Let’s Celebrate

I just realized that July is National Ice Cream Month.  So, what are the other months?  In other words, I can’t imagine any month that isn’t a good month to eat ice cream.

June is often a season of graduation ceremonies.  We didn’t have any in the family this year, but a number of my young friends graduated.  The one ceremony I was actually able to attend was a “transition” ceremony for the students at the S. John Davis Center.  This is a program for kids who have completed high school, but due to some disability, need more vocational training and job skills.  They have all worked very hard, and most of them have jobs lined up.  They were proud to “transition” to the world of work, but happy to be together one last time.  They were all dressed up.  One of the students played Pomp and Circumstance on the piano as they marched it.  Several students gave excellent speeches.  I thought that my friend Christiana was one of the prettiest girls up there in her deep blue dress.   She is now working with a group that distributes newspapers and flyers to homes.  I’m very proud of Christiana and her classmates.  They deserve to be celebrated.

Here is my grandson, Jonas.  He has frosting all over his mouth from eating a cupcake.  The cupcake is part of a family celebration of all of the May and June birthdays in the family–his uncle’s, mine, his mother’s.  But Jonas doesn’t know that.  He is just celebrating eating a cupcake.  As for me, I am just celebrating having Jonas around for a little while.

This photo could also go with a previous post, Farewell to John Shepherd-Barron–inventor of the ATM.  Jonas’ T-shirt is a gift from a relative who hopes he will some day attend what was formerly called Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College.  But his shirt says ATM all over it.

Sometimes I’m much too busy celebrating to bother writing about it.  My son Matthew spent two years serving as a missionary for our church, but he just returned home–and all of his siblings came home for the event.  It was a fun celebration.  The photo is of us in the airport.

John Shepherd-Barron, the inventor of the automatic teller machine, has died in his native Scotland at the age of 84.  His inspiration came from the combination of being locked out of his bank when he wanted to get to some of his own money, and being able to purchase chocolate bars from a machine.  He combined those two ideas, and now we can withdraw cash from nearly anywhere.

Today is the birthday of two of my favorite people:  my very favorite second son, Matthew, and one of my favorite guardian Angels, Gail.  May you both be happy and blessed!

I missed “Star Wars Day” yesterday, so I’ll have to wait a whole year for the opportunity to go around telling people, “May the Fourth be with you.”

(AP Photo, Kelly Weaver, pub in Washinton Post)

Just in time for Earthworm Appreciation Day, scientists at the University of Idaho have announced the discovery of two live specimens of the legendary Palouse Earthworm.  The worm has translucent skin so that its internal organs are easily seen, and it is rumored to grow up to three feet long.  They used to be abundant in the Palouse prairie of Washington and Idaho, but the prairie has been settled and farmed until very little of it is in its natural state.  The worms had been considered extinct since the 1980’s until a researcher dug one up in 2005.  Unfortunately, her shovel cut it in half.  This time, scientists used electric shocks to drive the earthworms above ground so that they could be caught alive.  The largest worm caught was only 10-12 inches long–hardly a giant.  But perhaps like Nessie and Sasquatch, the truly giant Palouse Earthworms still roam free beneath our feet.

Ross and Louise Nielsen celebrated their 67th Wedding Anniversary on April 20.  That is quite a milestone to celebrate.

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year. 

He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,–
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm.”

*  *  *  *  *

But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns. 

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
*  *  *  *  *

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,—
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

excerpts from Longfellow’s poem “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere”