“Tell him the truth,” Cosmo Castorini tells his daughter Loretta as the family gathers in the kitchen for the dramatically funny final scene of the 1987 movie Moonstruck. “They find out anyway.”

Yes, they do, and isn’t that the truth?

The movie Moonstruck is full of memorable lines, like those two from the worn father to his nervous daughter. The film is a favorite, and the remembered lines drift easily into conversation — again and again. I find myself repeating the lines with a word missing or one substituted. Despite the paucity of my memory, the truth of the original statements seems to somehow find its way and reaches out to a ready audience — again and again.

Tell them truth. They’ll find out anyway.

Is the truth what we know and believe and often wish not to acknowledge and share but know it will be anyway?

It was for Cher in the movie, and she won Best Actress for its performance.

Speak the truth.

Write what you know.

Perhaps the two are not that far apart.

Let’s start with one from an older collection, “98.6 (95 Stories)”, and see what you think.

GRSMERCH

© James J. Doyle, Jr. 2013

Write about what you know.

The reason you’re not good at what you do is because you don’t write about what you know.

Don’t make it up — draw on your past, your experiences.

“GRSMERCH”

I know nothing about it, but I like the sound.

I’m sure it’s not politically correct, but I don’t care.

I will no longer be victimized by an antique totem.

When he was a scout, my father carved a totem. It was a small slightly tilting totem pole with uneven painted faces of birds and animals and someone at the top in a funny wide-brimmed hat. The carving from a single bent branch of wood sat downstairs in our house, in the basement, on a green-painted chest of drawers from the old farm where dad grew up.

For years, it was there on the shelf, not hidden away, where you could see it against the far wall when you turned from the lower step.

Near that totem, my mom played damp music with gusto on a baby grand piano over linoleumed floors beneath the drifting broken light from high narrow below-ground windows.

This was the same room where my children and their cousins built forts from overturned chairs, couch cushions and old blankets, ends anchored with pillows and shut into that old chest of drawers. Lights turned off and curtains drawn, their young imaginations crawled with flashlights to covered unseen spaces, glowing from within like stars in a limitless cave.

From where I watched on the steps, it was a tower in the ground with treasured thoughts.

I believe in GRSMERCH.

But not as much as I believe in towers in the ground.

Never stop searching for the truth and sharing it with others.

Why not? As Cosmo said: They’ll find out anyway.

And, you never know what you’ll find,

Along the way,

Grandpa Jim

“Where you going with that shotgun?”

“Goin’ talk some sense into them ateroid miners. That where I be going.”

“Harold, think sensible. What happened?”

“Look yonder there, Maud, through your kitchen winder. See that tomater patch.”

“Oh, Harold, I’m so sorry.”

“Ain’t your fault. That chunk of ateroid done smashed them tomater plants flat as fly paper. I’m headin’ to that rock refinery to have it out, me and Billy Bob.

“William, Harold. Your friend’s given name is William, not Billy Bob. And it’s asteroid, not ateroid.”

“Looks like a big rock to me, whatsoever you calls it. Remember the one that got the chicken coop. Eggs and all. Gone. Weren’t a pretty sight. They owe me.

“And, they’ll pay, Harold. They did for the coop, poor chickens, and they’ll drop a check by the house, for your plants. You know they always do. I’ll call.”

“But why and what for, Maud?  I don’t care about the money. I’m tired of the falling rocks.”

“Harold, didn’t you read that National Geographic article I put by your chair, next to the Dr. Pepper.”

“I read the pictures. Billy Ba, I mean William, he says a picture be worth a thousand of them words. Read that, he did, and stopped. Learned enough, he said. He’s got a bunch of huntin’ and fishin’ magazines, full of pictures. Ed-u-cated man, that William.”

“Where do you boys get these ideas?”

“Guys, Maud. We’re guys, not boys.”

“Boys in your Club House. That’s what you are.”

“Ice House, Maud. It’s an Ice House, not a Club House. That’s where us guys go to figure things out.”

“Which is why I left you the article, Harold. This asteroid mining is important. A big asteroid is worth over 150 times more money than an Earth rock. That asteroid has over 50 times the gold, almost 80 times the palladium, nearly 300 times the platinum, and close onto 800 times the iridium than those rocks your tractor turns over.”

