Roger O Green

Bellflower

perspective

I think about perspective a lot, and Bellflower is a good example. It was at my daughter’s college just after her birthday, when two of her friends and her parents visited her on campus.

There was a craft show near the library. More accurately, it was a collective of artistic and literary items. One person packaged mystery packages of books; I said I had enough unread tomes.

Then I came to this item. The creator said it was a flower. But it was upside down and looked like a bell with a handle.

I had promised myself not to buy things I didn’t need. The countervailing sentiment was that I wanted to support young creatives. After perusing all the tables, I returned to the Bellflower table, only to discover that the one I wanted had sold. There were similar items, but I really wanted that particular color combination.

Oh well.

Wait, they could custom-make another one in a few weeks. Well, all right then. When we picked up the daughter from college at the end of the semester, the last stop was to pick up Bellflower.

The first container is my political button buttons jar because naturally, I have one. Or more than one. Okay, maybe it looks like a flower.

But on my hemisphere change bank, it’s a bell for sure.

I think it’s incredibly difficult to see things in different ways when another point of view makes no sense whatsoever. Yet one tries, even when it involves standing on one’s head.

All are welcome in this place!

Zeitouna

Smack dab in the middle of the weekly bulletin for my church for June 2, More Light Sunday is the message, “All are welcome in this place! New faces and voices are always welcome and add to the spirit of our worship, education, mission, and fellowship.”

I found two news stories in the past six weeks reflecting that element of shalom.

ITEM: Sacramento State’s unique approach helps bring a peaceful end to campus protest

“‘President Luke Wood oversaw a peaceful end to a campus protest over the Israel-Hamas war, one of the many that have taken place at universities nationwide in recent weeks…

“‘I did 92 listening sessions, 75 minutes each, with over 1,500 of our students, faculty, staff,’ Wood said…

“‘I got to first tell you how I feel as a person, as an individual, and really as a Black man, I get a heightened level of anxiety,’ Wood said. ‘When people are in fear, they respond in a protected mechanism, which doesn’t always lead to the best outcomes.'”

The campus encampments broke up in a couple of weeks, without violence or calling in the police.

Zeitouna

ITEM: A group of Jewish and Palestinian women uses dialogue to build bridges between cultures

“They call themselves Zeitouna — a group of six Jewish and six Palestinian women in Michigan that have been meeting twice a month for more than two* years. The name is the Arabic word for olive tree, and their motto is ‘refusing to be enemies.'”

*Based on the Zeitouna website and the CBS broadcast story, this should be TWENTY years, going back to right after 9/11.

“The safety of the group and their environment has allowed the women to remain committed to each other in the face of Oct. 7 and the war that followed.”

“‘You absorbed my pain, as I absorbed your pain. It’s important to just have a space, a place where everybody is there with open arms,'” Wadad Abed, one of the group’s members, said during a meeting.

“Diane Blumson, another Zeitouna member, told CBS News, ‘There’s room in a humanitarian way to recognize the trauma of the other. And people have lost that ability right now.'”

Members of Zeitouna were invited to the Arab-Jewish group at a nearby university to share their methodology.

Scripture

The Scripture reading for June 2 was Mark 3: 20-35. The last five versions of the NIV selection:

Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.”

“Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked.

Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”

To me, this is saying that community is where you find it, whether it be a college president swimming against the tide, a group of women from different faith traditions swimming against the tide, or churches responding with open doors.

A “conservative Christian” group called My Faith Votes notes in a recent email, “America is changing fast. We are more divided and intellectually lost than ever before. That’s why it is more crucial than ever for Christians to have a firm foundation and to align their views with the truth of God’s Word.

“Not to mention, when Christians think biblically, they vote biblically — something of grave importance this presidential election year.”

I absolutely agree with this sentiment, although I know that we would not agree with what “the truth of God’s Word” is. My God is a big-tent God.

Not incidentally, my church had a float of sorts in the Pride Parade yesterday. My daughter and I participated. The big mistake I made was falling to wear my knee brace.

