What Would Jimmy Do?

Several times in the past few days, both myself and Claire have come across situations and individuals that “tried our patience.”

I’ve always heard that patience is a virtue. I suppose that’s true, but it’s also an acquired trait and an achievement. Patience is a virtue simply means that the ability to wait for something or someone without being angry or getting upset is a good and valuable quality. According to my extensive research, there is a phrase in Latin — “patience is the greatest virtue.” But some sources give credit to William Langland who apparently coined the phrase in 1377.

Today most of us are so busy rushing around jumping from one thing to another, we actually miss out on life. The majority of people don’t learn the true meaning and purpose of patience until they’re much older. To a lot of people, patience sucks. But the fact that patience is a good thing has been drilled into us most of our lives — when we were little, we all read, or had read to us, the story of the tortoise and the hare. I remember it never made much sense to me that a turtle could ever win a race with a rabbit, but that story was conveying how important patience really is. Patience is also stressed throughout the Bible — there’s a verse in Proverbs that says, “a hot-tempered man stirs up dissension, but a patient man calms a quarrel.”

There’s an old joke that proves how important patience really is. A supervisor, manager and the director of a large company were walking to lunch one day when they found an antique oil lamp lying on the curb. They rubbed it and a Genie came out and said, “I’ll give each of you just one wish.” The supervisor yelled, “Me first! Me first!” and asked to be in the Bahamas, driving a speedboat. Puff! He’s gone. “Me next! Me next!” said the manager and wished to be in Hawaii, relaxing on the beach with an endless supply of Pina Coladas. Puff! He’s gone. So the Genie says, “Ok, you’re up” to the director. The director said, “I want those two back in the office after lunch.” The moral of the story is be patient and always let your boss have the first say….

Anyhow, I’m sure patience will come to any one who waits for it.
—30—

We were in a doctor’s office a few days ago and there on the wall was a poster that I’ve seen probably hundreds of times — its a drawing of a pelican preparing to eat a frog and the frog has a choke-hold around the pelican’s neck. The caption is “never give up.” Well, this looked to me like a good topic for this blog — never giving up is a trait we all at least desire…

But I gave up on that topic and decided that frogs would be better. I’ve heard that there are more than 6,000 type of frogs and they’ve been around for more than 200 million years. Out came my trusty dictionary and it told me that frogs are tail-less amphibians with moist skin and long hind limbs for leaping. There are both semi-aquatic and terrestrial species which live in wet habitats. Interesting, but not particularly exciting — I figured there must be more to frogs than this….

Further extensive research revealed that people who study frogs are called herpetologists and the fear of frogs is called ranidaphobia. Frogs shed their skin when they get too big for it — and — then they eat it.

There are tree frogs, bullfrogs, leopard frogs, cricket frogs but the biggest is the Goliath frog that originated in Cameroon (West Africa) and can grow to the size of a cat; the smallest comes from Cuba and is only 1/2 inch long. Frogs diets vary according to the type and size — small frogs eat insects like flies, spider and cockroaches but the larger ones eat snakes, birds and small mammals.

When I was a kid, we used the terms frogs and toads interchangeably — they are from the same family, but they differ in a lot of ways. Toads tend to have dry, lumpy skin and frogs have smooth skin. Frogs have small, fish like, teeth on their upper jaws and toads have no teeth at all. Frogs eyes tend to bulge from their heads and toads eyes appear more recessed. A frog lays its eggs in tight circular batches and a toad lays its eggs in long strings.

Frogs were the first land animals with vocal cords. No wonder the expression “a frog in my throat” became popular.

I’ve heard it said that if you kiss a frog it will turn into a prince. Most people say that that’s not possible — it only happens in fairytales. But I’m not so sure — where do you think the fairytale writers got the idea?
— 30 —

We went to see the new Lone Ranger movie a couple of days ago. I liked the movie, but if I was a Lone Ranger purest I probably wouldn’t have. The movie took a lot of liberties with the actual story, and while entertaining, it wouldn’t please those that thought it should follow the original Lone Ranger theme.

The Lone Ranger was one of my favorite radio shows when I was young — it always started with, “A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust and a hearty ‘Hi Yo Silver!’ The Lone Ranger. With his faithful Indian companion Tonto, the daring and resourceful masked rider of the plains led the fight for law and order in the early west. Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear. The Lone Ranger rides again!”

