In the history of Walt Disney Productions, the biggest stars are six cartoon characters known as the “Sensational Six.” All six are animals. All, but one, speak and dress like humans. One is the pet of another. Two are the significant others of two others. Two are mice, two are ducks and two are dogs. All, but one, are anthropomorphic, having human characteristics.

Can you guess the six Disney characters?

The stars are, in order of first appearance: Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Pluto, Goofy, Donald Duck and Daisy Duck.

Mickey Mouse was created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks, and he is the official mascot of The Walt Disney Company. On November 18, 1928, Mickey made his debut appearance in the short film “Steamboat Willie,” one of the first sound cartoons. Boy, could Mickey move his hips and whistle a tune in that talkie. The pilot mouse would have made Mark Twain proud. Mickey’s relatives and friends are too numerous to count and are referred to simply as the “Mickey Mouse Family.” It is a fan club I am proud to be a member of. Where are my ears?

Appearing with Mickey in that first 1928 film was a pretty little mouse with a bow in her hair. The credits list the cutie as Minerva Mouse, but Mickey nervously calls her Minnie. The adventurous hero had met the mouse of his dreams. Since 85 is just an eye-blink in the years of cartoon mice, the wedding plans have not been announced, but keep watching. You never know. Oh, a curiosity in Minnie’s farmer family is that all her relatives have the initials “MM”: Dad Marcus Mouse, Uncle Mortimer Mouse, Granddad Marshall Mouse, Grandmother Matilda Mouse and nieces Millie and Melody Mouse. Now, that’s a mouseful.

Every hero needs a pet. In 1930, Pluto the Pup premiered as a bloodhound in the Mickey Mouse cartoon “The Chain Gang.” Pluto is a true dog. He does not speak or wear clothes, and he loves bones. On the animated screen, Pluto expresses a playful and persistent personality though pictures rather than prose. We love to watch him on the screen and in the books, and we’ve never had any trouble understanding what Pluto is up to and what that hound is saying. Just ask my grandkids. They all speak Pluto.

Every hero needs to laugh, and Goofy is just the ticket. This tall dog with the puzzled expression and wide surprised eyes was first reeled out to us in 1932 in “Mickey’s Revue.” Goofy’s formal name may be Dippy Dawg, and he does love a good guffaw of a belly laugh, but do not be fooled. He may be eccentric, but Goofy has a mind of his own. On more than one occasion, Goofy’s clever and intuitive hillbilly observations have helped Mickey see the light and find the way to our hearts — in the midst of the garbed dog’s otherwise comic relief.

A true friend is hard to find and worth the wait. Most ducks don’t wear a sailor suit with a cap and bow tie or speak an almost unintelligible form of gargle-ese, but Donald Duck does and he does it well. Donald first appeared by himself in 1934 in “The Wise Little Hen,” but Mickey was in the audience, and he saw and found a friend at work. Together, they starred in “Orphan’s Benefit,” with Donald the comic sidekick. The race to the movies was on. In that race, Donald Duck has appeared in more films than any other Disney character, including Mickey, and is the most published comic book character in the world, superheroes excepted. In Norway, his fans are so numerous and dedicated they call themselves the “Donaldisme.” Norway and everywhere, Donald is never far from Mickey’s side, and he has proven himself on every occasion to be a trusted companion.

Donald has a brother who married and had three sons. These three energetic young boys are named Huey, Dewey and Louie, and, boy, are Donald’s nephews a handful. Well, one day at school, Huey, Dewey and Louie meet three cute little girls named April, May and June. Now, April, May and June have a very attractive aunt, who the young boys also meet and evaluate. The thoughtful young men see and formulate a plan. Before Uncle Donald knows it, a blind date has been arranged. In the 1940 short film “Mr. Duck Steps Out,” Donald arrives, rings the bell and shyly introduces himself to Daisy Duck. The three nephews have followed, and the boys soon compete with their uncle to dance the jitterbug with Ms. Daisy. Donald and his nephews are smitten, Daisy becomes Minnie’s best friend, and we are all waiting for the announcement of double nuptials. Will wonders never cease?

In the midst of today’s tensions, it is a happy joy to remember Disney’s Sensational Six.

