America – Page 5 – Life In A Word

Poor Little Ginny

Next Tuesday, if I could drag myself out of bed before dawn, I’d see the planet Venus hole-punched into the inky sky, low and bright. If I looked further I’d probably see Mars – dim but distinctly red. And if I really did see Mars I’d be sad, because I know Ginny’s up there, all alone, waiting for someone to bring her home. I’m sorry, Ginny… I’m so sorry. Nobody’s coming for you, not for a long, long time. Rest your rotors in peace, little helicopter.

Ginny (known more formally as Ingenuity) is a brave little helicopter. She may look like a nasty bug instead of something you’d want to cuddle with, but she’s quietly been filling up the record books with her remarkable achievements. Four years ago Ginny hitched a ride to Mars on the belly of NASA rover “Perseverance”. A few months after Percy plunked down on Mars, Ginny took her “first steps”. She spun her rotor blade into a blur, rose ten feet above the Martian soil, took a quick look around, and dropped right back to where she started. That brief maneuver earned her the title: “first powered, controlled, extraterrestrial flight by any aircraft”.

[Note: You can read about Ginny’s first flight in the post Whirlybird Wonder]

Ginny may not be easy on the eyes but I’m in awe of what she accomplished in her brief time on Earth (er, Mars). I should’ve paid better attention in science class. Imagine the teacher saying, “Okay Dave, here’s your assignment. I need you to design a mini-copter that can travel to Mars, perform a few lighter-than-air maneuvers, and be able to take a few photos at the same time. You’ll be at the controls back here on earth, so whatever communication mechanism you come up with needs to work over, uh, 140 million miles.” Cue my blank stare.

The smarter-than-I-am people at California’s Jet Propulsion Labs (JPL) designed little Ginny to do all those things. What makes her ten-foot hop on Mars so remarkable is this: the atmosphere up there is less than 1% as dense as Earth’s, so there very little to hold Ginny aloft. To put it another way, earthly helicopters can only fly to 25,000 feet. Ginny had to be designed to fly to 80,000.

Let’s call her “The Little Copter That Could”, shall we? Ginny was supposed to fly five times in thirty days. Five little hops in a month’s time and her mission would’ve been considered an unqualified success. But Ginny chose to be an explorer instead of an experiment. She flew seventy-two individual missions, further and longer each time than her JPL designers ever expected. She also captured images as she flew, so scientists could better decide where on Mars they wanted big-brother Percy to rove.

Ginny was more “alive” than any helicopter I’ve ever known. She cleaned herself up after nasty Martian dust storms. Her solar panels froze unexpectedly during the rough winters, rendering her unable to fly or even take commands, yet she still radioed “wellness reports” to Percy so the JPL people would know she was (barely) there. She made three emergency landings when her sensors detected trouble. And even when one of those sensors went dead, Ginny kept her rotors a-whirling on demand.

Ginny captured the shadow of her “broken wing”

Whatever happened on Ginny’s Flight #72 two weeks ago remains a mystery, one Percy hopes to figure out as he rovers back to her location. Ginny had been close to another landing when she suddenly stopped communicating. A day later the JPL team reestablished the connection to find Ginny resting comfortably on the Martian soil. Somehow she’d still landed on her feet. Somehow however, she also damaged a rotor blade. Ginny can’t repair herself so alas, her flying days are over. Now her waiting days begin.

Admirers like me refer to Ginny as “that little extraterrestrial trailblazer”. Haters call the dormant helicopter “the first piece of trash on Mars”. As long as Percy’s in her neighborhood, Ginny will keep sending her little wellness reports (even though she’s really not so well). I just hope the scientists at JPL are already hard at work on their next mission to Mars. A brave little copter is waiting to be rescued and brought home to the Smithsonian.

Some content sourced from the CNN article, “After damaging a rotor blade, NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter mission ends on Mars”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Calling… Into Question

When I first started piano lessons as a kid, my teacher gave me a little book of scales and keyboard exercises called “Teaching Little Fingers to Play”. I came across that book again recently, and the title made me think about smartphones. Our grandchildren will get their very first phones one of these days, on which they’ll be teaching their little fingers – not their little voices – to play. Maybe the first word they should type is T-R-O-U-B-L-E.

Travis Tritt also wrote “T-R-O-U-B-L-E “, one of his country music hits from the 1990s. The song’s chorus starts out with Well hello, T-R-O-U-B-L-E, Tell me what in the world, You doin’ A-L-O-N-E. Kind of describes kids and their smartphones, doesn’t it? They let their fingers do the talking instead of their voices. It’s hardly a personal relationship with whoever’s on the other end, but more like the one you and I’ve developed through our back-and-forth blog comments.

