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Our Daily Thread 6-30-14

Good Morning!

On this day in 1841 the Erie Railroad rolled out its first passenger train. 

In 1908 a meteor explosion in Siberia knocked down trees in a 40-mile radius and struck people unconscious some 40 miles away.  

In 1934 Adolf Hitler purged the Nazi Party by destroying the SA and bringing to power the SS in the “Night of the Long Knives.” 

In 1936 Margaret Mitchell’s book, “Gone with the Wind,” was published. 

And in 1953 the first Corvette rolled off the Chevrolet assembly line in Flint, MI. It sold for $3,250.

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Quote of the Day

“Cowards are cruel, but the brave love mercy and delight to save.”

John Gay

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Today is composer Laszlo Lajtha’s birthday.

It’s Stanley Clarke’s too.

And it’s also Glenn Shorrock’s as well. I haven’t heard this in years. 🙂

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Anyone have a QoD?

51 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 6-30-14”

  4. They live on a big farm on the way to the lake. Don’t know the owners name, but he said I could take some pics as long as I didn’t use flash. He said they don’t like that.

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  6. Someone who works with us during tax season has a horse farm. Some day we will hopefully get to see it. She lives pretty far out from the office. She schedules her client appointments around days when she has to go buy horse feed. 🙂

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  10. Last round of WWI photos from this great series in The Atlantic:
    http://www.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/wwi/century/

    Spent 22 hours+ over the weekend on my manuscript with a few more planned for today and then I ship it to the freelance editor.

    I’m exhausted but pleased/relieved with the rewrite. We’ll see what Jamie says–or how much rewrite she advises, sigh.

    God is good, but I’ve read this so many times– it’s hard for some peop,e who get emotionally caught up in a story to forget when a loved character dies– think Charlotte in Charlotte’s Web.

    Have you ever considered how many times the writer has to go through the death?

    Grueling, just grueling.

    But nearly done!

    (She said for the umpteenth time!)

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  12. Yes, Chas. Wasn’t $3250 about 6 months’ salary for the average worker? Now-a-days, that much might get you a rusted body of a 1953 Corvette, without any seats, engine or transmission.

    Well, “the week” begins today. This will be the busiest week of the summer for tourism around here. I can only wish that people wouldn’t leave their manners at home when they travel. It’s amazing, and saddening, how awful a lot of people treat us when things are hectic. So, if you go somewhere this week on vacation, please treat those of us at the ticket counters and giving the tours with the respect and humane treatment we deserve. And if we treat you poorly, tell us kindly. Don’t wait until you can vent on some anonymous website.

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  13. There was a lot of discussion last night, after I left. It centered on the decline and fall of our culture of freedom and decency. Someone said it started in the fifties. But the fifties were pretty straight.
    As I said before, we see the Overton Window at work. Unfortunately, the Overton Window doesn’t work backward. Always toward degeneration.
    We were discussing the state of affairs in SS yesterday. We all agreed that America needs a great awakening. A normal Spiritual revival won’t do. We can never, without a miraculous work of the Holy Spirit, retrieve the greatness we once had.
    I mentioned to the class, “It’s too late”. We have gone too far. We have turned the operation of our lives over to government agencies. I mentioned that when Goldwater was running for president, we had a Department of Health, Education and Welfare. (HEW). Now, primarily due to Carter and Nixon, we have a Department of Health, Department of Education and a Department of Welfare. And there is no improvement in Health, Education or Welfare. But we spend a lot of money.
    This is by design.
    The department of Energy has it’s secondary goal (after growth), the prevention of the solution to our energy problem. The Department of Welfare is designed to help those on welfare, not reduce it.
    See where we are?
    You can project where we are headed.

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  14. Beautiful photo this morning! We live across the road from three rather large horse ranches. What an amazing sight to see the horses running across the meadows with the Rocky Mountains in the background! One of the ranches is for sale…if you have an extra 7 million dollars lying around it can be yours!! 🙂

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  15. $3250, at a normal work year of 2080 hrs., would be a year’s pay at $1.56/ hr. In 1953, as a student, I was working part time at the SC Highway Dept for $0.80/hr. Minimum wage was $.75/hr. .

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  16. In 1968 I was getting fifty cents an hour . . . of course, that was babysitting . . .

    I understood economics very well. When I came home from my first job, my father asked for his cut. I stood shocked that he would want half my “take home pay,” and then said, “well, if that’s the way you’re going to be, I just won’t work.”

    He didn’t tax me after that. 🙂

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  18. Chas- I realize minimum wage was lower than $1.56/hr, but the minimum is never the average. What would a factory worker have made in those days? $2.00/hr? $5.00/hr?

