What Would Jimmy Do?

When we lived in the Philippines the American Embassy had a compound located right on Manila Bay that had a swimming pool, restaurant and a large bar area. The “club” was staffed by Filipinos. We usually stopped by the club a few times a week for happy hour.

One thing that you should know about the Filipinos is that when speaking English, they often get their P’s and F’s mixed up. Claire’s hairdresser once asked if we had an electric pan. Claire thought she was referring to a cooking utensil heated by electricity, like an electric skillet that was popular back then. Actually she was asking about an electric fan — something used to keep cool in the Philippines.

Well, back to happy hour…. in the early 70s there was a (somewhat) popular drink called a Freddie Fuddpucker. Some our friends insisted on ordering that drink and then asking the Filipino waiter to repeat what they had ordered to be sure they got it right. I’ll leave it up to you to figure out what Freddie Fuddpucker comes out if you reverse the Ps and Fs. Everyone knew the routine, including the Filipinos, but it happened just about every week anyway. It was just one of those stupid things that everyone thought was funny… actually it seemed a little cruel to me at the time. But today, listening to the news and talking to people — maybe it was just funny…..
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Those of you old enough to remember may recall an old musical comedy set in Washington, D.C. in the 1950s. It’s one of the few musicals I’m aware of that’s based on our national pastime — baseball. The musical is based on a time when the New York Yankees dominated Major League Baseball. If I remember correctly, (in the broadway version) the Washington Senators finally beat the Yankees for the American League Pennant. The play/musical was based on a book by Douglass Wallop, The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant.

Now that the Washington Nationals have just won the National League Pennant, people around here may possibly be using that “Damn Yankees” phrase again. Of course baseball, like everything else is different today than it was in the 1950s. Back then the Senators and the Yankees were both in the American League so they couldn’t have competed in the World Series. And there’s no assurance that the National’s opponent in this years World Series will be the Yankees. For old time baseball fans, I think it would be nice to have a Washington – New York series.

Washington has been a long suffering baseball town…. the “original” Senators played in Washington from 1901 to 1960 — the “expansion” Senators played here from 1960 to 1971. Washington was then without a major league team until 2005 when the Montreal Expos moved to Washington and were renamed the Nationals.

I remember attending old Senators games at RFK Stadium when I began to be in and out of Washington in the early/mid 60s. The games were inexpensive, it was easy to get to the stadium and I don’t remember parking being a problem. It was particularly nice to be able to go to afternoon games…. sit in the sun, have a hot dog and a beer and not have to sit through untold TV commercial breaks. Of course today, Nationals games are not inexpensive, the stadium isn’t that easy to get to and parking is a major problem. BUT — the Nationals are going to the World Series! Go Nats!!
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Both faithful readers of this blog know that today is one of those holidays that we faithfully celebrate every year. We refer to it as Ten-Ten Day or Double Ten Day — October 10 is celebrated as National Day in the Republic of China, commonly known as Taiwan.
It’s hard to write something new about the day every year, so if you’re new to this site and don’t want to check the entry from last year, here’s a brief summary….

An uprising began in the city of Wuchang in 1911 and triggered the Xinhai Revolution leading to the end of the Qing Dynasty and two millennia of dynasty rule in China. On January 1, 1912 the Republic of China was established, but after the end of World War II the Communists took control over mainland China and the Government of the ROC had to relocate to Taiwan.

National Day is celebrated only in Taiwan — mainland China doesn’t recognize this holiday. National Day was also a public holiday in Hong Kong until control was passed from the United Kingdom to China.

As I’ve indicated in the past, we began celebrating the holiday when we were living in Manila and lived next door to the Taiwanese Embassy — they had a big party every year on Ten-Ten Day, so it just seemed appropriate that we should, too. I have visited and worked in Taiwan many times picked up a few tidbits of information that maybe not everyone knows….

