Look Closely, The Tree Isn't Giving Up (Wordless Wednesday) and Words for Wednesday, an A to Z Post

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To enjoy more blogs participating in the A to Z Challenge, click here.     

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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 WiseWebWoman.    

The words for this week are:

canopy

thorn

machine

charity

and/or

limp 

aisle

nothing

sneak

He didn't want CHARITY, he wanted a chance.

He knew he'd have to win the scholarship, it would be the only way.  His family, as his mother always said, was only rich in children and love and NOTHING else.

He turned his polishing MACHINE onto the next AISLE of the store where he worked in the evenings.  The whole time, his mind was busy dreaming up what he would draw next.  He saw artwork in his mind all of the time, imagining all sorts of things.  Work was both his way forward for the money it provided and a THORN in his side as it kept him away from what he really wanted to be spending his time doing.

His boss sympathized with him, as did the principal at school.  In the summer at work, he would sit under the CANOPY out back at the picnic table when he was supposed to be eating his lunch (usually a LIMP sandwich), drawing.  The boss would come out each day if he had the time and watch, fascinated.  

The principal of his school wanted to make sure he got the scholarship he wanted, but it wasn't up to her.  The art institute had its own selection committee, and she was allowed to advise them on the need of the applicants, nothing more.

She also was the one always calling him on the carpet for the fact that he would SNEAK time to do his art when he was supposed to be in his academic classes.  "I know how much your art means to you," she would tell him, "but for now, you have to do your class work, too.  It's part of your education to at least be familiar with good grammar and some arithmetic."

Only the fact that he needed reasonably good grades in academics to get into the art school kept his nose to the grindstone at that.  She'd told him, "If you don't keep up with your studies, someone else is going to be standing in the place you are supposed to be."

He took her warning to heart.  At his first art gallery show many years later, he was so glad he had.

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Today is:

Ambedkar Jayanti -- India (birth anniversary of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, father of the Indian Constitution)

Americas Day -- Honduras

Bisket Jatra -- Nepal (Nepali New Year)

Black Day -- South Korea (for those who got neither Valentine's gifts nor White Day gifts; singles wear black and get together to eat black noodle soup)

Celebrations in the Houses of Ra, Osiris, and Horus -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (date approximate)

Children with Alopecia Day 

Day of Mologa -- Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia (commemorates the destruction of the town of Mologa during the construction of the Rybinsk Reservoir)

Day of the Georgian Language -- Georgia (marking the 1978 protests of Soviet attempts to suppress the Georgian language)

Elfin Choir Congress -- Fairy Calendar

Ex Spouse Day -- why?

Feast of Pak Tai -- Macau (Pak Tai who conquered the Demon King, on the 3rd day of the 3rd lunar month)

International Moment of Laughter Day -- started by Izzy Gesell 

Kinetoscope Day -- the first commercial exhibition of motion pictures through Edison's "peep show" device occurred on this day in 1894

Look Up At The Sky Day -- internet generated, no history on this one, but if it's a pretty day, take advantage of it (some sites say April 12, but since we don't know who started it, today is fine)

National Dolphin Day -- US

National Love Our Children Day -- sponsored by STOMP Out Bullying and Love Our Children USA

National Pecan Day   

N'Ko Alphabet Day -- Mande Language Speakers

Pan American Day -- Order of the American States

Pathologists' Assistant Day -- US (American Association of Pathologists' Assistants)     

Rato Machhindranath Jatra -- Nepal (chariot races for the god of rain; cannot confirm this year's date, but always begins mid-April)

Reach as High as You Can Day -- internet generated, and listed on various dates; a good idea, anyway, whenever you decide to celebrate it

Runic Half Month of Man (humanity) begins

Sacrifices to Leto, Pythian Apollon, Zeus, Hermes, and the Dioscuri in the Deme of Erichia -- Ancient Greek Calendar (date approximate)

Shangsi Festival -- China (ancient Double Third festival, on the 3rd day of the 3rd lunar month)

Sidereal Equinox New Year Celebrations -- throughout South and Southeast Asia, including

    * Assamese New Year, or Rongali Bihu (India's Assam Valley)

    * Bengali New Year, or Pohela Boishakh (Bangladesh and India's West Bengal state)

    * Burmese New Year, or Thingyan (Burma)

    * Hindu and Sikh New Year, or Vaisakhi (Punjab region)

    * Khmer New Year, or Chol Chnam Thmey, most commonly celebrated on April 13 (Cambodia)

    * Lao New Year, or Songkan / Pi Mai Lao, generally celebrated from 13 to 15 April (Laos)

    * Malayali New Year, or Vishu (India's Kerala state)

    * Nepali New Year, or Bikram Samwat / Vaishak Ek (Nepal)

