What Would Jimmy Do?

80 years ago today — December 7, 1941 — is the anniversary of the date that President Franklin Roosevelt said “….will live in infamy.” It is, of course, the date, in 1941, that Japanese planes attacked the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

The attack is known for its overwhelming surprise, spectacular explosions and countless heroic acts. But the more you read about the event, more and more fascinating facts surface.

On November 21, 1941 a number of newspaper ads appeared — one big ad and a lot of smaller ones. The ads were supposedly about “Chicago’s favorite game,” called The Deadly Double. The headline of the ads was: “Achtung. Warning, Alert!.” Under the headline, the ad showed people in a air raid shelter playing dice.The dice is numbered 12 and seven — December 7. No dice has 12 and 7 on them. The game never existed and the company that supposedly made it never existed. Military intelligence investigated this, but everything led to a dead end. The person buying the ad space had bought the copy in person, paid in cash and no one knows what the real story is behind the creepy ad. I first heard this story on one of my visits to Pearl Harbor…. I also learned how the name “Pearl Harbor” came about…..

King Kamehameha had conquered Oahu by 1795 as western traders began to arrive regularly in the islands. The new leader of the Kingdom of Hawaii soon learned that foreigners valued the oyster pearls of the river flowing into the lagoon called Wai Momi, meaning “Waters of Pearl.” Kamehameha had native divers of the area gathering them night and day for trade with the west. Around that time, the large lagoon became known as “Pearl Harbor.” (By about 1818 the lagoon was harvested of nearly all its oysters.)

In ancient times the entrance to Pearl Harbor was also known by the Hawaiian name Pu’uloa, meaning “long hill,” named for the straight escarpment that lined the long entrance to the lagoon.

The narrow entrance to the lagoon was too shallow for larger western ships to navigate and the lagoon would not be used as a harbor until the late 1870s when the U.S. Navy dredged it to allow larger ships to enter. 

During the attack, there were 102 ships stationed at Pearl Harbor of which 60 of them received no damage at all. There were 15 ships that received minor damage and 11 more ships that sustained medium to heavy damage. There were 7 ships sunk at Pearl Harbor but only 3 were a total loss — the Arizona, Oklahoma and Utah.

The 3 ships that did not return to service (Arizona, Oklahoma and Utah) were all battleships. The battleships were the secondary target of the attack after no aircraft carriers were identified. The Utah, although it was classified as a battleship, was used for training and target practice only. It was torpedoed by young Japanese pilots after being misidentified. Attacking it was not part of the plan.

A little known second attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese occurred on March 4th, 1942 — just 3 months after the initial devastating attack. The attack, called Operation K was accomplished by two Japanese flying boats that flew across the Pacific from Japan where they were refueled by submarines before flying to Oahu. Each plane carried four 550 pound bombs. 

The mission was to perform reconnaissance of Pearl Harbor and to bomb the repair and salvage operations. The planes approached the islands around 1 am when radar stations on Kauai spotted them. P-40 Warhawk fighters were scrambled to intercept the planes but heavy cloud cover prevented them from finding the Japanese planes that were flying at 15,000 feet. On Oahu, an island-wide blackout and the thick cloud cover also prevented the two Japanese planes from identifying Honolulu and Pearl Harbor at night. 

As is customary, the President proclaimed today National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day….
“NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim December 7, 2021, as National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. I encourage all Americans to reflect on the courage shown by our brave warriors that day and remember their sacrifices. I ask us all to give sincere thanks and appreciation to the survivors of that unthinkable day. I urge all Federal agencies, interested organizations, groups and individuals to fly the flag of the United States at half-staff on December 7, 2021, in honor of those American patriots who died as a result of their service at Pearl Harbor.”

I was only three years old in 1941, but from what I’ve heard, Americans seemed to face adversary a little differently than they do today. A famous World War II general, George Patton said, “May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won’t.” Those words meant something back then — I’m not sure they’d tend to unite all Americans today….
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Somewhere around this time every year, various publications (usually dictionaries) announce their “word of the year.” I always, or at least usually, find their choices interesting and sometimes a little befuddling. I guess it shows my age, but sometimes i”ve never even heard of the “word of the year,” and sometimes lately, it’s not even a “word.” Just a few years ago the word of the year was an emoji — that’s more of a picture than a word to me.

Anyhow, one of the most popular/famous word of the year choosers is the Oxford English Dictionary (OED.) This year the OED word of the war is “vax.” And yes, if you type it, your computer will try to change it to “tax.”

