Remember

Memorial Day first became a holiday (originally known as Decoration Day) in the northern states after the Civil War.  The Grand Army of the Republic, a veterans’ organization for those who fought for the North first declared it to be May 30th in 1868.  Its name gradually changed to Memorial Day and eventually came to represent Civil War veterans from both sides and later from other wars. 

I was surprised to learn that Memorial Day wasn’t adopted as the official name of a federal holiday until 1967.  The law that changed the date of Memorial Day and three other holidays to Mondays was enacted in 1968 and took effect in 1971.

Memorial Day has become a lot more than just remembering the troops who died in our nation’s wars, but because it is still that, this image is from Gettysburg National Cemetery.

Civil War Graves

Things I Know

It’s been cooler than usual in April and May where I live.  I’m going to plant tomatoes this weekend.  The danger of frost is past, but the ground may still be a little cool for tomato plants to thrive.

I guess Mother’s Day was also breast-cancer awareness day for major league baseball.  I’m against breast cancer and in favor of breast-cancer awareness.  Still, the uniforms in the Mets-Padres game were ugly.  They made me pine for the Padres’ old brown ones.

I don’t begrudge breast cancer research a dime.  I have contributed myself from time to time, but from the publicity it gets you’d think breast cancer was the number one cause of death among women.  It isn’t.  Lung cancer and heart disease cause more deaths than breast cancer does.

I may need to get a new doctor.  My test results came back and now this doctor is trying to tell me I’m completely normal.

Over the years, I’ve asked lots of questions here, some of them serious, and some meant as jokes.  One of the serious ones came four years ago when I wondered whether noise-cancelling headphones would help with my tinnitus.  Since the last time I looked into it, sound therapy has become helpful, but not a cure for tinnitus.  Certain frequencies generated by special hearing aids help cancel out the annoying ringing of tinnitus.  So, while noise-cancelling headphones won’t help, there are now hearing aids that supposedly will.  I can hear without hearing aids, but because of the tinnitus, and because of some high-frequency hearing loss, I don’t hear people well if there’s a lot of background noise.  I’ve ordered a pair of hearing aids designed to help with both.  If they work well, I may review then here in the future.

Here’s an update on my Panasonic bathroom fan.  I have replaced it, with another Panasonic fan.  So, I’ve bought three of them in eight years.  The one in my upstairs bathroom still works.  I have mixed feelings about the fans.  They’re high quality, very quiet, and Panasonic makes more than one fan that will fit in my existing opening which is a little over ten inches square.  On the other hand, they’re very expensive, the light kit on mine (not the bulb, the fixture) failed after eight years.  The ballast for the light isn’t easily replaceable and neither the ballast nor the light fixture is available from Panasonic anymore.

The light in my new fan is bright enough that I can probably grow tomatoes in there now.  But, I won’t.

I have a compressed disc in my neck, and I tore both rotator cuffs for the second time after I’d already had surgery to repair each one.  I guess what I’m saying is working over my head is painful.  So, I didn’t replace the fan in the ceiling myself.  It annoys me to pay someone else to do something for me that I know how to do.  Still, the electrician did a bang-up job, took about half an hour and cleaned up after himself.  Good job there.

Things I Want (or Need) to Know

Have you noticed that when Burger King advertises “Ten nuggets for $1.49” on TV, the commercial doesn’t say a word about what’s in the nuggets?  Do they, for instance, contain chicken?

My only deductions are real estate taxes, mortgage interest, and charitable contributions.  So why does it take so damned long to do my taxes?

If you’re not supposed to pick at scabs, why do they itch so much you have to scratch them?

Why don’t babies have freckles?

Why is knowing a thing or two better than being a know it all?

Wouldn’t sock sizes make a lot more sense if they corresponded to shoe sizes?