A.Word.A.Day -- AWADmail Issue 785

A.Word.A.Day

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AWADmail Issue 785

A Weekly Compendium of Feedback on the Words in A.Word.A.Day and Tidbits about Words and Language

Sponsor’s Message: Sometimes the way things were is better than the way things are. We call it “Old’s Cool”, and we’d like to invite this week’s Email of the Week winner, Karthik (see below), as well as anyone who loves wit, excellence, adventure, and a few typographical errors every once in a while to enjoy our cool sardine can edition of One Up! -- The Wicked/Smart Word Game FREE with every purchase of $25 or more. Just use coupon code: “summerfunshine”. SHOP NOW.

From: Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)
Subject: Interesting stories from the Net

Understanding Poetry Is More Straightforward Than You Think
The New York Times
Permalink

Data Shows Americanization of English Is Rising
The Guardian
Permalink
[See also my micro study from 2010.]

From: Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)
Subject: Eric Shackle

Eric Shackle, 2015

Eric Shackle, a WWII veteran and our former copy editor, died in Sydney, Australia, on Jul 11. He was 98.

Eric Shackle was born on May 13, 1919, in Chingford, UK. He was 10 when his family moved to Sydney, Australia. His father had served in WWI for the British army. Eric worked for The Daily Telegraph and when WWII broke out he joined the Australian army. After retiring from the army, he joined BP as a PR officer. Eventually, he retired from the corporate world.

But it wasn’t like Eric Shackle to retire.

In 1999, at the age of 79, he discovered the Internet and started a blog “Life Begins at 80... on the Internet”. (He called it “The World’s First Multi-National eBook!” -- he had a flair for promotion.)

Eric Shackle, 1942

Around the same time, he discovered Wordsmith.org and wrote to us. Over time, he and I developed an unlikely friendship. He talked about his four sons, his grandchildren, and his latest discoveries on the Internet. We shared an interest in writing, words, and wordplay (he came up with the anagram “Anagram Genius = Name is Anu Garg”). He shared Australianisms with me.

I invited him to serve as our copy editor and he accepted. Officially, he was our copy editor, but his PR instincts were always sharp. When I was moving from the East Coast to the Pacific Coast, he thought the media should be alerted. I told him it wasn’t necessary, but he still sent out some emails. Sure enough, soon after I landed in Seattle, a Seattle Times reporter stopped by to have a conversation.

In 2015, Eric Shackle had to be moved to a nursing home. He wasn’t very happy about it, but his body was giving out. He couldn’t see very well, so he had to retire from copy editing and from the Net. I tried calling him but he had a hard time hearing and we lost touch.

When visiting Australia last year, I decided to pay him a visit. I emailed Stephen, his youngest son, half fearing that Stephen was going to give me bad news.

Instead, I received a reply from Judy. She said that Stephen, her husband, died earlier that year.

Life is weird.

Judy, Eric’s daughter-in-law, told me that cancer had taken Stephen. She said no one had the heart to tell Eric the news. They figured it’s best not to tell him at all, given his age. But her daughter Nicki (Eric’s granddaughter) thought he should be informed. So she did. Eric cried like a baby.

Judy kindly drove me to see Eric Shackle. When I entered his room in a nursing home in Sydney, he was sitting in front of a TV, eating from a bowl. His hand was shaking. Food had splattered his T-shirt.

My eyes watered when I saw him. The man who once served on the front lines in the WWII now couldn’t get himself off the chair without two people supporting him on either side. This is what age does to people.

I communicated by writing on a handheld whiteboard as his hearing had given out. I wrote in 90 pt font size as his eyesight wasn’t that great either.

But he was still strong where it really counts. We chatted about the nursing home. I asked him if they served pizza there. He asked about Seattle, about my daughter Ananya, and more. We talked about his time in the army, in WWII. We talked about his wife Jerry (she died in 2005). We talked about Australian history -- I asked him if it would be fair to say that the British convicts were austracized. He smiled.

While I was with Eric, he insisted that I talk with ABC Australia (once a PR man, always a PR man). I told him that my only purpose in visiting Sydney was to see him. As I was leaving, I realized that this was the first, and most likely last, time I’d see him. My eyes filled up again.

