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Linking up with Wordless Wednesday, BeThere2Day, 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 David M. Gascoigne (we thank him for the May prompts!) and they will be posted by Elephant's Child.
This week's prompts are:
- Lions
- Resources
- Choice
- Course
- Systematically
- Predator
and/or
- Occasionally
- Firestorm
- Land
- Sight
- Reproducing
- Humans
Charlotte/Mother Owl's colour of the month is May green, if we choose to use it.
HUMANS are funny creatures.
Similar to some of the PREDATOR species, like LIONS, we are fiercely protective of our home territory.
Every year, one family would leave their home territory, packing the car to the gills and take off across the country in one of the great American pastimes, the vacation road trip.
OCCASIONALLY, these would go as planned. Most often, there was a hiccup.
Every year, like clockwork, the mother would wait until the family was about 50 miles from home, and suddenly gasp, "I left the iron plugged in! I just know I left the iron plugged in! The house is going to burn to the ground! We have to go back so I can unplug the iron!"
Please note, this was back in the days before permanent press or wrinkle free clothes and the irons of that day (the 1950s) did not shut themselves off after a certain amount of time. The RESOURCES for making phone calls when away from home were limited mostly to finding a pay phone. Then you'd have to hope you could get your neighbor at home, the one with the spare key to your house for emergencies, and etc.
That was, if you left a key with a neighbor, and if the neighbor wasn't at work when you'd left at seven in the morning, and it was still before noon.
In other words, dad would have no CHOICE but to reverse COURSE, retracing his steps (or his driving, really) over the LAND and miles he'd been so glad to cover and get behind him, because he knew if he didn't turn and go back, even if there was no fire at home there would be a FIRESTORM in the car.
Inevitably, they'd pull into the drive and mom would run in with dad right behind her only to find out that, no, she had not left the iron plugged in after all.
They kept REPRODUCING this scenario year after year, until the one year everything changed and dad became a major vacation-saving hero in the SIGHT of his children (who had also grown weary of this yearly futile ritual).
One year, mom gasped and said, "I left the iron plugged in, I just know it! Honey, I know, every time before I was wrong, but this time I am absolutely sure I left the iron plugged in. This time, I just know it and we have to go back and... wait, what are you doing?"
What dad was doing was pulling over to the side of the road.
He got out of the car, took the key and opened the trunk of the car, grabbed the iron he'd packed in there, got back in the car and set the iron in the lap of mom's May green dress.
Then he started the car and they proceeded with their now unhindered vacation road trip.
This scenario was SYSTEMATICALLY reproduced every year thereafter, with dad refusing to budge from the driveway until he was certain that doggone iron was in the trunk of the car, and mom had seen it.
Problem solving at its finest.
(Based on a true story from a Reader's Digest several years ago.)
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Today is:
Bicycle Race Day -- anniversary of what is supposed to have been the first bicycle race ever, at the Parc de Saint-Cloud, Paris, in 1868
Dia de Castilla-La Mancha -- Castile-La Mancha, Spain
Doha Document for Peace in Darfur Commemoration -- Sudan
Feast of the Visitation of Mary -- Christianity (Mary's visit of her cousin Elizabeth, chronicled in Luke 1:39-56)
"Make My Day" Day -- birth anniversary of Clint Eastwood
National Macaroon Day
National Senior Health and Fitness Day -- US (don't let age get in the way of staying healthy!)
Royal Brunei Malay Regiment Day / Royal Brunei Armed Forces Day -- Brunei
Save Your Hearing Day -- because once it is gone, you will regret it; on the anniversary of the concert by The Who which set a Guiness World Record for loudest rock concert in 1976
Speak in Complete Sentences Day -- be a good example!
