Isn't it funny how the powers that be can just take a famous person's birthday and say - never mind that your birthday is on February 22, it's more convenient for me to celebrate it on - say like the third Monday of February, whatever the date might be! Like the ultimate snub more than a celebration!
Ever notice how the more highly evolved we become the more we streamline everything to one unrecognizable blob of commonality?! We do everything for the maximum efficiency and how much money we can save or make!
Washington was born on February 22. The holiday apparently was celebrated since 1879 when it became official. Not until the enlightenment of 1971 was it merged into another day, shared with Lincoln, on neither one's actual birthday! I hear the justification was a four-day weekend for workers, and a uniform time for merchants. Well by all means!!
Seriously, we are a crazy bunch. I for one will raise a glass on the 22nd for good old George. As for Abe, due to my inattention, I already missed his. Better luck next year, when I will mark my own calendar with real events!
Monday, February 16, 2015
Friday, February 13, 2015
hearts
I think I probably wrote about this before but there isn't a Valentine Day that rolls around that I don't think of this incident and am humbled, so bear with me as I don this year's hair shirt!
The year is most likely 1950 and in our humble schoolhouse, I'm a dweller of the Lowers, Grades 1-4. And as was always the case in those days, in great anticipation of the Holiday of Love we covered a box of some size with white paper and cut-out hearts and valentine doilies. The regal box had a large slit at the top to drop said Valentines in as the days went by. I remember Mother buying Valentines - sometimes in a pack, sometimes the kind that you had to punch out of paper molds. We spent nights matching the appropriate ones to our classmates. Mother always insisted that we give one to everyone.
Not every mother was so inclined. And on that exciting day when St. Valentine finally swooped into our little classroom and the box 's contents were revealed and delivered, it was always a contest to see who got the most Valentines - and then of course to feign modesty if it happened to be you!
When into this frenzied ego trip came one of my conservative Mennonite classmates, with a cloth-lined basket walking up and down the aisles handing out freshly baked homemade sugar cookies slathered with rich creamy icing as her Valentines. And I felt so sorry for her that she didn't have flimsy little paper Valentines to hand out like most of the rest of us. Imagine how she must have felt!
Imagine how I feel 65 years later! Horrified by my snobbery and small mindedness.
And longing to have one of those cookies in my mouth this very minute!
The year is most likely 1950 and in our humble schoolhouse, I'm a dweller of the Lowers, Grades 1-4. And as was always the case in those days, in great anticipation of the Holiday of Love we covered a box of some size with white paper and cut-out hearts and valentine doilies. The regal box had a large slit at the top to drop said Valentines in as the days went by. I remember Mother buying Valentines - sometimes in a pack, sometimes the kind that you had to punch out of paper molds. We spent nights matching the appropriate ones to our classmates. Mother always insisted that we give one to everyone.
Not every mother was so inclined. And on that exciting day when St. Valentine finally swooped into our little classroom and the box 's contents were revealed and delivered, it was always a contest to see who got the most Valentines - and then of course to feign modesty if it happened to be you!
When into this frenzied ego trip came one of my conservative Mennonite classmates, with a cloth-lined basket walking up and down the aisles handing out freshly baked homemade sugar cookies slathered with rich creamy icing as her Valentines. And I felt so sorry for her that she didn't have flimsy little paper Valentines to hand out like most of the rest of us. Imagine how she must have felt!
Imagine how I feel 65 years later! Horrified by my snobbery and small mindedness.
And longing to have one of those cookies in my mouth this very minute!
Thursday, February 12, 2015
Strike up the band
Someone said this morning, "It was snowing to beat the band!". Why do we use that expression? And of course I looked it up!
"Beat the band" has come to mean to the extreme - perhaps outdoing the noise of a band, or the entertainment value since in the early days, a band was the ultimate.
I love that! Henceforth when I hear that expression, I will think of watching out of a 2nd story shop window, against a dark October night, and feeling the utmost excitement when a band came strutting down the crowded streets of New Holland on Parade Night! My heart thrilled to the spangled, plumed uniforms, the muffled boom of the drums, the majorettes with their flying batons, (and , gasp, skimpy outfits!) and of course the patriotic, popular music. It was ultimate magic to my four-year-old heart.
So bring it on, beat the band - make my day! I will remember with joy!
"Beat the band" has come to mean to the extreme - perhaps outdoing the noise of a band, or the entertainment value since in the early days, a band was the ultimate.