If you remember, last year the Oxford English Dictionary didn’t come up with a word of the year — they decided there were too many new words associated with the COVID pandemic to choose a single word. Merriam-Webster did choose the word “pandemic” for their word of the year, however.

While last year “pandemic” and “lockdown” were often used words, this year OED chose vax because it highlights the medical breakthroughs and the rise of Covid vaccines across the world. According to the Oxford dictionary, the word vax has generated a number of derivatives that we now see in a wide range of informal contexts, from vax sites and vax cards to getting vaxxed and being fully vaxxed. The dictionary authors believe that no word better captures the atmosphere of the bast year than vax.

Usually, I just assume that the Oxford word of the year is good enough for me. But this year, the Cambridge Dictionary’s choice was interesting to me….

Their word of the year was looked up more than 243,000 times on their website in 2021. Their word choice is “perseverance.” Perseverance isn’t a particularly common word for most people’s vocabulary. The look-ups for the word spiked in February after NASA’s Perseverance Rover made its final descent to land on Mars. However, in the following months, perseverance continued to be looked up more frequently than before. It apparently takes perseverance to land a rover on Mars, and also to face the challenges and disruption to our lives from COVID-19, climate disasters, political instability and conflict. In some ways this is a more interesting and appropriate choice for word of the year than vax.

But back to vax — I guess it comes from the word vaccine that was first recorded to be used in the English language in the year 1799 and its derivative words like vaccination and vaccinate came into use in the year 1800. Vaccine is derived from the Latin word Vacca, which means cow. Another popular synonym for vax is jab, which was also a very popular term used this year. 

I can’t argue that vax is an appropriate word, but thinking about it, maybe I’d pick perseverance…. it certainly does take perseverance to face the challenges and disruption to our lives this year — and — it’s a good name for a Mars rover…..
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Here it is December… the 12th, and last, month of 2021. There’s lots of holidays and festivities his month. Besides Christmas, there is Saint Nicholas Day, Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, St. Lucia’s Day, Bill of Rights Day, Wright Brothers Day. Boxing Day and of course, the Winter Solstice.

St. Nicholas Day (December 6) honors St. Nicholas, the patron saint of children and is celebrated around the world with various activities from nuts for presents to stockings or shoes filled with sweets.
St Lucia’s Day (December 13) isn’t as well known as St Nicholas Day, it’s long been associated with festivals of light. Before the Gregorian calendar reform in 1752, her feast day occurred on the shortest day of the year… and contributed to the saying “Lucy light, Lucy light, shortest day and longest night.”
A day that doesn’t get the recognition it deserves and usually gets lost in all the holiday festivities is the Bill of Rights Day on December 17.
December 21 is the Winter Solstice — the astronomical first day of winter (in the Northern Hemisphere.) It’s the first day of summer in the Southern Hemisphere.
December 26 is Boxing Day in the UK and Canada, and the first day of Kwanzaa.

And in December, like every other month, we talk about the weather…. frost on the shortest day is said to indicate a severe winter. But remember the old saying, December changeable and mild, the whole winter will remain a child.

So the last month of the year always seems to be busier than any of the other months, so I’m sure there’ll be plenty to blog about in the weeks to come….
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Happy 4th Birthday to my favorite Twins — Rory and Ellie!!!

The visit with Grammy and Poppi is over…. back home just in time to celebrate their 4th birthday in Fairfax. Bet it’ll be a fun day…..
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Well, here it is just about Thanksgiving already. This will be the first Thanksgiving in a long time that all our kids and grandkids are coming to our house. Obviously, we’re looking forward to their visit and having all the family together.

As is kind of my tradition, I blog something about Thanksgiving every year just because, well, it’s a tradition. 

I’m sure I’ve mentioned some of these “fun facts” before, but there’s only so much you can say a bout a single day that occurs every year…. and — repeating is part of the tradition.
Around the turn of the century, at Thanksgiving, children and adults would dress up in masks and host costume crawls in cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, etc. The tradition of children dressing up as poor people in New York became so popular that Thanksgiving was nicknamed “Ragamuffin Day.”
Three towns in the U.S. are called Turkey — they are located in Texas, Kentucky and North Carolina. Other town names that are appropriate around Thanksgiving include Pilgrim, Michigan, Cranberry, Pennsylvania and Yum Yum, Tennessee.
The first Thanksgiving was declared by the Continental Congress in 1777. but the custom fell out of use around 1815. When that happened, Sarah Josepha Hale, who wrote “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” began petitioning presidents to make it a national holiday. She finally succeeded in 1863, when President Lincoln issued a proclamation. Even then, Thanksgiving didn’t officially have the set date as the fourth Thursday in November until 1941. 
Until 1932, balloons from Macy’s parade were released into the sky when the parade was over. Macy’s offered a $50 reward for those who found a deflated balloon and returned it. The idea never proved very successful because the balloons usually burst after being set free. 
More turkeys (44 to 46 million, annually) are raised I’m Minnesota than any other state.
President Roosevelt officially changed the date of Thanksgiving in 1941 to the second-to-last Thursday in November as a way to encourage more holiday shopping to boost the economy. That decision didn’t go over well, and earned him “the honor” of being compared to Hitler. 