    I remember my first job was $1.85/hr in 1974, which was 25¢ over the minimum. Later that year, the minimum went up to $2.00. Did I get $2.25? No. I got $2.00. What most of those people who want the minimum to go up to $10+ don’t realize is that anyone making less than the $10 will only get a raise up to that amount, not proportionately higher. When Missouri raised its minimum teacher salary to $15,000/year, teachers who had been at a school for 20 years but only making $10,000 got the raise as well. Where my brother taught, the experienced teachers complained that they were only getting the same as a beginning teacher. So the school made their salary $15,200. Not much incentive to stick around.

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  19. Hah, yep, I remember getting 50 cents an hour for babysitting in 1968 too. 🙂

    Praying the book comes together, michelle. I figured you were working on it this weekend.

    Annms, how did the make-up session go with L and her friend? So glad about the car, can’t wait to hear the reaction.

    I love horses. ❤

    Chas, I believe my college professor friend was referring to the genesis of the leftist ideas that were just bubbling to the surface in the 1950s as the "exciting new thing" in academia where she was teaching anthropology. By the '60s the ideas were sweeping college campuses, by the '70s they were sweeping through average American homes. And, well, the rest is history.

    When you think about it, before the '50s the country was busy going through the Great Depression and a world war. By the 1950s, life was much easier, affluence grew, families had more leisure time, the birth rate skyrocketed. Life was good. At least that's always been my impression of the transition between the early 1900s and the latter 1900s. Big difference between those eras that perhaps gave rise to some of the trends we're mired in now.

    The end of June — We were under strict orders last week to be sure we turned in our reimbursable expenses by last Friday or we wouldn't get reimbursed (cell phones, work mileage). It's the end of the fiscal year in our company and that, along with some more layoffs of production people, has many of us thinking we're getting primed to be sold to a new owner.

    That could be good or bad. We keep thinking how could it be worse? But, of course, in the world of newspapers these days, it seems to always only get worse … 😦 We've been in this unsettled state for 10 years now. We were sold in 2006(?), went through bankruptcy a few years later. No one is quite sure who "owns" us anymore.

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  20. Thanks for the Hobby Lobby update kbells. I know that’s the outcome that was anticipated, but good to know that is resolved in a good way. I’m sure some people will be very upset, though.

    Living and working in a deep-dark blue state, the response to these things is very predictable. 😉

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  21. When I worked part time at a department store while in college around 1975 I remember that in discussing raises someone got five cents more per hour than another worker and there was much resentment felt by the one receiving less. It seemed so petty to me.

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  22. I was out chopping down trees in the rainforest this morning, and the sun was shining brightly. Then it began a rain shower with the sun still shining. Sweet! I lopped off sweet gum, maple, many baby poplars, and another unknown. Also took out devil’s ivy (ouch! Gotta watch those thorns), Virginia creeper, ground ivy, honeysuckle, and another unknown vine. Misquitos could not get to ankles and legs so they took aim on my arms. Then I took aim on them.

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  25. I was thinking that, too, Chas, wonder how the house showing went.

    Janice, how are the cats all getting along? Bosley may have them running and playing again before long. 🙂

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  27. I went into sales mode. I met them at the front door, told them that just because we were there didn’t mean they couldn’t snoop. I welcomed them to open closets and cabinets. I told them the highest utility bill for winter and what the highest was so far this summer. I told them the house had some quirks but it was built in 1962 and had never been majorly updated. They were discussing remodeling. I don’t ever want it to get back to the landlord that I tried to kill a sale. I did my best to make it happen once I was asked questions. I had a short conversation with the agent, explaining that he didn’t know me but his mother did. I told him there had been asbestos testing and the house didn’t have any. I believe I was very gracious all things considered.
    I am not sure where I will land next. I am pretty sure it will be on my feet because somehow it has always happened that way. The lure of grandchildren is a pretty strong force for Mr. P and where he would like to buy a house. I really want to stay the next place I land, but that may not be possible. I am considering an estate sale and getting rid of all of it, china, crystal, silver, dolls, furniture, pots, pans, linens…you name it. I figure my gay nephew will get my Christmas china..,he will also want some of my Christmas decorations. I guess my niece can have the dolls, she is the only one to ever show an interest in them. BG can have her grandmother’s silver and my antique crystal (she will inherit more from her grandfather’s cousin who has no children)…beyond that, who cares?

    NOW, will someone please email me which day we are all getting together and the time, address, and everything else I will need to put into GPS to get there. I am renting a car and driving up that day.

