What Would Jimmy Do?

Today is Good Friday. We went to church last evening and will go tonight and again on Easter Sunday. When I was a kid, “Easter” was on Sunday and we dressed up and went to church. I don’t remember any events or special days leading up to Easter. I heard of Lent and kind of knew what it was, but we didn’t “observe” it — same with Good Friday… I knew what Good Friday was, but there was no special observance of the day.

Easter wasn’t a particularly special holiday in our family — we were always happy for it to come around because it was sort of the beginning of spring. But, when I was a kid, like most special occasions, there were not really any “traditions” associated with Easter. You didn’t go to the mall to visit the Easter Bunny — that came after I was older… in fact malls came after I was older. I remember that we did usually color eggs, but I don’t remember participating in that activity much — it was usually done mostly by my mom. We usually did get a gift of some kind from the Easter Bunny — often times it was a live bunny, chick or duck. And we did go to church on Easter Sunday dressed, almost always, in some new clothes. We had a small family and I remember going to one of our grandparents’ house for Christmases and Thanksgivings but I don’t remember “family” gatherings on Easter.

So other than just rambling on about what I remember about Easter when I was young, I guess the point here is that we didn’t really have any Easter traditions. I don’t know that that’s either good or bad — it’s just the way it was. Of course if you think about it, traditions are really just the past. So maybe whatever we did could be considered a tradition. But I once heard that cultures grow on the vine of tradition… so based on that, I’d say we didn’t have Easter traditions, we just observed Easter.
No matter how you celebrate — Happy Easter.
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We went out one evening this week to celebrate a friend’s birthday. During the conversation, we found out that she was originally from Tennessee. She remarked that often people didn’t understand her because she talked “southern.” As the conversation progressed, she didn’t come up with any words or phrases that were unfamiliar to to me. However, I told her I was from Oklahoma and there were a number of “Oklahoma phrases” that she had never heard.
One term that particularly fascinated her was the use of the word “turtle” to refer to the trunk of a car. When I was growing up, we always referred to the trunk of a car as the “turtle.” As far as I can tell, it seems to be a Texas/Oklahoma thing… most (older) people from that region are familiar with the term and some still use it.

Parts of cars, like everything else, I suppose, are called by different names in different parts of the country/world. We usually refer to the part of the car that covers the engine the hood, but the British use the term bonnet. Of course there are many others — fenders/mudguards, turn signals/indicators, license plate/registration plate, windshield/windscreen….
Why did the term “trunk” catch on? People that owned the earlier cars, used to strap travel chests, or trunks, to the back of their cars. Once the car makers started building cars with built-in rear compartments, there wasn’t any reason to travel with the trunks — the name seems to have stuck….

But back to the turtle — there are a few theories as why that word was chosen. If you’re as old as I am, you remember cars having “rumble seats.” It was a kind of concealed folding seat at the rear of the car. Rumble seats, when not being used for a seat, were often used for storage, so it was a bit like todays trunk. It was often called a turtle because it folded into the car like a turtle’s body parts.
Another possible explanation is that many of the older cars were designed with a sloping back and trunk section that resembled a “turtle.” The same similar styles today are referred to as “fastbacks.” Probably some marketing guy decided that fastback was much cooler than turtle.
I guess maybe that’s true fastback certainly conjures up a different image than turtle, but turtles are kind of cool too… we’ve all heard that a turtle only makes progress when he sticks his neck out — good advice when encouraging someone to take a chance. But I think I like turtles because they’re comfortable in their own shell….
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Spoiler alert — brooms stand up all the time….
Back on 20 March I discussed possibly an urban legend that a broom would stand upright by itself on the day of the vernal equinox… I’d heard this for a few years and I tried it and it worked — the broom truly did stand alone.
I was (almost) a true believer. But my sharp scientific mind insisted that I try it again – when it wasn’t the equinox. I did, and guess what… it stands as good today as it did on the 20th of March. The picture at the right was taken today (April 4th). The broom had been “standing alone” for about half an hour.

