What Would Jimmy Do?

Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone. In the past I’ve often discussed how teachers receive more valentines than anyone else, how roses are the favorite gift and how chocolate became a food for lovers and things like that. I’ve even mentioned that no one really knows how the February 14 celebration got to where it is today.

I think it’s generally acknowledged that there was more than one St. Valentine. The one thing known for certain is that a man named Valentinus was martyred on February 14, late in the third century A.D. But if you start looking for details, it seems that legend supersedes fact.

The Catholic Church officially recognizes a St. Valentine that is known to have been a real person who died somewhere around 270 A.D. His true identity was questioned early on, however, by Pope Gelasius I who referred to the martyr and his acts as “being known only to God.” Anyhow, enough confusion exists about him that the Catholic Church discontinued liturgical veneration of him in 1969. His name does remain on the church’s list of officially recognized saints though.

As I mentioned, there were a number of St. Valentines through the years — even a Pope Valentine that served only 40 days somewhere around 827 A.D.

From what I can tell, saints are expected to keep busy in the afterlife. Some of their duties include interceding in earthly affairs and entertaining petitions from living souls. St. Valentine seems to have plenty to do with a lot of wide-ranging spiritual responsibilities. Not only do people call on him to watch over the lives of lovers, but for interventions regarding beekeeping, epilepsy, the plague, fainting and traveling. Of course, he’s also the patron saint of engaged couples and happy marriages.

No record exists of romantic celebrations on Valentine’s Day prior to a poem (“Parliament of Foules”) written by Geoffrey Chaucer in 1375. The poem links a tradition of courtly love with the celebration of St. Valentine’s feast day — an association that didn’t exist until after his poem was published. The poem refers to February 14 as the day birds (and humans) come together to find a mate. It just may be that Chaucer invented Valentine’s Day as we know it — or, maybe he invented Hallmark.
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Well, here it is the day before Ash Wednesday and people are celebrating Fat Tuesday, Shrove Tuesday or whatever other name the day gets “in your neck of the woods.” Here in West Virginia, we picked up a new name for the day — a term neither of had ever heard of before moving here — Fastnacht Day.

Apparently fastnachts were traditionally made by Pennsylvania Dutch housewives on Fat Tuesday. It seems the tradition started because they wanted to use up all the fat, such as lard, sugar and butter they had on hand before Lent.

Fastnachts are usually square or diamond-shaped, but sometimes they are in the shape of a triangle, or even round. The “traditional” way to eat a fastnacht is to cut it in half and spread it with molasses.

Fastnacht is a German word meaning before the fast. And its become a new-found tradition in the Williamson house….
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I’ve been reading a lot about the Boy Scouts recently. A couple of days ago there was an article about the Southern Baptist Convention and their claim that it would be a “catastrophe” to lift the gay ban on Boy Scouts. Actually, the article was an interview with Richard Land, a member of the Southern Baptist Convention. Mr. Land made an interesting statement: “The Scouts have said for themselves for over a hundred years that traditional morality is at the core value of scouting — teaching them to be morally straight. And now they are going to make it a local option under pressure from corporations and from some Scout groups. A core value is not a local option. When a core value becomes a local option it’s just a preference, and preferences are normally not protected by the First Amendment.”

Of course the article went on and Mr. Land expressed his opinion(s) at length. I have no intention of judging — the Scouts, the Southern Baptist Convention, Mr. Land or anyone else. I did find the article interesting and the phrase that particularly caught my eye was, “traditional morality.”

I got to thinking about “traditional morality” and wondered if I knew what it was or is… and I decided I probably don’t. Usually when people talk about traditional values or traditional morality, they’re really talking about the values or morality that they believe in or accept.

There are many morals and values in the world and of course since they aren’t all the same, people judge each other’s values and make judgements and disagree even to the point of going to war over some morality or value issue.