If you’re an adult with kids who have smartphones, you’ve probably had the following conversation at some point in their lives: Daughter: I talked to Jacob today. Dad: Did you actually TALK to Jacob? Daughter: Well no, we were texting but you know what I mean. Sigh…

Telephones in transition

In a sense (or several senses), smartphones weaken our human connections instead of strengthen them. Think about it: before the traditional telephone our default means of communication was face-to-face (sight). Then the telephone comes along and we go ear-to-ear instead (sound). Then the smartphone replaces ear-to-ear with typing (touch). On the one hand it’s technical evolution; on the other, social regression.

Have a conversation with most members of Gen Z and you’ll want to type A-W-K-W-A-R-D. The dialogue (if there actually is a dialogue) doesn’t flow. They’re hesitant to offer insights or ask questions because they can’t back up the cursor and retype to get their words just right. There are moments of uncomfortable silence; lots of them.

Moments of silence used to be a good thing. Flashback to my teens, when a relationship with a girl meant spending a lot of time on the phone, defined as a corded handset held up to the ear (instead of a speakerphone where you multi-task). Those conversations were priceless to a young person. Phone calls helped to overcome shyness, and were practice to express feelings or ask a girl out on a date. Sometimes we’d just stay on the line in silence, enjoying the fact we were the only person in each other’s moment.

The style I grew up with

Phone calls also helped me learn to talk to adults (and credit to my parents for not making them for me). I still remember those first few dials to people or businesses, nervous over the fact it was me initiating the conversation. What do I say? Won’t I sound stupid? I hope my voice doesn’t crack.

Texting absolutely has its merits, as a recent article in The Atlantic argued. When exchanging brief, useful information, texting is dreamily efficient because there’s none of the “water cooler” effect. As they say, get in, get out, and move on. But when it comes to opinions, recommendations, or more detailed information, phone calls are essential, if only to allow the voice to add emphasis and/or emotion. The Atlantic article made several arguments in support of the “gauche” phone call but surprisingly, “developing conversational skills” didn’t show up until the final paragraph.

Budding conversationalist

When I moved away from Colorado after almost thirty years, I left behind a particularly close friendship, one where we’d see each other weekly for an outdoor jog together. But thanks to Zoom, I didn’t really leave it behind. Once I got to South Carolina we looked at our calendars and booked a monthly videocall, where we could have the same conversations we had on the trail, with added ability to share photos, links, and documents in the moment. Our conversations are as spontaneous as they were when we were face-to-face. It’s a great way to keep in touch and maintain a relationship because technically… it’s a phone call.

Maybe Gen Z will figure this out before Gen A takes its rightful place as America’s youth. If you can’t be face-to-face, at least pick up the phone and have a voice call. Keep the topics light and spontaneous. Let the conversation flow, and don’t get distracted by typing, emojis, or multi-tasking. Build the relationship.

Dare I say it, there’s another word to be spelled on this topic: A-I. I can envision a day when you’re talking to a friend, only you really aren’t because he or she has created an avatar who looks, talks, and thinks just like they do. Heck, maybe their avatar is talking to your avatar, and you’re not even around to witness the conversation! I’d call that another way to spell T-R-O-U-B-L-E.

Setting Little Booklets Free

In Breaking Away, the charming little movie about bicycling and broken dreams, there’s a scene where Barbara Barrie talks with her son about her passport. She’ll never really use it, she says, but she carries her passport all the time so she can present it proudly if ever asked. With newfound hindsight, I should’ve held onto my wife’s passport as tightly as Barbara Barrie held on to hers.

If you have a passport, you know the drill. Every ten years you have to renew the little book. The process is cumbersome, even online, because the authorities ask for almost as much information as they did the first time around. Everything goes into the (re)application except a copy of your birth certificate. Three pages of personal information later, you print, date, and sign, attach an unflattering black-and-white selfie (no smiling!) and mail it in together with your expiring passport.

So far so good with the hindsight. But as soon as I went to the post office last October I made a big boo-boo; the so-called fatal error. The desk clerk convinced me to send the application through regular mail. “Save your pennies”, I remember him saying. “After all, you’re sending through one government entity to another government entity. What could possibly go wrong?” So I saved my pennies… and that’s the last I ever saw of my wife’s passport.

Did this machine eat my wife’s passport?

Okay, maybe not ever. Perhaps the little booklet eventually finds its way home after completing whatever misguided tour it’s been taking. Or maybe, as our travel agent was quick to suggest, it was mangled and shredded by the sorting machine of an automated postal facility. Or maybe #3 – the one that has me staring at the ceiling into the wee hours of the night – it’s the latest identity of the head of an international drug cartel.

