What Would Jimmy Do?

Tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day. I don’t remember much about St. Patricks’s Day when I was growing up — about the only thing I remember is that for some reason you were supposed to wear green and it was great fun to pinch anyone that didn’t wear something green. I never understood why someone should be pinched for not wearing green on that particular day — so — my extensive research mode kicked in and although Saint Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland, the tradition of pinching is uniquely an American tradition. One explanation I found was that green is traditionally worn on St. Patrick’s Day to honor the fact that Ireland is known as the Emerald Isle. The pinch is just a reminder to those people not wearing green that they should remember to honor “the Emerald Isle.” Of all the explanations that I found the one that I like best is that St. Patrick revelers in the United States (probably in the 1700s) thought wearing green made one invisible to leprechauns — those fairy creatures who would pinch anyone they could see (anyone not wearing green.) People began pinching those that didn’t wear green as a reminder that leprechauns would sneak up and pinch green-abstainers.

But there’s more to March 17 than wearing something green and knocking down a pint of Guinness. Saint Patrick is believed to have been born in the late fourth century and is credited with bringing Christianity to Ireland — but he’s probably best known for driving the snakes from Ireland. Apparently it’s true that there are no snakes in Ireland, but there is a good probability that there never have been.

In American cities with large Irish populations, St. Patrick’s Day is a big deal. There are parades, Irish music and songs, food and drink and, of course green beer. So why is the day celebrated on March 17? Probably it is the day that St. Patrick died. In Ireland it’s a serious holiday — with the exception of restaurants and pubs, almost all businesses close. It’s also a religious holiday and many Irish attend mass as it’s the traditional day for offering prayers for missionaries worldwide. Of course after mass the serious celebrating begins.

One of the traditional symbols for St. Patrick’s Day is the shamrock. According to Irish legend, St. Patrick chose the shamrock as a symbol of the church’s Holy Trinity because of its three leaflets bound by a common stalk.

As I said earlier, I remember that you were supposed to wear green — in fact, green beer, green leprechauns, green hats — green everything on St. Patrick’s Day. I couldn’t find any definitive answer to why the wearing of certain colors originated. In Ireland, only Catholics wear green; Protestants all wear orange. The colors of the Republic of Ireland are green, white and orange. The orange supposedly represents the Protestant population, the green the Catholic, and the white the peace between them… it’s a bit ironic that the Irish flag is supposed to represent the unity between the two groups with the white between the two colors representing unity.

Anyhow, the luck of the Irish to ye – remember, if you cross poison ivy with a four-leaf clover you get a rash of good luck!!
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Had a visitor yesterday. Emily came out and spent some time with us. Went for a stroll around Deerfield Village even though we were having a few snow flurries. Being smart like she is, though, she came prepared with her winter coat and hat — think she wanted to build up her appetite — after her stroll, we went to her favorite Mexican restaurant – Casa G’s, where she managed to polish off some chips and salsa and a few other Mexican delights.
All and all a pretty good day for someone that just turned a year and a half….
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When I first came to the Washington area, I realized that I had an accent — I never thought I did, but people commented on the way I talked. Not so much the way I pronounced words (although that did happen) but some of the terms and phrases I used. For instance, I used to say, “sure ’nuff?” on occasion and I’d get a reaction like, “where you from, boy?”

Anyhow, I got to thinking about how it’s sometimes difficult to understand people, and I’m not talking about the immigrants, which is another issue altogether.

When I grew up in Oklahoma, we all used a term, “Y’all.” The term, which is often pronounced yaaaaaallllllll further south, is a way of referring to at least one other person. Actually, if you were talking to more than a handful of people, the correct expression would be “all y’all.” Another term that I heard and used growing up, but don’t hear around here is, “Fix’In.” It’s not used in reference to repairing anything, but is a way to indicate that at some, yet to be determined time, some action is going to be taken. I remember my grandmother saying things like, “I’m fix’in to go to the store.” A couple of terms that I often catch myself using (and I’ve noticed that Kelly uses them, too) are: “dudden and iden.” Dudden means doesn’t and iden means isn’t. For instance I may say, “That just dudden make sense,” or “That just iden right.” Of course, these often slop over into the next word and all run together; I might say, “That sounds funny duddenit,” meaning that sounds funny doesn’t it. Funny how I talk idenit?