“What I need all them idimum’s for, anyways?”

“Electric wiring, Harold. Computer connections, cell phones, your pickup.”

“I like my truck. Don’t you go bad mouthing that machine. It’s done us good.”

“It is a good truck, Harold. But that pickup and the parts to keep it running need those metals. That’s why those miners are out there in the asteroid belt.”

“William says that what with flinging all them asteroids down here and smashin’ up the country side, there won’t be none left to hold up that asteroid belt. Them pants goin’ fall right down and the whole seller system be made a fool of. We had a right good laugh at the seller system without its pants on.”

“It’s a solar system, Harold, not a seller system.”

“Well, that’s what they do with them rocks. They sell ‘em.”

“Yes, they do, but the asteroid belt is rocks circling the Sun. It’s not a belt. William must have rocks in his head to take up a notion like that.”

“No notion at all, Maud. William says we be upsetting the e-vironment with all this mining.”

“Land of Goshen, Harold, now you’ve gone and joined up with a passel of Green Activists down at the Ice House.”

“You got it, Maud, Ice House, not Club House. And, they call me Bubba down there.”

“Will wonders never cease?”

“Maud?”

“Yes, Harold.”

“I bought you this.”

“Harold, it’s a big heart.”

“And, it’s full of candy. Look inside. And, they threw in this card for free. Here, take it. Open the flap. I didn’t lick it. See there, where I wrote Love, in big letters. I signed right under. It was a special, at the Ice House, the candy and the card. I thought of you as soon as I saw them. Happy Valentine’s Day.”

“Oh, Harold. Happy Valentine’s Day to you. I love you too.”

“Oh, Maud.”

“Now, come on over here so I can give you a big hug and kiss.”

“Oh, Maud.”

“Harold, there’s time before supper for you to take the pickup and go on down to that Ice House. You can have a moon pie with your Pepper for a snack. Figure things out with the guys. Then, come home to me.”

“Thanks, Maud.”

“Don’t be late. I’m making something special for us tonight, Bubba.”

Have a very Happy Valentine’s Day; and remember, there are still cards and candy down at the Ice House. They may be half off the day after. Visit with the guys and pick up something special for that special person back home.

Have a Pepper and don’t forget to say Hello to Bubba, for me,

Grandpa Jim

Readers, Visitors, Storytellers, Storyhearers, Stopbyandlookseers, Casual Acquaintances, Near Neighbors & Friends, Close Relatives, Distant Relations, Ascendants, Descendants, Net Browsers, Web Surfers, Far Neighbors & Friends, Bookworms, Webworriers, Elocutionists, Scholars, Students and Everyone Else Wherever Situated Sitting, Standing, Leaning or Reclining In Anticipation Of Things Newly To Appear,

I welcome you all to Uncle Joe Stories and ask your indulgence for what inactivity and inattention to you and yours has occurred of late.

The game is afoot.

As of 12:44 AM this morning, the first chapter of a new book is off to the copy editor for review and comment. Additional reviews are scheduled and anticipated. As soon as the responsive edits and rewrites are accomplished, Chapter 1 will be published on this web site, right here, in front of your eyes, for your reading enjoyment.

If everything proceeds smoothly, a new chapter will be posted at regular intervals – not too close and not too far apart. This is the first time I have attempted to serialize a novel in installments for you to read as the book is being produced, so I’m not exactly sure how the timing will work. The good news is that it won’t be long for the first Chapter — hopefully. So, stay tuned.

In the interim, I plan to issue about three to four new blog posts each week, if possible.

In addition, I plan to publish a new Uncle Joe story for Easter.

Thanks again for your patience,

Grandpa Jim

During the American Civil War (1861-1865), troops were supplied with canned pork and beans.