Laugh or feign horror at my expense, but you can’t blame me for wandering to the worst case scenario these days. The outside of the mailing envelope said “National Passport Processing Center” while the inside contained what obviously feels like a passport. Easy pickings, especially for an enterprising minimum-wage postal worker. My recurring thought: why didn’t I fork over the fifteen bucks for a secure, insured, overnight envelope? Because I’m cheap, that’s why. Ah hindsight, thee be a cruel character.

Not that you’ll ever need it (because you’re learning from me) but there’s an easy process to report a “lost or stolen” passport. You provide as much information as you can and if you’re lucky the authorities identify and “decommission” the missing booklet, reducing it to mere paper and plastic in the hands of another. But that still left my wife with no passport, which meant filing a new (not “re”) application. Dig out the birth certificate, take another photo, make an in-person appointment with the local post office, and pay another application fee. Mercifully, I watched that application get sealed into one of those secure/insured mailers before disappearing down the conveyor belt.

My first inkling of identity theft hit when our credit card company informed us of a $500 charge from a merchant in Germany, a company I didn’t recognize (and couldn’t begin to pronounce). My second inkling hit when our travel agent tried to make charges for the trip we needed the passports for, and our other credit card was rejected. One inkling makes you pause, but two inklings? That pushes the big ol’ panic button. But the god of credit cards must’ve been looking down on me favorably because the first charge was cancelled while the second charge was only denied because our travel agent had an old card on file. In other words – to my knowledge – we’re talking random events instead of identity theft.

There’s a happy ending to this story. (Actually, it’s more like an intermission since the authorities sent me a letter saying my wife’s passport is still lost or stolen until it’s not.) We have new passports now, which means no renewal process for another ten years. Our compromised credit card was cancelled and replaced. And we froze our credit in case a “new wife” out there tries to open accounts. I’m not convinced that’ll ever happen but I’m breathing easier as the months pass by. And rest assured, I’m keeping our little booklets secure so nobody can, you know, “break away” with them.

Keeping Score at the Grocery Store

In the chaos of the supermarket a few days before Christmas, milk, eggnog, and a package of those Li’l Smokies sausages fell into our shopping cart. These items don’t usually find their way into our frig but the year-end holiday meals somehow demanded them. If the market wasn’t so frantic I would’ve also whipped out my phone to see if these purchases deserved my dollars. After all, just about everything we use in the kitchen (and bathroom) these days has a little numeric value lurking just below the surface.

Nacho Cheese Doritos are now a “5” in my world. You might say pretty good! until I tell you that’s on a scale of 1-100. But let’s say you choose Blue Diamond’s Almond Nut-Thin Crackers instead. The number skyrockets to 84. A roll of Wint-O-Green Life Savers earns a 28 while a box of Tic Tac Freshmints doubles the number. Nature Valley Granola Bars? 51. Heinz Ketchup? 33. And in the ultimate insult to products considered “food”, perfectly round Nabisco Oreos earn a perfectly round 0/100.

What’s with all the tallying, you ask? The numbers are simply the output of a little smartphone app called Yuka, which joined my personal parade of subscriptions last May. In the words of its young French founders (Julie, and brothers Francois and Benoît), Yuka “deciphers product labels and analyzes the health benefits of foods and cosmetics”. Plain English: Scan the barcode of anything in the supermarket and Yuka tells you whether to buy it or not.

Candidly, it wasn’t the numbers that sold me on Yuka. Rather it’s this: the app is completely ad-free because brands cannot pay Yuka to advertise their products. In other words, the numerical ratings I’ve shared are generated objectively, using common perceptions of the health benefits of ingredients. Yuka has rocked the small space known as my kitchen pantry.

Never is this overhaul more evident than with “cosmetics”, Yuka’s catch-all for everything you find in the bathroom. In the last eight months I’ve swapped out my deodorant, mouthwash, shaving cream, shampoo, and face wash for items with better Yuka numbers. Five products I used every day and purchased for years just went flying off my medicine cabinet shelves, replaced by other products that are healthier on and in me (including Aveeno’s facial cleanser, which earns a perfect 100).

Yuka (the name is a nod to Yucatán) is about more than scan-and-score. You can also simply search on products, mining a database of five million entries. Even if a product isn’t in the database you can enter the ingredients from the label and Yuka will give it a number. And if that number is lousy (like it is for your Oreos or my L’il Smokies) Yuka will point you to a list of alternatives with better numbers. Again, Yuka doesn’t recommend one product over another; it just presents the numbers for you to consider.

