What Would Jimmy Do?

Halloween is a fun and spooky holiday, steeped in folklore and superstitions. And even though we think of halloween as mostly a “kids” holiday, or a chance to dress up in costumes, halloween traditions stem from darker roots. About 2,000 years ago, the ancient Celts celebrated Samhain on November 1st. The festival honored the dead but the folks celebrating were sure to keep wandering spirits at bay by taking part in certain rituals. It was believed that on October 31st, the barrier between the living and dead weakened and the dead returned.

Some superstitions that I remember hearing when growing up — a lot of them were from my grandparents — include….. if you see bats flying around your home on Halloween night, spirits and ghosts are nearby. If a black cat meows at you window iron your porch, a death will soon occur within the family. If you hold your breath while you drive by a cemetery, evil spirits can’t enter your body. When passing a graveyard or a house where someone has died, turn your pockets inside out to make sure you don’t bring home ghosts in your pockets.

I still think of Halloween more as a day for the kids, but then I read an article in the Huffington Post about “deindividuation.” According to the article, deindividuation is when people become less likely to evaluate their own behavior, and less apprehensive over the possibility that they’ll be recognized or observed by others. The article goes on to state that Halloween stirs up the perfect storm of factors to lead kids to deindividuation. Masks and traveling in group can potentially cause deindividuation and bad behavior. Any consequences are less severe when the person you’r “tricking” can’t identify you under a mask or costume. Studies found that masked kids between 9 and 13 are more likely to take large quantities of candy compared to those kids who are unmasked.
Make what you will of this, but keep an eye out tonight for evil children — that’s all I’m saying.
Happy Haloween!
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It’s time for that “Fall Classic” again — the World Series. I think I’ve mentioned before that when I was a kid, the World Series took precedence over just about everything this time of year. All the World Series games were played during the day back then, and you never went into a store that didn’t have a radio tuned to the World Series. I remember we even got to listen to the World Series on the radio during school sometimes.

Today? Not so much — I actually checked to see what day (night) the series starts this year. So lots of things have changed over the years, and the World Series is one of them…. in case you don’t know — and care — the 2022 World Series starts Friday night, October 28. 

But even though it’s not as popular as it used to be, it’s still an American Classic — the first official World Series was held in 1903. Since that time, it’s been played every year except for two years. In 1904, the National League champion, New York Giants, refused to play against the American League champion, the Boston Americans, because the Giants manager had personal animosity against the American League president. (New rules were drafted the following year, compelling the champions of both leagues to participate in the World Series.) Most of us remember the only other time the series wasn’t played — in 1994 due to the players strike.

That first World Series in 1903 was played between the Pittsburgh Pirates an the Boston Americans. It was a best-of-nine series, not a best-of-seven that they play today. The Americans won that first series five games to three.

The longest World Series game in history (in both time and innings) took place in Game 3 on October 26, 2018, between the Boston Red Sox and the L.A. Dodgers. The Dodgers ended up winning 3-2 after 7 hours and 20 minutes.

Even though baseball had been playing night games since the 1930s, it wasn’t until 1971 that the World Series had a night game. Apparently Major League Baseball figured out that most people were watching the World Series on TV, but it’s hard to watch TV at school or work. The first night game was played between the Pittsburg Pirates and the Baltimore Orioles. 

Deion Sanders is the only person with the distinction of playing in both a World Series and two Super Bowls. He played in the 1992 World Series for the Atlanta Braves and played in back-to-back Super Bowls with San Francisco and Dallas.
Don Larsen of the Yankees pitched the only no-hitter — and it was a perfect game — in World Series history during game 5 of the 1956 World Series.
The first pinch-hit home run in World Series history was hit by Yogi Berra in Game 3 of the 1947 World Series.

In 2003 it was decided that the winning team of the MLB All-Star game would determine which league would have home-field advantage in the World Series.The change was intended to add strategy (and probably interest) to the exhibition game.

The 2016 World Series featured the Chicago Cubs and Cleveland Indians — the two teams with the longest championship drought in history. The Cubs hadn’t won since 1908, and the Indians since 1948, a combined 176-year drought. Prior to winning in 2016, the Cubs had the longest drought of winning a championship in all major American sports..