Eric Shackle was a fair dinkum Aussie. He finally retired last week.

From: Christopher Alden (calmichigan gmail.com)
Subject: Re: CyberHound

I was able send them an email using only three letters in the first name. It’s possible they loosened the Procrustean bonds a bit as I am sure others sent them messages based on your post. They are probably inundated with emails by now. lol.

Christopher Lumpkin, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Was it Wittgenstein, who once said, the limits of my contact-us form mean the limits of my world?

Current limits (as of Jul 10, 2017) are three letters for the first name and four letters for the last. So I might be able to get in, but Xi Jinping is out of luck as is Theresa May (and Xi May should not even think about it).

Still, you can’t complain there’s no progress.

Anyway, now that things have changed, I have to go back to the county courthouse to get my name reverted to the original.

-AnuAnu GargGarg

PS: In all seriousness, I marvel at the thinking that seems to be going on here: someone named Anu Garg complained about it, so let's change the limits to three and four letters, respectively. When an Al or Jo complains, we'll take the next step. In business world, it's best to be conservative... no drastic changes... baby steps ...

From: Steve Warshaw (siw well.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--eke

Wonder what they would have done with the PM from Burma, U Nu.

Steve Warshaw, New York, New York

From: Norman Rabek (nrabek gmail.com)
Subject: Short names

My dad used to tell the story of a fellow recruit in WWII with the initials BN as his name. To clarify, the clerk filled out the form with B(only) N(only). He quickly became known as Bonly Nonly, which stuck throughout his career.

Norman Rabek, Burnsville, North Carolina

From: Ingrid Birenbaum (ingrid.birenbaum gmail.com)
Subject: Short and long of it

All my life I have had the opposite problem. My last name (maiden) is 15 letters, 14 if you take advantage of a German umlaut (which creates problems of its own). It never fitted on a form and am always trying to explain my “real” versus truncated name. My married name is a mere 9 letters. Also German in origin, my first-maiden/last-name combo tells the story of the daughter who was at the mill by the river Leuchten near the pear tree.

Ingrid Leuchtenmueller Birenbaum, Fort Lauderdale, Florida

From: Carrie Killingsworth (killingsworth13 yahoo.com)
Subject: Short vs long names

As someone with a long-ish last name I never appreciated the challenges of having a short name. I still recall my old school days of scan-tron bubble answer sheets cutting off part of my name.

Carrie Killingsworth, Columbus, Ohio

Email of the Week -- Brought to you by One Up! -- A can of perfect summer funshine.
From: Karthik (karthikeyan.d gmail.com)
Subject: Procrustes/Procrustean

Isn’t requiring a second name also procrustean?

Where I come from (South India), we use patronymic initials, i.e., the first letter of the father’s name is used as the initial for a child. Some may use their mother’s name’s first letter also.

For example, if someone is named Anand and his father is named Vishwanathan, he will named V. Anand and will be referred to as Anand or Mr. Anand in my case.

We all live happily until we either have to fill an application for the central government or apply for a passport or join a north Indian or foreign company. Some may accept a single letter second name. So we will simply move our initials to the second name position. For the others we’ll just expand the initials. Some leave it at the beginning and some move it to the second name place.

So, V. Anand could become either “Vishwanathan Anand” or “Anand Vishwanathan”.

If it is the first one, people may address you using your father’s name. If you are the chess grandmaster, they might even shorten it to “Vishy”. You win all the chess championships but it is your father who garners all the fame. :-)

If it is the second, you could be again addressed by your father’s name. Imagine you are in an airport and the plane is about to leave and they are paging for “Mr. Vishwanathan”, which you ignore because you are used to Mr. Anand.

Loss of fame, missing airplanes etc. All because we do not have family/second names. This tyranny of the “second-namers” has to end. :-)

Karthik D., Bangalore, India

From: Michael Power (hmichaelpower gmail.com)
Subject: One name

A couple of decades ago there was an article in the BMJ by an Indian woman who had huge hurdles to overcome when filling in forms that required a given name and surname -- where she came from people have just one name! Her solution (if I remember correctly) was to use her name for both her given name and her surname.