In a nod to the healthy habits of Europeans (who favor fresh foods), Yuka’s founders realized its app was most popular in America, where we are so fond of packaged products. So they packed up their French offices and French families and moved to the middle of Manhattan – temporarily – to better connect with their target audience. Eventually they’ll head back home but not before Yuka is sure to land on the smartphones of millions of Americans.

Here’s one more aspect of Yuka I appreciate: the founders take time to communicate with their users. In the eight months I’ve subscribed, they’ve sent me twelve emails with interesting articles about healthy eating, healthy “cosmetics”, and the entertaining evolution of their little company (which includes a dog as an employee). They also sent me a fun video of their first few days in New York City. And just last week I received a year-end recap of my app use (93 products scanned with an average score of 46). No advertisements and no product pushes.

The subscriber version of Yuka is $15/year (you can try a more limited version for free), which includes the convenient scan-for-a-score feature. Furthermore, your subscription dollars are what keeps Yuka in business, instead of funding manufacturers who’d like nothing more than to push their products on you. That’s just one of the reasons I now keep score at the grocery store.

The Give-and-Get Machine

This Christmas season, by tidy coincidence, our family’s Twelve Days of Christmas will give to us six family members, Five Gold Rings, four restaurant dinners, three neighborhood gatherings, two Christmas concerts, and a downtown parade of horses, dogs, and Santa. As if that’s not enough “get” this year, we’ll also have a couple dozen presents under the Christmas tree… most processed through the Give-and-Get Machine.

I’ll get to the Machine in a minute but let’s start with the exception. In early October I walked into a local retailer, picked out a gift for my wife, and handed over a credit card. In exchange, the clerk handed over my purchase in a small paper bag. I took it home, wrapped it myself, and – two months later – placed it lovingly under the Christmas tree. If you’re thinking, Man you went to a lot of trouble, Dave – I sure hope your wife appreciates it, then you, my friend, are a product of the Machine.

What is the Give-and-Get Machine? It’s technology’s approach to gifting. When you choose to give a gift this year, nine times out of ten you’ll plop down on the couch, open your laptop, and navigate to your favorite e-commerce website. If you don’t know what to give, you can choose between “Last Minute Deals” or “Top Picks for You” (based on previous spending). Once you decide, you’re probably less than five clicks from the finish line, especially if your recipient is in your “Address Book” and you’ve already stored your personal information. Add to shopping cart, choose delivery address, confirm purchase, and you’re done. But wait! You can also add gift wrapping and a message for a few more pennies. Well now, aren’t you the savvy gift-giver!

The convenience of the Give-and-Get Machine is undeniable. After all, my purchase in October meant a one-hour roundtrip drive, to a shop where I may or may not have found something. Add another fifteen minutes once I got home to wrap the gift and add the To:/From: tag. You, meanwhile, accomplished the same “task” in maybe ten minutes, with a mug of hot chocolate and a few keystrokes from the comfort of your kitchen table.

“Task” is the operative word in the last paragraph. Gifting should spring from the heart instead of the Task app of your smartphone, right? Gifting should be a choice, not a chore. Perhaps those of us who default to the easy-out Give-and-Get Machine are missing out on the real meaning of Christmas.

Admittedly, the Give-and-Get Machine includes some really nifty apps. If you’ve ever used Gift Hero (“The Best Wish List Ever”) you know what I mean. GH is the perfect solution for the family that exchanges gifts but has reached the age (or proximity) where no one knows what to get each other. On GH each of you creates wish lists and the lists are shared with everyone else. Once you choose a gift from another GH list it’s marked as “taken” to avoid duplicates. Most gifts are hyperlinked to merchant websites for easy purchase, and you can add notes like color, size, and quantity. Also, GH blocks you from knowing what has been taken from your own list by whom, so the element of surprise remains.

There’s an endless debate with apps like GH. I mean, let’s be honest, it’s easy to skip any and all effort to be thoughtful about what somebody wants for Christmas when you have their list right in front of you. On the other hand, you avoid the occasional embarrassing face-to-face exchange, where the recipient insists I love it when in fact they really don’t, and will probably regift it next Christmas.

Ultimately, the almighty dollar may be the decider between a gift from a store or the Give-and-Get Machine. My wife and I found a nice assortment of books and toys for our Colorado granddaughters this year, at stores we visited both near and far. We wrapped them all up, put them in a large box, and drove down to the post office. The clerk measured the box and its weight and informed me the shipment “had to go by plane” instead of anything cheaper. The cost was more than my annual subscription to Amazon Prime.

Maybe I shouldn’t be so critical of the Give-and-Get Machine after all.