Today, when morality is discussed, it seems to come down “traditional morality” vs. “modern morality.” I’ve heard it said that traditional morality is character based and modern morality is action based.

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and scientist that wrote quite a bit about ethics that included some thoughts on morality. He believed that to become a morally developed person, you had to develop virtues (courage, compassion, honesty, fortitude, etc.) by habitually behaving in accordance with those virtues. Once you got into the habit of behaving like a good person, it would start to affect your soul, making you a good person inside as well as outside. Once you accomplished that, you would naturally know what the right thing to do is. I guess that would fall into character based morality or traditional morality. The modern school of thought seems to be to come up with set of rules that set a standard for deciding what the right thing is. The problem with that is the rules are defined by people pushing their values or morality.

In my mind, the bottom line is that there is no justification for more or less virtue, more or less integrity or more or less personal responsibility. Everyone, the world over, knows what is right and what is wrong. Mark Twain once said, “Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other.” But my favorite “morality” quote comes from Henry David Thoreau: “Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.”
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Well, here it is February — not one of my favorite months. Weather is blah, and there aren’t even any good holidays to cheer things up. There’s of course Valentine’s Day, but lately it’s become a real hassle to go out on Valentine’s Day — even here in Shepherdstown. We usually go out the day before or the day after and just pretend it’s Valentine’s Day. The other holidays are pretty ho-hum: Lame Duck Day, Kite Flying Day, Reading in the Bathtub Day, Organ Donor Day, Get a New Name Day, Do a Grouch a Favor Day, and of course the Random Acts of Kindness Day. Now honestly, do you see anything to get excited about in that list?

Of course this year Chinese New Year falls in February (it always occurs in January or February.) This year because it falls on a Sunday, it will be celebrated both on Sunday and Monday. The year of the Snake begins on February 10, 2013 and ends on January 30, 2014. Since the Chinese New Year is based on the Chinese lunisolar calendar, the years aren’t 365 days — or any set length. The Chinese New Year celebration takes place over two weeks. The Lantern Festival (Chap Goh Mei) on the fifteenth day brings an end to the New Year season. In China, cities have spectacular lantern displays and it’s an important time for families to gather and end the Chinese New Year celebrations with a big meal and more fireworks.

Since I started out talking about February — and most people usually associate Valentine’s Day with February, and then I got off on Chinese New Year, I suppose I should mention Chinese Valentine’s Day. Probably a lot of people don’t know about Chinese Valentine’s Day, but they have one and it’s a lot easier to get reservations in a restaurant than on the one we celebrate this month. This year, Chinese Valentine’s Day falls on August 13 — which just happens to be my Dad’s birthday and the date that myself and Claire went on our first official date. Chinese Valentine’s Day is also called the Festival of the Double Sevens or the Seven Sisters Festival. The date of Chinese Valentine’s Day is the seventh day of the seventh Chinese lunar month — so again, it’s not the same date every year.

As I noted earlier, this is the Chinese Year of the Snake. If you believe in Chinese astrology, you may hear it referred to as the year of the Water Snake, or Black Snake or even Black Water Snake.

Since we’re on the subject, Claire was born in the Year of the Dog and I was born in the Year of the Tiger. According to Chinese astrology, we are “compatible.” That, of course, is good to know. I know you’re interested, so I checked what the Chinese 2013 year has in store for us — here’s what the Snake is offering up this year:

“In 2013, the Dog will enjoy success and considerable progress on all fronts. However, she must make time to enjoy her friends, family and leisure pursuits in order to benefit from all that the Year of the Snake has to offer her.”
and for me….
“Most Tigers will find the Year of the Snake very pleasant, but with a slower pace that may frustrate some. They would do well to make the most of this, enjoying pastimes, travel and taking time to stop and smell the roses along the way.”

Sounds like the Year of the Snake is the Year of Me for both of us. Happy New Year — and Valentine’s Day.
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The other evening I was thumbing through one of Claire’s magazines (Real Simple) and there was a short article entitled, “What is the greatest compliment you’ve ever received?” The entire article consisted of several readers sharing the praise they had received that made the most lasting impact on them.