Hooray for Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy, Donald and Daisy.

Let’s go to the movies – I’ll bring the popcorn.

You bring the smiles and laughs.

A laugh is only a smile away.

Grandpa Jim

Ebola Virus Disease or EVD has left Africa and entered the United States. In Texas, there have been two confirmed cases. The first was an individual who traveled to the U.S. from West Africa. Sadly, this first patient has died. Our heart-felt condolences are extended to the family and friends. The second case is a nurse at the hospital that treated the first patient. Hopefully, she will recover.

The hospital is in Dallas. My doctors have their offices in and around that hospital. I say this because I would not have considered going somewhere else. While visiting a friend at another hospital only a few miles away, I was told people are avoiding the first hospital with the reported cases. “Why?” I asked myself. “And, what is this Ebola?”

Ebola is a virus. A virus is a strange thing. In this case, the Ebola virus is a microscopic string or filament that often appears in the shape of a shepherd’s staff or the number “6.” It is a short tangle of genetic patterning material whose purpose is to invade, replicate and disrupt.

Once in the body, the Ebola virus sneaks into a healthy cell, confuses the cell’s manufacturing machinery, and causes the good cell to use the virus templates to produce more bad viruses. The newly constructed viruses accumulate near the inside of the cell membrane, push the cell wall to bud outward, where, weakened, the cell bursts and releases the replicate viruses to rush at more healthy cells. This is what viruses do, and Ebola does it well, confusing the body’s immune system to think it is fighting a simple flu-like infection with fever, aches and pains, and not a massive and patterned attack.

This deception allows the ranks of new viruses time to race, reach and attach themselves to the insides of the blood-carrying vessels of the body, the veins and arteries. Once there, the viruses work to destroy the vascular system of the patient, who, at this stage, can begin to bleed or hemorrhage. Another name for the disease is Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever or EHF.

Early intervention and palliative care (treatment of the initial symptoms) can be effective in preventing the advance of the Ebola virus. It might be said that early detection and treatment buy time for the body’s immune system to recognize the veiled threat and mobilize the resources to combat and defeat the Ebola disease.

This is a battle, but it is a battle that can be fought and won. Here, there are some very positive facts to be shared and followed.

For a human to contact the disease from another human, the infected person must be contagious. To be contagious, the infected person must exhibit symptoms.

Early identification, isolation, treatment and follow-up are the steps to stop the spread Ebola. Hospitals and hospital personnel know how to do this. Communities and community personnel know how to facilitate this. Federal and state resources are ready to support these efforts.

If you or someone you know has traveled to an infected region of the world (West Africa is presently an area of concern) or you have been around someone who has been diagnosed with Ebola and you develop symptoms, keep yourself and your clothing distant from others and go immediately to the nearest hospital. The sooner the symptoms are managed, the better the chance of a complete recovery.

Start the process and stop the spread.

Contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person is necessary to transmit the disease. My reading suggests there is very little likelihood of encountering the disease in the air you breathe. Being on the plane with an infected person should not be a concern. Breathing the air on a plane with a contagious person should not be a concern. It appears you would have to somehow touch the bodily fluids of the person infected (for example, sweat, saliva or blood), either by physically contacting the fluids or touching something the fluids have touched, like clothing or bed sheets. Without such contact, there is little or no chance of the disease being transmitted.

A key here is contact follow-up. Once a case is identified, the mechanisms are in place to identify and evaluate everyone who may have had any contact with an infected person. Again, the first step to allow contact follow-up to be effective is to report the disease to medical professionals at the first possible chance of occurrence. Do not hesitate. Do no wait.

Start the process to stop the spread.

Ebola can be a deadly disease. From past outbreaks in Africa, the death rates average 50%. Much has been learned. Much is being learned. Treatments are being engineered and tested. Vaccines are being developed. Now, right now, we know what to do with the tools we have. The keys to stopping Ebola are early identification, isolation, treatment, contact follow-up and trust. We must trust our hospitals, our communities and our governments.

I plan to go to my appointment at that hospital with the first two cases. I trust the hospital and its staff, and I will work with them and the rest of my community to support their efforts.

Together, Ebola can and will be stopped.

Grandpa Jim

California is big.