Michael Power, Newcastle, UK

PS, I wonder if there are any cyber hounds called Fido?

From: Joyce K. Whitesell (mustangjkw hotmail.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--eke

I got a laugh out of your “short regulations” story and it reminded me of an old email full of regulations for resetting a password.

Joyce K. Whitesell, Dunnellon, Florida

From: Brian Barratt (umbidas tpg.com.au)
Subject: On being refused

I sympathise, nay, empathise, with you and your dealings with CyberHound. My parallel experience has been on commercial websites were I was not allowed to order the items I wanted because I could not give them a mobile phone number. I am 81. I have a hearing handicap. I use a desk phone for handicapped people. I cannot use mobile phones. So those companies do not get my orders.

Brian Barratt, Melbourne, Australia

From: Richard S. Russell (RichardSRussell tds.net)
Subject: Zip+4

That level of unthinking anal retention is fairly uncommon, but I’ll bet they get a lot of business from Engelbert Humperdinck. The obtuseness that I run into all the time involves zip codes. I always diligently type in my full zip code (53717-1609) on the theory that the US Postal Service appreciates the specificity. You’d be amazed how many websites refuse to accept it, insisting that I “must enter a valid zip code”, by which they apparently mean “We couldn’t tell a valid zip code if it bit us.” They must vomit when they get something from Canada or the UK, with embedded letters and spaces.

Richard S. Russell, Madison, Wisconsin

From: Nils Andersson (nilsphone aol.com)
Subject: Phone numbers

I once, for work, tried to call a phone number in St Helena. Trouble is, St Helena has fewer than 10,000 phone subscribers so the number I wanted to call was four digits, no area code. AT&T rejected this, and I tried a couple of other phone companies before I found one that would accept just four digits.

Nils Andersson, Anguilla

From: Charlie Cook (via website comments)
Subject: limits

One of my credit cards has six security questions, all of which must be a minimum of six letters long. These include favourite colour (not many six or more), Mother’s maiden name (mine is less than six), last school (mine three letters), pet name (four letters). EekEek!

Charlie Cook, UK

From: Sarah S. Sole (via website comments)
Subject: Middle initial

In WWI, the Army refused to accept only two names for enlistees, notably for Harry Truman and my dad. I don’t know about Truman’s S, but for my dad they used the initial of his mother’s maiden name. As a public figure, Truman’s initial was retained; my dad’s initial is a footnote in our family history.

Sarah S. Sole, Enid, Oklahoma

From: Molly Strode (strode hawaii.edu)
Subject: Security questions

I had a similar experience. On a recent list of security questions for something or other, the options were limited. Favorite candy? I don’t think I have one. Favorite author? Ah--yes--Lee as in Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird. That was rejected because they wanted it to be five letters also.

Molly Strode, Honolulu, Hawaii

From: Leslie Schonberg (lschonbe7 gmail.com)
Subject: NA

This is in regard to your comments about short names. I once worked with a lady from China whose last name was “Na” (true story). She said that when she entered her last name back in the 70s the computers then would kick back her entry and state that “NA” was not a valid last name entry.

Leslie Schonberg, Farmington Hills, Michigan

From: Timm Artus (timmartus yahoo.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--eke

Thanks for that glimpse into your battles with computer systems. They promised to save us much time and be so efficient. But it turns out, only on their terms! Those sci-fi films of computers and robots taking over the planet after terrible wars? Already happened without their firing a shot. We obey! LOL!

Timm Artus, Greenville, South Carola.

From: Todd Derr (todd.derr gmail.com)
Subject: eke

I thought the theme was going to be “overused words in crossword puzzles” although I guess it’s actually nowhere near as frequent as I thought according to this. It must just stand out for some reason -- or maybe it’s become more heavily used since 2009.

Todd Derr, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

From: Christopher McKane (christopher.mckane gmail.com)
Subject: Eke

An eke (noun) is used by beekeepers. It’s a hollow wooden square which sits above the brood box to accommodate the extra depth needed by a feeder, for example.

Christopher McKane, London, UK

From: Rajnish Sapra (rajnishsapra gmail.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--eke

Coincidentally, the Google Doodle for today is on Eva Ekeblad... in a way, featuring your word for the day!