Some believe the Cubs drought was caused by a “curse.” Baseball is full of superstitions and one of the best is the “curse” supposedly placed on the Chicago Cubs… In 1945, Billy Sianis, the owner of Billy Goat Tavern, was ordered to leave the Cubs’ World Series game against the Detroit Tigers. Apparently the pet goat that traveled most places with Billy was so smelly it was upsetting the other fans. Outraged at this insult to his goat, Billy announced that the Cubs wouldn’t win. They didn’t — even though they kept trying every year. Many attempts were made over the years to break the curse, including getting Billy Sianis’ nephew to bring a goat into Wrigley Field.

And even though it may be called “The World Series,” it doesn’t really include the rest of the world. The Toronto Blue Jays are the only team outside the U.S. to have won the World Series. 

Friday night, this year’s version of the fall classic begins — hopefully it’ll be an exciting series and, hopefully, something will happen that will make World Series history and we’ll be talking about around the water cooler — or at least on social media…..
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A couple of days ago I got off on the subject of door-to-door salesmen — I forgot to mention that were pretty famous door-to-door saleswomen during that time, and maybe even today. I’m referring to the Avon Lady. I honestly don’t remember seeing, or hearing about, Avon Ladies when I was little, but maybe it just wasn’t a thing around Maysville.

I do remember, when I was older, Avon advertisements on TV and I remember they always started, or ended, with “Ding Dong, Avon Calling.”
But regardless if I remember it, Avon has been ringing the doorbells of housewives since 1886.

The Avon enterprise was the brainchild of David H. McConnell, a New York traveling salesman who sold books (what else?) door-to- door. McConnell was an excellent salesman and he came up with the idea of using vials of perfume to entice his female customers to open their doors (and pocketbooks) to him — and his books. When he realized the perfume was a bigger hit than the books he was selling, he changed his course.

With the assistance of one of his employees, a Mrs. Albee, McConnell sold perfume under the name California Perfume Company. McConnell realized that the best way to market his products to women would be to hire women to sell them. Seems obvious today, but I guess someone had to take that first step. At age 50, Persis Foster Earnes Albee was hired to travel by buggy and train doing door-to-door business all around the northeast. Albee soon began to train a fleet of female salespeople to do the same — and the Avon Lady was born!
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Claire was out a few days ago and the phone rang — it rings a lot in our house. I pretty much never answer the phone — I figure if it’s important they’ll leave a message. But the ID that came up was someone we know, so for some reason I answered it…. of course it was a telemarketer. I hung up on him. I was rude. I told him I had more MasterCards than I knew what to do with. 

Well, that got me to thinking about the ‘old’ days when I was growing up — of course there were no telemarketers then. The door-to-door salesman was the marketing man of his day — and — I don’t remember him ever coming during dinner. 

Today, when someone knocks on our door, I usually check to see who it is — if I don’t recognize them, I usually don’t answer. But when I was a kid, seems like someone was always knocking on our front door… one of the neighborhood kids wanting to play, a neighbor wanting to borrow a cup of sugar, or very often, a door-to-door salesman.

Back then, door-to-door salesmen weren’t a bad thing and my mother and especially my grandmother patronized these salesmen.
Maysville, didn’t have a department store, or a convenience store, so these salesmen offered goods that weren’t readily available locally. When I was a kid, the Sears catalog was the “go to” place for shopping for things beyond the staples. 

So my mom and grandmother did their at-home shopping with door-to-door salesmen. These salesmen filled a need in those days. Almost no family had two cars, my mom stayed home, and my dad drove the only car to work, so these salesmen made it easy to shop at the kitchen table. Things were simpler and trust among people existed back then. 

I remember door-to-door salesmen coming to our door selling vacuum cleaners, scissors, encyclopedias, Bibles, dishes, magazines, and whatever. But I remember my grandmother always bought things from the Watkins man that came regularly to her house. I don’t know if Watkins products still exist, but they consisted of laundry soap (I think my grandmother referred to it as “washin’ powder,”) salves, camphor, vanilla, etc. Their number one best seller at gramma’s house was liniment — she was convinced that it would cure whatever ailed you. Grandma always made sure she had enough liniment to last until the Watkins man came again. 