Among the United States, California is #1 in population and #3 in size (behind Alaska and Texas). If it were an independent nation, California would be about #9 by economic activity and #34 by people in residence of all the countries in the world.

California is environmentally diverse.

From the rocky fog-shrouded coastline to the golden grape-vined hills to the fertile vegetable-producing valleys to the rising tree-clad slopes to the jagged snow-capped peaks and the icy-clear glacial lakes, diverse eco-systems abound and astound. The state is the most varied climatically of all the states. At some place and time within its boundaries, almost any plant will grow and thrive. And, they do. Fresh tomatoes and lettuce for your In-N-Out burger over there – perhaps the best accompanied sandwich in the land. Grapes for table and vintner up that winding road – medals dangling from the barnsides. Golden Halloween pumpkins and luscious red strawberries blink at us from their beds as our car climbs the next hill and rounds the next bend to reach and revel at a wine-country wedding.

Not all the flora is new. The trees of the state are the tallest and oldest living organisms on the surface of the planet. California redwood pines are renown for their height and girth – who can forget the Disney-like photo of a 1940’s car driving through a tunneled redwood. The old trees are today protected from such child-like antics. Today, my son texts a picture of his small son hardly distinguishable between the rough red-hued bark near the base of a forest behemoth. Over their heads, far off there, on that distant frigid peak, a scraggly straggly bristlecone pine whistles the mountain wind a lilting melody heard 5,000 years ago, when a small sprout, the seedling first broke forth from the rock.

Rocks there are assuredly and many with precious metals within. The Gold Rush of 1848 brought the nation to the California territory and paved the way for statehood in 1850. Among the prospectors was a young man from Missouri with a sense for minerals. We call him George Hearst. The Indians called him: “Boy the Earth Talks To.” And, it did. George missed that first gold rush, but in the played-out leavings of a mine, the boy saw some “blue stuff” and heard something. At a bargain-basement price, George Hearst purchased a partnership in the empty cave, which became the biggest silver strike in the West. George was rich, and he kept listening and finding more. He was now very rich. Yet, he kept his country ways – except, now he owned almost 400 square miles (1,036 square kilometers) along the coast, in the valleys and up the slopes of California.

One place, George, his wife Phoebe and their son William Randolph loved best. Camp Hill they called it. The place was close to and high above the jagged Pacific shoreline, free of the clinging ocean mists below, bright and clear in the warm California sun, a campsite of childhood wonder and memory.

Later, the only heir to a vast fortune and a wealthy media mogul in his own right, William Randolph Hearst built a castle on that hill.

On the boardwalk below, above the rocky beach, watching the flops and flips, snorts, snaps and whistles of the round long-nosed elephant seals at their slow-motion play and day, I turned, looked up and saw the white spires.

“Hearst Castle!” I exclaimed to my wife. “That’s Camp Hill!”

And, it was and is.

Later, after touring the astounding architecture and abundant art, my wife asked, “What did you like best?”

“The little boy,” I answered. “Somehow, he did it. I mean William Randolph and his architect, Julia Morgan, did. They took the best art, architecture, flora and fauna that could be found and bought anywhere in the world, and somehow they made it all into the biggest and best big-boy campsite in the universe.”

“Really?” she said.

“Really,” I answered. “I can’t imagine a greater tribute to Camp Hill and the memories it holds.”

California has a new eco-system, a new micro-climate, a new fantasyland, and a new wonderland, rising in bright white spires from the land that spoke it and helped it grow: Hearst Castle.

Like Father, Like Son: The Boys The Earth Talked To.

William Randolph Hearst was his father’s son.

He listened and imagined; it grew and rose.

A new tree sprouts there on Camp Hill.

May its song reach the far peaks,

To touch the ears of a friend,

The old Bristlecone Pine.

To brighten a life,

Long & true.

Thank you, William Randolph and George,

Grandpa Jim

Horseradish is a radish.

It is not a radish for horses.

Itself, horseradish will kill a horse.

It is called horseradish because it is strong.