While I was writing this, I realized that I also use “haden,” such as “He haden made up his mind yet.” The more I listen to myself, it’s a wonder anyone ever understands anything I say. The other day I caught myself saying, “I usta could do that,” referring to the fact that I used to be able to crush a beer can with my hand before I had it fixed.

Something I remember hearing growing up that I don’t hear much around here is, ‘mind to.’ For instance if you’re thinking about going to Virginia, you’d say, “I got a mind to go to Virginia.” He’s in a bad way always meant he was very ill. And one more from my past — I got shed of my old car, meaning I got rid of it.

We all talk funny — both strange funny and ha ha funny — and use terminology and phrases that may be foreign ( or “farn”) to others. When something has already happened, some say, “That’s in my behind” — just like today’s ramblings….
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As some of you know, I’m a big fan of holidays — I like them so much I even make up some of my own from time to time. Well, today isn’t exactly a holiday, but maybe it should be. Today, of course, is leap day and for a day that has only occurred 102 times previously, seems to me it should be treated special.

We all know that leap day occurs every four years — well, almost anyway. A leap year is any year whose year is exactly divisible by 4 except those which are divisible by 100 but not 400. How come? Because the exact number of days in a solar year is actually ever-so-slightly less the 365.25 (it’s 365.242374) so the algorithm to calculate leap years had to be designed such that a leap year is skipped every now and then to keep the calendar on track over the long haul.

People born on leap day are called “leaplings,” or “leapers.” It was once thought that leaping babies would inevitably prove to be sickly and “hard to raise,” although no one remembers why.

The fact is that the whole point of adding an extra day to February every four years was to align the human measurement of time more closely with nature, when the practice was started, some people apparently believed that monkeying with the calendar might actually throw nature out of whack, even hampering the raising of crops and livestock. In Scotland, there was a saying that, “Leap year was never a good sheep year.”

Another tradition that dates back at least four centuries holds that leap years confer upon women the privilege of proposing marriage to men instead of the other way around. The origin of this (romantic?) tradition is probably long forgotten.

But back to today. February 29 should be a holiday because most years, it doesn’t exist — but this year, it does. So I figure it’s a “free day.” Since the day didn’t even exist last year, you obviously didn’t go to work, or keep doctor appointments, sit in rush hour traffic, or any of those things you normally do.

Because this is really a nonexistent day, let’s just all do something that we wouldn’t normally do. Just skip work and wander around aimlessly for no apparent reason. We should all give it a try — we seem to get by without this extra day all the other years, and I don’t ever remember getting paid more in leap years, so what the heck, let’s take this nonexistent day to do stuff we never do — after all, we won’t have another chance for four more years.

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A little while back, at the suggestion of Dave, I discussed the color gray. In response the that posting, John asked a question about the colors pink and blue — specifically, why is pink identified with, or symbolic of girls and why is blue associated with boys? My extensive research on the subject didn’t surface a ‘black and white’ answer to the question.

I started thinking about ‘pink things’ and ‘blue things’ in hope of spotting a trend toward one gender, but the results were disappointing. I remember cotton candy being pink and bubble gum is pink, pink lemonade, and seems like I’ve heard of a pink lady cocktail and I believe Elvis had a pink Cadillac.

As for blue, the sky is blue, the ocean is sometimes blue, there are bluebirds, there’s blue suede shoes, blueberries and, of course, smurfs. Some people have blue eyes — some people also have pink eye, but that’s not a good thing. None of these things seemed to point me in the direction of a specific gender…

There’s a kids poem called Little Boy Blue and I’m familiar with a famous portrait called “Blue Boy,” but my extensive research uncovered the fact that Gainsborough painted a companion piece entitled, “Pink Boy.”

I just happen to have noticed that lately, marketers are pushing the color pink to make various products more appealing to women. The other morning, the Today Show was showing pink Legos to make them more appealing to girls. Personally I always considered Legos to be gender neutral….

