Monday's Musings OR Madness?

Where's a BIB when you need one?

Sometimes, on my Blogger Pages, I like to pick up where I left off on a given post before moving on to another topic. Perhaps this is because I've written novellas, short stories and even a play, all of which, to some extent require a continuity with a given character. "Your reader deserves to know if you got the part," Mr. C. Michael Curtis once said (in a letter) to me in response to an essay I submitted to the Atlantic Monthly. The essay discussed how an audition for a Broadway play (that I had with Dustin Hoffman) led to an understanding of a childhood trauma, and, no, dear reader, even though Mr. Curtis praised my writing, he did not publish my essay.

Sunday's Sequel to Friday's Follow-up

In my last entry here on Blogger, I discussed the fact that I had submitted a synopsis for my book project, Imperfect Strangers. Later that same day my aforementioned post was published, I received a response (email) from a person who works for the place I had submitted my book. Her words are featured in the "talk bubble" atop this blog entry.

I am beyond thrilled to have received this news and they came on the eve of my birthday, which was yesterday.

Disputing Fake News! I wasn't born yesterday. (Tuesday's Truths WK 69)

Hello, and welcome to my sixty-ninth posting for my Tuesday's Truths series. It's the first one in this series for the year 2018. In this entry, I want to alert anyone who might follow me on either one of my Facebook (FB) Pages (personal and author) that FB reported some fake news yesterday, which was New Years Day.

Happy Birthday Steve Jobs, Happy Birthday to you!

Today is Steve Jobs' birthday and I certainly wish him good health. When I learned last month that he was taking another leave from Apple to "focus on his health", I was at a loss for words (as I stated in a previous post), and since that time, I have replayed a video of him making a commencement speech in California (which I included in a prior blog entry that you can view by clicking here). In that speech, Steve Jobs said, "If you live everyday as if it is your last, one day you will be right." I pray that Steve Jobs is not even close to his last day, but my blog post is not intended to dwell on the philosophy associated with such a statement; rather, it is to ponder a reason for the pressure shareholders and influential investors are putting on Apple Inc — a reason which I believe goes beyond monetary concerns. Since I hold no stock in Apple and have very little cash flow in general, my insights may prove to sound altruistic, but please, hear me out:

Hurricane Irene. New York's Santa Ana?

My blog entry for today is being published much later in the day than usual; and for that, I sincerely apologize — especially because I do not appreciate it when I take the time to go to a blog where a scheduled posting has been promised —  only to find older entries and not the "promised"  post of the given day, one which I had been (in most cases) looking forward to reading. I find a blogger not posting during a committed schedule — unless vacation or hiatus plans have been announced — to be somewhat disrespectful of any readers or followers; and therefore, I do not want to make delayed postings a habit.

Some might say I am being somewhat narcissistic, because the world is not pausing, waiting for my new posting so that they can read my blog; nor is it pausing to learn of my follow-ups to any prior blog entries. I just believe it is courteous to keep your word (which, for me, in this case is sticking to a posting schedule that I laid out in January of 2011, which you may refer to by clicking here) to your valued readerships and followers, a community I truly am grateful to have. So without further ado, here's my post for today, August 27th, 2011.

Monday's Memorandum: It's MLK Day (Assassinated nearly 50 years ago)

In just a few months time, it will be April. Fifty years ago (1968) on the fourth day of that month, the civil rights activist, Martin Luther King Junior was assassinated. He was thirty-nine years old.

Today, Monday, January 15th, would've been King's eighty-eighth birthday. His memory is being revered, as it always is on the third Monday in January, when folks celebrate his life on the holiday known as Martin Luther King Junior Day.

According to Wikipedia, "Martin Luther King Jr. Day (officially Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.) is an American federal holiday marking the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. It is observed on the third Monday of January each year, which is around King's birthday, January 15. The holiday is similar to holidays set under the Uniform Monday Holiday Act."

I'm honoring Martin Luther King Junior Day by posting a You Tube video atop today's blog entry, it is the same You Tube clip that I included within an entry here on Blogger for King's holiday in 2017.

I find the song featured in the video haunting and worthy of posting again. Meanwhile, The Seattle Times, created a web-page tribute to him, and in it they state the following:

"Martin Luther King Jr. lived an extraordinary life. At 33, he was pressing the case of civil rights with President John Kennedy. At 34, he galvanized the nation with his 'I Have a Dream' speech. At 35, he won the Nobel Peace Prize. At 39, he was assassinated, but he left a legacy of hope and inspiration that continues today."