The canning process itself is somewhat older. Back in 1795, the French army offered a prize of 12,000 francs to the first person to invent a new method of preserving food. It had been recognized for some time that armies traveled on their stomachs, and those stomachs required ready and nutritious foodstuffs. A French chef by the name of Nicholas Appert stepped forward to meet the challenge. Using wrought-iron canisters (the origin of the term “can”), Monsieur Appert proved the new process in 1806 and became the Father of Canning. (There is some dispute here, and the Dutch may have invented a form of canning as early as 1772.) By whom and when, for those first cans, the soldiers had to use their bayonets to slice the metal casings open or bash the canned projectiles with vigor against unsuspecting rocks. You had to be hungry. By the Civil War, the process was hopefully more refined. The first can opener was patented in the United State in 1858. One suspects, however, that the line infantryman was the last to obtain the new invention. Pass the bayonet over here. it’s time to eat.

Today, Campbell Soup Company sells more than 100 million cans of its Pork and Beans a year. Although that is a lot of beans, it is not a lot of pork. Salt pork is apparently added to the dish for flavor, not substance. In 1996, after years of complaints, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recognized this condition, and to settle the matter once and for all beans, the official branch of the United States Government released the following approved and stamped administrative statement: “It has for years been recognized by consumers generally that the designation ‘beans with pork,’ or ‘pork and beans’ is the common or usual name for an article of commerce that contains very little pork.” And, that, literally, is no pork.

Although the artist Andy Warhol did many paintings, individually and in groups, of Campbell soup cans, I cannot find definitive pictorial documentation that he ever painted a can of Pork and Beans, whether manufactured by Campbell, Heinz or any of the other canners fond of beans and a bit of pork. I find it comforting that Andy, one of the leaders in the pop art movement, may have resorted to the comfort of a can of warmed Pork and Beans, perhaps served over toast points, and the reason he never painted the can was that he could never find one without the lid ripped off. Knowing Andy, he probably used a bayonet.

By and away, they say you should heat the canned pork and beans before eating. Mom and I never did. I was just a kid. We’d sit at the kitchen table for a mid-afternoon treat and have a snack of a cold pork and beans open-face on white bread with some diced white onions. We didn’t know better. We just liked the taste. Mom wasn’t even a pop artist, although Dad did have a bayonet from the war.

Do you think it was his can opener? Dad started in the artillery — until they found he could sing, dance and play an instrument. Then, they transferred him to Nice in Southern France to help entertain the troops on leave. Mom was there in the Red Cross serving donuts. I bet those GI’s left the pork and beans back at the front and enjoyed some good French cooking.

Still, there is a lot to be said for beans with a little pork.

Where did I put that bayonet?

Grandpa Jim

Scoliosis is an abnormal lateral curvature of the spine. The spine forms a twisted “S” shape, pulling the body and person to one side.

King Richard III had scoliosis. You can tell from his skeleton. That long-lost skeleton was recently discovered under a parking lot in Leicester, England. He was badly beaten. The excavators identified ten (10) obvious wounds from clubs, swords and daggers.

In the midst of the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 A.D., Richard of the House of York rode his white courser directly at his rival, Henry of the House of Tudor. Knocking some formidable opponents off their horses, Richard the King had almost reached Henry the Aspirer for the final test of kingly arms, when . . . Richard’s large horse bogged down in the mud. Unceremoniously and with fatal consequences, King Richard was surrounded, knocked off his horse and suffered the many recorded blows that ended his life and his reign.

Some good friars from a nearby monastery recovered the royal body and hastily interred it beneath Greyfriars Church in Leicester. For the defeated, the burial was rushed. The noble form was not placed in a casket or even covered with a linen shroud. The dark earth covered the King’s broken body.

Through time, the church was itself demolished and a parking lot was established in its place. King Richard’s remains were lost for five centuries to the effects of urban renewal and the age of the motor car. But, the monarch was not lost for good. The University of Leicester confirmed on February 4, 2013 that the skeleton recently discovered beneath that parking lot was, beyond reasonable doubt, that of Richard III.

The King has been found.

William Shakespeare wrote a play entitled “Richard III.” In the play, King Richard has a withered arm not a twisted back. Perhaps the list of the shoulders from the scoliosis caused the playwright to portray the King with a dragging arm. We may never know why the Bard’s portrayal differs from the coroner’s report. We do know that the play has some memorable lines.

The theatrical performance opens around a moody melancholy of words: “Now is the winter of our discontent.” With that, we know tragedy is in the wings. Near the story’s ending, in the midst of the battle after being unhorsed, Richard cries out in Shakespeare’s voice: “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!” Who hasn’t heard that one? It was probably in a Super Bowl commercial. Of course, there is no horse.