I’m sure I didn’t get words exactly right, but that’s how every episode of the Lone Ranger started. The tory of the origin of the Lone Ranger (and the movie held somewhat accurate in that respect) was that a posse of six members of the Texas Rangers were ambushed by a band of outlaws led by Butch Cavendish. There was one lone survivor of the ambush and an Indian named Tonto stumbled onto the scene and recognized the survivor as the man who saved his life as a boy. He nursed the man, who it turns out is named John Reid, back to health. One of the Rangers that was killed was John’s older brother, Daniel Reid — a captain in the Texas Rangers. Since the outlaws believed all the rangers were dead, Tonto fashioned a black mask from the material of Daniel Reid’s vest to conceal John’s identity. After the Cavendish gang is brought to justice, Reid continues to fight evil and crime under the alias of the Lone Ranger.

The movie was somewhat true to the general story, but left a lot of things unexplained that the younger generation might wonder about. For instance the use of silver bullets — the Lone Ranger decided to use only silver bullets to remind himself that life, too, is precious and, like his silver bullets, not to be wasted or thrown away. According to the original story, the Lone Ranger’s horse (Silver) was a wild horse and the Lone Ranger saved him from an enraged buffalo — in gratitude, Silver chose to give up his wild life and be a faithful companion to the Lone Ranger. Before acquiring Silver, the Lone Ranger rode a horse called Dusty.

Tonto’s horse was ignored in the movie, but in the radio program, his horse was named Scout. I remember hearing Tonto say, “Git-Um up, Scout” on the radio. (That phrase was used as an advertising line in the 1970s to promote the Scout utility vehicle.)

While we’re on the subject of Tonto, the movie made it clear that Tonto was of the Comanche Tribe. If I remember the radio show correctly, he was a member of the Potawatomi Tribe, although I have heard that he was originally supposed to be Apache. In whatever native American language he spoke, Tonto supposedly meant “wild one.” Tonto is famous for calling the Lone Ranger, “Kemosabe.” That word means “trusty friend” or “trusty scout.”

During the movie, Daniel Reid’s son (Britt) played a fairly significant role in some of the scenes. I don’t remember Britt being mentioned much in the radio program, but he grew up and had a radio show of his very own — Britt became the Green Hornet. Seems like they had “spin-offs” way back in the 40s.

Now getting back to the Lone Ranger/Tonto relationship. The movie united the two for the first time as adults. The original “story” says that the Lone Ranger saved Tonto as a boy. I don’t remember ever listening to the radio program and Tonto not being there, but the fact is the first dozen or so Lone Ranger radio programs didn’t include Tonto. In those first programs, the Lone Ranger spent a lot of time talking to himself while traveling across the desert — that, of course was necessary to make things clear to people listening on the radio, but it began to make him sound like a wandering crackpot. Tonto was introduced on the radio program so the Lone Ranger had someone to talk to.

So the Lone Ranger told Tonto, “Only you, Tonto, know I’m alive. To the world, I’m buried here beside my brother and my friends… forever.” And Tonto replies, “You are alone now. Last man. You are lone ranger.” “Yes, Tonto, I am… the Lone Ranger.” “um, that right, Kemosabe.”

And then, the way the movie should have ended: The Lone Ranger riding away on his white stallion, Silver, shouting “Hi-Yo Silver! Away!” Then someone had to ask, or maybe even a sub-title — “Who was that masked man, anyway?”
— 30 —

We were looking for rocks to put in one of our flower beds instead of mulch yesterday — or maybe we were looking for stones. Some places called them some kind of rocks (e.g., river-rocks) and other places called them stones (e.g., landscaping stones.)

Well, you’d probably never guess, but that got me to thinking… what the heck is the difference in a rock and a stone? The “things” we have in front of a wall in our front yard were always referred to as stones by a little girl (Sophia) that used to live a couple of houses away. Emily refers to the same “things” as rocks. Sophia’s parents were both of European descent, so the use of stones may be more of a European expression.

This seemed to be one of those questions that just begged for some extensive research. The dictionary is usually a good place to begin extensive research, although it seldom provides acceptable  answers. Checking the Merriam-Webster dictionary, here’s what I found:
Rock: a large mass of stone forming a cliff, promontory, or peak
Stone: a concretion of earthly or mineral matter: (1) such a concretion of indeterminate size or shape.
Rock is also listed as a synonym for stone….
So, Merriam-Webster wasn’t much help to me again.

I got to thinking about the terminology I use when handling or looking at these “things.” Since I’m not sure there’s much difference in the composition or material, I sometimes find myself categorizing them by size, like: if it’s really small, I sometimes refer to it as a pebble, if it’s a bit larger I might call it a stone, bigger yet I usually call it a rock, and if it’s really, really big or huge, it’s a boulder to me.

One theory that I uncovered is that while a rock is sitting undisturbed on the ground, it’s a rock; once you pick it up to use it, it’s a stone. I decided there really isn’t a satisfactory answer to my question, so….
I moved on to just thinking about rocks and stones. We use both rock and stone in our language fairly often and usually they don’t refer to those “things.”

