In the Olduvai Gorge of Africa over 1,000,000 years ago, they enjoyed them, placing them on top of rocks and gingerly tapping them, one by one, until each was released, a repetition leaving small circular indentations in the stones surviving to this day.

Because they could be collected from all around, were lightweight, and could be stored for great periods of time through tough winters, nuts (mixed with other dried foods) allowed for the formation of base camps and hunting exhibitions.  The carrying of dried nuts allowed groups to travel great distances without the necessary concern of what to eat along the journey. In other words, the variety of nuts found in ancient times, in part, allowed our ancestors to comfortably spread out across the globe.

Today is National Nut Day, and I’m torn between celebrating either the guy who wears dirty sweaters and shouts at the walls as you transit from your parked car to the office door (and you pray he won’t notice you) or that little delicious, crunchy, culinary delight in the big grocery bin.  Maybe in some weird way, I can figure out how to do both…

If you asked a botanist

Ask a botanist what a nut is and he’ll likely first think of you, because you’re bothering him, and frankly he doesn’t know you.  After he moves past that, he’ll tell you that a “true nut” is a dry fruit with a hardened ovary (Ovary? Really?) and softer, detached seed center, and that it stays shut even at full maturity.   I don’t know why it has to be described in that way…ask your new botanist friend!  Examples of what a botanist would call a “true nut” are chestnuts, beechnuts, hazelnuts and filberts.  I’ll bet when a botanist is at Baskin Robbins and is ordering toppings for his girlfriend’s ice cream sundae, he says nuts, even if they are not “true nuts.”  He does if he wants to keep dating her….

If you asked someone who cooks for a living

In the world of cuisine, the definition of a nut is fast and loose.  If you spent your day around sharp knives and open flames, you might be a little loose with the definitions too.  Any large oily seed extracted from a shell and used to cook with is considered a nut in the world of the kitchen.  Because we have much closer relationships with those that cook our meals than botanists, we tend to view pistachios, walnuts, almonds, cashews, coconuts, pinenuts and even peanuts as “nuts.”  Everyone likes to remind the lowly peanut that he is actually a legume, or bean.  The peanut never asked for such dichotomy.  If some of us can call Perez Hilton a celebrity, why can’t we just call a peanut a nut?

Health benefits of eating nuts

A diet that includes nuts has a variety of benefits to the eater.  The Omega 3 oils in nuts reduces hypertension and the risk of heart disease, and may add years to your life if you replace sweet treats at breaktime with them often.  Studies have shown that putting out a bowl of walnuts and almonds can actually reduce the level of “bad” cholestrol in our bodies, and increase the number of health-conscious hotties hanging around your desk.

Nuts are rich in fiber, protein, antioxidants, and vitamins.  Because of a very low glycemic index, nuts are typically suggested as a snack for anyone with insulin resistance problems, such as diabeties. Nuts contain linoleic and linolenic acids that help with proper skin, hair, brain, blood and immunilogical development.  They are considered to be one of the “perfect” foods, due to the large cross-section of identified benefits in consuming them in moderation.

Types of nuts

Here is a non-comprehensive list, in alphabetical order, of the types of nuts you can eat.  Some may require special preparation, so don’t run out and grab just any one of them off the ground!  Have you had the opportunity to try most of these?  I’ll bet you haven’t!

• Acorn
• Beech
• Butternut
• Brazilnut
• Candlenut
• Cashew
• Chestnuts (Chinese, Malabar, and Sweet)
• Colocynth
• Cucurbita Ficifolia
• Filbert
• Gevuina Avellana
• Hazelnut
• Hickory (Pecan, Shagbark Hickory)
• Kola
• Macadamia
• Mamoncillo
• Maya
• Mongongo
• Oak Acorns
• Ogbono
• Paradise
• Pili
• Pistachio
• Walnut

From nut to “nutter”

So how did such a good little food, responsible for the survival and spread of our species over millenia, become a derogatory term meaning “insane?”  Although there are no really direct explanations for it, there are regional cultural cues in our language that may’ve led to this…

From the 18th to 20th Centuries, the slang version of nut or nuts was used in a positive manner, denoting an extreme desire toward something.  This was highlighted in Mark Twain’s novel Huckleberry Finn, circa 1884: “Tom had his store clothes on, and an audience — and that was always nuts for Tom Sawyer.”  It was not uncommon in literature to describe the height of love as being a form of insanity.  Sometime around the mid 20th Century, the word nut became synonymous with describing one’s head, with terms such as “tough nut to crack” being used to describe one with very guarded thoughts or emotions.

