What Would Jimmy Do?

Honestly, the last couple of years have been pretty crappy. Just about all our “normal” activities have had to be modified in some way. I know we’re always supposed to look on the bright side of things, or for the “silver lining,” but that’s sure a lot easier said than done recently. 

But I decided to honestly take a look and see if I could think of anything good that has come about as a result of COVID. So here are (possibly) some of the positive changes that have happened during Covid-19. Maybe some of the changes will remain in place and become building blocks for the future.

Although I haven’t experienced it, apparently some places have opened drive-through doctors clinics and some doctors are even making home visits. Being able to get a Covid or flu shot in your car seems like a good thing.
This whole work from home thing has revealed some advantages to a lot of people — reducing travel time, saving on travel costs. Online meetings have become popular, if not the norm. I guess that makes it easier for more people to attend (although I’m not sure bigger meetings are necessarily a good thing.)
Shopping from home has become more popular…. more and more businesses are offering home delivery services including for groceries and essential items.
Museums and art galleries are starting online tours and live streamed concerts and there are more online courses available for all sorts of subjects. Religious services are being shared online.
From what I’ve read, carbon emissions are down globally — China recorded an 85 percent increase in days with good air quality recently.
Most everyone has had to become more innovative — lots of businesses have had to reinvent themselves with a “business as unusual” philosophy… for instance, gin distilleries turned to making hand sanitizer.

And COVID gave us all a new sense of appreciation and gratefulness. We probably all gained a new perspective on everything we have taken for granted for so long — our freedoms, leisure, connections, family and friends, and work. Life as we knew it was all suddenly taken away from us. Maybe when this finally ends, we’ll all have gained new levels of gratitude. 

Obviously all these “positive” aspects come at a pretty hefty price of death, sickness, depression, the economy, etc. 
I guess it’s up to us to change ourselves and our system to make the most of these “positives.”
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Last year at this time, we were inaugurating a new President — something we’ve done every four year since our nation was founded, and — hopefully — something we’ll continue to do forever.
This isn’t an inauguration year, but I think it’s something we should all be proud of and there’s a lot of interesting stories about the process and the event itself.

We think of January 20 as Inauguration Day, but that hasn’t alway been the case. Following Washington’s first inauguration, the Continental Congress declared March 4 as Inauguration Day. That date remained in place until the ratification of the 20th Amendment in 1933. Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first president inaugurated on the new date — for his second inauguration on January 20, 1937.

Several presidents have been inaugurated in places other than Washington, D.C., George Washington is the only president to have been inaugurated in two separate cities. On April 30, 1789, Washington took the presidential oath on the balcony of New York City’s Federal Hall. His second inauguration took place on March 4, 1793, at Congress Hall in Philadelphia, which was then the nation’s capital. 

After Warren G. Harding died in office, Calvin Coolidge was sworn in by his notary public dad. They were at a farm in Vermont and had to conduct the whole thing by kerosene lamp at 2:47 a.m. on August 13, 1923. (The new President then supposedly went back to bed.)
Teddy Roosevelt assumed the role of president following the assassination of William McKinley. He was sworn in at the private home of Ansley Wilcox. Following the assassination of JFK, Lyndon Johnson took the oath of office on November 22, 1963 — while aboard Air Force One. (The oath was administered by Judge Sarah Hughes, who became the first woman to inaugurate a president.)

William Henry Harrison set the record for longest-ever speech with his 8445-word inaugural address. George Washington’s was the shortest with 135 words.

When Franklin Pierce was inaugurated (March 4, 1853) he became the only president to “affirm” the office of the president rather “swear” it. At the time he was in the midst of a crisis of faith — still reeling from the death of his only son. 

The first Inaugural Ball was held during the inauguration ceremonies of James Madison. 

Dolly Madison was the first First Lady to attend her husband’s inauguration.

John Quincy Adams was the first to wear long pants at his inauguration. In previous years, knee breeches were the standard “uniform”

Zachary Taylor refused to be sworn in on a Sunday, because he was very strict about “keeping holy the Sabbath.” The position of president couldn’t be just left vacant until Monday, so the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, David Rice Aitchison, was brought in to fill the vacancy. It would seem that makes Aitchison the 12th president and Zachary Taylor the 13th, but apparently he doesn’t count…

If you look at old inauguration pictures, you’ll see that the president-elect is almost always wearing a top hat. So apparently the top hat was part of the uniform of the day. It’s not clear why, or when, this tradition started. Kennedy was the last president to sport a top hat at his inauguration. Lyndon Johnson apparently ended the tradition.

Warren G. Harding was the first to travel to and from his inauguration in an automobile. 

Harry Truman’s second inauguration was the first-ever televised inaugural ceremony.

