MEMORIAL DAY -- THEN and NOW

MEMORIAL CEMETERY, ANZIO, ITALY

Weird!  I sit here listening to Mariachi music from Mexico and writing about Memorial Day 25 miles north of the doorway to Latin America.  
This has been a very interesting Memorial Day for a Massachusetts guy.  At church this morning we sang America the Beautiful and it felt very strange doing that in California.  I don't know why.  It just felt so far away from my cultural roots.  Then I came back to the house and PBS was replaying the entire series of Ken Burns dedicated to World War II.  So I spent a lot of time in front of the tube.  I couldn't break away.  It was a roller coaster of emotions.  The parts of the Italian campaign really got to me.  I lived in Italy for four years and I feel as connected to that people as I do to you all.  It was not an easy segment for me.  The hardest part of it was when the historic fact featuring the Japanese Americans as heroes in the conquest of the Italian peninsula.  Oh No!  How cruel history can be.  No wonder politicians lie about it all the time,  
I remember my visit to Anzio.  I was about 25 years old.  I went through at least one handkerchief that day.  You are looking at a place where, there, under the grass, lay Italian Americans, Japanese Americans, French  Canadian Americans, Irish Americans, American Indians, African Americans and who knows how many more hyphenated Americans, including descendants from the Pilgrims.  I saw it all there in Anzio that day.  
Here's an interesting fact about that visit.  At that time, I did not even know the true story about the internment camps where the Japanese residents of the United States, many of them citizens, were imprisoned.  When I first heard it, I was at least 50.  I didn't believe it.  I actually went to the library to check it out.  I am still shaking my head in disbelief at it.  It has remained one of my favorite history stories.  What really gets me is the depth of the insult to the children of the prisoners.  Make them fight the battles of the very government that imprisoned them despite their perfect innocence.  And they went.  And they distiguished themselves with great valor in battle.  That certainly takes the shine off my FDR Half-dollar!

After the European war was in the bag, some of the Japanese Americans found themselves involved in Asia.  There is a museum of Japanese American History in San Jose, California.  Belle and I visited it one time, shortly after it's opening.  It is there that I saw one of the most moving pictures that I have ever laid eyes on.  It shows a Japanese American US soldier guarding some Japanese Nationals in a war camp.  They are talking and the Japanese American has his fingers through the chain-link fence, reaching for brotherly contact.  I have requested a copy for you all.
I know that I could go on for a few thousand words about war, but I will spare you.  I will only make a final comment about one of the thoughts that I have been carrying around for as few months now.
It is connected to governing and politics.  
It has to do with mercenaries who are hired to fight in wars.  It also has to do with the construction companies who carpet bag their way into the economics of war.  It also has to do with the vested interests that the politicians have with these war mongering interests.  I suppose that a defensive war could perhaps approach being almost moral.  But there is no doubt in my mind that even then the immorality of profiteering from war is never morally correct.  And this on many levels.  I will spare you the few hundred, [thousands?] words that I have about that.


To close let me just make a comment about that ran through my head when the part of the Bataan Death March came on during the Ken Burns documentary.  
I was quite old [late 50's] when I first learned of the death march of the Cherokee Nation from Georgia to Oklahoma, Louisiana and other parts.  I, like most of us, knew, and know, of the senseless, racism fueled slaughter of the Plains Indians.  We rarely hear of the forced displacement of the peace-loving, agriculturally settled Cherokee Nation of Southeast North America.
Don't try denying it.  I have living friends who descend from the very people who suffered  it.  


It makes me wonder if we will ever learn.

FORT ROSECRANS, SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA

THIS IS PROGRESS THAT SNEAKED UP BEHIND ME

Dedicating this post to all readers over 21!
OK, what are the essentials of meteorology?  Meteors, right?  So without meteors you don't have the study of meteors, meteorology.  No! You say? Come on, you gotta be kidding!
It's about weather?  Weather?  Hmmm.
Well, OK.  In a way that's a good thing because we seem to have more weather than we have meteors.  So it's easier to study the weather than to study the rarer stuff like meteors.  There is no doubt that there is a lot to learn about the weather.  Like, What is it?  It appears to be the very definition of change.  Really.  No one bothers to study it if it doesn't change.  No one even bothers to talk about it unless it changes.  Then, when it changes you'd think that we would all be thankful to  have something to talk about.  Nope. Instead of being thankful, we complain.  Too much rain; too hot; too cold; too humid; too windy; too dry; too cloudy; too sunny; too foggy, etc.  Too [pun intended] all those of you who are sick and tired about complaining about the weather, consider San Diego.  The meteorologists in San Diego save up all the reports from last year [so it is said].  On December 28th or so, they photocopy them, put them in a 3-ring binder and recycle them on the appropriate day of the following year.  Los Angeles is like that too.  That's why the movie industry has camped out in LA.  Super predictable  movie making weather.  Oh, and by the way - not a mosquito in sight.  Make all the night time scenes you want, with a bunch of skin exposed...no problem.  Sorry, Florida.
Before I get to the point, let me just say that the French have solved the problem of the tongue twisting, polysyllabic, sesquipedalianism in the picture.  They just say "météo."  Of course we just shorten it to "weather." 
Now, the point.
I woke up this morning and noticed that the weather forecast that had been communicated last Sunday was holding true to the fourth decimal point all the way until today, Friday.  That's when this thought struck me.
People often ask me, "You've been around a lot.  What is the most amazing change that you have witnessed in your entire life?"  I usually can come up with two or three real ones that have impressed me and still do.  But the fact that meteorology has progressed to this degree of accuracy doesn't usually come to mind.  Today it did.  After all these years, the kid from the land of "You don't like the weather?  Wait five minutes" has suddenly realized that there are reliable weather forecasts.  Amazing.  The progress has been slow, truly slow, I guess.  Then again, 50 or 60 years is not that slow in relative terms.  It's not so much slow, as it is gradual.  So gradual, that it has been imperceptible to me over the years.  I thought it was just a Southern California phenomenon.  It's not.  Amazing!
Now, we here in Southern California are going to have to wait another 6 or 7 months before we see another drop of rain.  This is so engrained in us that we plan picnics years ahead with the full knowledge that the only protection needed will be sun-block and a parasol.  We've had one planned for two years now, in the early part of July.  I'll let you know if we got rained out.
That prediction is not the result of progress.  it's just Mother Nature being herself.  The Voice from the Clouds!