With Edward dispatched, Henry marries Edward’s niece Princess Elizabeth of the House of York, patches things up between the noble houses and becomes King Henry VII of the all the English lands.

Royalty is difficult and dangerous to follow.

So died Edward III, the last of the line of Plantagenet Kings and the last English King to die in battle. With Richard’s death, some say the Middle Ages ended in England. The dark ages joined him in his ignominious interment and a Renaissance of new ideas broke bright upon English soil.

The struggles of kings and those who aspire to be king are assuredly complicated and long to resolve

Now, there are those who say King Edward III has been slighted by the march of time and should be restored to good sight in the eyes of the many. Edward was certainly unhorsed, rudely treated and promptly forgotten. None would contest that. Still, the circumstances surrounding his reign may argue that the good King was not that even in his treatment of others. Then, others certainly got even with him. He did pay the price. Today is a much newer day than it was back then. Perhaps more telling, there is an untidiness in the present array that argues in favor of a proper English resolution of things.

Since Edward III will soon be in his own royal tomb, as his cousins are in there noble places, perhaps bygones should be bygones. Perhaps, the slate should be wiped clean. Let ballads be written and sung. Allow festivals to be held and money exchanged in the merriment and delight of new memories reviewed and approved. Park cars in the repaired lot and above the now empty space. Encourage visitors to walk in the bright clean air and enjoy the sights of our monarch’s new home. Let commerce commence, pockets jingle and couples dance.

It is the New Age of the King.

They say a good party heals many a wound.

Grandpa Jim

The Might Mites of Dust

The house dust mite is “a cosmopolitan guest in human habitation.” “Cosmopolitan” means it can be found everywhere that human beings habitat (live or abide) — around the world and then some, probably even on the orbiting space station. “Guest” does not mean the mite was invited – it means it lives with us (we share the same space and both are guests in our own homes). It might more properly be termed an “unwanted guest,” one that does not easily leave. As one, it is a small little critter, only 0.4 millimeters (0.016 inches) in length, and it can be just barely seen on the bed sheets . . . in normal light. It loves mattresses and pillows, because they are so cushy and warm and comforting, and because those mattresses and pillows are full of the little dusts we leave behind and dust mites love to eat. Once it settles in, it’s not leaving – unless you heat that pillow to 60 degrees C (140 degrees F) or freeze that mattress to 0 degrees C (32 degrees F). It is reported that a two-year old pillow may be composed of up to ten percent dust mites and their dust – although some dust-mite scientists dispute that all those little mighty mites really add significantly to the weight of mattresses and pillows. It is true that alone a mite might not be too much, but banded together, it might truly be said, in a loud and echoing voice, that they are the “Mighty Mites of Dust.”

Monkeys and Chimpanzees in Go-Go Land

Both monkeys and chimpanzees are primates and simians. From a taxonomic viewpoint, human beings are also classified as primates and simians. Monkeys usually have tails. Chimps and humans do not – at least that is noticeable. The chimpanzee is an ape; the monkey is not. There are more apes than just chimpanzees. Gibbons, orangutans and gorillas are also apes.  Humans are not apes, although some human males have been reported to act like apes. In the phylogeny of living (extant) primates, chimpanzees and the other apes are more closely related to humans (at least male humans) than monkeys. This should not come as a surprise to some.  Monkeys, chimpanzees and humans can all climb trees. Monkeys and chimpanzees do it well. Humans do not. Monkeys, chimpanzees and humans can be trained to drive go-carts. It is apparently a matter of opinion who does this better. Monkeys and chimpanzees do not generally use computer software programs. When malfunctioning, software programs cause humans (males at least) to jump up and down, grab and shake things, beat their chests, and utter loud screeches and other unintelligible and incoherent sounds. When this occurs, it has been suggested (by whom we cannot say) that monkeys and chimpanzees in go-go land behave better than humans in software gone-gone land.

