What Would Jimmy Do?

Happy Easter! This year, in addition to Easter, the 17th of April is World Malbec Day. World Malbec Day is celebrated every year on this date… this year it happens to coincide with Easter

World Malbec Day is an initiative promoted by “Wines of Argentina,” and was started in 2011. It is supported by several Argentine government departments. 
On April 17, 1853, local officials in the Mendoza province approved the region’s first agronomy school, Quinta Normal and Agricultural School, which would study grapes for agricultural purposes. This is the reason this date was chosen by the “Wines of Argentina” organization as the day for World Malbec Day.

The Malbec grape is actually French in origin, but most Malbec today comes from Argentina — how come?

A french agricultural specialist, Michel Aimé Pouget, was teaching agricultural knowledge at the Qinta Normal de Santiago Institute in Chile in the 1840s. The institute imported various agricultural products, including grape vines, from France, to try growing in Chile. It’s believed that likely the Malbec grape arrived this way in Chile in the mid 1840s.

An Argentine man named Domingo Faustino Sarmiento was in exile in Chile at the time. An intellectual, activist, and writer, he took an interest in the agricultural institute. When he returned to Argentina, he proposed that a similar agricultural institute should be established in Argentina. A local government in the Mendoza region approved the establishment of the Quinta Normal and Agricultural School on the 17th of April, 1853. Authorities persuaded Michel Aimé Pouget to make the move from Chile to Argentina to get the new school set up and run it. Among other activities, it would study and promote grapes for wine in Argentina. The Malbec cuttings probably arrived with Pouget from Chile.

The Malbec grape did very well in Argentina — even better than it did in Chile, or France. And — as luck would have it, it was brought to Chile and Argentina just in time, because in 1863, the phylloxera plague hit France, destroying grape vines there. 
Domingo Faustino Sarmiento went on to become president of Argentina from 1868 to 1874.
Seventy-five percent of the Malbec wine in the world comes from Argentina.
In Argentina, the three main growing regions are San Juan, Salta, and Mendoza, with Mendoza being the largest region by far — being home to 85 percent of Argentina’s Malbec plantings. 

In France, the grape is known by the name of “cot,” and is cultivated in Cahors in the south-west of the country, and in the Loire. If a French wine says “Cahors” on the label, it is made from Malbec grapes. 
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Today is Easter, celebrating Jesus’s resurrection — the foundation upon which Christianity was built. It’s obviously one of the most important Christian holy days, and like most special days, it has its traditions, symbols and customs.

Many historians believe that Christians named Easter after Eastre or Eostre, a pagan Anglo-Saxon goddess, in the hopes of encouraging conversion. The early Christians called their Easter celebration “Eosturmonath” after the (Germanic) goddess Eostre. She was recognized as the bringer of springtime and flowers, and after all the celebrations in her honor, the name stuck around for the Christian celebration of the Resurrection.

The early Christians had to link up with something that was relevant and familiar in order to help their new religion get off the ground, so using familiar symbols helped to move their ministry forward and also provided a helpful tool for what they were trying to say. Both rabbits and eggs were pagan symbols of fertility and new life. Over time, eggs gained the representation of Jesus’ emergence from the tomb. In the middle ages, it was forbidden to eat eggs during Lent, so once Easter arrived, the egg shells were painted to celebrate the end of this period and that Christ rose from the dead.

The legend of an egg-laying, candy-giving bunny rabbit was born in Germany and the tradition didn’t arrive in the United States until the first Germans immigrated to America in the 1700s.

Obviously we’re all thinking about Ukraine this year, but while the tradition of dyeing eggs at Easter began as a religious practice, the custom of decorating those eggs comes from a Ukrainian craft dating back thousand of years. The eggs, called pysankas, are created using wax and dyes, a process Ukrainian immigrants brought with them to the United States. 

