What Would Jimmy Do?

May 9, 1976 was Mother’s Day and on that day, your mom became a mother — and — I became a dad. 
Happy Birthday Kelly!!!!
— 30 —

Today would have been our 52nd wedding anniversary. 
Since our marriage on May 6, 1972 we were together — physically — 18,896 days. Of course, we’re still together — our relationship didn’t end, it only changed. As my now favorite song so aptly puts into words, “I’ll keep a part of you with me, and everywhere I am, there you’ll be.”

Death is a cruel thing and hard to deal with for us left behind. I’ve heard it said that when someone you love becomes a memory, the memory becomes a treasure. I suppose that may be true, but Claire was always a treasure. People have tried to tell me about grief and their words are comforting, but no one warned me that grief would be so frightening. 

Claire passed away when she was 77 years, 7 months and 17 days old. That’s a lot of sevens — probably some numerologists could make something of that, but to me it means that she died much too young and much too soon. 
I was just thinking about when we met — it just took a minute to say hello…. and now more than 3 months later, I’m still trying to figure out how to say goodbye.
Happy Anniversary, Menoi — I love you….
— 30 —

In 1931 — even before I was born —  the “Lolly Pop” was officially registered to the Bradley Smith Company of New Haven by the US Patent and Trademark Office. The company had started producing its first Lolly Pops in 1907, but it took until 1931 to convince the patent office to grant an exclusive right to the name. 

The name Lolly Pop was supposedly inspired by a racehorse that George Smith had seen at a local fair. Today, the word lollipop is a generic term, but the Bradley Smith Company was the first to apply it to a hard candy on a stick.

George Smith was supposedly inspired to make his candy on a stick by the success of a local confection called Reynolds Taffy — a chocolate caramel taffy on a stick. And the name Lolly Pop came from the name of a racehorse Smith had seen at a local fair. 

But it turns out that the Patent Office found the term lollipop used in an English dictionary published in the early 1800s. The dictionary defined it as “a hard sweetmeat sometimes on a stick” — so, they refused Bradley Smith’s initial registration. 

The trademark was finally granted after the company proved that Lolly Pop was an original spelling and its first use. During the long registration process many competitors used the name until Bradley Smith won. But over the years the term Lolly Pop and its other spelling Lollipop became interchangeable and it was so universally used that the trademark couldn’t be maintained.
The first Lolly Pops that Bradley Smith produced sold for a penny.
— 30 —

I’ve pretty much heard about the Hatfields and McCoys all my life. It’s probably hard to hear the word Hatfield without immediately thinking, “McCoy.” It’s, arguably, the most famous feud in history. Yesterday I read something that caught my attention — apparently, that famous feud was the primary inspiration for the TV game show “Family Feud.” I don’t know if that’s really true, but the real Hatfields and McCoys competed on the program in 1979. 

The Hatfield-McCoy feud took place in two separate states, Kentucky and West Virginia — it started in 1863 and lasted until 1891. The two families settled on land on opposite sides of Tug Fork, a stream that forms part of the West Virginia — Kentucky border. The Hatfields lived on the West Virginia side and were a logging family of 15. Head of the family was “Devil Anse” Hatfield, a former Confederate officer that was none too happy that his state had joined the Union. The McCoys were also a big family, with 13 children, headed by Randolph “Old Ranel” McCoy. For a number of years, the two families coexisted more or less peacefully, working together and even intermarrying.

Some historians think the trouble began when young Harmon McCoy joined the Union army and fought for the North during the Civil War — an offense for which, when he returned to Tug Fork, he was hunted down and killed by a group of Hatfields. Bad feelings continued to build through the 1860s and 1870s and flared up again when a dispute over ownership of a pig led to another murder — this one committed by the McCoys.

But things didn’t really come to a head until Roseanna McCoy fell in love with a Hatfield. This backwoods version of Romeo and Juliet eventually led to the murders of at least 20 members of the two families.

There was lots of family feuding in Appalachia during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but no squabble got the attention like that of the Hatfields and McCoys. There have been many folk songs, books, plays and moves about the two families and most depicted them as violent, poorly educated, incestuous hillbillies — that contributed to creating the popular misperception of Appalachia. 