Richard Nixon didn’t want his inauguration (in 1973) to be marred by a bunch of annoying pigeons, so he requested that tree branches along the parade route be treated with a chemical called Roost No More, which would supposedly make the birds’ feet itch so they wouldn’t want to perch above the president’s motorcade. The inaugural committee spent $13,000 to comply with Nixon’s request. But — the pigeon didn’t just sit on the branches, they wolfed down the Roost No More, which proved to be highly toxic to birds. So instead of dealing with the hassle of live pigeons in the trees, Nixon’s parade was marred by dead and dying pigeons littering the route.

Although George Washington owned a lot of land — more than 50,000 acres of it, in addition to Mount Vernon — he was considered “land poor,” meaning he didn’t often have a lot of cash at his disposal. His bank account was so low he actually had to borrow money to travel to New York City for his first inauguration.

So — hopefully my great-great-great grandkids will blog about interesting inauguration facts and stories when they’re my age…..
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Ok, this blog is aimed mostly at those two or three people that made resolutions for the new year. Today is your day — it’s Ditch New Year’s Resolutions Day. Believe me, I know how hard it is to follow resolutions taken on New Year’s Eve, and if you’ve gotten this far and haven’t fallen off the wagon, good for you. But sometimes (most times) you have to acknowledge you’re not going to keep a resolution and withdraw it — for whatever reason. The calendar says this is “Ditch New Year’s Resolution Day.” It’s an annual celebration observed every January 17 for those of you that got carried away on New Year’s Eve.

So if you fall into the “new year, new me” category, you can officially give up today. But giving up doesn’t necessarily reflect a lack of willpower. In fact, changing your mind about sticking with some of your intentions is probably a smart idea. Actually, if you have followed your new year’s resolution until now, you have achieved quite a lot — now you can go back to your old self, and feel relaxed and guilt free. 

People who study people’s behavior generally agree that if you feel like you need to make a resolution, then the message is that something about you is inadequate and you need to change it.

Some people that aren’t completely ready to throw their resolution out the window, use Ditch Resolutions Day to reset and/or modify their 1 January intentions — maybe by coming up with a simpler, more positive plan not fueled by a holiday hangover. 

So no matter if you’re just forgetting about your resolutions today or taking the day to re-think and recommit, this is the day to do it. I think it’s a good idea — someone could have called today “celebrate your imperfections day,” or something like that. Even though that nomenclature might sound a little less severe, I like the idea of just admitting your mistake and “ditching it.”
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Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. King is arguably the best known civil rights leader — he was born Michael King Jr. (not Martin) on January 15, 1929. His father, a pastor at a Baptist church in Atlanta, traveled to Germany and became inspired by the Protestant Reformation leader Martin Luther. He was so inspired that King Sr. changed his own name as well as that of his 5-year old son.

In 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed a bill that created a federal holiday to honor King. The holiday, first commemorated in 1986, is celebrated on the third Monday in January, close to the civil rights leader’s January 15 birthday. The only other Americans to have had their birthdays observed as a national holiday are George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

On September 20, 1958, Martin Luther King Jr. was in Harlem signing copies of his new book, “Stride Toward Freedom,” in Blumstein’s department store when he was approached by Izola Ware Curry. The woman asked if he was Martin Luther King Jr. After he said yes, Curry said, “I’ve been looking for you for five years,” and she plunged a seven inch letter opener into his chest. The tip of the blade came to rest alongside his aorta, and King underwent hours of delicate emergency surgery. Surgeons later told King that just one sneeze could have punctured the aorta and killed him. From his hospital bed where he convalesced for weeks, King issued a statement affirming his nonviolent principles and saying he felt no ill will toward his mentally ill attacker.

Many believe that King’s last public speech foretold his death…. he had come to Memphis in April 1968 to support the strike of the city’s Black garbage workers, and in a speech on the night before his assassination, he told an audience at the Mason Temple Church: “Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now… I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. And I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

He was a very gifted student — he skipped grades 9 and 12 and enrolled in 1944 at Morehouse College, the alma mater of his father and maternal grandfather. Morehouse president Benjamin Mays was a noted theologian and convinced King to enter the ministry and he was ordained while at Morehouse before graduating with a degree in sociology. 

The civil rights leader went to jail 29 times. He was arrested for acts of civil disobedience and on some trumped-up charges — he was jailed in Montgomery, Alabama in 1956 for driving 30 miles per hour in a 25-mile-per-hour zone. 

So today should mean more than just a day off — Martin Luther King Jr. is best known for his work on racial equality and ending racial segregation in the United states. We should take some time today to at least reflect on civil rights issues across the globe.
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It’s supposed to snow later today — along with ice and freezing rain. So even though tomorrow is a holiday, it may not turn out to be the best one, weather-wise. But even with the inclement weather, Monday is shaping up to be a pretty full day — it not only is Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Ditch Resolutions Day, but it’s also January’s full Moon, the first full Moon of 2022.