A co-worker of mine used to say that Orthodox Easter was later because then you get stuff cheaper, but Easter, and Orthodox Easter, is meant to be a symbol of hope, renewal and new life — Happy Easter.
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Today, April 15 this year, is Good Friday. The day is observed as an occasion for fasting, reflection, prayer and solemnity by most Christians and Catholics.

The date of Good Friday shifts from year to year — it all comes down to the lunar calendar, specifically the first full moon to take place after the spring equinox — Good Friday is celebrated the following Friday.

Superstitions say that buns baked on Good Friday will never spoil, protect against shipwrecks and will even shield your home from fire. Another old legend says that people who share a hot cross bun will remain good friends for a year — if — they say a special rhyme while enjoying the bun: “Half for you and half for me, between us two shall goodwill be.” Might be worth a try….
Another superstition encourages you to get a haircut on Good Friday — it prevents headaches for the rest of the year (and makes you look nice for Easter.)
Every year, the open-air play “The Passion of Jesus” is performed in London’s Trafalgar Square — for free. It’s even streamed live on Facebook.

Jamaica has a strange custom — before sunrise, you crack an egg and add just the egg white to a glass of water. As the rising sun heats the egg, patterns form in the glass. Elders believe the way the white swirls can predict the way in which you will die.
The Irish have a tradition of marking eggs with a holy cross and having each family member eat one on Easter Sunday — doing this will help bring good health and luck in the next year. They also believe that eggs laid on Good Friday will never rot — some people hold onto eggs for decades just to prove the myth.

In the Philippines, they re-enact the Crucifixion by actually nailing people (they are volunteers.)
Every year on Good Friday, Bermuda holds its famous kitefest. People go to the beach for a day of easter egg hunts, Bermudian food and kite flying.

When Pope Benedict XVI visited Cuba in 2012, he requested that the Cuban government make Good Friday an official holiday, allowing people to stay home and observe the sacred day without taking off work — his request was granted.
In New Zealand, TV and radio ads are prohibited between 6 a.m. and noon on Good Friday, out of respect for the religious day of observance.
In Germany, this day is called Sorrowful Friday and dancing is prohibited, forcing nightclubs to close or risk being fined. 
The very first Good Friday was observed on Friday, April 3, A.D. 33.

On Good Friday in 1930, BBC radio announced, “There is no news.” The station then played piano music for the rest of the day. I’m pretty sure that’s not likely to happen this year.
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When our daughter, Kelly, was little, she wouldn’t eat anything if it didn’t have ketchup on it. For years, a friend of ours always gave Kelly something for Christmas or her birthday that was in some way related to ketchup. 

I guess when I think of ketchup, I think of Heinz, and Pittsburg and the Steelers and the “red zone.”
Pittsburg is the headquarters of H.J. Heinz Company that was founded about 125 years ago. I’ve heard it said that Pennsylvania is where ketchup was invented (and by Herr Heinz.)
But — my extensive research says that’s not so — It’s not even close…. well, actually Pennsylvania does get the credit for tomato ketchup, but now I’m spoiling the story….

I hope you’re ready for this — the ancestor of modern ketchup was completely tomato-free. Actually, the precursor to what we call ketchup was a fermented fish sauce from (where else?) China!. As far back as 300 B.C., texts began documenting the use of fermented pastes made from fish intestines, meat byproducts and soybeans. The fish sauce — called “ge-thcup” of “koe-cheup” by speakers of the Southern Chinese Min dialect, was easy to store on long ocean voyages.
The pastes or sauces spread along the trade routes to Indonesia and the Philippines, where British traders, in particular, developed a taste for the salty condiment. They took samples home and promptly corrupted the original recipe.

During the 18th century, cookbooks featured recipes for ketchups made of oysters, mussels, mushrooms, walnuts, lemons, celery and even fruits like plums and peaches. Usually, the ingredients were either boiled down into a syrup—like consistency or left to sit with salt for extended periods of time. Both these processes led to a highly concentrated end product — with a salty, spicy flavor that could last for a long time without going bad.

