What Would Jimmy Do?

Today we’ve reach an annual milestone — six months from today, it’ll be Christmas. Of course that’s not what we celebrate today…. it’s also two of our kids’ birthdays. Dave and Chassie were both born on June 25th — one year apart, making them our “Irish Twins.” I’ve mentioned it before, but that term is used when two people are born on the same day and month but one year apart. 

So let’s talk about that date… one year apart:
Dave was born on Wednesday
Chassie was born on Thursday
Both their zodiac signs are Cancer
The President was Jimmy Carter when Dave was born
The President was Ronald Reagan when Chassie was born
Margaret Thatcher was the UK Prime Minister when they both were born
Pope John Paul II was leading the Catholic Church when they both were born
When Dave was born, the number one song in the US was Coming UP (Live At Glasgow) by Paul McCartney
When Chassie was born, the number one song in the US was Betty Davis Eyes by Kim Carnes

So how old are Dave and Chassie?
Today Dave is 2138 weeks and 5 days or 15971 days old
Chassie is 2086 weeks and 4 dats ir 14606 days old

We missed celebrating with them last year and we didn’t make it on time this year, but we’ll get it done. Happy Birthday to our Irish Twins, Dave and Chassie!!!
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First off, Happy father’s Day. This year, it’s also the official start of summer. The June, or summer, solstice will occur at 11:32 p.m. (our time.) That’s when the sun reaches the point at which it is farthest north of the celestial equator. The sun reaches its highest and northernmost point in the sky and must travel its longest path — meaning it will take longer to rise and to set, which is why today marks the longest day (and shortest night.)

If this isn’t enough, on Thursday (24th) the full moon (this one will be the Strawberry Moon) will appear. And we’re just about half-way to Christmas. So enjoy the day — tomorrow the days will start getting shorter again….
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In addition to Father’s Day, there’s another reason to celebrate here in West Virginia. On June 11, 1861 delegates met in Wheeling and nullified the Virginian ordinance of secession and proclaimed “The Restored Government of Virginia,” thereby refusing to secede from the Union as part of Virginia. 

West Virginian statehood was approved in a referendum and a state constitution drawn up. In April, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the admission of West Virginia into the Union effective June 20, 1863

When Virginia decided to secede from the Union, West Virginia became the only state to declare its independence from the Confederacy and the only state to gain statehood by Presidential proclamation. 

Happy 158th Birthday to the state where “Mountaineers are always free.”
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Talk about one busy day!!! Today, June 20th is Father’s Day, the State of West Virginia’s birthday, and — it’s also the summer solstice, making it the official start of summer and the longest day of the year. 

There’s just so much stuff here, I decided to address the events separately in short blogs rather than trying to cram it all into one entry. So happy reading to both your faithful readers….
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Some time back, when going through a closet, I found an old Chinese Checker game board made of plastic. It was in pretty sad shape and since Emily sometimes likes to play Chinese Checkers, I made a new board out of wood. I built a drawer into the board to keep the marbles. In case anyone doesn’t know, Chinese Checkers is played with marbles. Each player needs 10 marbles of the same color.
We had some marbles from an old game and we bought some at a local general store. 

This got me to thinking about marbles. When I was growing up, any self-respecting boy had a marble collection. In grade school, during any recess, the playground was full of kids (mostly boys, if I remember) playing various marble games. 

I would never have thought of going to school without some marbles in my pocket. I suppose it would be considered gambling these days, but we usually played for “keeps.” That basically meant that if you knocked (“shot”) someone else’s marble out of the ring, you got to keep it. 

I can’t remember the last time I saw kids playing marbles… a lot of games we used to play, such as marbles are considered old fashioned by many people these days. Many schools don’t allow children to bring their toys from home anymore, so that would include marbles. I guess the fear is that some younger children might swallow a marble and choke…. so — they’re no longer allowed at school. It also seems that recess is more supervised that it was when I was little, so marbles probably aren’t one of the “approved” activities. But time moves on and some things, like marbles, are just left behind due to progress.
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Every year on this date, I’m faced with the difficult task of writing this blog. It’s not that there isn’t a lot to say, the problem lies with trying to convey the same thought without sounding like a broken record. 

I could say that we’re celebrating Claire’s 29th birthday for the 46th time, but I’ve done that before. I could write happy birthday in the languages of all or most of the countries we’ve visited, but I’ve done that before… it always comes out that in any language, she’s still the love of my life. I could tell you that she’s my best friend… done that. I could tell you that I’d have to pass if a genie offer to grant me a wish — with Claire, I’ve already received my greatest wish…. done that. I could describe her many attributes and good qualities… done that, too.

So I think you can see my problem — after all these years, I still haven’t been able to make my birthday wishes to her capture how I really feel about her. 

