We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
I guess that even I, who does tend to be a skeptic about everything, have been a bit influenced by the RC-hating MSM, because I have to admit that this somewhat surprises me.
My Mom recently mailed me a stack of letters, postcards, etc that my Grandpa had mailed to his kid sister from a June-August 1940 trip he had taken his two kids on - my Mom and my late uncle. (My Grandpa's lovely wife died after giving birth to my Mom, and he never remarried. Not sure he ever got over that loss.) A single parent.
He wrote about three letters or postcards per week to his dear Sis in Bridgeport, CT. It's a delight to read these travelogues. Seems like the fellow (who was a good pal to me when I was young), a great yachtsman (also a fine horseman, polo player, and shooter), spent much of his time on the bridge with the officers during the cruise part of their trip. He reported all the warships he admired en route - Sis' husband was a naval officer in the Pacific at the time. Probably spent the rest of the time in the bar playing poker, which he reported was pleasantly air-conditioned.
He also reported that my Mom, as usual, won the shipboard trap shooting contests (she has always been good with a horse and a shotgun, but now all she does is tennis and gardening). At the time, my Mom was in high school on the riding team and my Uncle at Dartmouth on the drinking team.
Their cruise took them from NYC to San Francisco via Baltimore, Havana, Cristobal, Balboa, Acapulco, Los Angeles on the Panama Pacific Line'sCity of San Francisco. From his letters, they also stopped in Colon and Panama City.
As I do, my Grandpa loved the shipboard life, especially the coasting up from Panama to California. Then they spent a few days at the Hotel Empire in SF, then variously trained and drove to the Yosemite Lodge, the Grand Canyon, spent a couple of weeks at the still-wonderful old Eaton's Ranch in WY, thence to the New Lawrence Hotel in Chicago and then train back to NYC.
Nice summer trip.
Christmas, mid-1950s, in Grandpa's parlor I think. My cuz added some color to the B&W. My Grandpa with pipe in hand on left next to Sis, and other relatives:
A bit more about this one of my two fine Grandpas on continuation page below. One day soon, we will do a post inviting readers' Grandpa reminiscences. Not today.
A friend of mine was recently pulled over for speeding. The constable, ambling over to his driver's side window asked "Are you carrying, Mr. Smith?"
"No, sir. I am not carrying today. But why do you ask?"
"I ran your plates. Have a good day, sir, and watch your speed."
The cops around here know that if you have a carry permit, it means you've been well-vetted by the local PD, the State Troopers, the FBI, and who knows who else - and that you have been found to be a solid citizen.
Found these at the Bass Pro Shop in Nashville a couple of years ago. In my case, their message happens to be true. Yes, there are still some Farmalls in New England, and my Grandpa's is still running fine even though he stopped running long ago.
The ones with the close-together front tires creep me out on Massachusetts hills, though. I prefer a "wide stance" on the hills.
Several years ago, Rockwell International decided to get into the heavy duty transmission business. They were getting ready to tape a first introduction video, so, as a warm up and sound-check, the professional narrator began ad-libbing what has become a legend within the trucking industry. This man should have won an Emmy for his stellar performance. Now remember this is strictly off the cuff, nothing is written down.
Talk about a Gift of Gab.
President Obama and the Democrats in Congress should have hired him to explain their version of health care reform to the American people.
- "Authentic" classical music, with original instruments and strict constructionists directing (eg John Eliot Gardiner) was popular over the past couple of decades. Interesting too. But is it time to Forsake Authenticity?
How much of what shapes our lives is luck and serendipity? Most of us have met our spouse by chance, and many even have their jobs or even their careers by stumbling onto something.
On Maggie's Farm, we like to view life optimistically as an endless conveyor belt of opportunities, but with few of them passing by more than once. Thus do we necessarily accumulate regrets over time.
But what is luck made of? What is Fate made of? In part (and only in part), it is made of these ingredients:
"Character is destiny." - Sigmund Freud
"Chance favors the prepared mind." - Louis Pasteur
"You make your own luck." - Ernest Hemingway
"I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have." -Thomas Jefferson
"I've found that luck is quite predictable. If you want more luck, take more chances. Be more active. Show up more often." - Brian Tracy
"Suit up, show up, and shut up." - AA aphorism, and the closely related Woody Allen quote: "Eighty percent of success is showing up."
This topic came to mind as I reflected on our corny but deeply true QQQs on persistence. Persistence tends to work because it works on a statistical basis. If a fellow hits on enough gals in the pub, he'll eventually get lucky.
Of course, knowing when to fold 'em is part of wisdom too. Sometimes sunny optimism is plain stupid.
When Christ rode into Jerusalem down from the Mount of Olives on a colt (or small horse, or donkey - whatever) on Palm Sunday, he was greeted with Hosannas by excited crowds who believed him to be the Messiah.
His teachings and his miracles had become famous. People threw their cloaks on the road and, presumably, palm leaves, for his horse to walk on.
Much of their enthusiasm was unwarranted, however: the Jews were hoping for a political messiah (using the word "king"), more than they were hoping for the messiah who came to tell them that much of what they believed about being in relationship with God was wrong - and claiming that he had the authority to say so.
"Salvation," for the crowds, meant salvation from the Romans, and "the kingdom of God," in the Hebrew Bible, referred to the literal restoration of a nation of Israel under God, as had been promised to David. There was no concept at the time, I believe, of the now-Christian idea of salvation or the Christian idea of "the kingdom of God." Furthermore, Jesus had no interest I am aware of in politics or governance and had no beef with the Romans.
