What Would Jimmy Do?

Today is Friday… it’s also Lent. Even though (because of our age) we’re “exempt” from the rule to abstain from eating meat on each Friday of Lent, we usually don’t have meat on those Fridays.

But, in addition to being Friday, today (March 19) is also St. Joseph Day. The feast of St. Joseph is celebrated annually on March 19th in honor of St. Joseph, the husband of Mary and stepfather of Jesus. The holiday takes place during Lent. 

St. Joseph’s feast day is a “solemnity,” the highest order of liturgical feast — meaning that Catholics are to observe it similar to a Sunday. But what happens when a feast day lands on Friday during Lent?

According to the Code of Canon Law, “Abstinence from meat… is to be observed on all Fridays, unless a solemnity should fall on a Friday.” St. Joseph Day is a day of celebration, meaning any type of fasting or abstinence from meat is temporarily lifted on that day. 

I’m not sure what we’re having tonight, but whether we have meat or not, we’ll observe the “spirit” of the law and celebrate the life of St. Joseph.
Happy St. Joseph Day.
— 30 —

Today is St. Patrick’s Day and time for my annual St. Patrick’s Day blog. Obviously I’ll probably wind up repeating stuff from past years, because there’s only so much one can know, or not know, about a day that is celebrated annually. But if you’re like me and don’t remember what i wrote last year, it won’t matter….

I though this year we’d focus on some of the things that are not true about St. Patrick’s Day, such as….
St. Patrick wasn’t Irish — even though he’s the patron saint of Ireland, he was born in Scotland. His real name was Palladius. He was kidnapped and sold into slavery in Ireland when he was a teenager. Later he escaped, went back to Scotland and joined a monastery. He returned to Ireland as a missionary, where he lived for 40 years.

A saint’s feast day marks the day that they died — not their birthday. 2021 is the 1,560th anniversary of St. Patrick’s death.

Even though green is the color most associated with Ireland, it’s not St. Patrick’s color. Members of the Order of St. Patrick used blue as their symbolic color.

Many St. Patrick’s Day traditions that we assume are traditionally Irish actually originated in the United States. The first St. Patrick’s Day parade occurred in New York City in 1782 — it became an annual event in 1848. It wasn’t until 1931 that Ireland held an official St. Patrick’s Day parade. And the drinking… alcohol consumption was not a staple of the holiday in Ireland. In fact, until the 1960s, pubs in Ireland were closed on March 17, in observance of the religious holiday.

Legend has it that St. Patrick gave a rousing sermon that sent all of Ireland’s snakes slithering off into the ocean. Most historians think Ireland owes its lack of snakes to the Ice Age and geography, not St. Patrick. The slipping glaciers of the last Ice Age left Ireland  surrounded by water, making it impossible for snakes to reach it. Before then, the land that would become Ireland was far too cold for the cold-blooded creatures to survive.

St. Patrick’s Day is a feast day for a Catholic saint — best known for converting native Irish people to Christianity. Until the 1700s, it was a day on the Catholic calendar in observance of a saint important to, and popular in Ireland — and not much anywhere else. In Ireland, Catholics honored St. Patrick with prayer and quiet reflection. St. Patrick’s Day, as we know it today, started in America in the late 19th and early 20th century, when the large numbers of newly arrived Irish immigrants began using the day as a way to celebrate their Irish heritage.

The process of officially canonizing saints didn’t become common practice in the Church until long after St. Patrick’s death. During his lifetime, “saint” was not an official title bestowed only on those whom the Pope deemed worthy. It was more of a general title that would be assigned to people who lived especially holy lives or performed acts of martyrdom.

Even though he gets credit for it, it’s unlikely that St. Patrick introduced Christianity to Ireland. In the fifth century AD, the Pope sent Palladius to Ireland with the mission of preaching to “the Irish believing in Christ.” So he didn’t introduce Christianity to Ireland — he really just helped it along. As far as St. Patrick using the shamrock as a symbol to demonstrate Christianity…. he may well have used it to represent the Holy Trinity, but the shamrock already had symbolic significance in pagan traditions. Green was an important color to paganism because it represented rebirth, and the number three was as much a staple of paganism as it is of Christianity — many pagan religions have three primary gods.

There is really no relationship between St. Patrick’s Day and leprechauns, except they’re both Irish. However, more people don red beards and green hats on St. Patrick’s Day than on any other day of the year. Leprechauns didn’t become a staple of Irish literature until many years after St. Patrick’s death. And even though many decorations around St. Patrick’s Day show female leprechauns, traditional leprechauns are only male. 

