Yes, You Are (Wordless Wednesday) and Words for Wednesday

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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 Hilary Melton-Butcher and they will be posted by Elephant's Child.           

This week's prompts are:

•  Archetype (cliche)
• Clouds
• Rummage
• Weakly
• Shovel 

And/or

• Grace
• Blot
• Jackdaw
• Legume
• Poet
  

Charlotte (MotherOwl)  has given us Turquoise Blue as the colour of the month.  If you can also incorporate it into your stories, she (and I) will be grateful.

He was the ARCHETYPE of a diligent and protective father with his sons and his daughter.  GRACE was expected to be able to do what the boys did, SHOVEL snow, tend the garden (she loved best gathering the varieties of LEGUMEs they grew), work on her own bike and keep the chain oiled.

When she was old enough to want pocket money, she was expected to work for it, at home and doing odd jobs for neighbors.  None of the neighbors, knowing how her father trained them all, were surprised when she could wield a hammer or help them clean gutters just like her brothers.

Not that she was a tomboy.  She loved dresses when she wasn't in a school uniform,  always wore her Turquoise Blue jewelry (either the ring or the pendant), and was a POET.  She simply believed all the things she did, from cooking to leaf-raking to building a tree house, could be food for her imagination and her poetry, if she viewed them correctly.

Thus when it was her turn to learn to drive the old family car, she realized she'd have to know more than just the rules of the road.  Her father made it clear it would be a BLOT on the family honor if she couldn't check all the fluids, change the oil, jump-start a battery as well as install a new one, and change a flat tire by herself.  He never wanted her to be stuck on the road "just because she was a girl" as he put it.

Of course, it did happen eventually.  She had just pulled out of the parking lot of the high school and wasn't even to the end of the block when she realized something was wrong.  She pulled over and got out, and sure enough, there was the passenger side rear tire, flat as the proverbial pancake.

There were CLOUDS gathering, and she wanted to get done before she ended up having to do it in the rain, so she acted fast.

She set the parking brake, she popped the trunk open and about that time, they started to gather.  Boys from the school, most of whom hadn't ever paid any attention to her before, were gathering around like curious JACKDAWs.  They mostly expected her to RUMMAGE WEAKLY through the trunk and then look around helplessly for some strong guy to change the tire for her.

They were slack-jawed as she handily grabbed the tire iron and loosened the nuts while the tire was still stable on the ground to give it resistance, placed the jack like an expert and jacked the car up, finished removing the nuts and placed them carefully in the hubcap so they wouldn't get lost, yanked the tire and grabbed the spare, hefting it on, put the nuts back on, lowered the car and tightened them all, then threw everything in the trunk and got on her way.

That night, she found out what an impression a girl who can change her own tire can make when she got eight calls from boys asking her out on a date!

(Based on a true story.)

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Today is:

Baby Boomer Recognition Day 

Father's Day -- Egypt; Jordan; Lebanon; Palestine; Syria; Uganda (always June 21 in these countries)

Go Skateboarding Day -- and break something?  leaving this to the young; sponsored by the International Association of Skateboard Companies (IASC)

Martyr's Day -- Togo

National Aboriginal Day / First Nations Day -- NT, Canada

National ASK Day -- prevent gun violence and accidental deaths, ASK if there is an unlocked gun anywhere that your child plays, because Asking Saves Kids! 

National Peaches & Cream Day

Reaping Machine Day -- Cyrus McCormick was granted a patent for his mechanical reaper this day in 1834

Solstice -- 14:57 UTC/10:57am EDT; related observances:

     Aimless Wandering Day -- use the extra daylight to wander someplace with nothing particular to do

     Anne and Samantha Day -- remembrance for Anne Frank and Samantha Smith, and their contributions to our world

     Daylight Appreciation Day -- celebrating the benefits of sunshine     

     Finally Summer Day/Finally Winter Day

     Hump Day -- Tasmania (because it is the shortest in the year, Taswegians today feel they are over the "hump" of winter.)