There is rock music, like rock ‘n’ roll and it also refers to something we often do in a chair. A diamond is often referred to as a rock. Some of the phrases we use them in would really sound strange if we substituted stone for rock or rock for stone….
Between a rock and a hard place just doesn’t have the same ring if you say between a stone and a hard place. And remember when you were a kid you’d say, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me?” Do you think, “sticks and rocks may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” would have ever caught on?

Something can be hard as a rock or solid as a rock or steady as a rock; you can have your drink on the rocks or have rocks in your head, but don’t rock the boat and we’ve all heard about the hand that rocks the cradle. You probably think this blog has now hit rock bottom, but it hasn’t.

How about something being carved in stone, or leave no stone unturned or maybe kill two birds with one stone. One can be stone sober or just a stone’s throw away — of course none of this is cast in stone or should you cast the first stone.

Try substituting rock for stone or stone for rock in the expressions listed — they just don’t sound right, do they? So maybe the words were invented to help us express ourselves, not to describe the “things.” Truthfully, I don’t know — I’ve heard that a rolling stone gathers no moss, but a rock just rolls… and I really don’t want either, but I guess if I had to make a choice, I’d rather have a kidney stone than a kidney rock.
—30 —

We went to a friend’s house a few nights ago to celebrate the fact that he was retiring the next day. Like a lot of us, he probably thought he would work until one day he’d just decide to retire — on his own schedule and his own terms.

But then that inevitable thing got to him — change!

Change. That’s something that we all have to deal with on a continuing basis — nothing in life stays the same. But usually somewhere along the line a change that we can’t, or don’t want, to deal with comes along. Most of the people that I know, including myself, retired because of a change that was unacceptable, for whatever reason, to them.

Most people don’t like change unless they’re uncomfortable with the present situation and then they demand it. Knowing that change is part of life doesn’t make learning how to deal with it any easier or more natural. Change can be hard — especially since we tend to be creatures of habit. Some habits, or ruts, can be comfortable. That’s not a bad thing, but sometimes it’s necessary for things to change.

Why should you deal with change? The answer is — because it’s coming. Change is always coming. Change almost always triggers something called “stress.” Some people handle it better than others, but usually most of the stress in anyone’s life is somehow related to change.

All during my working career, I dealt with change in the work environment, and I think over that time I heard every known reason not to change — like — it’s too ambitious, it’s impossible, we don’t have the equipment, it’s too expensive, I don’t have the authority, that’s someone else’s responsibility, it will take too long, we’ve always done it this way, it’s too complicated, it’s too political, it’s contrary to policy, it can’t be done, it needs more thought, we tried that before, I’m all for it but…., it’s too visionary, they don’t really want to change. Anyhow, you get the idea.

I’ve heard it said that people don’t resist change, they resist being changed. Maybe that’s true, but like it or not, change is here to stay. As you get older, you’ll learn to accept it or embrace it and realize that if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got….
— 30 —

One hundred and fifty years ago today, a three-day battle that changed and set the course of our nation began — the Battle of Gettysburg. Generally acknowledged as the turning point of the Civil War, it’s only about an hour from where we live.

There is a popular tale that Gettysburg was the site of the battle because of a shoe factory and warehouse located there. The fact is that there was never a shoe factory — the armies converged on Gettysburg via the ten roads that led into the town.

The first day’s battle ranks as the 12th bloodiest battle of the Civil War, the second day’s battle was the largest and costliest of the three days.

The Battle of Gettysburg is the costliest battle of the Civil War in terms of casualties but it wasn’t the largest — that “honor” probably goes to the battle at Fredericksburg.

There are more than 1,400 monuments, markers and tablets at Gettysburg. More than one-third of all known photographs of dead soldiers on Civil War battlefields were taken at Gettysburg. The battle started without the knowledge or consent of either army commander (Lee or Meade.)

The battle was fought on some of the hottest days of the summer — it didn’t rain during the battle, but a heavy downpour soaked the battlefield the day after.

The first couple of days didn’t look good for the Union, but on the morning of July 3rd, fighting raged at Culp’s Hill and the Union regained its lost ground. That afternoon, after a massive artillery bombardment, Lee attacked the Union center on Cemetery Ridge and was repulsed with heavy losses in what is known as Pickett’s Charge. Lee’s invasion of the North had failed.

So today, we don’t speak Southern, but thankfully we do speak American.
—30—

Those of you that know my background won’t be surprised at what I think of Edward Snowden. In my book, he’s the lowest of the low — lower than used car and aluminum siding salesmen.

I have absolutely no problem with the fact that he disagreed with what NSA was doing. The problem I have is that he took an oath to protect that information when he started to work there. That’s his personal promise to not divulge the information he is working with — the fact that he chose not to honor that oath says a lot about his integrity and him personally. It also says a great deal about his loyalty to our country. I’ve been a lot of places and I guarantee that he’ll soon realize that there is no better place to be than the United States, even given all the issues and problems we, as a country, face.