But apparently the best idea these marketers could come up with to market to women was – let’s just make it pink! I’ve noticed that a lot of cell phones and laptops come in pink, but some things just look stupid. We got a catalog a few weeks ago that had pink tools — i”m not making this up. I don’t think even women would rush out to buy a pink hammer or screwdriver. The supermarket has beer with pink labels and the six-pack holder looks like a purse! Come on – do they think this is going to inspire women to drink beer?? A local department store has a pink George Foreman grill — now George Foreman is a pretty macho guy, and painting his grill pink is just wrong.

But getting back to the gender issue — there is some evidence that this pink and blue thing is fairly recent and, in fact, when it first started it was reversed — pink for boys, blue for girls.

Up until at least the 1800s, most infants were dressed in white, and gender differences weren’t highlighted until well after the kids were able to walk. Originally, pink was designated for boys, as it was thought to be the stronger color. In Christian tradition, red was associated as male, and its ‘little’ sibling pink was used for boys. Blue was associated with the Virgin Mary and therefore considered feminine. An article from the 1927 issue of Time Magazine seems to confirm this thinking: “In Belgium, Princess Astrid, consort of the Crown Prince, gave birth a fortnight ago to a 7-lb. daughter. The cradle…. had been optimistically outfitted in pink, the color for boys, that for a girl being blue.”

After WWI, blue was used extensively for men’s uniforms. So blue became associated as more of a masculine color. From around the 1940s onward, pink was pushed as a woman’s color. “Think Pink” was the marketing slogan to convince women to embrace their femininity.

So pink is for girls and blue is for boys — that’s just the way it is. If someone asks you why do we dress baby girls in pink and baby boys in blue, probably your best answer is — because they can’t dress themselves.
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Today, February 22, besides being Ash Wednesday is George Washington’s birthday — his real birthday, not “President’s Day” when we celebrate his birthday. Before February ends It might be appropriate to get all this president stuff out of the way. We’re currently on our 44th president, but there are lots and lots of comparisons, and interesting and amazing facts about our presidents. We’re all familiar with the comparisons and similarities between Kennedy and Lincoln. I figure any group of 40 or 50 people would produce about the same amount of “amazing facts,” but it’s kind of fun to look at the people that have run our country from the beginning…

Earlier I mentioned that Barack Obama is our 44th President — that’s true, but there actually have been only 43 people that have occupied that office. Grover Cleveland was elected twice (nonconsecutive terms) and is counted as our 22nd and 24th president.

The most common religious affiliation among our presidents has been Episcopalian: second place goes to the Presbyterians. The oldest president at the time of inauguration was Ronald Reagan, who was 69; the youngest was Kennedy, age 43. The youngest man to become president (not elected) was Theodore Roosevelt who was 42 when he took over after McKinley was assassinated.

The only time the nation was run by a president and vice president that were not elected by the people was when Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned in 1973 and Gerald Ford was appointed to fill the Vice Presidency by President Nixon. Nixon resigned the following year, making Ford president — he then appointed Nelson Rockefeller as vice president.

Four presidents have been assassinated while in office: Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy. Kennedy and Howard Taft are the only presidents buried in Arlington Cemetery.

Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Jackson, Grant, McKinley, Cleveland, Madison and Wilson are portrayed on US paper money. Lincoln, Jefferson, Franklin Roosevelt, Washington, Kennedy and Eisenhower are portrayed on US coins.

The term “First Lady” was first used in 1849 when President Zachary Taylor called Dolley Madison “First Lady” at her state funeral. Most First Ladies, including Jackie Kennedy, supposedly hated the label.

Eight presidents never attended college: Washington, Jackson, VanBuren, Taylor, Fillmore, Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, and Cleveland.

So — we’ve had quit a list of characters in the White House and we’re getting ready for the process of electing someone for that office once again. I’m afraid I fall into the category of those that just don’t see anyone in the race that sparks my enthusiasm. I think its always taken a special person to be president, and obviously the job’s becoming harder all the time. What’s the hardest part of being president? I can’t say that I know, but I think George Washington came pretty close to nailing it when he said, “Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.”
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So here it is President’s Day. I remember when we didn’t celebrate President’s Day — we only celebrated Washington’s Birthday. I always though Abe got the short end of the stick; his birthday was just pretty much ignored. But I suppose Washington deserved the recognition because he was the first President — or was he?

