good luck kisses you
quick, flies away – bad Luck sits
and brings her knitting

Good luck is the gayest of all gay girls,
Long in one place she will not stay;
Back from your brow she strokes the curls,
Kisses you quick and flies away.

But Madame Bad Luck soberly comes
And stays, – no fancy has she for flitting, –
Snatches of true love-songs she hums,
And sits by your bed, and brings her knitting.

Good And Bad Luck by John Hay as printed in The Norton book of Light Verse edited by Russell Baker, New York, Norton, 1986.

At age 23, John Hay, graduate of Brown University and native of Illinois, was selected to be one of the two men who made up the entire White House staff of Abraham Lincoln.

Mr. Hay used that line on his resume to create a career in Government as a diplomat, Ambassador to Great Britain and Secretary of State in the McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt administration.

I was interested to read the other day that during the Civil War, Mr. Hay took a break from the White House in January, 1863 and went to, where else, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.

The Hilton Head / Port Royal Sound area had been built into a base of Military Operations for the Union forces in the area and a 1,000 bed hospital had been built on the beach.

The imagery of the words in this short poem of Mr. Hay’s was too good to pass up.

if you read between
the lines you understand what
someone really means

According to the Collins Online Dictionary, the phrase, “to read between the lines” means:

“If you read between the lines, you understand what someone really means, or what is really happening in a situation, even though it is not said openly.”

In his article, “Donald Trump’s Hitlerian logic is no mistake“, Mr. Sidney Blumenthal outlines some examples of how to read between the lines of Mr. Donald Trump.

Mr. Blumenthal writes:

When Trump says immigration, he means race.

When he says crime, he means race.

When he says communism, socialism, or Democrat, he means race.

When he says America is declining, he means race.

When he says “American First”, he means race.

When he says blood, he means race.

When he says poison, he means race.

When he says race, he means Black people.

When he says race, he means Hispanics.

When he says race, he means Muslims.

And when he says race, he means other white people, too, some less white, less pure, less clean, less acceptable depending on their ancestral origin, than others.

When he says race, he means the replacement theory.

It seems that half of America would understand and agree with what Mr. Blumenthal is trying to point out.

It seems that half of America would understand what and agree with Mr. Trump is trying to say.

You know what scares me … bothers me the most?

The idea that I am clinging too that this election will settle anything.

I think of Mr. Lincoln and his call to the the better angels of our nature.

Those angels left town a long time ago.

the wordle long game
playing to win today or
to win everyday

Not much of a surprise I would think to say that I was bit by the wordle bug.

I resisted it at first but then it became part of my morning reading.

Finished with the news while finishing my morning coffee, wordle often add the last little bit of mental stimulation to get me to wake up before starting my day.

I’d enter a some letters and then go through the steps and puzzle out the days word … or not … and go one.

I was asked, “What’s your start word?”

“Audio,” I would respond.

Then something changed.

I had been a casual ‘day’ player and never logged in.

The NYT games managers kept telling me there was so much more available if I would register, so I finally did and a new day dawned.

I now had statistics on my all time wordle performance.

And my game changed.

Instead of playing to win today, I began playing to win everyday.

It wasn’t today’s word that mattered, it was today’s win that I was after, to add my daily string of wordle wins.

I hit 14 days in a row.

Then 21.

The 61.

Then 69 and I was traveling and started a game while in the airport and forgot and never finished and broke that string.

Oh well.

I no longer use my “Start word.”

I use four of them.

I puzzled out one morning in the shower that snore, black, fight and dumpy did not repeat any words and used up 20 of 26 characters.

While I will cycle thru which word I use first, I will enter all 4 four words unless I can make a really good guess.

The result.

112 of my wins are on the fifth choice.

61 are on the 4th choice.

I have never hit the first word while logged in but in my mind I did once.

And 3 times, I made the correct guess on my 2nd choice.

Currently I am on a 21 day win streak with an overall 96% success rate.

Like a dependable quarterback, I see opportunities but I work through my progressions and in the end, win the game.

Sure there are those, like the star quarterback who can hit that long bomb and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat … once in awhile.

Go ahead and play.

Go ahead and enter a word and then make an ‘educated’ guess based on your remaining letters.

You could get it right.

Beware of those double letter words like muddy or a word like refer with double double letters.

I am playing wordle, the wordle long game.

I am going for 99%.

Which with my current number of losses, if I don’t lose again and do the math right, will take another 750 games or just over 2 years.

The wordle long game.

Just win baby.