★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥ ~
September 14, 2016

★~ As you ramble on through life,whatever be your goal keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole. ~ unknown

★~ It’s Eat a Hoagie Day!

 

The hoagie (hOEwghi ), also known as a sub or grinder, name originated in the city of Philadelphia. During World War I Italian immigrants working at a shipyard called Hog Island would bring giant sandwiches for lunch. The workers were called “hoggies.” And eventually the name was associated with the large sandwiches.

★~ Cream Filled Donut Day:

There is a creme donut with your name on it…..out there calling you…your mission (should you choose to accept it) is to find that donut and devour it. 

★~ Today in History:

 

♥~ 1972 – Do you remember what major event happened in England on September 13th, 1752?  You do?  HA! It was a trick question. Nothing happened in England, or America, or anywhere in the British Empire on that day, because the date did not exist.  The Gregorian calendar was adopted by the British on September 14th, 1752.  They had to eliminate 11 days from the calendar that year…September 3rd through the 13th…to make the British calendar match those used by other countries.  Also, before the change, the British used to start a new year on March 25th instead of January 1st.

♥~ 1741 – George Frederick Handel completed his Messiah. It took the composer 23 days to complete the timeless musical treasure.

♥~ 1814 – Frances Scott Key, an attorney, was aboard a warship that was bombarding Fort McHenry (an outpost protecting the city of Baltimore, MD) when he wrote The Star-Spangled Banner, which officially became the U.S. national anthem by an act of Congress in 1931.

♥~ 1965 – My Mother, the Car” debuted.  It starred Jerry Van Dyke as a guy whose late mother was rein-”car”-nated as an antique auto.  Mom (the voice of Ann Sothern) spoke to him through the car radio. Longer-running series premiering include “The Waltons” (1972), and “The Golden Girls” (1985).

♥~ 1978 – The the  TV series Mork & Mindy, starring  Robin Williams as alien Mork and actress Pam Dawber as Mindy. premiered on ABC.  Na nu, na nu.

♥~1994 – Do you remember the 1994 World Series? Liar, liar, pants on fire! There was no World Series that year, because on September 14th of ’94, major league baseball cancelled the rest of the season because of a players’ strike.

★~Born Today:

♥~ 1936 – Walter Koenig actor: Star Trek, Antony and Cleopatra, Moontrap

♥~ 1947 – Jon ‘Bowzer’ Bauman singer: group: Sha Na Na: LP: Rock & Roll is Here to Stay!; VJ: VH-1

♥~ 1947 – Sam Neill actor: In the Mouth of Madness, Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, The Piano, Jurassic Park, The Hunt for Red October, Sleeping Dogs, Ivanhoe, The Final Conflict, My Brilliant Career

★~ Star Spangled Gallimaufry:  

1. The melody is set to an old English drinking tune. Ironically, the melody of “The Star-Spangled Banner” is English—not American. The tune comes from the old drinking song, “To Anacreon in Heav’n,” the official ditty of an 18th century London men’s social club called the Anacreontic Society.

2. And before it became our anthem, it was an American drinking tune, too. Back in the days before national media, one of the best ways for a politico to reach the common man was through catchy tunes sung at bars and parties. So while second president John Adams was campaigning for reelection against Thomas Jefferson in 1800, he borrowed the old Anacreon tune for a propaganda poem called “Adams and Liberty.” The poem warned against mercantilism and foreign involvement, spearing Jefferson’s notorious pro-French sympathies. Jefferson’s camp countered with “Jefferson and Liberty,” a 15-verse defense or free speech and religion sung to an Irish jig. Jefferson won the election, but Adams’ song may have single-handedly turned a British tune into an American earworm.

3. The lyrics come from a poem. Francis Scott Key penned the words of “The Star-Spangled Banner” in Baltimore on September 14, 1814. But these lyrics were originally intended as a poem called “Defense of Fort McHenry,” written after witnessing an American flag raised triumphantly above a Baltimore stronghold the morning after a 27-hour British bombardment (as the poem says, “our flag was still there.”) Key’s brother-in-law first made the connection between the poem’s words and the Anacreon tune a few days later, printing it with sheet music in The Baltimore Patriot on September 20th.

4. The original sheet music contains an infamous spelling mistake. There are only about a dozen copies left of the original 1814 sheet music imprint of Key’s “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The original edition can be easily identified by the misprint “A Pariotic Song” in its subtitle.

