Ladies' Meeting Again (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 Margaret Adamson and her friend, Sue Fulcher.  They will also feature photographs by Margaret's friend, Bill Dodd.  The prompts will be posted on  Elephant’s Child's blog.              

This week the prompts are the following images:

Petya shuffled past the abandoned factory, kicking a stone along the road with him.  He walked past it daily on the way to school, a sight so common he didn't even notice it any longer.

He used to ask his father what was behind the boarded windows and crumbling iron fence, but his father just told him not to ask.  "It no longer concerns us, best to not ask too many questions."

When he asked his grandfather, the older man just looked past him with a glint of a tear in his eye.  "It was once a pride and joy.  Not any more."  After that, his grandfather wouldn't say anything else about it.

It had been the work in the factory that had brought prosperity to the area, and it was the closing of it that plunged everything into a slow and inevitable decline.  After many years of study, Petya went away to the University.  Studying economics among many other subjects, he began to understand more about the place that had dominated the background of his childhood, shaping his family as one of the "ones that stayed."

It explained his father's reluctance to dwell on the past, his grandfather's sadness over the loss.  It shaped him into one of the new generation that tried to bring renewal.  When roots run deep in a place, he realized, you just can't give up.

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Today is:

Army Day -- Democratic Republic of the Congo

Beaujolais Nouveau Release -- France (at midnight, so really most of the celebration is tomorrow, a new wine celebration marked with fireworks and festivities)

Coping With Uncertainty Day -- of uncertain origin, as it should be

Electronic Greeting Card Day -- internet generated, and of course probably started by the electronic greeting card websites

Geographic Information Systems Day   

Homemade Bread Day -- use the bread machine, it's fun and easy, i promise!  sponsored by the Homemade Bread Day Committee of Ann Arbor, MI, US

International Students Day -- International (meant to celebrate all students around the world, not specifically students studying in countries other than their own; anniversary of the Nazi storming and closing of the University of Prague)

John Peter Zenger Day -- marking his arrest in 1734 for libel; he continued to edit his newspaper from jail and was acquitted, an early victory for freedom of the press

National Baklava Day

National Educational Support Professionals Day -- US

National Farm Joke Day

National Unfriend Day -- all those people on Facebook you regret accepting as friends?  Jimmy Kimmel suggests you unfriend them today!

Polytechneio -- Greece (anniversary of the 1973 student protests against the junta)

Presidents' Day -- Marshall Islands

Public Restroom Hand Dryer Appreciation Day -- internet generated, and why?  they've been proven less sanitary, blowing germs everywhere; i will not appreciate this one

Repentance Day -- Saxony, Germany (Day of Prayer and Repentance [Buss und Bettag])

     Buss und Bettag -- German speaking Lutheran, Reformed, and United Protestants (Day of Repentance and Prayer)

Shogi Day -- Japan (celebrating shogi, a chess-like game)

St. Elizabeth of Hungary's Day (Patron of bakers, beggars, brides, charitable societies, charitable workers, countesses, exiles, falsely accused people, hoboes, homeless people, hospitals, lace makers/lace workers, nursing homes, nursing services, people in exile, people ridiculed for their piety, tertiaries, tramps, widows; Sisters of Mercy; Teutonic Knights; Erfurt, Germany; Jaro, Philippines; against in-law problems, the death of children, toothache)

St. Hilda's Day (Patron of learning and culture)

St. Hugh of Lincoln's Day (Patron of sick children, sick people, swans)

Struggle for Freedom and Democracy Day -- Czech Republic; Slovakia

Take A Hike Day -- internet generated, and some websites say it's actually "Tell Your Boss to Take a Hike Day", but i don't recommend that unless you've recently inherited a fortune or won the Lotto

Winter Welcome Quadrilles and Dainty-Sixes -- Fairy Calendar

World COPD Day -- International (helping people understand Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease; this year's theme is "Healthy Lungs:  Never More Important")   

World Prematurity Day -- International (raising awareness about premature birth, the leading cause of newborn death each year, and what can be done to prevent it)    

Birthdays Today:

Isaac Hanson, 1980

Laura Wilkinson, 1977

Matthew Settle, 1969

Daisy Fuentes, 1966

Sophie Marceau, 1966

Dylan Walsh, 1963

RuPaul, 1960

Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, 1958

Danny DeVito, 1944

Lauren Hutton, 1944

Lorne Michaels, 1944

Tom Seaver, 1944

Lauren Hutton, 1943

Martin Scorsese, 1942

Gordon Lightfoot, 1938

Rock Hudson, 1925

Sichiro Honda, 1906

Lee Strassberg, 1901

Bernard Law Montgomery, 1887

August Mobius, 1790

John Peter Zenger, 1734

Atahualpa, last Emperor of the Inca, 1502

Flavius Claudius Julianus, Roman Emperor, 331

Vespian, Roman Emperor, 9

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Sunset Boulevard"(Musical), 1994

"Rumors"(Simon play), 1988

"The Elephant Man"(Play), 1977

"The Sorcerer"(Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera), 1877

"Andromaque"(Racine tragedy), 1667

Today in History:

Diocletian is proclaimed emperor by his soldiers, 284

England and Spain sign an anti-French covenant/treaty, 1511

Elizabeth I ascends the English throne, 1558

France and Spain sign the Peace of the Pyrenees treaty, 1659

The Church of England organizes in New England, 1785

Congress holds its first session in the still incomplete Capitol Building of Washington, D.C., 1800

The Delta Phi fraternity, America's oldest continuous social fraternity, is founded at Union College in Schenectady, New York, 1827

Ecuador and Venezuela separate from Greater Colombia, 1831

Street signs are first authorized at San Francisco intersections, 1853

David Livingstone becomes the first European to see Victoria Falls, 1855

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Slavonic March is given its première performance in Moscow, 1876

Japan and Korea sign The Eulsa Treaty, 1905

The first US dental hygienist course is formed, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, 1913

US declares the Panama Canal Zone to be neutral, 1914

Lenin defends the "temporary" removal of freedom of the press, 1917

American scientists John Bardeen and Walter Brattain observe the basic principles of the transistor, a key element for the electronics revolution of the 20th Century, 1947

Douglas Engelbart receives the patent for the first computer mouse, 1970

In Czechoslovakia, the Velvet Revolution that would overthrow the communist government begins when student protests in Prague are quelled by riot police, 1989

Brian May of the rock band Queen was appointed Chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University, 2007

In Sweden, divers find the wreckage of the Svardet, a warship sunk in 1676 during the Battle of Oland, 2011

The Church of England adopts legislation enabling the appointment of female bishops, 2014

A smaller pyramid found within 2 known Kukulkan "nesting" pyramids dating from 550-580 AD is announced at Chichen Itza in Yucatan, Mexico, 2016