Technically, the first President of the country that we now know as the United States of America wasn’t George Washington. If you paid attention in history class, you may remember that this new country was actually formed on March 1, 1781 when The Articles of Confederation was adopted. (The Articles were first proposed on June 11, 1776 — even way back then it took Congress forever to get anything done.) Anyhow, after all the bickering, and everything was all signed in 1781, they needed some — a President — to run the country. John Hanson, a major player in the Revolution and an extremely influential member of Congress, was chosen unanimously by Congress. A member of that Congress was George Washington.

John Hanson’s story is pretty interesting — probably worth some extensive research on your part, if you’re interested.

The Articles of Confederation only allowed a President to serve a one-year term. He served from November 5, 1781 until November 3, 1782. (In fact, several others served as President prior to Hanson — but all were interim, and served less than a year. Hanson was the first President to serve a full one year term, as specified by The Articles of Confederation.) Six other presidents were elected after Hanson, prior to George Washington taking office.

How come we don’t hear about the first seven presidents? Well, The Articles of Confederation never worked well — individual states has too much power and nothing could ever be agreed upon.

During the terms of the first seven presidents, a new (and controversial, I might add) document was being written — you may have heard of it, The Constitution.

So — George Washington was not the first President of the United States. He was the first President of the United States under the present Constitution.

If all things in life were fair, we should celebrate April 14th, Hanson’s birthday, as a National Holiday. Hanson remains sort of forgotten in history. He has a statue in the Capitol building and another one on route 50 between Washington and Annapolis, Maryland — but little other recognition.

I suppose it’s just as well — who’d want to see “Hanson slept here” signs everywhere and Hanson, D.C. just doesn’t have the same ring to it as Washington, D.C.
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We went out to dinner with some friends on Valentine’s Day, and afterward we stopped by their house for drinks. The conversation turned to war(s). I actually borrowed a book titled Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War by Patrick J. Buchanan. I’m looking forward to reading the book — it supposedly makes the case that World Wars I and II and the Holocaust might have been avoided had it not been for the blunders of British statesmen — including Winston Churchill. Depending on what I think of the book, it may be the subject of a future blog…

Anyhow, as I said, the subject of wars came up and in particular the Civil War. We agreed that the popular (mis)conception is that the Civil War was fought over slavery. I’m pretty sure that was the message delivered by my high school history teacher — Miss Brown.

In reality, the goal of the Civil Was was much less nobel than freeing the slaves. The primary things that led to the Civil War were economic issues and slavery was only a small part of these problems. When economic tensions got too hot, the South fought for its independence and the North fought to preserve the Union. The fact is that most Northerners didn’t care about slavery all that much and many, if not most Southerners simply couldn’t afford to own slaves.

Even Lincoln, the “Great Emancipator,” is quoted as saying, “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.” So even the reasons behind the emancipation proclamation were more political than moral. Those that believe things like the US went to war with the south over slavery and that we fought in World War II to help stop the Nazis are — in a word — wrong. As we both concluded before we finished our drinks, very few — if any — wars have been fought to help victims of oppression.
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Today’s topic was suggested by another family blogger — one of the authors of “The Puppy Files.” Dave mentioned that they had just bought Bella a new leash and apparently the color of these things is important — like buying a new car, I suppose. Anyhow, go on over to the “The Puppy Files” and get yourself caught up — I’ll wait.

Ok — welcome back. If you read carefully, you remember that Dave indicated that the new leash was gray — and — that gray had a couple of spellings, both of which were correct.

Gray is a very interesting and appropriate topic for me. I am afflicted with a form of color blindness that makes it difficult to distinguish various shades of some colors, like blue and green — they appear gray to me.

But let’s get this spelling thing out of the way before we delve into the fascinating world of gray. Gray and grey are different spellings of the same word, and both are used pretty much everywhere in the English-speaking world. Gray is the common spelling in American English and grey is more common in all other major varieties of English.

