There are certain things in life that are simply…. common knowledge.  You know.  Common Knowledge.  That which is known by most people.

So my example tonight may resound with you, or it may not.  Anyone who has kids, or who has been around children, will know this one for sure.  There are two sides to every coin.  Two sides to the story.  Two to tango.  All of those dual analogies.   Consider this scenario, one which many of us know, all too well.

You here a commotion.  Arguing.  Turmoil.  It sounds like the end of the world… taking place right in the middle of your own little kitchen.  You investigate.

Upon entering the dining nook, you see the cause.  Two kids, red in the face…. each pulling on the other one’s hair…. protesting, yelling, screaming.  And between them on the table is the glass of spilled milk.  Both are crying.

“What happened here?” you ask.  “Why are you crying over this spilled milk?”

In unison, fingers drawn and pointed toward one another….”She/He DID IT!!!!”  You continue to investigate.  The more questions you ask, the more you discover…. two entirely unique and separate events transpired at this table.   Neither child did it, yet both claim the other is guilty as sin.

The stories are as divergent as night and day.  As Lawrence Welk and Janice Joplin.  As Ford Pinto and Rolls Royce.

And what do you do?  Oh wise… and kind… and loving parent…

You Compromise.

It is a word that every parent knows.  It is an absolute necessity. In any household.  Where there is more than one person… living under the same roof…  you have to establish some sort of middle ground.

And this my friends… is the United States of America.  Plain and simple.

I see it this way at least.  Here we are in the U.S.A.  All sorts of different kids living under one roof.  We are all part of one common place, where we share the good, the bad, and the ugly.

But to make it work, it has to be a group effort.  No one child is “better” than the other.  All are equal.  So.  What do we need to make this house a home?

Fundamentally, the ABCs….. Accord, Balance, and Compromise.

Lest we continue to cry over that milk.

“A lean agreement is better than a fat judgment” – Old Proverb

“Make fair agreements and stick to them” – Confucius

There is a site I recently found on the internet.  It has named itself “Word Dynamo.”

I had a little fun on this discovery.  You answer some vocabulary questions, and it calculates the number of words you know.  I had to guess on a couple of the questions.  I don’t know what the average number of words in a vocabulary is….. for the typical American.  I bet I use more dot, dot, dots than anyone else.

But when the Word Dynamo figured me out, it calculated that I knew 47,563 words.   The second time around, I measured in at 50,018 words.   And there you have it.
http://dynamo.dictionary.com/

I am not sure if this is accurate or not, but I always feel like I stick to about the same 1,000 words or so.

I seem to use them over and over and over again.  Especially here, in Project 16,010.

So tonight.  A few new words.  Selected at random.

Bailiwick: An area of interest, activity or authority.
Animadversion: A harsh critical remark.
Ribaldry: Behavior inclining towards indelicacy.
Euphony: Bearable or agreeable sound.
Foppotee: A simpleton.
Sycophant: A person who tries to gain an advantage by pleasing someone.
Gnathonize: To flatter someone.

Tonight, I feel just like a foppotee.  I heard an animadversion, and it came from a seeming sychophant, who usually attempts to gnathonize.  Low and behold, it seemed to be an act of ribaldry.  Trust me.  I am a bailiwick on this.

There.  Finally at long last.
I said it.

“If you can speak what you will never hear, if you can write what you will never read, you have done rare things” – Henry David Thoreau

It is no secret that I love photographs.  I do.  Some people have no use for them.  But I find them fascinating in every way.

Certainly, in these times, we are inundated with images.  The “Digital Age” is responsible for this.  Wholly, I think.

Long ago, the photographic image was a process.  It wasn’t something you snapped with your iPhone and cast into cyberspace to immediately find its way to the swarming hoards on Facebook.  No.

Mind you.  There is nothing wrong with this.  It is just must different from the beginnings.

Photography, in its early years,  was a premeditated, and deliberate process.  The shear logistics of getting your camera equipment to the “place” you wanted to shoot, was only the first step in all of this.

And before that…you had to make that conscious decision to capture something on film.

