What Would Jimmy Do?

I got a little busy yesterday and never got around to this blog. So today, we’re going to pretend it’s not today, it’s yesterday — May 17. 

First off, happy Norwegian Independence Day and a happy birthday to Mike Hauke. If you don’t know Mike Hauke, too bad — he’s a nice guy. He was best man at our wedding. Anyhow we can always remember his birthday because he was born on Norwegian Independence Day, or maybe we always remember Norwegian Independence Day because it’s Mike Hauke’s birthday….

On May 17, 1814, the Constitution of Norway was signed at Eidsvold, Norway. The constitution declared Norway as an independent nation. 
But — Norway was ruled by the kings of Denmark for many centuries. In 1814, Denmark was penalized for its support of Napoleon by giving Norway to Sweden. However, before the transition was carried out, Norway declared itself independent (on May 17.) So Norway retained some degree of independence even though it became a subject of the Swedish Crown. In 1905, again on May 17, Norway declared its complete independence. 

So — May 17th is the official National Day of Norway… known as Norwegian Constitution Day. The day is referred to simply as “Syttende Mai (17th of May) or Grunnlovsdagen (The Constitution Day.)

Norwegian Constitution Day is kind of unique in that it is very non-military in nature. All over Norway, children parade, many waving flags. The parades take the children through the community, often making stops at homes of senior citizens, war memorials, etc. 

The Constitution Day celebration is very much about the children, but all Norwegians eat, drink and make merry during the month of May to celebrate the most significant month in their history.
So happy Norwegian Independence Day and happy birthday Mike.
You may now return to today (May 18th) — already in progress….
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My neighbor’s car battery died a day or so ago — he had just paid off his car loan, and wouldn’t you know it — dead battery. He thought it might be something else because the battery seemed just fine until it just up and died. But that’s what batteries do these days. Years ago, they gave you some warning they they were on their last legs, but not today. they just work until they don’t.

Batteries have evolved along with the cars that use them. When I was growing up, all the cars used 6-volt batteries. And if my memory is correct, they just about all had positive ground systems — the vehicle chassis was directly connected to the positive terminal of the battery. 

Originally, cars were started by manually turning a hand crank. I’m old, but not old enough to remember cars with cranks to start them. My uncle did have and old Ford that had a crank, but even back then it was considered an antique, and it wasn’t practical to get from point A to point B.

But back to batteries… I got to wondering when did cars start to use 12-volt batteries instead of 6-volt batteries? And why? The why is easy — car manufacturers started to use new, higher compression engines that need more starting power — and — new features such a power seats, power windows, and such were putting more demand on electrical systems. 

When is a little murkier — my extensive research on the subject seems to indicate 1955 might be the year of the big changeover. GM started using the 12-volt system on the Cadillac, Oldsmobile and Buick in 1953, but it appears that 1955 is the year that 12-volt electrical systems became pretty much the automotive industry standard. 

My research also discovered that the Hudson Motor Car Company was the first to use a standardized battery — in 1918. The Battery Council International (BCI) is the organization that sets the dimensional standards for batteries. 

As I said — originally, cars were started by manually turning a hand crank. Besides the convenience of not having to hand crank the engine to start it, as electricity became more common, people wanted the convenience of electric lights on their cars. So, for that and a number of other reasons, it became necessary for cars to have an electrical system. The electrical systems required a DC generator of some kind to keep the battery charged. A 6-volt system was chosen, as far as I can tell, for no particularly good reason. A six volt battery only required 3 lead -acid cells and 6-volt DC generators could be made small and inexpensively… maybe that contributed to the choice.

It appears that the start of the downfall of the 6-volt battery started when electric starters came along. Electric starters draw a lot of current. That meant that heavier wires had to be used to connect the battery to the starter. Then engines got bigger and required greater torque to start… that led to larger starters and larger wires. 

So — 12-volt systems were introduced. As anyone familiar with electricity knows, when you double the voltage, you can halve the current and still produce the same amount of power. By going to 12-volt systems, more powerful starter motors could be produced without increasing the size.