Caesar was strong. On his horse stopped at the bank of the Rubicon River, Caesar had a choice to make. The Rubicon separated the province of Gaul from the homelands of Imperial Rome. Caesar lifted in the saddle of his warhorse and glanced back at the legions massed behind him. To enter Italy regaled for battle at the head of those seasoned troops from the Gallic campaigns would evoke cries of “revolt” and “traitor” in the Roman Senate. To enter alone would place the future of the conqueror of Gaul in the hands of politicians. Either way, the general knew his fate was sealed. The choice was his. Ten thousand eyes watched as Caesar raised a hand, held it aloft, then slowly lowered the hand, a single finger extending toward Rome. Caesar would determine Caesar’s fate. Prodding his mount, the five-toed hoofs splashed across the Rubicon. There was now no turning back. Caesar had crossed his Rubicon.

The horse is an ancient animal. It may have been the first animal to partner with man. The matter of first meeting is consigned to the mists of time. That misty morning on the bank of the Rubicon, the horse was a worthy and trusted comrade in arms and companion in peace. The hoofs of the other warhorses were single-toed, as are the feet of all modern equine ascendants. Not so Caesar’s. Caesar’s steed had five toes.

The conqueror of the world was superstitious. To him, it bode ill to lead with a single-toed mount. The hoofs of Caesar’s horse were contoured to appear as five. At first dawn, the original horses were five-toed. At the dawn of the greatest empire the world has known, it was an ancient steed that bore the new Caesar across the stream to meet his fate and change the way of all things.

In a sense, the wild horses are gone — except one. In Manchuria, there is a horse that gallops across the steppes and climbs the remote hills, a horse whose line touches none tamed. For this horse, there is no domesticated ancestor. The Przewalski’s horse is said to be the last wild horse. What we call today wild things are often not. They are the feral descendants of those who have escaped, bred and become wild again. Przewalski’s horse is an original, an orange horse, a proud majestic animal searching the open lands for something or someone more.

In a darkened room, I read two grandchildren the story of an orange horse and its young rider. The orange horse and small girl feared each other and more the sneers of the other children and their horses.  Something happened. In the open, when allowed to gallop, the two raced past the crowd, followed by the amazed trailing stares of children and horses alike. There is a wild healing spirit in the horse that draws us together. The little girl and the orange horse found that and realized how much more two could be as one.

After experiencing the theatrical production “Warhorse,” I read of the play’s beginning.  A young child wasn’t talking. The boy was isolated and silent. The author of the successful book and play sought to help such children at the country estate with its lands and animals. Nothing seemed to help with the little boy. Then the writer saw the boy leave at night and followed. At the stall, the child reached up, rubbed the long head and talked freely and well to the quiet dark eyes of the horse. In the young boy’s voice, the author found his tale. I like to think that horse was orange, and the little boy who couldn’t speak was the writer seeing and finding himself.

The horse is strong. In that strength is a curious wild thing that seeks to be shared but is never completely controlled. All horses — domesticated, feral and, yes, even wild orange — never lose that freedom. I think they can’t, any more than we can fail to sense and seek what they offer so freely. Together, they carry us forward to more gladly find our fates.

Care for your friend and protect each other.

When there, do no fear your Rubicon.

We all must pass that stream.

How is each our choice.

But not yours alone.

Don’t go alone.

Grandpa Jim

Garlic is everywhere.

In the yard in Houston, Texas, small white flowers sprouted in the spring. “Wild garlic,” my neighbor said. I pulled some up to find a tiny onionish bulb. Not much garlic there. For the newly planted flowerbeds in front, I visited the nursery and purchased tall purple flowers with grassy leaves. “Ornamental garlic,” my neighbor said. I bent to spell the blooms. Definitely garlic there. Out back in Dallas, tall shoots shot up sprouting clusters of little white flowers that broke open to scatter bulb-like seeds. “Garden garlic,” my neighbor said. “Some grandma had a garden here before they built your house.” I pulled up plump garlic bulbs packed with individual cloves. Definitely garlic here.

It seems garlic is everywhere.

The relative of the onion has been around a great while.