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  29. Kim, tell your Mr. P that you know this great grandfather who says that you can’t follow your children around. Mine moved from Virginia, to Augusta, Ga. to Charleston before settling down. Unless they are permanently settled, it’s very iffy.
    And when we moved here, Elvera wanted a place where we could have Chuck and all the grandkids stay over. We did, and they did.
    It lasted about three years. Then they went off to college, then they got married. Now we have to go to Greensboro to see any of them. And we’re stuck with a huge house and huge yard.

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  30. There’s always something weird about that woman.
    I told you about Elsa.
    Elsa is 100.5 years old. She uses a walker and is about four feet tall now.
    Elsa is the one whom they won’t allow to go to Dubai because of her age.
    On the way home from the VIP support group this afternoon, Elsa said,
    “I think I have a buyer for my car.” ?? It’s a Saab. That’s all I know. I decided to leave that alone.

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  31. Every time I see the horse, I think of the first book ever read. It was named Black Beauty. I don’t remember what it was about, except it was a black horse with a white mark on it’s head. I’ve forgotten when I read it, but it was before I was nine because we lived in Winnsboro at the time.

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  32. Good points about trying to follow your grown kids around, Chas. Families are much more transient in this day and age, by necessity. Who’s to say they wouldn’t move there and then the kids up and move across country for a job opportunity. Then where will you be?

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  34. Well, my girls have been blessed indeed. They lost their mother early, which I’m sure was hard. But right now they still have all four grandparents (though five years from now they are likely to be down to one, and they are likely to lose their mother’s father this summer). All their aunts and uncles and grandparents, and most of their cousins, live within half an hour or so.

    But that isn’t because the grandparents followed the children around. The family of my husband’s first wife never left. On my husband’s side, my girls’ grandparents lived here, and both of their adult children (my husband and my sister-in-law) moved back to the area to be near family in separate times of crisis. The crises over, all the families are still in the area. Now we want to be here while my in-laws are alive, since they are to the point where it’s good to have family close, and of course for now our nest is still full. After my in-laws are gone, who knows. My own family has seven children in seven states. But that really isn’t a good thing, and I’d love it if we were to end up in driving distance from the kids and grandkids, as the kids experienced.

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  35. Donna, I am visiting the elderly cats so they are not traumatized by Miss Bosley. You know how they say, “Three’s a crowd?” Well, Miss Bosley can be such a blur that you might think she is five cats in one at times! She’s here, there, and everywhere around the square.

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  36. My grandparents stayed in Iowa while their kids all drifted west to California (eventually, with one of them stopping for several years in MN first) at young ages; they all married and raised families here.

    That meant lots of trips back and forth, with us visiting Iowa a lot and the grandparents, especially as they aged, heading west to spend the winters with their “kids.” My last remaining grandparent — my dad’s mom who died when I was in college — finally moved out to California to live with her daughter & son-in-law near us.

    It worked out.

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  37. Uh, where is everybody?

    Well, the party for college grad went well. (It was basically just a meal for us and local extended family.) The best part was probably me, my husband, and younger daughter all working in the kitchen at the same time. Two years ago second daughter would have felt like I was in her space, but today all of us worked on our own tasks and helped each other where necessary, and got it all done. Older daughter doesn’t like anyone in the kitchen while she is working, so it was good that the party was for her. But afterward everyone else was tired, and older daughter washed dishes and even decorated the table with two small vases of flowers from the garden.

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  40. I’m here. Always here on a long weekend. Learning how to tweet and use instagram today. Gotta keep up with social networking for jobs these days 🙂

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  42. Yes, Kare, that’s the truth — I’ll follow you on Twitter. 🙂 Instagram is still unchartered territory for me though I think I have an account. Only so much time …

    So I struck a deal at work that will have me working on the 4th of July (boo) for overtime (yay) while taking Monday-Tuesday of the following week off (owed vacation days I haven’t taken) to give me a 4-day weekend (yay).

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  46. yeah, Donna has a deal and it involves time off!! Is this when you go visit Mumsee???
    I’m sure she is ready for your visit and you have good flying days with Saturday and Tuesday.

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  48. Or hardly working. Mrs L doesn’t like a/c, so when I came home at 8:30, it was 87° in the living room. Oh well. Tomorrow is supposed to be much cooler so I’ll settle for a fan in the window, bringing in the cooler outside air. Oh, wait. It’s actually warmer outside still – 88° at 10:00PM. Yes, this is Misery (Missouri).

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  49. Jo, that is tempting …

    Too hot for me Peter.

    We’re in the mid to high 70s with the cool-down marine layer in the mornings and evenings, which helps immensely. I hate hot weather.

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  50. Okay, so when you get to the airport, you will see us just as you walk into the building. We will be the colorful family waiting with big smiles. This is so exciting! But you will miss the big fourth of July bash we have every year. That is okay, we will probably have leftovers. The guest room is all ready.

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