked out that way. 

The cavemen had the right idea, although they didn’t have much choice.  The Romans had the right idea, the Egyptians, the Greeks, and so on. Those men wore flowing robes and thought the pants-wearing peoples were uncivilized. Much of it depended on where you lived.  Flowing clothing was, and still is, worn by men of the southern Mediterranean, the Middle Eastern countries, in India, and around the equatorial regions of the world.  The Vikings wore pants, all the Arctic region’s people, men and women, wear pants. If you live where it snows - unless you are a Scot and in a class all by yourself - the men wear pants. It just chills me to think of the kilt-wearing Scots in the winter in the Highlands.

The earliest known pair of pants, made of wool in a twill plaid weave, was found on the mummy of a Eurasian who died about 3800 years ago in the desert Tarim Basin of western China. There were many civilizations in the classic ages that sported pants, loose or fitted as the fancy and the fashion dictated. Over the centuries, myriad combinations of pants and toga or tunic-like garments were worn. During the Renaissance the pants became hose. The actual pants part became shorter and shorter and almost disappeared.  That led to things like purpoints and codpieces and other subjects I’d rather not touch.  But back to the hose which led back to close-fitting trousers, as the term is preferred by the British-speaking peoples, and then on, with a stop for plus-fours and Knickerbockers, to what is worn today.

Many of our clergy sport gowns or cassocks. Our western politicians and executive businessmen could go back to togas or gowns, but the men who are toiling to keep the world’s physical plant safe, running smoothly, and well supplied, do need them.  Can you get a visual of a fireman or policeman in a toga or a kilt?  What about artisans, farmers, fishermen, or truckers? It would be inconvenient and, surely, downright dangerous for them to sport skirts around the modern tools of their trades. 

Historically, there were few groups of women who wore pants.  I did see a picture of an Amazon woman depicted in pants on a Grecian urn. Until the last half of the last century, pants-wearing women were few and far between. There were some who were miners, and I’d think that many horsewomen would have preferred them. These days, thanks to the likes of pioneers like Katharine Hepburn and all those Rosie-the-Riveters, we women wear them without much comment from the peanut gallery.  We even wear them, all dolled up of course, to all but the most ceremonial occasions. We’d never wear them to a coronation, for example, now would we?

So that wraps it up for pants as outer garments.  Sometime in the future we may touch on pants as under garments - panties, if you will.  It will be a topic we can treat with delicate care, for there is as much of interest in the history of undies as there was with outies.  I’ll have to look up the month.

(originally posted February 4, 2011)

FEBRUARY IS NATIONAL ♥ MONTH

 

February is National Heart Month.  All seriousness aside, how did we come to have the heart shape?     ♥: it doesn’t look much like the human heart, and it certainly does mean more than just a representation of it.  I won’t bore you with the details, but there are even mathematical formulas for arriving at various heart-shaped curves.  Well, you just know I had to google it!  I tell you, I’ve yet to find a topic on which I can’t find at least a few entries on Google.  Of the thousands of entries, it turns out that almost everything you wanted to know about the topic is available on Symbols.com. The heart shape has been one of the most common symbols in Western culture since before the last Ice Age. Fascinating!! The shape can symbolize romantic love, passion, and strong emotions. The symbol is of significance, always positive, in most major world cultures and religions.

We may laugh at this today, but from the time of the ancient Egyptians, classical scholars thought the heart was the center of reasoning, thought and emotions.  The Egyptian priests, believing the heart to be the seat of the soul, left it in place and discarded the brains of those they were mummifying.  It seems odd because we all realize that we’re thinking from our heads, so why would they disregard the brain.  The brain has made our symbols - but what is the symbol for the brain?  There it is!  The interrogation mark.  Inquiring minds want to know.

I think my first contact with the heart would have been in association with Valentine’s Day.  February was chosen as National Heart Month because we associate the heart with St.Valentine, patron saint of lovers, whose feast day is February 14.  Hearts on the little cards we exchanged in school, heart-shaped doilies, heart-shaped boxes of chocolate. (Me, I’d rather have a Whitman’s Sampler so I know just which ones - the caramels -  to pick first.)  I remember a grade school Valentine’s Day party where the table was decorated with lots of pink and red crepe paper: hearts and flowers, table cloth and all.  Someone tipped over a candle, and the whole thing went up in a moment.  Who wouldn’t remember that Valentine’s Day?

Home is Where the Heart is. Have a Heart. Hard Hearted Hannah. Peg o’ My Heart.  Heart and Soul. With a Song in My Heart.   Idioms, expressions, song titles.  Our lives abound with references to the heart.  The symbol shows up every day.   I ♥ New York: that rebus started the current ♥ trend back in the 70‘s.  New York tourism took a big boost with the clever idea.  Now everyone is trying to get the same boost,  ♥-ing everything from dog breeds to heart-healthy foods.  
From yester-year’s lacey paper hearts and simple expressions of love, we now have a Valentine’s day so commercialized it includes dozens of long-stemmed roses and heart-shaped diamonds, the more money the merrier.  Well, maybe not for all of us - though we can dream, can’t we?