When the pyramids of Egypt were built some 5,000 years ago, garlic was being grown outside and used inside. Just ask the archaeologists. Hippocrates, the Greek physician and Father of Western Medicine, was writing scripts for garlic 2,500 years ago. Just ask your doctor. Garlic was given to athletes racing in the first Olympic games. Just ask a trainer. Spreading around the globe, the hardy little plant developed a devoted following. Just ask your neighbor. Garlic was used to ward off bad stuff and encourage good stuff. Ask your neighbor again. It was and is a common remedy for everything from the common cold to snake bite. Ask your doctor again. And, always, it was and is a wonderful flavor enhancer for foods and a most friendly accompanist to cooks and chefs plying their creative trade the world round. Just go to dinner anywhere.

The world has an insatiable appetite for garlic.

To which, the farmers have responded.

China leads the way as the #1 producer of the world’s garlic. Next in line, piling their market wagons with the tasty, tantalizing and tempting little relative of the onion, are: India, South Korea, Egypt, Russia, Burma, Ethiopia, the United States, Bangladesh and Ukraine. As you can see, the varied and vital diversity of the lands represented evidence the wide and welcome acceptance of garlic.

Chemically, there are sulfur compounds in the garlic cloves, which, when crushed (and everyone knows you must crush the garlic to release its flavors), liberate to the surrounding environs compounds of a startlingly pungent and persistently odiferous aspect, which is much desired for the associated culinary manifestations, but has the bothersome habit of traveling through the body to exit the pores of the skin and to be exhaled with the breath from the lungs. More directly stated, garlic can be evident to a somewhat unpleasant extent in the diner’s sweat and breath the following day. A small price, most would say, but one to be aware of, especially if you have a scheduled meeting with the head of company the next day. In counterpoint, it can be noted that the wafting later-effects of garlic consumption are reported to dissuade mosquitoes from landing upon and biting the skin of the consumer. This is one garlic testament I have personally heard and observed in discussions with garlic consumpters.

Coincidence is an amazing thing, tempting one to think things may not be as coincidental as they appear.

After deciding to write a testimony to garlic, I stumbled across this statement: “Much of the garlic consumption in the United States is centered in Gilroy, California, which calls itself the ‘garlic capital of the world.’” Opening another window on the computer, I found the route to a wedding in California. Clicking on the destination map, I saw the city of Gilroy on the road from the airport to the wedding. We will be driving through the garlic capitol of the world.

Coincidence?

I think not.

Confirmation?

Absolutely.

Where there is garlic in plenty, good restaurants will follow in turn.

Spread the table, prepare the feast, and open the doors.

And, please, oh please, don’t spare the garlic.

Bon appetit.

Grandpa Jim

“Terra Incognito” is by definition “an unknown or explored place.”

A fuller explication of the term might be: “An isolated, inhospitable, difficult-to-reach, and not-particulary-entertaining-when-you-manage-somehow-to-get-there piece of real estate generally reserved on first appearance for those who have lost their way and subsequently sought by brave souls aware of the legendary location and desiring the special adventure of standing on the most inaccessible landing spot on terra firma.”

Bouvet Island is that spot.

If you study a map of the Southern Hemisphere and you put your finger on a dot in the middle of the great Southern Ocean, about as far away as you can get from any land, roughly equidistant from the tip of South America, the tip of Africa and the top of Antarctica, just there — in the middle of nowhere, and you transport yourself to stand on the bow of a vessel plying those treacherous waters, and you raise your binoculars and focus hard at a distant spec on the horizon as it grows into a cold piling of white glaciated ice and black volcanic rock, where it lifts its ragged head above the frothy caps of the frigid waves, you will have spotted the last lonely island.

For the planet bound, Bouvet Island is the last of terra incognito.

Beyond Bouvet, there are only the stars.

Few sailors have ever sited Bouvet Island. For a long time, none were able to make a landing. From the garbled maritime reports, a very few focused adventurers managed to circumnavigate its waters. The Norwegians were arguably the first to wash ashore. In any event, Norway had the most credible claim of first siting, stepping onto and claiming sovereignty over the mysterious island. With only small argument, the other adventurous souls said, “Let it be yours.” The island is today a dependent territory of Harald the 5^th of Norway.

Temperatures on the Isle of Bouvet seldom inch above freezing. The nights are colder and lonelier. There are no trees, no grass and no land animals. At times, lichen and moss appear through the snow, before the smallish plants return to their hiding places. Certain seafaring birds and visiting seals have acquired a passing fondness for the place.