Finally, in 1812, the first recipe for tomato-based ketchup was invented. James Mease, a Philadelphia scientist, is credited with developing the recipe. He wrote that the choicest ketchup came from “love apples.” That was what tomatoes used to be called — some believed they had aphrodisiac powers.

Before vinegar became a standard ingredient, preservation of tomato-based sauces was an issue, as the fruits would quickly decompose. A relatively new company called Heinz introduced its famous formulation in 1876, which contained tomatoes, distilled vinegar, brown sugar, salt and various spices. They also pioneered the use of glass bottles, so customers could see what they were buying.
Tomato-based ketchup slowly became the ubiquitous form of the condiment in the U.S. and Europe. Today Heinz is the best selling brand of ketchup in the United States.

Jeff Foxworthy said you might be a redneck if your only condiment on the dining room table is the economy size bottle of ketchup — but if it is, you can be sure it’s bright red and made with tomatoes.
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One of my favorite foods is Mongolian BBQ. It’s not something that’s available in our area, and in fact it’s hard to find in most places in the United States. I’ve had it in Hawaii, but it isn’t the same as I’ve had in other places in the world. 

In the mid-1980s, I spent a lot of time in California — mostly northern California. I first ran across Mongolian BBQ in California in the Los Angeles area at a place called Colonel Lee’s Mongolian BBQ. I thought it was just about the best Mongolian BBQ I’d ever had. The guys that I was traveling with thought it was a dump and weren’t nearly as impressed as I was. 

It turns out that Colonel Lee’s was a small chain — only in California as far as I know. Since I was spending a great deal of time in the San Francisco area — mostly Palo Alto and Sunnyvale, I was excited that I found a Colonel Lee’s in that area, located on Castro Street in Mountain View. That location wasn’t very far from were I was working and I think I managed to eat there at least several times a week.

Obviously I got to know the owner and the staff very well and they always made me feel like an honored guest. I often took some of the guys I was working with, but only a couple of the them thought it was as good as I did. More than once, when I had to work late, the restaurant was closed when I got there, but if any of the staff was still there, they always opened the door and usually met me with a Tsingtao (Chinese beer.)

One night a friend/co-worker and myself went there for dinner, but Colonel Lee’s Mongolian BBQ was closed due to a private party having their wedding reception in the restaurant. We looked in and saw the place all re-arranged with all the tables nicely decorated with nice table cloths. The wedding party was sitting at a long table facing the other tables, near the front of the dining room.

We were just about to turn around when the manager came running out… told us how glad he was to see us and to “come on in.” I explained that I thought that if the party had rented the restaurant for the night, it was just for their invited guests. Well, the manager said he was sure they wouldn’t mind and in fact a table was already being set up for us near the back — complete with a white table cloth, flowers and “wedding favors,” and of course a couple of Tsingtao beers. 

We were the only ones in the place not of Asian descent. We got a number of stares, and we just smiled and waved at everyone…. most of them smiled and waved back. 

We had the usual great meal and a number of Tsingtao’s along with a couple of glasses of champagne. As the night progressed we started hitting our glasses with a knife as a way of urging the bride and groom to kiss (a tradition at a lot western weddings…apparently not so much at Asian weddings.) But a lot of the guests picked up on it and were making quite a lot of noise. Finally, the bride announced that “we don’t do that!” Both my friend and I wondered if the groom knew that beforehand….

Mongolian BBQ is still one of my favorite foods and Colonel Lee’s Mongolian BBQ will always be one of my all-time favorite restaurants. There are a number of Mongolian BBQ establishments in California, especially the Los Angles area — But there will never be another Colonel Lee’s.
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Today is Palm Sunday — the Sunday before Easter, and the final day of Lent. The day marks the occasion when Jesus rode on a donkey and entered Jerusalem. The name stems from the fact that people in Jerusalem threw palm leaves on the floor to greet Jesus. It is also sometimes called Branch Sunday or Passion Sunday.

