Six Sentences and a Fence from the Past

"Uncle Buddy played violin?" Alex asked with a tone of voice that sat on the border between unbelief and an accusation of lying.

"Our friend Buddy is one of the most talented musicians I've ever known.  His parents started him on violin when he was barely two, and when he kept growing so much bigger than the other kids his age, they got him a viola, then a cello, and finally a bass.  He brought all four to college and took master classes in all of them."

"Phew!" Alex exclaimed, and Jonathan burst out laughing, saying, "You should have seen how he would go to a street corner and pretend to be the giant clown with a violin, as if he didn't know what to do with it.  Once people were laughing enough, he'd play it and shock them into silence, and usually earn enough coins and dollars to take us both out for a cheap supper when we were tired of the cafeteria food."

Linking up with Zoe's Uncharted Blog, where she hosts Six Sentence Stories, and the cue is Border.

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Gosia, of Looking for Identity, has taken over Good Fences, and it's now Good Fences Around The World.  Post a picture of a fence or gate, link back to her blog, and go visit others to see what interesting fences there are out in this big world.

A blast from my past, riding fences with a friend.

Today is:

Acton Fair -- Acton, ME, US (an old fashioned country fair plus midway, stage shows, and a great good time; through Sunday)

Birthday of Osiris -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (date approximate)

Cobblestone Festival -- Falls City, NE, US (something for everyone; through Sunday)

Festival for Luna -- Ancient Roman Calendar

Festival of Mania -- Ancient Roman Calendar (to placate the Manes, a day when the Mundus, the portal to the afterlife, is open and the dead are free to roam)

Flag Day -- Liberia

Flitting Appreciation Day -- another "holiday" with no particular reason except that someone who enjoys flitting around wanted to celebrate it

Gangara Fire Festival -- Atago Shrine, Ikeda City, Japan

Hotter 'n H*ll Hundred Bike Race -- Wichita Falls, TX, US (four days of challenging events and inspiring activities as cyclists of all ages compete in the largest sanctioned century ride in the US, in the Texas summer heat)

Independence Day -- Ukraine(1991)

International Day Against Intolerance, Discrimination and Violence Based on Musical Preference, Lifestyle, and Dress Code -- sponsored by the Romanian Humanist Association and the Sophie Lancaster Foundation

International Strange Music Day -- as declared by strange musician and composer Patrick Grant

Knife Day -- internet generated, but how would we cook without them?  today remember how much you do each day with a good kitchen knife.

National Peach Pie Day

National Waffle Day -- Cornelius Swarthout patented the first waffle iron in the US on this day in 1869, so it is sometimes noted as National Waffle Iron Day 

Pluto Demotion Day -- the complaints since 2006 have been heard, and Pluto was repromoted!

Prairie Village Jamboree -- Prairie Village, Madison, SD, US (keeping the old prairie life heritage alive for new generations; through Sunday)

St. Bartholomew's Day (Patron of bookbinders, butchers, cobblers, Florentine cheese merchants, Florentine salt merchants, leather workers,plasterers, shoemakers, tanners, trappers, whiteners; Armenia; Borgo Tossignano, Italy; Boves, Italy; Carpineto dell Nora, Italy; Civitella in Val di Chiana, Italy; Frankfurt am Main, Germany; Gambatesa, Italy; Gharghur, Malta; Lipari, Sicily, Italy; Maastricht, Netherlands; Magalang, Philippines; Plzen, Czech Republic; Potosí, Bolivia; Salzano, Italy; Trino, Italy; against nervous diseases, neurological diseases, and twitching) related observance

     Schaferlauf -- Markgroeningen, Germany (Festival to honor St. Bartholomew, Patron of Herdsmen, on this day or the weekend after; includes traditional barefoot race by children of active shepherds and water carrying contests; also now has a music festival)

     Wayzgoose -- a traditional day for master printers to throw an end-of-summer party for his workmen

St. Owen of Rouen's Day (Patron of the deaf; against deafness)

Vesuvius Day -- anniversary of 79CE eruption which destroyed Pompeii, Stabiae, and Herculaneum

Waratambar -- New Ireland Province, Papua New Guinea (a native thanksgiving)

Watermelon Festival -- Winterville, NC, US (sticky fun; through Saturday)

William Wilberforce Day -- Wilberforce University, Wilberforce, OH, US (birth anniversary of founder, in 1759)

Zucchini Festival -- Obetz, OH, US (family fun and zucchini; through Sunday)

Birthday's Today:

Rupert Grint, 1988

Chad Michael Murray, 1981

Marlee Matlin, 1965

Reggie Miller, 1965

Cal Ripken, Jr., 1962

Craig Kilborn, 1962

Steve Guttenberg, 1958

Stephen Fry, 1957

Oscar Hijuelos, 1951

Michael Richards, 1950

Gregory Bruce Jarvis, 1944

Mason Williams, 1938

Yasser Arafat, 1929

Hal Smith, 1916

Jorge Luis Borges, 1899

Duke Paoa Kahanamoku, 1890

Daniel Gooch, 1816

William Wilberforce, 1759

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"The Facts of Life"(TV), 1979

Today in History:

The eruption of Mt. Vesuvius buries Pompeii and Herculaneum, 15,000 die, 79

The Visigoths under Aleric begin to pillage Rome, 410

King John of England, a/k/a Humpty Dumpty for having to issue the first Magna Carta, marries Isabella of Angoileme, 1200

Six thousand Jews are killed in Mainz after being blamed for the bubonic plague, 1349

The printing of the Gutenberg Bible is completed, 1456

The first English convoy lands at Surat, India, 1608

Calcutta, India is founded, 1690

British troops invade Washington, D.C. and burn down the White House and several other buildings, 1814

Charles Darwin is asked to travel on HMS Beagle, 1831

The Panic of 1857 begins, touching off one of the most severe economic crises in US history (Which just goes to show you, the more things change, the more they stay the same), 1857

Cornelius Swarthout patents the waffle iron, 1869

The Wolseley Expedition reaches Manitoba to end the Red River 

Rebellion, 1870

Captain Matthew Webb became first person to swim English Channel, 1875

Thomas Edison patents the motion picture camera, 1891

Workers start pouring concrete for the Panama Canal, 1909

Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly non-stop across the North American continent, 1932

The treaty creating NATO goes into effect, 1949

France explodes its first hydrogen bomb, thus becoming the world's fifth nuclear power, 1968

Voyager 2 (launched 1977) reaches Neptune, 1989

Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1991

The first RFID human implantation is tested in the UK, 1998

Argon fluorohydride, the first Argon compound ever known, is discovered at the University of Helsinki, 2000

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) redefines the term "planet" such that Pluto is considered a Dwarf Planet, 2006

The 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'I Have A Dream' speech is commemorated in the U.S., 2013