gas station beef sticks best before 2031 … Well, I will save one …
My son who lives with us here in the beautiful low country of South Carolina is recovering from a terrible bout of pancreatitis.
Since the onset of this malady he has lost 50 pounds and we struggle with him to balance out a diet that is both diabetic friendly as well gastro-enterology friendly.
A lot of the recommendations are contradictory.
Can’t eat that.
Don’t eat this.
Avoid anything with these.
On top of that, he just doesn’t feel hungry and has a heightened sense of smell.
So what to do?
We have more or less boiled all the options down to the effort to get weight back on the boy and if he will eat it and he can keep it down, it’s all good.
Just this week he has been out and about in his car for the first time in months and rediscovering all his old drive-thru friends.
All good.
Even though it was this diet that most likely caused all this off in the first place, it’s all good.
Get the boy to eat.
Today he came home with a bag of gas station food.
Looking over his purchases, I took out one of his ‘beef sticks’ and noted that the expiration or best-if-used by date was in 2031.
no message of love, goodwill, friendship, that can’t be conveyed in a book
This ad ran in the New York Times, 100 years ago today, December, 20, 1923.
There is no Message of Love, Affection, Good-Will or Friendship that cannot be conveyed in a book.
In 1928, the New York Herald Tribune would report, ” … Brentano’s on West Forty-seventh street probably [is] the foremost bookshop in the world. Over a million books are kept in stock, and there are branch shops in Washington, Chicago, Paris, London.“
anyone who knows what America’s all about? sure, I can tell you …
I have read that the single most influential movie ever made is The Wizard of Oz.
Much of the reasoning behind that statement comes from the thought that no other movie has been seen by some much of the population of THE WORLD and that the age that people saw the movie was an age where the movie made a real impact.
For myself, I would rather take on any evil movie entity from Independence Day to Dracula over wanting to mess with those Flying Monkeys.
But I digress.
Staying with the thought of influences brought about by what people have seen, I am reminded of the impact of the cartoon or animated special, known as Charlie Brown’s Christmas.
Increasingly frustrated by the holiday season, Charlie Brown finally yells, “Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?”
Quietly, his buddy Linus says, “Sure, Charlie Brown. I can tell you what Christmas is all about.”
And famously, Linus recites the Bible verses, in King James English, that tell the story of the birth of Jesus.
But why am I telling you this when you know this.
We all grew up seeing this show and hearing those words and in a way, come Judgement Day, the folks at the gate can, with justification say to anyone of my generation and thereabouts, “Whadyya mean you didn’t know? You saw Charlie Brown’s Christmas 63 times!“
A great holiday message but that’s not where I am going today.
I recently read the NYT Opinion piece, The Ivy League Flunks Out (Dec. 9, 2023) by Maureen Dowd.
Ms. Dowd is an Opinion columnist for the Times.
She won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary.
In this piece, she writes:
“I think this is still America.
But I don’t understand why I have to keep making the case on matters that should be self-evident.
Why should I have to make the case that a man who tried to overthrow the government should not be president again?
Why should I have to make the case that we can’t abandon Ukraine to the evil Vladimir Putin?”
I can hear her say, “Isn’t there anyone who knows what America is all about?”
And I want to say, “Sure, Maureen Dowd.
I can tell you what American is all about.”
And I want to say, “Lights Please.“
And the rooms would go dark and a single spotlight would shine on me and I would say this.
We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are Life,
Liberty
and the pursuit of Happiness.
And then I would say, “That’s what America is all about, Maureen Dowd.”
Linus reading the bare bones verses of the Bible leaves little wiggle room for what Christmas is all about.
Thomas Jefferson, a man who is now blown off when mentioned on News Talk shows as ‘oh that guy’, left little wiggle for what America is all about.
All are created equal.
Pretty simple.
Pretty easy.
All.
Now, so much time and effort is being put into just what that word, all, means.
Doesn’t all mean all?
There are those who will point to George Orwell’s Animal Farm and embrace the proclamation that “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
I hope we can reject that.
There are those who will point to the history of America and ask ‘where is the equality?’
To answer that I turn to Barbara Jorden, Representative from Texas.