It’s Thanksgiving Season (#4)

Well now, I told you the Thanksgiving season would fly by didn’t I? Those 23 days came, went, and BAM! here we are – Thanksgiving Day itself. Good thing you kept a Gratitude Calendar like I asked you to. You did keep one, didn’t you – the list of things you’re grateful for this season? No, you can’t have my list (who are you, that kid who copied off of others in grade school?) but I will let you read it:

WordPress, which allowed me to schedule this post ahead of time so I can spend Thanksgiving Day focused on much more important things.
Thanksgiving cards, purchased for family and friends before the torrent of Christmas cards pushed them off the shelves.
Our son, visiting this weekend all the way from Colorado.
Witnessing my beloved alma mater face Clemson on the football field (even if Notre Dame “didn’t show up”).
Today’s extra hour of sleep, even if I couldn’t manage to sleep for an extra hour.
Babysitting my granddaughter, even if she produced what I’d politely call a “blowout”.
Making it to the car dealership safely on a suspect front left wheel.
Repair of that wheel by mechanics who know a lot more about fixing cars than I do.
A perfectly still morning with the dog and a cup of coffee before easing into the day’s activities.
My mother, who was born on this day 95 years ago.
My body, which allows me to continue the regular, rigorous workouts I enjoy.
My wife, my endless source of love and laughter.
The quiet, peaceful, safe community I live in (and utterly take for granted).
A long-awaited rain shower, and hopefully the first of many.
The many entertaining blog posts from my “online family”: those I faithfully follow and who faithfully follow me.
The family and friends who keep us tied to our former years in Colorado.
A perfect fall day in Colorado, allowing me to accomplish the many things I had on my agenda.
The reunion of my wife’s family with her mother (a gathering that hasn’t taken place in over ten years).
A visit with my Colorado granddaughters, and the opportunity to walk my eldest to kindergarten the following morning.
A visit with my best buddy and his wife, and the realization our relationship will stay strong no matter the time or distance.
The countless workers in the airline industry who make travelling safe, including the singing traffic cop at the airport crosswalk.
The simple comforts of being back at home
My brothers and their families, who I will truly miss this year as they gather together in Williamsburg, VA.

And… that’s enough for today. You should be focused on family and friends anyway, not blog posts. Wait – one more thing – a throwback term to mix in with your Thanksgiving spread: requital (with the middle part of the word pronounced like “quite”). A requital is a return or a reward for an act of kindness. Here’s how Beethoven used it back when he was still making music: As a slight requital of your kind souvenir, I take the liberty to send you some variations, and a Rondo with violin accompaniment. Fancy, huh? Now, go impress your guests around the table by using your new word.

Oh, and if you didn’t keep a calendar of things to be thankful for? Seriously, what are you waiting for? C’mon, get grateful already!

It’s Thanksgiving Season (#3)

Earlier this week the first Christmas card arrived in the mail. For heaven’s sake it’s not even November 25th, people. Then we stopped by Chick-fil-A and my wife asked if they had their Peppermint Chip milkshake, which of course they did because it’s “Christmas season”. Finally, we’re seeing strings of colored lights and decorations on houses already. Am I losing the battle of the Thanksgiving season with a full week still to go? Maybe I need a different tack with my campaign.

Let’s talk about Thanksgiving dishes today. Are yours made of pottery, wood, metal, or glass? Oh, you thought I meant food. Well, yes, I do, but somehow we’ve stretched the definition of “any container used at the table” to also mean what’s in or on that container. So let’s talk about that. Have a favorite dish at Thanksgiving? Of course you do; everybody does. In fact, the better question is, if your Thanksgiving “dish” is a “favorite” then why don’t you serve it all year round?

Here are my three favorite Thanksgiving dishes for your consideration:

Stuffing. Nine out of ten Thanksgiving stuffing recipes never made it into the bird in the first place. Okay so I made that up, but I find it funny when a food that is “inside” by definition was never, ever inside. Whatever. Stuffing used to be that little pile of gently-spiced spongy material sitting benignly aside your helping of turkey. I’d ignore it or push it around a little but most of this autumn pillow fluff never made it onto my fork. Then I met my wife. You could hibernate for an entire holiday season on my wife’s stuffing recipe. It starts with ground sirloin and pork sausage and a whole lot of butter. It ends with a ton of seasonings and spices, including sage and something called “parsley” (more on that later). Forget the turkey… if a food ever deserved to be called “main course” it’s my wife’s stuffing recipe.