I kind of really did want to believe there was some mysterious force (gravity?) involved, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Next thing you know I’ll probably discover that the Easter Bunny doesn’t hold true either — sigh…
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Today is one of my favorite days — spring (astronomically speaking) arrived — at 6:38 a.m. EDT to exact. Even though meteorological spring begins on March 1 (and continues through May 31) today is the real deal. And boy am I ready for it… someone (sorry I don’t know who) expressed my feelings exactly when they wrote

I hate winter in the springtime
I hate winter in the fall
I hate winter in the summer, but
I hate winter in the winter most of all.

But anyhow, back to today — and the Vernal Equinox. At the Vernal Equinox, the sun crosses the celestial equator on its way north along the ecliptic. What this means is that all over the world, days and nights are (approximately) equal. The name equinox comes from Latin words that mean “equal night” — aequus (equal) and nox (night.)

On the equinox, earth’s two hemispheres are receiving the sun’s rays just about equally because the tilt of the earth is zero relative to the sun, so the earth’s axis doesn’t point toward or away from the sun.

Some people believe that you can stand a raw egg on its end on the equinox. I remember trying this a number of years ago — I’m not sure but I think it was possible, but maybe it would be possible other times, too. Maybe I’ll try it again this year… or maybe not.

I’ve also heard that during the equinox brooms will stand by themselves — straight up. I’ve never tried it, but I plan to later today… if it does work, I can assure you I’ll report on it here — maybe even with pictures.

Honestly, I’m skeptical about both brooms and eggs… I think they’re both a lot like people — unbalanced. Happy Vernal Equinox!!
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UPDATE:
I tried the broom experiment… and it worked!
I’m not sure it wouldn’t work any other time, so I’ll wait a few weeks and try it again….
The picture at right was taken after the broom had been “standing” for about twenty minutes.
Amazing, or creepy or spooky or……

We’ve all heard the phrase, “beware of the Ides of March.” Mostly we associate it with the soothsayer’s warning to Julius Caesar… but the term didn’t originate with William Shakespeare. Way back when, the earliest Roman calendar consisted of ten months beginning with March (Martius.) That calendar was created around 753 B.C. by King Romulus and at the time, dates were expressed in relation to the lunar phase of the month using three “markers” — Kalends, Nones and Ides. The first phase of the moon (the new moon) was denoted by Kalends and signified the first day of the month. The first quarter moon fell on either the fifth or the seventh day of the month and was referred to as Nones. The full moon fell on either the 13th or 15th day of the month and was referred to as Ides. The Ides of March — March 15 — initially marked the first full moon of the new year. The Ides occurred on the 13th for some months, but on the 15th for March, May, July and October.

Those of us with a few years under our belt will remember that Income Taxes were due on the 15th of March; the due date was pushed back to the 15th of April a number of years ago. That used to be a good reason to beware and over the years a number of things have happened that makes one think there may be something to this Ides thing…

In 1939 Germany occupied Czechoslovakia; in 1971 the Ed Sullivan Show was cancelled by CBS; in 1988 NASA reported that the ozone layer over the Northern Hemisphere had been depleted three times faster than predicted; in 2003 the World Health Organization issued a heightened global alert for a new disease called SARS (Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome.)

And if that’s not enough, March 15th seems to be a particularly cruel day for weather. In 1941 a deadly blizzard hit the Great Plains and in 1952 the most rain to ever fall in a 24 hour period (73.62 inches) fell on the island of La Reunion in the Indian Ocean.
And this morning on the Ides of March, guess what and how much is on the ground here in Shepherdstown?
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We went out to eat this past week at one of our favorite restaurants. I got to thinking about over the years all the ‘favorite’ restaurants I’ve had. There’s probably too many to list so I decided list my “Top Ten.” I imagine most of them are no longer in business, or if they are, they wouldn’t make my top ten list today… and, if I made the list last week or next week, it would probably change a bit. But at least half of them would stay.

