Humming birds

I grew up in Baltimore, Maryland.  The state bird of Maryland is the Baltimore oriole but I had never seen an oriole before moving to Wisconsin.  Likewise, I had heard of hummingbirds but not seen one until Wisconsin.  I wanted our brass structure for support of climbing vines right beside our dining room window when it came time to plant a dropmore honeysuckle vine.

You can see that each flower is trumpet-shaped, ideal for a humming bird with that long bill.

We read Sy Montgomery’s “The Hummingbird’s Gift” and learned that the little birds expend so much energy and have such small bodies that they need to eat five to eight times an hour.

We were part of Elderhostel tour of Cuba and in one of the many gift shops, a handcarved real-sized wooden hummingbird caught my eye.  It hangs in our dining room now.

Storing and locating

The book by Judith Flanders, “A Place for Everything” and the book by Deirdre Mask, “The Address Book” have some commonalities that don’t stand out.  When you have bound books in large numbers and someone builds shelves for them, you soon run into the problem of finding that book that happens to be on your mind.  In a somewhat similar way, when you have buildings along avenues and streets and you want to do that modern thing and deliver messages written on paper, you run into the coding problem of using a short code on each message as to where the message should be delivered.  Some places in the world, even with many people living close to each other, still don’t have addresses.  If you have an address, respect it and be proud of it.  

My wife was a school librarian and later taught school librarianship at a university.  She got into that activity at a time and place where people were creating “slide-tapes”, recordings of speech meant to be played in conjunction with the showing of a set of slides.  School librarians were confronted with the problem of storing and then finding one of the collected items when needed.  She wrote her doctoral dissertation on similar work being done by the US Dept. of Agriculture’s library of new types of materials.  Often, new types of material have physical characteristics that require new types of storage, labeling and tools to locate them.

Libraries

My life has been affected at several points by libraries.  I looked up “public libraries” and found several different versions and ideas.  My mother took me to the main Enoch Pratt free library in downtown Baltimore when she knew I could write my name.  I don’t know what sort of credentials she had to present, if any.  I didn’t have much to do with libraries until I was in elementary school.  It happened that my house was on a walking route past a Pratt library branch and I remember spending time there.  As a high school senior, I was employed at that same main library branch, reshelving books left out on tables, often to hide poor men drinking behind them.

In college, I invited the person I have been married to for almost 67 years out for the first time in the campus library.  After marriage and children, my wife wanted a job closer to home.  She applied to the local school system and got a job as an elementary school librarian.  She had a minor in school librarianship from college. Later, she was a librarian in the high school library.  Eventually, she attended grad school and got a PhD which led to a teaching job at a college about 120 miles away.  She wrote her dissertation about the problem of cataloging and housing new sorts of materials other than books.  After a year or so of straddling jobs in disconnected places, she switched to working on the local campus and teaching ways to make web sites and web pages, a new possibility then

I don't know what you said

I think the main stressor in our house is my weakening hearing.  I can usually detect that somebody is speaking.  My problem is decoding, comprehension.  If a comment is delivered in a very high voice or spoken very quickly, I have less chance of comprehending what was said.  The voice tone, the accompanying facial expression help but I often have to admit “I don’t know what you said.” I asked my hearing doctor about the problem and she said that the part of my brain that understands spoken words is wearing out. So far, I have not gotten too interested in a cochlear implant.

We did it again

We assured each other that we would take a trip.  We need a trip.  Of course, we have taken trips before.  We have been to Europe several times and to Australia and New Zealand.  We have driven to all 50 US states.  

As recently explained, we wanted to drive to the town of Wisconsin Dells and we did.  But when we got there, we were not charmed.  Everything seemed too commercial.  We drove to another town and walked.  As we walked, we discussed what we had done and what we wanted to do.  We discovered that we both felt disinclined to go anywhere but home.  We drove home happily.

Since then, we thought of driving to an unusual place in Wisconsin but yesterday was too stormy and rainy for a trip.  We waited to today.  We talked and discovered that we both felt disinclined to take a trip.  We realized that not taking a trip, we would not have to pack.  We wouldn’t forget things and discover we had left an important item at home.  We visited the cultural circle in the riverfront park, drove to Emy J’s for coffee.  Then, we came home and had lunch.