Cars have used batteries for well over 80 years — a lot of people never knew that they weren’t always 12-volts. Some of us though, the mighty few remember the 6-volt days. I guess you can chalk that up to “life experience” — or maybe old age…..
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Nice day today — been working in the yard. Came in and thought I’d read the news before I took a shower. The President visited a plant in Pennsylvania yesterday and spoke about health care workers. Here is an exact quote from the President of the United States of America: 

“They’re running into death just like soldiers run into bullets, in a true sense. It’s incredible to see. It’s a beautiful thing to see.”
……….. I’ve gotta stop reading the news.
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Well, since I have nothing particular on my mind today, and I just finished reading the news, and a couple of articles talked about the President’s news conferences, and it seems like the news conferences consisted mostly of name calling, finger pointing and various other types of school-yard behavior…. I thought we might talk about kindness today.

When I was young, I was told to be kind — always. Of course when you’re a kid, that kind of advice goes right over your head. But like a lot of things you hear when you’re a kid, it begins to makes sense and the older you get, you realize it’s really good advice. 

There are a lot of reasons to be kind — in fact I’ve heard that it’s actually good for your health. Research has shown that the act of being kind releases a range of natural feel-good hormones in your body, including oxytocin and endorphins. So, theoretically, at least, practicing kindness, compassion, and appreciation can make you happier, boost your immune system, reverse signs of aging, relieve pain, and even help you live longer. Call me a pessimist, but I don’t think the President is going to push this a a cure for COVID-19, even though it might make more sense than bleach…

Kindness is about treating others the way you want to be treated. It’s more than just holding your tongue when you’re tempted to say something unkind. Kindness is the way you interact with people to  remind them they’re not invisible, alone or insignificant. Compassion usually goes right along with kindness — it enables you to see a situation from someone else’s perspective and agree with them or at least give them the benefit of the doubt. Generally speaking, when you show kindness and compassion to others, you benefit as much — or maybe more — than they do.

There’s an old saying that kindness begets kindness. Kindness also makes you a better person. Again, no real point — just that even though my parent’s advice to “be kind — always” was and is good advice… it somehow seems more important these days.
The Dalai Lama has a good quote: “Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.”
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Today is Mother’s Day — a day we celebrate every year on the second Sunday of May. For the last couple of years, I’ve kind of passed over Mother’s Day on these pages, so this year I think it deserves a little more discussion.

The “Mother’s Day” that we celebrate is a relatively recent occurrence — having only been celebrated since 1908. But similar activities or festivals have been around for many years. In Greek mythology spring festivals were held in honor of Rhea, the goddess of fertility, motherhood and generation. She was the wife of Cronus and was believed to be the mother of many deities. 
The ancient Romans celebrated a spring festival called Hilaria — dedicated to a mother goddess named Cybele. Her followers made offerings at the temple, held parades, and played games. The festival lasted three days.
In India, people celebrate Durga-puja, a festival that pays homage to the mother goddess, Durga. The festival is a ten-day event that takes place in the fall.
In England in the 1600’s, Mothering Sunday took place on the 4th Sunday of Lent. It began with a prayer service in honor of the Virgin Mary. Afterwards, children would present their moms with flowers. 

In 1870, Julia Ward, who wrote the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” suggested a day of peace and strongly advocated other women to stand up against war. She was able to get Boston to recognize mothers on the second Sunday of June.

The modern day “Mother’s Day” movement began during the Civil War — Ann Jarvis championed a cause to foster friendship and community between the mothers of both the North and the South. She started a committee which established the first glimmer of today’s day — “Mother’s Friendship Day.”
Ann Jarvis’s daughter sought to honor her own mother by establishing an intimate day of observance that led to today’s holiday. She created the Mother’s Day International Association and advocated a mother’s day observance the second Sunday in May. Woodrow Wilson legitimized the celebration as a nationwide holiday. 
Unfortunately, the holiday quickly became a commercialized opportunity for merchants to sell flowers, candy and cards. Jarvis’s daughter thought this was detracting from the personal and intimate aspects of the holiday and fought against such commercialization. She eventually used all her money is her fight and died at the age of 84 in a sanatorium.

This year, Mother’s Day, like everything else, will be a little different… according to my extensive research, in 2018 about 87 million adults made plans to go to a restaurant for Mother’s Day. Maybe there’ll be 87 million “carry-outs” today. 
One statistic we always hear is that more phone calls are made on Mother’s Day than any other day — the last data I could find indicated that about 122 million calls were made on the second Sunday of May. Of course you can still call, but I imagine a lot of those calls have turned into “texts.” Probably the most important things for mothers is to just hear from their children — maybe they’d prefer a call, but I’m sure texts work, too.
Supposedly the first thing a baby can vocalize is the ‘ma’ sound, which may be why in almost every language the word for mother begins with the letter ‘M’ or is some iteration of the ‘ma’ sound.