"Doesn't God know its my birthday?"

The photograph posted above is of yours truly with one of my sisters. Today is her birthday, and being born in the month of March, her birthdays have seen springlike temperatures as well as bitter snowstorms. I will always recall one such birthday when inclement weather ruled the day.

We were children, and a raging snowstorm turned to heavy rain and caused power wires to come down, endangering the safety of our neighborhood. My sister, anticipating her party favorite — Angel Food Cake and Peppermint Ice-cream — looked forlornly out the window and inquired, "Doesn't God know its my birthday?"

For Conor McDonald on his 30th Birthday

Today is the thirtieth birthday of Conor McDonald. He can be seen in the picture atop this entry with his father, NYPD Detective Steven McDonald who died as the result of a heart attack, nineteen days ago on January 10, 2017; at age fifty-nine.

According to a news alert, "Steven McDonald was his son’s present age, 29, when he was shot in the head, throat and spine by a troubled, teenaged shooter on July 12, 1986. It happened in Central Park. Steven McDonald was newly married and his wife, Patti Ann, was three months pregnant when the shooting happened.

"Conor Patrick McDonald was born on Jan. 29, 1987, and he was baptized by John Cardinal O’Connor in Bellevue Hospital on Steven McDonald’s 30th birthday.

"Over the years, the family marched together in the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade.

"In 2010, Conor followed his father into the NYPD. In 2016, Stephen McDonald beamed with pride, wearing his dress uniform, when his son was promoted on two different occasions at Police Headquarters: first to detective, and later in the year to sergeant.

"After Steven McDonald suffered a massive heart attack on Jan. 6, Conor kept a vigil at his father’s bedside with his mother.

"On Sunday morning, he posted a Facebook photo of him marching next to his dad’s wheelchair in a recent Saint Patrick’s Day parade.

"Now, he’s sharing a photo (the one atop this entry) that speaks volumes about the love and respect they had for each other.

'"I’ll see you on the other side Daddio,” he wrote. “I love you forever.'"

Conor McDonald is blessed to have the gift of faith and the assurance that he will see his "Daddio" on the "other side," but I'm still including Paul Simon's song about a parent (albeit a mother but it could easily be a father) and child's reunion being "only a motion away." 

I hope for the sake of Patti Ann, (Conor's mother) that "motion away" will not be for quite sometime, but I thought I'd send out the song to him on what might be a mournful birthday.

Maybe FB was trying to tell me something? (Wednesday's Wisdom)

The image atop this entry features the statue of Henry Ward Beecher that is located in Brooklyn. I have passed the monument on countless occasions, without giving it much thought, and without my taking a picture of Beecher's statue.

However, the statue came to my mind today as I was thinking about a quotation that is attributed to Henry Ward Beecher, which is this: "Every man should be born again on the first day of January.  Start with a fresh page. Take up one hole more in the buckle if necessary, or let down one, according to circumstances; but on the first day of January let every man gird himself once more, with his face to the front, and take no interest in the things that were and are past."

In my pondering Beecher's quote, on this third day of the new year, I found myself thinking about the fact that Facebook (FB) has my birthday listed as the first of January, which it is not. I've tried to set this straight with them for years to no avail. It seems once FB has one's birthday recorded a certain way, the date cannot be changed. Moreover, two days ago, on January first, the powers that be at FB notified my FB followers (as I discussed in yesterday's blog post) to tell them to wish me a happy birthday.

Because of this I received a number of birthday wishes, which prompted me to publish a FB post alerting my followers that this was fake news.

Now, after my reflecting on Beecher's quotation, I'm taking FB's error re my day of birth, as a sign to heed the wisdom of the quote: see myself born again on the first day of January, by girding myself once more, with my face to the front, "taking no (negative) interest in the things that were and are past."

In Honor of Peggy Wood

Today, May the 8th, is the birthday of  my dearly departed editor, Peggy Wood, who passed away in December of 2014. She can be seen in the image directly above, which I've included in many posts here on Blogger.

She is mentioned in the iBook version of Words In Our Beak, Volume One...

...which she helped me edit. Peggy was excellent in recognizing typos as well as punctuation errors.

However, our friendship went far beyond any discussions about my writing, so we shared many good times, at her home as well as mine, including those when her brother (Robert) and sister-in-law (Lynda) came to see her here in NYC.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEAR JAMES MIRANDA (HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!)