Somewhere in the mid 20th Century, all of these terms seemed to converge, and the term nuts came to be used to describe someone whose sanity was in permanent (rather than temporary) question.  A variety of terms came about, including nutter, nuthouse, nutty, nuthead, etc., all demeaning in form.  In the last 30 years of so, the term nuts has taken back some of its original meaning, and is used once again to describe a pleasant but strong desire toward something.

Add some nuts to your life

Knowing how the wonderful nut has contributed so greatly to our survival and in no small way to the fact that you live where you do, why not take some to the office with you?  And say hello on the way to the guy with the stinky sweater. He might want some too…

October 6th is Come and Take It Day.  There is a profound difference between the words “Get” and “Take.”  One implies that you’ve been invited and are “getting” something.  The latter doesn’t require permission; simply seize what you want, for whatever reason.  But the inclusion of the word “Come” changes everything all over again.  The term “Come and take it” has a challenging tone to it, don’t you think?

Gregorio Cortez Lira

Gregorio Cortez Lira was a Mexican laborer who went on the run in Texas at the turn of the 20th Century, after being wrongfully accused of horse theft.  His brother was shot during the questioning by the local Sheriff, and he killed the man in defense.  Cortez’s pursuit became legendary, lasting ten days and taking a posse of over 300 men. It was one of the largest manhunts in history, sparked largely due to racial stereotyping and deep-seated anger between Anglos and Mexicans all along border towns. Songs were written about the man who walked over 100 miles in in the desert wilderness, in an attempt to escape mangled justice.  All men like Cortez wanted to do was make a simple life for themselves, pulling together what they earned and trying to protect it against continued hostile sentiment.

Come and Take It Day

Come and Take It Day has odd origins, to say the least.  Commemoration of this day began soon after the release of a movie of the same name in 2001, about friends looking for a hidden cache of gold coins meant for the man who captured Gregorio Cortez Lira 100 years earlier.  In the process of locating and attempting to recover the treasure, the friends try to figure out what it means to be  Americans, to be of  Mexican descent, and to be men.  The treasure was found to be buried on a heavily guarded military base, and the attempt to take the treasure ended quite tragically.

My Treehouse Incident

I have distant memories of myself and a menagerie of friends building a small tree house in a neighboring forest in upstate New York.  Our wooden hideout was culled together from half-rotting scraps of wood found strewn everywhere, but it was ours, and it was private, a way station for enjoying those things our mothers deemed undesirable.  We spent our afternoons haphazardly pounding in the nails we had stolen from our fathers’ empty mayonnaise jars with “borrowed” hammers.  It was both decrepit and resplendent, a semi-secretive masterpiece of woodworking ineptitude. But it was ours, or so we thought…

Days after completion, we returned after school to find that our hidden treasures had been rummaged through and gleaned from.  We were outraged, swearing upon pain of death to each other that we would keep a watchful eye on our digs, passing by it often and listening in for trespassers.  Apparently our stash was deemed worthy of a repeat visit, as one day not long therafter a group of three very mean (and much older) teenagers came across us talking and laughing in our abode.

The teens demanded we leave, calling us a variety of colorful terms and telling us that both the tree house and the contents belonged to them.  Now I am not a man of stature, nor was I a tall child at the time of this forest stand down.  I not-so-fondly remember a bad day during the first week of Fourth Grade, as a First Grade teacher, sure that I was one of her students, tried to drag me, kicking and screaming, to her class following recess.  But what I lacked in height was traded for a big mouth….

“Come and Take It…”

The words fell from my lips before I could stop them, and I realized at that moment whatever happened next was my own damn fault, and I needed to steel myself for the response.  I didn’t have to wait long, as the biggest of the group pulled me down by the ankles, right out of the doorway, and slammed me up against a nearby tree.  I was introduced to two adrenaline-rushing moments at once, as his big, pimply face slammed up beside one side of mine, and I heard the quiet slink of a switchblade opening near the other side.

Of course, I got out of the situation.  It’s a whole other story unto itself, replete with expletives, threats, and lots and lots of running.  How I got out of it is not important.  What I learned from it is.

The Bitter Taste of What We Take

The treasures we take away, uninvited, from others contain a price that cannot be paid, ever.  The price tag hangs from the item, always in view, reminding us that we never paid properly, never met the social agreement for true ownership.  There is no peeling off of this nagging reminder, no cutting the string of continued guilt.

So what did I ultimately learn from the whole tree house episode?  That “Come and take it” never works out in the end, either when given as a threat, or to the one who succumbs to the call to fight and/or take.  It is so easy to overstep ourselves, to take from others, uninvited, if we do not respect ourselves and others.The pain of mistrust, of anger over wrongs done exists all along the fringes of our hearts, in our Soul’s innermost dwellings.  We often sour our lives by chasing after a false sense of self-justice, gaining no satisfaction when we confront it.