To Affect an Effect or Effect an Effect — That is the Question

The sun affects (has an impact on) my skin. The effect of (that which results from) too much sun on my skin is a sunburn. The sun effected (brought about) a change in my skin that hurts. Ouch! Now, you see why using affect, effect and effect can be so painful. Affect is typically used as a verb, meaning to have an impact on something or someone, to influence. Effect is mostly used as a noun to represent that which is created by some cause, the result or consequence. For every cause, there is an effect. But, effect can also be used as a verb, meaning to bring about, to cause or achieve – this is a bit tricky when compared to the verb affect. Let’s see how it works. The software going bad affects a human male. This cause (software going bad) has the effect of said human male acting like a monkey or chimpanzee in go-go land (or worse). We can then say the bad software effected the change (and not a desirable one) in our human male. And, that is how affect (verb), effect (noun) and effect (verb) can work on someone who becomes too attached to their computer. Now, why don’t you try it on a dust mite making a home in your favorite pillow.

Effect a calm demeanor, you may affect others with the effects of your actions.

Now then, that’s clear as mud, I think.

Cheers,

Grandpa Jim

“The Internet is falling! The Internet is falling!” Chicken Little yells, feathers flying, laptop clutched tightly to his breast, as the young fowl runs to the local avian geek barn for help. “It’s the EMP,” the scaredy-cat capon moans as he collapses in a heap at the feet of the wide-eyed-black-glassed-tape-nosed nerds.

Beaks drop, glasses droop and pocket protectors sag as the frightened flock of gallus gallus domesticus realize their worst fear is pulsing toward them and their precious. The electron-soaked waves of digitalized data that wash back and forth sightless before their eyes, to be captured and burst forth onto their beloved wire-laced and chip-linked screens, those sinous curves of serpentine knowledge are endangered by the nameless nightmare. The beloved Internet, their precious, is about to fall to the dreaded EMP.

Screeching, clucking and crowing, they run mindless in all directions, bumping into each other, cock-a-doodle-dooing “Where can we go? Where can we go?”

There may be no escape for them and for us.

If the EMP, be true and truly here.

An EMP is an electromagnetic pulse. It is an intense burst of electromagnetic energy caused by an abrupt, rapid acceleration of charged electrons.

The theory is that when the EMP hits the wires, components and compotes of our machines, the electrical surge will overpower every protector, will bypass every plug and will blast uncaringly with the raw force of its small-particled energy into the nooks and crannies of every computer, hand-held and cell. The gourmet viands of the wired and wireless domains of our modern lands will be in the instant scrambled. In ever hand, at every station and on every table, there will be only toast.

Bon appétit, while you can.

In theory, the escaped impingement of excited electrons will drive us from our tables of reflective repast back to the books, scrolls and parchments of our patriarchal past.

Society, as we know it, will be too confused to do anything but sit back, stare amazed and start to laugh.

To that uproarious end, some think only nuclear explosives could be the cause.

That, it could not and never happen here and now.

The scare is said to be an old-wives tale on an Internet that encourages those wives to talk, a joke made upon ourselves that could never blossom to fruition. The Internet is too large and too widely dispersed. Even if some were effected, the rest would recover and repair. It’s just a joke.

We attended a humorous farce of a play yesterday afternoon. The actors were moving so fast and talking so quickly that the audience was forced to fall into unbridled laughter as a most pleasant palliative of first resort. Faced with the witty insanities of the emergently complicated interpersonal situations and the apparent impossibilities of any filial, spousal or culinary resolutions, laughter was the only course. It made little sense to do else. The information received was so great and so absurd that the theatrical performance teetered on the brink of disaster and was intensely funny.

The assault of mixed and moving signals must have affected the synapses of our minds in some strange and unforeseen manner. In the hall outside afterward, we talked of EMP. It was after the end of the insanity of words that the insanity of electrons gone wild popped easily to our heads. After the guffawed hilarity of a house collapsed in laughter, we could somehow see the hem-hawed reality of a way of life fallen to disorder.

Order and disorder were perhaps the linchpins connecting our thoughts.

Great disorder may be funny and entertaining, but it is difficult to put right. The confusion was too great. We did not understand the play in the end.

Great order may be just as entertaining and funny, and it may in its way be just as difficult to put right. The potential for confusion may be too great. We do not understand how the Internet could end and can only watch as it does.

If you put all your eggs in one basket, does it matter how big that basket is?

If you put all those funny words in one play, can you really put that play back together again?