The other regular at our house was the Fuller Brush guy — I always liked him. He came to the door dressed in a coat and tie, carrying a big briefcase and usually a couple of mops and brooms under his arm. I was always fascinated when he opened his briefcase, at all the brushes and little cleaning tools he had available — he always had one for whatever my mother or grandmother needed to clean. I think they almost always bought something.

These days, the only person that comes to the door delivering items is the UPS person or the Amazon guy. We order online and they deliver the goods. Occasionally, we have children come to the door because they were sent out by their teachers, scout leaders, sports groups or others to raise money for various causes. Girl Scouts used to come to the door selling cookies, but now they hang out at supermarkets.

So what happened to those door-to-door salesmen? They’ve been replaced by those irritating telemarketers who call during dinner — they’ve replaced an entire culture of marketeers that we didn’t mind seeing at our front door. 
The end of an era — just memories of days gone by…. and I guess so are the days of always knowing your neighbors.
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When I was growing up, I remember my parents (my mother, especially) giving me lots of good old-fashioned advice — a lot of which I think could be traced back to old wives’ tales, or folklore, or some such source. 

One thing I remember my mother saying pretty often is that it takes fewer muscles to smile than it does to frown, so I should smile more often.
Just the other day I read that it takes 39 muscles to frown, and only 12 muscles to smile. You’ve probably come across this same statement (or some variation of it, with different numbers.) Regardless of the numbers, the core message remains the same — it takes more effort to frown, so why not just smile instead?

But — this well-meaning, if overly simplistic, piece of advice only sounds scientific. It turns out that there might not even be a “true” answer to this smile-or-scowl question.

It appears that there are just too many variables for this problem to lend itself easily to a scientific solution. For instance, what constitutes a smile — or frown — varies from person to person…if the corner of your mouth turns down, is that a frown? Is a smirk the same as a smile?
Research has shown that we don’t all have the same number of facial muscles. A study of 18 Caucasian cadavers revealed that while five sets of muscles — the ones that control expressions of anger, happiness, surprise, fear, sadness and disgust — were present in all subjects, there were variations in other facial muscles in at least eleven of the cadavers.
So while I buy in to this good advice to turn your frown upside down, there doesn’t seem to be any scientific proof that you’re necessarily using fewer muscles — but just remember there is no one on whom a smile doesn’t look good.
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Most of the games our grandkids have, I don’t recognize. I remember our kids had games that were familiar to me from when I was a kid, but the old “classic” games just don’t seem to be popular today, or maybe they don’t even make them anymore.

Even the ones that you think are classic, like Monopoly, Clue, Sorry, etc. aren’t really the same games — they’re “Star Wars Monopoly,” or “Harry Potter Clue” and they don’t play by the same rules that I remember.

But one game that I remember from when I was a kid and seems to still be around is Mr. Potato Head.
I’m not sure it is as popular as it once was, but I still see it in stores and I think our grandkids have it. 

Mr. Potato Head was created by the American inventor George Lerner, who gained inspiration from his own childhood, when he made dolls from potatoes for his younger sisters. His idea for Mr. Potato Head was to give children a toy they could design themselves. The original toy sold for less than a dollar. No plastic body was included — kids, or their parents, had to find a real potato to stick the plastic parts into.

Turns out that the idea was poorly received, partly due to the food rationing of World War II, but a cereal company bought the toy for $5,000 and distributed only the plastic face parts in their cereal boxes. Hasbro bought the rights to Mr. Potato Head from the cereal company and successfully marketed the toy. Mr. potato Head was first advertised on television — it was the very first television commercial for a toy. The ad showed a little girl and boy playing with potatoes and attaching accessories, like eyes, ears, noses, hands, feed, hats, etc. 

Pretty soon, parents were complaining about moldy potatoes all over their houses, so Hasbro came out with a plastic “potato” body. The original plastic mold was enlarged over time to make it easier for small children to insert the pieces into the manufactured “potato.”
Mr. Potato Head was officially inducted into the Toy Hall of Fame in 2000.