Is it the year 2026 already?

Is it 2026 already?

Why didn’t somebody tell me?  I have got to buckle down and get cracking.  I haven’t started on a great American novel or a hit play or a best-selling memoir.  I am getting further over the hill each day and if I am not careful, I am going to stop breathing without any of my great work done.

I just asked Google “How many people have expired without their great works even begun?”  I got this answer:

It is impossible to provide an exact number, but historians and researchers estimate that roughly 102 billion to 105 billion people have lived and died throughout human history without their "great works" ever being realized. [1, 2]

This concept traces back to a famous quote by physician and author Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.: "[Alas for those that never sing, / But die with all their music in them!]"(http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/owh/vless.html). Spiritual teacher and author Dr. Wayne Dyer famously popularized this idea as, "Don't die with your music still in you."(https://www.drwaynedyer.com/video/dont-die-with-your-music-still-in-you-wayne-dyer-and-daughter-serena/). [1, 2, 3]

Here is how researchers and analysts break down this loss of human potential:

• The Historical Toll: Out of the estimated 110 billion humans who have ever been born, the overwhelming majority lived in eras dominated by war, disease, and the basic, grueling struggle for survival. Their "great works" were either completely lost to time or never had a chance to be conceptualized due to circumstances beyond their control. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

• The Modern Equivalent: In the modern era, analysts (such as those at the Wealth Research Group) estimate that up to 92% to 98% of people ultimately pass away without ever achieving their goals and dreams. [1, 2]

• The Reasons: This staggering percentage is rarely due to a lack of talent or ambition. Instead, sociological studies suggest people most often defer their potential due to the fear of failure, societal pressures, or putting off what they want to do for "someday" until time simply runs out. [1, 2, 3]

Couldn't find it

There was a meeting for former faculty on campus today.  I did save a postcard telling about the event but I didn’t read it carefully.  It did not say what I thought it did.  I went to the room I thought was the meeting place but no one was there.  I immediately guessed they had moved to a different site.  I went there: nobody.  I asked a dean’s secretary and she told me a third location.  Nah - I just went home.

How do they find my blog?

Almost any browser computer program uses a version of artificial intelligence unless deliberate steps are taken to avoid AI.  Leading browsers are Chrome, Foxfire, Safari but there are several others.  So far, my own experience hasn’t changed much from the development of AI.  What did change my computer search experience was reading search questions and phrases that others had asked about the same or similar searches.  When a group of researchers discuss a problem among themselves, comments and others’ questions continuously inspire others in the group.  A family discussing a problem may produce ideas that no one in the group had before the group discussion began.

A friend asked how people in other parts of the world find my blog.  I am not sure but I am confident that several different avenues lead to reading my posts.  Google offers some statistics and information about blogs published by them.  A small portion of page views come from direct contact with Google Blogspot.  There is no restriction on access or subsequent use of my posts.

I had never seen reports of page views from a particular Asian country but then they started.  I searched the name of a person I had recently informed about my blog and found that person was an “influencer”, a person, often on YouTube that speaks that language and promotes ideas and products

This blog and others

I did a little math today and figure that I have posted on the blog about 90% of the days since I began it. I have been writing “Fear, Fun and Filoz” for 18 years.  I have been retired for 21 years.  After I retired, I learned a bit about meditation and I thought it might help any beleaguered student teacher to know about meditation processes and ideas.  I don’t have formal training in the subject but I have read quite a bit.

Over time, more and more YouTube presentations, books, athletic teams, and trainers became available to teach meditation and I became aware of how many materials and sources there were.  But by that time, I was in the habit of writing a bit each day.  I abandoned the practice of explaining mediation and just wrote about things that came to mind.

When I am too busy to write, I often suggest that readers try blogging on their own.  If interested, search “Google blogging” and/or “Wordpress.com”.  Or simply search for “blogging hosts.”

Contrast

On this day of the year, fifty-eight years ago, I landed at the Stevens Point airport to take a job as an assistant professor of education. On this day today, I am scheduled to attend a party for a great-grand daughter who days ago graduated from high school.  On that day, fifty-eight years ago, I didn’t have any grandchildren, much less grandchildren who had children.  Things change!