I love that! Henceforth when I hear that expression, I will think of watching out of a 2nd story shop window, against a dark October night, and feeling the utmost excitement when a band came strutting down the crowded streets of New Holland on Parade Night! My heart thrilled to the spangled, plumed uniforms, the muffled boom of the drums, the majorettes with their flying batons, (and , gasp, skimpy outfits!) and of course the patriotic, popular music. It was ultimate magic to my four-year-old heart.
So bring it on, beat the band - make my day! I will remember with joy!
Sunday, February 8, 2015
Order
I saw a scary movie last night, based on a Poe story, dealing with Victorian asylums - always the stuff of intrigue and horror! And I have read over the last decade, books dealing with confinements - particularly of women for incidents of hysteria, willfulness - or simple dislike! And the methods of "treatment" are unwatchable or unreadable.
I think we are more enlightened. But still, I think we are ill-equipped to handle those of don't conform to our expectations of civility. This week in working at a different library that is located near a homeless shelter, I encountered in the three working hours there, a lady who carried on a vigorous conversation with the inhabitants inside her head, the entire time. She changed cadence and tone to fully accommodate the parameters of the discussion. It was eerie and unsettling.
My first impulse was not of sympathy but of wanting to be rid of her, hoping she would leave, wanting my orderly world to fall back into comfortable place.
Hmm.
february tease
Spring crooked
a sly finger today,
beckoning me
to the land
of crocus
and tee-shirts.
But
I
know
better.
a sly finger today,
beckoning me
to the land
of crocus
and tee-shirts.
But
I
know
better.
Saturday, February 7, 2015
school days
I'm reading The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig for my book club. It's set in Montana in 1909 and centers around a one-room schoolhouse and the lives of its inhabitants. And although my early schooling featured two rooms Upper and Lower, the spirit emanating from the pages is very recognizable.
Critics may say that we received an inferior education in those sparse two rooms, which so few enhancements beyond the battered texts that were solemnly handed out at the beginning of each year, but what was lacking in externals perhaps was more than compensated in spirit.
We were a community. Obviously we knew everyone. When the sum total of four grades equaled about 36 children, there weren't sheltering corners. You knew, loved, feared, resented, envied, admired, tolerated everyone. No mysteries.
But how many priceless truths were learned in a game of recess "round-town" or hopscotch, or Flying Dutchmen? Or in "fetching" water in a pail, or earning the right to ring the bell, pulling on that gnarled, rough rope as hard as you could (and pray not to leave the floor in my case!) or clapping erasers or washing the blackboards, or sweeping the oiled floors? Music was provided by the ancient off-key piano and our enthusiastic voices. Art was white paste and construction paper. Lunch often involved potatoes baking on the ledge of the big coal stove in the front of the room. Lessons were heard four times - once with your small group and then again below or above you, reinforcing what you had learned and opening windows to new ground. As you weren't even allowed to take textbooks home, when that bell rang at three you were done. Period. Think of that in light of today's children who face hours of homework as well as other organized activities before their heads hit the pillow at night.
Inferior education? I'm whistling through my childhood season along with the kids in Montana!
Critics may say that we received an inferior education in those sparse two rooms, which so few enhancements beyond the battered texts that were solemnly handed out at the beginning of each year, but what was lacking in externals perhaps was more than compensated in spirit.
We were a community. Obviously we knew everyone. When the sum total of four grades equaled about 36 children, there weren't sheltering corners. You knew, loved, feared, resented, envied, admired, tolerated everyone. No mysteries.
But how many priceless truths were learned in a game of recess "round-town" or hopscotch, or Flying Dutchmen? Or in "fetching" water in a pail, or earning the right to ring the bell, pulling on that gnarled, rough rope as hard as you could (and pray not to leave the floor in my case!) or clapping erasers or washing the blackboards, or sweeping the oiled floors? Music was provided by the ancient off-key piano and our enthusiastic voices. Art was white paste and construction paper. Lunch often involved potatoes baking on the ledge of the big coal stove in the front of the room. Lessons were heard four times - once with your small group and then again below or above you, reinforcing what you had learned and opening windows to new ground. As you weren't even allowed to take textbooks home, when that bell rang at three you were done. Period. Think of that in light of today's children who face hours of homework as well as other organized activities before their heads hit the pillow at night.
Inferior education? I'm whistling through my childhood season along with the kids in Montana!
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