Those pleasures that we have earned in life through hard work, gathering together ideas and nailing them together over hard hours spent learning from our naïve mistakes,  are the buttresses upon which our happiest moments are built, whose very ladders carry us upward into the clouds, to greatness.

Written for October 5th, in commemoration of National Storytelling Festival Day…

Aristotle wrote in his treatise Poetics that there are seven golden rules to being successful in telling a story – plot, character, theme, dialogue, chorus, décor and spectacle. Learning to successfully balance these important essences of any story will make it desirable to the one taking part in it through reading or viewing it.

Did you know that you are both a story, and a storyteller? We’re all storytellers, aren’t we?  Pacing around on life’s stage, bringing attention to ourselves in the way we act (or don’t act,) in what we shout out to the “back rows” (or based on our abject silence,) in our moods and inconsistencies.  We practice all seven of Aristotle’s rules in how we live our lives and express ourselves out in the open, for all to see. Some more than others.  There are a few experts out there, balancing all of the essential parts of telling their story, and we simply love to sit back and watch them live.

You’re reading this because you are involved in some way with social media, whether as a writer, reader or sharer.  How do you get Aristotle’s seven story rules into balance, so that your social networking story is interesting to your friends and followers? You’ve got an interesting life, whether or not you think so.  How do we draw others into your very interesting life story using Twitter, Facebook or Google Plus?

Seven Ways to Make your Life Interesting in Social Media

Plot – This is way more than simply what’s going on in your life, or what you’re up to right now.  Get a plot already, and let others know what direction you’re going to take us on, from first page flip to climatic end.   Why did you take the time to create a social networking account in the first place? What are we all going to see on this wild ride?  Give us a steady, consistent stream of 140 character mini mission statements.  My ticket to your show was to follow or friend you, and I very much would like to know that you’ve taken some time with your life’s storyline…

Character – This is where you tell us about you as a person. It better go a lot further than your favorite colors, your favorite foods, and whatnot.  This is the part where you take stands in life, and decide that you are going to be YOU, absolutely and unequivocally yourself, on social networking sites.  You are going to tell people what you think about the issues in the news, and wait quietly while the rest of us figure out whether or not to mock you, okay?  Let us know your deepest philosophies about life and how we ought to treat others. Stand up and tell us your philosophical, religious, loving, caring, demanding stances.  Do you wear weird hats?  Got too many cats? Got an issue with taxi drivers? I got the ticket to see your performance, to hear your story, so I want the real McCoy.

Theme – This is your social media mood, so to speak.  Are you a serious blogger, tweeter or Facebooker, taking strong stances in life and demanding justice?  Are you a bit of a comic here, telling one joke after another for that fleeting laugh?  Do you lecture to me about what I should be doing or supporting? Do you coach me in life, putting your arm on my shoulder and helping me grow? Or do you flitter in between status updates, using that keen sense of timing to make the rest of us think, laugh or cry? Let me get lost in your pages.  Make me follow you so deeply my fiancée has to order me to shut the laptop and pay attention to the family…

Dialogue – Hey, if you can find others, you can talk to them, right?  Isn’t that the point of social networking – to dialogue with others – to be, well, social? How do you speak to others online?  How often? Do you seek out different opinions, and are you respectful when you actually hear them? Do you take the time to dig deeper into the stream of information and share in other people’s celebrations and problems by responding and resharing? Sometimes the tiniest of acknowledgements can mean the world to another.  Engage as many as you can stand to, because the most interesting stories are those that have characters we learn about slowly, page by page, their lives woven into a beautiful tale we just can’t put down…

Chorus – How often do you repeat the basic backbone of who you are?  How often do you remind your friends and followers what a wonderful person you are? How often do you log into your social media presence, even if only once a day, to just say hello and reconnect?  The reemergence of a little-known character, the reintroduction of one’s unique flavor into our daily social bread, can bring so much joy to life.

Décor – Every house should take on the character of the one living in it.  Figuring out how to decorate is one of the essential joys of moving in, right?  Have you decorated your social media space, and provided a basic mood for your visitors? Does your background image and avatar reflect your personality, or did you put up something just to make you look good?  There are a variety of places you can visit and download a decent background, as well as websites that can teach you how to “tweak” your social “brand” even more.  Is your social networking home made of stucco or wood siding?  Spend some time already!

