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Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.
--Edgar Allan Poe
When I woke up this morning there were three terms quick to my lips. They were: horehound, seersucker, and mincemeat pie. Immediately I thought the three words were possibly related to some mysterious dream about the old days that had swiftly fled and was now completely blanked from my memory.
Horehounds are a classic hard sucking candy. Made from the horehound herb, horehound candy is also known to help soothe a sore throat.
Seersucker is a thin, puckered, all-cotton fabric, commonly striped or checkered, used to make clothing for spring and summer wear.
Mincemeat developed as a way of preserving meat without salting or smoking some 500 years ago in England, where mince pies are still considered an essential accompaniment to holiday dinners just like the traditional plum pudding. The flavor of old-fashioned mincemeat pie is sort of like a Middle Eastern mixture of cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg.
All three of these terms were once well-known and often-used appellations that, as a child, I learned from my grandparents, who were born and raised in the hills of Southern Indiana. Aside from horehound candy drops, which I saw a couple years ago being sold from an old-fashioned barrel in an Ace Hardware store, I have had no occasion to hear of the terms. They may be good as a cough drop, but the horehound flavor is, in my opinion, quite horrid.
I can remember, when I was about 8-years-old, looking up through the gloom of our musty basement larder at the many stored mason jars of preserved food, jars filled with tomatoes, green beans, peas, corn... and mincemeat for pies. I do not, however, remember what the pies tasted like. Except that I did not much like them.
I remember all the folks in the family talking about seersucker suits but I don't know why.
This dreaming thing, some dreams remembered, some not, is bothering me to a certain extent. Why are my recent dreams so filled with these Remembrances Of Times Gone By(e)?
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Did You Know . . .?
"By the end of 2014, the small Spanish island of El Hierro is projected to be completely energy-independent, powered only by wind and water.
[Note: In 2003 El Hierro's population was 10,162.
]
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HISTORICAL EVENT
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WORD FOR TODAY
cognition [kahg-NISH-uhn)
noun
1. The mental process of knowing, including aspects such as awareness, perception, reasoning, and judgment.
2. That which comes to be known, as through perception, reasoning, or intuition; knowledge.
In science, cognition is the set of all mental abilities and processes related to knowledge: attention, memory & working memory, judgement & evaluation, reasoning & "computation", problem solving & decision making, comprehension & production of language, etc. Cognition is by humans conscious and unconscious, concrete or abstract, as well as intuitive (like knowledge of a language) and conceptual (like a model of a language). Cognitive processes use existing knowledge and generate new knowledge.
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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS
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Wes Ramsey is an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his performance in the romantic drama Latter Days and for his multiple appearances in Charmed as adult Wyatt Halliwell.
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Britt Eklund is a Swedish actress. She is best known for her roles as a Bond girl in The Man with the Golden Gun and in the British cult horror film The Wicker Man, as well as marriage to actor Peter Sellers.
(born October 6, 1963)
Jsu Garcia is an American film and television actor. His first role was on the TV show Fame. He then appeared in Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street. This was followed by an appearance in Universal's Gotcha! (1985), then in features such as Wildcats, Slaves of New York, Vampire in Brooklyn, Traffic, We Were Soldier, and Collateral Damage.
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Elizabeth Shue is an American actress, known for her roles in the films The Karate Kid, Adventures in Babysitting, Cocktail, Back to the Future Part II, Back to the Future Part III, Leaving Las Vegas, The Saint, and Hollow Man.
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Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.
--Buddha
NASA TV
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