Calendar Crazy -- Part 1
setting the table
SETUP
For those of you who are new to my posts, I usually just write individual stories and try to keep them to 3-5 minutes unless you cannot resist the hyperlinks and the music. In that case, all bets are off. In this case, this is one of the longest posts ever for me so I have to split it up into pieces. I am now committed to a multi-night post. It took me a LONG TIME to set the table for this story! It made it clear to me that this was going to be an interesting topic, at least to me. I’ve only done this once before. A while back in my newsletter, I experimented with a longish post which I broke up into four postettes. I realized that is not a word, based upon the squiggly line that Grammarly immediately assigned underneath it, but I am sticking with it. That series of posts was titled “Taming Your Lizard”. If you are new to my newsletter, I particularly enjoyed doing that but have to have a sense (a plan) to where the story finally goes. It doesn’t have to be a concrete plan but at least an outline in my head. Where it goes is the creative parts along with the tangents I cannot seem to resist. I think this topic will readily work as a multi-part post as it can go in a lot of directions. Here is a link to my first multi-part post Taming Your Lizard — Part 1 if you are interested. That first attempt is my take on using the wonderful brain(s) you have been given to the best of your ability. This one is all about how we ended up with Calendars.
I wonder, sometimes, what makes me choose the topics that I do. I am so thankful to a handful of steady readers of my newsletter. I often ask and remind all of you to leave comments. I genuinely am not in this for the likes but rather as an iterative process to get markedly better. Substack, like any web-based application, provides some tools to understand how many people are reading and I am still learning the ins and outs of that process.
One of my fellow members in my creative writing group is good about reading my posts and sending comments. He took to heart my request for constructive comments and for that I am thankful. I decided to rework this multi-part post in light of one of his comments. When I began this post, I understood the reason I chose the topic but yet skipped it in the introduction. I scurried back to reflect the how I got to this topic as it involves a memory of growing up which emerged from something I have enjoyed for years. I hope to try and personalize my posts going forward with a “why this topic”. I hope that the rest of you do not mind.
So tonight, the theme is the setup. I grew up in a modest home but my parents made the experience special. One of my memories was how holidays meant using the china, setting a special table and the ambiance of the setting made the food taste even better. Mom and Dad focused on some of the extras of child-rearing. To Dad, the mark of a man was whether his shoes were shined. To Mom, setting the correct table, knowing which fork to use and good manners were important. While there were so many other things, these are instructional for the posts ahead.
What brought me to this thought of calendars is my common practice to take in the night sky. Some nights, after the sun goes down, if I just want to relax, I will take my dog for a walk in the evening. I generally get him out in the morning but sometimes a second walk is in the cards. If the weather is bad, I might just settle for walking out on the deck and taking a peek at the sky and the moon. On a busy morning, it seems I am sometimes not in the right state of mind for a dog walk so it is not very long and I feel that defeats the purpose of a walk both for the dog and me. I have found the evening walks, even after dusk has become enjoyable for different reasons. The night air is invigorating, I have a visor “miner light” if I need it and since our neighborhood is well lit anyhow with lots of great paths, it is fine and safe even after dusk. When I think of all the current angst about crime, whether to lock the doors, etcetera, I remember a news report. One of the things we old folks (yes, I’m one of them) is that as we get older we become a bit more unsettled in our thought processes.
Tangent Alert :: This in turn brings to mind one of my son’s expressions. “I miss the good old days when crime rates were higher and real GDP was lower.” N is an economist and hence he is the only person I know who has GDP in his sentences. At some level, it is an affront to so many people who fret about crime and act as if the world is falling apart. The facts tell another story. Life has been getting better over recorded written history with the POSSIBLE EXCEPTION of a brief period during the Dark Ages. Acting as if we are heading toward some Armageddon of crime and disorder is simply foolish. The arc of recorded history is quite long now and generation after generation, things simply improve. Whenever I think of it, I feel it holds at bay a sad tendency that we all might recognize in people as they get older. Lots of folks seem to start embracing some fears for the direction of the world or their country and I think it leads to becoming narrow-minded. How sad! I think putting a lifetime of work into accruing some wisdom, it seems a shame to turn inward and become fearful and angry. It is as if we are willingly squandering all of that accrued wisdom. All that being said, my adopted hometown of Minneapolis-St. Paul is trying hard to recruit police officers amidst the unrest and uncertainty of last year.