Cranberry sauce. Is there a more wasted food on earth than cranberry sauce? Seriously, this poor little enhancement sees the light of day only once a year, where it sits on your plate for the length of the meal before being scraped mercilessly into the kitchen trash. How many people really make the perfect Thanksgiving “bite” – a combo of turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce? Not many. I think cranberry sauce was created to brighten an otherwise autumn-colored “dish”. Chateaubriand has its Béarnaise sauce. Lamb has its mint jelly. Turkey seems to acknowledge cranberry sauce as a garnish at best: something ornamental instead of “food”.

Speaking of garnishes, can we all agree parsley is the perfect example of one? Yes, you’re adding color to the plate, but don’t you always wonder what you’re supposed to do with those little green trees? Just like the colorful toothpicks you sometimes find holding your sandwich together, parsley is the first thing you remove (at least cranberry sauce rides out the plate for the entire meal). Parsley is transported from wherever it invaded your plate (and what the heck is it doing in my wife’s stuffing, anyway?) to your bread plate, where it lays until its ultimate demise. The relevance of parsley to the Thanksgiving meal (and to any “dish” for that matter) remains a mystery. One I don’t have time for in this post.

Mince pie. We conclude my favorites with the most underappreciated, over-carb’d dessert of them all. Mincemeat pie really did include meat back when the Pilgrims were celebrating Thanksgiving with swans and seals, but eventually someone (who deserves a medal) thought to remove the meat and add a whole lot of sugar to the chopped dried fruit, distilled spirits, and Thanksgiving spices. The result is a pie that is scrumptious in some books (mine) and a veritable construction material in others (everyone else’s). Seriously, this stuff is a brick. It’s like pecan pie – or concrete – only ten times as dense. And don’t forget to soften the blow with a little brandied hard sauce on top. The spiked whipped cream is so good my wife skips the pie and has a dollop of the sauce instead. But if you ask me, she’s missing out on the real dessert.

Your Thanksgiving dinner will no doubt include a favorite “dish” or two this season (glass? metal?) which should also make you wonder why you don’t eat it more often. Is it because the Thanksgiving season is special, and you don’t want to dilute the magic by having your favorites year-round? Yes, I think that’s the reason. Thanksgiving deserves its own “dishes”… and it’s own season. So c’mon, get grateful already!

Some content sourced from the Delish article, “50 Traditional Dishes You Need For The Ultimate Thanksgiving Menu” (mince pie is conspicuously absent from the list). The parsley rant is a loving shout-out to my sister-in-law.

It’s Thanksgiving Season (#2)

So here we are, nine days into the Thanksgiving season already. Didn’t the time positively fly (even with the extra hour last Sunday)? Have you already booked your travel to visit loved ones later in the month? Have you already made pumpkin pie (because you can never have enough pumpkin pie, so why wait until Thanksgiving Day)? Whatever you’ve done for the past nine days, I’ve already hinted at the three “F’s” of Thanksgiving: food, family, and friends. Now let’s add a fourth.

Not football. Not fun runs. The most important Thanksgiving “F” is full; as in “full of thanks”. You are thankful this season, aren’t you? If you joined my bandwagon from last week’s post, you already have nine reasons (or nine people) to be thankful for. Keep that list going until the big day, band-wagoner.

Now that you know the four (not three) “F’s” of Thanksgiving, let’s visit five facts you probably don’t know about the holiday. Here’s a morsel for your taste buds: the very first Thanksgiving feast probably included lobster, deer, swans, and seals. PETA and I struggle with those last two, but the list stands to reason because we’re talking pilgrims and Indians on the coast of Massachusetts, four hundred years ago, making merry for three straight days. Those flavorful “entrees” were abundant back then, with nary a turkey to be found.

Remember last week’s mention of Abraham Lincoln making Thanksgiving a holiday? That was in 1863, declared as every last Thursday in November. Seventy-odd years later, Franklin D. Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving Day one week earlier to extend the shopping season during the Great Depression. But some states pushed back on Roosevelt’s pushback so in the 1940s you had several years with multiple Thanksgiving Days (more turkey for everyone – hooray!) Eventually the compromise was made as we know it today: one Thanksgiving Day, the fourth Thursday of every November.

My wife and I love dinner in front of the TV, don’t you? But have you actually eaten a TV dinner? You know, the frozen full meal in a box, with the tiny portions of generic food in the partitioned aluminum-foil tray? Well, you can thank Thanksgiving for TV dinners. Swanson overestimated the demand for turkey one year, and in a totally give-that-person-a-raise move, converted 260 tons of leftover turkey into 5,000 hand-packed dinners, complete with dressing, gravy, peas, and sweet potatoes, at a mere $0.98 a pop. A year later they’d sold ten million of them. Voila – the birth of the TV dinner.

