Once upon a time, we were just sisters and wives and daughters when we got together, sharing a mom and having first names.  Now, we’re all Mom, Mommy, Grandma, Mamaw, Aunt, Great-aunt, mother-in-law . . . . I can remember days when I couldn’t remember the last time someone called me by my actual name.

I also remember, clear as a bell, the first time my child said my new name.  Mama.  That moment is etched on my heart, in beautiful calligraphy, and decorated with fresh flowers.  I still love to hear my children say “Mom.”  These women whose children refer to them by their first names, instead of some variation of mother?  I pity both woman and child.  Somethin’ WRONG wit dat.  Somebody gots her priorities all messed up.

Naturally, this doesn’t keep me from snickering at women who choose a synonym for “grandmother” that sounds like poo or a body part.

Contrary to popular belief, mothers are not omniscient;  we don’t have eyes in the backs of our heads, and we can’t read your mind.  The only exception to that would be MY mother.

And speaking of my mother. . . Mom, I have tried to emulate you in many ways, all of my life.  You read to us.  You sat down on the floor and played with us.  You used the power of Parenthood and created Special Days, all throughout the year.  Christmas is a holiday, sure, but it was YOU who created OUR Christmas.  I have tried to “do” holidays just as you did, all my married life.

I’m looking forward to Sunday, dear sisters and nieces and daughters and all of the other wonderful descriptions that come with all of you.  I might be the weirdo of the bunch – oh, it’s not like I don’t KNOW that!!!! -but I might also be the most sentimental of the bunch.

1.The phrase “working mother” is redundant. ~Jane Sellman

2. The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new. ~Rajneesh

3. I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life. ~Abraham Lincoln

4. A mother is a person who, seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie. ~Tenneva Jordan

5. The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness. ~Honoré de Balzac

6. He is a poor son whose sonship does not make him desire to serve all men’s mothers. ~Harry Emerson Fosdick

7. An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy. ~Spanish Proverb

8. My mom is a neverending song in my heart of comfort, happiness, and being. I may sometimes forget the words but I always remember the tune. ~Graycie Harmon

9. Any mother could perform the jobs of several air traffic controllers with ease. ~Lisa Alther

10. Grown don’t mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child. They get bigger, older, but grown? What’s that suppose to mean? In my heart it don’t mean a thing. ~Toni Morrison, Beloved

11. The only mothers it is safe to forget on Mother’s Day are the good ones. ~Mignon McLaughlin

12. A mom forgives us all our faults, not to mention one or two we don’t even have. ~Robert Brault

13. One good mother is worth a hundred schoolmasters. ~George Herbert

14. Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children. ~William Makepeace Thackeray

15. Every beetle is a gazelle in the eyes of its mother. ~Moorish Proverb

16. All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel Mother. ~Abraham Lincoln

17. No one in the world can take the place of your mother. Right or wrong, from her viewpoint you are always right. She may scold you for little things, but never for the big ones. ~Harry Truman

18. God could not be everywhere, so He created mothers. ~Jewish Proverb

19. Biology is the least of what makes someone a mother. ~Oprah Winfrey

20. I regard no man as poor who has a godly mother. ~ Abraham Lincoln

21. The mother loves her child most divinely not when she surrounds him with comforts and anticipates his wants, but when she resolutely holds him to the highest standards and is content with nothing less than his best. ~ Hamilton Wright Mabie

22. The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world. ~ William Ross Wallace

23. There never was a woman like her. She was gentle as a dove and brave as a lioness… The memory of my mother and her teachings were, after all, the only capital I had to start life with, and on that capital I have made my way. ~ Andrew Jackson

24. Who is getting more pleasure from this rocking, the baby or me? ~ Nancy Thayer

25. No matter how old a mother is, she watches her middle-aged children for signs of improvement. ~ Florida Scott-Maxwell

26. Sometimes when I look at all my children, I say to myself, ‘Lillian, you should have stayed a virgin.’” ~ Lillian Carter

27. And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative spark, the seed of the flower they themselves never hoped to see — or like a sealed letter they could not plainly read. ~ Alice Walker

28. Women do not have to sacrifice personhood if they are mothers. They do not have to sacrifice motherhood in order to be persons. Liberation was meant to expand women’s opportunities, not to limit them. The self-esteem that has been found in new pursuits can also be found in mothering. ~ Elaine Heffner

29. If you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do well matters very much. ~ Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

30. I looked on child rearing not only as a work of love and duty but as a profession that was fully as interesting and challenging as any honorable profession in the world and one that demanded the best I could bring to it. ~ Rose Kennedy

31. A mother is not a person to lean on, but a person to make leaning unnecessary. ~ Dorothy Canfield Fisher

32. She was the archetypal selfless mother: living only for her children, sheltering them from the consequences of their actions — and in the end doing them irreparable harm. ~ Marcia Muller

33. Spend at least one Mother’s Day with your respective mothers before you decide on marriage. If a man gives his mother a gift certificate for a flu shot, dump him. ~ Erma Bombeck

34. No one ever died from sleeping in an unmade bed. I have known mothers who remake the bed after their children do it because there’s a wrinkle in the spread or the blanket is on crooked. This is sick. ~ Erma Bombeck

35. Becoming a mother makes you the mother of all children. From now on each wounded, abandoned, frightened child is yours. You live in the suffering mothers of every race and creed and weep with them. You long to comfort all who are desolate. ~ Charlotte Gray

36. Giving kids clothes and food is one of thing, but it’s much more important to teach them that other people besides themselves are important and that the best thing they can do with their lives is to use them in the service of other people. ~ Dolores Huerta

37. Blaming mother is just a negative way of clinging to her still. ~ Nancy Friday

38. I love people. I love my family, my children . . . but inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that’s where you renew your springs that never dry up. ~ Pearl S. Buck

39. The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother. ~ Father Theodore Hesburgh

40. When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils, of a wise woman selling herbs, or even a very remarkable man who had a mother, then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet. . . indeed, I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman. ~ Virginia Woolf

41. A mother’s love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity, it dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path. ~ Agatha Christie

42. You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother. ~ Albert Einstein

43. If there were no schools to take the children away from home part of the time, the insane asylum would be filled with mothers. ~ Edgar Watson Howe

44. What the mother sings to the cradle goes all the way down to the coffin. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

45. My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it. ~ Mark Twain

46. Over the years I have learned that motherhood is much like an austere religious order, the joining of which obligates one to relinquish all claims to personal possessions. ~ Nancy Stahl

47. There never was a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him asleep ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

48. At work, you think of the children you have left at home. At home, you think of the work you’ve left unfinished. Such a struggle is unleashed within yourself. Your heart is rent. ~ Golda Meir

49. A mother is she who can take the place of all others but whose place no one else can take. ~ Cardinal Mermilod

50. A mother’s yearning feels the presence of the cherished child even in the degraded man. ~ George Eliot

51. There are lots of things that you can brush under the carpet about yourself until you’re faced with somebody whose needs won’t be put off. ~ Angela Carter

52. Isidor Isaac Rabi’s mother used to ask him, upon his return from school each day, “Did you ask any good questions today, Isaac?” ~ Steve Chandler

53. Sometimes the poorest woman leaves her children the richest inheritance. ~ Ruth E. Renkel

54. Mother love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible. ~ Marion C. Garretty

55. A mother is never cocky or proud, because she knows the school principal may call at any minute to report that her child has just driven a motorcycle through the gymnasium. ~ Mary Kay Blakeley

56. It would seem that something which means poverty, disorder and violence every single day should be avoided entirely, but the desire to beget children is a natural urge. ~ Phyllis Diller

57. Parents often talk about the younger generation as if they didn’t have anything to do with it. ~ Haim Ginott

58. If you want your children to turn out well, spend twice as much time with them, and half as much money. ~ Abigail Van Buren

59. Making a decision to have a child–it’s momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. ~ Elizabeth Stone

60. If you want your child to be brilliant, tell them fairy tales. If you want your child to be very brilliant, tell them even more fairy tales. ~ Albert Einstein

P.S.  What’s that she’s saying?  She needs to FIND HERSELF?  “Find herself” my Aunt Fanny.  Grow a pair, and be a parent to your child.  He’ll have pals his own age.  YOU can “find yourself” after your job is done.