LEFTHANDED SEVERELY DISORDERED CONDEMNED TO A LIFE OF NON-USAGE

I remember when the children who went to parochial schools and who were left handed were forced to learn to write with the right hand.  We were all taught that the right hand was the proper hand to receive things from others.  This was taught because the left hand was not polite.
The word for left in Latin and to this day in Italian is "sinister."  Just a little piece of nostalgia for those of you old enough to remember it.

CHIQUITA BANANA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFDOI24RRAE

In the 1940s, as disease ravaged banana plantations in Latin America, the major banana companies implemented strategies to convince consumers to buy their particular brand of fruit. The Chiquita banana campaign was, and is, one of the most successful in marketing history. The singing, dancing, sexy fruit was based on the real-screen cinema exploits of Brazilian bombshell Carmen Miranda.

After getting out of church this morning we went to the supermartket owned by some Mexican interests and situated here in Southern California.  We go there often for three major reasons.

1. Price

2.Fresh vegetables from nearly tropical zones

3.Fresh tropical fruits for the same reason

4.Oven fresh bread all day from 6:30 AM until 9:00 PM

It just so happened that today, for no known reason, I thought of Chiquita banana, a friend of mine as I was growing up.  I came upon the historical blurb that you see in the corner and I thought that those of you who are somewhat younger than I would appreciate a little history lesson.   The little song that you will hear by clicking on the link below the picture, says that you should never put bananas in a refrigerator.  That may be true, but I assure you that bananas freeze very well and when eaten frozen, while still hard frozen, are a very nice snack.  I know, I do it a lot.

WHY ARE PEOPLE THE WAY THEY ARE?

The title question comes from an experience that I had yesterday, as compared with another experience that I had about an hour later.


The Voice from the Kitchen and I were on the main city street that leads from the church where we both work.  She for income.  Me for the eternal reward that I hope will come.  Just slightly ahead of us was a 1952 Hudson Wasp in the right lane.  It was evidently in the final stages of being "cherried out**[note below]."  It was shiny, original factory color, about the same as you can see in the picture.  The windows were open because of the heat of the day and the driver was a sixty-something guy with his left arm crooked in the position that has become famous as the "Holding-up-the-car-roof" summer driving posture.  When we both got to the light, red, of course, side by side, I thought I would give the guy a compliment.  I brought down the passenger side window, much  to the consternation of the occupant of the passenger's seat.  Since the driver of the nice antique wasn't looking my way, I gave a couple of quick little beep-beeps to get his attention.  When he turned I said, "Nice car.  I grew up in one of those."  SSSSSSnawrl ;;; "Yeah, I can see you messing around in the back seat...as far as you ever got." 
Sheesh!  The light turned green, I put up the windows and The Voice says, "See, I told you.  Mind your own business."
I sit there, shaking my head wondering where I went wrong in this whole scene.  I'll never figure it out.  
We got home and in about thirty minutes the telephone rang and it was a stranger calling.  This happens a lot because of the public exposure that Belle and I have in church.   It's compounded now because we are in the process of organizing a pilgrimage to Rome for the canonization of Kateri Tekakwitha.  The person on the other end is a woman with a fairly thick Hispanic accent, but a fairly good command of English.  After a few words her vocabulary and her grammar started to falter and she said, politely, "Do you speak Spanish?"  I quickly reviewed my previous experience that day with the Village Grump in the antique car, but I decided to be myself and go for it anyway..."Only when I'm hungry."  She laughs and says, "The same for me and English, and I just finished lunch."  Now we're both laughing and I'm happy that there is one person in town who understands me.  I reply in Spanish, "For you, I can pretend that I'm hungry."  More laughter, and we get down to business.  We'll be going to Rome together.