Today is my nephew James's birthday. He can be seen in the photograph (which was taken in 2014) atop this entry. It features James checking out a garden hose that I had mailed to him. James's hose is a custom made one in the sense that it was made from my garden hose which can be seen in the picture directly below,

where it is indicated by an arrow I've superimposed over the image; which was also taken a number of years ago. It's an old story, but I'm featuring it today in honor of my nephew's birthday; and, also as a suggestion for what one can do with a garden hose that is too long or cumbersome.

A Post In Honor of George Washington's Birthday

Last Monday, February 15th, our nation celebrated Presidents' Day. It is a holiday that is celebrated here on the third Monday in February. The holiday of President's Day was originally established in 1885 in honor of President George Washington, and was traditionally celebrated on February twenty-second, the actual birthday date of George Washington, which is today.

According to history.com, "the holiday became popularly known as President's Day after it was moved as part of 1971's Uniform Holiday Act, an attempt to create more three day weekends for the nation's workers." 

Be that as it may, George Washington's was born on February the twenty-second, and the switching of the day to observe this, was a topic E. B. White wrote about in his correspondence with Gluyas Williams in 1971. White's humorous attitude toward our government's switching the celebration is something I discussed in my post this past President's Day and I included E.B. White's musings on the matter. On another note, George Washington has been linked to the creation of our American flag, and that is the reason I'm including photo-ops of my patriotic friends within my entry for GeorgeWashington's birthday.    

However, it seems there is some controversy over Washington's involvement with the creation of our flag, which you can read about in a Wiki Page by clicking here. For my focus in this blog post honoring George Washington's birthday is to provide information on an interest I share with him which is birds.

Tuesday's Truths WK 53: Mathilde is 101!

Hello, and welcome to the fifty-second week of my Tuesday's Truths series, which is being dedicated to Mathilde Freund who turns one hundred and one years old today. Mathilde can be seen in the image atop this entry and it is one you may recognize, dear reader, as I featured it in a prior entry here on Blogger.

I took the picture in July of 2016, when I saw her sitting on a bench in front of a store on NYC's UWS, near to the area where she lives.

In the aforementioned entry, I stated that Mathilde and I spoke about Elie Wiesel, the holocaust survivor who had died in his NYC home that past Saturday, July 2nd, 2016. I also mentioned that "Mathilde knew Mr. Wiesel because he was in the same camp (Buchenwald) that her husband had been in. She told me that she was in hiding at the time, but her husband was killed at Buchenwald two months before it was closed. She recalled that her husband was twenty-five years old at the time and that Elie Wiesel was much younger." 

In any event, this past Saturday, August twelfth, I saw Mathilde again. She was sitting on the same bench as the one in the image atop this entry. I sat and talked with her for quite some time. I had a camera around my neck, and could have easily taken a new photo of her, but the thought of doing so did not occur to me, as my attention was on listening to her as she told about spending the summer with her son who lives in a rural area of North Carolina.

In Loving Memory of Aunt Grace Fitchie . . . (And One Reason I Like the Paper Card)

My blog, as you may know, is only a little over a year old and has only recently celebrated its anniversary. Today, like an occasional WNYC (NPR) program of The Brian Lehrer Show,  Prairie Home Companion, Car Talk and even Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me, in which repeats of favorite shows are aired again, I am repeating part of an entry from February 2010. This is in honor of Grace Fitchie, my dear great aunt pictured in the photograph posted above, standing in the middle of the last row next to my grandmother, Clara May, who is at Grace's left hand side. 

Grace was born on this day, January the third, in the early 1900's, I blogged about her in February 2010. She was an influence on my knowing the value of sending cards, and one that she sent me, over forty years ago, is still an impetus for me to continue to persevere in the new year with my designs of cards that are about more than communication, invitations that preserve moments in time, and event program covers that enhance an occasion, in keeping with the mission I have laid out in my philosophy which I have mentioned in numerous occasions within this blog.

Remembering What Would've Been John Lennon's 80th Birthday

John Lennon's song, "Imagine," was the class song chosen for your truly's graduating class.

AND the "Imagine" circle (seen in the image directly above) honoring John Lennon is very near to where I live. Moreover, I've written about him in a number of blog posts as well as in an article for I Love The Upper West Side. BUT it slipped my mind that a couple of days ago, October 9th 2020, would've been his 80th birthday, or more correctly, it slipped my mind that a couple of days ago was October 9th!

It is SO hard to keep track of what day it is during this cornavirus pandemic but it's not to late to pay belated birthday homage to the dearly departed John Lennon.