P.P.S.  Does anybody else love it when, out in public, a child says “Mama?” and forty women instinctively turn their heads?

P.P.P.S. Grammar Queen that I am – terrifyingly so, in fact, so watch your step – I absolutely love this cartoon:

1.  To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace. — George Washington (1789–1797)

2. I pray Heaven to bestow the best of blessing on this house (the White House) and on all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof! — John Adams (1797–1801)

3. That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves. — Thomas Jefferson (1801–1809)

4. I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations. — James Madison (1809–1817)

5. It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising their sovereignty. Usurpation is then an easy attainment, and an usurper soon found. The people themselves become the willing instruments of their own debasement and ruin. — James Monroe (1817–1825)

6. If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. — John Quincy Adams (1825–1829)

7. As long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights of persons and of property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it will be worth defending. — Andrew Jackson (1829–1837)

8. The less government interferes with private pursuits, the better for general prosperity. — Martin Van Buren (1837–1841)

9. A decent and manly examination of the acts of the Government should be not only tolerated, but encouraged. — William Henry Harrison (1841)

10. Let it be henceforth proclaimed to the world that man’s conscience was created free; that he is no longer accountable to his fellow man for his religious opinions, being responsible therefore only to his God. — John Tyler (1841–1845)

11. No president who performs his duties faithfully and conscientiously can have any leisure. — James Knox Polk (1845–1849)

12. I have no private purpose to accomplish, no party objectives to build up, no enemies to punish—nothing to serve but my country. — Zachary Taylor (1849–1850 )

13. May God save the country, for it is evident that the people will not. — Millard Fillmore (1850–1853)

14. The dangers of a concentration of all power in the general government of a confederacy so vast as ours are too obvious to be disregarded. — Franklin Pierce (1853–1857)

15. I like the noise of democracy. — James Buchanan (1857–1861)

16. America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves. — Abraham Lincoln (1861–1865)

17. If the rabble were lopped off at one end and the aristocrat at the other, all would be well with the country. — Andrew Johnson (1865–1869)

18. Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate. — Ulysses S. Grant (1869–1877)

19. It is now true that this is God’s Country, if equal rights—a fair start and an equal chance in the race of life — are everywhere secured to all. — Rutherford B. Hayes (1877–1881)

20. Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained. — James A. Garfield (1881)

21. I may be president of the United States, but my private life is nobody’s damned business. — Chester A. Arthur (1881–1885)

22. It is the responsibility of the citizens to support their government. It is not the responsibility of the government to support its citizens. — Stephen Grover Cleveland (1885–1889)

23. We Americans have no commission from God to police the world. — Benjamin Harrison — (1889–1893)

24. Officeholders are the agents of the people, not their masters. — Grover Cleveland (1893-1897)

25. Unlike any other nation, here the people rule, and their will is the supreme law. It is sometimes sneeringly said by those who do not like free government, that here we count heads. True, heads are counted, but brains also . . . — William McKinley (1897–1901)

26. The only man who makes no mistake is the man who does nothing. — Theodore Roosevelt (1901–1909)

27. Politics, when I am in it, makes me sick. — William Howard Taft (1909–1913)

28. If you want to make enemies, try to change something. — Thomas Woodrow Wilson (1913–1921)

29. Our most dangerous tendency is to expect too much of government, and at the same time do for it too little. — Warren G. Harding (1921–1923)

30. Character is the only secure foundation of the state. John Calvin Coolidge (1923–1929)

31. Absolute freedom of the press to discuss public questions is a foundation stone of American liberty. — Herbert Clark Hoover (1929–1933)

32. Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort. — Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933–1945)

33. We need not fear the expression of ideas—we do need to fear their suppression. — Harry S. Truman (1945–1953)

34. There is nothing wrong with America that the faith, love of freedom, intelligence and energy of her citizens cannot cure. — Dwight David Eisenhower (1953–1961)

35. If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. — John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1961–1963)

36. You ain’t learnin’ nothin’ when you’re talkin’. — Lyndon Baines Johnson (1963–1969)

37. Always give your best, never get discouraged, never be petty; always remember, others may hate you. Those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself. — Richard Milhous Nixon (1969–1974)

38. A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have. — Gerald Rudolph Ford (1974–1977)

39. We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles. — James Earl Carter, Jr. (1977–1981)

40. We are a nation that has a government—not the other way around. And that makes us special among the nations of the earth. — Ronald Wilson Reagan (1981–1989)

41. The United States is the best and fairest and most decent nation on the face of the earth. — George Herbert Walker Bush (1989–1993)

42. There is nothing wrong in America that can’t be fixed with what is right in America. — William Jefferson Clinton (1993–2001)

43. Recognizing and confronting our history is important. Transcending our history is essential. We are not limited by what we have done, or what we have left undone. We are limited only by what we are willing to do. — George Walker Bush (2001-2009)

44. My job is not to represent Washington to you, but to represent you to Washington. — Barack Obama (2009 – present)

Now, here are some trivia questions for you and your students:

Obama, our 44th president, is actually our 43rd president.  Why?

Kennedy, at 43,  was our youngest elected president, and the oldest was Reagan, who was 69. However, Kennedy was not our youngest president; who was?

Assassination attempts were made on nine presidents, but only four attempts were successful.  Which presidents were were actually assassinated, and which presidents survived the attempt?

Four presidents died in office, besides those who were assassinated.  Can you name them?

For which president’s wife was the term “First Lady” first used?

Has the U.S. ever had an unmarried president?

How many divorced presidents have we had?

What president was not elected by the people?

Have we ever had a president who was not a U.S. citizen?

Several 19th century presidents were not college graduates, but were there any 20th century presidents who never attended any college?

Let’s talk height:  Lincoln was tallest at 6’4″, and Madison was the shortest at 5’4″.

How many of our presidents had also been vice president?

How many presidential wives gave birth while living in the White House?

We assume that most deceased presidents are buried in Arlington Cemetery.  How many presidents are buried there?

Only one president was elected unanimously.  Who was it?

Who was the first White House bride?

James Madison was the first president to wear a certain type of clothing.  What was he the first president to wear?

Which president liked to go skinnydipping in the Potomac River? (He was also the first president to be photographed!)

Which president and first lady always spoke Dutch at home?