Those of you who know me personally, and there are a couple, know that I am not the sweetest guy in the world.  It has ever been thus.  More than once I have heard this feeback from third party people, "You're not as bad as I heard."  To that I have always responded, "Just give it time.  You'll see."  All that being said, and in recognition that I often don't know enough to keep my mouth shut because I just have to say something "witty," I still think that the guy in the Hudson could have reacted better at my compliment.  But hey, that's just me.
The good thing about it, in final analysis, I just picked up another person who is sure not to cry at my funeral.


**Cherried out: Old car lover slang.  It means super-sharp, all shiny and perfect.  It actually derives from an old (1950s) vulgar term for "virginity", 


i.e., perfect, undisturbed. "She's cherry" meant "she's a virgin" and "she's lost 


her cherry" meant, well, you know. 

It is used for old cars that have been restored to "show room condition" or even better. 

WHAT IS TRUTH? ASK A UNICORN

http://pai-thagoras.deviantart.com/art/The-Truth-About-Unicorns-169373311

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QFvKsvmnfM 
UNICORN SONG
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_EDBM1tOEo&feature=related
FANTASIA
After sometime off for work, work, and more work, I had to come back to reality.  Coming back to reality made me think of fantasy.  Fantasy always makes me think of truth.  I wonder what is truer, TRUTH or fantasy.  What helped me all the more is that tonight I led a learning session about Faith in God and Religion.  It was good therapy for me to get away from the slog and plod of the secular environment which sometimes robs me of my inner tranquility.  
When I got back home I pondered about some of the things that had been said in the session.  On the way back home I remembered, I don't know why, the traditional definition of truth that we had been taught in philosophy class: "Truth is perfect congruence between objective reality and the mind."  It was then that I began having some fun with that definition.  The first thing that came to mind was the "Unicorn Song."  This is the absolute, hard-core, undeniable truth why there are no more unicorns.  Hey, the Irish Rovers said it, case closed!  If you don't believe me, talk to Noah about it.
Interestingly enough, while I was thinking about unicorns, I got to thinking about Pegasus, the flying horse.  Now, there are some of you out there who do not believe that there ever were flying horses.  So who are you?  You can't convince the Greeks of that.  I am sure that somewhere on earth there is a person who has perfect congruence between flying horses and the mind.  So that makes it the truth right?  Besides, look at the Fantasia clip.  Unicorns and Pegasi [that's plural, by the way] frolicking together.  That's further proof that there is a lot of truth there.
It is clear to me, after having been around horses for all of about 20 hours max in my whole life, why there are no more flying horses.  They all decided that on their diet it was way too hard to fly and keep up the energy level that was needed for the effort expended.  If you don't believe me, you eat nothing but grass for a week and then go out and try to fly.  Good luck !
Finally, when I was putting this thought together, I decided to give you a taste of imputed, or inspired, deduced truth.  In all of the three representations of unicorns and flying horses, there are also some symbolic truths wrapped up in these artistic expressions.  I'm not going to impose mine on you.  I'll let you fish around inside of yourselves for those.  I hope you enjoy this little exercise in weird fantasy.
Even if you eat nothing but grass, this should be easy enough for you.

FIRST THING[S] I LEARNED -- REALLY

The earliest things I learned, on my own, I think. 
1. Don't load your new gun in the house while your bragging about it to your brothers.  [Before age 5]
2. Don't get into an argument with the 12 year old guy who lives on the third floor and you are in the back yard looking up.  [Before age 5]
3. Don't get so angry that you can't (or won't) dodge a flying tin can.  
[See #2]
4. Don't fall in love with the girl next door until you really get to know her. [Before age 6]
5. Don't mess with your uncles when they are baby-sitting you. 
[Before age 7]
6. Your mother really gets some things right, some times.  [Before age 7]
7. Rhubarb sure is SOUR. [Before age 7]
8. Tomatoes are fruit. [Before age 7]
9. People you like die. [Before age 7]
10. There is no Santa Claus [Before age 8]
11. Diapers are easy to change, even if you have to learn how to use safety pins first.  Which I did.   [Before age 8]
12. Don't eat a banana for breakfast and then go directly to the community swimming pool.  [Before age 8]  I should have listened to Mom
13. Swallowing your bus fare can almost kill you. [A month or so before age 9]
14. If you're going to kill the "Cock of the Roost" out of frustration, resist that temptation.  Talk it over with your father first. [Before age 12, I think]


I don't think I missed any.  I learned a lot of things, but here I tried to remember the things that "came to me" either by introspection or spontaneous experience.  Of course, some of them are humorous... but then that is life, now, isn't it?

WHAH-JA SAY? IZZAT ENGLISH? LEMME CHECK MY MACHINE

http://pressingforward.blog.com/2011/04/28/translator-widget-help-for-international-bloggers/

TRANSLATION GADGET.  Artificial intelligence at its most humorous.  No kidding.  Actually, all I did was to opt to exercise my God-given freedom to press the "delete"key.
Artificiel cervaux au rire.  Pas enfant.  Actuel, tout fait opter exercice mon Dieu-donner librement pour presse clef de le thé.
WOW! I suggest the Mr. Microsoft get himself a better intelligence.  

