From somewhere on the Internet—edited

 

by Pat Laster

 

~AND THEN IT IS WINTER~ You know . . . time has a way of moving quickly and catching you unaware of the passing years. It seems just yesterday that I was young, just married and embarking on my new life. Yet in a way, it seems like eons ago, and I wonder where all the years went. I know that I lived them all. I have glimpses of how it was back then and of all my hopes and dreams.

But, here it is... the winter of my life and it catches me by surprise...How did I get here so fast? Where did the years go and where did my youth go? I remember well seeing older people through the years and thinking that those older people were years away from me and that winter was so far off that I could not fathom it or imagine fully what it would be like.

But, here it is...my friends and I are retired and some are beautifully gray. We move slower and I see an older person now. Some are in better and some worse shape than I am...but, I see the great change...Not like the ones that I remember who were young and vibrant...but, like me, their age is beginning to show and we are now those older folks that we used to see and never thought we'd be. Nowadays, taking a nap is mandatory!

And so...now some of us enter into this new season of our lives unprepared for all the aches and pains and the loss of strength and ability to go and do things that we wish we had done but never did. But we have made our ‘bucket lists.’ There still may be time to do a few more things.

 At least we know, that though the winter has come, we’re not sure how long it will last...this we know, that when it's over on this earth...it’s over. A new adventure begins!

Yes, we have regrets. There are things we wish we hadn't done...things we should have done, but indeed, there are many things we’re happy to have done. It's all in a lifetime.

If you're not in your winter yet...let me remind you, that it will be here faster than you think. Whatever you would like to accomplish in your life please do it quickly! Don't put things off too long!! Life goes by in a hurry. Do what you can today, as you can never be sure whether this is your winter or not!

You have no promise that you will see all the seasons of your life...so, live for today and say all the things that you want your loved ones to remember...and hope that they appreciate and love you for all the things that you have done for them in all the years past!!

"Life" is a gift to you. The way you live your life is your gift to those who come after. Make it a fantastic one Remember "It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.

Amen and amen.

The Universal Blunder - a 4-minute essay by Dr. Frank Crane

 

 

Picture by sis Carolyn--2012

 

by Pat Laster 

 

Once again, I reach for a book. It’s the liturgical season of Lent, and bent on being useful, I submit this essay published in 1919 when Woodrow Wilson was president. Dr. Crane was a Presbyterian minister and wrote at least eight volumes of such essays published by Wm. H. Wise & Co., Inc. This essay is from Volume 8.

 “The universal blunder of this world,” said Phillips Brooks, “is in thinking that there are certain persons put into the world to govern and certain others to obey.

“Everybody is in this world to govern and everybody to obey. There are no benefactors and no beneficiaries in distinct classes. Every man is at once both benefactor and beneficiary. Every good deed you do you ought to thank your fellow-man for giving you an opportunity to do it; and they ought to be thankful to you for doing it.”

That is a mighty good sentiment to set down on your tablets. It may gain you a deal of happiness if you will believe it. It may even save your soul.

Certain people work for me and I pay them wages. But the maid who sweeps my room is no more my servant than I am hers. Because I give her money and she gives me work does not make me her superior.

It is the ancient delusion of the centuries that labor in some way lowers a man. The real fact is that it ennobles him.

For instance, Mr. Wilson is considered by the American people, and I am sure he considers himself, as their servant. He has no mortgage on his job. He holds it by no divine right. He cannot pass it on to a successor of his own blood or choice. When we don’t like what he does, we criticize him. There are certain partisans that yelp at him every turn he makes, like a pack of yapping pups. We do not suppress them. It is the constitutional privilege of vulgar people to scold their servants.

And yet he is the chief man of the … nation… . In former days he would have shouted, “Off with his head!” when any one crossed him, and would have worn a crown, also a robe… .It is the spirit of service that makes him the decent, conscientious, hard-working man he is.

The curse of wealth is that it destroys this spirit of service. The man who does nothing because he has enough to live on comfortably is no better than the man who does nothing because he can beg or smoke … on the bench by the poorhouse door. Both are leeches. They are not serving. They are being served.

When you lose sight of the duty of serving, you invite … spiritual microbes of the most destructive character to come and breed in you.

There is a luxury in being waited on. But that feeling induces pride, meanness, selfishness, the undisciplined will, the unruled passions, and the whole rakehelly crew of traits that cause excess, perversion, indolence, selfishness, boredness, and pessimism.

There is a luxury, too, in serving. It is a real pleasure when it becomes a habit. It brings on the genuine happiness-makers, which are humility, unselfishness, sanity, health, optimism, cheer, and a wholesome interest in life.

The greatest of men said of himself: “The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve.”

And I say, especially during this season of Lent, Amen.

#

 

Answers to previous post: Presidents' trivia

Have you picked your answers?  I didn't print all the discussion Mr. Davis supplied. You can find the rest online.

1. b. NYC was the temporary capital of the US when Washington took the oath on April 30, 1789.

2. c. Harrison’s speech in 1841 was more than 8,000 words long & took nearly 2 hours to deliver. [more]

                3. a. After JFK’s assassination, Johnson was sworn in aboard Air Force One by Sarah T. Hughes, a US district judge.

                4. a. At Lincoln’s 2^nd inauguration (1865) 4 companies of African-American troops & lodges of Masons and Odd Fellows joined the procession to the Capitol.

                5. b. Marshall administered the oath 9 times, from Jefferson’s 1^st inauguration (1801) to Andrew Jackson’s 2^nd (1833).

                6. c. The old March 4 inaugural date had been selected when travel & communications were much slower, & the “lame duck” period for the outgoing president rarely caused problems. [more]

                7. c. On Jan. 20 1985, Reagan took the oath privately in the Entrance Hall at the White House [then] went to the Map Room to flip the coin ... [more]

                8. c. Taft was appointed chief justice in 1921—8 years after his presidency--& administered the oath of office to both Coolidge (1925) & Hoover (1929).