The first vice president to become president upon the death of a president never made an inaugural address, and never ran for that office.  He also had the most children – 15!  This presidents second wife started the tradition of playing “Hail to the Chief” whenever a president appeared. Which president was he?

Which president’s wife hosted the first annual White House Thanksgiving dinner?

Who was the first president to have a Christmas tree in the White House?

Which president’s wife taught him to read and write?

Which president held the first annual Easter Egg Roll on the White House lawn?

Which president liked to answer the White House phone himself?

After the White House was wired for electricity, which president was afraid to use it?

The first president to campaign by telephone was also the first president to ride in an automobile. Who was he?

What was the original name of the White House?

Who was the first president to own a car?

Who put a flock of sheep on the White House lawn, and sold the wool to make money for the Red Cross?  He was also our first president to earn a PhD.

Which president wore size 14 shoes?

Which president donated his salary to charity and approved “The Star-Spangled Banner” as the national anthem?

Which president served his entire presidency without the use of his legs?

Which president was first to travel in a submarine and first to give a televised speech?  He used to get up at dawn to practice the piano for two hours.

Which president, while playing football at West Point, was injured when he tried to tackle Jim Thorpe?

Which president once worked as a fashion model and a Yellowstone park ranger?

This speed-reading president was the first president born in a hospital. Who was he?

Who was our first Rhodes Scholar president?

Who is our only president to have won a Grammy Award?

18 presidents never served in Congress.  Who are they?

Eight of our presents have been left-handed.  Which ones?

Fourteen presidents were once vice presidents.  Name them.

Enjoy.

Since I stand firmly with Albert Einstein’s “Imagination is more important than knowledge,” this Saturday’s theme is “imagination.”

Take the word apart.  Do you see it?  IMAGE.  People with imagination can take their whims, dreams, and fancies and turn them into images.  I know that there are people who have no imagination.  I used to pity them, and I still do to some extent, but really, such people are an awful inconvenience, and are responsible for a lot of injustice, and these days, when I consider unimaginative people, I’m mostly just disgusted.

Unimaginative people are the ones who tell a daydreaming child to stop wasting time, thus interrupting the cure for cancer and rocket fuel made of sewage.

I know people who wouldn’t care if they never learned another new thing. I pity them, because when learning stops, stagnation begins. Those stinky little ponds all over southern Indiana, covered with scum and mosquitoes? They stopped moving, and now they are dead and dead things stink. When people stop learning, they might as well be buried and get it over with, for they are as good as dead. I consider a person who is content to allow his/her head to be stuffed full of other people’s opinions as good as dead, also. Echoes have no imagination.

Thinking can be hard. Some people just aren’t willing to put forth the effort. Besides, thinking sometimes makes us question our choices, values, and beliefs. Can’t have that. Many so-called “religions” encourage people to stifle their imaginations. I find this horrific beyond words. Then again, genuinely imaginative, creative, and intelligent people aren’t easy to stifle. Sheep are easy to boss around, but imaginative people aren’t so easily led. Even as a small child, I assumed a lot of churchy people were dumb as a sheep, because so many of them accepted whatever the preacher or rule book said, without a single comment, question, or raised eyebrow.

Harsh? Sure. But it’s how I roll. One of the many things I despise about most of our public schools is the fact that they pretty much beat the curiosity and imagination out of our children. Often, children are punished for wanting to know MORE and refusing to stop once ONE answer or solution is reached. Of course, as Professor Umbridge says, the important thing about school is taking tests, and tests are concerned only with predetermined answers, not curiosity. “Next year, Billy,” a teacher might promise. But when next year comes, Billy soon learns that the new year is just like the old year: day after day of sitting and waiting for other kids to catch up, with never anything for the kids who already know, and detention or worse for the child who dared experiment with his lunch or the ink in his pen or the clay or a poem or story or the paints in the art room. Sigh.

Curiosity. Imagination. Dreams. Let’s encourage them in our children, for the curious thinkers and scientists and writers and dreamers are the hope of the universe.

As for unimaginative and uncurious adults. . . . I should be a lot sorrier for them than I am, but it’s their own fault. Life is full of choices, and there’s more than one kind of Easy Street.

1.  Logic will get you from A to B.  Imagination will take you everywhere.  — Albert Einstein

2. The key to life is imagination. If you don’t have that, no mater what you have, it’s meaningless. If you do have imagination… you can make feast of straw. — Jane Stanton Hitchcock

3. A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral. — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

4. They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. — Edgar Allan Poe

5. Trust that little voice in your head that says “Wouldn’t it be interesting if…” And then do it. — Duane Michals,

6. Perhaps imagination is only intelligence having fun. — George Scialabba

7. The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed. — Albert Einstein

8. Anyone who can be replaced by a machine deserves to be. — Dennis Gunton

9. I remembered a story of how Bach was approached by a young admirer one day and asked, “But Papa Bach, how do you manage to think of all these new tunes?” “My dear fellow,” Bach is said to have answered, according to my version, “I have no need to think of them. I have the greatest difficulty not to step on them when I get out of bed in the morning and start moving around my room.” — Laurens Van der Post

10. Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought. — Albert Szent-Györgyi

11. I doubt that the imagination can be suppressed. If you truly eradicated it in a child, he would grow up to be an eggplant. — Ursula K. Le Guin

12. If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking. — George S. Patton

13. So you see, imagination needs moodling – long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering. — Brenda Ueland

14. Most technological achievements were preceded by people writing and imagining them. I’m rather proud of the fact that I know several astronauts who became astronauts through reading my books. — Arthur C. Clarke

15. He who has imagination without learning has wings and no feet. — Joseph Joubert

16. As great scientists have said and as all children know, it is above all by the imagination that we achieve perception, and compassion, and hope. — Ursula K. Le Guin

17. We especially need imagination in science. It is not all mathematics, nor all logic, but it is somewhat beauty and poetry. — Maria Mitchell

18. One of the virtues of the very young is that you don’t let facts get in the way of your imagination. — Sam Levinson

19. The soul without imagination is what an observatory would be without a telescope.– Henry Ward Beecher

20. When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microspically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So what the hell, leap.– Cynthia Heimel

21. There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds. — Gilbert Keith Chesterton

22. It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see. — Henry Thoreau

23. I like nonsense — it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living. It’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope… and that enables you to laugh at all of life’s realities. — Dr. Seuss

24. If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder without any such gift from the fairies, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in. — Rachel Carson

25. Anyone who thinks the sky is the limit, has limited imagination. — Unknown

26. The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination. — Albert Einstein

27. A man, as a general rule, owes very little to what he is born with – a man is what he makes of himself. — Alexander Graham Bell

28. Reality can be beaten with enough imagination. — Unknown

29. Let your mind alone, and see what happens. — Virgil Thomson

30. Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up. — Pablo Picasso

31. Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination. — John Dewey

32. It is possible to store the mind with a million facts and still be entirely uneducated. –Alec Bourne

33. Reporting facts is the refuge of those who have no imagination. -–Marquis de Vauvenargues

34. No course of life is so weak and foolish as that which is carried out according to rules and discipline. -–Montaigne

35. Why not go out on a limb? Isn’t that where the fruit is? -–Frank Scully

36. Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten. -–G.K. Chesterton

37. The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. -–Albert Einstein

38. What we need is more people who specialize in the impossible. -–Theodore Roethke

39. There are many ways of breaking a heart. Stories were full of hearts being broken by love, but what really broke a heart was taking away its dream – whatever that dream might be. -– Pearl S. Buck

