Thursday, March 31, 2022

Mr. Fix-It (Six Sentence Story), Good Fences, Lifestyle (Sammy's Poetry Day) and Brian's Thankful Thursday

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"Whatcha lookin' for, Gramps?" granddaughter asked as he came in from the shop and began poking in the cabinets.


"A wooden kitchen match, need it to fix the car," he said.


"Here you go," she handed him the box, whereupon he fished one out, said, "thankee!", and he marched back out as she turned to her mother and said, "How's he going to fix that old car with a match?  Burn it?"


"No," mama said with a laugh, "this is the same man who sealed a coil into a car with chewing gum and got where he needed to go, if he says a stick match will fix the car, it will."


Mama's prediction came true as they heard the engine of the old clunker in the yard roar to life.



Linking up with Denise at Girlie On The Edge Blog, where she hosts Six Sentence Stories, and the cue is Match.            


(Based on a true story, the mechanic in question really could fix things this way.)



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While Good Fences Around the World seems to have gone the way of the dodo bird, i still enjoy looking for and posting interesting fences, so i will!  (Note, Gosia has started blogging again, we might hope for a revival.)







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It's Angel Sammy's Poetry Day This week's image and my poem:    





I'll show you beginners

how to do it,

It's all in the wrist,

there's not much to it.


Pannin' is fun

for tourists and traders,

for me it's a living,

I'm like a crusader.


Most people expect

to hit gold right quick,

they're not happy to learn

that's a very rare trick.


I've spent most my life,

and I've done pretty well,

but I won't retire rich

like some Hollywood swell.


There's joy in the living,

I do as I please,

and that's why I stay

each day I do seize.



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Brian of Brian's Home hosts the Thankful Thursday Blog Hop.   It's time to share something for which i am thankful.  


Today i am thankful for a good nap yesterday.  Ms. G had to be somewhere in the afternoon, so i didn’t work late and snuck a nap in.  Also, we’re thankful the rain came and went, mostly went.






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Today is:


Bunsen Burner Day -- on the birth anniversary of its inventor, Robert Wilhelm Eberhard von Bunsen, in 1811


Buy Some New Socks Day -- because all the websites that list it agree you are worth it


Cesar Chavez Day -- Arizona, California, Colorado, Michigan, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, & Wyoming, US


Culture and Traditions Day -- Micronesia


Day Everyone Says "31" a Lot -- Fairy Calendar


Eiffel Tower Day -- inaugurated this day in 1889


Festival for Luna -- Ancient Roman Calendar (moon festival)


Hot Guitar Day -- the day Jimi Hendrix first set fire to his guitar in 1967


Jum il-Helsien (Freedom Day) -- Malta


King Nangklao Memorial Day -- Thailand


National Clams on the Half Shell Day


Oranges and Lemons Day -- St. Clement Danes Church, London, Enlgand (traditional children's service based on the rhyme that begins "Oranges and lemons/say the bells of St. Clement's)


"She's Funny That Way" Day -- pay tribute to the women in your life, and how they keep you laughing; sponsored by Brenda Meredith of Dahomey Publishing, Inc.


St. Balbina's Day (Patron of those with scrofulous diseases or stroma)


Thomas Mundy Peterson Day -- New Jersey, US (the first African-American to legally cast a vote in the US, this date in 1870)


Transfer Day -- US Virgin Islands


Vigil to Mourn China's Annexation of Tibet -- anniversary of the day in 1959 when the Dalai Lama fled to India



Birthdays Today:


Pavel Bure, 1971

Ewan McGregor, 1971

Marc McClure, 1957

Angus Young, 1955

Edward Francis "Ed" Marinaro, 1950

Al Gore, 1948

Rhea Perlman, 1948

Gabe Kaplan, 1945

Christopher Walken, 1943

James Earl "Jimmy" Johnson, 1938

Herb Alpert, 1935

Richard Chamberlain, 1935

Shirley Jones, 1934

John Jakes, 1932

Gordie Howe, 1928

Cesar Chavez, 1927

William Daniels, 1927

Leo Buscaglia, 1925

Henry Morgan, 1915

John "Jack" Johnson, 1878

Andrew Lang, 1844

Mary Boykin Miller Chesnut, 1823

Edward Fitzgerald, 1809

Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol, 1809

Joseph Haydn, 1732

Andrew Marvell, 1621

Rene Descartes, 1596



Debuting/Premiering Today:


