Words 10.24

 Words Twice a Week        10.24

If you are more into listening than reading, Words Twice a Week is available, along with other good stuff, as a podcast from St Paul’s Episcopal Church.  Click here.

So we are back at it, but we are st camp – no real internet access – so not too much for this week.  I guess I don’t really know what days the church takes note of this week, but here are some days we might want to be aware of -

And first off, today, well, yesterday by the time this gets posted – Oct 24

+ Harry Houdini’s last performance in 1926.

+ it is the birthday of Sara J Hale in 1788.  She pushed for Thanksgiving to be a holiday and she wrote Mary Had a Little Lamb.

+ Denise Levertov was born in 1923.  She said “I’m not very good at praying, but what I experience when I‘m writing a poem is close to prayer.”

Oct 25

+ Geoffrey Chaucer died in 1400.  He wrote The Canterbury Tales, which “did much to establish the English language as a viable vehicle for literature.

+ Anne Tyler was born in 1941.  She wrote several books that I have really enjoyed – Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, The Vinegar Girl (a retelling of Taming of the Shrew), and another where the wife and mother just walks off into another life for a few years.  She wrote Saint Maybe, which I am getting ready to read again. I read it years ago, and saw the movie (not as good!), and am thinking that as we get into January, it might be fun to get folks to read on zoom, a chapter a night.  More about that as January gets closer.  I think what I like about Anne Tyler is that in her stories things don’t work out the way they kind of “should”, or you would like them to, but still life is good.

Oct 26

+ the Erie Canal opened in 1825.  It created eastern markets for agricultural products of the Great Lakes region, and gave Pete Seeger a couple of good songs to sing!  As we were on the Mississippi learning about river transport, and again reading about Lewis and Clark, until the railroads and then the interstates, water was how things where transported (“shipped”!).

Oct 27

+ Rex Stout died in 1975.  He wrote Nero Wolfe mysteries.  I really liked the way he created a whole world in the four story brownstone complete with rituals and routines and wonderful characters – and of course, a smart-alack secretary/detective Archy Goodwin.

Oct 28

+ Constantine’s victory at Milvian Bridge in 312.  Before the battle, he saw a cross in the sky, and after his victory he championed Christianity, granting it toleration and extending imperial favor.  “On the one hand, this marked the end of persecution.  On the other, by uniting church and state, there began a diminution of the gospel’s radicalness, a dilemma that haunts the church to this day.”  - W Paul Jones

Oct 29

+ Clarence Jordan died in 1969.  He wrote The Cotton Patch Gospel.  He helped establish Koinonia Farm in Americus, Georgia, a forerunner to Habitat for Humanity.

+ Stock market crash in 1929

+ first ball-point pen sold in 1945 – changes the way people wrote, and helped foster “throw-away” products.  I still enjoy getting out the fountain pen now and then.

+ NOW – the National Organization for Women was organized in Chicago in 1966.

Oct 31

+ Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the chapel door.

+ Harry Houdini died in 1929.  He had been hit in the stomach (as a result of a challenge) before he was ready, and possibly suffered damage to internal organs.

+ it’s the birthday of John Keats – sorry, don’t know the year.

+ I have it written down that in 2011 this was “the day of seven billion”.  I assume that means that according to some tally, the world population hit seven billion.

+ and of course, it’s Halloween – kind of an odd holiday, according to W Paul Jones, it’s the second most lucrative US commercial holiday.

Seems like we ought to write a poem about all this, following Denise’s thought -

So, no links to help you with this – you’ll have to look stuff up on your own.  But that’s what I got for now…..

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