40. Nobody succeeds beyond his or her wildest expectations unless he or she begins with some wild expectations. -– Ralph Charell

41. I learned that there were two ways I could live my life: following my dreams or doing something else. Dreams aren’t a matter of chance, but a matter of choice. When I dream, I believe I am rehearsing my future. -– David Copperfield

42. In dreams and in love there are no impossibilities. -–Janos Arany

43. Dreams come in a size too big so that we may grow into them. -–Josie Bisset

44. Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning. -–Gloria Steinem

45. Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world. -– Harriet Tubman

46. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails Explore. Dream. Discover. -– Mark Twain

47. It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. — Einstein

48. Curiosity is the very basis of education and if you tell me that curiosity killed the cat, I say only the cat died nobly. — Arnold Edinborough

49. I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity. — Eleanor Roosevelt

50. Children are remarkable for their intelligence and ardor, for their curiosity, their intolerance of shams, the clarity and ruthlessness of their vision. — Aldous Huxley

Imagination should be encouraged, not discouraged.  Everything in the universe is fodder for the imagination, and any teacher who doesn’t know this, and doesn’t try like mad to make sure he/she encourages dreaming in all students, is a. . . well, you know.  Paging Auntie Em.  Of course, there are, sadly, always people who aren’t interested and whose life goal seems to be to prevent everyone else from dreaming and reaping gold from any lesson.  More sadly still, our schools often cater to this lowest common denominator instead of showering the imaginative and eager learners with opportunities.  sigh.

“Every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings” has become “Every time a bell rings, a child has to force himself/herself NOT to think about yet another subject that should rightly be fascinating but which has been edited and censored and otherwise beaten down to fit inside that little box lest it inspire someone to greatness.” (Whilst trying to ignore and dodge the antics, bullying, disruptions, hands, tantrums, etc, of the uninspired kid in the next seat over. . . .) (and likewise trying not to draw attention to himself lest he be told to take Butch and Woim out in the hall to help them with their spelling.)

Because we can’t have any individual greatness, you know; it’s not fair to the OTHER students who wouldn’t recognize greatness if it bit them on the ass and called them by name.

I might dare to remind whoever crosses my path – and aren’t y’all LUCKY – that, in the words of Madeleine L’Engle (see, you’re getting your famous quotation after all – “Like” and “equal” are not the same thing!!!!!

I might also dare to remind you that the entire universe is a big game of “Six Degrees of Separation” and that those who don’t know enough to make any connections are losing.

The answer isn’t really “Kevin Bacon,” you know.

The answer is “42.”  And if you don’t know why, be afraid.  Be very afraid.

Today has been lovely, truly lovely.  My family, all together again, with food and conversation and games and candles and trees bedecked with twinkling stars . . . . People laugh and say that Christmas is a magical time, but for me, it really is magical.  Somewhere inside my head, I’m seven years old, and I still believe.

1.  The only real blind person at Christmas-time is he who has no Christmas in his heart.  — Helen Keller

2.  Off to one side sits a group of shepherds.  They sit silently on the floor, perhaps perplexed, perhaps in awe, no doubt in amazement.  Their night watch had been interrupted by an explosion of light from heaven and a symphony of angels.  God goes to those who have time to hear him – and so on this cloudless night he went to simple shepherds.  — Max Lucado

3.  Probably the reason we all go so haywire at Christmas time with the endless unrestrained and often silly buying of gifts is that we don’t quite know how to put our love into words.  – Harlan Miller

4.  Of course, this is the season to be jolly, but it is also a good time to be thinking about those who aren’t.  — Helen Valentine

5.  When we recall Christmas past, we usually find that the simplest things – not the great occasions – give off the greatest glow of happiness.  — Bob Hope

6.  What is Christmas?  It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future.  It is a fervent wish that every cup may overflow with blessings rich and eternal, and that every path may lead to peace.  — Agnes M. Pharo

7.  We should try to hold on to the Christmas spirit, not just one day a year, but 365.  — Mary Martin

8.  Unless we make Christmas an occasion to share our blessings, all the snow in Alaska won’t make it “white.”  — Bing Crosby

9.  There’s nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.  — Erma Bombeck

10.  May we not “spend” Christmas or “observe” Christmas, but rather “keep” it.  — Peter Marshall

11.  A lovely thing about Christmas is that it’s compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together.  –Garrison Keillor

12.  Late on a sleepy, star-spangled night, those angels peeled back the sky just like you would tear open a sparkling Christmas present.  Then, with light and joy pouring out of Heaven like water through a broken dam, they began to shout and sing the message that baby Jesus had been born.  The world had a Savior!  The angels called “Good News,” and it was.  — Larry Libby

13.  I sometimes think we expect too much of Christmas Day.  We try to crowd into it the long arrears of kindliness and humanity of the whole year.  AS for me, I like to take my Christmas a little at a time, all through the year.  And thus I drift along into the holidays – let them overtake me unexpectedly – waking up some fine morning and suddenly saying to myself:  “Why, this is Christmas Day!”  — David Grayson

14.  . . . God’s visit to earth took place in an animal f\shelter with no attendants present and nowhere to lay the newborn king but a feed trough. . . For just an instant the sky grew luminous with angels, yet who saw the spectacle?  Illiterate hirelings who watched the flocks of others, “nobodies” who failed to leave their names. . . . . -Philip Yancy

15.  Christmas isn’t just a day.  It’s a frame of mind.  — Valentine Davies

16.  Christmas, my child, is love in action.  Every time we love, every time we give, it’s Christmas.  — Dale Evans

17.  Remember: if Christmas isn’t found in your heart, you won’t find it under a tree.  — Charlotte Carpenter

18.  To the American People:  Christmas is not a time or a season but a state of mind.  To cherish peace and good will, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas.  If we think on these things, there will be born in us a Savior and over us will shine a star sending its gleam of hope to the world.  — Calvin Coolidge

19.  My first copies of Treasure Island and Huckleberry Finn still have some blue spruce needles in the pages.  They smell of Christmas still.  — Charlton Heston

20.  They err who thinks Santa Claus comes down through the chimney; he really enters through the heart.  — Mrs. Paul M. Ell

21.  The perfect Christmas tree?  All Christmas trees are perfect!  — Charles N. Barnard

22.  This is the message of Christmas:  We are never alone.  — Taylor Caldwell

23. My idea of Christmas, whether old-fashioned or modern, is very simple:  loving others.  Come to think of it, why do we have to wait for Christmas to do that?  — Bob Hope

24.  Christmas Eve was a night of song that wrapped itself about you like a shawl. But it warmed more than your body.  It warmed your heart. . . filled it, too, with melody that would last forever. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

25.  Christmas gift suggestions:  To your enemy, forgiveness.  To an opponent, tolerance.  To a friend, your heart.  To a customer, service.  To all, charity.  To very child, a good example. To yourself, respect.  — Oren Arnold

26.  Which Christmas is the most vivid to me?  It’s always the next Christmas.  — Joanne Woodward

27.  Christmas is a necessity.  There has to be at least one day of the year to remind us that we’re here for something else besides ourselves.  — Eric Sevareid

28.  One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day.  Don’t clean it up too quickly.  — Andy Rooney

29.  Christmas is the keeping place for memories of our innocence.  — Joan Mills

30.  Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love.  — Hamilton Wright Mabie

31.  So here comes Gabriel again, and what he says is “Good tidings of great joy. . . for all people.”  That’s why the shepherds are first: they represent all the nameless, all the the working stiffs, the great wheeling population of the whole world.  – Walter Wangerin Jr.