January’s full Moon is commonly known as the full Wolf Moon — possibly/probably because wolves were more likely to be heard howling at this time of year.It was ‘traditionally’ believed that wolves howled due to hunger during winter, but we know today that wolves howl for different reasons. Howling and other wolf vocalizations are generally used to define territory, locate pack members, reinforce social bonds and coordinate hunting. 

Another name, sometimes used for January’s full Moon is the Center Moon — referring to the idea that this Moon roughly marks the middle of “cold season.” Other names that have been used by different people over the years include Cold Moon, Frost Exploding Moon, Freeze Up Moon and Severe Moon. Other names include Hard Moon, Canada Goose Moon, Great Moon, Greetings Moon and Spirit Moon.
If you believe in folklore, January’s full Moon has some well know sayings associated with it…..

A bright first Moon promises rain and a bountiful harvest; a red-tinted Moon means a dry year.
A growing Moon and a flowing tide are lucky time to marry.
A halo around the Moon predicts wet or stormy weather.

Whatever you call it, if the weather cooperates, it should be a welcome light for the month of January….
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A few years ago, our friends from Zimbabwe gave me a small pink elephant — it’s really pretty cool, it was hand made in Zimbabwe and I have it sitting on a shelf in my office. At the time I received it, I thought it was kind of a strange gift, but my friends said, “we thought you’d appreciate it. You’ve probably seen a few of these,” I remembered that “seeing pink elephants” was, and is, an euphemism for drunken hallucination caused by intoxication or withdrawal.

I remember hearing the expression when I was younger, but I hadn’t heard it much recently. In fact, I don’t remember the last time I heard it.

But, as I am want to do sometimes, I decided to find out how the phrase came to be a part of our language. Like a lot of things, there’s no clear answer and at least a few “theories” as to how pink elephants became one of the more popular things to hallucinate about rather than snakes, giraffes, monkeys or other animals of various colors.

One theory is that is was fueled by the 1941 Disney film Dumbo. The film contained a scene of Dumbo’s champagne-fueled psychedelic hallucination of Pink Elephants on Parade. The problem with that theory is that before Dumbo saw them in 1941, people had been seeing pink elephants for many years. 

Many people think that the phrase became popular in 1884 when P.T. Barnum attempted — and failed — to bring a white elephant to the United States. The “white elephant” was heavily hyped but was a big disappointment to most people — it turned out to be more of a “pink elephant.”

Another interesting story goes like this… in the December 1938 edition of Action Comics #7, Superman lifts an elephant over his head while performing at the circus. As with most stories, there has to be a non-believer in the crowd and in this case, it’s a drunk. Upon witnessing Superman’s feat of strength, the drunk says, “I don’t mind seeing pink elephants, but (hic) this is too much!”
Nonetheless, over the years, drunk people are often said to “see pink elephants” — although alcohol rarely induces hallucinations.

But do pink elephants really exist? As a matter of fact, yes. Albino-elephants — that are far more common in Asian elephants than African elephants — are reddish-brown or pink. In Thailand, they are called chang phueak, which, when translated, is pink elephant. I should also probably add that desert elephants in Africa sometimes give themselves a dust-bath, which makes them “look” pink. 

Another interesting fact uncovered by my extensive research is that elephants (especially Asiatic elephants) are known to turn nasty on people who smell of alcohol. There have been a couple of cases of drunks being killed by circus elephants. So — if you’re drunk and you see an elephant of any color, it might be safest to keep away — just in case….
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Before I get off this football kick I’ve been on lately, I thought we should talk a little more about bowl games. I remember as a kid, looking forward to the bowl games. A trip to a bowl game was “earned,” as a reward for a good season. And back then, it was a big deal for the fans to attend the bowl game that their favorite team was playing in. The fans usually made it a “vacation” of sorts and planned on spending at least a few days in the city that hosted the game. The games were all in cities with good weather around the first of the year, so that made it all the more enticing. 

The Rose Bowl was, and still is, I think, the “granddaddy of them all.” Everyone wanted to play in the Rose Bowl. The Rose Bowl game started to be played annually in 1916 and before long, other cities throughout the country began to see the promotional value of such a game in promoting tourism. 

By 1940, there were five major bowl games, although I only remember hearing mostly about four. The Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl and Sun Bowl all began playing in 1935 — the Cotton Bowl began in 1937. I don’t remember hearing so much about the Sun Bowl when I was growing up. 

