Pictures of Memories I
Snow kidding! These "kids" now range from 17 to 23
2024 A to Z Challenge
Tuesday, April 23, 2024
A to Z 2024: Tis for Table Tennis
For The A to Z Challenge this year, I am focusing on everyday holidays. Each day there are multiple unusual things to celebrate. Every day of the challenge I look for an event taking place that day and pair it with the letter of the day. I have also made up 5 holidays to coincide with the vowel days of the challenge. At the end of each post I will share a special song of the day for that day's letter. At the end of the month, these songs will be assembled in an A to Z keepsake playlist on Spotify. Every day is a celebration, let's unwrap today's together.
April 23rd is World Table Tennis Day
I'm gonna be honest. Most of these holidays I am highlighting for the challenge. I am going to forget about for next year. Some I've probably already forgotten. World Table Tennis Day is one holiday I don't want to forget. In fact, I am kind of bummed that I probably won't ping some pong today. Ping some pong is what I call playing ping pong or table tennis.
When I think of table tennis the first thing that pops into my head is this commercial from when I was a kid.
Gnip Gnop not only sparked a passion for ping pong but also a passion for gnikaeaps sdrawkcab (speaking backwards) which turned into my love for all things palindromic.
When other people think of ping pong this scene from Forrest Gump may pop in their head ...
I love playing table tennis. I may lack the Gumpian endurance or skill but what I lack in endurance and talent I make up in zeal. In college I played a lot of table tennis, it is a great way to spend time between classes or as a study break. It is both social and athletic. I even had an album that I thought was the best accompaniment for playing ping pong. It was Jacob's Trouble's debut album, Door Into Summer. When I hear other people incorrectly say that this group has better albums, my initial thought is not to play ping pong with. You listen and you tell me if the beat doesn't want to make you ping some pong.
One fun thing to on World Table Tennis Day would be to play a variation called round robin. It is basically a cross between table tennis and musical chairs. You play with 2 paddles and as many people as can fit around a ping pong table. Instead of describing it, here is play in action ...
To get a full ping pong experience play the round robin clip without volume while listening to the Jacob's Trouble and you'll see what I'm talking about. So, ping some pong today if you get a chance and if you can't that's just how the ball bounces.
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The song of the day today is Tell It Again by J.J. Heller
20 songs now comprise the A to Z playlist.
To go to the home of the A to Z challenge click here, to see the 2024 master list of participating blogs click here. Enjoy the 2024 A to Z challenge, and Happy Holidays!
Monday, April 22, 2024
A to Z 2024: S is for start of something Major
For The A to Z Challenge this year, I am focusing on everyday holidays. Each day there are multiple unusual things to celebrate. Every day of the challenge I look for an event taking place that day and pair it with the letter of the day. I have also made up 5 holidays to coincide with the vowel days of the challenge. At the end of each post I will share a special song of the day for that day's letter. At the end of the month, these songs will be assembled in a to z keepsake playlist on Spotify. Every day is a celebration, let's unwrap today's together.
April 22nd 2024 is the 148th anniversary of the first National League baseball game
April 22nd 1876 is a significant date in the history of American sports. The first game in the newly formed National League took place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The event took place 2 1/2 months before the 100th anniversary of another significant American beginning that also took place in Philadelphia.
The inaugural game took place between the Philadelphia Athletics and the Boston Red Stockings. With Boston winning 6-5 in a game that took 2 hours to play.
The National League started with 8 teams: Boston Braves(1876-Present) , Philadelphia Athletics (1876-1876), Hartford Blues (1876-1877), St. Louis Brown Stockings (1876-1877) Chicago Cubs (1876- Present) New York Mutuals (1876-1876) Louisville Grays (1876-1877), and Cincinnati Reds (1876-1879). Only the Cubs who were known in their first 25 years in the league as the Chicago White Stockings, Chicago Colts and Chicago Orphans and the Braves who were first known in Boston as the Red Stockings, the Red Caps, Beaneaters, the Nationals, The Bees and The Doves before settling on the Braves and then moving to Milwaukee and then Atlanta have survived to the present. The other 6 teams didn't even make it to the 1880s. The American Leauge began in 1901 and the AL and the NL started facing each other in the World Series in 1902. But April 22nd 1876 is when Major League baseball games started being played, something worth being clelebrated.
