Stuff 2 Know
July 23, 2019
Notes from around our human experience, including Philosophy 101, On This Date and an excerpt from one of my books.
PHILOSOPHY 101
“We are going to sing so that they will remember this for the rest of their lives. There is no other reason to do it, folks, none.”
Garrison Keillor
Love Me
We will always be grateful for this quote because it utterly crystalizes what we try to do. A version of it appears at the top of whatever doc I’m writing on because if we are not writing so you will remember it forever and ever every time we sit down to ply this trade, then we are not writing, we are merely typing and we are wasting your time and ours.
Those who believe that only those people who amuse or entertain or thrill us can do something memorable are wrong. Nothing is further from the truth. Every single one of us can do something memorable. Based on those whom we remember, it can be anyone. Sure, teachers and coaches and masters have left their mark on us, but so have sports officials, waiters and waitresses and auto mechanics. What those who have left their mark on us have in common is they were doing what they were meant to be doing with their lives.
There is no other reason to do it, folks, none…
What are you doing that people will remember for the rest of their lives? As noted, what it is is of no consequence. We write. Bully for us. There are a lot of people who won’t read this, a loss they appear to be taking disappointingly well. No matter. It is sufficient that we wrote this because we would not be doing anyone any good if we hadn’t.
Why you do something is all that matters. If you are acting because of force deep inside you, if you are following your heart and trusting your instincts, if you are living the life you are meant to live, then you are doing yourselves and everyone around you the most good.
Garrison Keillor is an American humorist.
Running The Numbers
Our national debt as I write this is $22.525 trillion. and America has been at war for 10,809 consecutive days.
QWERTY
The machine that would eventually become the typewriter, then known as the typographer, is patented by American inventor William Austin Burt on this date in 1829. Burt had built his typographer to help out with the correspondence required in his job as a government surveyor. Burt also invented the solar compass and the equatorial sextant.
Uh, We’ll Be Experiencing A Slightly Rough Landing
What History now refers to as the Gimli Glider, Air Canada Flight 143, lands without fuel at a former Royal Canadian Air Force Base west of Gimli, Manitoba on this date in 1983. All 69 people on board survived, though ten were injured during evacuation. Flight 143 was on it’s way from Montreal to Edmonton and plane ran out of fuel because the amount of fuel needed had been calculated in pounds instead of kilograms, resulting in the plane having less than half the fuel required for the trip.
CHARTWATCH
#1 songs on this date in 1955:
Best Sellers In Stores – Rock Around the Clock…Bill Haley and His Comets (3rd of eight weeks)
Soul Chart – Unable to determine
Country Chart – In the Jailhouse Now…Web Pierce (21st and final week, tying country and Billboard overall chart record)
UK Singles Chart – Dreamboat…Alma Cogan (2nd and final week)
Album Chart – Lonesome Echo…Jackie Gleason (2nd and final week)
– Chart data courtesy of Billboard (US) and Official Charts Company (UK).
TODAY’S KAITLYN BOOK EXCERPT
From my latest novel The Angel and The Captain
In today’s episode, Angel and her Captain, plus Ma and Aunt Marsha
Dear me, this was nice. The Captain announced our arrival on an intercom and only after our reservations were confirmed were we allowed in. The entrance is right there as you leave the Pirates of the Caribbean so there were – eeek! – commoners languishing around, people not dining at Club 33 like we were, and some of them were straining their necks to see in. I sincerely hope all of them got the view they desired.
The room we entered was smaller than I thought it would be. An old elevator, a replica of one Walt saw in Paris, took us to the second floor. The dining room was elegant, of course, with Disney art on the walls, but the Chancellor’s Room was nicer. First-class versus world-class.
Mom and Marsha hadn’t had a toddy since the night before, so there was an immediate cocktail ration issued right after we seated near some large glass doors.
Dinner was leisurely. The Captain’s friend sent over a bottle of champagne and we all had cocktails. After a while, our head server, a nice, gentle woman named Kim, accompanied by a young waiter, came with the amuse-bouche, which is, of course, pronounced amooz boosh. An amuse-bouche is a small appetizer offered to guests at fancy joints like this – and oh, I don’t know, the Chancellor’s Room – with the chef’s compliments. It translates from the original French as “entertains the mouth” and is intended to whet the appetite for the rest of the evening’s festivities.
Tonight’s amuse-bouche, according to Kim, was a skewer of pork belly, topped with tomato jam. Don’t laugh. I know from experience that pork bellies often show up on fine dining menus even though it sounds gross at first.
Mom and Marsha could not stop fretting over the menu! There weren’t any soup or salad choices, but there were several appetizer and entrée choices, of course, as well as three dessert options.
“Oooh, those fancy-pants scallops…Marsha, look!” Mom said, as if Marsha couldn’t read the menu herself, which made the Captain laugh.
“Scallops my ass,” Marsha said, pointing out the cranberry shortbread Muscovy duck pot pie.
Personally, there was no doubt what Angel would be having. The Captain has turned me into a spoiled brat and my appetizer would have to be the artisan osetra caviar and my entrée the roasted foie gras. Sorry.
Realizing decisions needed to be made before closing, Mom ultimately decided on the king crab-stuffed lobster tail, Marsha finally sighed and said could die happy now that she’s had the filet of pan-roasted Chateaubriand. My Captain had the foie gras, too.
Click here to read more from The Angel and The Captain.