Rajnish Sapra, Chandigarh, India

From: Steve Kirkpatrick (stevekirkp comcast.net)
Subject: eke, also eek

The adverbial form of eke is familiar to anyone who has studied Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in Middle English. The Prologue contains humorously flowery speech. Eek, or eke, is on the fifth line:

Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, (etc.)

I can still recite the first 18 lines, from when I took the course from Stanford Professor Emerson Brown, later of Vanderbilt. An inspired professor and a text with good footnotes made the Middle English understandable and enjoyable. It’s a much richer version, compared with the modern English translations.

Steve Kirkpatrick, Olympia, Washington

From: Tom van Deijnen (tom.van.deijnen elekta.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--hap

The word hap has an additional specific meaning in the Shetland dialect: in the knitting tradition of the Shetland Isles, women knitted many items of clothing for themselves and for sale. Amongst others they knitted very intricate and delicate lacey shawls to sell, but for their own everyday wear, they knitted haps: warm shawls from a sturdier and thicker yarn using simple knitting patterns.

Tom van Deijnen, Crawley, UK

From: Russ Spittler (spittler fuller.edu)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--hap

In the 1930s and 1940s, trips to Grandma’s farm in central Pennsylvania put us kids to bed on cold nights under haps. Such a “hap” was a home-made comforter of sorts, a cotton sheet lined with cotton stuffing and topped with random squares cut from old, worn out wool clothing and stitched together.

Russ Spittler, Santa Ana, California

From: Alex Blair (blair09 btinternet.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--hap

The second meaning for the verb takes me right to one of my favourite songs “Happed in Mist”, which some think should be the anthem for WWI: a volunteer soldier, confused and disorientated, imagines he sees his lover, walks towards her, and is shot as a deserter (song, beautiful, written by Michael Marra, the late “Bard of Dundee”).
recording (3 min.)
lyrics

Alex Blair, Musselburgh, Scotland

From: Bruce Floyd (brucefloyd bellsouth.net)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--hap

Thomas Hardy wrote a poem titled Hap. In it, he avers that human suffering is nothing more than the blind indifference of the universe, a game of dice. He says that it'd be easier were the universe malefic, sadistic, delighted at causing our suffering. In this case, says Hardy, he could "bear it", somewhat reconciled that a malignant and superior force had unfairly tossed misery into his life. He could, he says, endure "steeled by the sense of ire unmerited". No, what is maddening to Hardy is that the suffering is spread by blind and indifferent "purblind doomsters". Life, suggest Hardy, is all a matter of luck, be it good luck or bad luck.

When Christopher Hitchens was near death from esophageal cancer, he said when he asked the universe "Why me?" he had to strain to hear the faint response of "Why not?" A man on the cusp of life, especially one as intelligent and honest as Hitchens, understands his insignificance in the cosmic scale of things.

I caught a bit of "Sixty Minutes" this past Sunday, saw a bit on a report about an Alzheimer's study in South America, in a place where the disease is rampant. I heard a doctor say that the gene that causes the disease has been found. He added that, if this gene is defective, the person in which the gene resides has a 100 percent chance of developing early-onset Alzheimer's.

This maimed gene -- is it the product of some evil at the core of creation, purposely inserted into a group of people for simple malice, or is its presence the result of mere chance, some random mutation that occurred -- who knows why -- hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago? It's frightening, almost beyond comprehension, that even as a fetus curls in its mother's womb, the "purblind doomsters" are at work, and who knows what the result of their blind dice tossing will be on the child that is born. What catastrophe did they deposit within the infant, what bent and twisted gene -- and, for God's sake, why? Will we ever know why? Is it bootless and fruitless to stand beneath a deaf and stitched heaven and cry, "Why?" I don't know.

Bruce Floyd, Florence, South Carolina

From: James McFarlane (plover3 polka.co.za)
Subject: Hap

This reminds me of a MAD Magazine skit in the 1970s, featuring the Lone Ranger and Tonto, "bringing help to the helpless and hap to the hapless".