You’re probably thinking, “what a great toy.” Entertaining, kids love it, totally non-violent, just good clean fun — just like it used to be when we were growing up.

But in today’s world, even Mr. Potato Head just can’t seem to avoid controversy.
Hasbro caused a stir when the toy manufacturer said it would remove the Mister from Mr. Potato Head, leaving us with only Potato Head.

As you might expect, like most things these days, the Hasbro announcement created a social media uproar. Hasbro said the idea behind the gender-free, brand-name change was to be more inclusive so that all could feel “welcome to the Potato Head world.” Which is a good thing I guess. 
Hasbro said it would sell a playset without the Mr. and Mrs. designations, allowing kids to create their own type of potato families, with two moms or two dads.
The controversy over how a toy potato identifies itself seems to have passed, since Hasbro recently announced that Mr. (and Mrs.) Potato Head would remain unchanged.

So Mr. Potato Head has been through a lot during his more than fifty years, but maybe his crowning achievement came in the late 1960s with the release of the “Mr. Potato Head on the Moon” playset. That made the country proud by fulfilling President Kennedy’s vision of putting the first potato on the moon.
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Some time back, when Emily was at our house, she had some kind of soft drink that had random “facts” printed inside the lid. I happened to read one and it said, “A group of twelve or more cows is called a flink.” I had never heard this and in fact I’d never heard of the word “flink.”

I figured that, as usual, some of my extensive research might shed some light on the subject, but even after extensive research, the statement and the word flink remains a bit of a mystery.

I started with the dictionary — according to the Oxford English Dictionary, flink is a 19th century US rural dialect verb meaning “to behave in a cowardly manner.”

But if you check the Internet, flink is found all over the place, defined as “a group of twelve cows,” “at least twelve cows,” and so on. I found flink on a number of lists of collective animal nouns, like a “pod” of whales, “murder” of crows, etc. 

Digging a bit further, I found that a book by Kay Pfaltz, “Lauren’s Story: An American Dog in Paris,” contained the following sentence on page 21 — “A flink is twelve or more cows.”

The word was mentioned on a web site about science for kids, that talked about making an object that neither floats on top of a container of water, nor sinks to the bottom, but hovers halfway up or down. The word used on the site is “flink.” It seems to have been created by combining FLoat and sINK into a single term. Actually that sounds like a good term to apply to “hovering in a liquid.” But nothing to do with cows…

Flink apparently means cleaver in Norwegian. 
One google response to “what is a group of cattle called?” was…
A group of cattle is called a herd, mob, drift, drove or team. Historically, people who took cattle to market on the open range were known as drovers.

So basically, I couldn’t find any reliable source that ties “flink” to cows, but if that somehow is a legitimate term, I guess dairy farmers and cattle ranchers should be called flinkers…..
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If you’ve been paying attention over the years, you know that today is a “holiday” that we always celebrate.
I’m not sure why I think it’s necessary to explain Ten-ten Day every year — maybe because every year the same people seem confused as to what we’re celebrating…..

Today is the anniversary of the start of the Wuchang Uprising — on 10 October, 1911. The revolution brought an end to the Ching (Qing) Dynasty, that the Manchus had created in 1644. The rebellion swiftly gained traction across the country, and the Republic of China was formed just two months later, becoming Asia’s first worldwide recognized republic. Following the Chinese Civil War, the government of the Republic of China lost control of mainland China to the Communists and relocated to Taiwan in 1949. Today, October 10, is the Republic of China’s official National Day, and it is extensively celebrated in Taiwan as Ten-Ten Day or Double Ten Day. Outside Taiwan, National Day is also celebrated by many Overseas Chinese Communities.

We of course learned about the Ten-Ten Day celebration when we lived next door to the Chinese Embassy in the Philippines and we’ve been celebrating it for 50 years now.