A radical for sure, in his apparent renunciation of the ordinary world.
My own view is that it refers to God's domain, ie the universe of those souls who seek relationship with God - not any literal kingdom but a "spiritual" (I hate that word), unworldly kingdom. Maybe "transcendent" is a better word.
I suspect that the Jews who welcomed Jesus to Jerusalem were deeply disappointed to discover that Jesus' mission was not worldly, but other-worldly: only a few handfuls of people remained to constitute what the scholars term the "Christ cult" after the crucifixion. It took Paul's inspired work to rebuild on the foundation.
(That's just my amateur take on it all. I am no expert.)
It didn’t dawn on me that there might be a few holes in my education until I was about 35. I’d just bought a house, the pipes needed fixing, and the plumber was standing in my kitchen. There he was, a short, beefy guy with a goatee and a Red Sox cap and a thick Boston accent, and I suddenly learned that I didn’t have the slightest idea what to say to someone like him. So alien was his experience to me, so unguessable his values, so mysterious his very language, that I couldn’t succeed in engaging him in a few minutes of small talk before he got down to work. Fourteen years of higher education and a handful of Ivy League degrees, and there I was, stiff and stupid, struck dumb by my own dumbness. “Ivy retardation,” a friend of mine calls this. I could carry on conversations with people from other countries, in other languages, but I couldn’t talk to the man who was standing in my own house.
It’s not surprising that it took me so long to discover the extent of my miseducation, because the last thing an elite education will teach you is its own inadequacy.
Mrs. BD is now considering this idea for an August trip: barging through Provence on the Rhone and the canals.
I told her the choice was between that trip and finishing getting my teeth fixed. It's called Fun With Implants. (Of course, if Obama would pay for my teeth then I could do both. Maybe I should write a note and cc Reid and Pelosi and tell them I'm ready for my new choppers right now.)
My Mom and Dad took one of these trips a few years ago. She said their plump Chef decided to try the balloon ride one time, got about 10" in the air and leaned out to tell the Sous-chef some last minute cooking detail and fell out of the basket into the canal. Hilarity ensued.
Also on my bucket list: Sailing cruise down the coast of Turkey. Yes, I do want to visit Turkey again - with digital camera this time. I like the people, the food, the landscape, the markets, the history, the ruins, and their fruit and wines.
The Jewish holiday of Passover begins this year next Monday night with the first Seder. (Translation = Order or sequence and content of the prayers, symbolic foods, and retelling of the Exodus, with emphasis on educating the children.) Many Christians also celebrate the Passover Seder, which was their Last Supper.
Less known is that the Exodus was central to the minds of the new United States' Founding Fathers. The first committee of the Continental Congress assigned to design our Great Seal, the symbol of our sovereignty, was comprised of three of the five men who drafted the Declaration of Independence: Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and John Adams. Franklin chose a design of "Moses standing on the Shore, and extending his Hand over the Sea, thereby causing the same to overwhelm Pharaoh who is sitting in an open Chariot, a Crown on his Head and a Sword in his Hand. Rays from a Pillar of Fire in the Clouds reaching to Moses, to express that he acts by Command of the Deity." The motto: "Rebellion To Tyrants Is Obedience To God," which was later adopted by Jefferson as his personal motto.
The above is drawn from this website about the US' Great Seal. Click around the site. It is fascinating.
Here's a relevant quote:
"All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reaches us, it must spring up amongst us. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher." – Abraham Lincoln
The subject is Real Estate in the New York Times, and the treatment of it in this article is architecture. This short filmette from the article is well done, but (more below)
that was my high school, the largest in the country. The NYT misses the more important backstory.
Winners of the most Westinghouse and National Merit Scholarships were from Erasmus Hall High School. (My favorite alumnus was Moe Howard.) With changing demographics and theories of education, the city has shut it down as unmanageable. The building on the corner was a Yeshiva in my time. The grade school (P.S.6 for public school #6, in NYC parlance) sits on what was a parking lot in my time, for people who flocked to the then excellent shopping, now mostly gone and replaced with Carribbean shops, and three palace like movie theaters on Flatbush Avenue, now shuttered. What's now called the Flatbush Town Hall, built in 1875, was a police station, and we knew all the beat cops who looked out for us. Down the block on Church Avenue was Holy Cross, church and school, now closed. If you look in the upper right corner of the shot above you'll see the steeple of the Dutch Reform Church, built in 1654.
In my time, one out of every seven families in the US traced its family to Brooklyn, a major settling spot from the 1600s to 1900s for immigrants who went on to build America. The bones that made Flatbush, at the heart of Brooklyn, famous are still there. The spirit and lifeblood isn't.
My Mom recently mailed me a stack of letters, postcards, etc that my Grandpa had mailed to his kid sister from a June-August 1940 trip he had taken his two kids on - my Mom and my late uncle. (My Grandpa's lovely wife died after giving birth to my Mom, and he never remarried. Not sure he ever got over that loss.) A single parent.
A friend of mine was recently pulled over for speeding. The constable, ambling over to his driver's side window asked "Are you carrying, Mr. Smith?"
How much of what shapes our lives is luck and serendipity? Most of us have met our spouse by chance, and many even have their jobs or even their careers by stumbling onto something.
When Christ rode into Jerusalem down from the Mount of Olives on a colt (or small horse, or donkey - whatever) on Palm Sunday, he was greeted with Hosannas by excited crowds who believed him to be the Messiah. 
The brave escape of Curious George