"'night, Mother"(Play), 1983

"The Shadow Box"(Play), 1977

"The Best Man"(Play), 1960

"The Glass Menagerie"(Play), 1945

"Oklahoma!"(Musical), 1943

"Le Chasseur Maudit/The Accursed Huntsman"(Symphonic poem), 1883



Today in History:


Bernard of Clairvaux preaches his famous sermon in a field at Vézelay, urging the necessity of a Second Crusade; Louis VII is present, and joins the Crusade, 1146

King Ferdinand & Queen Isabella sign decree ordering Jews to convert or be expelled from Spain, 1492

Jews are expelled from Prague, 1745

Commodore Matthew Perry signs the Treaty of Kanagawa with the Japanese government, opening the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade, 1854

Thomas P Mundy of Perth Amboy, NJ, becomes the first African American to cast a vote, 1870

The Eiffel Tower, commemorating the French Revolution, opens, 1889

Richard Pearse allegedly makes a powered flight in an early aircraft, 1903

Serbia accepts Austrian control over Bosnia-Herzegovina, 1909

Construction begins on the RMS Titanic, 1909

Construction of the RMS Titanic is completed, 1912

The United States takes possession of the Danish West Indies after paying $25 million to Denmark, and renames the territory the United States Virgin Islands, 1917

Daylight saving time goes into effect in the United States for the first time, 1918

The Royal Australian Air Force is formed, 1921

The Dominion of Newfoundland joins the Canadian Confederation and becomes the 10th Province of Canada, 1949

Remington Rand delivers the first UNIVAC I computer to the United States Census Bureau, 1951

In the Canadian federal election, 1958, the Progressive Conservatives, led by John Diefenbaker, win the largest percentage of seats in Canadian history, with 208 seats of 265, 1958

The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, crosses the border into India and is granted political asylum, 1959

The Soviet Union launches Luna 10 which later becomes the first space probe to enter orbit around the Moon, 1966

Explorer 1 re-enters the Earth's atmosphere after 12 years in orbit, 1970

The USS Missouri, the last active United States Navy battleship, is decommissioned in Long Beach, California, 1992

Netscape releases the code base of its browser under an open-source license agreement; the project is given the code name Mozilla and is eventually spun off into the non-profit Mozilla Foundation, 1998

Amid unrest in the Mideast, activists claim China has launched the largest crackdown on dissenters in recent years, 2011

The International Court of Justice at the U.N. agrees that Japanese whaling is conducted for commercial purposes, not scientific research; Japan accepts the order to cease all whaling activities in the Antarctic, 2014

Robert Weighton of Great Britain becomes the world's oldest man at 112 years, 2020

Wednesday, March 30, 2022

Still a Good Idea (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 River at Drifting Through Life.     


When i began to try to write a story for these prompts, i was so bored by what i was writing i had to quit and erase it and just go to the ladies' Bible study, 'cause if it bores me to write it, you won't read it and i won't blame you.  When i got home, this is what happened when the words flowed through my mind.


This week's words/prompts are:


1. instruction

2. construction

3. obstruction

4. fuel

5. compassion

6. presentation


and/or:


1. depression

2. craziness

3. seemed

4. house

5. fountain

6. chariot


use either list or both, or mix and match, just have fun.


Can we have the INSTRUCTION

for the CONSTRUCTION

of whatever will get rid of the OBSTRUCTION

to the things that FUEL

the much needed COMPASSION?

Do you have the PRESENTATION

that might quell the DEPRESSION

and calm the CRAZINESS?

The things that SEEMED

most likely to build our common HOUSE

have been washed away by a FOUNTAIN

of violence, or driven away in a fiery CHARIOT.