On Palm Sunday, palm leaves are blessed and then collected and burned into ash — to be used on Ash Wednesday the following year.
Palm leaves are considered to be a symbol of goodness and victory. The liturgical color for Palm Sunday is red.

Jesus arriving in Jerusalem on a donkey fulfilled a prophecy from the Old Testament about the Messiah, the savior of Israel. In the times of Jesus, it was common for kings or important people to arrive by a procession riding on a donkey. The donkey is a symbol of peace so riding one showed the person had peaceful intentions. 

Palm Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week, also known as Passion Week.
Some/many churches celebrate today with reenactments of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Catholic churches bless palm branches with holy water and distribute them to congregants. Various places in the world have their own interesting traditions related to Palm Sunday. In Latvia, Palm Sunday is called “Pussy Willow Sunday” because pussy willows, rather than palms are used and children are traditionally awoken with a swipe of a willow. In the Netherlands, celebrants decorate crosses with candy and bread in the shape of a rooster. In Poland, competitions for the largest or most beautiful palm branches are common.

But no matter how how you observe it, Palm Sunday is one of the most important days in the Christian calendar. Pope Benedict XVI said that Palm Sunday tells us that… it is the cross that is the true tree of life.
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I like to play golf, although there seems to some disagreement as to what I do on the golf course is really “playing golf.” Nonetheless, I enjoy it and of course what makes it the most enjoyable, is that the group I play with are all really nice guys. 

Over the past couple of years, getting a group together for golf has become more difficult — the golf course that was “our kind of course” closed, Covid made everything more difficult and life just generally got in the way of golf. Everyone in our golf group is “retired,” so you’d think we should be able to play anytime we wanted…. but — that’s just not the case.

When we do get together for golf, after the round, we all sit down and have a couple of beers and talk about whatever is on anyone’s mind — these 19th-hole sessions have provided us all a lot of entertainment, as well as solved some of the world’s most challenging issues. 

Of course we only play golf when the weather is nice, so a few years ago, we started a “Winter Golf” league. Winter golf is just like summer golf except, the weather is too cold to play golf, so we don’t.
We just skip the golf and go right to the 19th-hole session. We rotate it round to everyone’s house and it’s just like golf — without the golf. 
But even winter golf has taken a hit lately — last year we didn’t hold it because of the coronavirus and all the precautions associated with it, like social distancing, etc. And this year, it was cut back from our regular schedule of the past.

But this week we had the “Farewell to Winter Golf” gathering at our house in preparation for summer golf getting underway. This year winter golf took on a different format — wives were included. In the past it was just us grumpy old golfers doing what we always did. The addition of the wives seems to have cleaned up our act a bit and the subjects took on a different flavor, with less complaining and certainly less of a “bar” atmosphere. 

I’m not sure our gathering was technically winter golf as it has been in the past, but it was very enjoyable and the conversation was different and refreshing. Welcoming the ladies certainly added a bit of class — and beauty….
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There’s been a lot of talk about our deteriorating infrastructure lately. Obviously, it’a been neglected over the years and certainly needs to be upgraded and repaired. When a lot of people hear infrastructure, they think of the roads, and specifically the Interstate Highway System. It seems like interstate highways have been around for most of our lives, but the system only came into existence in 1956 as a result of the Federal Highway Act. 
An inter-state highway system was first considered in the 1930s — President Roosevelt expressed interest in such a system as a way of providing jobs.

President Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 on June 29, 1956, while he was in the hospital recovering from an illness. Initially, the interstate highway system’s primary purpose was not to enhance casual driving over long distances but to provide for the efficient movement of military vehicles if and when necessary. At the time we were in the midst of the cold war, so that made some amount of sense. The original name was the “National System of Interstate and Defense Highways.” In October, 1990, President Bush signed legislation changing it to the “Dwight D. Eisenhower System of Interstate and Defense Highways.”