Spectacle – Do you provide additional multimedia opportunities to get to know you? Adding photos and albums to your status updates is a terrific way to begin bringing people deeper into the story that is your life. (Okay, the pic to the left might be a bit excessive…) How many times have you watched a movie before reading a novel, and when finally getting around to the reading, have found it so much more fulfilling to have a mental picture of each character?  Adding photos to your social media space allows people to see you in their minds when reading your status updates or tweets.  And how about recording video and placing it on your site? Or even voice recordings?  The richer the spectacle, the more emotional the attachment, the longer your story is remembered…

Hey, we can’t all be an Aristotle, but even he was interested in people all around him – the ordinary folk, like you and I.  What is important is putting yourself out there, to share with others…

Let’s start your story, already!

The day was September 15, 2001, just four days after we held each other in front of our televisions, watching our combined sense of security explode, disintegrate, tumble to the very ground before our eyes.  For many of us, our hearts were still filled by having drunk from the bitter cup of sadness, distrust, fear, anger.  For some of us, this dangerous brew was just too much to stomach…

The Taking of Balbir Singh Sodhi

Balbir Singh Sodhi

Early that morning, like any other, Balbir Singh Sodhi headed off from his Mesa, Arizona home to work.  A Sikh from India, Balbir moved to America in 1991, opening up a gas station in Mesa a year later.

On that fateful day an angry Frank Roque, after having spent a number of days vowing revenge against “the ragheads” in local bars, walked into Balbir’s Chevron station and shot him to death. While being arrested, after having moved on to shoot into the home of an Afghani family and narrowly missing a Lebanese clerk at a Mobil station, Frank stated that he stood “for America all the way.”

Tragedies around us can be used to rebuild ourselves, too.

Letting this day change us

9/11 is a day of collective mourning for our Nation, going about our day amidst the calls for soft moments of silence, gingerly looking once again towards the slowly healing Footprints.  But if the sense of loss, the hollowness with which we went about our business, is as a result of thinking about the loss of lives on that day, then you have missed a chance to ponder on, to mourn another great loss  – discovering ourselves through friendship with the Stranger.

We must not be manipulated

In the aftermath of 9/11, Al Qaeda rejoiced in a perceived victory. What they saw was much more than the fall of the World Trade Center, the smoke rising from the Pentagon.  Al Qaeda’s sights were set much farther than the destruction of that day, as they awaited angry American retaliation.

Many messages, for many peoples.

To be sure the destruction of the day led us to an angry precipice, wanting solid revenge on the perpetrators. It is estimated that had Flight 93 hit its mark, likely the Halls of Congress or the White House itself, we may’ve struck out in blind anger at any number of Muslim nations.  At least that is what Al Qaeda had hoped for, and they were ready to drum up Muslim nations in retaliation against Western nations in turn, in an endlessly escalating spree of suspicion and anger, violence and war. Balbir Singh Sodhi was a victim of such a demand for immediate “justice,” a victim of being the Stranger during times of anger.

The truest path to losing our enemies

It is said that to love your enemy is the surest way to defeat him.  Our enemies in Al Qaeda rely on a belief that we are a nation of bigots and simpletons, that if you simply add angry men calling themselves Muslims into American society, along with some level of public destruction, we will attack and isolate ourselves from Islam.  So how do we upset these plans?

How well would you know them?

How well do you know Islam? Have you taken time to learn about the contents of the Koran? Have you taken the time to talk with a member of the Islamic faith?  Shared a lunch? Dinner? Day? Studied how 1.6 Billion people commemorate Ramadan, or helped even one Muslim family celebrate Eid ul-Fitr?  Are you actively working on breaking down the walls?

What we can do, in honor of 9/11

America is all about the melting pot, the blending of all of us together into one place.  To be truly “for America all the way,” is to blend ourselves into the mix, into that place.  To consider your neighbors that pray differently, dress differently, act differently to be just as much a part of the mixture as yourself.

Everyone we meet can teach us about ourselves.

I ask you to consider learning more about those faiths that are completely foreign to you.  I am asking you to take a journey together, to find the Stranger and get to know him, to bring an understanding of him into your life, to not only accept or tolerate, but to find a way to embrace his presence all around you.

In a melting pot society, we will never truly get to know our national identity, will never be able to strengthen its individual bonds against our enemies, without first having embraced the Stranger.  This is how we, truly, teach the world what it means to be “for America all the way.”

On this anniversary, we are shown the sites and sounds of the enormous square fountains marking the passage of Towers 1 and 2, their waters falling and rising together as one.  Let’s take the time to honor the lives of those lost, and then, tomorrow, wake up with the affirmed desire to honor the values of our forefathers and promise to melt into the mix further, to rise up and fall together, into One Nation, Under God.

