Some Days This is True (Wordless Wednesday) and Words for Wednesday

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Linking up with Wordless Wednesday and Sandee at Comedy Plus.     

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Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and has become a moveable feast of word or picture or music prompts to encourage us to write stories, poems, or whatever strikes our fancy.    

This month, the prompts are being provided by Mark Koopmans, and are being posted by Elephant’s Child.            

This week's prompts are:

1. Granulate
2. Trial
3. Serenade
4. Billiards
5. Cuss
6. Avuncular

And/Or 

1. Vindicate
2. Hotelier
3. Junkie
4. Metronome
5. Questionnaire
6. Exemplify

It had been a very, very busy day, and she stepped outside to enjoy a breath of the fresh, crisp air.  Being the only HOTELIER in that rural area, there were times when she blessed tourists and times when her thoughts verged on the profane.  Just as she was enjoying a couple of minutes of peace and the SERENADE of the bird chorus, she heard Vernon start to "fake CUSS" as he called it.  Vernon made sure he didn't "real CUSS" if anyone under the age of majority was in hearing range.

Since she'd found herself single and in charge of the business and in charge of raising a son, Vernon had become a combination of her right hand and her biggest TRIAL.  She wanted to run everything as a very tight ship, almost to the beat of a METRONOME.  Vernon, as she would say with a sigh, was born late and would be late to his own funeral.

Still, he would do anything to help her and she knew it.  He'd taken on an AVUNCULAR relationship to her son, showing him how to do many of the harder chores around the place.  He would push the boy to do better in school, telling him, "Garret, you don't want to be like me, all brawn and little learnin'.  It's a hard life."

While Vernon didn't exactly EXEMPLIFY everything she wanted her son to imitate, as she'd thought to herself more than once, it wasn't like she could have had men apply for the job of role model and fill out a QUESTIONNAIRE.  His only vice was the beer he drank when fishing, hardly making him a JUNKIE.

She also had to admit that when he'd talked her into putting in a BILLIARDS table, he had VINDICATEd himself completely.  Far from leading to the dissipation of their time which she had feared, the guests had enjoyed it immensely when Garret and his high school buddies held tournaments on the weekends.  It had kept the young men in sight of adult supervision, for which she was grateful.

"Consarn it!" Vernon yelled.  She headed out to the sugaring shed from which his voice emanated, and walked in to hear him tell her son, "Dag blamed sugar won't GRANULATE!"

Tapping the maple trees and making the syrup and sugar was a big part of their income.  "Vernon, it's going to be okay," she said.  "Dinner is about ready, so you go in and get Mandy to give you your plate now.  Garret and I will watch the syrup, and we can switch off when you're done.  Hungry men don't work so well!"

"You know me too good, Ms. Smith," Vernon said with a smile, and headed in, while she and Garret turned to the job at hand.  Watching Garret expertly handle the paddle and add fuel to the fire, she smiled at the man he was becoming, and sent up a mother's prayer that he'd grow to be the man his father had been.  He had a good start.

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Today is:

Celebrate Your Name Week -- Wednesday:  Learn What Your Name Means Day, go look it up, it's probably very interesting

Charter Day -- St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada (1881)

Courageous Follower Day -- because leaders have to have someone to lead, and it can take as much courage to follow a great leader as to be the leader

Feast of Ra in His Barge at Heliopolis -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (date approximate)

Holy Experiment Day -- try something religious today

Hug a GI Day -- just don't get in trouble sneaking on base to do it

International Scrapbooking Industry Day -- can't find proof the industry actually set this day, but if you love scrapbooking, celebrate

March Dryads' Festival -- Fairy Calendar

March Forth - Do Something Day

National Grammar Day -- sponsored by The Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar on March 4th, which is both a date and an imperative

National Poundcake Day

St. Casimir's Day (Patron of bachelors, kings, princes, single layment; Lithuania; Poland; against plague)

Tavern Day -- US (the first tavern in the US, a Puritan public house in Boston, MA, opened this date in 1634)

Toy Soldier Day -- Dr. Steel's Army, building a utopian playland and embarking on a worldwide mission of fun

Waltz Day -- some say National Waltz Day, and some Dance the Waltz Day, but no one says why this day; i say, waltz if you want to

World Maths Day -- International   

Anniversaries Today:

