Front page of the Chicago American, November 11, 1918, now on display at the House on the Rock, Wisconsin.
A fine collection of Armistice Day photos — the first Armistice Day, that is — can be found here.
Category Archives: Holidays
July Back Yard Flowers &c.
Time for a summer interlude. Back to posting around July 19.
What this country needs is another summer holiday, sometime between Independence Day and Labor Day, and I nominate July 20, to honor the Moon landing. Or the fourth Monday in July, since the 20th is a little close to July 4 — a Monday holiday to honor the astronauts’ return on July 24, recalling the bit about “returning safely to the Earth,” since the lunar mission wouldn’t have been complete without that.
To keep the accounting snits happy (we can’t afford another holiday!), Columbus Day can be de-holidayed. It’s truly the most insignificant of federal holidays anyway, whatever you think of the Admiral of the Ocean Sea.
New Horizons will fly by Pluto during my interlude. This week’s “glitch” was alarming, but the craft seems to have recovered. (I like the Wired caption: “Among with gobs of planetary science, New Horizons is capturing pictures of Pluto that are increasingly less crappy.”) I will be watching the news closely. Yesterday I came across theses proposed names for geographic features on the Ninth Planet and its moons. Interesting lists. The IAU might not be so keen on fictional explorers and their vessels, however.
Chanced recently across another musical act that I’d pay money to see (and there aren’t that many), namely the Ukulele Band of Great Britain. Pretty much on the strength of their version of the theme from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Too bad the closest they’ll be to me this year is Muncie, Ind., and that isn’t close enough.
Here’s some speculation: Treasury Secretary Jack Lew’s playing a deep game with the $10 and $20 bills. He proposed making Alexander Hamilton second banana on his note to elicit a wave of support for the first Treasury secretary — at the expense of Andrew Jackson. A common notion now seems to be, “Go ahead, get rid of Jackson, but not Hamilton!” Previously, the idea of tossing Jackson in favor of a woman wasn’t so warmly received. But now…
This is a recent headline that amused me: Google Self-Driving Cars Head to Austin, from PC Magazine, which further says that “the company has selected the city to be the next testing location for its autonomous Lexus SUVs…” Austin’s a very safe choice, I figure, especially if you turn the vehicle loose on I-35, where it won’t move very fast, if at all.
Just ahead of rain earlier this week, I went out to take some pictures of flowers. I went no further than my back yard.
O Summer,
Oft pitched’st here thy goldent tent, and oft
Beneath our oaks hast slept, while we beheld
With joy thy ruddy limbs and flourishing hair.
July Idles
This year was a stay-close-to-home Fourth of July. That is, metro Chicago. Some are, some aren’t. We returned to our old haunts in the western suburbs on Saturday night to see the Westmont fireworks, from the vantage of Ty Warner Park. It’s always a good show.
That was a high point of the weekend. So was taking my daughters to Half Price Books, at their request, on the evening of the 3rd.
The low point of the weekend was walking the dog on the 4th, not long before we left for the fireworks show. Late afternoon, that is. Part of our usual route takes us along a path between a dense row of bushes and a small patch of land sporting enough trees to block the sky, when they have leaves. Pretty soon I re-discovered its mid-summer nature as Mosquito Alley. The mossies were especially forceful when I was cleaning up after the dog.
Complaining about mosquitoes, though, is just carping. I’d rather look out of my back door and see this (an early July shot).
Than this (an early January shot).
Bugs aside, I spent a fair amount of time over the weekend on the deck reading The H.L. Hunley by Tom Chaffin (2008), a fine book about the submarine of that name, along with its predecessor vessels (the Pioneer and the American Diver). Or, as I learned reading the book, the “submarine boat,” which is a 19th-century usage. The Confederates gave underwater warfare a shot, but it turned out Age of Steam technology — as inventive as it clearly was — wasn’t quite up to the task. Not without killing more submarine boat crew than Union sailors.
Also, it’s another reason to visit Charleston, to see the vessel, now an artifact on display at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center. Not that I’d need any more reasons for a visit.
