Today is my Birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was born on a Thursday, on the 205th day of my birth year.

My Dad and Mom were both back from World War II. Dad was working on a degree in mechanical engineering at the University of Iowa, and Mom was taking care of me. We lived in a very small house in Iowa City, Iowa, so small in fact that my first bed was the bottom drawer of the chest of drawers in the one bedroom. It was okay with me. I was small.

There was no refrigerator. On weekends we would drive to Dubuque to see my Grandpa Harry who was a butcher and pick up enough meat for the week. My car seat was a cardboard box on the floor of the car behind the driver’s seat.

So, I started life in a drawer and I traveled in a box.

I was the Baby in the Box.

It was a good start.

Today, some things are much improved. Cribs are readily available in all sizes and shapes. Car seats are amazing feats of protective and caring technology. Babies are much the same. It’s hard to improve on about as close to perfect as we can get. And, with Mom and Dad, a baby is happy anywhere. Babies are amazing.

It is good to remember where we started and to look forward to watching it happen again.

Keep an eye open for a surprise,

Grandpa Jim

Good Monday Morning.

We had a flash visit to Houston to visit and view the status of our newest grandson who is scheduled to arrive July 30th!!! Mom and Dad are quite ready. We are ready too after seeing the two and the soon to be three.

Which raises an interesting question: What do you call words that sound exactly the same but are spelled differently and have different meanings?

“Homophones” are words that sound alike, have different meanings and have the same or different spellings. For example, fair (for country extravaganza) and fair (for you sure are reasonable) are homophones with the same exact spelling. Pear (a lush rounded fruit) and pair (a couple about to have a baby) are also homophones, even though the pared down words in this second set of homophones has different spellings. Wow, we just found a triple homophone: pear, pair and pare (to cut or trim).

“Heterographs” are that subset of homophones that have different spellings. Pear, pair and pare are heterograph homophones.

“Homonyms” are that subset of homphones that have the same spellings. Because, fair and fair are the exact same words, they are referred to as homonym homophones.

Going back to the second paragraph above, what do you now see in my second sentence: “We are ready too after seeing the two and the soon to be three?” You got it, a triple heterograph homophone: too (also), two (the number 2) and to (a preposition indicating motion or direction).

Words are too much fun. Can you see the sea of meaning in the letter “c?” Can the letter “b” be a bee without the buzz? “To be or not to be – stung,” said the poet to the bewildered bee, as he lay down beneath the bough of the tree munching a pear at the country fair.

All of which reminds me of one of my favorite poems, which is also a wonderful song, by Steven Fromholz, the 2007 Texas Poet Laureate, which has these 2 lines hidden in its midst: “And me I just bear up to my bewildered best, And there’s some folks even seen the bear in me.”

They just don’t come no better than a bear (a large furry animal) who can carry much (bearing it well) with nary a piece of clothing on its bare back.

Have fun with your day and your words,

Grandpa Jim

It is Friday. Prepare to fly the Weekend Flags. Relax, take it easy and be at peace from the workday week.

What is peace?

The word “peace” derives from the Latin pacem or pax, which means a treaty of non-aggression, a time of tranquility and the absence of war. Peace is a state of relative calm, during which war and hostilities have ceased and people can carry on their day-to-day business activities and enjoy family life without the interruption of large scale fighting.

Perhaps the best example of such a quiet time is the Pax Romana, a period of 207 years from 27 BC to 180 AD, from Caesar Augustus to Marcus Aurelius (I love the portrayal of Marcus Aurelius by Richard Harris in the movie Gladiator). The Legions of Rome had extended the empire to almost its greatest extent. Swords in hands, these leather-garbed soldiers patrolled and controlled the borders. Back home, the more aggressive generals were held in check by more enlightened Caesars and a more balanced political and administrative organization. Throughout the Empire, Roman Law brought a consistency and resolution to internal disputes that remains with us even today. Things weren’t perfect, but civil disorder and open warfare were minimized and relatively contained. It was a state of peace.

Peace can also be more personal and individual in expression. Throughout time, people have greeted each other with versions of the Roman Pax and the Hebrew Shalom. This greeting of peace is a wish for well-being. Safety, welfare and prosperity to you and yours. Or, the one I like from growing up: May you be healthy, wealthy and wise. These are greetings of peace.

