It All Fits Together Somehow

There it was lying face down in the parking lot. I was leaving work this evening and it caught my eye in the almost darkness. A single puzzle piece. I stopped to look at it. I didn't turn it over nor did I even touch it. I just looked at it.
A single puzzle piece.
Isn't that what life's all about? Don't we spend most of our time and our energy trying to find the pieces of our puzzle and place them where they fit?
I left that piece for someone in actual need of it to find and place just so in their own puzzle. Right now the pieces of my puzzle seem to be fitting together quite nicely.
As this year ends and the next begins I wish us all gentle success in our search for the pieces of our own puzzles.
Happy New Year!

Bottom Line is -- Happy Birthday

The origins of "Happy Birthday To You" date back to the mid-nineteenth century, when two sisters, Patty and Mildred J. Hill, began singing the song "Good Morning To All" to their Kentucky kindergarten class. In 1893, they published the tune in their songbook Song Stories for the Kindergarten. However, many believe that the Hill sisters most likely copied the tune and lyrical idea from other songs from that time period. There were a number of popular and substantially similar nineteenth-century songs that predated the Hill sisters' composition, including Horace Waters' "Happy Greetings to All"; "Good Night to You All", also from 1858; "A Happy New Year to All", from 1875; and "A Happy Greeting to All", published 1885. The copyright for both the words and the music of "Good Morning to All" has since expired and both are now a part of public domain.

The Hill Sisters' students enjoyed their teachers' version of "Good Morning To All" so much that they began spontaneously singing it for birthday parties, changing the lyrics to "Happy Birthday". In 1924, Robert Coleman included "Good Morning to All" in a songbook with the birthday lyrics as a second verse. Coleman also published "Happy Birthday" in The American Hymnal in 1933. Children's Praise and Worship, edited by Andrew Byers, Bessie L. Byrum and Anna E. Koglin, published the song in 1918.

So, thanks to the Hill Sisters for giving us something to sing about.

What Decade Is It, Anyway?

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote an article in Sunday's opinion section entitled, "The Big Zero" in which he analyzes the economic history of the 2000s. It begins as follows:

"Maybe we knew, at some unconscious, instinctive level, that it would be an era best forgotten. Whatever the reason, we got through the first decade of the new millennium without ever agreeing on what to call it. The aughts? The naughties? Whatever. (Yes, I know that strictly speaking the millennium didn’t begin until 2001. Do we really care?)"

Yes, we do. I am one of the people who really cares, and if you knew me ten years ago, you heard it then; I just didn't have access to a blog at the time. The last year of the twentieth century was not 1999, it was 2000. The first year of the twenty-first century was 2001. Accordingly, the last year of whatever this decade is called will be the coming year, 2010. We will begin the teens, as I assume they will be called, in 2011, just a couple of days from a year from now.

Think about your birthday, for instance. Say you are going to be 58 tomorrow. That means you will have completed fifty eight years of life, and the day after your birthday - New Years Eve - you will begin working on year number fifty nine. So if on New Years Eve someone wishes you a happy 58th year, you should tell them that you have already completed fifty eight years in the world. If they then change the subject and opine that they are looking forward to the coming decade being better than the last, you should tell them that the decade for which they are so eager won't begin for another year. Or perhaps you should just say, "Thank you and happy new year to you", drink your champagne and shut up.

So Many Books, So Little Time

The Other Family Human and I are both great lovers and collectors of books. When we merged households a few months ago, the bookcases which held her volumes were joined by boxes and boxes which held mine. We went out and bought more bookcases and made room for them, and not long ago, every book had a place on a shelf. But there was no order to them, and we had to go through every bookcase every time we were looking for a particular volume. So, we decided to organize them on this long holiday weekend.

Often, I walk into a library and find myself overwhelmed by how many books there are in the world and how few of them I have read. But it's even more humbling to stand in your own home and be overwhelmed by how many books you own that you haven't yet read, or read but don't remember, or would love to read again, that is if there weren't so many that you'd never read.

So now we're organizing, and before too long I'll be able to say, "oh, we've got that" and walk right to it on the shelf. In the meantime, I'm getting acquainted with the books of the Other Family Human and reacquainted with my own. We paused for a break yesterday, and opened some holiday gifts. We received some gift certificates--how nice! To Barnes and Noble. Uh-oh. More books.