Today is a special day for her and I hope it truly is “special.” But again, what do I say to her to express how much I love her and how much she means to me. 
I’m not sure “I love you.” can ever be over-used and I say — and mean — it often. I’ve mentioned before that the Chinese have a phrase, Zhi Zi Zhi Shou, Yu Zi Xie Lao, that means “to hold hands and grow old together.” I like that a lot, but it still doesn’t win out over “I love you.” I’ve also often thought about  when Winnie the Pooh told Piglet that “You don’t spell love… you feel it.” Maybe that’s the problem — I haven’t mastered putting that feeling into words.

So once again, I’ve come up short…..
Menoi, I hope your birthday’s as amazing as you are and as happy as you make me.
You deserve more — but, Happy Birthday — I love you!!
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It seems like these days the world is full of things to be afraid of. If you ask most people what they’re afraid of, you get responses like: global warming, needles, public speaking, nuclear war, tornadoes, or maybe losing a loved one or a friend.

But if you go to the movies, or “stream” the movies/TV shows, horror movies or TV programs aren’t usually about those fears — they’re usually about dolls or sharks, or maybe clowns.

A phobia is an intense fear of a certain object or scenario that impacts behavior and sometimes daily life. Phobias are often deep-rooted psychological responses tied to some traumatic event in the person’s past. 

I read a magazine article a few days ago that discussed a survey conducted by Chapman University. According to the survey, 7.8 percent of Americans suffer from coulrophobia — a fear of clowns. And — it can be a debilitating fear. I might note that coulrophobia isn’t an officially recognized phobia. I guess if you think about it, the fear of clowns must be real and fairly widespread…. it’s even inspired it’s own “word” to describe it.

Our son, Dave, while not afraid of clowns, isn’t particularly fond of them either. I remember the first time we took him to the circus, he was anxiously looking around and asking where the clowns were… even before we got inside. 

In theory, clowns are figures of fun, intended to produce amusement and laughter with their hijinks — not screams of horror. When you think of clowns, you envision big smiley faces, party tricks, slapstick, bright colors, funny costumes, etc. None of these things are typically associated with intense fear. While doing my usual extensive research on clowns, I ran across a term I hadn’t heard before — “uncanny valley.” First of all we have to remember that clowns are people. People in elaborate/funny costumes, but people nonetheless. So, they have human bodies and faces, like everyone else. But that is where the problem(s) come in.

The “uncanny valley” effect is a phenomenon where things that look human but “aren’t quite there” are incredibly unsettling. It appears to be a fundamental reflex. If you put a pair of google eyes on a sock, you’ve got yourself a lovable puppet that nobody has any issue with — but a highly realistic android with an almost-but not-quite-identical face to that of a real human is often very frightening. Ventriloquist dummies also have a similar “scary” reputation like clowns, likely for this very reason.

One theory is that they make us think of death and corpses (a dead face looks like a normal one but “behaves” differently.) Anyhow, for whatever reason, human faces that deviate from the norm are upsetting.

And it’s not just the face — humans are very sensitive to body shape, and movement. We (subconsciously) glean an incredible amount of information just from the way someone walks. We are sensitive to all aspects of a person’s walk such as posture, stance and gait. Clowns throw all this out of whack with their exaggerated tumbling and walking. All these things make clowns upsetting, just by their existence, for many people.

The unpredictability of clowns may be another reason for “clown phobia.” If you go to a circus, most things are predictable… jugglers juggle, acrobats perform impressive stunts, wild animal tamers tame wild animals, and clowns clown around. But clowns don’t always clown around as expected — they do things that defy normal behavior. That unpredictability is something that causes a knee-jerk distrust and apprehension in many humans. 

Stephen King once said that nobody likes a clown at midnight — for a lot of people, that probably applies to any time of day.
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Today’s topic is going to be short — Napoleon short. A couple of the people I play golf with are short — not extremely short, just shorter than the others that I play golf with. But nonetheless, they have to put with the “short jokes.” And a number of times in the past, we’ve had discussions about the “Napoleon Complex.” So I thought today might be a good day to talk about Napoleon Bonaparte. 

Napoleon was one of the most successful and brutal military leaders of all time — he was known to have a short fuse and was often shortsighted, but he wasn’t, as popularity believed, especially short in stature. His supposedly small stature and fiery temper inspired the term Napoleon Complex, a belief that short men tend to compensate for their lack of height through domineering behavior and aggression. The Napoleon Complex, sometimes called Short Man Syndrome has come to describe all men who have an inferiority complex. 

