What Would Jimmy Do?

I was talking to my neighbor a couple of days ago and he mentioned that his lawnmower had conked out at the end of the summer and he hadn’t gotten it back from the repair shop yet. Well, that got me to thinking about grass (the kind you mow.) I’ve often said that I thought it would be easier to just pave our lawn area and paint it green. Maintaining a lawn takes a lot of work.

I don’t know who came up with the bright idea that the area surrounding your house should be lush and green, but apparently, that’s what has become most acceptable to modern society. Having a nicely trimmed green field leading up to your front door has become kind of a status symbol. And in some communities a messy front lawn gets you in trouble with your neighbors and may even result in a fine from some homeowners associations.

It seems that the grass lawn as a status symbol originated in European aristocracy. The first “lawns” were grassy fields surrounding English and French castles. Castle grounds had to be kept clear of trees so soldiers/guards protecting the castle had a clear view of the surroundings to prevent enemies from sneaking up through the forest. The word lawn comes from the word launde, which meant a “glade or opening in the woods.”

I’m not sure how the lawn became the “standard” for single family dwellings, but the movement was certainly helped along by Frederick Law Olmstead, the “father of American landscape design.” Olmstead designed Central Park in New York and also designed suburbs where each house had its own little lawn. Suburbs proved popular because a lot of people wanted to move away from the industrialization of cities and away from all the concrete. The first lawn mower was developed by Edwin Budding in 1830, but didn’t draw that much attention until the average person was faced with the chore of keeping their own lawns nicely trimmed.

But it appears that the guy that has to shoulder the blame for all of us having to cut the grass every week during the summer is Abraham Levitt. Levitt was the founder of Levittown — declared the “ideal” of American suburbia in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Levitt, and his sons, created the first suburb where healthy lawns were already in place when the occupants took possession of their new homes. The homeowners were given pamphlets about the importance of maintaining a perfect lawn, with tips about how to keep it green, lush, and weed-free. So, thank Abe for that hour or two, or more, that you spend every week keeping your property up to neighborhood standards.

Claire’s dad always had a “perfect” lawn — it would be the envy of most golf courses. He always had a beautiful lawn. I’ve always had a yard.
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I know that you’re thinking that we don’t need another holiday, but I can’t let today pass without mentioning that it’s Cinco de Marcho Day. Don’t get this one confused with Cinco de Mayo, a Mexican holiday celebrated every year on May 5. That holiday celebrates the anniversary of the defeat of the French army during the Battle of Puebla in Mexico on May 5, 1862.

Cinco de Marcho was first celebrated in the United States in 2007 — it’s sort of a kick-off to get ready for St. Patrick’s Day on March 17. Even though Cinco de Marcho is today, it really isn’t a day — think of it more like a season. You know about the 12 days of Christmas…. well, today starts the 12 days of Cinco de Marcho. It’s a season that begins on the 5th of March and ends with the closing ceremonies — on St. Patrick’s Day.

Some people have said that the holiday marks the beginning of a 12-day period when “people train their livers for drinking huge amounts of alcohol on St. Patrick’s Day.” That assessment made the holiday offensive to some people, but Cinco de Marcho doesn’t officially promote excessive drinking. It’s a chance to celebrate the two cultures — of Mexico and Ireland. If you think about it, there are some commonalities… like Margaritas — they’re green (like St. Patty’s Day) and they’re Mexican.
So I think this is a great start to promoting international cooperation and peace.
Hope everyone has an enjoyable Cinco de Marcho Season!
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In my younger days, I spent a lot of time on airplanes — a lot of different kinds, military and civilian, and lots of time on commercial airliners. All that travel tapered off in the early 80s. It occurred to me that when I flew most of the airplanes didn’t have those fin-like airfoils protruding from the tip of the wing. These things are called winglets, at least mostly they’re called winglets — apparently Airbus calls them sharklets. They use that name as opposed to winglets to get around a patent on the winglet technology held by Boeing.
Anyhow, Chris is an aeronautical engineer, so I asked him about them a few years ago. His explanation was fairly technical… something about equalizing the pressure on the upper surface and the lower surface of the wings and reducing the vortex formed because of the difference in pressure. I think he told me the bottom line was that they basically reduce drag and allow throttling back the engines to increase fuel savings. During my extensive research on the subject I discovered that NASA became aware of winglets aerodynamic benefits in the 1970s. Use of the devices typically yield a 1-2% increase in fuel efficiency — that amount of fuel savings is very significant to airlines.