A couple of interesting Taiwanese facts picked up over those 50 years….
Only 2.3% of Taiwanese people are native — probably because during the Qing Dynasty, natives were forced out, in much the same way Europeans pushed away native Americans, Canadians, Australians, and New Zealanders.
Taiwan is the size of Belgium, but it’s a heavily populated country with a population of 23 million people, whereas Belgium has a population of only 11 million.
Taiwan is modern and forward-thinking, at least in comparison to its neighboring nations — for instance, in 2019 Taiwan legalized same-sex marriage.
The national dish of Taiwan is fermented tofu and it smells exactly how it sounds.
The Taipei 101 skyscraper was the world’s tallest building until 2007 when it was replaced by the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.

Ten-Ten Day celebrates Taiwan’s rich cultural legacy with great cuisine, live music, dancing, entertainment and other activities…. and here in Shepherdstown, Chinese food is a must.
Happy Ten-Ten Day!
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Today is Columbus Day — a U.S. holiday that has always been, to some extent, and even more so, today — a kind of controversial holiday. The day commemorates the landing of Christopher Columbus in the Americas in 1492. It was unofficially celebrated in a number of cities and states as early as the 18th century, but didn’t become a federal holiday until 1937.
Many people today think of the holiday as a way of honoring Columbus’ achievements and celebrating Italian-American Heritage. 

Christopher Columbus was an Italian-born explorer who with backing from the Spanish monarchs Kind Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, set sail in August 1492, bound for Asia aboard the ships the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. He intended to chart a western sea route to China, India, and the fabled gold and spice islands of Asia. Instead, he landed in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492, became the first European to explore the Americas since the Vikings established colonies in Greenland and Newfoundland during the 10th century.

Later that October, Columbus sighted Cuba and believed it was mainland China. In December the expedition found Hispaniola, which he thought might be Japan and established Spain’s first colony in the Americas with 39 of his men.
In March, 1493, Columbus returned to Spain in triumph bearing gold, spices and “Indian” captives. He crossed the Atlantic several more times before his death in 1506.

The first Columbus Day celebration in the United States took place in 1792, when New York’s Columbian Order, better known as Tammany Hall, held an event to commemorate the historic landing’s 300th anniversary.
In 1892, President Benjamin Harrison issued a proclamation encouraging Americans to mark the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ voyage with patriotic festivities.
In 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed Columbus Day a national holiday, largely as a result of intense lobbying by the Knights of Columbus.

Columbus Day was originally observed every October 12, but was changed to the second Monday in October beginning in 1971.
Several U.S. cities and states have replaced Columbus Day with alternative days of remembrance. In some parts of the United States, Columbus Day has evolved into a celebration of Italian-American heritage. Local groups host parades and street fairs featuring colorful costumes, music and Italian food. In places that use the day to honor indigenous peoples, activities include pow-wows, traditional dance events and lessons about Native American culture.

So today is a federal holiday — whether you celebrate Columbus Day, Indigenous Peoples Day, or something else, it’s nice you have the freedom to make that choice…..
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Today, October 8, is an important day — the Department of Homeland Security was established (by President George W. Bush) and Don Larson (Yankees) pitched the only perfect game in the history of the baseball World Series on the 8th day of October. But what really makes this day special is, it’s National Pierogi Day.

Before I married Claire, I had never heard of a Pierogi, but I found out that it had a very special place in her life, growing up. I’m not sure it still happens, but every year after Thanksgiving, Claire’s entire (big) family got together and made hundreds of pierogis for the family’s Christmas Eve dinner. 

Considered to be one of Poland’s national dishes, pierogis are first boiled and then served several at a time with melted butter. In Eastern Europe, most countries have their own version of the dumpling. 

In the United States, pierogis are a popular dish in Polish communities and many events are held in honor of the periogi. In Whiting, Indiana, a pierogi fest is held for 3 days in July, and in Pittsburgh every Pittsburg Pirates baseball home game features a pierogi race, where runners in pierogi costumes compete in a race. And people in the village of Glendon in Alberta, Canada love pierogis so much that in 1993 they constructed a 25 foot tall fiberglass pierogi, with a fork through it. 

Researchers haven’t found a real history behind National Pierogi Day…. in fact, they haven’t even been able to determine the exact year of beginning for the day. But if someone thinks today is National Pierogi Day, that’s good enough for me. Seems like a better reason that some to celebrate.
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