But was Napoleon really short?
The only known measurement of Bonaparte came from his autopsy, that reported a height of 5 feet, 2 inches. But hat measurement was calculated in French units. The French inch (pouce) of the time was 2.7 cm, while the imperial inch was shorter, at 2.54 cm. So by the English Imperial system, his height was actually 5 feet, 6 inches. I know, you are saying that that’s still pretty short, and that’s true by modern day standards — at least in some places in the world, like the United States. But in Napoleon’s time in France, the average height for an adult male was about 5 feet 5 inches (in modern international units.) Another possible reason for the misconception is the fact that Napoleon kept himself surrounded by a group of relatively tall guardsmen. He was never seen in public without his “imperial guard.” These soldiers averaged six feet in height and would have towered over Napoleon. 

Well, that got me to wondering…. if Napoleon was about average height, where did the “legend” of his small stature come from?  The image came mostly from the work of one man — British cartoonist James Gillray. Gillray’s caricatural depictions of the French general were extremely popular and influential. Gillray’s cartoon “Maniac-raving’s-or-Little Boney in a strong fit” was a satire of a genuine diplomatic incident which had occurred on March 14, 1803 at the Tuileries palace in Paris. In front of hundreds of European dignitaries, Napoleon vented his rage at Lord Whitworth, the British ambassador. This brutal and ungentlemanly attack terminated by Napoleon retiring to his apartments, leaving nearly two hundred spectators of his wanton display of arrogant impropriety in amazement and consternation. Gillray’s cartoon depicts a tiny Napoleon wearing boots that dwarf him, tearing his hair out in rage. He is surrounded by overturned furniture that is as big as he is, with speech bubbles depicting him filled with manic raging thoughts about Britain. The name “Little Boney” stuck and Gillray from that point on continually depicted the French Emperor as diminutive, raging and boastful — like a child throwing a temper tantrum. 

After Gillray’s cartoons appeared, Napoleon sent a flurry of diplomatic notes across the English Channel demanding that the British government censor its press.
So in the end, Napoleon is primarily remembered for two things — being a master tactician and being short.
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Today is Memorial Day — a day whose true meaning often gets lost in the activities of a “three day weekend” that traditionally kicks off the beginning of the summer season.

I’m often puzzled by how many people know so little about the true meaning of Memorial Day, and how many don’t understand the difference between Memorial Day and Veterans Day.

I often hear people say “Happy Memorial Day” and even though they mean well, the day really isn’t something to celebrate — it’s a time to honor those fallen in military service to our country. For some, over the years, it’s come be a day to honor not just the war dead, but to remember all deceased members of one’s family, often with a visit to their grave-sites.

Memorial Day does not honor veterans who came home — we do that in November. The purpose of Memorial Day is to honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice and gave their lives in the defense of our country. It’s amazing that as important as this day is it wasn’t until 1971 that Congress made Memorial Day a national holiday…. three years after it passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, creating three-day weekends.

In 1996, President Clinton signed into law a National Moment of Remembrance — a full minute of silence at 3 p.m. on the last Monday of every May, to “remember and reflect on the sacrifices made by so many to provide freedom for all.”

So whatever you’re planing to do this Memorial Day —pause for that one moment at 3 p.m. You’ll feel better for it…..
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Seems like a lot of recent topics have involved idioms lately. Today’s subject falls into that category, too. As we’ve discussed in the past, an idiom is a metaphorical figure of speech, and it is understood that it is not a use of literal language. 

Anyhow, during one of our 19th hold discussions recently, it was mentioned that one of the group had started his career as a “bean counter.” Everyone knew that he had been an accountant early in his career. The term bean counter has come to (usually) refer to an accountant or someone who focuses on figures, statistics and spreadsheets, rather than the bigger picture. Not only does it simply refer to an accountant, it is usually an insulting term suggesting that the person is obsessed with trivial details. 

So how did these people/professions get this reputation and why beans? During my extensive research, I found an interesting story about how the derogatory nickname may have come about. In the 1920s, the marketing and sales-analysis firm The Nielsen Company (now better known for its television ratings system) was just a fledgling operation. The story goes that founder A.C. Nielsen was so diligent in his analysis that his employees counted the beans one by one at grocery stores they were auditing. Makes for an interesting story, but given that the preferred unit of a crop economy is the bushel, not individual grains, seeds, ears, etc. it’s probably not true. 

One plausible explanation for the term is that it’s a translation of a German idiom. The German word Erbsenzähler was used as early as the 1660s, and translates as “pea counter.” Erbsenzähler is a term for a nitpicker.

The generally accepted explanation is that beans are a cheap commodity, so to count them is a rather silly thing to do. A “bean counter” is one who nitpicks over small things in order to save costs. The term has also come to describe any soulless individual who cares more about the bottom line than quality.  

So it appears that “bean counter” is just another instance where beans have suffered from negative connotations. The phrase “he doesn’t know beans” suggests that someone is clueless, and “it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans,” means that something is meaningless or worthless. 

I feel bad for beans — they seem to have gotten a bad rap…. maybe that’s the reason they decided to become the fruit that makes you toot.
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