James McFarlane, Cape Town, South Africa

From: Judith Blish (jblish otenet.gr)
Subject: Aver

Munchkin Coroner about the Wicked Witch from The Wizard of Oz:

As Coroner I must Aver
I've thoroughly examined her,
And she's not only merely dead -
She's really most sincerely dead!
(video, 15 sec.)

Judy Blish, Athens, Greece

From: Monique Reed (monique.dubrule.reed gmail.com)
Subject: word "ana”

Ana is also shorthand/slang for anorexia. There is a whole pro-ana culture, dedicated to normalizing and maintaining an anorexic lifestyle.

Monique Reed, College Station, Texas

From: Barry Galloway (barry bgalloway.com)
Subject: Ana

Then we can use “Anuana” in referring to a treasured collection of all things Gargian.

Barry Galloway, Springfield, Virginia

From: Jim Ertner (ertner alum.mit.edu)
Subject: This week’s words

“Eke! I smell a rat,” said Tom mousily.
“Hap, two, three, four,” said the drill sergeant marchingly.
“I don’t aver want to hear this word again,” affirmed Tom assertingly.
“I’m going to lam-inate that wood,” said Tom as he beat it soundly.
“Ana one, ana two, ana three, ana four,” said Tom mimicking Lawrence Welk.

Jim Ertner, Boston, Massachusetts

From: James Greenfield (jgreen9802 earthlink.net)
Subject: short words

You showed that 3- and 4-letter words have power. But, consider 2-letter words. They include some of our most common words, and can make complete sentences. For example,

So, if he is up to it, we go on by my Ma in LA, no?

Oh, OK, Pa, or do us as an ax ad at HQ.

Um... uh... er... eh... hm? Ah. Ha!

James Greenfield, Phoenix, Arizona

From: Ray Schlabach (crdutchman gmail.com)
Subject: Short words

I think Spanish takes the prize for short words. The five vowels are all short, one-letter words, and short words in English.

a = to
e = and (before a word beginning with an i)
i(y) = and (i is traditionally spelled as y when it is a word)
o = or
u = or

Raymond Schlabach, Heredia, Costa Rica

From: Alex McCrae (ajmccrae277 gmail.com)
Subject: hap and lam

In inventing these amorphous, animated characters representing words, or word fragments that could conjoin with our word “hap” to form a variety of “hap-words”, I was somewhat inspired by cartoonist Al Capp’s quirky blob-like Li’l Abner comic strip character, The Shmoo, and perhaps some of Dr. Seuss’s endearing, fantastical creatures.

THE BiG FLEECE? Clearly, not the most ingenious heist get-away mode. But you have to admit, quite a doozy of a cartoon groaner... a veritable “sheep shot”.

Alex McCrae, Van Nuys, California

From: Jim Szpajcher (mudman1 telusplanet.net)
Subject: Thought for the Day, July 14, 2017

The Thought for the Day for July 14, quotes Northrop Frye:

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Literature encourages tolerance -- bigots and fanatics seldom have any use for the arts, because they’re so preoccupied with their beliefs and actions that they can’t see them also as possibilities. -Northrop Frye, writer and critic (14 Jul 1912-1991)

With all due respect to Northrop Frye, this is clearly not so. Adam Hochschild, in “To End All Wars” wrote extensively about the manner in which British authors were co-opted to generate support for the British war effort, soon after the outbreak of war in 1914. See The National Archives and Wikipedia.

One should never underestimate the ability of fanatics and bigots to mobilize masses of people through the effective use of propaganda in any form, especially as the written word.

Jim Szpajcher, St. Paul, Canada

From: Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)
Subject: Anagrams of this week’s words

The text in each box is an anagram of the text in the other box.