X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X~X

Oh, I thought that I was so cute.  I installed the translation gadget on the blog and I just knew that my efforts to translate all my cute reflections into French and Spanish every time I wrote a post for the international community were going to be diminished.  Now I could write in the language of my choice and never worry about burdening my brethren in the far-flung areas of the earth with going through three languages before finding their preferred one.  Free, I was!  Free, at last!  

Was that Grandma's Ming Vase that just broke?

The first paragraph above is a facetious approximation of what happened after I was warned by a dear friend to test the translation gadget before turning it loose on my friends.  So, I did.  You have no idea how bad it was.  You have no idea how happy I am that I tested it.  You have my friend to thank for telling me that I should beware.  You have my guardian angel to thank for telling me to listen to reason.  I kid you not, it was horrible.  The humorous paragraph above was inspired by the result from the real thing. I know that some of you will not get it.  Trust me.  In some mysterious way,you should be happy that you don't get it.

I guess I have told you that I work for an international translation company.  It is called ISO Translations and is incorporated in Brussels.

This company prides itself on the fact that it offers translations that are aided by highly sophisticated software.  Some highly sophisticated customers always require that the translators use the software for the translations.  They trust the artificial intelligence of the machine over the grey matter of the human.  Well, let me tell you.  Without the human, the software is useless, except for one major advantage.  It provides the translator and the customer with a priceless trove of precious statistics about the document.  Gold plated, diamond studded numbers like, # of words; # of perfect matches; # of "fuzzy" matches; 

# of possible synonyms to try;  # of grammatical ambiguities and I think, I am not too sure, # of orthographic anomalies.  

The translator looks at this, feeds the software the alternatives, the software remembers the feed making it ready to use them in a different context the next time around.  Ah, technology.

I have resisted the temptation to learn how to use this techonological "advance."  I've spent 75 years tweaking the vibrations of the cranial synapses with which I have been blessed.  I have spent some time admiring the capabilities of the artificial intelligence of computers.  I am impressed, no doubt about it.  In fact, I am so impressed that I am going to be long dead and buried before I decide to feed these arrogant electronic interlopers with the information that would help them to take away my source[s] of human satisfaction.  Let them figure it out on their own.  No help from this guy.  No way.  Ever! 

BALLS ! WHAT WOULD WE DO WITHOUT THEM?

Why do I think about these things?  I have altogether toooo much time on my hands.
Before I get philosophical, I will see how many kinds of balls I can name in three minutes.  Oh, by the way, this is limited to round balls.
Baseball
basketball
golf ball
meat ball
polo ball
canon ball

soccer ball
foam rubber ball
handball
racquet ball
bowling ball
Christmas tree ball
billiard ball
ping pong ball
tennis ball
sesame ball
matzo ball
volley ball
bearing ball
coming out ball [No square dancing]:-)
I'm sure that I missed some.  I really did not go for broke in this exercise because I wasn't totally in it.  Besides what made me think of this today was the fact that the sports news these days has a lot of basketball in it.  I hate basketball.  To me it is the most stupid of all games.  I don't usually admit this, but both Basketball and Volley ball were invented in the same area where I was created.  I am usually a nut about games with balls.  I suppose that I have to admit that I am a negative nut when it comes to those two red colored names in the column.  
My two favorite ball games are spearing meat balls with a well directed stroke of a sharp fork.  The better to slip them into my salivating face.  The other one is popping sesame seed balls.  Now those two games make sense.
Try them sometime.  


Seriously, now, it is observably true that the ball, as a reality is the most popular toy in the world.  We have it in our lives from birth until the grave.  It is an object that most people can afford.  It is also, I suppose, an object that most people cannot afford to be without.
All together now, click and join in..."Take Me out to the Ballgame..."

NONE SO BLIND AS THOSE WHO WOULD NOT SEE

http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/07.15.99/chew-9928.html

Every now and then something falls within my line of sight and it triggers something between a thought and a smile.  Then sometimes what happens is that the smile gives way to head-shaking bewilderment.  In this case, it was something a little bit different.  What happened was a little bit like a Rube Goldberg invention.
I was giving a Bible class and I had to tell the class that the apostles at one point did not "get it" because right there it was written that they did not see because their hearts were closed. [Marc 6; 52]  The class went on, finished, there was some discussion about how that still happens a lot in this day and age, yadi-yadi - yada.  
Then I came home and as I was looking up someting for my series of classes to the Spanish Speaking Young Ministers group, I fell upon a page of poems by Shel Silverstein.  One of them was Hector the Collector.  You all know that Mr. Silverstein was a VERY talented individual with insights and the ability to communicate them that few people have.  Hector the Collector was so closely reminiscent to the disappointment of Jesus about those who would not see that I just had to talk about it.  
Those of you who have been around "365..." for a long time perhaps remember my mentioning Roy Hood.  He was a Hector the Collector.  He took me and the "Boys" for several tours around his treasure.  When I read Shel's poem, I had Roy in mind.  I wanted a picture, so I took myself to Google Images.  It did not take long before I found the one you see above.  There is a long, long story attached to the picture at the address that serves as a caption.  This story would make Shel Silverstein write ten poems, not just one.  This is quite a story.  But I warn you, it is looonnnggg.  So, that's how I got to do what I just did.  Now, I give you the joy of reading

HECTOR THE COLLECTOR

Hector the Collector

Collected bits of string,

Collected dolls with broken heads

And rusty bells that would not ring.

