What Would Jimmy Do?

I’m really getting sick of the news. Every day it’s the same story over and over. The president/government is — or isn’t — going to do something. One day, it’s tariffs, the next it’s funding, or firings, or whatever. I think I include myself in a good portion of the population that has lost trust in our “leaders.”

I’ve always believed that trust is an important asset for a leader to have. Of course that’s a problem if you’re a huge, unscrupulous weasel bent of abusing your position of power for personal gain. But if you’re a leader that fits that description, there’s a tool for you — it’s called “lying.”

Depending on your position of leadership, dealing with employees, or the public, they have few retaliatory options. And if lying doesn’t work and you lose their trust, you can always use fear and intimidation to get the same results.

Ok — I don’t feel any better, but at least I got that off my chest…..
— 30 —

A member of the Senate was interviewed the other day on the news and was talking about President Trump. He indicated that he was such a great president because of his management skills… he was of the opinion that he was a great manager. 

I guess I never really thought of him a great manager — actually I never thought about him as even a good manager. I’m not one to criticize, but it seems to me that more times than not, when he’s referring to someone who works for him, he refers to them as dolts, or maybe something even worse. That really doesn’t seem like a good idea to me. I personally think a manager should be more diplomatic.

I’m pretty sure the President doesn’t need, or certainly won’t take, my advice but instead of using a term like dolt, I think I’d use something like resources — or maybe team member or associate.
But of course, maybe I’m just out of date and that’s the new management style.
— 30 —

Sorry — This was what I was going to write about yesterday, but my self pity got in the way. But anyhow, here it is even if it’s a day late. Hope you enjoyed Dingus Day

Dingus Day (called Dingus Day, Easter Monday, Wet Monday, or Smigus Dyngus) is a Polish holiday that originated around A.D. 966, when Poland’s Prince Mieszko I accepted Christianity and was baptized with his entire court. Since then, the celebration has evolved from an annual mock-baptism to a sort of courting ritual, during which a young man douses his dream girl in the hope that she’ll be flattered.

That seems like a strange tradition, but it’s one that’s still practiced today, especially in the communities of Buffalo, New York, and South Bend, Indiana. In those cities, everyone is packing at least a water pistol on Dingus Day, and some more enterprising soakers make use of garden, or even fire hoses. 

But Traditionally Dyngus Day has meant more than just a water fight. In addition to the wet wake-up call, boys would fashion small whips of pussy willow or birch branches and use them to strike their lovers on the shins. In Poland, where matchmaking is a big deal, a young girl who didn’t receive these attentions was considered hopeless — romantically speaking.

Mercifully, the shin-swatting tradition has largely fallen by the wayside, and participants in Dingus Day now focus almost exclusively on the irreverent fun that goes along with a citywide water war. Visitors to Poland, Buffalo, or South Bend on the day after Easter are advised to bring a few changes of clothes — and perhaps a bandolier of water balloons. 

Maybe an old Polish proverb says it best …. On Dingus Day, laughter and water flow freely, washing away winter’s chill and welcoming spring’s renewal.
— 30 —

Easter should be a happy time — In the past it usually has been for me. But the last couple have been a little sad. Last year, Easter was on March 31. This year, it was on April 20 — a particularly bad day for me because it was the first anniversary of Claire’s funeral. Easter Sunday won’t fall on April 20 again until 2087 — that’s 62 years from now.

I think maybe that’s fortunate…. April 20th has seen its share of unhappy, or dark events over the years. 
On April 20, 1914 the Colorado National Guard and Colorado Fuel & Iron Company guards attacked a tent colony of 1,200 striking coal miners and their families in Ludlow, Colorado. The conflict killed 25 people, including women and children.
On April 20, 1972, a malfunction delayed the lunar landing of the Apollo 16 mission.
One of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history occurred on April 20, 1999. Eric harris and Dylan Klebold killed 13 people and injured over 20 others before taking their own lives at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado.
The explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico resulted in the deaths of 11 workers and the largest oil spill in history — on April 20, 2010.
And if that’s not enough, Alolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889. The leader of Nazi Germany was responsible for World War II and the Holocaust.

All this makes April 20 a day fraught with tragedy…. I wonder how many more will occur in the next 62 years before Easter is again on the twentieth day of April?
— 30 —

Today completes my year of “awful firsts.” I got through the first birthday without Claire, the first Thanksgiving, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Valentine’s Day, wedding anniversary and lots of days that were special and unique for both of us. Today completes that first year — her funeral. Getting through the first year was hard — each one of these special days were even harder than the “regular” days and brought up the sadness of living without her. 