So with all the activity generated by four grandkids, I’m not sure how much football will get watched, but the Detroit Lions and the Dallas Cowboys will be playing their annual games. The Lions have played on Thanksgiving since 1934 — The Cowboys didn’t start until 1966.
No matter what, this will be a memorable Thanksgiving — probably the best ever….
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Our Thanksgiving guests have arrived — Rory and Ellie chose to share a bed. I’m pretty sure this is the quietest our house will be for the next several days.
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Starting early this morning and tonight is November’s full Moon. An added bonus is that there was also a near-total eclipse of the Moon. The eclipse was supposed to be visible  from most of North America. 

November’s Moon is often, or usually, referred to as the Beaver Moon — because this is the time of year when beavers begin to take shelter in their lodges, having already laid up sufficient food for the long winter ahead. During the time of the fur trade in North America, it was also the season to trap beavers for their thick, winter-ready pelts. 

For years, the monthly full Moons were given names tied to early Native American, Colonial American, and European folklore. I’ve noticed that some newspapers and Internet stories are referring to this month’s full Moon as a “Blood Moon.” Since (believe it or not) I wasn’t sure what a “Blood Moon” really was, I did some checking — not extensive research, but just checking.

This month’s eclipse is a near-total eclipse — the Moon will be 98% obscured during the eclipse, so technically it won’t be a total lunar eclipse, or a true Blood Moon. A total eclipse of the Moon is often called a “Blood Moon” because the Moon turns reddish when it’s completely submerged in the Earth’s shadow. 

“Blood Moon” is not a technical term used in astronomy. It’s more of a popular phrase, maybe used because it sounds so dramatic. It simply refers to a “total lunar eclipse” — that’s all. 

Actually, a fully-eclipsed Moon really becomes orange or coppery like a penny, not red like blood. So even though we don’t technically get a true Blood Moon, if the clouds got out of the way, it was still be a sight to behold if you got out about two in the morning. 

An while we’re on the subject of the Moon…. the spin time of the Moon on its own axis is identical to the time it takes the Moon to evolve around the Earth, which is why the Moon always keep almost exactly the same face toward us. 

And — if you’d like to know how much you’d weigh on the Moon, just multiply your weight by 0.165. You’d weight about 80 percent less than on Earth.
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Love potions have been the stuff of history and legend since ancient times. These elixirs, designed to allure, played a major role in both Greek and Egyptian mythology. The potions have long been credited with having magical influences over the whims and woes of human attraction.

In the second century A.D., Roman writer and philosopher Apuleius allegedly concocted a potion that snagged him a rather wealthy widow. Relatives of the widow brought Apuleius to court, claiming the potion had subverted the woman’s true wishes. Apuleius argued that the potion (supposedly made with shellfish, lobsters, spiced oysters, and cuttlefish) had restored his wife’s vivacity and spirit — and the court ended up ruling in his favor.

Today, if you’re looking for love, most people probably turn to Facebook, but some people do believe that love potions are for real. The ancient Greeks ground up orchid, which they regarded as a powerful aphrodisiac, into a powder and added it to wine. They believed that this concoction could inspire passionate love in whoever consumed it. 

Most people can’t think of love potions without remembering the popular song, “Love Potion No. 9,” that was recorded by The Clovers in 1959 and made popular again in 1963 by The Searchers. 

The song was written by songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, and according to the song, the potion’s ingredients “smelled like turpentine and looked like India Ink.” Doesn’t sound very good, but it apparently helped a guy who was “a flop with chicks” — at least until he “kissed a cop down on 34th and Vine.”

But all serious-ness aside, if you’re really interested in a love potion, in the mid 1990s, Leiber and Stoller (the song writers) and a couple of other people developed a trademarked cologne spray bearing the name of Love Potion No. 9.