Even though mothers deserve to be honored every day, it’s nice to set aside a special day for them, so no matter what you call it, or what day it’s celebrated, the purpose is the same, a special recognition and appreciation day for our moms.
Happy Mother’s Day to Claire, Kelly and Chassie — the best three Moms I know.
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Today is our baby girl’s birthday. I remember the day she was born — it was Mother’s Day. This year’s birthday missed being on Mother’s Day by just one day. Kelly didn’t waste any time being born. Sunday morning when we got to the hospital, they said they would get Claire settled in her room and call me in a few minutes — so I figured I’d get a cup of coffee while I waited. The nurse told me to just take the elevator down to the basement and the cafeteria was right there. That’s what I did… I got my coffee, got back on the elevator, went to the nurses station and asked what room Claire was in. The nurse said, “Oh, congratulations, Mr. Williamson, you’re a father!”

Sure enough, I went into the room and there was Claire — and Kelly. Kelly had really, really long hair and she was wide awake. Little did I know that she’d be awake most of her growing up years. But she was the prettiest, cutest baby I’d ever seen… and she turned out to be an adult I couldn’t be prouder of — Happy Birthday, Kelly!
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There’s been a lot of talk on the news recently about “herd immunity”  in relation to finally beating the coronavirus. As I understand it, when most of the population becomes immune to an infectious disease, that provides indirect protection, or “herd immunity,” providing some protection to those who are not immune to the disease. I guess another way to look at it is as sort of “survival of the fittest.”

Anyhow, that got me to thinking about something I read a while back — I think it’s funny, and I’m thinking it may be a good activity if the weather continues to act like it’s February….. here’s the story:

Whenever I get a package of plain M&Ms, I make it my duty to continue the strength and robustness of the candy as a species. To this end, I hold M&M duels. 
Taking two candies between my thumb and forefinger, I apply pressure, squeezing them together until one of them cracks and splinters. That is the “loser,” and I eat the inferior one immediately. The winner gets to go another round.
I have found that, in general, the brown and red M&Ms are tougher, and the newer blue ones are generally inferior. I have hypothesized that the blue M&Ms as a race cannot survive long in the intense theater of competition that is the modern candy and snack-food world.
Occasionally I will get a mutation, a candy that is misshapen, or pointer, or flatter than the rest. Almost invariably this proves to be a weakness, but on very rare occasions it gives the candy extra strength. In this way, the species continues to adapt to its environment. 
When I reach the end of the pack, I am left with one M&M, the strongest of the herd. Since it would make no sense to eat this one as well, I pack it neatly in an envelope and send it to M&M Mars, a division of Mars, Inc., in Hackettstown, NJ, along with a 3×5 card reading, “Please use this M&M for breeding purposes.”
This week they wrote back to thank me, and sent me a coupon for a free ½ pound bag of plain M&Ms. I consider this “grant money.” I have set aside the weekend for a grand tournament. From a field of hundreds, we will discover the True Champion. There can be only one.

There’s a real message here — I just hope the President doesn’t read this blog….
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Well, another year is in the books… Cinco de Mayo, yesterday, was a big day, but today is even bigger — anniversary day. A lot of anniversaries have certain themes, or symbols associated with them, like the 25th is silver, the 50th is gold, etc. But this year is number 48 for us, and I couldn’t find anything that indicated that it was “special” enough to have a theme or symbol of its own.

It seems like 48 should be special — like more special than, say, 45 that has Sapphire as a symbol. But it doesn’t — 48 is just “48.” But as of today, we’ve been married for 17,520 days or 420,480 hours or 25,288,800 minutes, or more than 1,513 million seconds — give or take a few…. and over those 48 years, we’ve spent about 15 of them sleeping and 2½ years eating. In the time left over we’ve been working on becoming that adorable couple that makes all our friends sick. I don’t think we’ve gotten there yet, but we’re working on it. So even if it doesn’t get a special symbol or theme — it’s special. 