You may be surprised to learn that over the years I’ve received a few compliments. Not a lot, but a few. Thinking back over the years, it’s hard to remember much about them — some I can remember the subject, some the place, some why I was involved in the first place, but I don’t actually remember the compliment.

Except for one — During the Vietnam War I was pretty heavily involved with the ARVN (Army of the Republic of Viet Nam.) Our objective was to establish a country-wide VHF radio network. My counterpart with the ARVN was Col. Lung (really) and we worked together almost daily for more than two years.

When I left Viet Nam, I was given a compliment by Col. Lung — and I remember that compliment because it was written down (actually it was given to me on a plaque.) The inscription reads as follows: “Thank you for doing you know what, for you know who, you know where.” There obviously were very good reasons that the what, who and where couldn’t be filled in at the time.

Actually, that’s one of the nicest, and most unique compliments I’ve ever received — maybe I should send it in to the magazine…..
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I’ve been reading about Boeing and the problems with the new 787 recently and I got to thinking about airplanes and stuff. I’ve always been a fan of airplanes and until fairly recently was involved with the aerospace industry in various ways.

When we were living in the Philippines, we lived in the same apartment building with the Simpsons — Hugh and Genny. Hugh worked in the same office as I did and was the Chief Operations Officer. He was a really interesting guy to talk to, and I especially enjoyed some of his stories because he worked for a number of years for Pan American Airways. He did a lot of really cool things.

I remember him telling a story of being associated with a flight that made history in 1943. I’m not sure of the actual date of the flight, but it occurred in January, 1943. Here’s the story as I remember it. The Casablanca Conference was a meeting between President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in — guess where? Casablanca, Morocco!! Duh!!

Anyhow, the conference itself is certainly historical, but what caught my attention as Hugh was telling the story was that the President traveled to the conference via a Boeing 314 “flying boat.” It was the first time a sitting U.S. President had flown in an airplane.

Apparently the crew was kept in the dark until the President arrived — they only knew that the passenger was a VIP. The trip began at the Pan American Airways base in Miami. The President, his top advisor and several military leaders on one airplane — another “flying boat” carried the Presidential staff.

But my favorite Hugh story was about the first commercial round-the-world flight. The year was 1947 and Pan Am had just acquired new airplanes — Lockeed Constellations. To show off the capability of their new fleet, Pan Am planned to inaugurate round-the-world flight service in June of that year. Juan Trippe of Pan Am had a political agenda, and to further that agenda as well as drum up publicity for the company, he arranged a gala ceremonial trip round-the-world before the official inauguration of the service to the public. The passengers were all VIPs of some sort, many of them journalists from various newspapers and publications. The Cleveland Plain Dealer had a representative on board. A few government representatives also made the trip. The plane chosen for the trip was one of the new Constellations, the “Clipper America.”

The trip took 13 days. Here’s the Itinerary (I had to look this up)….
Depart La Guardia Airport, New York
Gander, Newfoundland
Shannon, Ireland
London, England
Istanbul, Turkey
Dhahran, Saudi Arabia
Karachi, Pakistan
Calcutta, India
Bangkok, Thailand
Manila, Philippines
Shanghai, China
Tokyo, Japan
Guan
Wake Island
Midway Island
Honolulu, HI
San Francisco, CA
Chicago, IL
Arrive La Guardia Airport, New York

What made this an even cooler story is that Hugh Simpson was the First Radio Operator on that flight. He had all the trinkets to prove it.

I’m guessing that Hugh would probably scoff at the battery problems at Boeing….
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The last time I updated this blog, I wrote about wondering about insignificant things. One thing I could have included in the “wonder why” update is why does milk come in square containers and (most) other liquids and drinks come in round containers. I had actually wondered about this some time ago and did some extensive research to come up with some plausible explanations. The generally accepted answer to this puzzlement is that because milk must be refrigerated, rectangular containers occupy less shelf space and the shelf space is more valuable when the space has to be cooled.