Back in 1974, Barbara Jorden, made this statement to the House Judiciary Committee regarding the impeachment of President Richard Nixon:
“Earlier today, we heard the beginning of the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States: “We, the people.”
It’s a very eloquent beginning.
But when that document was completed on the seventeenth of September in 1787, I was not included in that “We, the people.”
I felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake.
But through the process of amendment, interpretation, and court decision, I have finally been included in “We, the people.”“
I hate to go to another movie to make a point, but the scene I have in mind works too well to ignore and since I started out this essay talking about movies and their influence on us all, I guess I am okay.
In the movie, Lincoln, Mr. Lincoln puzzles out the concept of equality in Euclid and in life.
Sitting in the War Department Telegraph Office, Mr. Lincoln says this.
“Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other. That’s a rule of mathematical reasoning.
It’s true because it works; has done and always will do.
In his book, Euclid says this is “self-evident.
D’you see?
There it is, even in that two-thousand year old book of mechanical law: it is a self- evident truth that things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other.
realized that the man who spoke to them was sincere could feel in his tones
Only a few weeks ago we were listening to the King’s Christmas broadcast. I am sure that as the years went by people liked more and more to listen to these talks addressed by a King to his own people. They realized that the man who spoke to them was sincere. They could feel in his tones that firm religious faith which was one of the sources of his strength.
So wrote Clement Attlee, the man who replaced Winston Churchill as Prime Minister in an election in the summer of 1945, in his autobiography, As It Happened.
He is writing about George the Sixth, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India.
This was the same King whose stuttering problem was profiled in the movie, The King’s Speech.
The same King who stayed in London during the bombing in WW2.
As his wife, Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother said when asked about leaving London for someplace safer or maybe sending their daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret away, “The girls will not leave without me. I will not leave without the King. And the King will not leave.”
Some might look for me here to point out that even today we have people making speeches and we might feel in that person’s tones their level of sincerity and the extent of that person’s firm religious faith.
But no, I am not going to point any fingers or make any comparisons.
If anyone came to your mind, well, squeaky wheel and tight shoe pinching the foot and all that.
Can’t stop you from making any comparisons now can I.
This is the speech Mr. Attlee heard on Christmas Day, 1951.
George VI died the next month on January 31, 1952, of lung cancer/
“As I speak to you to-day, I would like to wish you, wherever you may be, a happy Christmas. Though we live in hard and critical times, Christmas is, and always will be, a time when we can, and should, count our blessings – the blessings of home, the blessing of happy family gatherings, and the blessing of the hopeful message of Christmas.
“I myself have every cause for deep thankfulness, for not only – by the grace of God and through the faithful skill of my doctors, surgeons and nurses – have I come through my illness, but I have learned once again that it is in bad times that we value most highly the support and sympathy of our friends. From my peoples in these islands and in the British Commonwealth and Empire as well as from many other countries – this support and sympathy has reached me, and I thank you now from my heart.
“I trust that you yourselves realise how greatly your prayers and good wishes have helped, and are helping me, in my recovery. It has been a great disappointment to the Queen and to myself that we have been compelled to give up, for the second time, the tour which we had planned for next year. We were looking forward to meeting mv peoples in their own homes, and we realise that they will share our regret that this cannot be. I am very glad that our daughter, Princess Elizabeth, with her husband, will be able to visit these countries, and I know that their welcome there will be as warm as that which awaited us.”
I think I can repeat that last of the 1st paragraph.
Christmas is, and always will be, a time when we can, and should, count our blessings –
the blessings of home,
the blessing of happy family gatherings,
and the blessing of the hopeful message of Christmas.
Jeanette, Isabella see how the child is sleeping how He smiles in dreams …
In the book, Upstairs at the White House, former White House Chief Usher J.B. West relates how Mamie Eisenhower went all in on holiday decorations.
West writes, “At Eastertime there were butterflies hanging from the chandeliers, artificial birds singing with tape-recorded voices … “Would you please shut off the birds?” Mrs. Eisenhower said to the butler …“
This anecdote was on my mind last night.
With all the music of the season playing everywhere, one Christmas Carol broke through the clutter and I says to myself, “Mike, what IS that tune?”
I know I had heard before in Christmas times past but this time I had the time to get online and track down the song.