I’ve been trying to figure out what I should say to Claire on this “special” day. I suppose I could say, you’re the best, or you’re my favorite, or every day I’m still discovering new things about you to love, or marrying you was the smartest thing I ever did or you’re an amazing wife, or you’re more beautiful now than ever or I’m so lucky to have you — all nice sounding words, and all true. But I guess the best thing to say, and I think/hope I do it every day, is I love you!
So we’ve chalked up another year that Claire has made me laugh, and appreciate her more than I did last year.  

We don’t need themes or symbols, and it doesn’t matter what number you attach to it — it was the best year yet… I think maybe my favorite author, Dr. Seuss, summed it up best — “You know you are in love when you don’t want to fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”
As today’s popular saying goes… and we’re still in this together.
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Well, we’ve kicked off the busy month of May around here — today is the fifth and it’s Cinco de Mayo, a holiday that celebrates the date of the Mexican Army’s May 5, 1862 victory over France at the Battle of Puebla during the Franco-Mexican War. As we’ve talked about before, it is a relatively minor holiday in Mexico. In many places is simply known as the Battle of Puebla Day. 

Since we’re all still staying at home, this is a good opportunity to talk about today and maybe learn a little history… 
Today commemorates a single battle. First, a little background — in 1861, Benito Juárez, a lawyer and member of the indigenous Zapotec tribe, was elected president of Mexico. At the time, the country was in financial ruin after years of internal strife, and the new president was forced to default on debt payments to European governments. In response, France, Britain and Spain sent naval forces to Veracruz, Mexico, demanding payment. Britain and Spain negotiated with Mexico and withdrew their forces. But France, ruled by Napoleon III, saw this as an opportunity to carve an empire out of Mexican territory. Late in 1861, a well-armed French fleet stormed Veracruz and landed a large force of troops — that drove President Juárez and his government into retreat.

The French were certain that victory would come swiftly and General Charles Latrille de Lorencez led 6,000 French troops to attack Puebla de Los Angeles, a small town in east-central Mexico. Juárez rounded up a ragtag force of 2,000 men — many of them either indigenous Mexicans or of mixed ancestry — and sent them to Puebla. The vastly outnumbered and poorly supplied Mexicans, led by Texas-born General Ignacio Zaragoza, fortified the town and prepared for the French assault. On May 5, 1862, Lorencez gathered his army — supported by heavy artillery, and led an assault on the city of Puebla. The battle lasted from daybreak to early evening, and when the French finally retreated they had lost nearly 500 soldiers. Fewer than 100 Mexicans had been killed in the skirmish.

The Battle of Puebla wasn’t a major strategic win in the overall war against the French, but it was a great symbolic victory for the Mexican government and bolstered the resistance movement.
 In 1867, partly because of military support and political pressure from the United States, France finally withdrew. 

As you probably know, Cinco de Mayo is a bigger deal here than in Mexico. Cinco de May is primarily observed in the state of Puebla in Mexico, although other parts of the country also take part in the celebration. For many/most Mexicans, May 5 is a “regular” day — it isn’t a federal holiday, so offices, banks and stores are open for business. 

In the United States, Cinco de Mayo began to become popular in the 1960s… initially, many in the US thought it was a celebration of Mexican independence — it’s not, of course, Mexican Independence Day is September 16. Today, other than a good excuse to drink margaritas, the day is thought of as a day to celebrate Mexican culture and heritage. Some of the largest Cinco de Mayo festivals are held in Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston. 

I guess it shouldn’t come as any surprise that 47% of all drinks ordered on Cinco de Mayo are margaritas… I’m sure tequila sales go up around this time of year, too. My extensive research uncovered an interesting fact about tequila. Centuries ago, tequila couldn’t be enjoyed by all Mexican people. Aztec priests used to make a milky beer-like drink from the agave plant called pulque. Only the priests could consume this precursor of tequila. 

I probably should mention that Carnegie Music Hall originally opened on May 5h and this date also marks the launch of the first American-manned space flight (in 1961.) But whatever day you’re celebrating, it seems like a good occasion for a margarita…..
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The Blue angels and the Thunderbirds conducted a flyover in DC, Northern Virginia and Maryland today in a display of national unity and support for front-line health care workers. It’s one of a series of flyovers the squadrons are making around the country. We weren’t able to see the flyover from here in Shepherdstown, but a few years ago we had a front row seat when the Thunderbirds performed at an air show in Martinsburg. The picture was taken from our back yard.
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