But grudges can only last so long — in 1891, after the fighting got so bad that it was making national headlines, the families finally decided to call a truce. Over the next century, they lived in a kind of uneasy harmony — and, really did appear on the “Family Feud” TV show.
This gives me a whole new perspective when I watch Family Feud….
— 30 —

As you all well know, my wife often referred to me as a curmudgeon. A few days ago, I had lunch with a friend and he mentioned that Claire sometimes called me a curmudgeon. He asked if there were any famous curmudgeons. I assumed he meant any besides me, but I came up with W.C. Fields, who is maybe the most famous, as well as the Muppets’ Statier and Waldorf (the guys in the balcony,) Lucy from the Peanuts comic strip and maybe Andy Rooney.

My friend asked if I didn’t think Donald Trump was maybe a curmudgeon. 
The short answer is no. He is bad tempered, but he doesn’t fit the curmudgeon mold. He daydreams or imagines universal adulation and gets ticked off that he doesn’t get it. He fantasizes about making America great again and energizing his base. But a real curmudgeon doesn’t care one bit whether or not people like him — he’s too old for all that nonsense, and — his knees hurt. A curmudgeon doesn’t think he can change the world — he only tries to slow down the pace in which it seems to be going to hell. 
So Trump may be incompetent, arrogant, an idiot, egoistical, ignorant, a racist, and narcissistic — but — he’s not a curmudgeon.
— 30 —

I got an e-mail advertising children’s books. Normally I just immediately delete these things, but since we have grandkids and there were pictures of the books — I scanned through it. One that caught my eye was about a young girl named Sybil Ludinggton, that was kind of a patriot. I didn’t order the book, but I did some extensive research about Sybil…..

Just about everyone is familiar with the story of Paul Revere, who rode from Boston to Lexington on April 18, 1775 to warn his fellow revolutionaries that the British were coming. Well, a couple of years later a 16 year-old girl named Sybil Ludington did pretty much the same thing. 

On the night of April 26, 1777, an exhausted messenger arrived at Fredericksburg, New York. (Fredericksburg is now known as Kent.) The messenger had arrived from Danbury, Connecticut, with a message for Sybil’s father that the town had fallen to the British. Danbury is located about 25 miles south of Fredericksburg and served as a major supply depot for Washington’s Continental Army. The British had not only seized the town, they had set fire to homes and storehouses.

The messenger came to Fredericksburg to tell Henry Ludington, a colonel in the local militia, that he must rally his troops immediately. That evening, most of Ludington’s men were at home on their farms tending to the spring plowing. There was no way he could alert them himself — he had to stay put in order to organize the soldiers as they assembled, and the messenger from Danbury was far too tired to travel any farther. 

That’s when Sybil, Henry’s eldest daughter, volunteered to carry the message to the scattered revolutionaries. Given few options, her father finally consented. Sybil was an accomplished rider, knew how to shoot, and often watched her father drill the militia. She and her sister Rebecca had guarded the family home in the past when her father was asleep or away. 

So Sybil was ready to do her patriotic duty. According to the story, she galloped over rain-sodden trails, through dense forrest and over pitted rock-studded roads during a thunderstorm. She cried out “Muster at Ludington’s,” stopping at the farmhouses of the men in her father’s regiment. By dawn, Sybil had traveled more than 40 miles, and most of the 400 American soldiers under Henry’s command were ready to march against the British forces. 

Although she’s not as famous as Paul Revere, Sybil’s bravery hasn’t been forgotten. She was commemorated with a bicentennial stamp by the Post Office in 1976, and the state of New York erected a monument to mark her route. It turns out that the book cover that caught my eye isn’t the only children’s book about Sybil. 
My extensive research even found a poem about Sybil, some of which reads:

Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of a lovely, feminine Paul revere
Who rode an equally famous ride
Through a different part of the countryside,
Where Sybil Ludington’s name recalls
A ride as daring as that of Paul’s ……

Harry Truman once said, “America was not built on fear, America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.” I think Sybil and Harry would have gotten along well.
— 30 —

There’s an old saying, “they don’t make ‘em like they used to.” I guess you can pretty much say that about anything — actually, some things are made better than they used to be, but as the saying implies, most things are maybe not as good.