Taiwanese democracy is based on the constitution of the Republic of China’s 3 people’s doctrine written by Sun-Yat Sen (viewed by many as the “Father of the Nation”) who based it on Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Sun-Yat Sen was greatly influenced by Lincoln’s principle for racial equality when he was going to high school at Puhahoe High in Honolulu — the same high school attended by President Barak Obama.
An interesting fact about Sun Yet-sen, is that his picture hangs in the Taiwanese Parliament, schools, courthouses and other public buildings across the country, but he was born in Guangdong, died in Beijing, and officially only visited Taiwan on three occasions

Taiwan is one of the world’s largest producers of screws. One-sixth of all the screws in the world are made in Taiwan — 50 percent of all the screws available in the US are of Taiwanese origin.

You’re probably aware that the color red is considered lucky in Taiwan, but did you know that the traditional color for family members to wear at funerals is white — not black. The color white symbolizes death….

An estimated 90 percent of Taiwan’s population suffer from myopia (shortsightedness.)

Taiwan used to be known as “the Butterfly Kingdom” (in the 1960s.) At that time one of Taiwan’s biggest exports was butterflies, with around 10 million a year being sent overseas to collectors.

This year, in addition to celebrating Ten-Ten Day, we can celebrate that the Washington Nationals advanced to the next round in the playoffs. It turns out that baseball is also the national sport in Taiwan. In the Little League World Series, held in Pennsylvania, Taiwanese teams have won the tournament on 17 different occasions — far more than anyone else. I thought this would be a good way to tie Ten-Ten Day and the upcoming World Series together — anyhow, happy Ten-Ten Day to all…..
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If you’ve been awake the last few days, you’ve probably heard the word impeachment so many times you’re sick of it. I’m pretty sure I know what impeachment means and have a fairly good understanding of how it works. But after listening to the President lately, I thought maybe I’m wrong, or something changed over they years without me knowing about it.
Turns out that wasn’t the case — it appears to be what I thought it was and it works the way I remember it being described to me in various government/civics courses over the years.

Basically, impeach means to charge a public official formally with misconduct in office. The word evolved from the Latin word “impedicare” that means to fetter, to fix shackles on the feet; to hinder. It later evolved into empechier (Old French) and then into the Middle English empechen, meaning to physically hinder something as well as to bring a formal accusation.

When someone is impeached, testimonial evidence presented is commonly understood to refer not to simply charging the official with misconduct, but to actually removing the official from office. Since removal from office is typically the goal of impeachment, this interpretation is understandable, but not legally accurate. But nonetheless, the “remove” sense is what many people have in mind when they think or talk about impeaching an official.

In our government, impeachment (bringing charges against) the President originates in the House of Representatives. Removal from office can only be accomplished after the charges are tried in the Senate.

Only two presidents have faced an impeachment trial — both of them Democrats and both of them were acquitted. The first was Andrew Johnson, in 1868, acquitted by one vote of violation of the previous years’s Tenure of Office Act. The second was Bill Clinton, in 1998, acquitted by a much larger margin of perjury and obstructing justice in relation to the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

It’s interesting to note that the term impeachment was written into the U.S. Constitution at the insistence of Benjamin Franklin — he feared that the alternative to the legal removal of a corrupt official would be assassination….
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This past weekend, our neighbor had a problem with one of the circuit breakers in his house. While I’m no electrical wizard and certainly haven’t kept up with the electrical codes (that change more often than they did in the past.) I told him I’d take a look. The problem wasn’t all that complicated and we just changed the breaker.

But — this got me to thinking. Circuit breakers, like everything else have changed (and become more complicated) over the years. The first electrical distribution panel I ever remember looking at was in my parents house. It literally had two fuses — not circuit breakers — fuses. The entire house was essentially one circuit. If a fuse blew, electricity in the entire house went out. My grandparents lived in a somewhat more modern house… They had those two “main” fuses, but they also had couple of rows of fuses below those — there were actually separate circuits that were fused. So a fuse could blow and not necessarily interrupt electricity to the entire house. All these fuses screwed in like a light bulb — in fact, I’m not sure, but the base of light bulbs and the base of the fuses may have been the same size.