How (some say) it all began

President Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt

The year was 1902, and due to a long-standing boundary dispute between Mississippi and Louisiana, the governors of both states went with President Theodore Roosevelt on a hunting trip.  Teddy hoped the trip would allow time for the governors to resolve their differences.

President Roosevelt was well-known as a big game hunter, relentless in his pursuit of beasts in the wild. The target of choice during this five day hunt was the American Black Bear.

The national press grasped onto the enticing story, and a number of journalists followed along on the hunt, recording many aspects of it in great detail, much to the chagrin of the White House. With each passing and unsuccessful day of the hunt, the press egged the President on in the stories they sent out.

On the fifth and final day, one of Teddy’s companions, fed up with the press, caught a young bear, in an effort to make for an easy kill and silence the ongoing jokes. Teddy, however, refused to shoot a defenseless animal tied to a tree, practically unconscious and surrounded by dogs. (Rumor has it that Teddy ultimately asked one of his party to kill the poor animal with a hunting knife, to put it out of its misery.)

A good story becomes a legend

Cartoon of Teddy and the Bear Cub

The press reported far and wide on President Roosevelt’s decision to not kill the bear. Well-known cartoonist Clifford Berryman, following the firestorm of press coverage, decided to draw a representation of the event, playing up Teddy’s compassion toward the bear. The cartoon was extremely popular, and was redrawn over and over, each iteration making the animal smaller and smaller, eventually taking on the likeness of a tiny bear cub. In keeping with the border line dispute, the cartoon was named “Drawing the Line in Mississippi.”

Updates to the story based on reader feedback…

The above story has been told and retold so many times, that you can find a number of disputed bits of information in it, as brought to my attention by a reader – thank you!

Other accounts found state that the trip was solely for hunting, and that no Governors were involved with it, nor was it for the purpose of resolving a boundary dispute.  Another states a boundary dispute did indeed exist, but that Mississippi’s Governor merely invited Teddy to hunt in his fine State.

Accounts state that the bear was a full-size female that had been chased for hours.  The earliest cartoon drawing does indeed show a larger bear, with later iterations making the bear progressively smaller (and cuter.)  Likely, the Michtoms came across a later version of the drawing.

The Michtoms and their Teddy Bear

Morris and Rose Michtom, Russian immigrants living in Brooklyn, read the stories about Teddy and his bear, and thoroughly enjoyed the cartoon. Having moved to America penniless twenty years earlier to escape the Jewish pogroms, they earned a modest income on the side sewing stuffed animals and selling them in their tiny penny candy shop, Lollies.

Morris Michtom

Morris suggested to Rose that she sew a nice, fat bear in the cartoon image’s likeness. Rose got to work immediately, taking a piece of plush velvet material and sewing it into the now-familiar shape of a chubby bear, replete with button eyes. Morris labeled the bear “Teddy’s Bear,” and placed it in the storefront window display. It didn’t take long for over a dozen interested customers to approach the Michtoms about purchasing their Teddy Bear.

Teddy’s Bear takes over our hearts

Rumor has it that Morris and Rose wrote to and asked President Roosevelt whether or not they could name a line of stuffed bears in honor of him. President Roosevelt agreed, stating that the use of his name in politically tumultuous times could ever help sell a toy. The newly created Teddy Bears became an instant hit with children and adults across America, and the Michtoms soon found themselves unable to keep up with the growing demand.

An industry (and charity) is born

Morris and Rose’s little company sold millions of Teddy Bears, and eventually became known as the Ideal Toy Company, one of the largest toy companies in the World. Never forgetting the trials they overcame in their lives, Morris and Rose donated enormous amounts of money to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, the Jewish National Fund, and a number of other Jewish charities.

How very interesting that Morris and Rose Michtom, driven to our fine nation by angry and dangerous stereotypes, could create a beautiful (and cuddly) legacy by turning a misunderstood and majestic creature into a beloved childhood treasure for many.

Where is Teddy’s Bear today?

The original Teddy Bear (pictured to the right, ) created by Morris and Rose, was given to President Roosevelt’s grandson Kermit in 1963. One month later, it was put on display at the Smithsonian, where it still resides in perfect condition.

Perhaps the next time you see a Teddy tightly held in the arms of a happy child, you will see a symbol of triumph over adversity, acceptance of our fellow man, and compassion to all.

Celebrations: How to make Teddy Bear Cookies

Pardons as the ultimate ka-ching?

Sept. 8th is National Pardon Day.  Today commemorates our nation’s ideals with regard to political (and perhaps personal) forgiveness.