Vertical wingtips certainly aren’t anything new — airplane designers have long known that modifying wingtip flow is important. Soaring birds, such as eagles, have strong feathers that flip up at the wingtips to reduce drag and give the birds more lift. So as smart as we think we are coming up with these innovations, nature and the birds beat us to it.
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Goodbye February, hello March. I’m always happy when March rolls around every year because it means that I’ve survived the two most depressing months of the year. I think the old Roman calendars had it right when their year was only ten months long — beginning with March. They didn’t even bother naming January and February — those two months were just referred to as “winter.” I’m thinking that it might be good to return to those days of old…

I feel better now that it’s March, even though as I write this, it’s snowing outside. “They” always say, if March comes in like a lion, it will go out like a lamb. I’m not sure if there’s really any truth to the saying, but I’ve read that many of these “sayings” are based on careful observations and turn out to be fairly accurate.There are always a lot of theories as to where these proverbs, sayings or folklore originated. Long ago, people often believed that bad spirits could, and did, affect the weather adversely, so they were cautious as to what they did or didn’t do in certain situations. They also believed that there should be a balance in weather and life. So — if a month came in bad (roaring like a lion), it should go out good (docile, like a lamb.) Maybe that’s the reason for the saying/proverb… why it stuck for just March, well….

I guess the Lion/Lamb proverb is probably the most famous March weather one, but I’ve also heard:
A dry March and a wet May? Fill barns and bays with corn and hay.
As it rains in March, so it rains in June.
March winds and April showers bring forth May flowers.

I’m sure there are many more, but they don’t immediately come to mind. But this year March certainly came in like a lion, so we can hope it will end on a calm note and exit like a lamb — but the key word is hope.
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Last weekend at (after) Mass, we heard the annual financial report for our church. The church, like a lot of people and organizations, is struggling to make ends meet these days. One of the charts presented during the presentation indicated that the church has something more than 500 members and during the last year, only a little over 300 contributed any money to the church. That means that at least 200 didn’t contribute anything — not even a dollar. Not only did they not contribute, I’m pretty sure they never attended, certainly not regularly.

I don’t know that that makes our church unique in any way — it very well may be typical. People become members of a church for various reasons. Many people consider the church just one more place where they can go to have certain social, political and even physical needs met.

In nineteenth-century China (and other parts of Asia) there was a name that was used for people who attended church because they were hungry for physical sustenance. It was known that Christian missionaries could provide food — primarily rice. So, people converted, were baptized and attended churches that had been started by the missionaries. They remained active members as long as their physical needs were met. But once their prospects improved through employment or help from family members, they drifted away from the church. Christian missionaries began calling them “rice Christians.”

Of course these “rice Christians” had missed the whole point of going to church, but maybe we actually have rice Christians as “members” of our church. These people chose to join the church and become members for some reason — maybe their “reason” is no longer valid, maybe the church no longer can fill their “needs.” People tend to look for a church that has the “right” kind of worship, the “right” pastor or the “right” kind of people, that provides the “right” activities for their kids, does the “right” thing with financial contributions, etc. A lot of people seem to be looking something that will satisfy a particular need or sustain them physically. The church offers something that will sustain them spiritually — kind of like “soul food.”