In recent years, Norway constructed a weather station on the island. Even with assistance from the navy, few people make it ashore. The island is a monstrously difficult place to reach, land and stand upon.

Beyond its administrative duties to the Norwegian monarch, Bouvet is largely a check on the checklists of those few of us who have gone everywhere they can get to and have the remaining monetary resources and physical stamina to seek Neverland, the most difficult place surrounded by water on our globe.

An “island” is “a piece of land surrounded by water.” Bouvet is that. “Island” is a strict geographic definition. See all the water around. Bouvet is an island.

A “continent” is. . . . Well, there has never been a particularly lucid or telling definition of a continent. All land on our planet meets the definition of island. The continents of North and South America are connected and form one Americas island. Europe, Asia and Africa are all connected and form one huge island with no single name. Australia and Antarctica are continents and islands – the only two of the continents to be their own islands. As you may observe, there is no geographic explanation of what, on Earth, constitutes a continent?

In such circumstances, it can be helpful to turn to a poet.

In bed, near death but not dying, the English poet John Donne penned his “Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions.” Emerging from the surrounding words in the midst of “Meditation XVII” are the following oft-quoted lines:

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

“Island” is a land-made definition.

“Continent,” as the poet has seen, is a man-made definition.

Geography can determine an island. An island is entire of itself. Not so a man or a woman. No matter how isolated we may think we are, we will never be entire of ourselves. Only an island can be truly isolated.

Geography cannot determine a continent. Each man and woman is a piece of the main, a part of the continent. This is the start of the poet’s definition.

Continent is humanity within the reach of its boundaries and the cup of its lands. Only men and women can name their continent, because only they will ring the bells when diminished. Only residents are less for loss of a part of the whole. The connections and interactions of the living determine the width and breath of the continent. Continent is a man-made definition, and that is good.

Bouvet will never be more than an island, because no bell will ever toll on Bouvet for a loss of its parts.

Be sure that in time, it will toll for thee.

You are a piece of a continent.

You are part of the main.

No man is an island.

You are part,

Of a,

Continent.

And, that is good.

Grandpa Jim

Fall has arrived.

Autumn, harvest or fall, the season it is a changin’.

In the old days of the Up North of my childhood and early adult years, fall meant sweaters, warm wools, pullovers and jackets to curl ‘round the ears as we shivered from the dropping temperatures and kicked aside the brittle leaves drifting in piles at our feet.

In Texas, things are different — as they so often seem. In its ways, this is the Down South. Fall in my part of Texas is a gentle change, a perceptible, if only slightly but very welcome, drop from the soaring digits of summer. Fall’s entrance is a morning like this morning with a cool North wind lifting my ball cap on an early walk. The sun today will trace an even journey with the night, an equinox of equal day and night. The sun’s light will warm the rolling lands to only 88 degrees Fahrenheit (31 degrees Celsius), not the 95 F (35 C) the celestial globe touched for an hour yesterday. The time it is a changin’.

The day before yesterday, I drove the rolling lands of Tejas. If you were a “friend” to the Caddo Indians of East Texas, you were “Tejas.” The word is Native American, not Spanish. It was the greeting to a friend: I see you and I welcome you. Long before the Europeans arrived, there was Tejas.  After the diseases of the new ones decimated the tribes and left the hills empty and the valleys waiting, the land extended its welcome. Tejas became Texas.

I drove the long line of highway under the Texas sun and thought how this looked so like Texas – hot. It did. For all the greens of the surrounding prairies and the approaching trees on the East Texas horizon, it all just looked hot. Not bad hot. Not that. More friendly hot. I could feel the warmth and the welcome of the vistas and the views. I laughed. The land was so Texas. So, Tejas.

After the meeting in the far town, I drove back to the birthday party of my granddaughter. On the way, we passed a college football stadium surrounded by a sea of colored T-shirts. No sweaters or jackets here. I thought, “This is fall in Texas.”

I remembered Uncle Joe and the picture he’d sent of the last of the corn harvest:

In the Iowa of my Up North, the corn harvest would only be beginning, if yet, and the farmers would be hoping to capture the ears before the ice and snow froze the kernels in place until the melt of spring.