So both spellings are correct — gray primarily in the US and grey mostly in the areas that use UK English. As most of you know, I’m a big fan of using a ‘crutch’ to remember things; I don’t need or use a crutch to remember which gray to use, but here’s a good way if you think you need one:
GrAy is how it’s spelled in America.
GrEy is how it’s spelled in England.
To wrap up this spelling lesson, it should be noted that there are a couple of exceptions: Proper names such as Earl Grey and Zane Grey would not be spelled with an ‘a,’ and greyhound, as in the dog, is always spelled with an ‘e.’

As I mentioned above, I’ve grown to become very fond of grey — a lot of colors that Claire says are not gray, appear gray to me. Not that that makes me one dimensional; I see many different shades of gray (in fact, the human eye can distinguish about 500 shades of gray.) If I want to, I can even describe what I see as gray with different terms (just like they seem to do with crayolas these days) — I might refer to a shirt that I’m wearing — even though Claire may think it’s green — as charcoal, slate, gunmetal, ashen, silver, dove, pearl, taupe — all describe what I see as gray.

Gray is a very important word in our society. When I was younger, the home baseball team always wore white uniforms, the visiting team always wore gray. We use the term gray matter to refer to brains or intellect, gray power is a movement describing elderly or senior citizens, a gray page in desktop publishing refers to a text-heavy page with little contrast or white space. A person with gray hair is often considered distinguished and wise — of course that’s usually only true if the person keeps his mouth shut.

Gray is a unit of measurement of absorbed radiation. One gray (Gy) is equal to one joule per kilogram. The gray is 100 times greater than the “rad,” which is the unit of measurement it replaced.

Before I retired, I served on a number of graybeard panels; these are advisory groups made up of usually older individuals that have “been there; done that.” They often are convened to solve a particular problem or review a new initiative. Gray is the color of ashes and it represents a biblical symbol of mourning and repentance. The Confederate Army wore gray uniforms during the Civil War.. The Grey Cup is the Canadian Football League championship — like our Super Bowl. The New York Times is sometimes called the Gray Lady.

There’s always the gray area — something not black or white, something between two differing views. A gray mood is an unhappy mood. There’s a gray market — the business of buying or selling items that are priced below the regulated price.There’s a movie called the Long Gray Line. There is a current movie titled The Gray. One of the better brands of vodka is called Gray Goose. There’s been a popular TV show for several years — Grey’s Anatomy. Earl Grey Tea. She ain’t what she used to be, but the old gray mare is still gray. Excuse me, do you have any grey poupon? There is a Gray Ghost Winery in Amissville, Virginia. There are a number of towns in the US named Gray — Tennessee and Indiana come to mind. And don’t forget about the Gray Line Bus Tours.

Just look around — lots of things are gray: steel, dolphins, clouds, wolves, smoke, fog/mist, ground hogs, rain, owls, stones, elephants…

Probably the most popular color for vehicles is some shade of gray. It is a proven scientific fact that if you drive a gray vehicle, you are elegant, love futuristic looks, and are cool.

A number of songs have gray in their title — I mentioned The Old Gray Mare earlier, but don’t forget about Grey Street by the Dave Matthews Band, Blue, Red and Grey by the Who, Grey Ghost by the Henry Paul Band and Touch of Grey by the Grateful Dead.

Gray is the color of intellect, knowledge and wisdom. Most things are not black or white; gray sits between those extremes of black and white; it’s a color of compromise. It is a color that is dignified, conservative and carries authority — look at the suits that the President and most top executives wear — they’re usually some shade of gray.

Not meant to be a pun, but the color gray has grown on me… I like it. Remember, it’s not by the gray of the hair that one knows the age of the heart.
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Well, here it is Valentine’s Day again. The day is dedicated to Saint Valentine — the Patron Saint of affianced couples, bee keepers, engaged couples, epilepsy, fainting, greetings, happy marriages, love, lovers, plague, travelers, and young people. The origin of St. Valentine, and how many St. Valentines there were, remains a mystery. One opinion is that he was a Roman martyred for refusing to give up his Christian faith. Other historians believe that St. Valentine was a temple priest jailed for defiance during the reign of Claudius. Whoever he was, he became famous because archaeologists unearthed a Roman catacomb and an ancient church dedicated to Saint Valentine. In 496 AD, Pope Gelasius marked February 14th as a celebration in honor of his martyrdom.

