What Would Jimmy Do?

All our lives, we are subjected to “rude awakenings” — Santa, the Easter Bunny, professional wrestling, etc. Seems like there is more “fake” stuff than real stuff anymore. I figured, at my age, I was beyond being shocked — but I was wrong. 
This time of year, around Christmastime, it’s a shame to be disappointed in something you thought you could rely on. But even Christmas isn’t immune to legalized fakery. 
We have fake Christmas trees, garland, and even fake mistletoe…. but I figured that the one thing absolutely immune to fakery was the annual holiday fruitcake.
Well, unfortunately, my extensive research has discovered that even that sacred holiday tradition has been compromised.

Let me explain….
If you take a poll, you’ll find that almost no one likes fruitcake. But a few years ago a friend started giving everyone a fruitcake that he made and people raved about it — everybody said they don’t like fruitcakes, but his were really good. I suppose it’s his secret recipe, but he revealed that it contains a good amount of bourbon. I just assumed it was probably the bourbon that made it so good.

Well, this year he slipped up — every year he’s given everyone the cakes just wrapped in aluminum foil, but this year he added a label, and as they say…. the secret’s out!
I’ve attached a picture of the label as proof — you’ll notice that he hasn’t been giving fruitcakes, he’s been giving fruitfakes!! 
So even the sacred fruitcake is prone to being knocked-off.

Maybe he’ll claim that it’s a typo or a computer “auto-correct” but maybe there’s something more sinister going on here???
I’m just saying…..
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Every year on December 26, our calendars on our phones and computers show that it is Boxing Day (Canada.) I’m not sure why it specifies Canada, because Boxing Day is a public holiday in the United Kingdom and a lot of other British Commonwealth countries like Australia, New Zealand as well as Canada.

The term is of British origin and first appeared in the 1800s — and — it has nothing to do with the sport of boxing. The exact roots for the name of the holiday are unknown but according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Boxing Day originated because servants, who would have to wait on their masters on Christmas Day, were allowed to visit their families the next day and employers would give them boxes to take home that contained gifts, bonuses and, sometimes, leftover food. 

Another popular theory is that the Boxing Day moniker came from the alms boxes that were placed in churches during the Advent season for the collection of monetary donations from parishioners. Clergy members distributed the contents of the boxes to the poor on December 26, which is also the feast of St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr and a figure known for acts of charity. In fact the day is celebrated as St. Stephen’s Day in Ireland and parts of Spain. 
The practice of almsgiving on December 26 has faded over the years and charity acts are now often made in the weeks leading up to Christmas. 

Maybe it’s a shame that Boxing Day doesn’t get much recognition here in the United States but it’s still a good day to stop and think about what Boxing Day was originally all about. 
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Well I think it’s just about time for my annual, or at least almost annual, Christmas blog.

I was thinking about Christmas over the years. Although Christmas is always a bit hectic, the last few years it’s been crazy. What with all the lockdowns and medical restrictions, it’d be hard to classify the past few Christmases as “normal.”
I’m not sure how Christmas will play out here this year,but I think (and hope) it becomes a little bit more normal.

But anyhow I was thinking about the 79 Christmases I’ve experienced and how things have changed… and stayed the same.

I don’t remember any special meal at our house on Christmas. We usually went to one of my grandparents houses at Christmas when I was little, so we probably had whatever “grandma” prepared. I don’t remember any “traditional” dishes. I know Claire had lots of traditional foods at Christmas time and I think our kids, if asked, would say the green bean casserole was a tradition when they were growing up I don’t remember having it until I was married — I suppose that makes sense, since the green bean casserole wasn’t invented until 1955 (by the Campbell Soup Co.)

Shortly after I’d left home, one Christmas when I cam home, my parents had put up an aluminum Christmas tree. I think it was in the very late 50s or maybe early 60s. I thought it was just about the ugliest thing I’d ever seen, and my dad agreed. I guess my mother was the trend setter for the family. 

I remember before I left home, bubble lights were all the rage. Our “real” Christmas tree (not the aluminum one) was decorated with bubble lights for a number of years. If you’re too young to remember, the lights looked a little bit like a candle filled with a liquid and when the liquid reached a certain temperature, the lights would “bubble.”

Seems like every year, the toy companies would introduce a new toy for Christmas — and of course they were almost impossible to find in the stores. I remember Silly Putty, Mr. Potato Head, Frisbee, Hula Hoop, match book cars, etc. But dolls always topped the list for being new every year. The Barbie doll had a lot of knock-offs every year, like the Ginny dolls, Sweet Sue dolls. Just about every year there was a new have-to have doll like the Cabbage Patch doll….