The longest interstate is I-90 (3,085.3 miles) from Seattle to Boston.
The shortest interstate is I-97 (17.6 miles) from Annapolis to Baltimore.
The state with the most Interstate mileage is Texas with 3,232.04 miles.
The state with the most Interstate routes is New York, with 29 routes.
The Interstate route that crosses the most states is I-95 — it crosses 16 states, from Florida to Maine.
The highest Interstate route number is I-990, north of Buffalo, New York.
The lowest Interstate route number is I-4, across Florida.
The only state without any Interstate routes is Alaska —Hawaii has three Interstates (H-1, H-2, and H-3.) — honestly, I don’t understand why there are interstate highways in Hawaii…..

East-west Interstate route numbers end in an even number — north-south routes end in an odd number.
Three-digit Interstate highway numbers represent beltways or loops, attached to a primary Interstate highway (represented by the last two numbers of the beltway’s number.) For example, Washington D.C.,s beltway is numbered 495, because its parent highway is I-95.
If the first digit of a three-digit Interstate number is odd, it is a spur into a city. If it is even, it goes through or around a city.
There are five state capitals not directly served by the Interstate systems — Juneau, Alaska, Dover, Delaware, Jefferson City, Missouri, Carson City, Nevada, and Pierre, South Dakota.
In modern history, France was the first Western nation to begin building a system of national highways — in 1716.

Something you may have heard, but it’s not true, is that one out of every five miles of the Interstate Highway System must be built straight and flat, so as to be useable by aircraft during times of war. It’s interesting to note that during World War II, the Germans used the Autobahns for just that purpose. 

Anyhow, even though the system is getting old and needs some updates and repairs, it’s still going strong and it’s use still makes it possible to travel across the country from coast to coast without seeing anything. 
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Playing games with the grandkids is always fun, but a lot of games they’re familiar with, I’ve never heard of — but they’re still fun and maybe more fun as I listen to the grandkid’s explanation of how they’re played.

It’s also fun to teach them about the “old” classic games, like checkers and dominoes. I particularly like dominoes because besides being fun, there’s counting involved. 

The game can be spelled two different ways — dominoes or dominos. In terms of grammar, it is considered correct with or without the ‘e.’ (The plural form of words ending in ‘o’ can be spelled either way, depending on the word. For example, the plural of piano just adds an ’s,’ while the plural of potato adds ‘es.’ The more common plural spelling of domino is dominoes.

To this day, no one really knows how or why the game is called dominoes. Some historians believe it was named after the black hooded accessory worn by priests many years ago. The best story I’ve heard about the name is that dominoes were developed as a game by French monks and named after the first lines of Psalm 110, which in Latin reads Disit Dominos mea (“said my Lord.”)
The oldest known writings regarding the game dates back to the 12th century — Chinese writers of the Yuan Dynasty described it as a gambling game sold by peddlers. They referred to the game as “pupai.”

The modern version of dominoes comes from Europe. It first appeared there in the early 18th century,  The modern European domino sets differ from the Chines sets —the European versions have 28 tiles, whereas the Chinese ones use 32 tiles. Chinese sets were initially designed to represent all the possible “faces” or throws of two 6-sided dice.

The Netherlands has held an annual event since 1986 called Domino Day. It has set records including the longest domino spiral, the highest domino climb, and the largest domino structure.

The game inspired the phrase “domino effect,” in reference to small events compounding to create a catastrophe. Standing the times closely together or their sides and then tapping the first one to cause the second and then the third and eventually all of the times in the line to topple is what is known as “the domino effect.”

The game of dominoes has inspired a popular pizza restaurant to use a domino tile as it logo. Domino’s Pizza was established on December 9, 1960, in Michigan.