Sunday Stealing: afraid of the dark?

cartoons

Here’s another edition of Sunday Stealing.

1. Are you afraid of the dark?

The dark increasingly disorients me. If I had been driving, I’d probably would have had to give it up.

My wife and I stayed in a timeshare in May. Even though I knew the layout of the room, going to the bathroom in the middle of the night was a bit terrifying. I retreated to my side of the bed and got my phone. I didn’t even need the flashlight, just the light from the screen. Before I left the loo, I left the light on and then closed the door. That minimal illumination did not disturb my wife, who is sensitive to being awakened by light when she sleeps.

To that end, I’m Afraid To Come Home in the Dark (1904) by Arthur Collins.

2. Can you curl your tongue?

Yes, in both directions.

3. Can you wiggle your ears?

No, but I’m not distressed by it.

4. Did you ever participate in a talent show?

I wrote about this about eight months ago. When I was in high school, there was a Red Cross training event in Manlius, NY, near Syracuse. At the end of the week, there was a talent show, and somehow, a couple of guys, one a blues guitarist, asked me to play with them. I stood on stage, people expecting me to sing. Instead, I played the comb. The whole thing was about 3 minutes. I got a standing ovation.

Is JEOPARDY a talent show?

5. Do you have any piercings or tattoos?

No. And while I’m more okay with them on other people, I’m unlikely to ever get one unless I reach 100.

Computer loyalty

6. Do you prefer Mac or PC?

It’s not a matter of preference. All of my computers at work were PCs, so that’s what I got at home. Indeed, I never had an Apple phone until 2018 after I lost my previous one. I’ve since replaced that one before I went to France in 2023. BTW, I believe there’s merit to the DOJ’s legal proceedings against Apple.

7. Do you still have your wisdom teeth?

No, I had mine taken out in my early twenties. Not incidentally, my daughter will likely need to get hers taken out this summer. As she has no dental insurance, it will be a costly procedure.

8. Do you watch cartoons?

I often see the Best Animated Shorts that were nominated for Oscars. I’ve seen the films Chicken Run; Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 1 and 2; Coco; Fantastic Mr. Fox; Finding Nemo; Finding Dory; Frozen; Howl’s Moving Castle; The Incredibles; Inside Out; Iron Giant; Isle Of Dogs; Moana; Monsters Inc.; Persepolis; Puss In Boots: The Last Wish; Ratatouille; Shrek 1 and 2; Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse; Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse; Spirited Away; Toy Story 1-4 Up; WALL-E; Wolfwalker; and Zootopia. And those are just the ones I can remember from the last 30 years or so.

Hospitalization

9. Have you ever been hospitalized?

An uncontrollable bloody nose when I was five and a half; the car accident in June 1972 for a day and a half; and sometime in the last 15 years when I thought I was experiencing heart irregularity, but I was okay.

10. Have you had braces?

No.

11. Were you ever a Girl or Boy Scout? (Or a brownie)

No. I was a Cub Scout for about a year. I was terrible at it. But I was very fond of our den mother, Mrs. Lia, and when her son Ray, who was in my den, got married in mid-October 1976, I was pleased to escort her to her seat.

12. What is one food you refuse to eat?

I would not say “refused” as much as I’d rather not eat anchovies.

13. What’s the most expensive item of clothing that you own?

Probably a suit.

14. What’s your favorite foreign food?

Recently, there was a story on CBS News about a South Asian restaurant that prided itself in NOT serving chicken tikka masala, which I thought was cool. Still, I’ll pick that.

15. Who’s your favorite fictional character?

Quite possibly, Peter Parker.

Country Best Sellers of 1954

Wake Up, Irene

The odd nature of the Billboard charts is that, for most of the 1950s, there were three different charts each for pop, country, and rhythm and blues categories.

So there was a Country Best Sellers of 1954 roster; the category (BS) began in May 1948. But there were also ones for JukeBox (JB), starting in January 1944, and Jockeys (JY- radio play) starting in December 1949.

As it turns out, the three biggest hits for the year spent multiple weeks in each category. These are all familiar names, probably from the nights listening to WWVA in Wheeling, WV.