But none of this “fake news” about the day detracts from the celebration…. my favorite Irish saying is still, “I’m Irish! When I feel well I feel better than anyone, when I am in pain, I yell at the top of my lungs, and when I am dead I shall be deader than anybody.”
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!
— 30 —

Well, today’s that day again — the Ides of March, a day with a sinister reputation that’s probably undeserved. 

We all remember that before Caesar’s time in Roman history, there were ten months and the first month of the year was March. (Back then it was called Martius, after Mars, the war god.)  Ides means “split” as the lunar month was split into three parts, the ides being in the middle of the month. 

And of course, we all know the saying “Beware the Ides of March,” is not meant to imply that the Ides of March itself is sinister. This was just a normal day in the Roman calendar and even though the word is plural it denotes a single day that falls in the middle of the month. 
To be clear, the Ides weren’t anything — just a name given to a division of the month and every month had its Ides. 

However, because Shakespeare incorporated the words into his play Julius Caesar, the Ides became associated with bad luck. A seer called Spurinna warned Caesar about the Ides of March a month before his death and later on the morning of his death. The place where he was assassinated was cursed and left vacant for a while and later it was converted into a public latrine. 

So depending on your viewpoint, you can blame or credit Shakespeare for the Ides reputation. in all likelihood, today will probably feel like any other day of the month to you….
— 30 —

If you got up early to celebrate Pi Day, I hope you didn’t miss it, because….
It’s that “time” again. At 2:00 a.m. this morning everyone got out of bed and set their clocks ahead one hour…. then went back to bed knowing that they’d just lost an hour of sleep. These spring and fall clock changes continue a long tradition started by Benjamin Franklin to (supposedly) conserve energy.

Historically, daylight saving time (DST) has begun in the summer months and ended right before winter — but the rules have changed over the years. In 2007, the rules for DST changed for the first time in more than 20 years. The changes were enacted by the Energy Policy Act of 2005, and extended the length of DST in the interest of reducing energy consumption. 

The rules increased the duration of DST by about a month. DST is now in effect for 238 days, or about 65% of the year. When the policy act was passed, Congress retained the right to revert to the prior law should the change prove unpopular or if energy savings were not significant. 
Even though any energy saving is questionable, the new policy remains in effect:
DST begins at 2:00 a.m. on the second Sunday of March
DST ends at 2:00 a.m/ on the first Sunday in November

Most people that I’ve talked to lately, think it should be done away with, but despite the complaints, DST isn’t all bad news. One benefit seems to be a decrease in crime. One study found that the start of DST in the spring was associated with a drop in robberies. 

But for now, like it or not, we’re into Day Saving Time — if it’s confusing to you, just think about the guy that asked, “daylight saving time — why are they saving it, and where do they keep it?”
— 30 — 

Tomorrow, March 14 (3/14) is Pi Day. I blog about Pi Day every year because I like Pi Day. I know a lot of people use it as an excuse to eat pie and lately I notice most of the Pizza places run Pi Day specials on their “pies.” But of course everyone knows by now that Pi Day isn’t about pies.

Like all days that repeat every year, I’ll probably repeat some details about Pi again this year, but hopefully I’ll touch on some new stuff. There wasn’t always a Pi Day. In 1988, physicist Larry Shaw launched the pi-partying day at the Exploration Science Museum in San Francisco. Every year, on March 14 (2/14) staff and visitors walk a circular parade (the diameter of the circle is like Pi times its circumference) each holding one of the infinite numbers of Pi. It didn’t become a national event until 2009, when the House of Representatives passed Resolution 224 with the goal being to increase interest in math and science.

The ancient Babylonians knew of pi’s existence nearly 4,000 years ago. A Babylonian tablet from between 1900 B.C and 1680 B.C calculates pi as 3.125, and the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus of 1650 B.C, a famous Egyptian mathematical document, lists a value of 3.1605. The King James Bible (I Kings 7:23) gives an approximation of pi in cubits — a unit of length, corresponding to the length of the forearm from the elbow to the middle finger tip (estimated at about 18 inches or 46 centimeters.)
The Greek mathematician Archimedes (287-212 B.C.) approximated pi using the Pythagorean theorem — a geometric relationship between the length of a triangle’s sides and the area of the polygons inside and outside circles. 