Tuesday's Truths WK 24B: Grace Fitchie

Today, January the third, in addition to being the eleventh day of Christmas, which I discussed here on Blogger this morning, is the day my great aunt Grace Fitchie was born; over one hundred years ago! She is pictured in the photograph posted above, standing in the middle of the last row next to my grandmother, Clara May, who is at Grace's left side. I blogged about Grace Fitchie in January of 2011 and prior to that, I published a post here in February of 2010.

Aunt Grace was an influence on my knowing the value of sending cards. One that she sent me, over fifty years ago, (pictured below) is still an impetus for me to continue to persevere in the new year with my designs of cards.

At this juncture of my endeavor, these are in postcard format and feature fauna, flora and insects as subjects. Thumbnails of these cards can be seen in the following images.

But getting back to Aunt Grace's card, I received it in the summer before I was to enter junior high school which is something I've mentioned here on Blogger, stating,"That summer had been hard. I was very overwhelmed: My father had moved away the year prior, my Neurofibromatosis was now causing bumps to appear everywhere on my body. I wanted contact lenses, because my left eye was frequently turning inward from the lack of acuity  that it had, and my eye-doctor had told my parents that contacts would help with this problem as well as help to correct my low vision. Additionally, I would be attending a new school in the fall —the junior high school — where I would be going from room to room for various classes as opposed to having everything taught in one room, and I  was nervous I would not have time between classes to arrive on time. I even thought of my possibly missing the elementary school kids despite the fact that they didn't pick me to be on their Murder Ball team because of my low depth perception causing me to be an 'easy-out.' At least they had seen my physical problems and the teasing me about them had subsided; now I'd have to start all over again by being with different kids."

It's National Grandparents Day!

It's National Grandparents Day! The holiday falls each year on the first Sunday after Labor Day. It was initiated at the grassroots level by West Virginian Marian Lucille Herndon McQuade (seen in the image atop this entry) with the behind-the-scenes support of her husband Joseph L. McQuade.

This photograph is from a web-page, which discusses a number of interesting facts regarding  National Grandparents Day; including the truism that "it's not a holiday invented to sell cards and flowers."

Tuesday's Truths WK 7: More people are born in August than any other month.

Today, August 30th, marks the seventh week of my Tuesday's Truths series. It's also the last Tuesday in August, so I should point out this truth: more people are born in the month of August than any other month of the year! I'm one of those persons, and am very grateful to CDDS and FRG, as well as his mother, Ruthie, for giving me a very special birthday celebration last week,  a  couple of days before my birthday. After they took me for a short trip to the Atlantic Ocean, where I encountered sandpipers known as the Least variety, we headed back to FRG's mother's house for dinner followed by a birthday cake. Alas, it was not the cake pictured here, but I was caught up in the celebration and did not take a picture of it! Hence I'm using this web image by an unknown source, for the candles featured in it remind me of a shopkeeper who constantly says, "Don't ask me my age, how much I weigh, or how much rent I pay."  — And that's something to keep in my mind with this Tuesday's truism, no matter what month in which one happens to be born.

Mother Theresa and the Intrepid

The folks that manage the Empire State Building in New York City, refuse to honor Mother Theresa's one-hundredth birthday, by lighting the top of the Empire State Building in her signature colors, even though they light the tip of the building for all sorts of occasions. In light of the Empire's State Building's non-lighting, the USS Intrepid , has decided to let their lights shine in her honor, as evident in a photograph (which is posted above this entry) taken by yours truly whilst I was at the Intrepid's dock along the Hudson River in New York City. You may read about the Intrepid's "stepping up" to amend this lighting controversy by clicking on the following link.

Meanwhile, with or without the lighting up of special attractions, Mother Theresa's light will always shine. And so without further ado:

Happy Birthday, Mother Theresa, Happy Birthday to you!

Another Year Older and Deeper in Debt

The image accompanying today's posting may look familiar to some of you as I posted it last year on TLLG's Blogger Pages in a post about the "appearance" of mushrooms in my urban garden.

This picture was taken on my fifth birthday, and I'm including it today as it's my birthday. I was born on my maternal grandparents' anniversary, and since I am their first grandchild, they would often say that I was their anniversary gift; but, if truth be told, they were my best birthday present, and are what gave me, at an early age, an appreciation for the elderly, which is the driving force in my project on indiegogo.

And with that I'll end for the day, as at "press" time on Blogger, I'm distracted with the news of a shooting today near the Empire State Building and can hear media helicopters buzzing all around!