divider daybreak cutting the air, touch’d by sun measuring the sky
Adapted from the passage:
up out of the night, bringing your cluster of stars, (ever-enlarging stars,) Divider of daybreak you, cutting the air, touch’d by the sun, measuring the sky,
In the Poem Song of the Banner at Daybreak by Walt Whitman
One of series of Haiku from Poem Song of the Banner at Daybreak by Walt Whitman.
This is a series of Haiku written just to fill out days I missed back in 2020 to fill in the gaps.
Forgive this vanity that I want a long strong of continued posts.
Their menu lists such wonders as Salt Cod Fritters, Ox tongue and the ever popular milk fed lamb’s kidneys.
I think of an interview I saw once with the Famous Chef Paul Bocuse, who died in 2018.
He was asked when was the best time to be a Chef?
Without hesitation he blurter out, “1946, right after World War 2, people ate anything!”
By chance today I had one hour to kill and found myself in Walmart and I said to myself, Mike, I said, we are going to see all the food you can get at Walmart.
Have you ever done that?
I mean go through the groceries just to look?
27 kinds of tea?
Honey from around the world.
Breakfast food I never heard of.
It is truly amazing this country of ours.
The wine and beer section has been expanded and even here in North Georgia you can now buy Bell’s Ale.
They even had bottles of wine that cost over $100.
Wow!.
Those bottles are kept under lock and key just like the iPhones.
They also have cans of wine.
I have to say that again.
They also have cans of wine.
I am not sure if that something you say out of pride or disbelief.
20 kings of bacon.
That is very important.
Canned goods and frozen foods beyond measue.
And cheese.
They also have cheese in a can.
They also have 6 kinds of cheese in can.
They would have had seven but the seventh one was sold out.
not like in the states the athletic rivalry … here its academics
Forever and ago I was in the wonderful city of Toronto for a weekend.
My friend Scott and I went up for the bookstores and the ambience of being in a big city that you could walk downtown at 1AM and the biggest problem was that Canada closed around 6.
If you can remember the Toronto of the ’80s and ’90s you have to remember the WORLD BIGGEST BOOKSTORE which I think was 4 or 5 floors and each floor the size of a football field.
FI-BIGGEST For story on the World’s Biggest Bookstore at 20 Edward st. which may be closing next year when lease expires June 20, 2012 DAVID COOPER/TORONTO STAR
I thought this was where I would go when I died.
And so many of the books were from European Publishers I had never heard of.
I was told that due to tariffs, it was cheaper to ship books from Britain that to order them from the United States.
We also went to the fabulous Ontario Science Center.
Pre WORLD WIDE WEB technology but who knew.
You could test the stress on a bridge beam.
You could land a moon lander.
And you could use an Electron Microscope.
Scott and I stayed in that exhibit for quite a while.
It might have had something to do with the electron miscroscope.
It also might have had something to do with the very cute young lady who was running the exhibet.
We engaged her in engaging conversation.
Mostly us making derogatory comments about the other to the young lady.
But she found us engaging – maybe even enduring – and she endured our comments and we talked for some time.
She told us she was from Toronto.
She told us she went to the University of Toronto.
She told us that had created ‘quite the little scandel’ in her family as her family all went to York University.
She had a sister right now enrolled at York she said.
It was ‘quite the rivalry’ you know she said.
Then she stopped.
Then she said its not like the in the states.
You know with your athletic rivalries.
Here its a rivalry based on academics.
Scott and I both assured her that as Michigan Grads, we knew just what she meant when talking about academics over athletics.
Oh yes, we knew.
We knew all about that.
But she went.
You in the states, your atheltics.
I just don’t know.
I mean there was a band here just recently for a concert at UT.
She smiled and shook her head, ‘They told us that over 100,000 people go to their football games.”
Oh yes, we knew.
We knew all about that.
Yep, lined us right up with the wrong side of the argument.
And to prove the point how thick we were, when she asked if we had had lunch, we blurted out that we had just eaten.
DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP.
Sometimes you hit a road not taken and its so dark you never even knew it.
But here I am in Georgia.
I wear I mask.
And now if anyone, ANYONE dares ask me why, I can say, “I suffer from HARBAUGH … and it might be catching.”
Hurricane Sally Rained all night, rained all day, please Sally go away
I remember back in the early days of online news, we would have lengthy conference calls with the web teams from multiple TV stations to discuss issues and latest options for online news.
It seems like a good deal of our conversations were about online school closings.
I have a very clear memory of the first fall WZZM13 had a website and I was told that the station needed a way to post school closings online.
I had been in news just long enough (the station website had launched in July) to know what questions to ask.
Who?
YOU!
What?
List of all schools closed by weather!
Where?
Online!
When?
Tonight!
Why?
It’s what we do here!
How?
That’s why we hired you!
So I got to work and repurposed my High School Football Scoreboard so that school names and closing information could be added and posted online.
It was just a simple write to text file.
Someone had to type in names and hit upload.
It wasn’t great but it worked.
And I knew we had to do better.
The newsroom wanted bells, whistles, times, dates and most importantly, a way for someone else to enter the information.
A system were school administrators could log in and enter information was develped.
And whenever those people entered information like School & Events Cancelled, or School Support Team # 2, was entered those & and # symbols crashed the system.
But we learned.
All the web teams at all the stations learned.
And we all talked about it on our calls.
At least the people who worked up North.
I remember how the web people who worked in South Carolina, Georgia and Florida all laughed at us.
WINTER STORMS?
SNOW?
SCHOOL CLOSINGS?
They claimed they never used them.
They claimed they didn’t need to.
They claimed that if winter was bad enough, people in the South were smart enough to stay home.
A few months later the first Hurricane Season hit.
Then those people all screamed for school closing tools.
A few years later we moved south.
The first fall we lived in Georgia it started to rain on Labor Day and it seemed to rain until Halloween.
The local lakes that experts said wouldn’t fill up for 20 years filled up and overflowed in 20 days.
My wife called me at work.
Did you know, she asked, they close school down here because … of RAIN?
No Haiku For You 