Happy Sweetest Day

The best portion of a good man's life - his little, nameless,

unremembered acts of kindness and love. ~ William Wordsworth

Today is Sweetest Day, which isn't saying much. It's not really a holiday even though Hallmark makes cards for it. It's not a day to celebrate even though The Store sells lobster tails and fillet Mignon and chocolate covered strawberries in a special display. Sweetest Day isn't even celebrated around the country, much less the world. So I thought I'd tell you just a little bit about it.

Sweetest Day has become something akin to Valentine's Day, a day to give gifts to your sweetest, so to speak. But it's origins are more significant--it began in Cleveland, Ohio in 1922 by a man who worked in a candy shop. He wanted to offer a gesture of hope to orphans and the needy, so on a Saturday in October he passed out candy and little gifts to the overlooked.

It became known as a day to pay special attention to those with less, but eventually it was distorted and became a day to give gifts to sweethearts, whether they were in need or not. And it became a day when The Store could display fillet Mignon and lobster tails, two of the most expensive things the butcher has to offer.

So, happy Sweetest Day, a day when it might be better to up the World Vision contribution instead of buying pricey meat.

Cindy Loo Who In October

What is it with people and Cindy Loo Who? Of my last one hundred blog hits, forty have been direct visits from regular readers, and fifteen have been as a result of people searching for "Cindy Loo Who," the little pixie from Seuss's How The Grinch Stole Christmas . A couple of years ago, I posted an image of the original Seuss illustration as compared to the TV cartoon image, and for some reason, that post is bringing in the crowds, relatively. Maybe it's the weather. It isn't even November yet, and already we've had frost and have had to dust off our winter coats. When it gets cold like this, I start to think about Christmasy things like listening to Nat King Cole and decorating the tree. It's ironic because I am offended when retailers start pushing holiday stuff early, but I don't mind my own private celebrations. When my sister and I were much younger and still living with our parents, we would pick a day in July, close the curtains to darken the ...

I'm In the Paper Today

Here is an article in today's Small Town Newspaper.

The Ultimate Storyteller—in Life AND in Death

I wrote about The Autobiography of Mark Twain in yesterday's edition of Small Town Newspaper. You can read it here , if you want. This is the photograph I had in mind while I read Clemens' dictations. He really was a masterful storyteller, even when rambling on about the poorly designed door knobs in Florence or in describing the Countess Massiglia, who he described as a "pestiferous character." About her, he said, “She is excitable, malicious, malignant, vengeful, unforgiving, selfish, stingy, avaricious, coarse, vulgar, profane, obscene, a furious blusterer on the outside and at heart a coward.” And I laughed out loud.

Scout Moves

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