                9. b. Roosevelt used an old family Bible written in Dutch at all 4 of his inaugurations.

                10. b. Coolidge was sworn in by his father, a justice of the peace, at the family homestead in rural Vermont on Aug. 3, 1923 … [more]

                Happy February Holidays.

Squishing two holidays into one post

"Frosty morning in Pasadena 2013, Winter"

photograph by Thurman Couch

by Pat Laster

                Valentine’s or Presidents' Day? Thanks to two publications, Arkansas Living (February) and Parade Magazine (January), this post was a snap to compose, er transcribe.

                *Women purchase 85 % of Valentine’s Day cards, says the Greeting Card Association.

                 *Valentine’s Day is the second most popular holiday for sending cards. About one billion cards are exchanged each February 14.

                *Esther A. Howland—the “Mother of the Valentine,” popularized mass produced valentines in America in the 1840s.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

                    Kenneth C. Davis, author of “Don’t Know Much About the American Presidents?” offered this trivia feature, “Take the Oath of Office Quiz” in “Parade.

                 1. In which city did the first inauguration take place? a. Richmond, VA;  b. New York City;  c. Philadelphia

                 2. Which president gave the longest Inaugural Address? a. B. Clinton;  b. G. Washington; c. Wm. Henry Harrison

                3. Who was the only president to take the oath of office from a woman? a. L. Johnson;  b. R. Reagan; c. Geo. H. W. Bush

                4. African-American soldiers first marched in whose inauguration parade? a. A. Lincoln’s; b. U. S. Grant’s;  c. T. Roosevelt’s

                5. Which chief justice administered the most presidential oaths? a. John Jay;  b. John Marshall; c. Earl Warren

                6. Inauguration Day was officially changed from March 4 to January 20 thanks to the passage of the 20^th Amendment in 1933. Why? a. It often rained on March 4;  b. Congress did not want the inauguration to fall during Lent;  c. The transition period between the election and the inauguration of the president-elect was deemed too long.

                7. Which president tossed the Super Bowl coin the same day as his swearing-in? a. R. Nixon;  b. G. Ford; c. R. Reagan

                8. Which president administered the oath of office to two of his successors? a. G. Washington;  b. J. Q. Adams; c. Wm. H.Taft

               9. Who was sworn in on a Bible written in a modern foreign language? a. T. Jefferson;  b. F. D. Roosevelt;  c. J. F. Kennedy

              10. Which president was given the oath of office by his own father? a. J. Q. Adams;  b. C. Coolidge; c. Geo. W. Bush

Have you picked your answers? I'll post them on Monday, Presidents' Day

Seeking material - I find Martial

 by Pat Laster

Every now and then when no idea for a post hits me over the head, I pull a book from those I’ve bought for such an occasion. The one I chose this time was “4800 Wisecracks, witty remarks and epigrams for all occasions,” edited by Edmund Fuller, published by Avenel in 1980. It came from a flea market in Pensacola in 2011.

I was hoping to find something on February, but alas, no wisecracks, witty remarks, epigrams.

[“What is an epigram? A dwarfish whole, / Its body brevity, and wit its soul.”—Samuel Taylor Coleridge]. I scoured the subject matter—not exactly what I was hoping to find. I thumbed through to “Writers” (surprise!) and made the discovery that said, “This is it! This is it!”

Reading along, I came to this entry (#6150) “Paulus buys poems. Then Paulus recites the poems as his own, for what you buy you may fairly call your own.”

Paulus was my last name for 25 years; it is my children’s surname and the surname of four of my grandchildren. See why it hit me? I looked to see the author. “Martial.” But that wasn’t all. Mr. Fuller chose twenty-six of Martial’s epigrams to include in this section.

Nothing to do now but go to Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica and find out who this Martial was.

“Martial, Latin in full Marcus Valerius Martialis (born Mar. 1, ad 38–41, Bilbilis, Hispania [Spain]—died c. 103), Roman poet who brought the Latin epigram to perfection and provided in it a picture of Roman society during the early empire that is remarkable both for its completeness and for its accurate portrayal of human foibles.” [Britannica]

“The works of Martial became highly valued on their discovery during the Renaissance, whose writers often saw them as sharing an eye for the urban vices of their own times. The poet's influence is seen in late classical literature, the Carolingian revival, the Renaissance in France and Italy, and early modern English and German poetry. With the growth of the Romantic Movement, he became unfashionable.” [Wikipedia]

Here are a few more of Martial’s epigrams. When he mentions a person’s name, I’ll give only the first letter.

#6147: “He does not write at all whose poems no man reads.”

#6154: “Why, simpleton, do you mix your verses with mine? What have you to do, foolish man, with writings that convict you of theft? Why do you attempt to associate oxes with lions, and make owls pass for eagles? Though you had one of Lada’s legs you would not be able, blockhead, to run with the other leg of wood.” Even in early, early Rome, folks were name-calling!

#6155: “You give no recitations, M., yet you wish to pass for a poet. Be what you please, provided you give no recitations.”

#6159: “Why don’t I send you my works, P.____? For fear that you might send me yours.”

#6165: “It is rumored, F.___, that you recite my epigrams in public, just as if you had written them. I will send you a copy of my poems for nothing, if you are willing that they should pass as mine. If you wish them to pass as yours, buy them, so that they will be mine no longer.”

#6171: “I wonder, wall, that you have not gone smash--/You’ve had to bear so many scribblers’ trash.”

Crusty old coot, wasn’t he? As Mr. Fuller comments in the introduction, “You will find Greek and Roman epigrams … gentle arts of insult and abuse.” I believe it.