When I was younger, it was common for people to dress up for Christmas. I remember having to wear my “church clothes,” and my parents, grandparents and aunts and uncles always dressed up for Christmas.

I did a little extensive research and found out that Christmas the year I was born (1938) sort of kicked off the superhero era — Action Comics #1 introduced Superman, and from what I’ve read, that comic book became a major Christmas gift.
The year of Claire’s first Christmas saw the release of the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life,” that became a Christmas classic — that you can watch every year on various TV channels.
Kelly’s first Christmas (1976) was a routine year in that new dolls were introduced — the trend that year was to model dolls after famous people. The popular dolls that year were Cher and Muhammad Ali.
And in 1980, Dave’s first Christmas, the new toy of the year was Rubik’s Cube.

So no matter what my 80th Christmas brings, it’ll be special — all the Christmases I’ve experienced are special….
Merry Christmas to all!
— 30 —

Here in West Virginia, guns are a common thing — many/most go hunting at least a couple of times a year and I grew up in Oklahoma where many/most people owned at least one gun. Not as much hunting in Oklahoma as around here, but it was commonplace to have a gun. 

I just read an article that said the United States has 120.5 guns per 100 people, which is the highest total per capita number in the world. The article indicated that America’s gun culture stems in part from its colonial history, revolutionary roots and frontier expansion.

Obviously gun ownership has become a hot topic in the past few years — a lot of it due to mass shootings, and two, very opinionated, groups have formed. Those that are proponents for more gun control and those that are opposed. 

Both groups, but especially those opposed to gun control cite the Second Amendment as an argument for their position. The text of the Second Amendment reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.“
The historical consensus is that, for most of American history, the amendment was understood to concern the use of guns in connection with militia service. The Founding Fathers were probably focused on keeping state militias from being disarmed.

The interpretation that the Second Amendment extends to individuals rights to own guns came to the forefront in 2008, when the Supreme Court ruled in District of Columbia vs. Heller, that Americans have a constitutional right to own guns in their homes, knocking down the District’s handgun ban. So the notion that the amendment protects people’s right to have guns for self-defense is a relatively recent reading of the Constitution.

The advances in military technology has changed the picture since the time the Second Amendment was written — back then, there was no difference between muskets used by soldiers and those kept in households.
Today, very few people are alarmed about the possibility that the federal government will turn totalitarian, but many people do not trust the government’s ability to protect them from crime and want a means of self-defense.

So — as with any argument, both sides make some valid points. It’s the extremists on both sides that only look at one side of the coin and make all the noise. Sometime around when Ronald Reagan was President, the National Rifle Association shifted from an organization concerned with gun safety to one protecting gun rights at all costs — their lobbyists making it more difficult for Congress to Independently make the right decisions.

My extensive research before I wrote this blog uncovered some interesting data….
• A Pew Foundation report found that 79% of male gun owners and 80% of female gun owners said owning a gun made the feel safer and 68% of people living in a home in which someone else owns a gun felt safer.
• The US General Accountability Office (GAO) estimated that 100% of deaths per year in which a child under 6 years old shoots and kills him/herself or another child could be prevented by automatic child-proof locks.
• The centers for Disease Control listed firearms as the #12 cause of all deaths between 1999 and 2015, They were also the #1 method of death by homicide and by suicide.
• Mexico has some of the strictest gun control laws in the world and yet, in 2012, Mexico had 11,309 gun murders per 100,000 people compared to 9,146 gun homicides per 100,000 people in the US.
• Five women a day are killed by guns in America. A woman’s risk of being murdered increases 500% if a gun is present during a domestic dispute.

The Second Amendment has recently become the most misunderstood provision of the Constitution. There are two schools of interpretation now — one that it’s about the right of individuals and the other that it’s about the right of a state to have a militia. 

The issue isn’t likely to be solved anytime soon — we can only hope hat both sides can come to some kind of an agreement about what’s best for our country. The right to own a gun is one thing, but when the Bill of Rights was adopted, no one owned, or ever heard of, a MAG5100 — a 100-round magazine for an M-16. The concept of a mass slaughter of people carried out in a matter of minutes was incomprehensible.
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I got busy yesterday and forgot to mention one of December’s big events — the winter solstice.
This year’s winter solstice occurred yesterday, December 21, 2022 at 4:48 p.m. EST for all of us in the Northern Hemisphere. This event is sometimes referred to as the December solstice. 

