Coming Together in One Accord

Yes, it is a dumb old joke. The Twelve Apostles drove a Honda, of course -- the Book of Acts says they "came together in one accord."

Go ahead and groan. Anyway, the Accord is a nice vehicle, especially when your brother moves away and gives it to you, and you desperately needed another car.

Of course, it needs new tires, but every used vehicle i've ever gotten did, except once. After all, who's going to put on new tires if it's time to replace the vehicle or trade it in?

So we went to my parent's house, where my brother had left it, and went to the notary. It was all very quick and smooth, as my brother left my dad with power of attorney to do this and to sell his house.

After we went back to my parents, my dad, of course, loaded us down for the trip home with more stuff. A stepladder, a padlock with 2 keys, an electrical power strip, and the leftover food out of my brother's fridge, mostly condiments.

It was so cold out, that when we got home, we had forgotten the groceries for a while, and they were colder than when we had gotten them. Ouch.

Driving down to my parents, i was witness again to my theory that crazy people travel in pairs, or at least find each other. As soon as one crazy person, weaving in and out between people and almost causing an accident passes on the interstate, another follows in less than 30 seconds. Not sure why that happens, but it really does around here.

Next on the list is to find a way to deal with the old fan van. It is 23 years old, still runs but needs work, and we have 30 days to sell it or get it hauled away.

We came home to find the neighborhood nuts doing donuts in the field, one in a car, 3 in a truck. They had gotten stuck, and they pushed the car out, covering themselves with mud slung up by the spinning wheels. They weren't so lucky with the truck. They finally had to abandon it, almost axle deep in mud. The neighborhood security guy for the civic association called the sheriff's office about it, and maybe that will put a stop to some of this foolishness. Always before, we weren't able to catch them long enough to get tag numbers. Also, we would have had no proof. This time the proof is stuck there.


Today is:

Artist Day

Chinese New Year -- Buddhist; Confucian; Daoist

Day of Remembrance for Oleg the Prophet -- Ancient Norse Calendar

Day the Music Died

Four Chaplains Memorial Day

Heroes' Day -- Mozambique

Magnolia and Fish Jubilee -- Fairy Calendar

Martyr's Day -- Sao Tome and Principe

National Carrot Cake Day

Setsubun-sai (Bean-Throwing Festival) -- Japan/Shinto the last day of winter according to the lunar calendar

St. Anskar's Day (patron of Denmark, Iceland, Norway)

St. Blaise's Day/Blessing of Throats Day (patron of throat health)

Takisanji Oni Festival -- Takisan-ji Temple, Okazaki, Aichi Prefecture, Japan

Veterans' Day -- Thailand

Wedding Ring Day


Anniversaries Today:

Wake Forest University is established, 1834


Birthdays Today:

Maura Tierney, 1965
Morgan Fairchild, 1950
Dave Davies, 1947
Fran Tarkenton, 1940
Shelley Berman, 19226
Joey Bishop, 1918
James Michener, 1907
Norman Rockwell, 1894
Gertrude Stein, 1874


Today in History

Bartolomeu Dias of Portugal lands in Mossel Bay after rounding the Cape of Good Hope, becoming the first known European to travel so far south, 1488
The first paper money in America is issued by the colony of Massachusetts, 1690
Philadelphia establishes a "pesthouse" to quarantine immigrants, 1743
The Dutch States-General forbid the export of windmills, 1752
Spain recognizes US independence, 1783
The world's first commercial cheese factory is established in Switzerland, 1815
The sovereignty of Greece is confirmed in a London Protocol, 1830
The Wisconsin Supreme Court declares the US Fugitive Slave Law unconstitutional,1855
Emperor Meiji becomes the 122nd emperor of Japan, 1867
The 15th Amendment to the US Constitution, guaranteeing Black suffrage, is passed, 1870
Albert Spalding, with only $800, starts a sporting goods company, which eventually manufactured the first official baseball, tennis ball, basketball, golf ball, and football (American style football), 1876
Circus owner P.T. Barnum buys Jumbo the elephant, 1882
The 16th Amendment to the US Constitution, the income tax, is ratified, 1913
Canada's original Parliament building, in Ottowa, burns down, 1916
Percival Prattis becomes the first African-American news correspondent allowed in the United States House of Representatives and Senate press galleries, 1947
A plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa kills Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, The Big Bopper, and pilot Roger Peterson and the incident becomes known as The Day the Music Died, 1959
British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan speaks of the "a wind of change" of increasing national consciousness blowing through colonial Africa, signaling that his Government was likely to support decolonization, 1960
The unmanned Soviet Luna 9 spacecraft makes the first controlled rocket-assisted landing on the Moon, 1966
In Cairo, Yasser Arafat is appointed Palestine Liberation Organization leader at the Palestinian National Congress, 1969
New York Police Officer Frank Serpico is shot during a drug bust in Brooklyn and survives to later testify against police corruption, 1971
John Buster and the research team at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center announce history's first embryo transfer, from one woman to another resulting in a live birth, 1984
Astronaut Eileen Collins becomes the first woman to pilot the Space Shuttle as mission STS-63 gets underway from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, 1995