Today Is My Birthday

     

Tucson Weather Today

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"Two things happen when you get to be old. One, you gather experience and knowledge. You learn from your mistakes, and thereby offer wisdom to others. The second thing that happens is that you grow forgetful, ornery and senile, and when you offer advice, well, you sometimes just don't know what you're talking about."
--Camron Wright,

Today I turned into a 75-year-old. I hate viewing myself in photographs because I do not see myself as I appear to my eyes in the mirror, and especially as I see myself in my imagination. Nowadays my image in photos reminds me of my maternal grandfather. Good God! I truly look like Grandpa Morris looked throughout his final few years.

Actually, I never thought I'd make it this far. I remember that, for most of my teenage years I often swore (loudly and boastfully) that I would never see 30. And I sincerely believed that to be a fact.

Born in Rensselaer, Indiana in 1939, around the time that Adolph Hitler decided to invade Poland, I grew up to become a real wild child - a young, careless, thrill-seeking, authority-hating, and extremely dangerous mush-brained rebel... who was stupidly granted at the age of 16 a valid but potentially lethal driver's license.

Statistically speaking, I should never have survived my teen years.

But, somehow, I did.

WOW!

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Historical Events

On this day, May 19, in 1967 one of the first major treaties designed to limit the spread of nuclear weapons went into effect as the Soviet Union ratifies an agreement banning nuclear weapons from outer space. The United States, Great Britain, and several dozen other nations had already signed and/or ratified the treaty. With the advent of the so-called "space race" between the United States and the Soviet Union, which had begun in 1957 when the Russians successfully launched the Sputnik satellite, some began to fear that outer space might be the next frontier for the expansion of nuclear weapons.

The agreement was yet another step toward limiting nuclear weapons. In 1959, dozens of nations, including the United States and the Soviet Union, had agreed to ban nuclear weapons from Antarctica. With the action taken in May 1967, outer space was also officially declared off-limits for nuclear weapons.

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Word Definition

hygroscopic
adjective
absorbing or attracting moisture from the air.

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Other People Born May 19th, 1939

Francis Richard "Dick" Scobee

(May 19, 1939 - January 28, 1986)

Dick Scobee was an American astronaut. He was killed commanding the Space Shuttle Challenger, which suffered catastrophic booster failure during launch of the STS-51-L mission.

Nancy "Ka Shen" Kwan

(born May 19, 1939)

Nancy Kwan is a Hong Kong-born, biracial American actress (Flower Drum Song, World of Suzie Wong) who played a pivotal role in the acceptance of actors of Asian ancestry in major Hollywood film roles.

Tomasz Sikorski

(May 19, 1939 - 12 Nov 1988)

Tomasz Sikorski was a Polish composer and pianist.

James Fox

(born 19 May 1939)

James Fox is an English actor. He first appeared on film in The Miniver Story in 1950. In 1964, he won a BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer for his role in The Servant (1963). He had roles in films such as Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965), King Rat (1965), The Chase (1966), Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967), Isadora (1968), and Performance (1970, alongside Mick Jagger),

Another Person Born May 19

(but not in 1939)

Johns Hopkins

(May 19, 1795 – Dec 24, 1873)

Johns Hopkins was an American entrepreneur, abolitionist and philanthropist of 19th-century Baltimore, Maryland. His bequests founded numerous institutions, including Johns Hopkins Hospital, Johns Hopkins University, Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

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"As my late mother famously observed, the one thing to be said for growing old is that every year there are a few more things I don’t have to give a rat’s ass about."
--Lawrence Block

This Is Who I Am

   

"Ain't Nothing But A Hound Dog"

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I have mentioned many times in earlier blog entries that I was born in 1939, but did you know that there were a great many noteworthy events and subjects of great interest at that particular time in history? Well, it's true.

For one thing, 1939 was the year when World War II began in Europe when Adolph Hitler's German army troops invaded Poland. Also, a Douglas DC-4 began passenger service between Chicago and New York carrying 40 passengers. A refrigerator cost $22.98 - A man's suit cost $13.95 - A washing machine cost $39.95 - A bicycle cost $28.95. And only 3% of Americans qualified to pay income tax

In 1955 I turned 16 and the Hot Songs were: Rock Around The Clock by Bill Haley and The Comets - Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White by Perez Prado - Sincerely by The McGuire Sisters - Sixteen Tons by Tennessee Ernie Ford - Love Is A Many Splendored Thing by the Four Aces - Yellow Rose Of Texas by Mitch Miller - and The Ballad Of Davy Crockett by Bill Hayes.