I’m pretty sure that’s not the reason — it makes sense, but using that logic, soda (and beer, etc.) containers should be made square to conserve space. I think the real reason is just plain physics. Any liquid that requires pressure for storage uses round containers because they withstand pressure much better than square ones. If you stored coke in a square can, the pressure would push out the sides and it would become “rounded.” If you look at a soda can, you’ll see it’s not just a perfect cylinder with a flat top and bottom — obviously a lot of engineering went into designing these cans, and it’s all about pressure. For environmental (and probably economic) reasons, the cans have become thinner and thinner and yet they still maintain the pressure without rupturing or bulging. If the top and bottom of the cylinder were completely flat they would be prone to bulging. That’s why soda cans taper a bit at the top and why the bottoms are built bulging inward.

But back to milk…. when I was young, I remember that milk came in round, glass bottles. We got ours at the store, but when Claire was growing up in Cleveland, milk was delivered — in round glass bottles — to their door every day by the milkman. We all know that milk must be refrigerated to keep it from spoiling or “going bad.” Before refrigerators, (some) people had ice boxes — they were exactly what they sound like — kind of an insulated “box” where ice was put — in big chunks, usually 25 or 50 pound “chunks.” Of course the ice, even in an insulated box didn’t last very long and had to be replenished ever day or so. Anyhow, that’s where a lot of people kept their milk before refrigeration. The bad news is that milk didn’t last very long. The good news is that milk was often delivered in those glass bottles every day, so you always had fresh milk — you just had to drink it real fast.

The milk carton was patented in 1915. GE produced the first refrigerators along about 1910. So people could keep their milk longer, but they preferred to keep them in those glass bottles — most didn’t think much of those new fangled cardboard containers — that were square.

When I was in China in 1972, milk was packaged in plastic bags (paint was packaged that way too, but that’s another blog.) They were just flimsy plastic bags. You had to cut the corner of the bag off to get the milk out and there was no way to “close” or re-seal it. If you weren’t going to drink the whole bag of milk, it seemed like an inefficient way to keep it. You just had to carefully balance the bag in the refrigerator so it wouldn’t turn over.

I forget the point of this whole thing — I suppose it might be that things around us are designed to be exactly how they are — maybe we should pay more attention.
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The other day I wondered out loud — well, actually I wrote it down in this blog, about why people would park their cars — worth thousands of dollars outside and use their garages as a place to keep (mostly) useless junk.

After I had published the blog, I wondered why I had wondered about such a foolish thing. There’s lots of important things to wonder about — even more important than wondering why people don’t take care of their cars. But it occurs to me that I wonder about a lot of insignificant things. We probably all do sometimes, but i”m beginning to wonder why I wonder about things that aren’t really important.

Before Christmas, we were in a Toys-R-Us store buying some toys for some kids at church that had recently lost their dad. While we were waiting for the clerk to find something in the back, I was wandering around looking at things and someone asked a store employee if they had a particular toy gun – specifically he asked for an AK-47. He was told that those types of toy guns are illegal (in Virginia) and the store could not carry them. I wondered why you can buy a real machine gun, but toy guns are illegal?

There was a blurb on the news the other night about someone having a medical issue and the ambulance taking so long to get to the house that the person had died. I got to wondering why would it take so long for an ambulance to respond? If the guy had ordered a pizza at the same time, it probably would have arrived and the guy could have eaten it while waiting for the ambulance. Why should you be able to get a pizza delivered to your house faster than you can get an ambulance?

One thing I’ve often wondered about is the placement of pharmacies in drugstores (and now department stores, food stores, etc.) The pharmacy is always in the back — so sick people have to walk all the way through the store to get their prescriptions and probably manage to infect lots of people in the store on the trip to the back. I’ve also noticed that tobacco products, including cigarettes, are almost always up front, near the door. I guess that’s so second hand smoke doesn’t kill the customers. I just wonder….