I’d like to think that after this first year, the worst is behind me, but I know that’s not the case. It’s infuriating to not know what this grief journey has in store for me. Unfortunately, grieving doesn’t “turn off” after one year. These special days are going to come around every year and I know they’re going to be painful…. but, maybe they’ll be an opportunity to revisit the happy memories we made together and maybe even create some memorial traditions….

Grief is probably the most terrible thing I’ve ever experienced — it’s mean, unforgiving, unpredictable, and it’s patient.
Sometimes it waits — it waits until you think you’re “over it” or moved on and seem to be doing better. And then it will say, “Remember me?” And it’s back.
Death changes everything — so far, for me, time has changed nothing….
— 30 —

I went to lunch with friends yesterday and as is almost always the case, I didn’t finish my meal. Restaurant portions are almost always more than I can eat, so I usually take what I don’t eat home so I can eat it later — or — as is often the case, throw it out in a few days.

But anyhow, yesterday I asked for a doggie bag — usually I just ask for a box. I don’t know why I said “doggie bag” yesterday, but for some reason I did. The waiter looked at me like I was speaking Greek or some other foreign language. I said to just bring me a box.

When I was growing up and you went to a restaurant, and wanted to take the food you hadn’t eaten with you, you asked for a doggie bag. That seems to have been an American thing. From what I can gather, the phrase was used to mask the social awkwardness of taking leftover food home from a restaurant. The idea was that you could request a bag “for the dog” — even if you didn’t have a dog or you fully intended to eat the leftovers yourself.

I remember my parents were big on not wasting food — probably because of a lot of World War II and post-war food conservation efforts. If I remember correctly, some restaurants even had bags that said things like ”For Fido” or “For Your Pet” to normalize taking leftovers home. All this probably led to the term “doggie bag.”

Today, younger people, like our waiter yesterday, don’t know what you’re talking about if you ask for a doggie bag. Why? Today it’s no longer seen as embarrassing or unusual to ask to take leftovers home. Now people usually just say, “can I get a box?” or “can I take this to go?”

I did some checking, and in the 1940s and 50s some restaurants had specially designed packaging for taking home leftovers.
Hotels in Seattle provided diners with wax paper bags labeled “Bones for Bowser.” reinforcing the notion that leftovers were intended for dogs, even if the diners planned to consume them later themselves.
Many restaurants began offering “Doggie Paks” to patrons allowing them to discretely take home uneaten portions.
Some restaurants even had doggie bags printed with whimsical poems or messages, adding a touch of charm and further normalizing the practice of taking leftovers home.

So “doggie bag” hasn’t totally vanished, but it’s become a bit dated or quaint — kind of like saying “icebox” instead of “refrigerator.”  You’ll probably hear it sometimes, especially from older people like me, but it’s no longer the go-to phrase.
— 30 —

A couple of weeks ago my niece and nephew (Mike and Sue) visited and they gave me a bottle of wine. I like wine — and I like wine bottle labels. The following words were on the label of the bottle they gave me…..
“At the end of the journey, we remember only one battle: the one we fought against ourselves, the one that defines us.”
That’s a pretty powerful statement and it’s particularly meaningful to me at this point in my life.
I’ve always thought wine was good for you — maybe it’s also good for the soul….
— 30 —

Still sorting through lots of old books that we and the kids accumulated over the years. A few days ago, I ran across a book of riddles that one of the kids must have had years ago, and as luck, or fate, would have it it was on top of Homer’s Odyssey. That was probably required reading for one or both of our kids in school. I thought it was curious that these books happened to be together.

I don’t know if you remember, but there is very little known about Homer, the (supposed) author of the two epic poems (The Iliad and the Odyssey) other than he was a Greek poet and he wrote about heroes who fought battles, had amazing adventures and struggled with gods. 

Homer’s Odyssey is about a king’s long journey home after the Trojan War and the masters, magic, and seductive enchantresses he faced. But the fact that the two books were stacked together was curious to me because legend has it that Homer killed himself in frustration because he couldn’t answer a simple riddle. The riddle in question was spoken by Greek fishermen: “What we caught we threw away. What we didn’t catch, we kept.” According to the story, Homer couldn’t figure it out, and it drove him to suicide. The story might not be true, but apparently the ancient Greeks were really fascinated by riddles. The word comes from a Greek root meaning “to give advice.”

After doing a little checking, I found that riddles haven’t always been for children — a lot of ancient cultures took their riddles very seriously. Apparently the Babylonians believed that riddles could teach. The oldest riddles that have been found were preserved on an ancient Babylonian clay tablet that probably served as a schoolbook. 