So what brought back my memory of childhood? It is those evening walks when I get to see the night sky. Sometimes only the moon because of cloud cover but even that is a wonderful marking of the time. That in turn reminds me of those little symbols that accompanied a “good quality calendar”. What symbols? Those markings for when the moon changes phases. Now that, in my opinion, is something worth knowing about. At the end of this multi-part post, I hope that many of you will join me in a greater appreciation of the moon. While I have two indoor reminders of the moon phase, there is no substitute for witnessing the real thing. On my weekly chore of winding a series of analog clocks, I am careful to set the moon phase on a grandfather clock. I wonder whether anyone who visits or walks past the clock even realizes the phase is in plain view! As an avowed lover of technology setting the phase is quite easy as I also own an atomic clock that displays the phase of the moon without the weekly intervention of winding that I find so satisfying. I am sure that one of these days I am just going to write about clocks. It only seems fair because I genuinely enjoy the winding so why not celebrate it? I fear clocks and time could become a multi-part post also. I have to think about it though as maybe this stuff is only interesting to me!
So why are calendars worth writing about? My Mom was remarkable in so many ways. She was the first person I ever knew who saw the value in a calendar and always put them to good use. I would imagine that in the history of the world, the development of a calendar changed the trajectory of history on Earth. Regardless of the lesson, there are those who (a) “think they know better”, (b) are blissfully unaware, or (c) apply the lesson and make their lives better. I think Mom was a (c) in most things and that is worth celebrating.
So I managed to not get to the root of why Calendars are worth a chat. Like all of us, the significance of many things in our lives starts with childhood. By the time I was born, my Mom and Dad were in the house that I would be raised in until I moved away after college. Lots of memories and stability. We will continue there tomorrow.
Tonight’s post has been long enough as I don’t want to give any of you reasons not to read. Tomorrow we will continue with my first memory of Calendars and then we will go full steam ahead, tieing it to all sorts of fun and interesting things. Here is a great (2 hour) mix of dinner party music. The next time you need something in the background and you may be using a tablecloth, china, and silver, give it a whirl. See you tomorrow and thanks for reading.
21+
I agree with Chuck and I think he is a great leader of our writing group. However, oh oh, don't you hate it when a sentence starts with this word, he has hypersensitized me to "that." I counted at least 19 "thats" and even though this may pale with the use of other words, I have come to realize Chuck is right. In most instances, it is an unneeded word. It doesn't add to the meaning of the sentence and, breaks the smooth rhythm of an otherwise great piece of writing.
As Chuck mentioned, you can witness how the writer's mind is working, it goes off on tangents which, if not controlled, can kidnap your thesis.
Your writing always sends my mind on tangents. As an example, my dwelling on your use of ".that." It reminds me of a priest we had for a long period of time. His sermons were interesting and had a message. However, after a while, I began to realize how many times he used a specific word, over and over. I can't recall which word it was, it is immaterial to my point, which I will get to. I started counting how many times in the sermon he used this word. After the service, I would exclaim to my wife and other parishioners we met weekly out in the vestibule, 16 or 18. Of course, they would stare at me in puzzlement hearing my proclamation. Often, I couldn't recall what the sermon was about because my mind was so focused on his repetition.
Keep up the great writing.
"I hope to try and personalize my posts going forward with a 'why this topic.' ” I think this is a great idea...not so much for us but for you. However, for us, I think it will be interesting for the reader to see how the writer's mind works on every single topic. Explaining what prompted the idea, be it an incident throughout the day or something more emotional from reflecting on life, I think you've made a solid decision and will likely keep you writing longer. Very cool, Mark.