I don't want to ruin documents by writing the number that comes before 18 for the year. I know I am going to do it sometime but I want to get the new year's number into my head and habits as deeply and firmly as possible.
January 1 is the day my mother was born. She nearly died from the widespread Spanish flu epidemic that caused trouble that year. I just finished reading Arthur Herman's book "1917", showing similarities and differences between the life of Woodrow Wilson and the man known as Lenin but born as Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov.
Previously, I read the book "The Undivided Past: Humanity Beyond Our Differences" by David Carradine. This Princeton historian explores differences of religion, nation, class, race and civilization. His chapter on class is devoted mostly to Karl Marx and his buddy, Friedrich Engels and their idea that class (manners, family/blood relations and money) was the basic variable in human life. Lenin and others came along and bet their lives on the correctness of the Marx/Engels predictions. It looks to me as though that was not a good idea.
You can appreciate that I not only love and respect my mother and her memory and life, but I consider her fundamental and essential to my existence. My mother would be 101 years old if she were still alive.
When I think of the first day of the first month, when I think of my mother's age were she alive and I think of the new year, digits come to mind. A husband once told me that his wife could remember any number but not the order of the digits. Around here, we say that this is year 2018, month 1 and day 1. 20180101 or 00011128 in order by digit size. Using the same scheme of interpretation, 00011128 would be November 28 of year 1. Years are longer than months, which are longer than days. So, 82111000 starts off with the heaviest digits in the place for the longest time but leaves us with the impossible zero-th day of the 10th month. We don't have a person in line in front of the first person so there is no 0th person and no zero-th day of a month.
Here's hoping this year is almost all that you want it to be. I don't want to wish too ambitiously and I do want to leave room for amendments and additions as may be needed during the coming months. Since there is always a year ahead, not just on the first day but from any other day as well, I will try to remember to wish everyone a happy new year on some other day as well as today. Using Excel, I randomly selected Thursday, July 12 from this year as another day to create and express wishes for a good next 365 days.
January 1 is the day my mother was born. She nearly died from the widespread Spanish flu epidemic that caused trouble that year. I just finished reading Arthur Herman's book "1917", showing similarities and differences between the life of Woodrow Wilson and the man known as Lenin but born as Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov.
Previously, I read the book "The Undivided Past: Humanity Beyond Our Differences" by David Carradine. This Princeton historian explores differences of religion, nation, class, race and civilization. His chapter on class is devoted mostly to Karl Marx and his buddy, Friedrich Engels and their idea that class (manners, family/blood relations and money) was the basic variable in human life. Lenin and others came along and bet their lives on the correctness of the Marx/Engels predictions. It looks to me as though that was not a good idea.
You can appreciate that I not only love and respect my mother and her memory and life, but I consider her fundamental and essential to my existence. My mother would be 101 years old if she were still alive.
When I think of the first day of the first month, when I think of my mother's age were she alive and I think of the new year, digits come to mind. A husband once told me that his wife could remember any number but not the order of the digits. Around here, we say that this is year 2018, month 1 and day 1. 20180101 or 00011128 in order by digit size. Using the same scheme of interpretation, 00011128 would be November 28 of year 1. Years are longer than months, which are longer than days. So, 82111000 starts off with the heaviest digits in the place for the longest time but leaves us with the impossible zero-th day of the 10th month. We don't have a person in line in front of the first person so there is no 0th person and no zero-th day of a month.
Here's hoping this year is almost all that you want it to be. I don't want to wish too ambitiously and I do want to leave room for amendments and additions as may be needed during the coming months. Since there is always a year ahead, not just on the first day but from any other day as well, I will try to remember to wish everyone a happy new year on some other day as well as today. Using Excel, I randomly selected Thursday, July 12 from this year as another day to create and express wishes for a good next 365 days.