From that time on, the exposure and film settings had to be near perfect for an image to finally appear on negative, then to film.  All of this by the way of the dark room.  Hours of processing were involved.

I think that is why I especially love old photographs.  They evolved from concept to reality.

But the photograph in itself.  What is it really?  Fido, with a cheer leading costume on?  The birthday party of your three-year-old daughter?  Fall leaves in the Smokies?  A rainbow on the edge of the sea?

Is it merely documentation of an event?  Or is it the profound thought, that a fleeting moment in time, is forever, caught in stillness, in the 2nd dimension?

To me it is not as much about the “thing” as it is about the “time”…. the camera had captured something that, in all of infinity, has never happened before, and will never happen again.

Choose wisely, we should.  Not only where we aim our lenses, but also where we aim our purpose.

For time is passing.

“Photography is (a means by which we)…learn to see the ordinary” – David Bailey

“Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.” – Dorothea Lange

“To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place… I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.” – Elliott Erwitt

Tonight I was flipping through the channels before settling on a dance between CNN and something “sports”…. my usual MO.  I happened upon one of those talent shows.

Not like the talent shows of yore.  No.  Back in the day, people with talent, like Carol Burnett, and Lily Tomlin, and The Jackson Five… those sorts of people…. got up on stage and sang… and made you laugh.  Those were talent shows.

Now, a talent show is more like some glam and glitter open mic night for money.

At any rate, I stopped briefly on one of these… “The XOXO Factor” or “The Big Voice” or “Simon Says”… I don’t know for sure. A young, pretty girl smiled bravely, and waved to the crowd.  She must have gotten voted off by America, or the judges, or the sponsor.  So, as she gave her brightest grin, the MC asked her…”Any last words?”  (What the heck?  Was she dying too?)

To which she so profoundly responded…..  “Just remember.  You don’t have to win to be a winner.”

What?  What is this?  You don’t have to win to be a winner?  I was shocked by this news…. this…. this… this ultimate revelation.  I ran for my tattered Webster’s Dictionary.

Win.

verb ( wins, winning ; past and past participle won |wən, wän| ) 1 be successful or victorious in (a contest or conflict)
2 acquire or secure as a result of a contest, conflict, bet, or other endeavor

Hmmmm.  What did this girl know that Webster and I hadn’t looked in on?

I mean.  I know that winning all the time isn’t possible.  And, it isn’t always important.  But you don’t have to win to be a winner.  I better look up winner.

Winner.

noun
• a person or thing that wins something
• a goal or shot that wins a winner or point.
• Bridge a card that can be relied on to win a trick.
• informal a thing that is a success or is likely to be successful

Nope.  It seems that a winner is a winner.

So I thought further.

Maybe there are times when we don’t win the “apparent” competition.  We don’t score enough runs.  We don’t get enough questions correct.  Or we don’t get enough votes.  Whatever the case may be.   But maybe, as a result of our “loss”… we “win” somewhere else.

Take the world famous example of The Great Parcheesi Incident of 1938.  Now that is a classic paradigm of this paradox.  Yes.  Floyd McClarington clearly lost the match.  And through that  amazing chain of events which transpired over the next eight days… he became a Billionaire.  Daddy Warbucks.

Very few people know that Daddy Warbuck’s real name is Floyd McClarington.  But it is.  And who knew  Eugene Trewell’s General Store Attic would play such a key role in the whole story…. I mean… that Holstein being up there an all.

But there it is.

Daddy Warbuck’s won.  And he wasn’t the winner.  Annie won too…. years later… when Floyd decided to adopt.  And the cow… she made it back to the Holstein Ranch for the Gifted.

Full Circle.

Just remember… there’s a winner in you…. that really isn’t a winner… but manages to win any old how.

“If no mistake have you made, yet losing you are … a different game you should play.” – Yoda, Jedi Master

I heard a really great story today about a blind mole.

Well… actually… it isn’t about a blind mole.  There is a blind mole in the story….. only one line really.  Have you ever had a good look at a mole?  They are very interesting little characters.  Very awesome looking.

Do you know what their butts smell like?  I have been told they  smell similar to pancakes. Like molasses.