32.  Christmas is the day that holds all time together.  — Alexander smith

33. A Christmas candle is a lovely thing.  It makes no noise at all.  But softly gives itself away, while quite unselfish, it grows small.  –Eva K. Logue

34.  Christmas is not an eternal event at all, but a piece of one’s home that one carries in one’s heart.  — Freya Stark

35.  The magi, as you know, were wise men – wonderfully wise men, who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger.  They invented the art of giving Christmas presents.  — O. Henry

36.  Perhaps the best Yuletide decoration is being wreathed in smiles.  — Unknown

37.  Christmas is the time to let your heart do the thinking.  — Patricia Clafford

38.  I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six.  Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph.  — Shirley Temple

39.  Christmas is for children.  But it is for grownups, too. Even if it is a headache, a chore, and nightmare, it is a period of necessary defrosting of chill and hide-bound hearts.  — Lenora Mattingly Weber

40. Christmas Day is a day of joy and charity.  May God make you very rich in both.  — Phillips Brooks

41.  The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other.  — Burton Hillis

42.  So if a Christian is touched only once a year, the touching is still worth it, and maybe on some given Christmas, some quiet morning, the touch will take.  — Harry Reasoner

43.  A scientist said, making a plea for exchange scholarships between nations, “The very best way to send an idea is to wrap it up in a person.”  That was what happened at Christmas.  The idea of divine love was wrapped up in a Person. — Halford E. Luccock

44.  As we struggle with shopping lists and invitations, compounded by December’s bad weather, it is good to be reminded that there are people in our lives who are worth this aggravation, and people to whom we are worth the same.  — Donald E. Westlake

45.  Ask your children two questions this Christmas. First:  “What do you want to give to others for Christmas?”  Second:  What do you want for Christmas?”  The first fosters generosity of heart and an outward focus.  The second can breed selfishness if not tempered by the first.  – Anonymous

46.  Christmas has lost its meaning for us because we have lost the spirit of expectancy.  We cannot prepare for an observance.   We must prepare for an experience.  — Handel H. Brown

47.  In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians called it “Christmas” and went to church; the Jews called it Hannukah and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank.  People passing each other on the street would say “Merry Christmas!” or “Happy Hannukah!” or, to the the atheists, “Look out for the wall!”  — Dave Barry

48.  Nothing’s as mean as giving a little child something useful for Christmas.  — Kin Hubbard

49.  Selfishness makes Christmas a burden.  Love makes it a delight.  — Unknown

50.  Nothing that I can do will change the structure of the universe.  But maybe, by raising my voice I can help the greatest of all causes – goodwill among men and peace on earth.  — Albert Einstein

51. The joy of brightening other lives, bearing each others’ burdens, easing others’ loads nad supplanting empty hearts and lives with generous gifts becomes for us the magic of christmas.  — W.C. Jones

52.  There has been only one Christmas.  The rest are anniversaries.  — W.J. Cameron

53.  Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmas-time.  — Laura Ingalls Wilder

54.  Instead of being a time of unusual behavior, Christmas is perhaps the only time in the year when people can obey their natural impulses and express their true sentiments without feeling self-conscious and, perhaps, foolish.  Christmas, in short, is about the only chance a man has to be himself.  — Francis C. Farley

55.  Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.  — author unknown

56.  The message of Christmas is that the visible material world is bound to the invisible spiritual world.  — Author Unknown

57.  The Supreme Court has ruled that they cannot have a nativity scene in Washington, D.C.  This wasn’t for any religious reasons.  They couldn’t find three wise men and a virgin.  — Jay Leno

58.  The earth has grown old with its burden of care, but at Christmas it always is young.   — Phillips Brooks

59.  Christmas – that magic blanket that wraps itself about us, that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance.  It may weave a spell of nostalgia.  christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer, but always it will be a day of remembrance – a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved.  — Augusta e. Rundel

60.  Christmas is not just a day, an event to be observed and speedily forgotten.  It is a spirit which should permeate every part of our lives.  — William Parks

61.  Christmas isn’t a season.  It’s a feeling.  — Edna Ferber

62.  Mankind is a great, an immense family. . . . this is proved by what we feel in our hearts at Christmas.  — Pope John XXIII

63.  There is no ideal Christmas; only the one Christmas you decide to make as a reflection of your values, desires, affections, traditions.  — Bill McKibben

. . . if I don’t stop now, I never will.

Merry Christmas, my dear ones.  I hope this day was memorable for all the right reasons.

And, of course, other people’s words are far more powerful than mine. Funnier, too.

“There never was a rule that didn’t have to be broken at some time, and the man who doesn’t know when to break a rule is a fearful pain in the neck.” –William Feather

“The price one pays for pursuing any profession or call, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.” –James Baldwin

“Not to know is bad; not to wish to know is worse.” –West African Proverb

“Children, I grant, should be innocent; but when the epithet is applied to men or women, it is but a civil term for weakness.” –Mary Wollstonecraft*

“So live that you wouldn’t be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip.” –Will Rogers

“. . . he who does not increase his knowledge diminishes it; he who refuses to learn, merits extinction.” –Talmud

“A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it.” –Tagore

“I guess the definition of a lunatic is a man surrounded by them.” –Ezra Pound

“I hasten to laugh at everything for fear of being obliged to weep at it.” –Pierre De Beaumarchair

“You don’t look in the mirror to see life; you gotta look out of the window.” –Drew Brown

“We do not really know anything at all until a long time after we have learned it.” –Joseph Joubert

“Happiness is not the absence of conflict, but the ability to cope with it.” –Anonymous

“Do not assume that the other fellow has intelligence to match yours. He may have more.” –Terry-Thomas

“He who is firmly seated in authority soon learns to think security, and not progress, the highest lesson of statecraft.” –J.R. Lowell

“Do not fear when your enemies criticize you. Beware when they applaud.” –Vo Dong Giang

“Earnest people are often people who habitually look on the serious side of things that have no serious side.” –Van Wyck Brooks

“It’s the most unhappy people who most fear change.” –Mignon McLaughlin

“Eccentricity is like having an accent. It’s what “other” people have.” –Oliver Sacks

“Some people crave baseball. I find this unfathomable; however, I do understand how someone could get excited about playing a bassoon.” –Frank Zappa

“Sometimes I think war is God’s way of teaching us geography.” — Paul Rodriguez

“A headline is not an act of journalism; it is an act of marketing.” –Harold Evans

“Take a rest; a field that has rested gives a beautiful crop.” –Ovid

“If a man does not work passionately – even furiously – at being the best in the world at what he does, he fails his talent, his destiny, and his God.” –George Lois

“All of us are mad. If it weren’t for the fact that every one of us is slightly abnormal, there wouldn’t be any point in giving each person a separate name.” –Ugo Bette

A good quotation is an education, isn’t it. Sometimes, a really good one can make my skin tingle and my brain light up in one of those big areas we never use. Maybe a really good combination of words is the spark we need to heat up those empty lobes and see what’s going on in there.