The very idea that a politician, after the initial shock and let-down we share at discovering their guilt, after having been tried by both the courts (and often the media) before our very eyes, after having been found guilty by both, is then forgiven, or “pardoned” makes many of us cringe.  When the pardon is performed at the last second by our “new” leader (the guilty parties’ replacement) prior to the demanded punishment being carried out, causes many of us to become engulfed in emotional flame. And if you disagree with the political leanings of the new leader providing the pardon, the pain may seem even more egregious.

Some Things Can Never Be Lifted from Us

The burdens of a pardon

Did you know that an official political pardon is not only a lifting of the sentence, but also of the crime itself? Not to rub salt in the wounds of those who feel they have been denied a chance to enjoy public justice of a wrong-doer…  Pardons may also be granted to individuals before they are even found guilty or convicted of a crime.  A little-known fact is that a living person up for pardon must admit guilt in order to receive it, causing the pardon to become a dual-edged sword. Receiving a pardon means you are known to be guilty but forgiven. The pardoned individual resides in a state of limbo, as President Nixon was, publicly known by all to be guilty, yet officially absolved from it. Nixon’s state of guilt resided within his heart and mind, a burden he bore all his life as a personal prison.

The Process of Personal Pardoning

We have all likely “pardoned” someone at least once in our own lives, forgiving our loved ones who transgressed, rather than sticking to our own personal “laws” and punishing them as we would someone less desirable in our lives. The difference may be the personal pain we would feel alongside them, or even the fear that we would lose that individual in our life for having provided the punishment.

In many countries, pardons are offered by leaders to individuals who have committed an offense, yet in other areas of their lives leading up to the event provided a positive or beneficial role to the society in general. We know what they did was wrong, but we also want our children to grow up learning the ideals of forgiveness, as well as the worth of service in balancing the blinded Scales of Justice.

A Short History of the Presidential Pardon

George Washington during the Whiskey Rebellion

In the United States, the power of the Presidential pardon has had issues from the outset, largely due to perceived abuses in early England’s legal system by the royalty.  George Washington provided the very first Presidential pardon, to the leaders of the Whiskey Rebellion. From that day forth, people of various political and/or social leanings have had problems with pretty much every single pardon performed by our leaders, typically stating that the pardon was made due to political expediency, or as a personal favor or payback.

Andrew Johnson pardoned thousands of former Confederates after the Civil War, Jimmy Carter pardoned Vietnam-era draft dodgers, George Bush Sr. pardoned a number of individuals, Bill Clinton pardoned 16 members of FALN, and the list goes on…

Pardoning others helps us to grow

How we feel about pardons also is related to when they occurred. How many of us are angered by George Washington’s or Andrew Johnson’s pardons? With time, the most tumultuous of pardons occurring in the past 20 years will be seen by our descendants with less angry eyes as well.  Our grandchildren just won’t get bothered by the things that once incensed us.

Pardoning as a Reflection on Us

A Presidential pardon is the political world’s answer to our own more personal episodes of forgiveness. And as in our personal lives, the Presidential pardons we agree with tend to be aligned with the Presidents (and/or transgressors) we love(d) and cherish(ed.) It is our emotional tie to the individual that belies our forgiveness of them. It is society’s love of an individual that allows us to forgive them publicly for their transgressions.

May we all, in times of trial, find individuals who will balance our goodness against our mistakes, and find us worthy to forgive and love again.  These wonderful people make it easier for us to look in the mirror, and into the faces of those we come across in life, regardless of our sins.

Grandma Moses in her painting heyday

Grandma Moses Day

September 7th is Grandma Moses Day, a celebration of the incredible, metamorphic, creative life of Anna Mary Robertson Moses.  Later in life, Mary gave up a career in embroidery because it inflicted too much agony in her hands due to arthritis.  Did she retire and kick back in leisure?  Feed the birds and cats and visit the grandchildren?  No…

At over 70 years of age, Anna Moses took up painting.   She painted night and day, figuring out how to replicate the forms and colors all around her.  Her early pictures were rough-hewn gifts to family and friends, who cherished them, despite Mary’s lack of formal artistic training.  Her art improved over the years, although remained in the eyes of many as simplistic and out of perspective at times.

Sharing an incredible life

So what did Anna paint?  She did what many an artist does when choosing a subject for a new medium – she drew from her life’s experiences, from what she knew.  And Mary had a lot to draw from, having lived a hard and painful life.

Thunderstorm, by Grandma Moses

The mother of five children, Anna gave birth to five more who all died in childbirth.  Not wanting to dwell on her losses, she immersed her adult life in taking care of her children (and grandchildren,) all the time finding joy in the daily pleasures of a simple life.  The kind and thoughful people of her life, the beautiful natural scenery she knew, the laughing children were all at times subjects of her paintings.