But I am off track again dang it.

This particular story is one I heard from and old Sioux Indian.  The blind mole story.

Here is sort of how it goes.

~~~~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~~~~

The Great Creator gathered all of Creation and said, “I want to hide something from the humans until they are ready for it. It is the realization that they create their own reality.”

(Let’s call the old Great Creator… “Howard” to make this story go faster.  Okay.  Back to the story.)

“Where do you think I should hide it,” old Howard said.

The eagle said, “Give it to me, I will take it to the moon.” Howard replied, “No. One day they will go there and find it.”

The salmon said, “I will bury it on the bottom of the ocean.” “No. They will go there too.” The buffalo said, “I will bury it on the Great Plains.” Howard again responded, “They will cut into the skin of the Earth and find it even there.”

And then…. then, then, then….. Grandmother Mole, who lives in the breast of Mother Earth, and who has no physical eyes but sees with spiritual eyes, said quietly…..

“Put it inside of them.”

And Howard, the Great Creator said, “It is done.”

~~~~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~~~~

Oh.   What a great story.  Thanks Sioux People.

And what about that suggestion….  the realization that we create our own realities is hidden inside of us?

Hmmmmmmm.  It always goes back to the old story.  We either see the glass half empty, or we see it half full.  There are the 1/2 full-mavens that see the water as goodness, blessings, abundance.  Other Daryl-down-in-the-mouths…. see the part without water as “what is missing”… “the things we don’t have.”

But you know?  I think the glass is all the way full.  The part that doesn’t have water in it is filled with air.  Air is every bit as important as water.  We just don’t have a visualization of it.   The glass is filled all the way to the very top, then.  Yes, the contents reach the rim.  Two very different things… but both… in their own right… very important and good.    At least that is what I think.

There are lots of things in life we don’t see.  Our realizations, and our realities are our own.  They are shaped by who we are….   and each experience further defines who we become.

Sure enough.  That stinky blind mole really has it going on, I’ll tell you.

“Reality is merely an illusion, although a very persistent one” – Albert “The Mole” Einstein

Bob had no idea that Kenny would hold such a grudge.

No idea.

Earlier in the day, when they had argued fiercely over who was funnier…. Milton Burle or Jack Benny…. both men said some pretty harsh things to one other.  The dispute went unresolved.

So, now, as Bob kept his eyes on the horizon, guiding the boat through the choppy water…. he had no idea that Kenny was throwing the day’s catch off the back of the boat.

The Pelicans didn’t give a feathered butt about why it all was happening.  They were just glad to eat the shrimp.

Sometimes….  there are deep waters running below every story we hear in our lives… ….

Maybe we’re driving the boat.  Perhaps, we are the lucky bird at the stern.  Or… we might be the shrimp.

“Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance” – Cowboy Proverb

One of the incredibly beautiful things about being human is our ability to learn.  Yes.  To broaden our horizons.  This helps us go with the flow of life, I think.  You know.  Roll with it.

It can come in many ways, shapes and forms.

Take tonight for example.  We took a friend to dinner at Fleet Landing, which looks out over the Cooper River and out on to the Atlantic Ocean.  While that in itself, is cool enough, the evening continued to be filled with little-horizon-expanders.

Nothing earth shattering.  But they were the kind of little horizon “broadeners” that are like those nifty elastic-button-gadgets you put on pants’ waists to make them larger… so you don’t have to go up a size.  Like those.

A new thing I tried tonight was some sort of snub-nosed-ugly-face-bottom-dweller-fish.  Chargrilled.  “Tastes like Grouper,” is what the waitress said.  Well it was much different than Grouper.  It was crazy good in a distinct way.  It came with homemade biscuits instead of rolls.  I like  a good roll.  But dang, the biscuits were better.

So I rolled with it.  I broadened my horizons.  And I found too…. that this is where those little pants-expander-gadgets really come in handy ….with the more biscuits you eat.

But there I go again, getting off track.  I almost forgot why I started all of this.

I was going to write about the Whiffenpoof, also known as the Gillygaloo.  I’m not making this up.