Kings Lodge (Hong Kong)
El Sombrero (Arlington, VA)
Cafe Renaissance (Vienna, VA)
The American Chinese Restaurant (Hong Kong)
China Paradise (Vienna, VA)
Oscars (Monrovia, Liberia)
Quite Cannon ( between Los Angeles and San Diego)
The Ship (Kuala Lumpur)
Dutch’s Daughter (Frederick, MD)
Kazu (Shepherdstown, WV)

So what makes a favorite restaurant? Not sure I can answer that question, but restaurants are important — usually the best ones, or our favorites are reserved for special occasions and our memories of those occasions almost always include those restaurants.
But I think a restaurant becomes a favorite because of who I was with or what was being celebrated.
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I’ve always had a kind of love/hate relationship with batteries. Seems like at various times in my life, they’ve come to play an important part. When I first started work with the Federal Aviation Agency, they had a self-study program known as Directed Study, and their courses were numbered much like a college curriculum — from lower numbers to higher numbers. To give the program a try, I took the lowest numbered course — DS-1. The title of the course was “Batteries.” When they gave me the material for the course, it was more than 500 pages — I never knew there was so much information about batteries… and guess what — DS-2 was another, more advanced, course on — batteries.

I could probably easily write a book about my work experience with batteries and another book about my personal experience with batteries… maybe I’ll do that sometime.

But before I continue, let’s think a moment about how many of our household items use batteries — from our cars to remote controls and phones, just to mention a very few.

You may have heard or read that a battery is sometimes referred to an a voltaic cell. That’s because the first battery was supposedly created by Alessandro Volta in 1798. Of course archeologists will argue that batteries have been around much longer… in 1938 a discovery was made in Iraq of a pottery jar containing a copper cylinder that encased an iron rod. It’s generally believed that this was an ancient battery.

When I was a kid we used batteries mostly in flashlights — in fact, we almost always referred to them as flashlight batteries. So when I was young, we had flashlight batteries in the house and a ‘car battery’ in our car. That was pretty much it. The flashlight was invented by the founder of Eveready Battery Co., Conrad Hubert, in 1898. He called it the electric hand torch. Our ex-neighbors, from Zimbabwe, still refer to a flashlight as a torch.

The word “battery” was used by Ben Franklin to describe multiple Leyden jars, which were considered power sources during his time. He got the word from the military term “battery,” that defined a group of weapons working together.

As more and more of our everyday devices depend on batteries, they seem to be making the news more… rarely does a month pass that you don’t hear about some device exploding or catching on fire because of a battery malfunction. Recently we’ve had battery problems in phones, computers, “hover boards” and even airplanes make the news. One of the reasons is that for some reason battery technology has fallen behind other technologies and we demand short charging time and long life from our batteries… unless there’s some “breakthrough” these problems will continue.

I think I’ve mentioned before that when I was in high school, I built a radio-controlled airplane. I also built the radio equipment. The receiver in the airplane used a single tube (look that up if you don’t know what it is) that required 1 1/2 volts for the filament and and 90 volts for the “plate.” I had to use two batteries – a flashlight battery powered the filament, but the 90 volt battery was larger than the receiver that I’d built and weighed much more than the entire airplane, including the engine. Today most drones run on a couple of AA cells.

Looking around the house, most of our clocks, all our remotes, our iPads, phones, computers, a lot of my power tools and a number of lights all require batteries. And toys… it’s almost impossible to buy a toy that doesn’t require a battery of some kind.

So by now, you’re probably wondering why I chose to ramble on this particular subject today.  Well, I’ll tell you — today (February 18th) is Battery Day. A day all about recognizing and celebrating just how important the humble battery is to our way of life…
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Well, here it is Valentine’s Day again, when all the restaurants are full and you can usually only order from their limited (Valentine’s Day) menu and the prices are higher. Of course all this inconvenience is worth it because it’s romantic. Lots of people celebrate their love for their partner with a romantic dinner or sending cards or giving gifts of flowers.
If you’re single, or don’t have someone special, you can celebrate Singles Awareness Day (SAD) instead.