According to the label, Love Potion No. 9 is made with water, SD40B alcohol, isopropyl myristate, isopropyl alcohol, and the fragrances of citrus and musk. Sounds like this concoction could really heighten you passion and arousal and make you attractive to the opposite sex. Of course, there is a disclaimer on the bottle….”No guarantee of success is granted or implied.”
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A few days ago, I received a really nice gift from a friend. It was a “Golfer’s Hip Flask” — really nice, it came in a leather case that held a divot tool, ball marker and wooden tees. I have never owned a flask before, and while checking on how to clean it properly, I began to run across some interesting things about flasks…. so I just couldn’t resist doing some extensive research on the subject.

First off, there are a number of different types of flasks — you probably remember flasks used in your chemistry classes in school and a vacuum bottle is really a kind of flask, but but my flask is a “hip flask,” so that’s where my research was centered. 

Drinking flasks have been around since prehistoric times. They were popular with the Romans, and they have a dark past with the Mafia. In the middle ages, gutted fruit was sometimes used to store alcoholic drinks. During the 18th century, women would take pig’s bladders, fill them with gin and hide them under their petticoats to smuggle them onto British warships.

Flasks have been made from almost every material you can think of, including earthenwares, wood, bronze, pewter, glass, silver, plastic and stainless steel. Today, the primary reason for using plastic is to avoid detection by metal detectors. 

The curved deigns popular today were invented in the 18th century. They were popular with the elite social class of the time. The high quality flasks were made from silver and glass, but cheaper ones were made from pewter. Pewter contains dangerously high levels of lead and unfortunately for some, the metal was leaking into their containers and causing brain damage. You can still buy pewter flasks, but they no longer contain lead. 

So why were hip flasks invented? Basically, to make smuggling alcohol easier. Prohibition radically changed drinking in America and if you wanted a drink, it was best to conceal it. Around1920, the hip flask became popular in the urban gentleman’s collection of accessories — that’s when it gained its name. The word “hipster” was used to identify people that carried hip flasks during Prohibition. A lot of people would conceal their flasks within their boots, which is where the phrase “bootlegger” came from. Early in the Prohibition period, the US government banned the sale of both hip flasks and cocktail shakers.

I guess this maybe falls into the “fun fact” category, but more hip flasks were sold in the first six months of Prohibition than during the entire previous decade. During Prohibition, the hip flask became the ultimate accessory for anyone wanting to stylishly flout the law.

So hip flasks really became popular during, and because of, prohibition — an interesting subject in and of itself….
Alcohol was banned completely in America between 1920 – 1933. This was driven by various religious organizations that thought banning alcohol would reduce crime and violence rates — and — raise religious quality in America. 

The only this is, it didn’t work. Banning alcohol did not go the way the US government had hoped — it led to lost government revenue from the alcohol tax and caused a lot of people to move on to heavier substances instead. Throughout prohibition, alcohol consumption gradually rose back to around the same level as it was before the ban. 

During prohibition, the high demand for alcohol birthed many dangerous gangs and gangsters, including Al Capone, who is (partially) famous for illegally brewing, distilling and distributing beer and liquor. It also led to the creation of speakeasies — illegal bars where people would drink alcohol in secret. 

But I do like my new flask and I’m a person that likes to see the flask half full — hopefully with Jack Daniels.
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Today is Veterans Day — a day to honor all those who served in the United States Armed Forces. Memorial Day honors those who died while serving. 

Veterans Day is an annual holiday on November 11 — it’s celebrated on that date or the nearest workday (Monday or Friday) to that date.

Veterans Day is a federal holiday in the United States, but many other countries celebrate the day as Armistice Day or Remembrance Day because November 11 marked the end of World War I. (The World War I armistice was signed on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.)

The National Ceremony is held each year at Arlington National Cemetery, where the President normally gives a speech honoring the veterans.
At 11 am a moment of silence is observed to remember those who served. 

At 11 am on November 11, 1918 the fighting during World War I came to an end with the signing of a temporary peace agreement, or armistice. In 1912, President Wilson announced that November 11th would be called Armistice Day in the United States. In 1938, Armistice Day became a national federal holiday. Congress decided that they wanted to honor the veterans of all wars and changed the day to Veterans Day in 1954. Veterans Day was moved to the fourth Monday of November in 1968, but changed back to November 11th in 1978 by President Gerald Ford.

Every day is a good day to remember, but today, especially, we should remember some of the lyrics from the song, God Bless the USA…. “I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free. And I won’t forget the men who died, who gave that right to me.”
This is an important day — we don’t know them all, but we owe them all.
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