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Today is:


Check for Change in Every Coin Return You Pass Day -- because someone has a sense of humor and put it on the internet


Culture and Traditions Day -- Micronesia


Doctors Day -- US (begun by Eudora Almond in 1933 because she thought her husband, Dr. Charles B. Almond deserved recognition for his hard work)


Fairies of the First Wand Reunion Dinner -- Fairy Calendar


Feast of Janus and Concordia -- Ancient Roman Calendar


Festival of Bast -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (cat goddess; date approximate)


Festival of Reality Fabrication  -- internet holiday to celebrate your imagination


Festival of Salus -- Ancient Roman Calendar (god of health)


Grass Is Always Browner On The Other Side Of The Fence Day -- remember how good you have it; sponsored by Wellcat Holidays


I am in Control Day -- remember Alexander Haig's words on this date in 1981? well today, if you find the phones won't stop ringing, the kids got into the glue again, the coffee maker is on the fritz, and somebody dyed the poodle purple, stand up and declare that you are in control!


Land Day Commemoration -- West Bank/Palestinian remembrance


Limited Liability Day -- because no one can be responsible for everything


Little Red Wagon Day


Pencil Day -- the pencil with an eraser top was patented this day in 1858 by Hyman Lipman


Runic Half-Month Ewhas (Horse) begins


Spiritual Baptist/Shouter Liberation Day -- Trinidad and Tobago


St. Leonard Murialdo's Day (Patron of apprentices)


Take a Walk in the Park Day -- begun by someone who wanted to get out of the office


Turkey Neck Soup Day


Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day -- US (information here 


Whole Grain Sampling Day -- sponsored by the Whole Grains Council   



Birthdays Today:


Scott Moffatt, 1983

Jason Dohring, 1982

Norah Jones, 1979

Matt Doran, 1976

Mark Consuelos, 1971

Celine Dion, 1968

Ian Ziering, 1964

Tracy Chapman, 1964

M.C. Hammer, 1962

Paul Reiser, 1957

Robbie Cotrane, 1950

Eric Clapton, 1945

Astrud Gilberto, 1940

Warren Beatty, 1937

John Astin, 1930

Rolf Harris, 1930

Peter Marshall, 1930

Richard Dysart, 1929

Peter Marshall, 1927

Frankie Laine, 1913

Sean O'casey, 1880

Anna Sewell, 1820

Vincent Van Gogh, 1853

Francisco Jose De Goya, 1749



Debuting/Premiering Today:


"Agnes of God"(Play), 1982

"Applause"(Musical), 1970

"Jeopardy"(TV), 1964

"Verkaufte Braut/The Bartered Bride"(Comic opera), 1866



Today in History:


The first recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet, BC240

Ketsugan, Zen teacher, performs exorcisms to free aizoji temple, 1422

Henry VIII divorces Catherine of Aragon, 1533

British and coalition forces march into Paris after the defeat of Napoleon, 1814

Dr. Crawford Long of Georgia, US, performs the first operation with anesthesia (ether), 1842

A pencil with attached eraser is patented by Hyman L Lipman of Philadelphia, 1858

Alaska is purchased from Russia by US Secretary of State William Seward, for $7,200,000 (about 2 cents per acre), 1867

Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, 1932

Einstein announces his revised unified field theory, 1953

The Yonge Street Line, the first subway in Canada, opens in Toronto, 1954

President Ronald Reagan is shot in the chest outside a Washington, D.C., hotel by John Hinckley, Jr., 1981

The oldest copy of Codex Holmiensis, dating from 1280, is returned to Denmark from Sweden after 300 years, and 45,000 Inca artifacts are returned to Peru's Machu Picchu after spending 100 years at Yale University, 2011

North Carolina repeals its controversial bathroom law that restricted transgender use, 2017

Pope Francis arrives in Rabat, Morocco, on his first-ever visit to the Magreb region of Northern Africa, 2019

Zuzana Caputova is elected President of Slovakia, becoming the country's first female head of state, 2019