What Would Jimmy Do?

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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Football season is winding down — the NFL playoff teams have all been selected and tonight is the College Football Playoff National Championship.

Until a few years ago, when the college football regular season ended, the teams with the best records played in bowl games. When I was young, there were only 4 — the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Cotton Bowl and Orange Bowl. Over the years the number of bowl games expanded — today, I don’t even know how many bowl games are played. Many I’ve never heard of until recently. And today, teams don’t even have to have a winning record to participate in a bowl game.

But anyhow, in 2014, the College Football Playoffs began as a four-team postseason tournament for NCAA FBS schools. A playoff committee selects four schools to compete in semifinals with the winners meeting in the title game. All three games are played on neutral fields and the venues are rotated on an annual basis. 

Tonight’s game, between Alabama and Georgia, will be played at the Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, It will be the first cold-weather city to host the championship game. The stadium invested $7 million in health and safety upgrades in response to the pandemic, including hospital-grade air filters and enhanced cleaning protocols. Masks are not required inside the stadium, but they are strongly encouraged. The stadium uses cashless concession kiosks… no cash.
If you’re attending, you must have a digital ticket. Copies or photographs of tickets will not be accepted.

So just like the rest of the world, football is changing to adapt to the times. Someone said that life is a lot like football — you have to tackle your problems, block your fears, and score your points when you get the opportunity.
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The other day, during a conversation with a neighbor, we talked about something in the neighborhood that should be corrected, or at least reported to the HOA. I made the statement that someone should do it, but it wasn’t going to be me. My neighbor responded with, “chicken.” Just that one word — chicken. Nothing else. But I knew exactly what he was talking about — he was saying that I was afraid to point this out to the homeowner’s association. 

Well, of course, this got me to wondering how “chicken” came to mean coward, or suggest weakness.
The definition of chicken is a domestic bird used for meat and laying eggs. If you think about it, chickens are very timid, and many things scare or frighten them and actually it’s fairly common to use animals to express human traits, like “strong as a bear” or “sly as a fox.”

But I found an interesting story about where the term “chickening out” may have come from….
In 1864 the Union Army provided a chicken to each person who enlisted. He would take the chicken home, clean, dress and cook it for dinner — there was no refrigeration in those days. The next day he came back to ship off for the Union Army.  Should he not come back, his name was printed in the local paper — at the time that was very shameful for the family name. However, a relative with the same family name could fulfill the Army contract by enlisting instead of the the original person. The Union Army didn’t care as long as they were someone of “worth.” 
The story describes a farmer in the southern Adirondacks of New York, 39 years old. He left his wife and 4 children to cover a contract to spare the family name the shame and disgrace from a nephew who “chickened out.”

In ancient times, army officers observed “sacred chicken” before going to battle. The sacred chickens were given grain and if they ate it, the battle commenced, if they didn’t, the armies withdrew from the fight. 

Interesting — and plausible — explanations as to how the word chicken  has come to suggest weakness of some sort. Anyhow, that’s what I found out…. unfortunately these days, when I’m called chicken, it’s usually a reference to me being “no spring chicken.”
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One year ago today was a very dark day in American history. A mob attacked the United States Capitol and disrupted congressional proceedings.

January 6th is recognized by the world’s 2.6 billion Christians as Epiphany. The day commemorates the visit of the three wise men to Bethlehem and it is recognized as the 12th day of Christmas. Today is a sacred day to billions of people. 

Former President Trump has called a news conference for today — even though Trump says he is a Christian, I’m betting the news conference won’t be to discuss why the day is important to billions of people, it will dwell on the so-called “stolen election.”

January 6 should not be politicized — if it’s to be more than Epiphany or the 12th day of Christmas, it should be a day for healing in America. 

Last year on January 7th — the day after January 6, 2021, I posted words from President Theodore Roosevelt. Now, one year later, they are just as important — maybe more important — than they were last year. I think they’re worth reading again….

“The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole.
Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile.
To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.”
~ Theodore Roosevelt
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Update
I haven’t kept up on all the news the last couple of days — it appears that former President Trump has canceled the news conference he planned to hold on January 6 to mark the first anniversary of the attack on the the Capitol. He blamed the media and the bipartisan congressional committee that is investigating the attack. I guess that’s a step in the right direction…..