You see, the Whiffenpoof is one of the Fearsome Critters from Wisconsin and Minnesota.   These creatures lived in America in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Or so I am told.  I wasn’t about back then… at least not that I can remember.

Now… this here beasty-thing beast was said to be a bird that built its nests on the slopes of the Pyramid Forty.  Again, this is serious… I am NOT making this up.  Pyramid Forty was a building constructed by the legendary lumberjack, Paul Bunyan.  Their eggs were cube shaped.

The Wiffenpoof, or as Paul liked to call them… the Gillygaloo… had cubed shaped eggs so they wouldn’t roll out of the nests, and conversely… roll down the slopes of Pyramid Forty.  Smart Fearsome Critters.

Lumberjacks treasured these eggs.  They hard boiled them and used them as dice.  The legend goes on and on.  But now we know.

Broader horizons.  Ugly fish.  Square eggs.  We are smarter. Lucky us.

We live.  And we learn.  And this is good.

Yep.

Roll with it baby.  Roll with it.

“I want to explore the world. I want to watch TV in a different time zone.” – Dr. Castellaneta

A squirrel I met at The Battery this morning, reminded me of something, seemingly important.

It would seem that I have gathered and hidden, quite a few little items.  In preparation for something.

Now, I suppose, it is time for me to go.  And forage for these things.  And hopefully… I will find what that “something” is.

I think this calls for a sojourn.  As well as a respite.

So until later.

Time to scamper.

“There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”  ~Anaïs Nin

“To infinity and beyond.” – Buzz Lightyear

Do you ever wake up, first thing in the morning, and decide… “Dang it.  Today, I’m gonna’ wear my sock monkey hat.”

Yep….. me too.

I think that is what we have in common…. me and you. I mean, if you put it in the simplest of terms, we truly are very alike.  Scientists say that we are 99% the same… genetically.

While that may scare you terribly right now…. remember this.

There is that ONE…. little, eensy, beeensy…. 1%.

That one percent.

Close, but yet so far.  So very much alike…. and very different at the same time.

And that 0.01 has a great deal to do with pi.  Or pie.

It is highly necessary that we are so much alike.  If we strayed too terribly far from that 99%… it would make certain aspects of sharing a planet terribly difficult.

On the other hand, the one percent separates us… just enough… to make life interesting.

Some things I like to do… and you may do them on a regular basis too:

I think it is fun to fill empty Windex bottles with Blue Gatorade…. squirt it in my mouth in public places. It really freaks some people out.

Sometimes, I like to go to Wendy’s and ask for directions to Burger King.

Every once in a while… when I buy bird seed at a feed store.  I ask the cashier how long she thinks it will  take for the stuff to grow… how much water to give,  shade or sun.   What kinds of birds they will be… Those sorts of things.  Most of the time, I am greeted with a blank stare.

Oh.  it happens that from time to time, that my fun is different from your fun.  On other occasions, our fun is alike.    And both are good.

So it would seem then, that we are commonly…. uncommon.  Thanks to one percent.  That little piece of the pie.

I’m glad to be sharing this part of the fun, with you.

“Always remember you’re unique, just like everyone else” – Alison Boulter

“If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun” – Katherine Hepburn

Dirt Farmers.

All of them…. German Dirt Farmers.

Herman Heinrich Wehrman came to America in 1838.  He came from Oldenburg, Germany… on a big, overcrowded ship.

Dirt Farmer there, auf Deutsch.  Dirt Farmer here.  All American.

What a time that guy had.  Who names their kid Herman Wehrman?

No wonder he went by Henry.

By Henry.  By George.

Oh Henry. He had a bunch of kids, who then had a bunch of kids, and those kids had even more kids.  Eventually… it trickled down, and here I am.

The great-great-grand daughter of Herman Wehrman, the German.  Dirt Farmer.

I bet old boy Henry never dreamed I would be talking about him… right here and right now…. and like this.

I wonder who will be talking about us 200 years later.  And how…

“The difference between what the most and the least learned people know is inexpressibly trivial in relation to that which is unknown.” – Albert Einstein