I Don’t Hurt Anymore – Hank Snow, the Singing Ranger, and the Rainbow Ranch Boys, b20 weeks at #1 (BS 20, JB 20, JY 18)

Slowly – Webb Pierce, 17 weeks at #1 (BS 17, JB 17, JY 15) , co-written by Pierce

More And More – Webb Pierce, 10 weeks at #1 (BS 10, BS 9, JY 8)

The rest of the #1s topped the chart in only one metric.

Bimbo – Jim Reeves, 3 weeks at #1 (JY). In this usage, the title doesn’t mean what you might think it does.

Wake Up, Irene – Hank Thompson and His Brazos Valley Boys, 2 weeks at #1 (JB)

(Oh Baby Mine) I Get So Lonely – Johnny & Jack, 2 weeks at #1 (JY). The duo was composed of Johnnie Wright (1914–2011) and Jack Anglin (1916–1963). “Johnny was married to Kitty Wells and the duo’s 25-year career together ended in 1963 when Jack was killed in a car wreck while going to Patsy Cline’s funeral.”

Even Tho – Webb Pierce, 2 weeks at #1 (JY). Webb was the lyricist.

A single week at #1

I Really Don’t Want To Know – Eddy Arnold, the Tennessee Plowboy and his guitar (JB)

One by One – Kitty Wells and Red Foley (JB)

Interestingly, there is no overlaps in terms of the #1s on the pop, country and RB charts in 1954. This would prove to be untrue when we get to 1956. You can blame Elvis Presley and the wave of musicians who charted with him.

But the seeds were planted in ’54, as Elvis made his first Sun Records recording, and Johnny Cash made his move from Sun.

These are a few of my favorite words

FACE-TEA-US-LEE

A Facebook friend wrote, “Don’t you just hate when you forget to say certain things during an argument, and then you remember… like two hours later?” I replied with a link to my post about treppenwitz, one of my favorite words. German has a lot of wonderful words, mostly very long, and I don’t tend to remember them, but that one stuck.

A nice short word, ersatz, is also from the German. I found it in a book about Beatles and post-Beatles albums. Ringo put out Goodnight Vienna in the mid-1970s. John, Paul, and George all appear on various tracks, and the author described the collection as “an ersatz Beatles album.”

When Wendy and Richard Pini concluded the original 20-issue run, they mentioned that # 19 was the penultimate issue. How did I miss this word? And it was one of my favorite words until I discovered antepenultimate, the one before the next to the last.

Prefixes I didn’t know always make me happy. Sesquicentennial, meaning the 150th anniversary, is one, but oddly, I don’t remember what entity was experiencing that milestone.

French words I tend to love, such as rendezvous and reconnaissance. Those two, in particular, seem rather Bondian.

Some words I like because they’re fun to say: Onamonapia is cool because the word fits a niche in my brain. It is “the formation or use of words such as buzz or murmur that imitate the sounds associated with the objects or actions they refer to.” I can’t spell it, though.

I enjoy the word facetiously for two reasons. It has all six vowels alphabetically, and the pronunciation is not apparent. There are words I intentionally mispronounce privately to remind me how to spell them. FACE -TEA-US-LEE. There are others, but none are coming to mind presently.

In a rut

There are words I use way too often. Suboptimal pops up when a decision is required without enough data or when the lesser of two bad choices must be made.

Since October 7, 2023, the word fraught has popped up in my mouth too often. No matter what position one takes on the Israel/Gaza conflict, the chance that someone else will misrepresent their views is exceptionally high.

But my favorite word is one I created, or so I believe. Lunaversary “is the monthly recurrence of a notable event. It is far more accurate than ‘one-month anniversary,’ and far shorter to boot.” As I noted, I sent the word to the late William Safire, the New York Times columnist of On Language, who seemed to like it.

BTW, Safire was a speechwriter in the White House of Richard Nixon. He wrote “nattering nabobs of negativism” for Spiro T. Agnew in a 1970 attack on the press. I hate the sentiment, but admittedly, I love the vocabulary.