In 1955 the popular movies were: Battle Cry with Van Heflin - Blackboard Jungle with Glenn Ford - Marty with Ernest Borgnine - and To Hell And Back with Audie Murphy. More than one person (teenage girls) at that time told me that I looked a lot like . . .

Audie Murphy

Who was I to dissuade a teenage girl?

Read all about Audie Murphy here

Also in 1955 (when I was 16) came the debut of . . .

THE MICKEY MOUSE CLUB

And speaking of girls . . . I was captivated from the beginning by . . .

Annette Funicello

And my awe of her lasted through the years, all throughout the later Beach Movies (I was always so jealous of Frankie Avalon.)

Annette as an adult

Here is a link to a Youtube video of the Mickey Mouse Club singing "Now it's time to say goodbye."

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My hometown back in the so called good ol' days.

Rensselaer, Indiana, mid-twentieth century

(Notice the old cars parked along the street)

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Two Words For Today

bathos
noun
1.
a. An abrupt, unintended transition in style from the exalted to the commonplace, producing a ludicrous effect.
b. An anticlimax.
2.
a. Insincere or grossly sentimental pathos.
b. Banality; triteness.
Synonyms:
sentimentality, gooeyness, lovey-doveyness, mawkishness, mush, mushiness, saccharinity, sappiness, sentimentalism, sloppiness, soppiness.


pathos
[pey-thos, -thohs, -thaws]
noun
1.
the quality or power in an actual life experience or in literature, music, speech, or other forms of expression, of evoking a feeling of pity or compassion.
2.
pity.
synonyms
desolation, emotion, feeling, passion, pitiableness, pitifulness

Pathos is a word that throughout my lifetime I have pronounced 'PAH - those' but now (at age 72) I find it should be pronounced 'PAY - thaws' -- Oh well, live and learn.

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BORN ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Edward Everett Horton

Born March 18, 1886
Died Sept. 29, 1970

Edward Everett Horton narrated 'Fractured Fairy Tales' on the Rocky and Bullwinkle show, and in a scene in Friz Freleng's cartoon Hare Trigger, Yosemite Sam (in his debut) calls himself "the meanest, toughest, rip-roarin'-est, Edward Everett Horton-est hombre what ever packed a six-shooter!"

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I prefer the mystic clouds of nostalgia to the real thing, to be honest.
--Robert Wyatt

From Simplicity to Complexity and Back

While sorting through an old cardboard accordion file containing a mix of hoarded trash and treasure I found a yellowed and tattered copy of The Pueblo Chieftain (Pueblo Colorado) dated May 1, 1939 -- published only eighteen days before the date of my birth. On the front page, below the fold, I read:

So much for the opinion of a Chicago politician.

An ad in the same newspaper

How unbelievable is that? Huh?

I read in The Writer's Almnac that Amy Tan began her career by writing business manuals and speeches for executives. She felt pressured to write under an American-sounding pseudonym, so she chose May Brown -- she rearranged Amy to get May, and Brown is a synonym of Tan.

I found that seemingly innocuous little factoid to be of monumental interest. (Which probably reveals more about me than I intended)

At Language Log I read: John D. Muccigrosso wrote to point out something that's obvious in retrospect, namely that all those pages that say "This page intentionally left blank" are thereby not, in fact, left blank.

I found that to be amusing enough to read on, and did so for more more than an hour. Language Log's revelations fascinate me to no end, much more I'm sure than is probably healthy for me.

Speaking of amusing subjects, they literally abound on the Internet (or 'the web', or the 'blogosphere', or whatever)

For example:

There is a cute little strip published Monday, February 15, 2010 in Sheldon Comicsthat I enjoyed. Check it out. In case you missed that link, the actual URL is:

http://www.sheldoncomics.com/archive/100215.html

Strange how a phrase will sometimes announce itself within even a restless roving mind and mysteriously lodge itself therein. Such as:

. . . a hunger for sophistication . . .

The above is just a note for me to remember that I liked the blog in which I found the little sticky-mote phrase: http://betweenfactandfiction.blogspot.com/

I have recently been spending a lot of time reading and little time writing. And today's skeletal entry illustrates that fact, doesn't it?

Oh well . . .