(originally posted February 1, 2011)

NATIONAL HUG DAY

Any day is a good day for a hug, but on a cold, late January day, a good, warm hug is more than welcome.  Thus, January 21^st is National Hug Day.  We’re talking ‘official’ now: my research tells me that the day is officially recognized by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A hug is one of the best things known to mankind.  Ecologically speaking, its warmth is a renewable source of energy. Psychologically speaking it is a marvelous mood and morale booster.  Physically speaking, we just love the feel of a good, strong hug.

One of my favorite authors is Anne McCaffrey, and I’ve read just about everything she has written.  Unbeknown to me, I waited on her when I was a bank teller back in the early 60’s.  One day I was telling a fellow employee about one of the books I was reading, and she told me that the author was a good customer of ours and had just moved to Ireland.  Every once in a while I think about the opportunities I missed to tell her how much I loved her stories.  She wrote under her maiden name, so I never realize I’d waited on her. In The Ship Who Searched,  a book she co-authored with Mercedes Lackey in 1992, I learned about wonderful Zen Hugs.  These hugs are a relatively little-known phenomenon and should be more widely distributed. 

We are very fond of hugging in our family, and we are very big senders of Zen Hugs. Zen Hugs are “the hugs that you would get, if we were there, if we could hug you, but we aren't, and we can't.”  ‘Zen Hugs’ and ‘I Love You’ end every phone call, every email, and, abbreviated to ZH, every text message.  Every birthday card and every little Post-it gets the Zen Hug finishing touch.  Sometimes we just call them ‘Zenners’.  As holidays or family ‘state occasions’ come due, we anticipate visits from far away family members by counting the ‘sleeps’ until we get ‘real’ hugs. Meanwhile, the Zen variety are just as heartfelt and welcomed.

I think Zen Hugs are wonderful things to explain to children.  They don’t understand the Zen part, and they don’t have to, but they understand hugs and they like the idea that they can get special hugs over the phone. They like to send them too. Zen Hugs are great to send to college students. They are a special tie to home.  Zen Hugs are thoughtful,  inexpensive gifts that mean you really love the recipient. 

For your family living close by, you really should give consideration to giving lots more hugs, especially at this chilly time of year. Why not just stop by for a quick hug? For anyone you love who is further a field, why not start to cultivate Zen Hugs? But beware: they can be habit-forming. 

(originally posted January 21, 2011)

A GOOD READ IN AN ABUNDANCE OF TIME

                                                                                                 

One thing retirees usually have in abundance is time.  Instead of resorting to television when you find yourself with more time on your hands than you now know how to fill, why not try a good read. I’ve still got a Bil Keane’s The Family Circus cartoon from 1992, which shows Billy talking to his sister Dolly: “I’ll tell you the difference between TV, radio and books…TV puts stuff into your mind with pictures and sound. You don’t even have to think….RADIO puts stuff into your mind with just sounds and words. You make up your own pictures…BOOKS are quiet friends! They let you make up your own pictures and sounds. They make you Think.”  

Author Ann Tyler said: "I want to live other lives. I've never quite believed that one chance is all I get. Writing is my way of making other chances.”  Reading is also a way of making other chances.

An abundance of TV channels offer all manner of diversion from fact to fiction, but you can find an even greater selection, tailored to your own interests, at the library. Unlike TV where you have to watch it then or tape it, books work with your own schedule. Here are some suggestions:

If you’d have liked to have had a different job, what would it have been? Read more on the subject.  What sport do you like? Check it out. Whose biography might interest you? Thomas Jefferson, Abba Eban, Benvenuto Cellini, Henry VIII, and Lou Gehrig come to mind.

    

What books do you wish you’d read when you were younger?  What classics or former best sellers would like to read?  Twenty-thousand Leagues Under the Sea, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Exodus, The Color Purple, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Shipping News. You might even have had, even hated, to read a book for an English Class.  You may enjoy reading it again now that there won’t be a quiz.

    

Whose books have you always wanted to read?  Agatha Christie, Ernest Hemingway, Conan-Doyle, James Michener, Tony Hillerman - they’re all in the library. 

     

What period in time interests you? The Roaring Twenties? The Renaissance?  Ancient Greece or Rome?  Pick a time - pick any time - and you’ll find a lot to read.  Try a history of an era, such as Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, in which events are outlined as factually as possible; or try some historical fiction. I wish we’d been able to read more historical fiction when I was in high school. Because we are allowed to read historical novels like Andersonville and The Red Badge of Courage, I remember more about the Civil War than other periods we studied 

     

If you would like a little lighter reading there are many historical romances and mysteries, many written in a series. Find a character in a time you like and follow his exploits.  A popular historical series, the Aubrey-Maturin novels were written about characters in the British navy of the early 1800’s. Michael Jecks has written a series of Medieval mysteries that begins with The Last Templar.  Dorothy Dunnett’s characters lived during the Renaissance.

Purchased or borrowed, make the book new to you. Get up from your easy chair, get out, and get a book - or two!  Then, perhaps on a nasty afternoon, get back into your easy chair and get into a good read.

(originally posted January 10, 2011)