*Bonus points if you know what she wrote!

Mamacita, Scheiss Weekly

Remember, if you don’t take the trouble to find out what’s going on and what people are saying about it, you won’t KNOW what’s going on.  Not to keep updated is to choose ignorance.  Choosing ignorance is one of the most horrible things a person can do, no matter what the topic.  Education is what separates the sheep from the goats, because not to understand that everything is connected to everything else, and that nothing exists in isolation, and how to connect these dots to form ideas and understanding, is to actively choose ignorance.  We can’t help being ignorant about things we’ve never been exposed to, but to choose non-exposure is to choose ignorance.  Oh, and those people who take great pride in refusing to learn?  They are ignorance, personified.  Harsh?  I don’t really think so.  In fact, I have not even begun to express my disgust for people who are able, yet actively choose to be ignorant.  We are all ignorant of many things, but if we continue to learn, to be less ignorant daily, we’re on our way.

Oh, and please don’t forget that ignorance and stupidity are not the same thing.  Not the same thing at all, at all.

Parents, professional educators, and all inhabitants of the planet, simply must keep learning.  If we stop learning, “they” might as well bury us, because such people are as good as dead. Worse, even, because dead people don’t bring others down.  Ignorant people do.

CONSTANT VIGILANCE, as Alastair Moody would say.  To choose ignorance is to choose a kind of death.

P.S.  When I took my beautiful daughter to her college dorm and went back home without her, itself a traumatic thing, “Less ignorant every day” became our rallying cry for her college education.  We still quote it, laughing, when we learn new things and share them.  Why don’t y’all use it, too?

Less ignorant daily.  Bring it on, universe.

Fortunately, as John Donne liked to remind us, no man is an island.  This is the key to all education, no matter what our age.  No man is an island, and that means CONNECTIONS.

Education is about learning to make connections.  Understand that one point and you’ll know how to keep on learning until they carry you out feet first.  The sooner we learn it, the better off we are.

We are human, and humans mess up.  That doesn’t mean – it NEVER means – that we should give up when we mess up.  No, no, no, no, no.  No matter how many times we mess up, we must try to pull ourselves up and try again.  And if it’s just too hard to pull ourselves up, we need to give our families and friends the privilege of helping us do it.

Never give up, and never surrender.  No matter what “it” is, never give up.  We can do it.  Life likes to hit us below the belt sometimes, but we don’t have to let it get by with that.  Never give up.  Never surrender.  And it doesn’t matter how many times we’re down, either.  Each time, get back up and vow again to never surrender.  Eventually the lesson will sink in.  And if it doesn’t  happen soon, or when we think it should, well, keep on trying anyway.

We are all surrounded by people who love us, in real life or online – and what does that say for social media that some of our best friends are online friends – and together we will always be stronger than anything that doesn’t love us.  We might have to wait for it.  It might be late.  We might worry that it’s not coming at all.  But be patient, for love really does conquer all.  It does.  Never give up.  Never surrender.

1. Superman’s not brave. You can’t be brave if you’re indestructible. It’s every day people, like you and me, that are brave knowing we could easily be defeated but still continue forward. — Unknown

2. No horse gets anywhere until he is harnessed. No stream or gas ever drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara ever turned light and power until it is tunneled. No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined. –Harry Emerson Fosdick

3. People are hungry for messages of hope and life. What are you broadcasting? — Morgan Brittany

4. Whoever you are, there is some younger person who thinks you are perfect. There is some work that will never be done if you don’t do it. there is someone who would miss you if you were gone. There is a place that you alone can fill. –Jacob M. Braude

5. Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time. –Thomas Edison

6. Shame is guilt in overdrive. If it helps, think of the difference between shame and guilt as this: shame says “I’m bad, I’m flawed,” and guilt says “What I did was harmful to myself and/or others, and I can do better than that.” Thoughts of healthy, unbiased guilt are how you converse with your conscience, while feelings of shame don’t even let the conversation begin. — Renee Bledsoe

7. Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all. — Dale Carnegie

8. Forget past mistakes. Forget failures. Forget about everything except what you’re going to do now – and do it. — William Durant

9. If we did the things we are capable of, we would astound ourselves. –Thomas Edison

10. You don’t have to control your thoughts; you just have to stop letting them control you. — Dan Millman

11. Ninety percent of the world’s woe comes from people not knowing themselves, their abilities, their frailities, and even their real virtues. Most of us go almost all the way through life as complete strangers to ourselves. — Sydney J. Harris

12. If you are aware of your weaknesses and you are constantly learning, your potential is virtually limitless. — Jay Sidhu

13. You can come out of the furnace of trouble two ways: if you let it consume you, you come out a cinder, but there is a kind of metal which refuses to be consumed, and comes out a star. — Jean Church

14. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time. — Og Mandino

15. Facing it, always facing it; that’s the way to get through. Face it. — Joseph Conrad

16. Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending. — Carl Bard

17. Life is very interesting. In the end, some of your greatest pains become your greatest strengths. — Drew Barrymore

18. Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear. — Ambrose Redmoon

19. Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life, as by the obstacles one has overcome trying to succeed. — Booker T. Washington

20. You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it. — Margaret Thatcher

21. Determination, patience and courage are the only things needed to improve any situation. — Peter Sinclair

22. Always bear in mind that your own resolution to success is more important than any other one thing. — Abraham Lincoln

23. Fall seven times, stand up eight. — Japanese proverb

24. Move out of your comfort zone. You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new. — Brian Tracy

25. It’s never too late to be what you might have been. — George Eliot

26. We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope. — Martin Luther King Jr.

27. Sometimes when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things, I am tempted to think, there are no little things. — Bruce Barton

28. Don’t let life discourage you; everyone who got where he is had to begin where he was. — Richard L. Evans

29. Just cause you got the monkey off your back doesn’t mean the circus has left town. — George Carlin

30. How lovely to think that no one need wait a moment, we can start now, start slowly changing the world! How lovely that everyone, great and small, can make their contribution toward introducing justice straightaway. And you can always, always give something, even if it is only kindness! — Anne Frank

31. Dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born. — Helen Keller

32. Just as despair can come to one only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings. — Elie Weisel

33. To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe. — Anatole France

34. When everything seems like an uphill struggle, just think of the view from the top. — Unknown

35. He who has hope has everything. — Arabian proverb

36. Decide that you want it more than you are afraid of it. — Bill Cosby

37. History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again. — Maya Angelou

38. When you’re going through hell, keep going. — Winston Churchill

39. Even if happiness forgets you a little bit, never completely forget about it. — Jacques Prevert

40. Every worthwhile accomplishment, big or little, has its stages of drudgery and triumph; a beginning, a struggle, and a victory. — Ghandi

41. Real heroes are men who fall and fail and are flawed, but win out in the end because they’ve stayed true to their ideals and beliefs and commitments. — Kevin Costner

42. It is one of the most beautiful compensations in life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

43. What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other? — George Elliot

44. A life isn’t significant except for its impact on other lives. — Jackie Robinson

45. The only people with whom you should try to get even are those who have helped you. -–John E. Southard

46. In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.–-Albert Schweitzer

47. No one is as capable of gratitude as one who has emerged from the kingdom of night.–-Elie Wiesel

48. Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race. — Calvin Coolidge

49. When life knocks you down you have two choices- stay down or get up. — Tom Krause

50. Nobody trips over mountains. It is the small pebble that causes you to stumble. Pass all the pebbles in your path and you will find you have crossed the mountain. — Unknown

* Bonus points if you know the source.  Kudos, too, because it’s a cool source.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

I hate it when the grass gets high.  I feel as if I’m drowning.  There are places in the low parts of the lawn that are mashed down sideways flat, where the ponds and creeks have overflowed.  We usually see a big snapper or two in weather like this, but so far even the animals have had sense enough not to try to come out in the rain.  Even the deer are huddling under the trees.