For Joe, the corn is complete, that harvest done.

Uncle Joe was saying he’d start picking the cotton next. You wear cotton in Iowa. You don’t see the white puffs dotting the distant fields, waiting for their autumnal harvest:

My mind reminded me: “This is fall in Texas.”

Uncle Joe also sent along this picture with a bow of color above evening greens, road-side arrows pointing the path around a bend:

In the fading light, it almost looked cool, but it didn’t look like fall.

Then, I remembered again, “This is fall in Texas.”

It is different down here.

Goodnight and Good Day — wherever you may be.

Enjoy the sunset and the day tomorrow — whatever your fall may bring.

Tejas,

Grandpa Jim

Which river is the longest of the long rivers?

Of the rivers of the world, the four longest, in descending order, are reported to be: #1) the Nile River in Africa at 4,132 or 4,258 miles (6,650 or 6,853 kilometers), depending on the source of the information and the river itself; #2) the Amazon in South America at 3,976 or 4,345 miles (6,400 or 6,992 kilometers) – clearly, these first two streams are neck-to-neck in a horse race to be number one (I’ll let you make the call); #3) the Yangtze in China at 3,917 or 3,988 miles (6,300 or 6,418 kilometers), numbers that could vie for number two on the list, if not number one (measuring long rivers is apparently not an easy thing); and #4) the Mississippi in the United States at 3,902 miles (6,275 kilometers), close to number three but not quite there.

After these follow a long listing of other long rivers, none close to the top four, where only a few hundred miles or less may separate the leaders from each other.

Each of the mighty four is, in its own right, noteworthy and has been, in its own ways, the subject of quotation.

I grew up not far from the upper reaches of the Mississippi. My first college was on a bluff carved high above the waters of the river, and my dormitory room on the top floor was considered the highest point in the State of Iowa. The city was Dubuque, founded by French fur traders and the far-traveling Father Julien Dubuque. The town is reputed to be the oldest European settlement west of the Mississippi, because the village began and still resides on the west bank. I had family who for a time lived near and made their living from fishing the river, and as a boy I peered over and into the spring-fed basins at the monster fish they pulled from its depths. The bluffs and by-ways of the Mississippi harbor the fantastic memories of my childhood and afforded me in later years a comforting home and base for travel. It is a river whose banks and towns I am close to.

As Mark Twain once said:

“The Mississippi River towns are comely, clean, well built, and pleasing to the eye, and cheering in spirit. The Mississippi Valley is reposeful as a dreamland, nothing worldly about it . . . nothing to hang a fret or worry upon.”

I have not visited the other great rivers. The Nile, The Amazon and The Yangtze wait in their own manner and at their own pace. From my years of reading stories and viewing pictures, I know much has changed along their banks, as it has along my own. Dams ands dikes have come and gone. Cities have sprouted, expanded and become fantastic. Men and women have grown old and left us.

My Grandpa Harry was a great lover of the river.

Children have been born.

When I was little, no more than a toddler, Grandpa would drive me along the bluffs of the Mississippi. I would reach up over the edge of the car window and stare fearful down at the far drops and out over the new and mysterious waterland.

The rivers of our Earth carry themselves to their length and smile in their wave and ripple at our passing attempt to alter their course.

I may never see the other great rivers, but I have in my own seen something of them.

The view of a great river is a scene of the heart alive in the memories of those who follow its course.

A Master Pilot of the River, Mark Twain was right: “There is nothing there to hang a fret or worry upon.”

Of that, I am forever grateful and amazed.

Grandpa Jim

Today, September 11, 2014, is thirteen years since the attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C.

On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, colleagues were visiting from Washington D.C. We had finished our morning meeting when someone stuck their head through the door and said, “There’s been a plane accident in New York. The plane crashed into the World Trade Center.” We walked into the hall and stopped at the door of an office with a TV against the far wall. As we watched, a second plane struck the other tower of the World Trade Center. I remember being confused and saying, “That’s no accident.”

It was not.