A Forgotten Thread About Florida, Remembered
Posting again on Tuesday. Memorial Day’s a little far ahead of Decoration Day this year, but because of the flux of the calendar, Memorial Day will drift back to May 30 next year (and in ’22 and ’33, just to look ahead). I didn’t realize it until recently, but Sen. Daniel Inouye was eager to return Memorial Day to May 30, introducing resolutions on the matter repeatedly until his death.
Warm again after a couple of ridiculously cold days. It wasn’t freezing — that would be beyond ridiculous, into the insane — but I could see my breath yesterday. Today I sat on my deck in the pleasantly warm air.
I don’t look at Facebook constantly, but when I do, odd things pop up sometimes. Today the system reminded me that “Six years ago, you posted this.”
My first thought: I’ve been using Facebook for more than six years? Tempus fugit.
The comment I posted then, along with a small scan of a postcard I’ve reposted here, was: “The best fried oysters I’ve ever had, at the Apalachicola Seafood Grill, Apalachicola, Florida, May 2009.”
My old friend Dan, a resident of Birmingham, Ala., these days, replied: “The Grill has been there for as long as I can remember. I can remember going there 40 years ago. And, as I recall, if you like flounder, they do an incredible job with it as well.”
It’s still there, if reviews on Yelp, Google+, Urban Spoon and the like are to be believed. Good to know.
I answered: “I need to explore Miami more, but I’ve pretty much decided the panhandle’s my favorite part of the state.”
Geof Huth then chimed in: “Hey, that picture reminds me of a postcard I received recently.”
Dan: “By comparison, Miami is soulless.”
I’d say Miami has a really different kind of soul. Pending further investigation.
One more comment from me: “Postcard? What a coincidence. Rich F. got a card just like it, too, since he used to serve discount oysters to me at an oyster bar in Nashville.
“Miami Beach sure was interesting, but you have to like art deco.”
Dan: “and shell pink…”
I might still have that postcard. I have a box of Places I’ve Been Cards, started more than 10 years ago. Back when I worked downtown, I had my own office — an increasingly retro concept; I’m glad I don’t work in an open floor-plate office — and I thumb-tacked a few cards on one of the walls, a couple of places I’d recently been. Then I put up a few more. And then even more. The only commonality was that I’d been to the place. It got to be a few dozen eventually.
When I had to leave that office, I took all the cards down and boxed them. Since then, I’ve added to the collection with cards upon return from a place, mindful always to have a few extra, and with cards I find at a resale or antique shop representing places I went before I stared collecting cards.
Pi ’15
Pi Day 2015 has come and gone. Word was this one was distinctive in that 3.1415 could also be taken to stand for March 14, ’15, something that happens once a century. A Saturday this year, meaning we were mostly at home doing nothing related to pi. Which would have been the case any other day of the week, come to think of it. But it’s one of those days that’s good to note in passing.
Lilly had a shirt for the occasion, sold for a not-too-outrageous cost by the high school math club or some such.
An aggressive Pi, that one. Pushy Pi. Here are other representations of everyone’s favorite irrational number. Too bad for e, always second banana to pi. E Day would be Feb 7, but that’ll never catch on.
First Night Parade 92/93
Back on the last day of 1992, Yuriko and I found ourselves in Boston. I don’t remember exactly where the First Night parade was – along one of the streets next to the Common, probably – but we were there, ahead of dinner with friends and a gathering in Cambridge to see ’93 in.
Like the Greenwich Village Halloween parade, First Night featured rod puppets of various kinds. Figures of people:
The camera had an annoying feature that we forgot to turn off for that picture. It would time stamp the images at the bottom. The camera had been set to do so in Japan, so remarkably it stamped 93 1 1, which would have been correct had the camera still been in Japan. (We used it, and film, until 2007).
Costumed participants paraded by as well.
Not sure what this was supposed to have been, but it was colorful.