We had people over the other night and the discussion turned to politics — not something I particularly like to discuss. I got to wondering about the word politics and why it’s used to describe the process used in Washington. I figured I shouldn’t finish this entry without some extensive research, so I looked up the origin of the word politics. It makes sense — comes from the Latin — ‘poli’ or ‘poly’ meaning many and ‘ticks’ or tics’ meaning bloodsucking creatures or parasites. I wonder why that particular word was chosen?

Maybe I should just stop wondering….
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Just saw some e-mail traffic about people not parking their cars in their garages. Some people seem to think the neighborhood is beginning to resemble a used car lot. It’s always been a puzzlement to me why people leave cars worth thousands of dollars in the driveway and put pretty much useless junk in the garage.

Well, I got to thinking, and my extensive research instinct kicked in. I found a study that concluded that in the United Kingdom, 53% of households have access to a garage, but only 24% use the garage for parking cars. In the US, it’s even worse — 82% of homes have two-car garages, or larger, but only 15% use them to park the car inside.

I’ll stay out of making any judgements, but we always park our cars in the garage. The real reason is practical. If the car sits out in the hot sun of summer, not only is the sun’s rays harmful to the paint, the inside temperature goes up to probably 140 degrees. So if the car is in the garage, it only takes the air conditioner seconds instead of minutes to cool the inside. The winter makes even more sense to me — cold mornings with the temperature near 20 and frost all over the car that must (at least should) be scraped before driving just doesn’t appeal to me. Our car warms up in just a few minutes and we don’t have any visibility problems because it’s in the garage.

So why do people not use their garages for parking cars? If I had to guess – at least in our neighborhood – when people move into a new home with a 1 or 2 car garage, they probably have good intentions. They figure they’ll just use the garage as extra storage space until they get fully moved in. Of course the problem is, it becomes easier and easier to keep adding to the “stuff” inside the garage every time they buy more stuff.

But c’mon — aside from the bikes and lawn mowers and tools (which most garages are large enough to accommodate — even with cars parked inside, if you don’t use something regularly, then it’s not worth keeping around anyway. And, once you decide that the garage is the best place for an item (that’s not normally kept in a garage) then you decide that the garage is actually the best place for the item.

Anyhow, if parkways are for driving and driveways are for parking, what are garages for?
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You old time faithful readers may remember about a year ago when I researched, and commented on, the word poop. Dave had used it in “The Puppy Files,” and I thought it was a funny word. I don’t know why, but I thought of it again a week or so ago when I used the word chintzy when we were watching some award show — think it may have been the Golden Globes or something like that. Anyhow, for some reason I used the word chintzy and thought it was a funny word — like poop, only different.

Well of course this all got me to thinking — there are lots of funny words. Some are strange funny, and some are just fun to say and some just make you laugh, sometimes when you don’t even know why.

Bamboozled is one of those words to me — I’ve always thought it was funny, and it’s often appropriate to use it in funny situations. Gobbledygook was a word that Ronald Reagan used often referring to Washington — it’s probably more appropriate to use it today. During World Was II, the British had a slogan, “keep calm and carry on.” History tells us that when that phrase was used, it was often accompanied by a plea not to let the noise and uproars all around get to you and the word they used to describe the chaos was “hullaballoo.” Another funny word.

I can think of a few funny words that I use from time to time — some, unfortunately, I rarely get to use, and that’s a shame. Here’s a few I think are funny — and I actually know what they mean.

Klutz, mollycoddle, boondoggle, piffle, quagmire, jabberwocky, brouhaha, cantankerous, and whippersnapper.

If you don’t fall into the anencephalous category, you probably already know what they mean, or can look them up. If you need help, let me know.

Now — I must vamoose.
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