Pieces out of picture puzzles,

Bent-up nails and ice cream sticks,

Twists of wires, worn-out tires,

Paper bags and broken bricks.

Old chipped vases, half shoelaces,

Gatlin' guns that wouldn't shoot,

Leaky boats that wouldn't float

And stopped-up horns that wouldn't toot.

Butter knives that had no handles,

Copper keys that fit no locks,

Rings that were too small for fingers,

Dried-up leaves and patched-up socks.

Worn-out belts that had no buckles,

'Lectric trains that had no tracks,

Airplane models, broken bottles,

Three-legged chairs and cups with cracks.

Hector the Collector

Loved these things with all his soul--

Loved them more than shining diamonds,

Loved them more than glistenin' gold.

Hector called to all the people,

"Come and share my treasure trunk!"

And all the silly sightless people

Came and looked...and called it junk

¿HOW DO THEY DO IT?

A non-random collection of thoughts.  I'll bet that even you have had a few of these.

BIRDS' NESTS
How do they do it?  We have a pair of Mourning Doves and a pair of Black Headed Flycatchers who have come back to use our patio overhang for their nests for about five years now.  This year the flycatchers did not return.  The doves did.  They ran into a problem.  It seems that the hen laid two eggs before they were able to finish the job and the eggs fell to the floor.  That was over a week ago.  They are still working at building/rebuilding the nest.  They are not succeeding very well.  Why?  Is the relationship on the rocks?  It's bad enough that I wonder how, in a good year, they get the nesting-laying-feeding thing done to begin with.  How do they cope with adversity?  They've been together now for at least five years that we know.  Should they go back to Mama and Papa for help?  Think about that for a minute.  Too bad they can't come to me.  I would take them in.  I already have.  I can't even figure why I, of all people, even have feelings for this couple.  But, I do.


BIRD FOOD
Where do they find it?  Birds, as a genus, are omnivorous. There are birds that eat fish; mollusks; seeds; grains of all kinds; insects, on the wing and on the ground; small rodents and even carrion.  It is a wonder where they find all that stuff.  True they have good eyes, but the time that they have to spend finding the stuff is enormous.  They do have some success.  If the results of the metabolistic process are any indication, birds are not in the process of starving to death.  Just ask any whitened statue in any city in the world.  Now, I just had quite a thought fly through my head.  No lie.  Just this very moment without any previous warning whatsovever.  I thought about the "David" in Florence.  Poor, David...

FERAL CATS
After old people die, who feeds them?  These are very interesting animals.  They are urbanites.  The "wild" for them is the city.  The "Really Wild" for them are the suburbs.  I ask the question because now that my dear mother-in-law has died, we not longer have the swarm of feral cats slinking around our house in San Diego.  I suppose that they have found another 90 year old soul who pities these poor kitties and who keeps them in table scraps on a regular basis.  I grant them the freedom to be homeless, but to be totally, purely, conservatively Republican about it, I think that they should just go out and kill something if they want to eat.

HUMAN BEINGS
Where does all this food come from?  How many super markets are there?  How many "mom & pop"markets are there? How many billions of people are there?  All we see is what we see in our immediate environment.  We have so much food that we feed the feral cats, the house cats, the feral dogs, the house dogs, the house birds and we even feed the occasional house boa constrictor with specially raised rodents. What do we do with the feral humans?  Admit it, this is role reversal at its best.  I once heard a professional curmudgeon [not Christopher Hitchens] say: "Seeing-eye dogs?  What the hell for?  Go find yourself a homeless human and make a friend who needs a friend of your own species."  Think about that for a moment.  See what you come up with in the depths of your soul.

ME
I eat anything.  I am your quintessential omnivore.  I am also your quintessential sleep professional.  I can sleep anywhere, at any time in any position I happen to find most accommodating for the occasion.  I'm easy.  Not easy to get along with, but easy on the environment.  I eat anyting from raw squid to fried beetles.  I eat pigs ears and fish heads...even with the eyes still in them.  I eat left-overs either hot or cold, depending on my mood.  Once I've done that, naturally I get sleepy, so I sleep.  Sometimes I do wish I could be like a big snake.  Eat farmer John's big goat and curl up somewhere and sleep for a year while I metabolize the last meal I had.  Sound good to you?  Some days it does, most days, I'm very happy to go from seeing the ceiling to feeling the floor beneath my tootsies.  That, dear friends is one part of who I am.