The most common Valentine’s Day symbols are the heart and Cupid. Cupid is usually shown as small winged figure with a bow and arrow. In mythology, he uses his arrow to strike the hearts of people. People who have fallen in love are sometimes said to be stuck by Cupid’s arrow.
Many believe the X symbol became synonymous with the kiss in medieval times. People who couldn’t write their names signed in front of a witness with an X. The X was then kissed to show their sincerity.
In the Middle Ages, young men and women drew names from a bowl to see who would be their Valentine. They would wear this name pinned on their sleeves for a week for everyone to see. This was the origin of the expression “to wear your heart on your sleeve.”
In Victorian times it was considered bad luck to sign a Valentine’s Day card.
Down through history, lots of romantic events occurred on Valentine’s Day… Alexander Graham Bell applied for a patent for the telephone on Valentine’s day in 1876 and it seems appropriate that penicillin, a popular treatment for venereal diseases such as syphilis, was introduced to the world on February 14, 1929.
And in honor of our German friends, “Ich liebe dich” is how you say “I love you” in German.
Now if all this doesn’t make you want to celebrate Valentine’s Day, it’s also Ferris Wheel Day and Library Lover’s Day.
So if you choose to celebrate Ferris Wheel Day or Library Lover’s Day, I’m sure all the Saints called Valentine will forgive you….
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Today is my old friend Abraham’s birthday. Abraham Lincoln was, of course, President of the United States during a particularly trying time. Donald Trump is President of the United States in a trying time, too. It’s not fair to try to compare the two — history is almost always kinder to ex-presidents than to those in office. So — I won’t compare. These are simply observations….

I’m no expert when it comes to Lincoln or the Civil War, but from what I’ve read, Lincoln had an eye for detail, but he also possessed the kind of clear thinking that made room for other points of view. Politicians today, no matter their “intelligence,” seem to buy into ideological and party-based thinking and actually cut themselves off from the sentiments and positions of large portions of their voters.

Another trait of Lincoln that impresses me is that of personal character. He was often belittled and criticized during his time in office, but he demonstrated patience and a spirit of forgiveness that doesn’t seem to exist in the political arena today.

The following are words from Lincoln’s second Inaugural address — as you read them, think about what you heard less than a month ago…
“With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds… to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”

Obviously Lincoln’s greatest achievement was keeping competing Civil War forces at the table until peace could ultimately be negotiated.
It’s as important today (maybe even more so) as it was during the Civil War that we should all acknowledge the challenges before us and recognize the need for all sides to be part of the solution.

Lincoln never appeared on Saturday Night Live, but he’s remembered for some memorable quotes… one may be particularly appropriate today, “If you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”
Abe, I think you passed the test — Happy Birthday!
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Well, here it is again — as Yogi Berra would probably say, Groundhog Day is like Deja vu all over again. Since it seems like we’ve only seen the sun around here for about five minutes in 2017, you’d think there’s almost no chance the groundhog would see his shadow and we’ll have an early spring. But, you never know…

As we talk about here every year, the official groundhog is Punxsutawney Phil and he lives at Gobbler’s Knob near Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. Groundhog Day isn’t a public holiday in the United States, but it is an “observance.”
Punxsutawney held the first Groundhog Day in the United States in the 1800s, and the first official trek to Gobbler’s Knob was made on February 2, 1887. Punxsutawney Phil was supposedly named after King Philip. Before he was named Phil, he was called Br’er Groundhog.
Groundhog Day was always weather related until the movie “Groundhog Day” became famous. The film’s plot added a new meaning to “Groundhog Day” as something that repeats itself endlessly.

Groundhog Day coincides with Candlemas — a Christian holiday — also celebrated on February 2. (If you’re interested in Candlemas, you can check this blog’s archives. It was the subject of an entry several years back.)
Even though Candlemas Day is a religious “holiday,” it has long been associated with the weather/seasons just as Groundhog Day has in later years. An old rhyme goes…

If Candlemas Day be fair and bright,
Winter will have another fight;
But if Candlemas Day be clouds and rain,
Winter is gone, and will not come again.

So we’ll see what Phil has to say today… of course the problem with all weather forecasting is that it’s right too often to ignore it and wrong too often to rely on it.
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