If you put all those word bytes onto one Internet, can you really put that Internet back together again?

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.

The lesson, I think, is this: In too much order resides the disorder of the jabberwocky of EMP.

To protect the order of information and prevent the fall of an overloaded Mr. Dumpty, perhaps we should try not to put any more weight on that wall. And, in that, net another approach to the Internet. Place the worrisome and tipsy Humpty on a diet and move on down the line. It may be just as entertaining and effective, and we’ll be much less worried about scrambling our only egg.

We may find that there are other ways to laugh.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”

He chortled in his joy.”

Enjoy the play,

Grandpa Jim

The Donut

My favorite is blueberry cake. This morning, I had an early meeting. It started at “o-dark-thirty,” which is a Texas-Cajun way of saying it was dark outside and 30 minutes after some hour, but, who cared, it was early. One of the good things about this early-every-Thursday-morning meeting is that we rotate bringing the donuts. These are about the only donuts I get (being health conscious and weight watching – many of you may know the drill). So, I will never stop attending this meeting and the meeting itself can never stop being held. It may be an eternal meeting, the first ever in the history of mankind, because it is a “Donut” meeting and who could, or would want to, stop such a thing. Today, I brought a dozen blueberry cake, three plain cake, three chocolate-chocolate cake, a mix of six other cakes (chocolate nut, vanilla nut, vanilla icing, maple icing, strawberry icing and powdered sugar) and a dozen plain glaze freshly sugar-coated out of the fryer. You do not forget such things. They are the stuff sweet dreams are made of. . . .

Where’d it come from?

The donut, I mean.

Marco Polo?

No.

Today, I am not using the Internet. Scandalous behavior, I know, but I was up early and I need to shock myself — “re-book” myself in my still extant library without a computer. Today, I a using a book, to wit: “Panati’s Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things.” It is quite a witty tome and worth the reference.

On page 415, Panati states that the doughnut (known by me as simply “donut”) originated in 16^th century Holland (perhaps the confectionery creation of an ancestral chef to the noble line of Queen Bea). Among the Dutch, the treat was known as an olykoek, or “oil cake,” because of its high oil content (being fried in oil, as it still is). The cake was made with sweetened dough (hence the “dough” or “do” in donut) and was in its original inception about the size of walnut (hence the “nut” in donut). The Pilgrims had stopped in Holland on their way to America. Well, it appears those Pilgrims developed an almost unnatural fondness for the little oily cakes (but not the name). They tossed a couple hundred dozen on board the ship for the trip (a little known bit of sea-faring culinary trivia), and, on arrival in New England — at the Rock named with their name, those industrious travelers promptly set up shop and renamed the New World cake the “doughnut.”

The donut was born — almost.

It was still just a little cake.

Enter, Hanson Gregory. . . .

Hanson lived in New England and eventually became a sea captain. But, in his formative years, sitting in the kitchen watching his mother — he, in his youth (as many of us do – or did) – he had his best idea ever. His mother was rolling out the dough and cutting out the cake shapes for a big batch of doughnuts. Young Hanson thought and remembered the soggy centers in last week’s cakes. When Mom turned her back, he reached over and poked holes in those round cake cut-outs. Spinning about, his mother was about to reprimand the young thinker, when she saw the magic of his invention. She tossed the punctured cakes and the holes into the fryer together. They were . . . wonderful, more uniform in texture and without that icky soggy center. The holes were good too. She hugged her brilliant son as they both sat down to a mid-morning munch of fresh doughnuts and donut holes.

At that, young Hanson Gregory invented the distinctively empty modern donut shape (which is the shape of the “o” in “donut”), and he invented the donut hole (which is also the shape of the “o” in “donut” and oh so tasty.)

A final note. . . .

Our book reports the following: “Today Hanson Gregory’s contribution . . . is remembered in his hometown of Rockport, Maine, by a bronze plaque, suggesting that in America, fame can be achieved even for inventing nothing.”

I like that.

Could you pass another donut over here?

And, a donut hole, if there’s one left.

They’re so light and tasty.

It’s almost like eating noting at all.

I wonder who invented them.

Now, you know that, too.

