More Often Than I'd Like to Admit (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 Charlotte.      

This week the words are:

Dates

Plan

A wedge of geese

Door

Shovel

Enemy

     And/or

Huff and puff

Clock

Treasure

A knot of toads

Invention

Sure

Charlotte/Mother Owl has also chosen Golden Yellow as the color of the month, which we may use in our compositions if we wish.

I'd chosen the DATES of my state park getaway months before, being careful to pick a weekend that was not a big holiday, when these places are packed.  I'd also delayed it well into the autumn, so as not to have too much heat, the dread ENEMY of tent camping, at least for me.  

Of the latter, you can never be totally SURE (I've worn shorts at Christmas down here), but sometimes you just pick something and go with it.

For once, my PLAN had worked out splendidly.  I'd come in and gotten my assigned campsite, set up my tent and gear, and spent two days so far simply enjoying the natural world.  Golden Yellow sunsets had ended both days, i'd seen more than one Wedge of Geese, honking and calling as they went from pond to lake, and stumbled upon a Knot of Toads in a hike along one of the small streams in the area.

I was looking forward to several more days of peace, no CLOCK to tell me to hurry, no boss to report to, a time to TREASURE until I could save up some leave again.

On the third afternoon, a car pulled up to the campsite next to mine, and at least one child exploded out of every DOOR of the vehicle, which was packed to the rafters with gear, as well as towing a small trailer.

Before I could catch my breath, I realized these children were all strangely silent, as were their parents.  Not one person in the group said a word as they got to work, unloading their gear, passing things to one another, setting up their tent and campsite, even down to having a bucket of dirt and a SHOVEL next to the fire pit.

In under 10 minutes, with a speed that would have left me HUFFing And PUFFing for breath, this family had totally set up everything, then all had disappeared, leaving the father of the clan to start the fire.  It was rather bizarre, and I wondered if I were watching something not quite right, like someone who had created a secret INVENTION that made children into little automatons or something.

I tentatively approached him, making certain he knew I was there and in what I hoped was a friendly way, said, "Wow, I've never seen a campsite set up so quickly and well!  Do you mind telling me how you do it?  Or is it a secret?"

He smiled up at me and said, "Oh, it's no secret.  I just made a family rule that no one is allowed to go use the toilets until the whole camp is set up to my specifications, so they learned to get it done fast!"

(Based on a true story.)

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Today is:

Back-to-Front Yad -- Fairy Calendar

Bloomer Day -- anniversary of the opening day of the first US women's rights convention in 1848*

Festival of Honos -- Ancient Roman Calendar (personification of morality and honor)

Hijra -- Islam (New Year, began last night at the first viewing of the new moon crescent)

Kokura Gion Taiko -- Yasaka Shrine, Fukuoka City, Japan (shrine festival that incorporates a taiko drumming competition with up to 100 teams; through the 21st)

Liberation Day -- Nicaragua

Martyr's Day -- Myanmar

National Daiquiri Day

Stick Out Your Tongue Day -- internet generated, do it just because it's fun

St. Justa's Day (Patron of potters; Seville, Spain)

Sumarauki -- Iceland (their calendar's extra days added to take into account the "drift" of the calendar from the moon phases)

Triple Play Day -- the first Major League unassisted triple play was made by Neal Ball on this day in 1909

Amelia Bloomer's birth anniversary on May 27 is also called "Bloomer Day"

Anniversaries Today:

Frank Sinatra marries Mia Farrow, 1966

Isis marries Osiris (year unknown, ask the ancient Egyptians!)

Adonis marries Aphrodite (year unknown, ask the ancient Greeks!)

Birthdays Today:

Stephen Anthony Lawrence, 1990

Jared Padalecki, 1982

Topher Grace, 1978

Angela Griffin, 1976

Clea Lewis, 1965

Anthony Edwards, 1962

Campbell Scott, 1962

Brian May, 1947

Ilie Nastase, 1946

Vikki Carr, 1941

Arthur Rankin, Jr., 1924

George McGovern, 1922

Rosalyn Sussman Yalow, 1921

Eve Merriam, 1916

Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith, 1904 (last direct descendent of Abraham Lincoln)

Max Fleischer, 1883

Charles Horace Mayo, 1865

Lizzie Borden, 1860

Edgar Degas, 1834

Samuel Colt, 1814

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"That's All Right"(Elvis' first single release), 1954

Today in History

A dragon more than 100 metres long was found dead on Yehwang Mountain in Henan province and was seen as a bad omen for Emperor Huan, who ignored it and died at age 35 (three years later); Xiang Kai, who had warned him of the omen, was released from the prison the emperor had placed him in, and lionised as a hero, BCE164

Moslem forces under Tariq ibn Ziyad defeated the Visigoths led by their king Roderic, 711

A hailstorm brings down the ceilings of the Papal Palace, Rome, 1500

Lady Jane Grey is replaced by Mary I of England as Queen of England after having that title for just nine days, 1553

Five women are hanged for witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts, 1692

Representatives of the Iroquois Confederacy sign the Nanfan Treaty, ceding a large territory north of the Ohio River to England, 1701

Australia's first recorded use of gaslight was commenced in a Sydney shop, 1826

The British Medical Association was founded as the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association by Sir Charles Hastings at a meeting in the Board Room of the Worcester Infirmary, 1832

The two day Women's Rights Convention opens in Seneca Falls, New York; "bloomers," named after developer Amelia Bloomer, are worn at this very early feminist convention, 1848

A meteorite with an estimated mass of 190 kg explodes over the town of Holbrook in Navajo County, Arizona causing approximately 16,000 pieces of debris to rain down on the town, 1912

Joe Walker flies a North American X-15 to a record altitude of 106,010 metres (347,800 feet) on X-15 Flight 90. Exceeding an altitude of 100 km, this flight qualifies as a human spaceflight under international convention, 1963

The Sandinista rebels overthrow the government of the Somoza family in Nicaragua, 1979

The first three-dimensional reconstruction of a human head in a CT is published, 1983

President Clinton announces his idea for a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy in regards to gays in the US military, 1993

A Tel Aviv judges orders safe deposit boxes that contain manuscripts of Franz Kafka to be opened, 2010

A Pontifical Commission is established by Pope Francis to investigate current accounting practices and implement new strategies for greater fiscal transparency and fiscal responsibility among all Vatican offices, 2013

Scientists in the US calculate that the total amount of plastic ever produced is 8.3 billion tons, the equivalent of about 1 billion elephants in weight, 2017

The Russian ship Dmitri Donskoii, which sank in 1905 and was believed to have a cargo of gold coins, is discovered in the waters between South Korea and Japan, 2018

The largest wind farm in Africa opens at Lake Turkana, Kenya, capable of generating 310 megawatts, 2019

The first interplanetary mission of the United Arab Emirates, the Mars "Hope" orbiter, launches on board Japanese H-2A rocket from Tanegashima Space Center, 2020