I’m not sure why I thought about this right now, except maybe to prove that I do pay attention in church, at least most of the time. But looking around at the attendance at our church this past weekend as compared to say, Easter and Christmas…. maybe the “rice Christians” didn’t fade away in the nineteenth century.
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Last evening was a very significant milestone/anniversary at our house. We celebrated OTBN CXLIV. In case you’e one of those unfortunate people that don’t regularly read this blog, here’s the background.

The founders of OTBN are Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher of the Wall St. Journal. Their wine column in February of 2000 read like this: Whether it’s the only bottle in the house or one bottle among thousands, just about everyone has that very special wine that they always mean to open, but never do. This is why we invented Open That Bottle Night, the world-wide celebration of friends, family and memories during which all of us finally drink that wine that is otherwise simply too special to open.

The event was first celebrated the last Saturday night of February in the year 2000, and the practice has continued every year since.

We first heard about OTBN from Chris and JR and celebrated it ourselves the first time the last Saturday night in February, 2007. We both thought it was great — so great that we thought we could improve on it. We set our own rules, and have followed them pretty faithfully since that night in 2007.

We decided this was such a good idea, it was a shame to only do it once a year, so we thought we’d do it the last Saturday night, not only of February, but the last Saturday night of every month. So that’s what we do…. the television goes off, I choose a special bottle of wine, we light candles and we talk — about anything and everything. It’s our special time together, kind of like a date night, only better. Sometimes we have cheese and crackers, sometimes a full meal, but OTBN is about talking, and listening, to each other — and the wine.

So last evening, the last Saturday night in February, 2019 we celebrated OTBN CXLIV — our 144th OTBN since we started the tradition. If you’re not good at math, that’s 12 years and 144 bottles of good/great wine. But more importantly, it’s 12 years of good times with someone I really love.
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I was reading an article earlier today about the recent California wildfires. It’s amazing how much damage was done to property and the cost, while still unknown, reaches into dollar figures that we actually can’t comprehend. Most of the article was devoted to describing the devastation that the area suffered, but it also covered causes, and possible causes, for the fire(s). There are some “interesting” alternative explanations for the wildfires. One theory claimed that the burn patterns seen in some photos could only be explained by targeted lasers, which must have been operated by terrorist groups, the U.S. government, aliens or some other agitated party. These lasers supposedly were shot at California from either planes, spaceships or perhaps unmanned drones, for reasons that were not entirely clear. The story listed a few more conspiracy theories with little or no evidence to support their claims, but like most claims of conspiracy, lack of evidence doesn’t stop blogs, forums, YouTube channels and various other outlets from sharing sensational conspiracy-theorist explanations in the aftermath of most any tragedy.

Conspiracies do happen — there’s probably a kernel of truth or at least possibility behind most of these theories. There are many conspiracy theories and some are really weird. You’ve probably heard about people claiming to have seen flying saucers in the sky and others claim to have been kidnapped by the things, brought aboard and submitted to intrusive physical examinations. The 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center have been blamed on the government as a way to get us into war in Iraq. And according to some, the United States never did land on the moon and the entire thing was a charade to fool the world during the Cold War. Without much thought, this could become a really long list.

Why do people believe these plots and why do most of them involve government cover-ups? There seems to be a kind of universal feeling of suspicion towards government these days. Maybe that’s the reason why so many Americans believe in these theories. Maybe people just distrust authority and there’s an immediate tendency to believe the government is up to no good. Or maybe it’s just a sign of the times — the country is trying to function in a world that seems increasingly chaotic and war-like with us looking more like part of the problem rather than seeking a solution. I don’t know, but if you’ve read The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, I think maybe he was right when he said, “Everyone loves a conspiracy.”
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Today is George Washington’s Birthday — his “real” birthday, not the third Monday in February as dictated by Congress. I put the “real” in quotes because actually it’s not his real birthday… it’s complicated — check the blog entry for last year at this time if you’re interested in the real story. Anyhow, for sake of simplicity, let’s call it his real birthday.