Yesterday afternoon at 4:48 was the astronomical moment when the Sun reached the Tropic of Capricorn — giving us our shortest day and longest night of the year in terms of daylight. And yesterday (at 4:48 p.m.) marked the official start of winter. 

When the winter solstice occurs, the Sun appears at it’s lowest in the sky, and its noontime elevation seems to stay the same for several days. The Sun’s gradual decrease in the sky reverses at the winter solstice…. many cultures believe that to be a “rebirth” of the Sun as the hours of daylight become longer. 

If you were out and about yesterday about noontime, and you checked your shadow, it was your longest noontime shadow of the year. The Sun’t low arc across the sky in winter causes objects to cast longer shadows.

So — may the dawn of the winter solstice chase the dark away…..
— 30 —

If you watched or listened to the news this morning you know that 6.4-magnitude earthquake occurred in northern California. 

Earthquakes are scary things — they happen without warning and there are no “earthquake shelters” or anyplace you can hide from all the shaking. We experienced earthquakes when we were living in Asia and even here in West Virginia. I’ve also been in a few in California.

I did a little bit of extensive research and found out that one of the 10 strongest earthquakes to hit the Philippines occurred while we were living there — it happened in 1973 and is ranked as number 8 on the top ten strongest list. We felt it in Manila, but its epicenter was in souther Luzon on the Bicol Peninsula.

If you experience an earthquake, the tendency is to run outside, but that’s not what the experts tell you to do. The “experts” advice is to get under a desk or table and hang on to it — “Drop, Cover and Hold on!”

But don’t worry, if you’re a believer in Nostradamus predictions, he said the great earthquake shall be in the month of May. I think someone else may have gotten it right though when they said, Earth is saving itself from humans. Have you noticed it’s been fighting back with earthquakes? 
— 30 —

I was reading about various things that happened in 2022 and one event that happened near here had slipped my mind — in January the University of Maryland Medical Center transplanted a pig’s heart into a human. Unfortunately the man only survived a couple of months. The doctors said he died of heart failure due to several factors, but not organ rejection and they called the trial operation a success.

Well, that got me to thinking about the progress that’s been made in heart transplants in just the last 40 years. 
The first artificial heart for humans was invented and patented in the 1950s, it wasn’t until 1982 that a working artificial heart — the Jarvik-7, was successfully implanted in a human patient.

It’s interesting that the first patented artificial heart was invented by Paul Winchell. If you’re old enough, you remember him as ventriloquist and comedian. But he did have some medical training and he was assisted with his invention by Henry Heimlich, who is known for the emergency choking treatment that bears his name. Paul Winchell’s invention was never actually put into use.
The Jarvik-7 was developed by an American doctor and scientist, Robert Jarvik, and was the first artificial heart intended to last a lifetime.

In December of 1982 — 40 years ago — Dr. Barney Clark received the world’s first permanent artificial heart (the Jarvik-7.) The transplant operation was performed by surgeon William DeVries at the University of Utah Hospital. The artificial heart implanted in Dr. Clark was connected to a 400-pound air compressor that would accompany him for the rest of his life. Dr. Barney Clark lived 112 days after the implant. 

Dr. Clark was a dentist and a “tough old guy” from Seattle — at the time he was hailed as a hero. He left behind a legacy with his willingness to pioneer that new device and furthered research into mechanical hearts.

Subsequent iterations of artificial hearts have seen further success — the second patient to receive the Jarvik-7 lived for 620 days. Even with all the advances, less than two thousand artificial hearts have been implanted and the procedure is usually used as a stop-gap measure until a donor heart can be secured. But research and progress goes on — Dr. Jarvik is quoted as saying, “The artificial heart is very effective as a bridge to transplant, but the number of people that can be saved with human hearts is limited. A perfect artificial heart could save many more patients.”
— 30 —

A few days ago, the subject was eggnog and how it became a Christmas tradition. A lot of other things we do, see and hear around Christmas have interesting backgrounds….

Reading the AARP magazine the other day, there was a quiz about Christmas and one of the questions was what is the most recorded Christmas song in history. I thought it was White Christmas, but I was wrong — “Silent Night” earns that title.