THE WORLD HAS PASSED ME BY

http://www.seriouslyfacts.me/the-cigarette-lighter-was-invented-before-the-match/

Yes, the world has passed me by.  It really has.  As the saying went back in the '50's, "we were toolin' down the road" when all of a sudden on the radio I heard something that I had not heard in a long, long time.  The radio was on but I was only half listening, so I don't know the context of what I am going to tell you.  I think it was an ad for some up and coming stage play in Los Angeles.  The words were that "I saw her light a match with her thumb as I approached the appointed meeting place..."  In rapid succession here's what happened to me:
a. I used to be able to do that.  Now I don't dare try.
b. I used to be able to light a wooden match by rubbing it on the seat of my Levis.
c. I used to be able to light one match by "ticking" it head to head with another match.
d. I used to be able to light a wooden match by throwing it violently to the sidewalk "just so."
Finally, I also used to be able to light a wooden match by rubbing it on the abrasive strip glued to the side of the match box.  This was the polite and preferred away of lighting wooden matches practiced by most people.
I wonder how many young and enterprising young people of today could say as much about their match lighting prowess?I know one thing.  The way they wear their pants in this day and age, there is no way that they could get enough friction between the pants and the match-head to cause enough heat to be generated to light the match.  
The other disability that they have is that their thumbs are so busy texting that there is never enough time to practice lighting wooden matches with the thumbnail.
Aha!  Of course, they don't come anywhere close to knowing that this is what thumbnails are for.  They only know that they are small pictures on a cathode ray tube.  We are all quite aware that these things are not flammable.  At least, not yet.
One closing story about lighting matches with your thumb and EFR Dion.
Two things:  He smoked a lot.  Camels, of course.  EFR Dion would have smoked the hair off a real live one, if one had been available.  He drove a lot.  He was on the road as much as three days a week for one part of is life.  He did not have wooden matches in the car.  He had book matches.
One day, he came home and he was all excited.  He was really flying high.  He hung his hat, took off his tie, rolled up his sleeves, washed his hands, reached for his favorite glass, poured himself his usual Courvoisier, sat down and smugly, and grinningly said that he had finally succeeded in lighting a book match with one hand, while driving.  He was so happy.  If had swum across the English Channel he perhaps would not have been so happy.  He explained how long he had been mentally practicing the moves.  He painstakingly explained how many failures he had experienced through the weeks of practice. "Now," says he, "I can do it.  Just like this!" With a flourish he whipped out a book of matches and did it three or four times to impress us and to prove that it was not a fluke.
He was so proud.  Now he could drive with one hand on the wheel and still light his cigarette with the free hand.  
He must have bragged about it to my grandfather, his big, one-handed idol.  My grandfather smoked a pipe and he always used wooden matches.  He didn't drive, so I'm sure that when EFR Dion told him the story, he just laughed and shook his head.
That's my story about matches and how to light them.  

BE MY FRIEND ON "-----????" HUH? WHO ARE YOU?

http://jenniferluitwieler.com/slideshow/soli-deo-gloria-retreat/

This  a celebration of the 500th "Thought."  The "Thought" is one that I have had for about five years now.  I have not considered it for publication here because I find it difficult to keep my "cool" when I entertain it.  It usually wins that battle, and IT entertains ME.  Since this is not a forum for my rants, I have stayed away from it.  Not any more, because something happened today to cause a conversion.  You know what Catholics say, "There's nothing worse than a convert!"  

With one eye on the picture above and a corner of your brain on the words, here we go.

Like I said, about five years ago I got a thought because it was fired across my bow, so to speak.  An individual who was taking part in an Internet discussion made the mistake of calling me "friend" because he had what he thought was important personal information about me.  I fried his eggs in a nano second and I haven't heard from him since.  Much to his relief, I am sure.  I sure don't miss him, whoever he may be.  The essence of my convictions about friendship is: If I don't know you, we are not friends. That was five years ago. 

I remember it like it was yesterday.  The reason why it is so vivid in my memory is because a blogger whom I respect and appreciate has shut down.  Because of this, there is a large void inside of me.   When I analyze my feelings I find a couple more people in the ethereal world with whom I really relate on a couple of meaningful levels without ever having laid eyes on them.  These are not "casual" acquaintances.  They have been around in my life for at least two or three years.  If they shut down, I would have the same forlorn yearnings for their return as I do for the person who left yesterday.

In case that you may be wondering, I will tell you that "Yes, it does work both ways."  I have come to dislike certain pixelated personalities and dismissed them early on as fools "up with which I would not put." [Winston Churchill]  This too is a part of my conversion.  If I can learn to dismiss you from my life, I should be honest enough to accept the fact that I can also welcome you into it.  

Yes, even over the Internet.

I have at least one example of each. 

A young man who is quite outspoken [I like that] and seriously intellectually honest [I like that] and I have come to like and respect one another.  It is not because we are "sweet" with one another.  On the contrary.  We have polarized views on many things, mainly religious things.  We are "birds of a feather."  What comes out of our mouth is what comes out of our brain and heart without embellishment.  Take it or leave it.  We both soon found out that neither was offended by what the other postulated.  We have met in person a time or two and we really do like one another, besides and plus, respecting one another.  It all happened over the Internet. 

A woman who is also quite outspoken [Ad hominem and defensive] and I, no longer bother to communicate because it is no use.  There are many reasons for this.  The core of the reality is in the first sentence.  Oh, we did give it a half-hearted try, but I decided that I did not want to suffer it any more.  Done.