St. Petronilla's Day (Patron of mountain travellers; against fever)
Take This Job and Shove It Day -- birth anniversary of Johnny Paycheck
This Day (again) -- Fairy Calendar
What You Think Upon Grows Day -- Stephanie West Allen wants you to remember the power of positive thinking
World No Tobacco Day -- WHO
World Parrot Day
Birthdays Today:
Jonathan Tucker, 1982
Colin Farrell, 1976
Phil Keoghan, 1967
Brooke Shields, 1965
Lea Thompson, 1961
Chris Elliot, 1960
Roma Maffia, 1958
Kyle Secor, 1958
Gregory Harrison, 1950
Tom Berenger, 1950
John Bonham, 1948
Sharon Gless, 1943
Joe Namath, 1943
Johnny Paycheck, 1941
Terry Waite, 1939
Peter Yarrow, 1938
Clint Eastwood, 1930
Patricia Roberts Harris, 1924
Prince Rainier of Monaco, 1923
Denholm Elliott, 1922
Don Ameche, 1908
Norman Vincent Peale, 1898
Fred Allen, 1894
Walt Whitman, 1819
Debuting/Premiering Today:
"Survivor"(TV), 2000
"Seinfeld"(TV), 1990
"Beatlemania"(Musical), 1977
Today in History:
Rameses II (The Great) becomes pharaoh of Ancient Egypt, BC1279
A devastating earthquake strikes Antioch, Turkey, killing 250,000, 526
Mongol armies of Genghis Khan led by Subutai defeat Kievan Rus and Cumans, 1223
Citing poor eyesight, Samuel Pepys records the last event in his diary, 1669
The Godiva procession through Coventry begins, 1678
The Province of Pennsylvania bans all theater productions, 1759
In Australia, Lawson, Blaxland and Wentworth, reached Mount Blaxland, effectively marking the end of a route across the Blue Mountains, 1813
In the Fenian Invasion of Canada, John O'Neill leads 850 Fenian raiders across the Niagara River at Buffalo, New York/Fort Erie, Ontario, as part of an effort to free Ireland from the United Kingdom. Canadian militia and British regulars repulse the invaders in over the next three days, 1866
Dr James Moore of the UK wins the first recorded bicycle race, a 2k velocipede race at Parc de St Cloud, Paris, 1868
Dr. John Harvey Kellogg patents corn flakes, 1884
Arrival at Plymouth of Tawhiao, King of Maoris, to claim protection of Queen Victoria, 1884
Over 2,200 people die after a dam break sends a 60-foot (18-meter) wall of water over the town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, 1889
The Union of South Africa (predecessor of the Republic of South Africa) is created, 1910
The last Ford Model T rolls off the assembly line after a production run of 15,007,003 vehicles, 1927
A 7.1 magnitude Earthquake destroys Quetta in modern-day Pakistan, 1931
The Republic of South Africa is created, 1961
The Ancash earthquake causes a landslide that buries the town of Yungay, Peru, 1970
In accordance with the Uniform Monday Holiday Act passed by the U.S. Congress in 1968, observation of Memorial Day occurs on the last Monday in May for the first time, rather than on the traditional Memorial Day of May 30, 1971
The Muppet Movie, Jim Henson's Muppets' first foray into the world of feature length motion pictures, is released, 1979
The burning of Jaffna Library, Sri Lanka, is one of the violent examples of ethnic biblioclasm of the twentieth century, 1981
Forty-one tornadoes hit Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Ontario, leaving 76 dead, 1985
Athena 98.4 FM, the first legal private radio station in Greece, starts broadcasting, 1987
Vanity Fair reveals that Mark Felt was Deep Throat, 2005
Asteroid 1998 QE2, an asteroid measuring nearly 1.7 miles across, and its moon, pass within 3.6 million miles of the earth, 2013
Asteroid 1998 QE2, an asteroid measuring nearly 1.7 miles across, and its moon, pass within 3.6 million miles of the earth, 2013
The Danish government bans garments that cover the face, including the niqab and burqa, 2018
China's ruling Communist Party announces it will allow married couples to have three children, in effort to boost falling birthrates, 2021
Archaeologists announce the discovery of 100 cuneiform tablets in a Bronze Age city unearthed on the Tigris River, Iraq due to drought, 2022