To back up a bit, Pi (π) is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. Because it is irrational, it can’t be written as a fraction — it is an infinitely long, non repeating number. The record for the most digits of pi memorized belongs to Rajveer Meena of India, who recited 70,000 decimal places in 2015. 

Because pi is an infinite number, humans will, by definition, never determine every single digit of pi. However, the number of decimal places calculated has grown exponentially since pi’s first use. The Babylonians thought the fraction 3 ⅛ was good enough in 2000 B.C., the ancient Chinese and the writers of the Old Testament seemed perfectly happy to use the integer 3. By 1665, Sir Issac Newton had calculated pi to 16 decimal places. The advent of computers radically improved humans’ knowledge of pi. Between 1949 and 1967, the number of known decimal places of pi skyrocketed from 2,037 on the ENiAC computer to 500,000 on the CDC 6600 computer in Paris. Late last year, a Swiss company used a multithreaded computer program to calculate 22,459,157,718,361 digits of pi over the course of 105 days.

I mentioned last year that there is a resistance movement growing…. some argue that pi is a derived quantity, and that the value tau (equal to twice pi) is a more intuitive irrational number. Tau directly relates the circumference to the radius, which is a more mathematically consequential value. Tau also works better in trigonometric calculations — tau/4 radians corresponds to an angle that sweeps a quarter of a circle, for instance.

So if you’re interested in joining the resistance movement, or you’re just looking for another day to celebrate, meet me back here on Tau day — June 28.
— 30 —

Yesterday, we discussed the demise of telephone booths. I was thinking that even in the very small town of Maysville, we had a couple of telephone booths when I was young. But if you’ve read this blog over the years, you know that when we got our first telephone, it had no dial — you just picked it up and the operator answered. Maysville was so small, everyone knew everyone and the operator always called you by name.

Of course as technology advanced, we got modern phones that actually had dials on them, even though our telephone “number” only had two digits. But there was still an operator, and in Maysville she still placed calls for most people. Even when you went to big cities like Oklahoma City, you could dial zero from any phone and talk to an operator.

Well…. that got me to thinking — when was the last time I dialed “zero” on a phone? Would an operator still answer?
When I was little, one of the things we learned was that we could dial 0 to reach an operator. And operators could help with all sorts of stuff — she could tell you the time, call the fired department or police department for you or give you a telephone number. 

Just out of curiosity, today I dialed 0 on my iPhone. I got a recording telling me to dial 911 for an emergency and that I could reach “customer service” by dialing 611.
It seems like “0” has gone the way of the horse and buggy — and operator.
— 30 —

Today is International Find a Pay Phone Booth Day. If, for some reason, you’ve tried to find one lately, you know that they are on the endangered species list. I have heard that pay phone booths are still “out there,” but I haven’t seen one in a long time. So I guess that this is a call for action day. I would assume that the reason for this day is to encourage everyone to go out and find a pay phone booth. 

Since this blog is notorious for keeping readers informed, I should mention that the first pay phone booth was called a telephone cabinet. The first phone booths were enclosed, rectangular boxes, made of wooden frames with glass walls — later models were made of metal frames and usually plexiglass walls. 

When I was young, you could find a phone booth just about anywhere you looked. They were on street corners, restaurants and all public buildings like court houses, airports, and bus or train stations. The arrival of cell phones was the kiss of death for phone booths, and it happened very fast. I’m not aware of any pay phones in Shepherdstown, but I’ve been told there ares a few, that still work, in the surrounding area. Just another thing you can tell your grandkids about that they won’t know what you’re talking about.

Alexander Graham Bell was granted the first patent for his telephone on March 7, 1876, and made the world’s first telephone call on March 10, 1876 — making this a very appropriate date for International Find a Pay Phone Booth Day. Phone service was established at the White House one year after its invention, making Rutherford B. Hayes the first president to have telephone service.

Again, following this blog’s policy for keeping you informed — Alexander Graham Bell refused to have a telephone in his study because he was afraid it would distract him from his scientific work. I’m pretty sure he could already foresee all the spam calls. 

Thomas Doolittle invented the first telephone booth in 1878 —users could place calls between two towns for 15 cents. The booth was patented in 1883.

Originally, all phone booths could receive incoming calls… people could wait for a call, or a call-back. The incoming call feature was stopped sometime in the 1980s — the phone company claimed it helped drug dealers. 