Becoming Grandma to the Art World

Her works began appearing in store-fronts, and eventually made their way to far-away metropolitan cities, where Anna became known as Grandma Moses.  Art collectors saw in Anna’s works the echoes of a cherished era rapidly disappearing — a simpler, slower, more natural form of living.  The subjects knew who they were, what their place in it all was, and where they were going.  I’m sure was found to be comforting to those surrounded by a faster-paced, ever-shifting landscape.

Ivy Bean, Twitter’s Grandma

Social media is becoming, rapidly, the dominant form of expression in our lives, and has been taken over, with sometimes reckless abandon, by the “younger set.”  Middle age folks are there as well, and are reminding everyone how to behave civilly in this new environ.  But what about the elderly?  What about those with the most life experience to draw from and share?

Ivy Bean, world's oldest Twitter user

In mid-July of 2010, Ivy Bean passed away, quietly, at Hillside Manor care home in England.  Ivy was 104 years old, and at the time of her death was the oldest Twitter user in the World.  Ivy moved from her Facebook account (which she started at the age of 102) to Twitter, because she found it easier to maintain.

From her modest home in Bradford, Ivy shared short 140-character messages with her almost 60,000 followers, who did not seem to mind that Ivy broke Twitter protocol in sharing a number of rather mundane aspects of her life.  She tweeted about what she had for breakfast, lunch or dinner, and provided guidance and advice when she saw fit.

Sharing another incredible life

Peter Andre and Ivy Bean meeting

Ivy talked about winning a gold medal in her care home’s over-75 Olympics, and about how much fun she had bowling on the home’s new Wii.  Ivy also shared her fondness for young pop star Peter Andre.  (After Peter found out, he visited Ivy with flowers, and called her on the phone daily.)    I adored Ivy’s spirit, and whenever I saw a Twitter update from her, I treated it like gold…

Ivy Bean, for me, was everyone’s Twitter grandmother.  I needed my grandparents as I grew up, holding my hand and loving me, no matter what.   I turned to them when my parents positively baffled me (and vice versa.)  Grandma and Grandpa found ways to provide me same guidance my parents did, but I actually listened when it came with some lemonade, snickerdoodles and smiling eyes.  And hugs, lots of hugs.

We need our grandparents here, too

Can we keep this up?

Social media is in need.  It needs our grandmothers and grandfathers.  We need their voices, their smiles and hugs, their loving support and words of wisdom, to bring us down from the cacophony.  We need them to take up blogging, and remind us what life was like oh so many long years ago, and why it was that way.  Help show us what true social sharing is, as only a person who lived before computers (and perhaps even televisions) were invented can do.

We need more Ivy Beans to remind us not only to be civil, but how to talk to one another.  How to listen, especially in social forums that seem to be filled with mindless shouting from the rooftops.  Grandmas and Grandpas, join with us, and remind us how to be quiet again.  Please.

As our time online becomes more metropolitan, distancing us further from the beauty of real life on the outskirts of our computer monitors, let us hope that we find more Ivy Beans and Grandma Moses’ who allow us to collect a few careful brush strokes of natural, mundane, wisdom-filled simplicity.  We will miss you, Grandma Ivy.  God bless.

Emperor Hirohito and Harry Truman signing the peace treaty

To be sure, the end to the conflict with Japan came as welcome news to many nations worldwide. Many today tend to see Nazi Germany as being the most destructive military force in their treatment of civilians and prisoners during World War II.  In what has been called the Asian Holocaust, it is estimated that from 1933 – 1945, Japanese forces killed as many as 30 million Filipinos, Malaysians, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Indonesians and Burmese, with 23 million of them being ethnic Chinese.

Of national treasures, it is estimated that Japanese forces took more valuables from its victims than even the Nazis.  Millions were enslaved into labor camps or forced prostitution. In Nazi Germany, POWs faced a 4% death rate. In Japanese camps, the death rate was 27%; if you were ethnically Chinese, let’s just say that only 56 Chinese POWs survived the experience.

Portrait taken after Hiroshima's bombing

The devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945 was, in part, an all-out effort to stop the war. Whether or not the bombings were necessary has been a cause of great consternation, and will likely remain a moral question for centuries to come. It was, however, a powerful leveraging tool in ending the war. Alluding to the terrible destruction leveled by the atomic bombings, the Potsdam Declaration offered one of two choices to Emperor Hirohito – surrender or continued and total annihilation of Japan’s infrastructure through continued bombings.

