Quotation Saturday
It’s Quotation Saturday again – where did the week go? Time is flying by faster and faster these days. Is it that darn pesky “old age” thing, or is it just because my life is more and more interesting now? Perhaps a bit of both. I’m thinking maybe more that “interesting” choice than that other, far more icky, choice.
Not “interesting” as in the ancient Chinese curse “Maybe you live in interesting times,” but “interesting” as in “cool.”
“I won’t insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said.” — William F. Buckley
“The most violent element in society is ignorance.” –Emma Goldman
“It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day-to-day basis.” –Margaart Bonnano
“You don’t get harmony when everybody sings the same note.” –Doug Floyd
“The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can’t be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.” –Elbert Hubbard
“What has made this nation great? Not its heroes, but its households.” –Sara Josepha Hale
“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense once hate is gone, that they will be forced to deal with pain.” –James Baldwin
“We’re all of us guinea pigs in the laboratory of God. Humanity is just a work in progress. — Tennessee Williams
“When your heart speaks, take good notes.” –Judith Campbell
“A drop of ink may make a million think.” –Lord Byron
“In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then He made school boards.” –Mark Twain (one of my favorite quotations)
“Gross ignorance: 144 times worse than ordinary ignorance.” –Bennett Cerf
“I can’t understand why people are frighted of new ideas. I’m frighted of the old ones.” –John Cage
“Imagination has always had powers of resurrection that no science can match.” –Ingrid Bengis
“What I am is good enough if I would only be it openly.” –Carl Rogers
“In the face of uncertainty, there is nothing wrong with hope.” –Dr. Bernie Siegel
“Man is free. The coward makes himself cowardly. The hero makes himself heroic.” –Jean-Paul Sartre
“Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn’t have to do it himself.” –A.H. Weiler
“To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.” –Thomas Edison
“Nobody can be exactly like me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing it.” –Tallulah Bankhead
“A sense of humor is a sense of proportion.” –Kahlil Gibran
“Our job is not to straighten each other out, but to help each other up.” –Neva Cole
“There is nothing more horrible than imagination without taste.” –Goethe
“Imagination is the eye of the soul.” –Joseph Joubert
“. . . nothing for preserving the body like having no heart.” –John Petit-Senn
“Ingratitude is sooner or later fatal to its author.” –Tivi (West African) proverb
“Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist but you have ceased to live.” –Mark Twain
And, finally:
“My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy the ice cream 
while it’s on your plate.” –Thornton Wilder
I do love ice cream. Lately, I’ve been craving it. Probably because of the heat.
Remember These?
I bet some of you younger bloggers don’t know what this is. Mine were red.
How about this ice cube tray? Mom had two of these, and in the summer, with four kids, the ice went pretty fast, especially when nobody in the house had the decency to refill the tray when they cranked the ice loose and used it. An interesting point, though, is that back then, a cold drink usually meant straight from the refrigerator; ice in a drink was a restaurant thing. Knowing that then, and remembering it now, still doesn’t make me hate people who put a partially-filled ice cube tray back in the freezer any less.
I still have my gum-wrapper chain from high school. It’s almost fifteen feet long, and it’s hanging from a hook on the laundry room wall. We used to sit in the gym during basketball games and add links to our chains.
That’s a lot of gum, people. Big Red and Juicy Fruit were much sought-after because the bright red and bright yellow made for a classy-lookin’ gum-wrapper chain. What were they for? I don’t remember. But they were fun!
Finally, how many of you remember the tv test pattern? That’s right, young ones, there used to be a time – and there are people still living who remember it – when all television stations “signed off” at midnight, and there was NOTHING on tv until 6 a.m. or so when they all signed back on. There were no VCR’s or DVD players, either. If you had insomnia or a newborn child, your only options were a VERY few radio stations (most of them signed off, too!) or some records, in which case you probably had to use that first picture up there at the top of this post so you could play your 45’s.
But all night long, if you turned on your TV, all you’d get was one of these test patterns, and a shrill siren. The siren was what woke you up after you fell asleep in your chair, watching tv.
Were those the good old days? For some people, sure. The same way today will be one of the good old days to some of you some day.
Many Things Thursday
Mr. Teacher blogs over at Learn Me Good. He likes to tell people that he has forty children, all with different mothers, and this week he’s hosting The Carnival of Education.
Get over there NOW and see what’s going on in the world of Education. Remember, if you don’t keep up, you forfeit all whining rights.
It’s summer now, and your kids might become bored at some point. Fear not. Just sign up for Steve Spangler’s Experiment of the Week, and your kids will not only have plenty to do, they’ll get smarter! It’s free and it’s fun. Go for it.
It’s Wednesday and it didn’t rain today! Not at all! Not even a drop! This sunny day was obviously some freak of nature, as it went against the trend of violent gushing thunderstorms that have been the norm so far this summer.
Interstate highways are dissolving, or breaking apart and floating away. If you want to get from Indianapolis to any place down here, you’d better pack a lunch because it’s going to take a while. On the plus side, you’ll get to drive on a little road and go through several small towns! You’ll get to actually SEE SOMETHING! On the minus side, you’ll have to drive on a little road and go through several small towns.
A few days ago, the college students were kayaking down Kirkwood Avenue and swimming shoulder-deep in the middle of campus. Today, the water was gone and traffic was back to normal in town. However, I’ve seen the forecast for the rest of this century week, so we’d best not put away those kayaks and inner tubes just yet.
I’m glad my house is on a rise.
I managed to get some grass cut this evening, too! I didn’t finish, because I haven’t figured out how to turn on the mower’s headlights yet – we’ve only had this mower for ten years or so – and when it got too dark to see, I had to quit.
Another strange sight tonight was the moon! I hadn’t seen it for weeks! It had a big ring around it so guess what, but still. The moon! No stars, but the moon was up there. It was like seeing an old friend. An old friend bearing bad news and spewing omens, but an old friend nonetheless.
This is the first week of summer session and so far, so good. I did have a student who asked to borrow a pencil and a sheet of paper, but from the looks on the faces of the other students, I think I’ll probably be able to rely on peer pressure to straighten the kid out.
It’s humid as a swamp and hotter than the surface of Mercury and you can actually see the air shimmering, much like a desert oasis. And, naturally, our air conditioning isn’t working. Why should it? I mean, we NEED it, so of course it shuts down.
I drove the mower under a walnut tree that is covered with wild grapevines, and it was so dusky I couldn’t see exactly where they were, so I drove right straight into them. Little pieces of woody vine are falling down my shirt as I type; I just touched my hair and apparently I’m woodier than a. . . . Okay, so not going there.
Off to the showers with me.
I was going to compare my situation with that of Baucis and Philemon. What were YOU thinking?
I love mythology. Baucis and Philemon have so many elements that carried over into the Christian church: water into wine, entertaining gods (angels) unaware, Great Flood, destroying the population because they were all evil, sparing two who showed kindness, telling them not to look back. . . and when Paul and Barnabas began their discipleship journeys, people thought they were Zeus and Hermes, because it was they who visited Baucis and Philemon and did all those things in their home.
Do I digress? Well, YEAH. Thass what I do.