My urge to go out on New Year’s Eve has flagged over the years (though usually it was to a gathering of friends, not a public event). This year, Lilly was out. In a few more years, Ann will be out.
Moo & Oink
All of the holiday-themed merchandise you’d actually want to buy is long gone by now, snapped up at discounts in the days after Christmas. That leaves the likes of the Ugly Christmas Sweater Cookie Set that I saw for sale today: a ridiculous item at a very steep markdown. Makes 6 to 8 ugly sweater cookies, the box said. It was illustrated with cookies shaped like brightly decorated sweaters.
When and how did the notion of ugly Christmas sweaters become popular? It happened while I wasn’t paying attention. I’ll continue to be apathetic about it, so I won’t bother to look into it. (But I will record here that Lilly went to a party with that theme this year.)
I didn’t buy the cookie set. I did need some barbecue sauce, and happened across an 18 oz. bottle Moo & Oink High 5 BBQ Sauce. That I bought.
Marketing verbiage on the bottle says: “Let’s face it, you take your BBQ seriously. So when it comes to what you put on your ‘Q,’ serious BBQ lovers are brushing on the thick & tasty blend of ingredients in HIGH 5™ BBQ Sauce.” The first ingredient is high fructose corn syrup.
Seems to be residuum of the Moo & Oink grocery stores that used to be on the South Side of Chicago, but which closed in 2011. I never went to any of their stores, but I did occasionally see the commercials.
Hard Day’s New Year’s Eve
Snow today, after a rain-ice mix yesterday that made slush. December ’14 was remarkable in that not a bit of snow fell here in northern Illinois, none that stuck anyway. That suited me, though mostly it was cold, especially as the month ended. Everyone who was out after midnight on New Year’s braved temps around 15 degrees F., with some wind.
I stood outside for a short spell to capture the sounds of the early ’15, just after midnight. It’s faint, but if the volume’s all the way up, you can hear the steady pops of technically illegal fireworks. Not sure what the loud pop is at about 10 seconds.
Before midnight I watched A Hard Day’s Night. Fun movie. Somehow or other I’d never seen it before, except for the famed opening, in which a mass of screaming girls chase the lads through a train station.
One amusing line — which must be understood less and less as time goes by — involved “Paul’s grandfather.” (Wilfrid Brambell played Paul’s grandfather, sometimes stealing the show. I thought he looked familiar. Turns out he played the father in Steptoe and Son.)
At one point, Paul’s grandfather sneaks off and runs up a tab at a posh club. The Beatles and their manager show up to collect the old man, and the club manager says, “There’s the matter of the bill.”
The Beatles’ manager looks at it and says, “180 pounds?”
“180 guineas!” answers the club manager.
Christmases ’14
Merry Christmas to all. And a fine New Year, since I’ll post again around January 4 ’15.
It’s also the centennial of the Christmas Truce. Can’t forget that.
A worthwhile dramatization from the movie Joyeux Noel (2005). A bit of documentary about the incident is here.
Upclose Ornaments
Today I wasted spent a few minutes taking pictures of Christmas tree ornaments in situ, and then more posting them. Such as the ever-popular Michelin Man.
It would seem to violate my guidelines about commercial ornaments, and it does. But it’s the Michelin Man. I’ll make an exception.
We have four of these, acquired who knows where in the last 15 years. Lilly said this year that these were favorites of hers. I had no idea. They are pretty baubles.
We have two pickles on the tree. One of Ann’s friends saw it almost immediately and wanted to know, with some urgency, why there were pickles on the tree. All I can say to that is Why Not?
Not bad for tin and plastic. It’s a “UFO” ornament, acquired many years ago. In theory, they rest on top of lights and glow (the one here is perpendicular to the ground, rather than horizontal). In practice, they never fit very well on any lights, especially the newer LEDs. So we just hang them any old way.
Finally, one with a presidential connection.
Well, vice presidential connection. About 10 years ago, I visited the Evanston Historical Society, which happens to be in the former mansion of Vice President Charles Dawes. They were giving away these thin metal ornaments, and so here it is.