Since 1982, in Japan this day is known as Shusen-Kinenbi, which translates to “Memorial Day for the End of the War.”  It was not until this year that a United States representative was sent to attend the memorial, out of a desire to not re-stoke emotions, and to avoid renewed calls for an apology for the bombings.  Ambassador John V. Roos was warmly welcomed by Japanese officials, and he partook in this year’s ceremonies.

Mrs. Shain and the famous photo

Japan expects a formalized visit from President Obama in November, and politicians there have already stated they have no desire for an apology; rather, they wish to provide Obama a very public and emotional forum to call, once again, for a de-nuclearization of the globe.

The photo accompanying this post is of nurse Edith Cullen Shain holding the famous picture of her receiving a celebratory kiss in Times Square following news of Japan’s surrender. The photo was taken by photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt. The man in the photo to this day is unknown, although more than 20 men have claimed to be the sailor providing the lip-lock.  Next to Shain is a smaller version of a 26-foot statue erected last year in Times Square in commemoration of the event.  Thousands of couples come to the site to recreate the kiss and get their photo taken.

Wars ending are a wonderful thing. Wars never starting are even better.

Emma Nutt

This may come as a shock to many, but telephone operator-hood did not start with women. Initially, young men were hired to do the job. Very young men. They shirked their responsibilities, were rude to (or even played pranks on) the callers, and often were found enmeshed in fist-fights, while other operators cheered them on.  As opposed to today, wherein young men are scions of responsibility and politeness.

But I digress.

Emma’s soothing voice, cultured manner of speech, and incredible patience encouraged her company to replace the young men with women, who had to be single, aged 17-26, prim and proper in appearance, and had to be of tall enough stature to reach all phone switch sockets. As with many good-paying positions at the time, African American and Jewish women were not allowed to be operators. Eventually, Emma was hired by Alexander Graham Bell himself, and is said to be able to remember every single phone number in the New England Telephone Company directory.

Before automated telephone exchanges were invented, a human being was required for all calls other than those through a shared “party” line. Callers dialed into a central operator at a “switching office,” and the operator connected you to the appropriate line to complete the connection. Because the operator’s headphones were directly patched into any connection to “facilitate the process,” many operators ultimately found themselves fired from not resisting the urge to listen in on a multitude of private conversations.

Direct-dialing systems were put into place around 1920, reducing labor costs and ensuring customer privacy. Traditional switching office operators rapidly began to disappear off the American communications landscape, relegated to be called upon only when the automated systems failed.

The synthesized speech system created by Philips Electronics for automated telephone services was named after Emma, in honor of her service.

Today is also Lily Tomlin’s birthday. Lily was aware of the connection between the day of her arrival in the World and Emma M. Nutt Day. It was the reason she chose to play an old-fashioned phone operator to the hilt.

August 28th is World Sauntering Day.  Webster’s English Dictionary labels a saunter as “a leisurely stroll, or walk.”  To me, with up to five children regularly in tow, the ability to saunter is a certain measure of discovered control in an otherwise action-filled life.  When (and if) I can simply walk in a wayward manner, without a care as to where I’m going or why, that day truly deserves holiday status.

It is a rare day when, out in public, I am not chasing our 6 year old, or answering questions from our 12 year old girls, or 14-year-old Autistic son. Or discussing the finer details of living with our oldest daughter, who is 21 and has Asperger’s Syndrome.  Oh, to enjoy a simple sauntering, having no reason for where I’m heading, or no hurry with regard to the pace.  To not have to cry out the name of one progeny or another, no bidding to even utter a consonant to another human being.  To simply turn my gaze to the clouds, to the store fronts, to the very sidewalk itself…

World Sauntering Day was founded in 1979 by William T. Rabe of Mackinac Island, Detroit, one of many publicity stunts Mr. Rabe created as Public Relations Director for the Grand Hotel.  Mr. Rabe wanted people to spend more time enjoying downtown Detroit, a city he was very proud of, and created the holiday as a reply to the rapidly growing health fad of jogging.

The idea of a Sauntering day took hold quickly, years later officially declared on the steps of the very hotel it was founded at. As the years progressed, other countries began to celebrate the holiday, giving Sauntering Day the additional “World” status.

Other unusual holidays promulgated by Mr. Rabe and celebrated on Mackinac Island annually are Snowman Burning Day, to celebrate the end of Winter, and Unicorn Questing Month, wherein people get together and hunt unicorns all around the island.

Sadly, William passed away on April 5, 1992.

If you find yourself out and about today,  in William Rabe’s memory, why not slow down for a bit, and simply enjoy the easy task of placing one foot in front of another?