    * Oriya New Year, or Maha Visuba Sankranthi (India's Orissa state)

    * Sinhalese New Year, or Aluth Avurudhu (Sri Lanka)

    * Tamil New Year, or Puthandu (India's Tamil Nadu state)

    * Thai New Year, or Songkran, celebrated from 13 to 15 April (Thailand)

    * Tuluva New Year, or Bisu (India's Karnataka state)

Sommarsblot -- Ancient Norse Calendar (celebration of the coming summer, with sacrifices to the gods over the next several days; through Walpurgis/May 1)

Spring Hula Hooping Day -- try out the old hula hoop one more time, then toss it

St. Benezet's Day (Patron of bachelors, bridge builders; Avignon, France)

St. Lydwina of Schiedam's Day (Patron of ice skating/roller skating/skaters, prolonged suffering, sick people; Schiedam, Netherland; against bodily ills and sickness) 

St. Peter Gonzalez's Day (Patron of boatmen, mariners, sailors, watermen)

St. Tiburtius' Day (Considered the day the cuckoos return to England for the spring)

Takayama Spring Festival -- Takayama City, Japan (often considered one of the 3 most beautiful festivals in Japan; through tomorrow)

Thingyan -- Myanmar (Burmese Water Festival; through the Myanmar New Year on the 17th)

Vaisakhi/Baisakhi -- Sikh (celebration of the spring grain harvest and of the rebirth of the Sikh religion in the 15th Century)

Yom HaZikaron -- Israel (Memorial Day; ends at sunset)

Yom Ha'Atzmaut -- Israel (Independence Day; beings at sunset, through tomorrow sunset)

Youth Day -- Angola

Birthdays Today:

Abigail Breslin, 1996

Sarah Michelle Gellar, 1977

Adrien Brody, 1973

Anthony Michael Hall, 1968

Greg Maddux, 1966

Cynthia Cooper, 1963

Robert Carlyle, 1961

Brad Garrett, 1960

Emma Thompson, 1959

Ritchie Blackmore, 1945

Julie Christie, 1941

Pete Rose, 1941

Loretta Lynn, 1935

Rod Steiger, 1925

John Gielgud, 1904

Arnold Joseph Toynbee, 1889

Anne Sullivan, 1866

Emperor Momozono, 1741

Christiaan Huygens, 1629

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"The Boys in the Band"(Musical), 1968

"Bye Bye, Birdie"(Musical), 1960

The Grapes of Wrath(Publication date), 1939

"Jeux d'enfants"(Ballet), 1932

"Murders in the Rue Morgue"(Publication date), 1841

American Dictionary of the English Language(Publication date), 1828

Today in History:

Mark Antony, besieging Julius Caesar's assassin Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus in Mutina, defeats the forces of the consul Pansa, who is wounded, BC 43

Titus, son of emperor Vespasian, surrounds the Jewish capital with four Roman legions, beginning the Siege of Jerusalem, 70

Temur, grandson of Kublai Khan, is elected Khagan of the Mongols and Emperor of the Yuan Dynasty, 1294

The foundation stone of Cathedral St. Peter and St. Paul in Nantes, France is laid, 1434

Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush establish the first abolitionist society in the US, 1775

Napoleon calls for establishing Jerusalem for the Jews, 1799

Noah Webster copyrights the first edition of his dictionary, 1828

The Donner Party departs Springfield, Illinois, 1846

Harriet Tubman begins her first Underground Railroad run, 1853

William Bullock patents the continuous-roll printing press, 1863

Abraham Lincoln is shot at Ford's Theater by John Wilkes Booth, 1865

Canada sets denominations of currency as dollars, cents, & mills, 1871

Canada passes the Dominion Lands Act, 1872

The RMS Titanic hits an iceberg  at 11:40pm and sinks 2 hours later, 1912

The first Volvo car premieres in Gothenburg, Sweden, 1927

The Grapes of Wrath, by American author John Steinbeck is first published by the Viking Press, 1939

The Soviet satellite Sputnik 2 falls from orbit, 1958

The heaviest hailstones ever recorded, at 1 kilogram, hailstones fall on the Gopalganj district of Bangladesh, killing 92, 1986

The most costly natural disaster in Australian history, a hailstorm, strikes Sydney, Australia, 1999

The Human Genome Project is completed with 99% of the human genome sequenced to an accuracy of 99.99%, 2003

The Oregon Supreme Court nullifies marriage licenses issued to gay couples a year earlier by Multnomah County, 2005

Ash from Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano drifts towards Europe, causing air traffic to close over Northern Norway, 2010

The first-ever European MP's of Croatia are determined in an election held in anticipation of Croatia gaining formal entry into the European Union, 2013

Seychelles President Danny Faure makes the first-ever live speech from a submersible, pleading for better marine protection, 2019