Trivia question: What teams always play football on Thanksgiving Day? Trivia answer: the Dallas Cowboys and the Detroit Lions. Better trivia question: What teams first played football on Thanksgiving Day? Answer: Yale and Princeton way-y-y-y back in 1876. I didn’t even know football was a sport in 1876. As for games played on Thanksgiving Day, I would’ve guessed they started like, a hundred years after that.

If your Aunt Betty spends a little too much time at the holiday punch bowl and thinks it’s funny to start gobble-gobble-gobbling at your kids, you might want to remind her females don’t gobble. Er, female turkeys that is. The signature Thanksgiving sound is reserved for the males of the species. Female turkeys have been known to purr and cackle instead. This is good information for your Aunt Betty (the purr , not the cackle).

Okay, enough what-you-didn’t-know fun for today. Let’s wrap with another nod to being thank-full (or, if you will, having “gra-attitude”). I love this time of year because Starbucks gives away free coffee. Okay, so they’re not really giving away free coffee. Instead, drive-thru patrons continue the seasonal tradition of paying for the car behind them (and driving off quickly so as to remain anonymous). I go to Starbucks more often just to participate (as payer, not payee). So, for whatever you are grateful for, share that happy feeling with the people behind you in line. Not a patron of Starbucks? Doesn’t matter; any drive-thru will do. So c’mon, get grateful already!

Some content sourced from the October 2023 Town & Country Magazine article, “14 Surprising Facts You Never Knew About Thanksgiving”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

It’s Thanksgiving Season (#1)

Listen carefully… hear the clock a-tick-tick-ticking? Better hurry up! You’re already a day (or more) into the Thanksgiving season and you have so much to do! “No Dave”, you correct me, “Thanksgiving’s just one day (or at most a long weekend) way-ay-ay at the end of the month… I still have plenty of time to prepare!” No you don’t. Junk that perception, online friends, because the times they are a-changin’. I, blogger Dave, hereby decree Thanksgiving to be three weeks… and the season’s already underway. So c’mon – get grateful already!

It’s fitting I’m writing this post on Halloween, “… the conclusion of spooky season…” as Lyssy in the City referred to it. And isn’t it true? Just like Christmas, the air goes out of the holiday balloon the very next day. Cinderella’s carriage turns back into a pumpkin at midnight (ironically). There is no “residual” spooky season on November 1st. Halloween died the night before.

Retailers are determined to steamroll Halloween and Thanksgiving with the Christmas season, of course. The artificial trees and decorations were available for purchase at Costco and Lowes this year before the Halloween candy even colored the shelves. As I said in Third-Wheel Meal two years ago, Thanksgiving is fighting an uphill battle between the ever-expanding seasons before and after. It’s like a sandwich with two massive pieces of bread but not much in between.

Thanksgiving is not just another holiday in my book; it’s a uniquely American holiday. It’s the one we’ve been celebrating in the U.S. for 160 years thanks to the persistence of one Sarah Josepha Hale (who also wrote “Mary Had a Little Lamb”). Hale, along with Abraham Lincoln’s stroke of the presidential pen, made sure the holiday was “permanent… an American custom and institution”. Gives this juncture in the holiday season a little more respect, wouldn’t you say?

Like an Advent calendar, I propose we take twenty-three days to be grateful for what we have. Open the little cardboard door on any given morning of November and the question will always be the same: What are you thankful for today? Surely you can come up with twenty-three things. Or how about twenty-three people? Wouldn’t it be something if you told one person how grateful you are to have them in your life… every day until Thanksgiving Day?

As with Christmas, it’s not the wrapping; it’s the gift inside. Thanksgiving goes way deeper than turkey and football. If you’re planning a trip to America and don’t know much about Thanksgiving, VisitTheUsa.com is not helping my cause. The website reduces Thanksgiving into turkey and pie, Turkey Trots, parades, football, the pardoning of a single turkey, “shop ’til you drop”, and the travel challenges of a four-day weekend. Really? That’s the meaning of America’s Thanksgiving?

Maybe it would help if moviemakers and songwriters joined my cause. I mean, think about it. Halloween movies come to mind without much thought (with some, like A Nightmare on Elm Street, approaching ten sequels). Hallmark churns out Christmas movies faster than you churn out Christmas cookies. But are there any movies about Thanksgiving? Well, yes actually, just this year we have Thanksgiving (the movie). But please, don’t seek out the trailer. This garbage has nothing to do with gratitude and everything to do with gratuitous violence.