If he did disagree with the NSA policy, there are established procedures to deal with it — Snowden didn’t even give the system a chance to work.

Soon after this country was established, it didn’t take long for the government to realize that eavesdropping on the communications of other countries and even its own citizens is a necessary evil in a dangerous world. That fact should be even more apparent today.

The United States is significantly less likely to order wiretaps than almost any other country. The most wiretapped country in the world is Italy. The country with the next most wiretaps is the Netherlands.

In the U.S., judges almost always only grant wiretap requests that are “specific,” meaning they have to have a list of numbers they expect the suspect to call and what they’re expected to talk about. So if you’re living in the U.S. and you think the government is listening to your phone calls, unless you’re dealing in illegal drugs or something like that, you’re probably just paranoid.

In 1929, President Herbert Hoover’s Secretary of State, Henry Stimson, shut down the office in the U.S. State Department responsible for breaking codes to read messages sent between embassies of other countries and their capitals. He’s rather famous for stating, “Gentlemen don’t read other Gentlemen’s mail.” Of course the only problem with a gentlemen’s agreement is that our enemies don’t always act like perfect gentlemen — and — they do read our mail.
— 30 —

Happy Birthday(s) Dave and Chassie….

Love Ya!!

While driving on a secondary road a few weeks ago, Claire noticed a sign indicating we had just passed the entrance to a plantation. We got to talking and neither of us knew the difference between a plantation and a “large farm.”

Well, after some extensive research, turns out the difference is “not much.” Or, maybe, “none.”

I started with the Merriam-Webster dictionary:
Plantation — (1) a usually large group of plants and especially trees under cultivation; (2) a: a place that is planted or under cultivation; b: an agricultural estate usually worked by resident labor
Farm — (1) a tract of land devoted to agricultural purposes; (2) a plot of land devoted to the raising of animals and especially domestic livestock
So it seems that according to the dictionary, they are pretty much the same thing.

When I was growing up in Oklahoma, I don’t remember seeing plantations, but we had farms and ranches. Ranches produced or raised livestock. They might raise some hay to feed the livestock, but their livelihood was livestock. Farms raised crops, and sometimes they diversified into livestock as well. Where I lived, farmers might occasionally refer to themselves as ranchers, but ranchers never referred to themselves as farmers.

So I’m thinking this plantation/farm terminology is possibly a regional thing.

I think there may be more than one way to classify these differences — I used to think that a plantation specialized in just one crop, like rice, tobacco, cotton, rubber, etc.  I know that in Central America they have coffee plantations, in Cuba there are sugar plantations and I’ve seen pineapple plantations in Hawaii. Farms usually plant and harvest more than one main crop.

Cotton was grown on plantations in the south, but where I grew up, cotton was “farmed.” But I’ve never heard of a “sugar farm,” it’s always a sugar plantation.

Thinking of the movies I’ve seen, it seems that the people that worked on plantations usually lived there — farms are generally kind of a one family sort of operation and usually farm workers, other than the family, don’t live there.

Another view I took away from the movies was that a farm was family run and they hired help as they needed it and paid that help a fair wage. Plantations were often run with slave labor. Obviously the Civil War ended that practice.

So anyhow, I don’t know the difference — today, it’s probably more terminology or one’s perception of the term being used… kind of like a porch and a veranda. They’re both pretty much the same, but if you’ve got a porch, you sit on it and drink a beer or iced tea — if you’ve got a veranda, you sip mint juleps….
—30—

A few weeks ago, while doing some work at our church, we had a “nuts and bolts” discussion (for those of you that don’t know, a nuts & bolts discussion is a very detailed discussion that gets down to the most essential components of something) about a kind of strange topic. A guy asked the difference between a bolt and a screw.

Well, a couple of people thought they knew the answer and we heard a number of detailed explanations. A couple of people thought that the shape of the head and the fact that you needed a screwdriver, made it a screw, but then someone pointed out that machine screws are intended to be used with a nut and could be considered a bolt. A proposal was made that the shafts of bolts are not tapered like screws, but again, not all screw shafts are tapered…

One of the smarter ones of the group decided that a screw is an externally threaded fastener that is tightened by applying torque to the head, causing it to be threaded into the material it will hold. A bolt is an externally threaded fastener that is used in conjunction with a nut. But of course, this didn’t satisfy anyone — it just sounded smarter than the other explanations.

The words bolt and screw seem to be ambiguous — they are probably better used to describe how the threaded device is used.

So the discussion never really ended, everyone just went home. I really don’t know the difference between a bolt and screw — I’ve never been bolted….
— 30 —