1. A crown is merely a hat that lets the rain in. — Frederick The Great

2. A poet is someone who stands outside in the rain hoping to be struck by lightning. — James Dickey

3. I do pity unlearned people on a rainy day. — Lucius C. Falkland

4. I love to walk in the rain, because nobody can see my tears. –Charlie Chaplin

5. It always rains on tents. Rainstorms will travel thousands of miles, against prevailing winds for the opportunity to rain on a tent. — Dave Barry

6. We will never be an advanced civilization as long as rain showers can delay the launching of a space rocket. — George Carlin

7. Criticism, like rain, should be gentle enough to nourish a man’s growth without destroying his roots. — Frank A Clark

8. There’s always a period of curious fear between the first sweet-smelling breeze and the time when the rain comes cracking down. — Don Delillo

9. Do not, on a rainy day, ask your child what he feels like doing, because I assure you that what he feels like doing, you won’t feel like watching. — Fran Lebowitz

10. Don’t pray when it rains if you don’t pray when the sun shines.– Satchel Paige

11. Some people walk in the rain; others just get wet. — Roger Miller

12. Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather. — John Ruskin

13. The drop of rain maketh a hole in the stone, not by violence, but by oft falling. — Hugh Latimer

14. The best thing one can do when it’s raining is to let it rain. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

15. I’m singing in the rain
Just singing in the rain
What a glorious feelin’
I’m happy again
I’m laughing at clouds
So dark up above
The sun’s in my heart
And I’m ready for love
Let the stormy clouds chase
Everyone from the place
Come on with the rain
I’ve a smile on my face
I walk down the lane
With a happy refrain
Just singin’,
Singin’ in the rain

“>One of the best movies of all time.

Back in the days of Greek mythology, the ancients understood the connection between what we now call “science” and “literature.”  One of the nine Muses was Urania, who was in charge of astronomy.  No one can study astronomy without also studying the stories behind each of the constellations, planets, and stars; anything that can be seen by the naked eye was charted and named by the ancients, named after a hero, god, goddess, creature, or storyline that the pattern of stars reminded these ancient celestial map-makers of.  A good, imaginative instructor will combine these two; a poor, unimaginative one will believe they are separate entities.

I am sharing with you quotations about the stars.

1. We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened. — Mark Twain

2. I have … a terrible need … shall I say the word? … of religion. Then I go out at night and paint the stars. — Vincent van Gogh

3. If people sat outside and looked at the stars each night, I’ll bet they’d live a lot differently. — Bill Watterson

4. If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and stare. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

5. For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream. — Vincent van Gogh

6. I met in the street a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat worn, his cloak was out at the elbows, the water passed through his shoes, – and the stars through his soul. — Victor Hugo

7. I can find in my undergraduate classes, bright students who do not know that the stars rise and set at night, or even that the Sun is a star. — Carl Sagan

8. I’ve loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night. –Galileo Galilei

9. Set your course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship. — Omar N. Bradley

10. What is the good of your stars and trees, your sunrise and the wind, if they do not enter into our daily lives? — E. M. Forster

11. I have long thought that anyone who does not regularly – or ever – gaze up and see the wonder and glory of a dark night sky filled with countless stars loses a sense of their fundamental connectedness to the universe. — Brian Greene

12. The sun, the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago… had they happened to be within the reach of predatory human hands. — Henry Ellis

13. There they stand, the innumerable stars, shining in order like a living hymn, written in light. — N.P. Willis

14. Metaphor for the night sky: A trillion asterisks and no explanations. –Robert Brault

15. No sight is more provocative of awe than is the night sky. –Llewelyn Powys

16. Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o’clock is a scoundrel. –Samuel Johnson

17. Astronomy compels the soul to look upward, and leads us from this world to another. — Plato

18. I think a future flight should include a poet, a priest and a philosopher . . . we might get a much better idea of what we saw. — Michael Collins

19. How quickly do we grow accustomed to wonders. I am reminded of the Isaac Asimov story Nightfall, about the planet where the stars were visible only once in a thousand years. So awesome was the sight that it drove men mad. We who can see the stars every night glance up casually at the cosmos and then quickly down again, searching for a Dairy Queen. — Roger Ebert

20. What the space program needs is more English majors. — Michael Collins

21. To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit. — Stephen Hawking

22. Human interest in exploring the heavens goes back centuries. This is what human nature is all about. — Dennis Tito

23. I have a hunch the most important reason we’re going to space is not known now. — Burt Rutan

24. Two things inspire me to awe—the starry heavens above and the moral universe within. — Albert Einstein

25. I know that I am mortal and ephemeral. But when I search for the close-knit encompassing convolutions of the stars, my feet no longer touch the earth, but in the presence of Zeus himself I take my fill of ambrosia which the gods produce. — Ptolemy

26. We do not ask for what useful purpose the birds do sing, for song is their pleasure since they were created for singing. Similarly, we ought not to ask why the human mind troubles to fathom the secrets of the heavens … The diversity of the phenomena of Nature is so great, and the treasures hidden in the heavens so rich, precisely in order that the human mind shall never be lacking in fresh nourishment. — Johannes Kepler

27. Observing quasars is like observing the exhaust fumes of a car from a great distance and then trying to figure out what is going on under the hood. — Carole Mundell

28. Those who study the stars have God for a teacher. — Tycho Brahe (He was so in awe of
the Maker of the Universe that he put on his court robes whenever he went to his telescope.) (One eye was also larger than the other, from his years of star-gazing.)

Add to your eyes a pair of binoculars, and your night sky wonders will increase more than you could ever imagine.  Those first telescopes, remember, weren’t nearly as powerful as those pink Happy Meal binoculars on the floor of your van.  If you have powerful big-boy/girl binoculars, all the better.

Without a telescope – with just binoculars – you’ll be able to see several of Jupiter’s moons, and Saturn’s rings (if it’s turned the right way) and Venus & Mars as discs, not just dots.

Remember how to spot a planet:  they don’t twinkle as stars do.  Only objects that shine with their own light will twinkle; the objects that shine with reflected light will just shine; they won’t twinkle.  Think about it: a twinkling moon would be more than just a little big scary!

This week’s quotations all have to do with the universe.  Today (Saturday) is the 20th birthday of the Hubble Telescope, and the pictures this fabulous thing has been sending back all these years have been a source of a LOT of awe for and from me.  But then, I used to be a little girl who sneaked outside late at night to lie on top of the car and scan the sky with those very same pink plastic binoculars.