I was going to make the same case for music. Halloween has you dancing to “Thriller” and “Monster Mash”. Christmas has you “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”. There is no “Thanksgiving carol”. But then I remembered Amy Grant’s “‘Til the Season Comes ‘Round Again” (my wife’s favorite). It’s a song about Christmas, make no mistake, but you could argue there’s a little Thanksgiving dressing mixed into the first verse:

Come and gather around at the table
In the spirit of family and friends
And we’ll all join hands and remember this moment
‘Til the season comes ’round again

Get what I’m saying? Take the next three weeks and find the true meaning of Thanksgiving. Like Halloween, the treats will still be there on November 23rd. Like Christmas, you’ll still have the stress of travel and getting things done. Those holidays are about finding your inner child. This one’s about finding your inner adult. So c’mon – get grateful already!

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Mom-and-Pop Music

Flip through the chapters of my life and you’ll find a bookmark at 1975. It was the year I became a teenager. It was the year I started middle school. But most importantly, 1975 was my first foray into Top 40 music. In those days, punk, funk, disco, and metal were just getting started; all too progressive for a kid taking his first dip into the pool of radio rock. Instead, my preference was to chew on something a little sweeter. Like bubble gum.

In the 1970s, I was way too young to witness the birth of rock and roll. I also missed the advent of pop music. But I was right on time for a musical genre known as bubblegum. Bubblegum siphoned off pop music’s more catchy, upbeat tunes and marketed them to children and adolescents. And what better way to market theses songs than kid TV? Anyone who ever watched The Partridge Family, The Monkees, or the cartoon rock of The Archies on Saturday mornings enjoyed bubblegum music.

As for 1970s Top 40, it’s easy to look back on those weekly lists and find bubblegum. “Love Will Keep Us Together” (Captain & Tennille), “Laughter In The Rain” (Neil Sedaka), and “He Don’t Love You, Like I Love You” (Tony Orlando and Dawn) are just a few examples from fifty years ago. Like most things back then, music was more innocent.

Having said that, bubblegum wasn’t even specific enough to define my own tastes. The industry standard Billboard Magazine generates a Hot 100 list at the end of every year based on sales and radio plays. It’s fun to go through the 1975 list and recognize just about every song. But I was looking for three names in particular and – no surprise – all of them made the list with multiple entries. Hello again, John, Olivia, and Barry.

John Denver was only 53 when he was tragically killed piloting a single-engine plane above California’s Monterey Bay, yet he managed to create over twenty-five years of gentle hits before that. When I first heard his voice he’d already landed top-ten’s like “Leaving on a Jet Plane” (from the movie Armageddon for you younger readers), “Take Me Home, Country Roads”, and “Rocky Mountain High”. One of Denver’s biggest hits, “Annie’s Song”, was a love song to his first wife. Another, “Calypso”, paid tribute to the late ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau. I purchased most of Denver’s albums (cassette tapes!) with a good chunk of my meager teenage savings.

I was an Olivia Newton-John fan well before 1978’s Grease became a Hollywood phenomenon. Newton-John and her sweet Australian accent were an instant teenage crush, with songs like “If You Love Me, Let Me Know”, “Have You Never Been Mellow”, and “I Honestly Love You”. Then Grease came along and good-girl-turned-bad Olivia turned my teenage heat up several notches. A testament to Newton-John’s popularity came in the form of 100 million records sold, fifteen top-ten singles, and four Grammy awards. To this day, the soundtrack to Grease remains one of the world’s best-selling albums.

Barry Manilow and his music are more of a confession than the two we’ve already visited with. It wasn’t at all cool to admit to liking Manilow’s “adult contemporary” music back then. His hits were better suited for your parents, like “Mandy”, “This One’s For You”, and “Even Now”. “Copacabana” was a dance number you couldn’t get out of your head. “I Write the Songs” spoke to my inner-musician wannabe. Manilow’s talents on the keyboard certainly captured my attention as I pursued the piano myself. Unlike Denver and Newton-John, I purchased every Barry Manilow album as soon as it hit the shelves. Somewhere in my attic I still have a boxed CD collection of his best work.

Like him or not, what is remarkable about Manilow is his enduring popularity. He has been ensconced in Las Vegas for years now. He just completed his 600th performance at Westgate’s Resort & Casino (an achievement which prompted this post), breaking a record held by Elvis Presley. The one time I saw him in concert – at an outdoor venue in the Bay Area – I knew every song he performed. Sure, almost all of his audience members are now graying at the temples, and his popular music is from five decades ago (!) but you still have to give him props. The man has staying power.

Do I still listen to John, Olivia, or Barry? No, but I can sing entire songs from memory. There’s nothing like the music of those three to take me back to my teenage years. Call it adult contemporary if you want, but this guy will always think of it as “Pop” music.

Some content sourced from The Atlantic article, “It’s Okay to Like Barry Manilow”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.