A number of years later, my parents bought a much newer house and the electrical distribution panel didn’t have fuses — it had circuit breakers! As I said, I’m not an electrician and these circuit breakers are pretty much what I remember for a lot of years… most probably until we moved here to West Virginia and moved into a new house.

The circuit breakers I remember until recently were either single-pole breakers or double-pole breakers. There probably were more differences, but here’s basically what’s different about the two:
Single-pole breakers — protect the “hot” wire of a circuit, supply a 120 volt circuit and usually protect circuits from 15 to 30 amps.
Double-pole breakers take up two slots in a breaker panel and protect two “hot” wires, they usually consist of two single-pole breakers with one handle and a shared trip mechanism, and can protect circuits from 15 to about 200 amps. These are usually used for large appliances like clothes dryers and water heaters.

When we moved to our current house, some of the circuits in the bathrooms and kitchen included outlets known as GFI (Ground Fault Interrupter) outlets — the circuit breakers for these circuits were single-pole breakers.
But looking in our breaker panels, I discovered a couple of circuit breakers I wasn’t familiar with — one was a GFI breaker, that I assumed did pretty much what the GFI outlets did, but there were other breakers called AFI (Arc Fault Interrupters.)

Doing a little checking, I discovered that the GFI does, in fact, do pretty much what the GFI outlets do — they cut power when they are tripped by an overload, a short circuit or a line-to-ground fault.
Arc Fault Interrupters (AFI) breakers were new to me — they’re designed to protect against an unintentional electrical discharge in electrical wiring that could cause a fire. These “arcs” are usually caused due to worn or damaged electrical cords… regular breakers don’t always trip in these instances because they are designed to respond to a sustained amount of heat — not a quick surge.

So — you probably didn’t expect to learn so much when you started this — but I thought it was interesting, and important, so I pass it along for what it’s worth. And besides, you don’t want to be like me and become road-kill on the technological highway…..
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Well, here be me most favorite holiday again — Talk Like a Pirate Day. Today everyone around here will be calling each other ‘me hearties,’ be donning their finest eye patches and pulling the usual shenanigans that they do every year. Needless to say me and me wench Claire have been lookin fore t’ it since last year.

Both my favorite readers know I get very excited about this day every year, but on a serious note, the day is more than just saying aaargh a lot and using ye instead of you. It’s a day when many just substitute me when they usually use my and celebrate by having a drink. But for those of use who honestly wish that we had been pirates, it’s a day to reflect on what could have been… and especially today, ye be careful takin’ me cup o’ grog.

Obviously, I’m a big fan of pirates — even the name. What name besides “Pirate” could be given to the coolest dudes to ever sail the seven seas. They have cool boats, cool wooden legs and cool parrots. And their main job is searching far and wide just to “plunder.”

A couple of my neighbors have asked me what this talking like a pirate is all about — do we really need an International Talk Like a Pirate Day? Yes. Yes, we do. Now it is a little hard to explain exactly why. When you talk like a pirate, it gives your conversation a certain swagger, but there’s more to it than that — when you talk like a pirate, a total image of swaggering pirateness surrounds you. But back to the question… what’s the point? Actually, the point is, there is no point. So today, when people around you are saying aarrr or weigh anchor or I’ll give you a taste of the cap’n’s daughter’ — they’re talking like pirates simply because it’s fun.

Sometimes pirates get a bad name because they were thought to be people who stole from other people and left a trail of death in their wake. But while they did do most of that, their main purpose was to travel around the world giving candy to small children. The killing and stealing was just to get money for the candy….. and for rum. A lot of people don’t know that.
Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day, me hearties.
Til’ next year — Aarrr!!!
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Before I get off the subject of Harpers Ferry for a while, I have to mention St. Peters Catholic Church. When we have visitors and go to Harpers Ferry, we alway go to the church. Not only is it the most impressive structure in Harpers Ferry, it has been in continuous use since 1889. We’ve been to Mass there numerous times.

The church was built in Neo-Gothic style out of native stone. It was built in the early 1830s by land donated by Robert Harper. The building was restored and enlarged in 1889.