The spots on dominoes are known as “pips,” and the game pieces are called “tiles” — but my grandad always called them “bones.”
The game involves matching the game pieces (tiles or “bones”) —each domino has a number of spots, or none at all, at each end of the tile that must be matched with another of the same number of spots. Playing dominoes with our grandkids is a good way to teach and reinforce basic math skills like counting, addition and multiplication. It also helps develop critical thinking, strategic planning and pattern recognition. I’m not sure how much of that me or the grandkids really learn, but we do have fun — and — it is educational. Actually, it’s a lot like life — you gotta play the “bones” you’ve drawn. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got seven doubles in your hand….
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We’ve been to way too many funerals recently. One of the things I’ve always noticed about funeral services is that everyone tends to dress up — even today, when people typically dress more casually when going to the theater or church, taking a trip on an airplane, or other activities that used to require one to “dress up.”

I noticed that at two of the recent funerals we attended, most people were wearing black, or at least dark colored clothing. I guess wearing black is a long standing tradition — at least in the United States. Funerals are typically somber occasions, and wearing black indicates that you’re mourning the loss of someone, and showing a sign of respect for the deceased.
But I’ve attended funerals in other countries and black is certainly not the accepted color of mourning everywhere.

Wearing dark colors for mourning has been associated with death and loss for centuries in most western cultures. But in other parts of the world it’s not black — it may be red, yellow, purple, white, etc. For instance, in China, red symbolizes happiness and is a color that’s strictly forbidden at funerals — but in South Africa, red is a symbol of mourning, representing the bloodshed suffered during the Apartheid era. Nobel Peace Prize winner, Archbishop Desmond Tutu wore red in tribute to Nelson Mandela at his funeral in 2013.

Purple is a color of mourning in many places… In Brazil it can be considered disrespectful and unlucky to wear purple if you are not attending a funeral, because the color has a sacred, devotional meaning to it. And in Thailand, purple defines sorrow, and is reserved for widows to wear while mourning the death of their spouse.

Colors associated with mourning are often driven by religion — It’s interesting that Islamic traditions do not specify a color for mourning. According to a web site I checked, there are no official mourning colors for Muslim people. There is no religious text in the Quran or the Sunnah indicating any particular mourning color, but there is a prohibition of wearing clothes that “contradict grieving.” That means that if a Muslim dies in the United States, most people grieving will wear black. If a Muslim dies in China, the family will not wear red at a funeral because, in China, the color red “contradicts grieving.”

In the Jewish community, color has a symbolic meaning — white is a sign associated with purity, black is the traditional color of mourning. This is according to The Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic and Mysticism.

Im many cultures, the color white represents purity, but in some religions, the color white symbolizes additional ideas — white can express the concept of oneness with God or represent eternal life in others. For these reasons, white is also an appropriate color to wear to funerals.

Though there are variations within Hindu traditions, women generally wear white or black.
It is common for Buddhist mourners to wear simple, white clothes.
Red is the color of public mourning in Ghana, but the color is commonly reserved for the immediate family members. Extended family and friends wear black to show support to the immediate family.
White is usually considered the color of mourning in China. I found an article titled “Chinese Death Rituals” that says while white is commonly used, it is dependent upon which dialect group the family belongs to — black is sometimes considered a mourning color in China as well as white.

Who knows how people in the future will express mourning through color? I’ve already noticed some change in how people dress for funerals in our town — their dress has become more casual, and probably a bit more “colorful.” And sometimes it may be the wish of the person who has died for mourners to wear bright colors, or maybe the family  requests you to wear a specific color or ribbon in support of some cause or charity. What if the mourning color is dictated more by religion than culture — will most Hindus continue to wear white to a funeral because it symbolizes purity, or will that practice fall away? I imagine that the “color of mourning,” like other things will change over time. 
But I guess that no matter how people choose to mourn, the important thing is not so much a color but that they want to honor and respect their deceased loved ones.
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