Wordless Wednesday
Category Archives: Seasonal
70° at 45° North Latitude (Reprise)
I get a free vacation day on the fifth Monday of every month. Enjoy these images from April of 2011, just four years ago.
This is what a 70° day can look like in Northern Vermont. Yes, that is Lake Champlain. Yes, that is snow on top of the ice on Lake Champlain. I took those photos April 9, 2011, when the ice was still in but a southern breeze had pushed warm air up from the Gulf of Mexico.
It is probably not that warm today.
Looking southerly:
Looking west (that speck in the distance may be what’s left of a fishing shanty):
Looking northerly:
Merry Christmas, Everyone!
In Charlotte, Vermont, in 2008, a school got hammered to take down its candy cane decorations because a grinch there says they have an overt Christmas message. Federal Reserve examiners in 2010 told a hometown bank that it must remove crosses, Bible verses, and Christmas buttons because they could be offensive. The Fed says the Christian paraphernalia violated federal bank regulations. In 2012, the owner of a New Jersey business faced thousands in fines because he installed a 40-foot tall inflatable Santa Claus on his retail store rooftop. CANDY CANES and SANTA! The Menorah and the Glitter Moon and Star for Ramadan probably stayed up at the school, though.
Every radio station has defaulted to Christmas music. I’m surprised we haven’t lost that, too. I don’t particularly like Christmas music but my radio has an off switch. I don’t have to listen to it if I don’t want to.
I was raised in a family that was Quaker on one side, Presbyterian on the other. I may not be as organized now as I was when I reached the age of accountability and joined the Presbyterian church but I am still a Christian. And, of course, a WASP.
You don’t have to be either.
Tomorrow is the day Christians celebrate the birth of the Christ child and the meaning of Christianity. It was a pretty big day before the stock exchange took it over.
It doesn’t mean Do unto all the other religions, then cut out. Unless you are a Member of Congress.
Here’s the thing. If you offer food to the monks on Vesak, Buddha’s Birthday, I will honor your commitment to the poor. If you celebrate Diwali, the Festival of Lights, I will honor with you the victory of Lord Ram over the demon-king Ravana. If you fast during Ramadan when the Qur’an was revealed to Mohammad, I will honor your patience and humility. If you celebrate the most solemn and important of Jewish holidays, Yom Kippur, I will honor your atonement and repentance. If you light the candles of Kwanzaa, I will help you honor your heritage. And if you are a lib’rul atheist, I will not proselytize.
That maybe the most important message.
Not one American soldier in Afghanistan, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, Cuba, Egypt, Germany, Greece, Greenland, Guam, Honduras, Indian Ocean, Iraq, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Netherlands, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, the United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, or the United States has forced any man, woman, or child to convert to Christianity at the point of a gun this year.
You don’t have to be a Buddhist, a Hindu, Islamic, a Jew, a Kwanzaan celebrant, or an atheist. It is time, on this Christian holy day, to let Christians be Christians.
My right to impose my own beliefs stops at my property line (or the end of my nose when I’m out in public). The Charlotte, Vermont, grinch’s right to his own idiocy stops at pretty much the same place. It is time to stop accepting that “politically correct” credo and start honoring the true message of Christmas.
Scythian philosopher Anacharsis wrote in the 6th century BCE, “Wise men argue causes, and fools decide them.”
Peace.
This column originally appeared on Christmas Day, 2008. It required very little updating.
Winter Is Here!
Winter is here! Tra la, tra la! I shall go to the beach to celebrate!
The Winter Solstice arrived last night at 23:03 p.m. “UTC” here in South Puffin. That would be 6:03 p.m. in real Eastern Standard Time here. Why did the New World Order change from GMT to UTC, anyway? What on earth was wrong with Greenwich Mean Time?
The winter solstice marks the shortest day and longest night of the year but sunsets are already getting later. 4:14 p.m. EST in North Puffin and 5:40 p.m. EST here today. Tell me again why we don’t have Daylight “Saving” Time year round? A 6:40 p.m. sunset sounds pretty good to me.
My shadow on the beach at noon yesterday and today will be the longest of the year.
Winter.
The rain over the southeast has broken up and spread out a bit — it was pretty heavy as far south as central Florida last night. A lightning strike at an NFL game in Tampa almost hit seven fans.
It was 17° and foggy in North Puffin this morning which is 10° warmer than yesterday. The first day of winter there will be partly sunny with a high of just under freezing on nice light southeast winds. On the other hand, it was 75° here when I first checked. Here in South Puffin, we do have a slight 10% chance of showers coming in on southeast winds but I’m seeing partly-to-mostly sunny with the high temp topping 80°!
Winter.
I like to hit the beach in late afternoon.
My beach faces south into the Atlantic that divides us from Cuba (Cuba is closer to Key West than Walmart). The navigation channel is a hundred yards or so off shore so we get some interesting boat traffic.
Our osprey came a’calling a couple of times recently. He landed on the roof one day, but chose a palm frond the next. That big bird bounced the palm enough that I got seasick.
Kids discovered a mermaid earlier this month.
Two women and two kids were there the other day. Both kids and one of the women went in the chilly 70° water, That woman did it clean the sand out of the top of her bathing suit. See, she had been shelling and dropped the shells into her top.
A friend saw something very seal/walrus like rolling around amongst the bait fish but I missed it.
Despite all the attractions, my beach is the most relaxing place in the islands.
Low tide is at 2:34 p.m. and high at 9 so the most beach will be about when I’m swimming this afternoon. And I shall do the Penguin Plunge on Christmas Day.
Merry Christmas, y’all!
Giving Thanks
Today is America’s primary pagan festival again, celebrated to show love to the gods for a bountiful harvest on a New England day in which fields are now mostly covered in snow and which George Washington proclaimed as a day of thanks as a national remembrance.
Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor, and Whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me ‘to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness’.”
While it is easy for this curmudgeonly writer to kvetch about the corruption and thievery stretching from here to Washington or to fret about the desk I write at, those are just everyday irritants and (thankfully) I know how to fix them.
I am thankful my grandfather at age 94 decided to live out his very good life in the Keys.
I am thankful I have the ability, the tools, and the wherewithall to fix the roof of the house my grandfather and parents lived out their very good lives in the Keys in.
I am thankful I started my life as an engineer and am now spending some of it as an artist.
I am thankful that Anu reminded me of a word and a writer (The Tontine by Thomas B. Costain) I have enjoyed since I started eating turkey at the grownup table.
I am thankful we will have friends here today.
I am thankful my children, my grandchildren, and my great-grandchildren are happy, healthy, and will be well fed again today.
I am thankful Anne is here today and will be here tomorrow.
I am thankful for Anne and for Nancy, two loving, caring, beautiful ladies. I am blessed.
And I have pah!
This column mostly appeared last year because being thankful goes on year round. The original Thanksgiving Perspective is here.