St. Peters was the only church in Harpers Ferry to survive the Civil War intact. The priest at the time, Father Costello, stayed at the church and wisely flew the British flag from the steeple when the armies shelled the town. Both sides, not wanting an international incident with England, aimed their shelling away from St. Peters.

At one time the church was used as a hospital and Father Costello helped care for the wounded. Like many places in Harpers Ferry, there have been reports of ghosts in and around the church. But the most fascinating story to me is that of a priest. The story has been repeated, pretty much the same, by many visitors. The steps going up to Jefferson Rock go right by St. Peters. Many visitors, on their way to Jefferson Rock, report seeing an old priest coming from the rectory wearing a black friars hat. The visitors say that they speak to the priest, but he never returns any of their greetings. They all agree that the priest turns and walks right through the doorless wall into the church. No one seems to know who he is or why he returns to St. Peters, but he is seen too frequently to doubt his visits.
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They say a word to the wise is sufficient…. today is not only Friday the 13th, and not only is there a full moon, but it’s a micro-moon full moon. That means that the moon is at its apogee (the highest point in its orbit) so it will appear smaller and will be dimmer. So if it seems a little more spooky out tonight….
I don’t know if any of this means anything or not — just sayin……
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Today is one of those days that we all remember. Just about everyone can tell you exactly where they were and what they were doing 18 years ago this morning. In anyone’s lifetime there are only a few events that are indelibly etched in their minds. For a lot of people, this will be one of them. Some of these events are really happy occasions — others, like today, are horrible.

Hopefully, there won’t be any more days like 9/11… the phrase “never forget” has become almost part of saying “9/11.” I’m pretty sure none of us that lived through it, will “never forget.”

But I think in some ways, “9/12” is more important than “9/11.” I remember that on 9/12 there were no Whites, Blacks, Mormons, Baptists, Catholics, rich, poor, Democrats or Republicans. On 9/12 there were only Americans. I remember after such a horrible 9/11, that in a completely different way, 9/12 turned out to be a pretty special day.

We will never forget 9/11, but let’s not forget 9/12…. wouldn’t it be great to have a lot more of those days?
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A number of years ago I attended a Satellite Communications course to learn about a new satellite system being built for our company. The course was several weeks long and during that time, we developed a class “logo.” All the items in the logo had a specific meaning for the 7 or 8 members of the class. One prominent figure was Mickey Mouse. Maybe sometime I’ll do an entry here explaining the rationale behind all the symbols — but for now let’s concentrate on Mickey.

One of the members of the class was Mike, who just happened to be a very good friend and was best man at our wedding. After the class had ended, Mike was assigned to Tokyo. While he was there, he decided to have coffee cups made with the logo we had come up with during the class on the front and our names on the back.

When Claire heard about this, she said she wanted a cup too. We tried to explain that the cups were being made only for members of the class — since she didn’t attend, she wasn’t eligible to get a cup. Well, that argument didn’t get very far, so Mike decided to have her a “special” cup made. At the time, Claire had long blond hair… so Mike’s plan was to have the logo on Claire’s cup have a picture of Mickey Mouse with long blond hair. We thought this would be pretty funny.

But it turns our that the shop in Tokyo that was making the cups refused to alter the logo by adding blond hair to Mickey Mouse.
I’m sure there were things then, and still are today, that are sacred in Japan — but who knew Mickey Mouse would be one of them. Despite many discussions, Mike gave up — the shop owners simply would not put blond hair on Mickey Mouse. So Mike told me that he couldn’t get Claire a cup and he just left it up to me to figure out how to tell Claire she wasn’t getting a cup.

But — when Mike went to pick up the cups, the shop had indeed made a cup for Claire. They had modified the logo, but not like we wanted…. they refused to put blond hair on Mickey — they just removed him entirely and replaced him with someone that looked more like Goldilocks.

You can check out the pictures — the top cup is mine with the original logo, the bottom picture shows Claire’s cup… the cups are now almost 50 years old. I wonder if that cup shop is still in business and if they would be more receptive giving Mickey a wig today?
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