Hot Springs National Park is established, 1921

Vermont becomes the 14th US state, 1791

Birthdays Today:

Patsy Kensit, 1968

Jason Curtis Newsted, 1963

Stephen Weber, 1961

Patricia Heaton, 1958

Catherine O'Hara, 1954

Emilio Estefan, 1953

Kay Lenz, 1953

Chris Squire, 1948

Mary Wilson, 1944

Paula Prentiss, 1938

Miriam Makeba, 1932

Joan Greenwood, 1921

Charles Rudolph Walgreen, Jr., 1906

Knute Rockne, 1888

Garrett Morgan, 1877

Casimir Pulaski, 1747

Antonio Vivaldi, 1678

Prince Henry the Navigator, 1394

Debuting/Premiering Today:

People Magazine(Publication), 1974

"The Dick Cavett Show"(TV), 1968

Nosferatu(Horror Film), 1922

"Pénélope"(Fauré Opera), 1913

"Swan Lake"(Tchaikovsky Op. 20), 1876

Today in History:

Croatian Duke Trpimir I issued a statute, a document with the first known written mention of the Croats name in Croatian sources, 852

Ramathibodi becomes King of Siam, 1351

Christopher Columbus arrives back in Lisbon, Portugal, from his first voyage, 1493

Hernan Cortez arrives in Mexico in search of Aztec gold, 1519

The Massachusetts Bay Colony is granted a royal charter, 1629

John Flamsteed is appointed the first Astronomer Royal of England, 1675

France is divided into 83 départements, which cut across the former provinces in an attempt to dislodge regional loyalties based on noble ownership of land, 1790

The first Jewish member of the US Congress, Israel Jacobs of Pennsylvania, takes office, 1791

A Constitutional Act is introduced by the British House of Commons in London which envisages the separation of Canada into Lower Canada (Quebec) and Upper Canada (Ontario), 1791

In the first ever peaceful transfer of power between elected leaders in modern times, John Adams is sworn in as President of the United States, succeeding George Washington, 1797

In the Castle Hills Rebellion, in New South Wales, Australia, Irish convicts (some of whom had been involved in Ireland’s Battle of Vinegar Hill in 1798) lead the colony’s only significant convict uprising, 1804

Carlo Alberto di Savoia signs the Statuto Albertino that will later represent the first constitution of the Regno d'Italia, 1848

The day without a US president -- Zachary Taylor refuses to be sworn in on the Sabbath (Sunday), so there is, technically, no president on this day, 1849

The longest bridge in the Great Britain, the Forth Bridge (railway) (1,710 ft) in Scotland is opened, 1890

The great fire of Shanghai damages over 1,000 buildings, 1894

Victor Berger of Wisconsin becomes the first socialist congressman in the U.S., 1911

Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first female member of the United States House of Representatives, 1917

Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich of Russia's renunciation of the throne is made public, and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia publicly issues his abdication manifesto, 1917

Frances Perkins becomes the United States Secretary of Labor, the first female member of the United States Cabinet, 1933

Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, announces the first successful kidney transplant, 1954

The S&P 500 stock market index is introduced, replacing the S&P 90, 1957

The United States Atomic Energy Commission announces that the first atomic power plant at McMurdo Station in Antarctica is in operation, 1962

The first Cray-1 supercomputer is shipped to the Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, 1976

Nationalist leader Robert Mugabe wins a sweeping election victory to become Zimbabwe's first black prime minister, 1980

Bertha Wilson is appointed the first woman to sit on the Supreme Court of Canada, 1983

The Soviet Vega 1 begins returning images of Comet Halley and the first images ever of its nucleus, 1986

The Supreme Court of the United States rules that federal laws banning on-the-job sexual harassment also apply when both parties are the same sex, 1998

No response is received in the final attempt to contact Pioneer 10 by the Deep Space Network, 2006

Approximately 30,000 voters take advantage of electronic voting in Estonia, the world's first nationwide voting where part of the votecasting is allowed in the form of remote electronic voting via the Internet, 2007

The Papal Conclave begins to select the successor of Pope Benedict XVI, 2013

The Italian government sets aside 2 million euros for repairs to the ancient city of Pompeii after damage caused by heavy rains highlights the general decay of this World Heritage site, 2014