I have come to accept the fact that is possible to achieve a certain depth of friendship on the Internet.  It is also possible to develop an "esprit-de-corps" on the Internet as well.  For the past five months I have been working for a company that is based in Brussels, Belgium.  It is a company that provides professional translations in many languages.  I have qualified for certain pairs of languages and I do translations and proof reading for the enterprise.  Over the five months I have come to "know" the team and they have to "know" me.  I have also come to "know" certain translators and vice versa.  If I am in the throes of a serious conversion it is greatly due to my experience with this richly international community of cosmopolitan individuals.  

I am thankful that this is happening to me.  It helps to make me realize that my life has taken on a dimension of outreach that I never expected could or would ever happen.  This simple blog alone is read every day in ten countries that I know of.  Every day I work with people in at least five countries, simultaneously, when the small window of congruent waking hours is open, of course. 

Given all of this, I still have one question: Why am I still not sold on Facebook? 

WORK, A GIFT OF GOD

http://sdunnpastor.wordpress.com/2011/09/05/monday-morning-reflections-labor-day/#comment-379

You bet.  Work is a gift from God.  Working at home is almost like being in heaven, too.  Believe me, I know. Here's a story about work.
You're perhaps sitting there thinking that I am going to tell you a story about my first job.  Think again.  That's not it.  Not even about my second job, nor my third, nor... never mind.  In fact this is a story about school.  It floated across my mind the other day when I read a blog post from one of my favorite religious writers, Omar Guttierez on his blog, Regnum Novum  (New Kingdom), now, sadly, defunct.  He caught my mind with the statement that those who work only to satisfy the requirements that lead to retirement are missing the boat.  I'm sure that there are some who will read that and wonder if this guy is out of his mind, or a religious fanatic beyond repair.  Here's what that did to my brain.
Back to the year 1965 we go.  I am at the university waiting in line for my turn to begin the grueling one hour comprehensive final oral exam that is essential in order to be mantled with the Masters in Theology that had brought me here in the first place.  At the bell, my first stop was with the Old Testament professor.  Since I was in front of my favorite teacher, in my favorite subject, this was a comfortable place to start my first of four fifteen minute stops.  He hit me with a great series of questions about the Pentateuch (First five books of the Bible).  Piece of cake.  Next was the Systematic Theology guy.  He was a nice guy, with a reputation for being an iron fist in a velvet glove.  After the initial niceties, he said, "Tell me about your convictions concerning our belief that we are created in the image and resemblance of God."  Silence.  About 15 or 20 seconds.  I'm thinking.  Should I tell him the truth or should I regurgitate what we've heard in class?  I decide to chomp down on the pill, and tell him the truth, weaving some of the stuff that we had heard in class into the narrative.  Back then, I had testosterone to burn.
"Reverende Domine," I started, "...In opinione mea, nobis dedit Deus mudum imperfectum, sicut dedit Israelitis terram imperfectam..." Yeah, we had to talk Latin in that school.
I started by saying that just as God gave the Israelites an imperfect land that they had to conquer, so He gave us a world that needs some work.  Since He is the perfect worker who took a messy blob and made it into the Earth that we know, He did a pretty good job.  He also delegated us to manage it.  So, that's what we do.  We manage it and He allows us to make it better than the way He gave it to us.  Therefore, I said, I think that the blood, sweat of your brow and tears part of the banishment from Eden, comes because we aren't all-powerful, all-knowing, etc, so we have to strain.  But from that comes the reward of  knowing that we are cooperating with Him and accomplishing something good for the world, His world. 
So far, the cold. glassy, professorial scrutiny was still written all over his face.
I was looking for something that he would like in order to get over the ice-age.  He was sitting back, comfortable, not saying "boooo!" and not encouraging me to continue.  Continue, I did. I looked at him and asked an "oratorical" question. It's the only kind you can ask in a final exam.  "What is it that God wants us to work at?"  I see a slight twitch.  I guess the questioning stuff was a new one on him.  I never knew. "It is building the Common Good," says I.  That's what work does.  It gives all creatures comfort in knowing that they are contributing to the construction of the Common Good, the ultimate general happiness of everyone.  No matter what we do as creatures, it is work and it must be aimed at making everyone in the community better off.  Work is a corollary of the commandment to "love our neighbor as we love ourselves."  Now, this guy is actually smiling.  I can see that he is agreeing with me.  I go from the Old Testament to the Catholic Church teachings about work and labor and he's there soaking it all in and he never utters a single syllable. 
After about 10 or 11 minutes, he tapped on the table.  So I wrapped it up in a few seconds and then I put the frosting on the cake:  "Do you have any questions?"  To this day, I thank God and my Guardian Angel that he got the joke.  We laughed heartily.  He stood up, I stood up, we shook hands and I never saw him again.  
Friends, there is much to say about work, labor and retirement.  I once started off an article with some wise cracks about retirement. [HERE]  I can honestly say that I don't believe in it.  But hey, that's just me.  We all have to adjust to our abnormalities, don't we?  Maybe it is better to call them "idiosyncrasies."  It sounds better.