Thank you, Santa, for granting my only wish that Christmas.  I still have the telescope; it’s leaning in the corner in the living room.  Thank the elves for me, too; they did a great job.

So yes, I have known what it feels like to have a genuine wish come true.  While other little girls crossed their fingers and shut their eyes and hoped for Barbie under the tree that year, all I wanted was a telescope.  And I got it.  I can still remember the sensation of realizing my wish had been granted.

And with it, I could watch the universe, unfolding, closer and clearer than ever.  It’s not all science, you know.  It’s everything.  Science just helps us make sense of it.

1. There are no extra pieces in the universe. Everyone is here because he or she has a place to fill, and every piece must fit itself into the big jigsaw puzzle. — Deepak Chopra

2. Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. — Dr. Carl Sagan

3. The Sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the Universe to do. — Galileo Galilei

4. The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper. — Eden Phillpotts

5. Music in the soul can be heard by the universe. — Lao Tzu

6. I’m astounded by people who want to ‘know’ the universe when it’s hard enough to find your way around Chinatown. — Woody Allen

7. Things are as they are. Looking out into it the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations. — Alan Watts

8. When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. — John Muir

9. I look for what needs to be done. After all, that’s how the universe designs itself. — R. Buckminster Fuller

10. Sometimes I think we’re alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we’re not. In either case the idea is quite staggering. — Arthur C. Clarke

11. I have long thought that anyone who does not regularly – or ever – gaze up and see the wonder and glory of a dark night sky filled with countless stars loses a sense of their fundamental connectedness to the universe. — Brian Greene

12. Through literacy you can begin to see the universe. Through music you can reach anybody. Between the two there is you, unstoppable. — Grace Slick

13. Man is always marveling at what he has blown apart, never at what the universe has put together, and this is his limitation. — Loren Eiseley

14. Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure Science. — Edwin Powell Hubble

15. Do not look at stars as bright spots only. Try to take in the vastness of the universe. — Maria Mitchell

16. We are so bound together that no man can labor for himself alone. Each blow he strikes in his own behalf helps to mold the universe. — Jerome K. Jerome

17. The universe is made of stories, not of atoms. — Muriel Rukeyser

18. Do not lose hope in what the universe has placed you here to do. — Darren L. Johnson

19. When I learn something new-and it happens every day-I feel a little more at home in this universe, a little more comfortable in the nest. — Bill Moyers

20. Nothing that I can do will change the structure of the universe. But maybe, by raising my voice I can help the greatest of all causes — goodwill among men and peace on earth. — Albert Einstein

21. t has been rightly said that nothing is unimportant, nothing powerless in the universe; a single atom can dissolve everything, and save everything! What terror! There lies the eternal distinction between good and evil. – Gerard De Nerval

22. My own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. — John B. S. Haldane

23. It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small. — Neil Armstrong

24. To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit. — Stephen Hawking

25. The celestial order and the beauty of the universe compel me to admit that there is some excellent and eternal Being, who deserves the respect and homage of men. — Cicero

26. Each small task of everyday is part of the total harmony of the universe. — St. Theresa of Lisieux

27. The center of the universe is everywhere. — Native American Proverb

28. Within our bodies course the same elements that flame in the stars. — Susan Eschiefelbein

29. If you believe that God created the whole universe and everything that it contains, do you really think he cares about what you wear? — Anne Frank

30. The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us the less taste we shall have for the destruction of our race. Wonder and humility are wholesome emotions, and they do not exist side by side with a lust for destruction. — Rachel Carson

31. When we look into the heart of a flower, we see clouds, sunshine, minerals, time, the earth, and everything else in the cosmos in it. Without clouds, there could be no rain, and there would be no flower. Without time, the flower could not bloom. In fact, the flower is made entirely of non-flower elements; it has no independent, individual existence. It ‘inter-is’ with everything else in the universe. –Thich Nhat Hanh

32. When science discovers the center of the universe, a lot of people will be disappointed to find they are not it. — Bernard Baily

33. Perhaps there are somewhere in the infinite universe beings whose minds outrank our minds to the same extent as our minds surpass those of the insects. Perhaps there will once somewhere live beings who will look upon us with the same condescension as we look upon amoebae. — Ludwig von Mises

34. A lot of prizes have been awarded for showing the universe is not as simple as we might have thought.
— Stephen W. Hawking

35. A man said to the universe:
‘Sir, I exist!’
‘However,’ replied the universe,
‘The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation.’
–Stephen Crane

36. Astronomy concerns itself with the whole of the visible universe, of which our earth forms but a relatively insignificant part; while Geology deals with that earth regarded as an individual. Astronomy is the oldest of the sciences, while Geology is one of the newest. But the two sciences have this in common, that to both are granted a magnificence of outlook, and an immensity of grasp denied to all the rest. — Charles Lapworth

37. But, on the other hand, every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe—a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble. — Albert Einstein

38. In some respects, science has far surpassed religion in delivering awe. How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, ‘This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant. God must be even greater than we dreamed’? Instead they say, ‘No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.’ — Carl Sagan

39. Joy in the universe, and keen curiosity about it all—that has been my religion. — John Burroughs

40. The parts of the universe … all are connected with each other in such a way that I think it to be impossible to understand any one without the whole. — Blaise Pascal

41. We should do astronomy because it is beautiful and because it is fun. We should do it because people want to know. We want to know our place in the universe and how things happen. — John N. Bahcall

42. W]hen Galileo discovered he could use the tools of mathematics and mechanics to understand the motion of celestial bodies, he felt, in the words of one imminent researcher, that he had learned the language in which God recreated the universe. Today we are learning the language in which God created life. We are gaining ever more awe for the complexity, the beauty, the wonder of God’s most divine and sacred gift. — William Jefferson (Bill) Clinton

43. Every great scientific truth goes through three states: first, people say it conflicts with the Bible; next, they say it has been discovered before; lastly, they say they always believed it. — Louis Agassiz

44. What blessedness it is to dwell amidst this transparent air, which the eye can pierce without limit, amidst these floods of pure, soft, cheering light, under this immeasureable arch of heaven, and in sight of these countless stars! An infinite universe is each moment opened to our view. And this universe is the sign and symbol of Infinite Power, Intelligence, Purity, Bliss, and Love. — William Ellery Channing

45. Oh man! There is no planet sun or star could hold you, if you but knew what you are. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

46. If God creates a world of particles and waves, dancing in obedience to mathematical and physical laws, who are we to say that he cannot make use of those laws to cover the surface of a small planet with living creatures? — Martin Gardner

47. Since, in the long run, every planetary civilization will be endangered by impacts from space, every surviving civilization is obliged to become spacefaring–not because of exploratory or romantic zeal, but for the most practical reason imaginable: staying alive… If our long-term survival is at stake, we have a basic responsibility to our species to venture to other worlds. — Carl Sagan

48. The earth is the cradle of humankind, but one cannot live in the cradle forever. — Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

49. When a finger points to the moon, the imbecile looks at the finger. — Chinese Proverb

50. A country so rich that it can send people to the moon still has hundreds of thousands of its citizens who can’t read. That’s terribly troubling to me. — Charles Kuralt