When the bowls first started, commercial air travel was pretty much non-existent so enough time had to be given for fans and family to travel to the games. When football season ended in late November or early December, several weeks were allowed for travel and bowl games were played on, or near, New Year’s Day. In fact, up until the 1950s all bowl games were played on New Year’s Day. By 1990 there were 19 bowl games and only the “major” bowls were played on New Year’s Day. I read that there are now 35 bowl games which begin play in mid-December and continue through early January. 

The University of Alabama has played in the most (57) bowl games and Nebraska holds the record for the longest consecutive streak of bowl game appearances with 35 straight from 1969 to 2005. Oklahoma is the only team that has appeared in all five of the BCS bowl games.
So that’s it for college football for this year — on to the Super Bowl. 
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A few days ago I wrote about the word “chicken.” Later, I got to thinking about all the ways we use chicken in our everyday language and sometimes some of our language doesn’t use the actual word chicken, but its relationship to chicken(s) is readily apparent.

Earlier, I mentioned that to “be chicken” means to “be afraid.” But in addition to that, chicken feed has come to mean a small amount of money and we often (probably not politically correctly) refer to a girl or woman as a chick. If someone is chicken hearted, he’s not brave and to play chicken is a game of stand off, to see who will give first. When I was in school, my teachers often referred to my poor handwriting as chicken scratch.

I’ve always heard that you shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket or count your chickens before they hatch and my grandmother always said that if something was hard to come by it was scarce as hen’s teeth. My grandmother also used to say shake a tail feather, which meant to get moving. If something or someone annoys you, it ruffles your feathers and you probably think they are a dumb cluck or a bird brain. But if you over react, you may have egg on you face, but you shouldn’t brood over it. We all know people that are like a chicken with it’s head cut off and we often walk on eggshells when we’re around them.

We live in a world where there is a pecking order and a lot of people want to rule the roost. When someone is just not nice, we say they’re a bad egg. A mother hen is someone that is very protective and if you’re very angry, you’re madder than a wet hen. If you’re out of here or gone, you flew the coop. And if you’ve read this far and are disappointed…. well, maybe this blog just wasn’t what it was cracked up to be.
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Yesterday’s discussion was about how the term “bowl game” became part of the football lingo. It started with college football, but the NFL started using the terminology in 1951 when they played the first Pro Bowl game. 

The AFL and NFL merged in 1970 and started a championship game called the AFL-NFL World Championship Game. The game went by that name for two years, during which time the final details of the merger were being worked out. By the time of the third “AFL-NFL World Championship Game” the merger was complete and that championship game was re-titled the “Super Bowl.” Actually the game was called “Super Bowl III,” and set the tradition of using Roman numerals for the Super Bowl, rather than the year of the game.

Lamar Hunt, who owned the Kansas City Chiefs and was also the co-founder of the AFL was supposedly the one who came up with the name “Super Bowl,” instead of the “AFL-NFL World Championship Game.” He indicated that he only suggested it as a temporary name until something better came up — but — the name stuck.

According to the NFL, it is illegal to show the Super Bowl on any screen larger than 55 inches. They also do not allow the Super Bowl to be shown at any venue that wouldn’t normally show sporting events, such as churches.

So from their humble beginnings of just “bowl games,” they have now become super….
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Last night the College Football Championship Game was played in Indianapolis. The Georgia Bulldogs won the game. 

Yesterday I mentioned bowl games that used to dominate postseason college football games before there was a “playoff system.” I’ve often thought that the term “bowl” to describe a game was a bit strange, but I was pretty sure why these games were referred to a “bowl games.” Turns out I was right, but while checking, I discovered some interesting information about how “bowl” became part of football lingo….

Back in 1901, the Roses Association, in California, sponsored a college East-West football game between Michigan and Stanford. Turned out it wasn’t a particularly good game and Stanford quit in the third quarter with Michigan being ahead, 49-0. 
For the next 15 years, this event was held annually, but stopped featuring football and turned to other evens like chariot racing. But in 1916, the Roses Association decided to sponsor a football game again — this time between WSU (then called The State College of Washington) and Brown University. The game was held at Tournament Park in Pasadena and every year for the next five years an annual “football tournament” game was held at that location. Each year the attendance at the game grew and it became apparent a stadium was needed to handle the crowds. A new stadium was completed in two years and named the Rose Bowl. The stadium was modeled after the design of Yale’s stadium, the Yale Bowl, that got its name from the fact that it resembled a bowl. So the tournament sponsored by the Roses Association was then named the “Rose Bowl,” after the stadium. 

Soon, other cities and universities with football teams saw the money making opportunities and promotional value of these “tournament” games and began creating their own “bowl” games, even though many of these games were not played in bowl shaped stadiums. 

Even the NFL picked up on the “bowl” nomenclature and eventually got around to naming their championship game the “Super Bowl.” Seems like a good topic for tomorrow….
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