2,763 people died in New York: 2,606 on the ground from the collision, fire and collapse of the Twin Towers, 127 passengers and 20 crew aboard the two planes, and the 10 hijackers, 5 to each plane. 189 people died at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C.: 125 at the Pentagon, 53 passengers and 6 crew in the single plane, and 5 hijackers. 44 people died in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania when the passengers and crew, talking to each other and over their cell phones, charged the hijackers who rolled and crashed the plane short of its destination, the Capitol building in Washington, D.C.: 33 passengers, 7 crew and 4 hijackers died in that field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

It was not an accident.

None of them were accidents.

On September 11, 2001, 2,997 people died.

Many of the dead in New York have not been and never will be identified.

I am still confused.

I think this is a thing that cannot be understood.

I think this is a thing that can only be remembered and not forgotten.

I know I cannot forget.

There are only a few things in my life I can go back to and see clearly again.

That TV and second plane striking I can see as if I just stopped and looked through the door.

Written words do not work well here.

I think only prayers do,

For healing and

For life.

Grandpa Jim

“I need a book,” I said loudly, sitting at my computer.

“Try Amazon,” my wife’s voice echoed from the other room.

“This is amazing,” I said to the air. “They’ve got a lot more than books here. It’s like magic.”

“Abracadabra” is a word magicians use to make appear what wasn’t there before. The word itself is thought to have the power to wrought change and alter reality.

Amazon was first incorporated as “Cadabra.” It is a curiously appropriate appellation for the world’s first great Internet shopping experience. Like many new tech businesses, Cadabra began in a small place — in this case, a garage. The founder, Jeff Bezos, was convinced product sales over the Internet was the wave of the future. The company began simply as a small online bookstore . . . but not for long.

Whisking through the air, the magician’s wand of the entrepreneur was out and working. Product sales exploded and expanded into new and varied lines and lands. The garage collapsed and was swallowed by a virtual black hole of shopping extravaganza. Consumers were drawn in droves to fall and float through the drop-down windows and among the pictured pop-up halls of proffered and prolific merchandising.

Mr. Bezos, ever the visionary, saw the flood gates of retail hysteria opening and quickly renamed the company “Amazon” after the mighty river with the largest flow of water on our globe. From A to Z, on the digital Amazon, every product of the planet could bob and bounce in enticing and exciting array. A new age had dawned.

And, it could be copied. Jeff Bezos saw that. He was among the first. Certainly, he was riding the crest of the first wave. He had the advantage. And, he had the new name, the brand: Amazon. Abracadabra. It was magic at work.

All good things will be imitated.

Ali Baba was a poor woodcutter. His brother had the money. But, Ali Baba had a good ear and a keen sense of timing. One day in the woods, he listened quietly from his place of hiding as forty thieves described and detailed a wondrous cave of treasures. Then, one thief whispered the magic words that would open the door to riches: “open sesame.” The rest is perhaps the most famous and well known of the tales of the Arabian Nights.

Jack Ma was born in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China. Like Jeff Bezos, Jack Ma developed a fascination for the internet and its potential, and like Jeff, Jack was a visionary.

On a business trip to San Francisco, Mr. Ma was sitting in a coffee shop thinking of a name for a new company. He asked the waitress, “Do you know about Alibaba?” “Of course,” she answered, “Alibaba and the 40 thieves.” On the street, he stopped and asked 30 people. They all knew. In Jack Ma’s own words, “They all knew about Alibaba. Alibaba – open sesame.” The new company was founded in an apartment. The registered name was, of course, Alibaba.

Today, Alibaba is, by many accounts, the biggest group of e-commerce businesses in the world. Sales are reported to exceed those of its major competitors combined, including the flagship online retailer Amazon.

Operating primarily in the People’s Republic of China, the Alibaba web portals feature and feat nearly a billion products to a curious and clamoring public. Over 60% of the parcels delivered in China have Alibaba somewhere and somehow on the return address.

By all accounts, Jack Ma has discovered the secret to unlock the cave of treasures.

“open sesame,” Jack whispers.

Mr. Ma, as others before him, has learned something of the magic of words.

“Abra cadabra,” Jeff Bezos quietly intones, before falling back to sleep with “Amazon” on his mind and in his head.

All good things should be copied.

Let Ali Baba lead the way.

Everyone knows the name.

Alibaba — open sesame.

Grandpa Jim