Let Us Praise - Teachers

In a town where classical composers were called 'those long hairs' and where high school graduation was considered the ultimate academic achievement, Elizabeth 'Betty' Jerles ignored circumstance and possibly common sense and taught music. She taught my Uncle Collins music. She taught my mother music. She taught my brother music. She taught me music. And she was still teaching music when I returned to stand for a class picture as a teacher on the same steps and practically in the same position I stood as a first grader. Mrs. Jerles cowed her students and the school administrators and possibly the entire little Arizona town of Wickenburg into believing that a bunch of seemingly hick kids could not only attend and endure symphonies but could, with patience and frequent stern looks, appreciate pieces they would never in their wildest imaginings hear in their own homes. Through out her long career she never lost energy or focus or passion.
For example -- She provided free of charge after school private piano lessons. I studied with her even though my family had no piano. No piano? That seemed a trivial blip on the radar scope of her enthusiasm. She gave me a card board mock up of a piano keyboard and told me to sing the notes as I practiced. She then invited me to come to her home any time to practice on her piano. I became the best cardboard piano player in Arizona. I know because she told me and even though I had little competition in that particular niche, I felt accomplished and excited and special.
For example -- Each Halloween she and her elderly mother (with whom she lived during my childhood) asked every trick or treater to sign their guest book. Then both Mrs. Jerles and her mother made much of guessing what student cowered behind each mask even though they probably knew who we were before we even rang the door bell. Both she and her mother knew how to make a fuss.
For example -- Every December she mounted a Christmas production open to the community. The first half of the production was a play. One year I was an angel in Hansel and Gretel. During a final rehearsal Patty Purdy turned to say something to me and instead vomited all over my costume and most of me. After making sure Patty Purdy received appropriate medical attention, Mrs. Jerles turned to me and while wiping whatever meal had just escaped from Patty assured me that shows must always go on. And so that show went on without, for obvious reasons, Patty Purdy. The second half of the presentation was all Christmas music and featured those of us who had just performed in the play. After all, her talent pool was pretty small. Off went the wings and on went the robes. I was convinced that our little rag tag choir produced the richest, fullest music ever heard. I'm pretty sure most of the people who attended thought the same thing. Of course, the evening ended with the Hallelujah Chorus.
The moment Mrs. Jerles stood to direct her choir in that final piece, the entire audience also stood. And there, the tallest, was my father, his hat off and held to his chest and his face almost as stern as that of Mrs. Jerles. We were amazing. As a teacher I stood in the back of the auditorium and listened to a final rehearsal of the Chorus. The choir didn't sound quite as astonishing as I remembered but still and all it sounded pretty impressive.
And a final example -- I really liked Mrs. Jerles. I wanted to give her a gift to show her how much I appreciated all that she did for me. I was in the second grade when I presented her the finest gift I could imagine. We'd just finished round up on my father's ranch and with the gift already planted in my mind, I had saved all the tips of the ear marked calves. My gift to her was a bag full of those retrospectively revolting calf ear tips. I couldn't wait for her to open her gift. When she did her eyes behind her thick glasses did blink a few times and then she just looked at me, smiled, and said, "How thoughtful. Thank you so much."
Let us praise teachers. They don't come into our lives very often.

Let Us Praise

That's the meaning of the Hebrew word 'hallelu'. If you add 'yah' or more commonly in English 'jah' you've got 'Let Us Praise God'.
I knew a woman, a committed Jew, who lived her life surrounded by books and the love of art and literature and knowledge and Judaism in several different languages. She also spent her very long life not believing in the existence of a god.
I did not meet her until most of her amazing mind had betrayed her and most of her memory had abandoned her. She lived in a nursing home and said little except 'Good idea' in response to something of interest and 'Hallelu' when something really warranted her praise.
Never, though, did she say 'Halleluyah' because not even dementia could create in her a belief she did not possess.
Let us praise integrity.
Hallelu and Good idea.

A Little Kindness

An agency in the area where I used to live and work hosted a holiday dinner party for a group of people who have fallen upon hard times. There are a lot of such people around these days. It was a great meal. There was fried chicken and rice, potato salad and green salad, two kinds of cake and a bowl of fruit. I was invited because I had recently done a presentation for this group. The person who invited me asked me a religious question: one of the participants is an observant Muslim. Would she be able to partake of the chicken that would be served at this meal? Maybe she would, I said, but to be sure, I would stop by a nearby Mediterranean restaurant that I knew served halal meat (meat which has been prepared in compliance with Muslim dietary laws) and pick up a portion of chicken. This simple act took about fifteen minutes and cost about seven dollars.

All those who participated were grateful for the dinner, but the person for whom I bought the chicken was overwhelmed. She could not stop marveling that her personal religious needs had been taken into consideration. Her gratitude caused me to think about how very little out of the way we need to go to make someone else's day. It makes me want to do it more often.