Riddles also appear in the Islamic Koran, the Indian Vedas, and the ancient oral traditions of most cultures. Something like a riddle — koans — is used in Zen Buddhism to demonstrate the inadequacy of logical reasoning and to provide enlightenment. An example is “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” There is no logical answer to a koan. It’s just supposed to open up your mind. 

I suppose the most most famous riddle in the world is “Why did the chicken cross the road ?” But one that’s pretty famous is the Riddle of the Sphinx. The Sphinx was a dangerous creature with the head of a human, the body of a lion, and the wings of an eagle. She prowled the countryside looking for trouble. She asked the same riddle of every human she met and if you couldn’t answer the riddle, she ate you. What was the riddle? “What goes on four feet in the morning, two feet in midday, and three feet in the evening?”  Now — here’s the interesting part of the story….The only person who answered the riddle correctly was Oedipus Rex, the king who married his mother (but he didn’t know she was his mother) and poked his own eyes out when he found out. As for the Sphinx, once somebody answered correctly, she killed herself. A big relief for a lot of people, I imagine. 

Today we think of riddles mostly for children, but obviously that hasn’t always been the case. I guess it’s a good thing our minds don’t work in the same way the ancients’ did. 

In case you haven’t been able to come up with the answers to the riddles, here they are:
The answer to the riddle that stumped Homer — What did the fishermen keep? Lice, which they already had. The Riddle of the Sphinx — the answer is “a man” — who crawls at the beginning of life, walks upright in mid-life, and walks with a cane in old age.
You’re welcome.
— 30 —

I went to brunch at some friends house a few days ago and after we ate, a couple of us were discussing some work at our church and the topic turned to “rules.” Everyone agreed that maybe there are too many rules and half the time no one really knows why the rule came into existence in the first place. 

But, the fact is the world is full of rules and seems like there are more being created every day. And if you think about it, we all grew up with a fair amount of pressure to “follow the rules.” We were told such things as “no orange elephants,” and “don’t color outside the lines.” The educational system encourages rule-following. Students are usually better rewarded for regurgitating information than for coming up with new ideas and thinking originally. So we’ve just become more comfortable following the rules than challenging them. 

I guess in practical everyday living, that makes sense. In order to function in our society you have to follow all kinds of rules. You can’t shout in a library, or cry out “fire” in a theater or cheat on your income tax. 
The problem with all that is if you’re trying to generate new ideas, then “follow the rules” can be a mental block because it means basically, “think about things only as they are.” 

Playing the revolutionary is easier said than done. I was never accused of being a “yes man,” and often questioned ideas presented at meetings or the way certain things were done. Over the years, I was mostly criticized for my attitude. But after I’d been working for a number of years, I was called in to by boss’s office one day and I figured I was in some kind of trouble. But he was very nice and he told me that one of his most difficult tasks was getting his people to challenge the rules. We had a nice talk and he complimented me for questioning a lot of the “rules.” He told me one of his favorite quotes was — “If you don’t ask “why this?” often enough, somebody will ask “why you?”
That meeting made an impression on me and I never felt bad again about questioning things.
— 30 —

I went into a store yesterday and I noticed one of the clerks was wearing a shirt with a pocket and he had pocket protector. It looked like he had about 3 or 4 pens or pencils in his pocket. I realized that, one — a lot of people don’t wear shirts with pockets so much anymore, they prefer T-shirts or polo shirts and two — you almost never see anyone with a pocket protector. 

When I was growing up, there weren’t, of course any iPhones or laptops — men used mechanical pencils and fountain pens or ball-point pens and they didn’t carry purses. Only executives carried briefcases, so pencils/pens were carried in their shirt pockets. Fairly often, the pencil lead would color the bottom of the shirt pocket or the pens would leak and ruin the shirt.

I imagine those were the reasons that shirt protectors were invented. The guys that wore those protectors were typically engineers, draftsmen or maybe even people like accountants. They looked kind of geeky or nerdy back then — even before there were “geeks” and “nerds.” At some point around the time when computers became more ubiquitous, pocket protectors fell out of favor and became things to be made fun of, as well as the guys that wore them. 

Pocket protectors became a great platform for advertising — lots of companies gave their employees protectors with their company logo imprinted on them and they were popular to hand out at trade fairs, and events like that. There is even a Pocket Protector Preservation Society. 

The National Academy of Engineering hosted an event in 2000 where they presented their list of the Greatest Engineering Achievements of the 20th Century. Neil Armstrong attended and during his speech, said, “I am, and ever will be, a white-socks, pocket-protector, nerdy engineer.” I’m not sure if he was wearing his pocket-protector when he stepped foot on the Moon, but I’m sure he gave all the engineers still wearing theirs some sense of professional pride….. 
— 30 —