A SURPRISE GUARDIAN ANGEL

His name:  Isabelo Brillantes.  A couple of stories about a rare middle class person in a third world country.
I had taken my assignment to the Philippines with joy and satisfaction.  It felt good to be out of school and to be working at a "real" job, one for which I had prepared for many years.  So now, my books were closed, at least for a little while and I was in the vineyard,so to speak.
I was not totally turned around, but mostly bemused by the change in environment.  Things were different.  The climate, the surroundings and, of course, the people.  There was one thing that did not change.  I had to cope with a different language.  This had happened to me five years before when I landed in Rome and knew that it was going to be a four year stay.  There, I knew the official language of the residence to which I was assigned, but of course, I did not know Italian.  So, I proceeded to dedicate myself to learning Italian.
Now, I was in the midst of a language challenge again.  Again, I was surrounded by many people who knew English, but the mission required that I know the language of the residents.  It was not up to them to learn English. So, I proceeded to learn the language.  The first story about Isabelo is about language, sort of.
He was one of the inner circle of parish leaders.  They would come to the rectory [parsonage] fairly regularly for an exchange of ideas and some planning reasons.  They, approximately seven or nine, depending on the day of the week and the central topic to be discussed, knew one another quite well.  They were all able to speak the "Lingua Franca of the region.  They were quite happy that I was dedicating myself to learning it and they usually took time and patience to speak to me, and to one another, in the tongue of the region.  Until we got down to business, and then we would switch to English.  
One evening, they were all there with me and we were having a finger snack and a sip of adult beverages and without paying attention to me too much they had fallen to using the "official local language" of the country, i.e. Tagalog.
After about five minutes of this, Isabelo realized what was happening.  He coughed in a loud, interrupting, stentorian tone and announced, in Ilokano, "We are really not being very respectful.  Paul is getting quite capable in Ilokano and we are happy for that.  We should be ashamed of ourselves that we have fallen to speaking Tagalog in front of him this evening."  The moment following that didn't need any language to define it.  I broke the ice by saying, with a big smile, "I understood what he just said."  It was all it took.  We laughed together and I was glad to see that everyone thanked my friend for what he had done.  I did too.  It was a very nice feeling.
Isabelo had four beautiful daughters.  There came a day when the eldest was preparing for her marriage.  I was involved in the preparations and everything was going along smoothly.  The ceremonies were to be held in a location too far away from where I lived for me to go there to officiate since it was a Saturday and travel between the two places was too difficult to allow for a round trip in one day.
Isabelo had a problem.  His daughter was eschewing all the traditional local and cultural customs and was intent on breaking the mold for her own comfort. He was trying to be "macho" about it, but was having a hard time.  His wife was beside herself.  He and I talked about it a lot.  He and his wife decided that they should not interfere. In the Philippines, the groom's family is in charge of the wedding and financially responsible for it.  So Isabelo and his wife were pretty much onlookers.  I never did get a good appreciation for what the the other side felt.
The wedding went well.  After the ceremony and the celebration, he came back to San Mateo, proudly showing us the photographs of the event.  Everything went well and he and the family were happy.  I asked how he felt.  His only answer, one that I will never forget was, "Your child is always your child.  I am happy."  It was a good lesson for me.  At the time I never thought that I would ever have offspring of my own.  Now that I do, I know what he meant. I owe him.

BODY TEMP NORMAL - 310; OBESITY BEGINS AT 125

You are all going to be convinced that I am whacko.  It's been a while since I have been trying to convince you thereof, but now I have absolutely irrefutable proof.  I am writing this now because, per exception, I actually had a thought that caught me by surprise at a moment when I could capture it in writing.

THIS IS 18TH CENTURY SCIENCE
HASN'T WATER BEEN FREEZING FOREVER?
WHAT TOOK SO LONG FOR US TO FIGURE IT OUT?
AND, IT LOOKS LIKE WE'RE STILL CONFUSED!

Don't ask me why, but I started to giggle inside when I thought of the difference between the Celsius scale and the Fahrenheit scale of temperatures.  I can't for the like of me fathom why Mr. Fahrenheit decided to have 180 degrees of separation between freezing water and boiling water.  Is it because water freezes at 32 [32? where'd he get that?] and ice melts at 32?  How can that be?  Aren't water and ice the same thing?  Whose the flip-flopper here?  I figure he picked 180 degrees of separation because he was thinking in a straight line.  Had to be that.  He couldn't separate freezing from melting, so anything could happen from that point on.
                              MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM

I have weight

Since I was thinking in scientific terms, [can't you tell?] I also got to thinking about Avoirdupois and Metric.  This caused me no end of confusion from a language point of view.  "Avoirdupois" is a misspelled, ungrammatical French word to say, "To have weight."  DUH!!  "Metric" is kind of Greek for "measure."  Personally, I like the Greek [universal] system because all the values are divisible by ten, in length, width, depth, mass and liquid.  When you mix "Avoirdupois," with "English"and "Fahrenheit" you really get into a rather interesting cerebral pentathlon where nothing is related and meshed. 
To put a final period on this, I got my pay today from ISO Translations, based in Belgium and it was for 156.33 Euros - .01 transaction fee for PayPal.  That is an interesting event since the euro is stronger than the dollar.  My final question is, "Why aren't the guys who are running for President of the USA not promising to make the dollar stronger than the euro?  They're promising everything else, why not that?"  
Don't get me wrong, I got $197.00 for my 156.33 Euros.