Have you ever noticed that when people greet each other with “How are you?,” the typical response is something like “Good,” “Fine” or “Doing great, how are you?’ You almost never hear an “I’m lousy, how about you?” response. That’s because when we say “How are you?” and we respond “Good” what we are really saying are “I wish you well” and “You too.” Our cultural convention is to use the words “How are you?” and “Good” but the greeting and response mean “Pax, Shalom, I wish you well.”

To summarize, peace is both a state of being and a wish for well-being.

May peace be with you and yours today and all days,

Grandpa Jim

Welcome Wednesday!!!!

If your week starts on Sunday as mine does, this is the fourth day of the week, the middle day or mid-week.

The term “Wednesday” is itself a literal word borrowing or calque of the Old English “Wodnesdaeg” and Middle English term “Wednesdei,” which means day of Woden or Woden’s Day.

It gets a bit interesting here.

When the Roman Legions marched North with their raised standards and imperialized much of Europe, those Latin invaders interpreted the German god Woden to be associated with the Roman god Mercury. Perhaps Woden was always Mercury of the North. The ancient Greeks appear to have systemized the naming of the seven weekdays after the seven classical planets in the then understood solar system. One of those planets was Mercury (in the Greek, Hermes), which was either first a planet or a god – it is the first planet from the Sun and it appears to move very quickly, as does the fleet of foot messenger of the gods, Hermes or Mercury.

This is to say that the tradition of associating the 4th day of the week with Mercury appears to be very old, and this convention may have existed or been passed by word of mouth to the regions of Germany and England long before Caesar launched his Legions North. It may even be that the ancient Tribes of the North first associated the planets with the weekdays and the first planet from the Sun with the fourth day, passed this knowledge to the Greeks, who passed the method to the Romans, whose Legions confirmed its origins by arriving on a Wednesday and finding it already named for Mercury or Woden — Legionnaires seldom made mistakes.

However Mercury became Woden in the eyes of my long-ago forefathers, the fourth day of the week became the day of Woden or Wednesday in certain Countries of the West.

As I am sure you have observed to this point, there is much more research that could be done on the origins of Wednesday, but since it is only one day, the work would go into tomorrow, which would raise even more questions and take more time than we have today.

Please take the day for what it is and has always been, the 3rd or 4th day of the week, depending on who you are, what your geographic location is on our planet Earth, where your ancestors came from and how they decided to call the days of the week.

Enjoy your Woden’s Day, whatever it may be named, and have a great 24-hour period,

Grandpa Jim

Today is Tuesday July 17th, 717, my lucky number day, as discussed in the blog post of 7 10 12. Here’s hoping you have an extremely fortuitous day on this lucky number day. Fortune be with you.

Dry weather is upon much of the U.S. The headline in the paper this morning was: “Drought covers half of U.S., and it’s spreading — Crops wither in worst dry spell since the 1950s.” A prayer for rain is very timely and appropriate for much of our land.

The National Weather Service Forecast Office in Flagstaff, Arizona describes drought as a period of unusually persistent dry weather that persists long enough to cause serious problems such as crop damage and/or water supply shortages. The following paragraph on recent dry periods is excerpted from their web site.

The Dust Bowl days of the 1930’s affected 50,000,000 acres of land, rendering farmers helpless. In the 1950’s, the Great Plains suffered a severe water shortage when several years went by with rainfall well below normal. Crop yields failed and the water supply fell. California suffered a severe drought around 1970. The worst drought in 50 years affected at least 35 states during the long hot summer of 1988. In some areas the lack of rainfall dated back to 1984. In 1988, rainfall totals over the Midwest, Northern Plains, and the Rockies were 50-85% below normal. Crops and livestock died and some areas became desert.

I was driving in Iowa during the 1988 drought and I remember the car radio reporting the number of animals dying daily from the hot weather. For an Iowa boy with a love for the green land, corn swaying in the breeze and pastures full of grazing cattle, it was a sobering and sad time.

We control little directly on our planet. Our climate is a great mystery. It is fun to talk about and I had fun with the making and melting of ice yesterday, but it is good to remember that we are in charge of very little and graced with a great much. I watch Uncle Joe and he stays somehow calm whatever the weather. He may say a few inches would help, but in the next breath he’ll say it may not happen. He’ll scuff the ground with his boot, adjust his hat, smile and move on to the next task. Farming the land brings an understanding I do not understand, but greatly admire.

May the weather treat you well this day,

Grandpa Jim