Some other interesting tidbits I discovered include….
The tradition of putting a Christmas tree in your house goes all the way back to the ancient Egyptians and Romans, who decorated using evergreens during the winter solstice to signify that spring would return.
The Santa Claus that we instantly recognize didn’t look like he does today until 1931. In that year, the Coca-Cola company decided to use Santa’s image for advertising, and hired an illustrator named Haddon Sundblom to illustrate the jolly old elf for magazine ads. That’s the image we recognize today.
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer first appeared in 1939 when the Montgomery Ward department store asked one of its copywriters to create a Christmas story for kids that the store could distribute as a promotion. 
The Christmas wreath first originated as a symbol of Christ. The holly represents the crown of thorns Jesus wore at his crucifixion and the red berries stand for the blood He shed. Another reason to remember the reason for the season.
Black Friday — the day after Thanksgiving is usually thought of as the busiest shopping day of the year, but actually the Friday and Saturday before Christmas are the busiest.
The first Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center looked more like a Charlie Brown Christmas tree than the one we’ve seen in recent years. Construction workers first placed a small, undecorated tree while working there in 1931. Two years later, another tree appeared — this time decorated with lights. It just kept getting bigger every year. 
Claire used to put lots and lots of tinsel on our Christmas trees, and she did it one strand at a time! Tinsel was invented in 1610 in Germany and was originally spun from real silver. The U.S. government banned tinsel because it used to contain poisonous lead — that was when Claire stopped putting tinsel on our tree.
Contrary to popular belief, “Xmas” is not some sinister plot to take Christ our of Christmas. “Christianity” was spelled “Xianity” as far back ast 1100. X, or Chi, is the Greek first letter of “Christ” and served as a symbolic stand-in at the time. In 1551, the holiday was commonly called “Xtemmas,” which was later shortened to “Xmas.”
If all this doesn’t put you in a holiday mood, I don’t know what will.
— 30 —

Today is a day when we should all take a moment and think about our freedoms and how fortunate we are to have them. America has always been the “land of the free,” and a lot of that freedom is because of our Constitution.

Today is Bill of Rights Day. The first 10 amendments to the United States Constitution make up the Bill of Rights — passed by Congress on September 25, 1789. The Constitution was a fledgling document that had barely been tested, when James Madison introduced his proposal for amending it on June 8, 1789. Included in his proposal were several protections states had requested during their conventions to ratify the Constitution. Some members of the House of Representatives resisted any amendment to the Constitution and House members had lots of reasons for delaying review. The House agreed to postpone the debate on Madison’t proposal and took it up again before the whole House on July 21. 

Madison initially proposed 19 amendments. the House whittled it down to 17 before sending it to the Senate. Congress finally sent 12 amendments to the states to ratify. On December 15, 1791, the states ratified 10 of the 12 proposed amendments sent to them — those 10 amendments are referred to as the Bill of Rights. 

There were 14 copies of the Bill of Rights printed — one for each of the 12 states to sign and one for the federal archives. Only 12 copies survive today. The Bill of Rights is displayed in The Rotunda of the National Archives Building in Washington, DC.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared Bill of Rights Day on December 15, 1941, recognizing the history and importance of the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution — here’s his proclamation:
“Now, Therefore, I, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate December 15, 1951, as Bill of Rights Day. And I call upon the officials of the Government, and upon the people of the United States, to observe the day by displaying the flag of the United States on public buildings and by meeting together for such prayers and such ceremonies as may seem to the appropriate.”

Today we should be grateful that the framers of the Constitution saw fit to provide a process to amend the document. I’m pretty sure the Bill of Rights could never get through Congress today. We’re lucky — we have the Bill of Rights… what we need today is a Bill of Responsibilities.
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I’ve mentioned in the past that one of our Christmas trees is decorated with, among all the other ornaments, every Official White House Christmas ornament that has been released. Claire, and our Christmas tree, gets a new ornament every year. 

Each year the ornament commemorates a particular president’s time in the White House. This year’s ornament commemorates President Richard Nixon’s time in office and is in the image of a gingerbread White House. 

In 1969, First Lady Pat Nixon started the tradition of an annual gingerbread house on display at the White House. The first gingerbread house was a traditional German style A-frame standing two feet tall and weighing 40 pounds. Years later, White House Chef Roland Messier introduced a gingerbread design that depicted the White House itself — that inspired the design of the Official 2022 White House Ornament. The 2022 ornament is crafted from solid brass in the image of a gingerbread house and features the White House North and South Porticos, adorned with candy canes, mints, gumdrops and swirled accents in white to mimic piped icing. A ribbon hangs below the house, reading “The White House” and “Christmas.”

Of course, Claire likes some year’s ornaments better than others, but this one seems to rank near the top — it’s a great addition to our tree.
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