A few months ago, Claire bought some toothpaste from Costco. We’re not hung up on any one brand — she usually just bought what was cheaper, or was on sale. Anyhow, she bought Crest. I’m not an expert on toothpaste and honestly can’t tell one brand from another — but — I have to say that the Crest toothpaste she bought was terrible! When it was squeezed out of the tube onto the toothbrush, it was so thin and runny, it wouldn’t stay on the brush. By the time I’d brushed my teeth, there was toothpaste all over the sink, it had run down my chin and I usually managed to dribble some on my arm. As I said, toothpaste isn’t my passion and I rarely pay much attention to it, but it seems to me that I always had to use some amount of effort to squeeze the paste out of the tube. The toothpaste we bought kind of “poured” out of the tube — it didn’t seem like much of a paste at all. 

I’m not sure what type of Crest we bought (there are about 100 different “types”) but the last time I was at Costco, I checked and noticed that neither Crest Pro-Health with Scope or Crest Pro-Health boxes use the word “paste.” I guess that tells you something.

So anyhow, this isn’t meant to slam Crest — it’s just an observation. I guess they really don’t make things the way they used to….
— 30 —

I heard from a very old friend a few days ago. We hadn’t seen or talked for a very long time and we only talked a few minutes on the phone, but it brought back lots of memories from what now seems long, long, ago. 

Some of the experiences with him involved helicopters. During the Vietnam War era,  it was easy to form a love/hate relationship with helicopters. I never liked helicopters — never trusted an airplane whose “wings” moved — but they were often a welcome sight and could literally save your life. 

I’m not going into personal experiences with helicopters for a number of reasons, but helicopters are fascinating…. one of my blogs a few years ago mentioned that I worked with someone at the FAA that had been involved with assembling the first helicopter purchased by the U.S. Army Air Corps.

The helicopter is pretty much acknowledged as one of the most versatile forms of transportation ever invented. Every day, helicopters save thousands of lives. 
A typical helicopter can reach heights of 12,000 to 15,000 feet, but they can go much higher — choppers have landed on the summit of Mr. Everest (29,000 feet.) Some helicopters can reach 45,000 feet.

“Average” size helicopters usually seat around 6 passengers, but the military’s Mil Mi-26 helicopter can hold up to 90 troops and 60 stretchers. In an emergency, it’s supposed to be capable of transporting over 150 people.

The first working model of a helicopter is credited to Gustave de Ponton d’Amecourt, who built a miniature steam-powers helicopter in 1861. But the idea of the helicopter is very old — the Chinese had sketches of a helicopter as early as 400 B.C. And Leonardo Da Vinci is known to have envisioned the helicopter.

I’ve flown on a number of small planes on foreign airlines where they arranged the passengers in the cabin according to weight, so the plane would be “balanced.” If you take a helicopter ride, they very likely will ask you for your weight. Don’t lie — the weight in a helicopter needs to be distributed evenly on all sides. If the weight isn’t balanced, the helicopter will list to one side, causing a turbulent ride.

If you’re good at following instructions, you can order a helicopter online and build it at home. The Safari 400 helicopter kit takes over 500 hours to assemble and costs just under $150,000.

A couple of years ago NASA flew its’ Ingenuity helicopter (“Ginny”) on Mars. It is the first helicopter to fly on Mars and it became the first power-controlled extraterrestrial flight by an aircraft. 

A helicopter’s liftoff is achieved by its blades spinning and pushing air downwards to lift the chopper off the ground. Once airborne, it is the tilting of the blades along with the speed of rotation that maneuvers the helicopter in different directions.

So these magnificent flying machines have become an integral part of our everyday world. Someone said that if you are in trouble anywhere in the world, an airplane can fly over and drop flowers, but a helicopter can land and save your life.
— 30 — 

Some of you long time followers of this blog may remember that back in March of 2017, I discussed my all-time favorite restaurants. You can check the archives if you’re interested in my list of favorites. But as I mention back then and it’s still my answer today when asked about my (all-time) favorite restaurant — it’s the King’s Lodge in Hong Kong. The restaurant was located in the basement of the Palace Hotel. It always tops my favorite list for a number of reasons.

I doubt that it’s still there today — my last visit there was in the early 1970s. But the reason for this blog today is that while going through a stack of papers, I found a picture of the restaurant. I thought it’d be nice to share it with my faithful readers. The photo above is the King’s Lodge, located in the basement of the Palace Hotel in Hong Kong in the early 1970s……
— 30 —

….. is like the ocean: it comes
on waves ebbing and
flowing . Sometimes the
water is calm, and 
sometimes it is
overwhelming.
All we can do is learn to 
swim.
~Vicki Harrison