International Find a Pay Telephone Booth Day was created by Bob Matthews of Rochester, NY in 2018. He happened to stumble on a phone booth in a local mall and realized they were becoming increasingly rare and thought it important recognize this soon to be relic before they completely disappeared. 

I encourage everyone to make a concentrated effort to find a phone booth today — this is not one of those phony holidays. The disappearance of phone booths is a serious problem and if we fail to act we can only blame ourselves for the rise in crime and violence. We removed all the phone booths and now Superman has nowhere to change.
— 30 —

I read an article the other day and it referred to someone’s ring finger. It occurred to me that I immediately knew that they were referring to the finger next to the “little” finger — on the left hand. Well, that got me to thinking about how I knew that. The reason I knew it was because I’ve always heard that finger referred to as the “ring finger.” But why is that?

Thank goodness for my extensive research…. turns out that the selection of that finger as the ring finger is not definitely known. But — there are a few theories, the more popular one being…. that before medical science discovered how the circulatory system functioned, people believed that a vein ran directly from the fourth finger on the left hand to the heart. In fact, the descriptive Latin name vena amoris was chosen for this vein — the vein of love. With the heart at the center of your emotions, this was thought to be the best finger to wear your wedding/engagement ring on — it showed to all the world a symbol of your forever love and that your heart had been claimed by another.
Science has since proven that every single finger has veins running to the heart, but even though the science may not support it, the romantic notion remains. 

Wearing your wedding ring on the left hand isn’t a global practice. In Russia, Norway, Germany and India, the ring is worn on the right hand. This might be because of some evil association with the word “left” — “sinister” comes from a Latin word that means “on the left side.” Also, I seem to remember that in India, the left hand is considered unclean. 

On a related subject, wedding rings used to be worn almost entirely by women — from what I can tell, the practice of men wearing rings began to pick up during the 1st and 2nd World Wars, when married soldiers started to wear rings to remind them of their partner.
It’s kind of interesting how this, like most/all traditions evolve…. there’s usually some kind of logic, or at least a reason behind it.
— 30 —

There’s been a lot in the news about today (March 4) — at least one radical group claiming that former President Trump will be inaugurated as the new President…. (Spoiler Alert — that won’t happen.)

Anyhow, until the ratification of the Twentieth Amendment to the Constitution in 1933, the official day for presidential inaugurations was March 4. When the fourth fell on a Sunday, the ceremonies were held on March 5. (That occurred in 1821, 1849, 1877, and 1917.)

The first first president (George Washington) was not inaugurated until April 30. Congress scheduled the first inauguration for March 4, 1789, but they were unable to count the electoral ballots as soon as anticipated, so the first inauguration was postponed to allow the president-elect time to make the trip from his home in Virginia to the nation’s capital in New York City. 

The passage of the 20th Amendment, Nicknamed the Lame Duck Amendment, moved the inauguration date from March 4th to January 20th. The amendment also changed the opening date for a new Congress to January 3rd to eliminate extended lame duck congressional sessions. 

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was sworn into office on January 20, 1937 along with Vice President John Name Garner and became the first president to be sworn in on the new date set by the 20th amendment. This was the beginning of Roosevelt’s second term as president. 

So we don’t give March 4 much thought except in times like these when groups like QAnon promote conspiracies…..
— 30 —

A couple of days ago I was reading the “joke” page in the back of the AARP newsletter and it listed some things you feel and think that means you are getting old. Well, that got me to thinking about how my perceptions have changed over the years — not that I’m “old,” but I have to admit that I’m getting older.

When you get older, you get wiser (or so I’ve been told.) So I’ve kind of grown up wth this idea in my head about what it means to be old. I just assumed that when old age came around I’d know right off the bat — but I don’t think that’s the case…. I don’t think there’s any warning that old age is coming for you — it just shows up.

I think some of the signs it may have showed up here is that I’ve noticed that my favorite music is now considered “elevator music,” I seem to pay more attention to the weather report than the news, I see that there is more food in our refrigerator than beer, sleeping on the couch makes my back hurt, and a $5.00 bottle of wine is no longer “pretty good stuff.”

I seem to be forgetting people’s names, even more than usual and find that I really enjoy being asked for my ID. I’ve completely lost touch with everyday technology, like iPads and our TV. I feel tired when I wake up in the morning. I remember when we got a daily newspaper delivered. I find myself complaining about more and more things (if that’s even possible.) 

Anyhow, it’s kind of disturbing to realize that old age isn’t coming for you — it’s already here. But, you know what that say — the good thing about being old is not being young— 30 —