     Inti Raymi -- Inca (festival of the sun god Inti, ongoing);Sacsayhuamán Andes Mountain Natives (winter solstice and New Year festival)

     Litha / Yule -- Wicca/Pagan (northern hemisphere / southern hemisphere)

     Midnight Sun Baseball Game -- Fairbanks, AK, US (begins promptly at 10:35pm local time, and played without any artificial lights allowed)

     Midsomarsblog -- Norse Viking celebrations (time of fishing, trading, and raiding)

     Midsummer -- Midsummer Festivals begin -- Juhannus Day in Finland and Midsommar in Denmark and Norway, celebrated over the next several days in many Scandinavian traditions; often this time is also associated with betrayal, as the sunlight begins to decrease, this is when Baldur was betrayed, as well as Sigurd. 

     Midsummer -- Asatru/Slavic Pagan

     Midsummer Baal -- Ancient Celtic Calendar

     Polar Bear Swim -- Nome, AK, US (if they can break through the ice!)

     Solsticio de Invierno / Ano Nuevo Aymara -- Bolivia (Winter Solstice / Aymara Indiginous People's New Year)

     We Tripantu -- Chile (Mapuche natives winter solstice festival)

     Wadjet Summer Solstice Ceremony -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (date approximate, it may have been a multi-day ceremony that began on Midsummer's Eve)

St. Alban's Day (Patron of epileptics, people with hernias; against epilepsy, hernias, kidney stones)

St. Aloysius Gonzanga's Day (Protector of young students, young men; Patron of AIDS care-givers and patients; for relief from pestilence; Castiglione delle Stiviere, Italy; Valmonte, Italy; against sore eyes)

Ulloortuneq -- Greenland (National Day)

World Handshake Day -- no one likes them fishy, and it's not a contest; practice a firm grip and a smile! not to be confused with National Handshake Day, today's sponsor is here

World Music Day -- begun in the UK, now celebrated everywhere     

Anniversaries Today:

New Hampshire becomes the 9th US State, 1788

Birthdays Today:

Kris Allen, 1985

Prince William (William Arthur Philip Louis), 1982

Juliette Lewis, 1973

Larry Wachowski, 1965

Sammi Davis-Voss, 1964

Doug Savant, 1964

Berkeley Breathed, 1957

Rick Sutcliffe, 1956

Benazir Bhutto, 1953

Nils Lofgren, 1951

Meredith Baxter, 1947

Michael Gross, 1947

Ray Davies, 1944

Mariette Hartley, 1940

Joe Flaherty, 1940

Bernie Kopell, 1933

Maureen Stapleton, 1925

Jane Russell, 1921

Jean-Paul Sartre, 1905

Al Hirschfeld, 1903

Reinhold Niebuhr, 1892

Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1859

Daniel Carter Beard, 1850

Daniel D. Tompkins, 1774

Martha Dandridge Custis Washington, 1731

Increase Mather, 1639

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Evita"(Musical), 1978

"Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg"(Wagner opera), 1868

Today in History:

Jews are expelled from Nurenberg Bavaria by Emperor Maximillian, 1498

The Incident at Honno-ji takes place in Kyoto, Japan, 1582

In Montreal in New France, a slave known by the French name of Marie-Joseph Angélique is put to death, having been convicted of the arson that destroyed much of the city, 1734

Halifax, Nova Scotia, is founded, 1749

The first Victoria Cross is awarded during the bombardment of Bomarsund in the Åland Islands, 1854

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police fire a volley into a crowd of unemployed war veterans, killing two, during the Winnipeg General Strike, 1919

The first successful west-to-east navigation of Northwest Passage begins at Vancouver, British Columbia, 1940

Columbia Records introduces the long-playing record album in a public demonstration at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City, 1948

Ellen Louks Fairclough is sworn in as Canada's first woman Cabinet Minister, 1957

In handing down the decision in Miller v. California 413 US 15, the Supreme Court of the United States establishes the Miller Test for obscenity in U.S. law, 1973

SpaceShipOne becomes the first privately funded spaceplane to achieve spaceflight, 2004

Pluto's newly discovered moons are officially named Nix & Hydra, 2006

Greenland assumes self-rule, 2009

The U.S. officially charges Edward Snowden with espionnage, 2013

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden becomes the second world leader to give birth in office, to a daughter, 2018

Archaeologists announce the discovery near Stonehenge of a large circle of shafts surrounding a village founded around 2500BC, deeming it the largest surviving prehistoric structure in Britain found to date, 2020

South Korea successfully launches its first satellites into orbit with its own rocket, Nuri, from the Naro Space Center, 2022