What I was looking for turned out to be the French carol, Un flambeau, Jeannette, Isabelle or Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella.
According to Wikipedia, it … is a Christmas carol which originated from the Provence region of France in the 17th century. The song is usually notated in 3/8 time.
The carol was first published in France, and was subsequently translated into English in the 18th century. The song was originally not meant for Christmas; it was considered dance music for French nobility.
The carol first appeared in print in 1688 with the Provençal text Venès lèu, Vèire la piéucello; Venès lèu, Genti pastourèu! in a collection of twelve Provençal noëls by Nicolas Saboly. The popularity of the melody is attested by its use four years later by Marc-Antoine Charpentier for the drinking song, Qu’ils sont doux, bouteille jolie in a 1672 revival of Molière’s Le médecin malgré lui.
To this day on Christmas Eve in Provence, children dress as shepherds and milkmaids, bringing torches and candles while singing the carol on their way to Midnight Mass.
It is a pleasant mental picture to imagine the sweet little French faces of sweet little French kids wearing sweet little shepherd clothes and walking through the villages on their way to Midnight Mass by candlelight singing this song in their sweet little French voices.
Wouldn’t it be cool if it really happens.
It is certainly a better mental picture then my memory of a Christmas Program I took part where we were all given a candle to carry until someone figured out that a bunch of 4th grade boys carrying lit candles down the aisle of the church was not the best idea in the world.
So we carried these long white candles, unlit but held high as we walked down the aisle to the microphone to sing our song.
We had to wait for some scripture reading to finish before we sang and one of my friends became transfixed by the metal mesh microphone on the stand in front of us.
For reasons never explained, as we waited, my friend reached out with his candle and rubbed it all over the microphone like it was a grater, filling the mesh with wax.
Something drove him to it, he was helpless to resist and he made sure he covered the entire mic.
In my mind I can hear my Dad, who was a major player with the procuring and maintenance of the churches sound system, saying ‘HEY! What’s that kid doing?‘
The rest of the program was slightly muted.
But I digress.
You Tube is filled with many versions of Un flambeau, Jeannette, Isabelle.
Instrumental and vocal.
Some in English.
Some in French.
The real show offs sing a stanza in French then sing the same stanza English.
The really real show offs sing every line in French then repeat it in English.
Some really real show offs wannabees try to have a duet with one person singing in French and the other in English but that mostly doesn’t really work.
I like an instrumental version by the Piano Guys.
I know what you are asking.
What does this have to do with Mamie Eisenhower.
I’ll tell you.
Before you go looking for this piece of music let me warn you and say that this music should have a warning.
A warning that this little tune should be labeled as an earworm.
An earworm or brain worm, also known as sticky music or stuck song syndrome, according to Wikipedia, is a catchy or memorable piece of music or saying that continuously occupies a person’s mind even after it is no longer being played or spoken about.
It causes Involuntary Musical Imagery.
I know.
I know, because starting last night and going on right now my brain is still playing the line, Bring a torch, Jeanette, Isabella! Bring a torch, to the cradle run!
Bring a torch, Jeanette, Isabella! Bring a torch, to the cradle run!
Bring a torch, Jeanette, Isabella! Bring a torch, to the cradle run!
Bring a torch, Jeanette, Isabella! Bring a torch, to the cradle run!
Over and over and over again.
Somebody, please, turn it off.
Would you please turn off the birds!
ALL NIGHT LONG.
No rest for the wicked or me either.
Just Bring a torch, Jeanette, Isabella! Bring a torch, to the cradle run!
Where is the advil.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Here are the lyrics in English.
Bring a torch, Jeanette, Isabella! Bring a torch, to the cradle run! It is Jesus, good folk of the village; Christ is born and Mary’s calling. Ah! ah! beautiful is the Mother! Ah! ah! beautiful is her Son!
It is wrong when the child is sleeping, It is wrong to talk so loud; Silence, all, as you gather around, Lest your noise should waken Jesus. Hush! hush! see how fast He slumbers; Hush! hush! see how fast He sleeps!
Softly to the little stable. Softly for a moment come; Look and see how charming is Jesus, How He is warm, His cheeks are rosy. Hush! hush! see how the child is sleeping; Hush! hush! see how He smiles in dreams.
No Haiku For You 