5. There is more than one verse. While the most well known verse is typically the only one sung, there are four others that follow it, each ending with the line, “O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.” We typically don’t sing past the first verse because the following four contain even more challenging phrases such as “foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes” and “fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses.”

6. The real Star-Spangled Banner has a sibling. In 1813 a woman named Mary Pickersgill, a Baltimore flag maker, was asked to make two flags for Fort McHenry. One of these, the 30-foot by 42-foot army flag would later become the Star-Spangled Banner. Its sibling, a smaller storm flag, measured 17 x 25 feet and was designed to withstand even the toughest of weather, saving wear and tear on the larger flag.

7. The song sounds much different now than it did 200 years ago. Francis Scott Key himself wouldn’t recognize today’s version of the national anthem. The song was originally intended for a group of people to sing together. Today “The Star-Spangled Banner” has become a complete soloist affair, and the pace and general tempo is often much slower.

8. Today, the song is difficult for even a trained singer. Many superstar singers struggle to sing our national anthem: From Christina Aguilera forgetting the words at Super Bowl XLV to Michael Bolton writing the lyrics on his hand, the song doesn’t come easy. Kenneth Slowik, director of the Smithsonian Chamber Music Society, says, “It has a lot to do with the range…Basically, the notes are very high.” Particularly throat-straining: singing the highest note of the piece on the “e” at the end of “free.”

9. Our national anthem exists because of a cartoon! America didn’t have a national anthem until 1931—and it could have taken longer if not for a cartoon. In 1929, Robert Ripley published an item in his syndicated “Ripley’s Believe It or Not!” cartoon pointing out the fact that America did not have a national anthem. After Ripley received many letters of backlash, he told these upset patriots that their efforts would be better spent writing their congressmen. This led to a five-million-signature petition asking Congress for a national anthem. It worked. In 1931, President Herbert Hoover signed a law making “The Star-Spangled Banner” the official national anthem of the United States of America.

10. The actual Star-Spangled Banner was hidden away during WWII. In 1907, the famous flag that flew above Fort McHenry first came to the Smithsonian Museum in the National Mall, and has only left once since Eben Appleton permanently donated it in 1914. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt felt that the Japanese could possibly attack the National Mall, so from 1942 to 1944 the flag and many other treasures were sent to Shenandoah National Park near Luray, Virginia, for safekeeping. Today, the war-weary flag that inspired our anthem is on permanent exhibition at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

11. In 1861, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. added a verse. Despite using the words “the land of the free,” Francis Scott Key had been a slave owner, and members of the Confederate Army wanted to claim his anthem. Holmes, an influential writer from Boston, wrote new lyrics advocating that American slaves be unchained. Holmes’ addition now appears in most official publications of the lyrics.

12. The first sporting event to hear “The Star-Spangled Banner” was a baseball game in 1862 in Brooklyn, New York. The anthem was performed at the first World Series in 1903 in Boston; many believe it was first performed at the 1918 World Series.

13.  One of the most famous renditions of the song was performed by Jimi Hendrix at the 1969 Woodstock Festival. Though that was his most iconic performance, Hendrix actually performed his version over 60 times during a two-year period.

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Good Morno has turned into Good Afternoon’o.

Beyond the usual furry of activity mornings bring. I had an electrician come by to see if we could solve some of our electrical issues.  For example, I would like to be able to start the toaster and open the fridge at the same time. The electrician agreed, this is not to much too ask. He’ll send me a quote to let me know how much this convenience will cost me.

And speaking of household repairs I want to share that we have a brand new kitchen faucet that runs like a charm.  The pipe under the sink leaks but a plumber is coming on Friday to fix it.

AND! we have a new back door that no longer locks us in or out of the house. We replaced the old back door in July and when I open and close the new door I still feel a little thrill inside. 

The new van is scheduled for a Friday pick-up.

We may be on a roll! I hope so since Cousin Carla is due next week for a visit and my Sweet Mom will arrive mid-October (OHHH, she bought me bedroom blinds—early Christmas gift. Removing the parchment paper from the windows and installing the blinds was a very big day around here!!).

Wishing you a wonderful Wednesday—( No worries, I let Mike know first thing this morning about Creme Donuts–so he could spoil the office. The rest of you can have one as an afternoon snack or go for a do-over tomorrow Morno!) 

Odd Loves Company,

P.S. Isn’t odd that Frances S. Key wrote the National Anthem around the time of all the stand-up/sit-down controversy?