Good munching,

Grandpa Jim

“Take your hands off him. He’s mine.” The newly married young lady grabs her husband’s staff and threatens the flirtatious female offender. “Can’t you see this staff? Flash those eyelashes once more at my guy and you’ll regret you did.” As the young wife brandishes the staff in the air, the other lady turns and runs away – to find a more eligible, and less attached, object for her affections.

Back in those old times, in the Middle East, Greece, Turkey and there-about, young couples didn’t always exchange rings with their marriage vows. Instead, the guy got a staff and the gal kept her eyes peeled. The staff was the sign of marital status. So, when you saw a fellow coming down the street with a staff, you knew he was attached.

Our young couple has been married for a time. He’s walking down a road in ancient Greece, staff in hand, whistling a popular tune from the forum, when an old wife pops up in front of him, stopping the young man in his tracks.

The elderly lady has her hands hidden behind her back.

“Pick a hand,” the grandmother croaks.

Taken back, the young married man does not know what is going on.

The older woman pokes her nose at him.

“Pick a hand — now,” she intones.

With the staff, he touches the lady’s left elbow.

Out pops the arm, with a white lily in the woman’s fist.

“Boy. It’s going to be a boy.” The doddering female dances a jig and spins around. Her other hand holds a rose. “If you’d picked the red rose, it’d be a girl,” she sings, “but you got the lily and now it’s a boy — sure as a ring-a-ring-sing.”

The sense of shock dissipates from the young man’s face. He realizes what he’s just learned, turns and runs for home.

You can imagine his young wife’s face when she learns the news. Or . . . did she send the older wife on the errand to surprise the new father-to-be.

Now, that’s an old wive’s tale that’s worth repeating.

It happened to Joseph. The circumstances were a bit different – more miraculous. He was walking down a street in Nazareth. No, an old wife did not jump out and confront him. He lifted his staff and saw something at the top. Something was happening, something was budding. Sure enough, a white lily bloomed right there on the street on the top of his staff.

Well, that young Joseph turned right around and ran just as fast for home and Mary to tell her the good news. He knew what that lily meant. It was a boy.

I wonder if she knew?

Next time you see a statue or picture of Joseph, take a closer look. You may see a staff. And, I’ll bet you’ll find a lily close by.

Now, you know why,

Pretty amazing,

Grandpa Jim

Her official title is Her Majesty Beatrix, by the Grace of God, Queen of the Netherlands, Princess of Orange-Nassau, etc. etc. etc. It can go on for quite a bit, the additional titles of a noble line that goes back many years and to many places. The queen herself signs official documents with only “Beatrix.” In common parlance, she is The Queen or Her Majesty. Many of her subjects call her simply “Bea.”

Officially, Queen Bea will “abdicate” on April 30, 2013. “Resign” is altogether too Western and corporate a word for such an act by such a personage — certainly not noble enough a term for a queen. A queen is what Bea is and has been for 33 years. By all reports, it is a job she has done quite well. The local paper reported this morning that “the queen’s abdication . . . is sure to bring out an outpouring of sentimental . . . feelings among the Dutch, most of whom adore her.” I read those words to mean the people of the Netherlands care very much for their queen. To be loved by those around you is a very great compliment to anyone. I think for Her Majesty Beatrix there can be no greater compliment than to be loved by her people.

Bea will pass the crown to her eldest son, Crown Prince Willem-Alexander. The son is 45, a trained pilot and an expert in water management. For a country with a long and shifting relationship to the watery realms it borders and has, to some extent, appropriated, water management is an appropriate occupation for the crown prince. I can see him now flying his plane, hand outstretched and waving to the people below, on his way to fix the next leak in the dike. Like the little Dutch boy of legend, perhaps he, like his mother, will, in time, hold an endearing place in the hearts of his subjects. I like it that when he first introduced himself to his wife, Princess Maxima, he used only “Alexander,” though prince he was and king soon will be.

For us in the west, there is little of titled royalty in our midst. As I say that, I cannot help but think that for Her Majesty Beatrix there is more of royalty in herself than in any of the titles that trail her name. Perhaps the queen is not in the crown, but in the one who wears the crown. She wore it well and taught us that royalty in its lineage clean must that surmount to be truly queen.

To Bea, well done and thank you,

Grandpa Jim