As everyone knows, George was the first President of the United States and all through grade school I saw his picture hanging in our classroom every day. The picture hanging in our classroom always looked like he was wearing a wig, but the hair was his own. His hair wasn’t really white — it was reddish brown. It only looked white because he powdered it (a common practice in the day.) George was one of our biggest presidents — he weighed 200 pounds and was 6 feet, 2 inches tall. Some of his favorite foods were cream of peanut soup, mashed sweet potatoes with coconut, and string beans with mushrooms. He helped plan the nation’s new capital city that was named for him, but he never lived there. The nation’s capital was New York, and later Philadelphia when he was president.

We all know that he married Martha Dandridge Custis when he was 26. Martha already had two children, Jacky and Patsy. Washington never had any children of his own. Something not generally discussed much is that Martha wasn’t George’s first love. He met Sally Fairfax when he was 16 and fell in love. She taught George the best manners for moving in Virginia’s highest social circles and how to dance the minuet. Sally married one of George’s closest friends, George Williams Fairfax. Today you can’t go far in Northern Virginia with seeing the name Fairfax.
Happy real birthday, George!
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We were visiting with some friends over the weekend and someone said that one of the people we had mentioned in the conversation was paranoid. I didn’t think much about it at the time, but later I got to thinking about that word. I guess I’ve heard it at least hundreds of times over the years, but I realize that I seem to be hearing it more lately. And it’s a little disturbing that the term appears  in the news — often involving government officials.

If a person is paranoid, they usually have a suspiciousness and general mistrust of others. They are usually hypersensitive, easily insulted — they think they are in danger and look for signs that people are out to get them.

Pronoia is the positive counterpart of paranoia… it is the delusion that others think well of you. Actions and products of one’s efforts are thought to be well received and praised by others, mere acquaintances are thought to be close friends, politeness and the exchange of pleasantries are taken as expressions of deep attachment and the promise of future support.

Now, here’s my question — can a person have both paranoia and pronoia characteristics simultaneously? It appears that they can. Not to pick on the current President again, but he seems to exhibit both traits — very often in the same speech or tweet. Maybe this is a mechanism that someone uses for not living in, or accepting the real world. Or, maybe someone is so self-centered as to believe everything — good or bad — is about them. This is just where my mind wandered off to today….
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Today is Presidents’ Day. It’s a federal holiday thanks to the Uniform Monday Holiday Bill passed by Congress in 1968. Actually, I’ve always been a little confused as to exactly what the day commemorates. When I was growing up, the February “holidays” I remember were Valentine’s Day, Washington’s birthday and Lincoln’s birthday. I know Valentine’s Day wasn’t a holiday and we had to go to school, but it was a fun day at school because we always had a Valentine party. Washington’s  and Lincoln’s birthdays were days off from school. I don’t remember any big celebrations, but we didn’t have to go to school on their birthdays.

But in 1968 the bill passed by Congress, intended to create more three-day weekends for federal employees, moved the observance of three existing federal holidays (Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day, and Veterans Day) from fixed calendar dates to designated Mondays. It also added a new federal holiday, Columbus Day, that would also be observed on a Monday. (Legislation passed several years later restored the observance of Veterans Day to November 11.) The legislation changed the observance of Washington’s Birthday from February 22 to the third Monday in February. It’s interesting that Washington’s Birthday can never be celebrated on his “actual” birthday, because the third Monday in February cannot fall any later than February 21.

All this fooling with the date didn’t change the fact that the third Monday in February was still “Washington’s Birthday.” Originally the Uniform Holidays Bill proposed moving the observance of Washington’s Birthday and renaming the holiday “President’s Day” — supposedly to honor both Washington and Lincoln, since both their birthdays were in February.  However, the name change got dropped out of the bill and the official designation of the federal holiday observed on the third Monday of February is, and always has been, Washington’s Birthday. To add more confusion, some people believe the day is understood to be a celebration of the birthdays and lives of all U.S. Presidents.

So no matter who or what you’re celebrating today — happy President’s Day.
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