This week’s theme: Short words 1. eke 2. hap 3. aver 4. lam 5. ana	=	1. make 2. phenom 3. assert 4. thrash; evade law 5. i.e. the works
		-Dharam Khalsa, Burlington, North Carolina (dharamkk2 gmail.com)

From: Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)
Subject: limericks

Believing my prospects were bleak
Of suitably rhyming with eke,
I thought with a wrench
That if I were French
I could always use “limerique”.
-Martin Back, Cape Town, South Africa (martin.back.za gmail.com)

“Hillary dirt we must seek out,”
said Jr., “so wins Dad can eke out.”
“Prepost’rous!” Trump shrieked,
when the info was leaked,
thus causing America’s freak-out.
-Pearl McCulloch, Oakland, California (huskyheart3 comcast.net)

If you find it a struggle to eke
out a living, try this old technique:
“use it up, wear it out.
“make do or do without.”
You might call it Recycle Mystique.
-Zelda Dvoretzky, Haifa, Israel (zeldahaifa gmail.com)

At zero, the pay’s pretty bleak
For composing these rhymes every week.
And the words Anu flings
Are nefarious things
But my unbroken string I must eke.
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

Sighs the spinster, “It seems that my hap
lies neither with handsome young chap
who escapes on white steed,
nor with geezer who speeds
out of sight in an old rattle-trap.
-Anne Thomas, Sedona, Arizona (antom earthlink.net)

When she downloaded the nth “great” app
the battery life became a matter of hap.
Determined to teach the wayward child,
a lesson that can’t be easily resiled,
it turned off the phone and went for a nap.
-Shyamal Mukherji, Plainville, Massachusetts (mukherjis hotmail.com)

If you win the state lotto by hap,
You’ll become quite a popular chap.
At your door, long-lost cousins
And friends in the dozens
Will knock till your wealth seems a trap.
-Janice Power, Cleveland, Ohio (jpower wowway.com)

Said Natalia, “Eef sanctions you scrap,
Ve vill gif you on Clinton ze crap.”
“Should my Dad you elect,”
Answered Don, “he’ll defect.”
Grinned the lady, “Today ees good hap.”
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

“Fake news! A hoax!” Donald averred.
“Russian collusion --how absurd!”
But the email trail
Tells another tale.
I’ve lost count of the lies we’ve heard.
-Marion Wolf, Bergenfield, New Jersey (marionewolf yahoo.com)

I averred that I’m the smartest
So they tried to give me a test.
I just said, “No way!
I don’t have to play
Your game, since I know I’m the best”.
-Lois Mowat, Orinda, California (loscamil aol.com)

Under oath Mr. Sessions averred,
“No such contacts with Russians occurred.”
In reply Mr. Franken
Said, “You need a spankin’,
A moron I’m not, just a nerd.”
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

In Vegas, old bastion of scam,
When caught, you just went on the lam.
But rat on Malone
(If Bugsy were shown)
You’d end up ‘neath grand Hoover dam.
-Anna C Johnston, Coarsegold, California (ajohnston13 gmail.com)

The notorious gangster named Sam,
Got himself in a bit of a jam.
His latest dumb prank
Was to rip off a bank.
Now he’s spending his life on the lam.
-Judith Marks-White, Westport, Connecticut (joodthmw gmail.com)

When a tweeter becomes top banana,
to comics his tweets come like manna.
The things that they say
are grotesque and outre’
and our lim’ricks can serve as his ana.
-Zelda Dvoretzky, Haifa, Israel (zeldahaifa gmail.com)

In Arabic “anaa” means I,
though its origins one might deny.
From deep roots it came
to give “me” an urname
for this ana of bones that will die.
-Brenda J. Gannam, Brooklyn, New York (gannamconsulting earthlink.net)

Soon President will be a goner,
Trump’s library will be a yawner.
His book would be so thin,
For there’s nothing to spin.
It would be a most paltry ana.
-Joan Perrin, Port Jefferson Station, New York (perrinjoan aol.com)

While the Hebrews were nourished with manna,
Of commandments they needed an ana.
But for Moses to climb
Up Mount Sinai took time
And they slipped like the floor was banana.
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

From: Phil Graham (pgraham1946 cox.net)
Subject: Do these puns come up short?

When they see mice do all women eke out a sound?

Her gown’s strap broke so the beauty pageant contestant was voted “Miss Hap”.

“I can’t back her story ‘cause I don’t think much aver.”

Mutton-busting: A case of being on the lam.

I began a book of my AWAD puns ana couldn’t stop.

Phil Graham, Tulsa, Oklahoma

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

If there be sorrow / let it be / for things undone / undreamed / unrealized unattained / to these add one: / Love withheld ... / restrained. -Mari Evans, poet (16 Jul 1919-2017)

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