Saints are not supposed to rest in peace — they’re expected to keep busy — to perform miracles, to intercede. Being in jail or dead is no excuse for non-performance of the supernatural. One legend says that while awaiting his execution, Valentine restored the sight of his jailer’s blind daughter. Another legend says, on the eve of his death, he penned a farewell note to the jailer’s daughter, signing it, “From you Valentine.” Yet another theory is that during his reign. Claudius, didn’t want men to marry during wartime because he believed single men made better soldiers. A Bishop Valentine went against his wishes and performed secret wedding ceremonies. For this, Valentine was jailed and executed. At any rate, it seems pretty certain that February 14th was his day of execution.

I’ve heard that more than 36 million heart-shaped boxes of chocolate are sold for Valentine’s Day each year. Worldwide, over 50 million roses are given for Valentine’s Day every year. 73% of people that buy flowers are men — only 27% are women. Every Valentine’s Day, the Italian city of Verona, where Shakespeare’s lovers Romeo and Juliet lived, receives about 1,000 letters addressed to Juliet. Alexander Graham Bell applied for his patent on the telephone on Valentine’s Day in 1876.

And how does Cupid figure into all this? According to Roman mythology, Cupid was the son of Venus, the goddess of love and beauty. Cupid was known to cause people to fall in love by shooting them with his magical arrows. Those that are into this Cupid thing know that he not only carries gold headed arrows to make people fall in love, but he also carries a set of lead headed arrows that can inspire the emotion of hatred in those that are struck by them. Actually, I don’t see as many references to Cupid around Valentine’s Day as I remember when I was a kid. Maybe people are wising up — he wears a diaper; I’m not sure why being hit with an arrow in the butt by some kid in a diaper was ever considered romantic to begin with.

Of course if you’re from Chicago, you can’t think about Valentine’s Day without remembering February 14, 1929 — the day of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, probably the most spectacular gangland slaying in mob history. Even though it was spectacular it was somewhat of a failure.
The plan, attributed to Al Capone, was to have Chicago mobster George “Bugs” Moran and most of his North Side Gang eliminated. The plan was that a bootlegger loyal to Capone would draw Moran and his gang to a warehouse under the pretense that they would be receiving a shipment of smuggled whiskey for a price that seemed to good to be true. The delivery was set for a warehouse at 2122 North Clark Street in Chicago at 10:30 am on Valentine’s Day. (Capone arranged to distance himself, by spending time at his home in Miami.) That morning, a group of Moran’s men waited for Bugs Moran at the warehouse. As it turned out, Moran was running a bit late that morning and when his car turned the corner, he and his lackeys spotted a police wagon rolling up to the warehouse. Figuring it was a bust, he and his lackeys kept going. Inside the warehouse, Moran’s men were confronted by (Capone’s) hit men disguised as policemen. Assuming it was a routine bust, they followed instructions as they were ordered to line up against the wall. The hit men then opened fire with Thompson submachine guns, killing six of the seven men. The newspapers instantly picked up on the crime, dubbing it the “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.” Capone became a celebrity of sorts, even though the operation failed in its mission to rub out Bugs Moran.

While on the subject of love and massacres, you’re probably wondering why the letter ‘X’ represents a kiss… The custom dates back to the early Christian era, when a cross mark or an ‘X’ conveyed the force of a sworn oath. The cross referred to both the cross of Calvary and the first letter of the Greek word for Christ, Xristos. In days when few people could write, their signature cross, or ‘X,’ was a legally valid mark. To emphasize their complete sincerity, they often kissed the ‘X’ when an oath was sworn upon. It was this practice that led to its becoming the symbol of a kiss.

It has its lovers and its haters, but in spite of massacres, and the fact that the day bears little resemblance to romantic traditions of the Chaucerian age, Valentine’s Day remains the most romantic day of the year — so if you’re out and about, be careful; as they say, trip over love, you can get up, but fall in love and you fall forever.
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