Photo caption: Delegates to the Schedule Meeting of the National League and American Association of Base Ball Clubs, Held At The Hotel Rennert, Baltimore, February 25th - 27th, 1897
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Today's Song of the Day is Say Goodbye to Little Jo by Steve Forbert
I usually don't spend any time introducing the artists of the song of the day. Many of them are lesser know than Steve Forbert, but I'm going to make an exception with him in anyway. My Freshman year in high school (1979-1980) was in the height of my Pop music mastery. I read Billboard magazine every week, focusing on the Hot 100 singles which Casey Kasem culled his American Top 40 radio show from. I would generally listed to AT 40 every week and would listen to WLS AM in Chicago which was at the time a top 40 radio station. As a result to this day I can generally tell you the name of the album that a song from the late mid 70's to the early mid 80's came from. Steve Forbert's only top 40 hit Romeo's Tune for ,example, came from the album Jackrabbit Slim. It barely missed the top 10 reaching 11 in 3/1/1980. Say Goodbye to Little Joe , the 2nd single from Jackrabbit Slim. spent 3 weeks in the top 100 climbing as high as 85 on April 19,1990.
Steve Forbert and Dan Fogelberg were contemporaries and they both scored their most popular hit in March of 80 (Romeo's Tune, and Longer respectively). Fogelberg had the much bigger career until his death in 2007. Forbert still tours and I came this close to seeing him over Spring Break when he was in Madison, Wisconsin.
Saturday, April 20, 2024
A to Z 2024: R is for R R R Very Funny. if You think I'm going to respect Lima Beans.
For The A to Z Challenge this year, I am focusing on everyday holidays. Each day there are multiple unusual things to celebrate. Every day of the challenge I look for an event taking place that day and pair it with the letter of the day. I have also made up 5 holidays to coincide with the vowel days of the challenge. At the end of each post I will share a special song of the day for that day's letter. At the end of the month, these songs will be assembled in a to z keepsake playlist on Spotify. Every day is a celebration, let's unwrap today's together.
April 20th is National Lima Bean Respect Day.
Lima beans the well deserved Rodney Dangerfield of vegetables
I do not need an entire day to respect lima beans. For me a minute would be too much time. To misquote Snoopy in Your A Good man Charlie Brown: I am a Lima Bean hater, a Lima Bean despiser and a Lima Bean loather. Or to misquote Greg Brady in the Brady Bunch episode," My sister Benedict Arnold": Lima beans are on the top of my bad vegetable list, the bottom of my bad vegetable list and every bad vegetable in-between.
I grew up in the 70's and we were all members of the clear your plate club. If my parents served it we ate it, or we hid it, or we fed it to the dog. I've always been a big fan of food, and there's hardly a food I don't enjoy. Growing up, I was not really big on most vegetables, I could eat corn or carrots but anything else was a stretch for me. But the worse of the worst was the lima bean.
I absolutely hate lima beans. I would not eat it on a bet. As I've got older I've learned to enjoy most vegetables and tolerate the ones I don't enjoy. I am actually a big fan of most beans black, pinto, kidney, garbanzo. Generally I lead the league in legumes. But I can not bring myself to eat a single lima bean. It is probably the only food I won't eat. I have strong preferences against some food like olives, but in a pinch I can eat one. Luckily my wife loves olives, so it never comes to that.
My hate for lima beans is legendary in my family. Just like my kids grew up knowing that I love The White Sox, Randy Stonehill, Libraries, and diving off the high dive, they also discovered I hate lima beans. So each Christmas for several years I could always count on that they would wrap up a can of lima beans for me.
I'm not sure why April 20th is National Lima Bean Respect Day. If it were up to me I'd ban the Holiday all together. If I can't do that I would just make it 19 day earlier. Because a day honoring lima beans has to be some sort of April Fools Joke.
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The song of the day Is Road to Zion by Petra
Here is a snippet of the song performed live ...
Here is the entire song ...
The A to Z mix tape now contains 18 songs.
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Thursday, April 18, 2024
A to Z 2024: Q is for Quatrains
For The A to Z Challenge this year, I am focusing on everyday holidays. Each day there are multiple unusual things to celebrate. Every day of the challenge I look for an event taking place that day and pair it with the letter of the day. I have also made up 5 holidays to coincide with the vowel days of the challenge. At the end of each post I will share a special song of the day for that day's letter. At the end of the month, these songs will be assembled in a to z keepsake playlist on Spotify. Every day is a celebration, let's unwrap today's together.
April 19th is Poetry & The Creative Mind Day
& Today is also Poetry Friday Hosted by Heidi @ My Juicy Little Universe
The last time I posted at Poetry Friday I did an introduction to the A to Z challenge and an invitation to participate there-in. Today, I will give those visiting from the round-up a glimpse of what a regular a to z post looks like and at the same time show the A to Z folks what A Poetry Friday submission is all about.
Today Q is for Quatrains and other poetry related stuff as the holiday du jour is Poetry & The Creative Mind day. I'm not sure why it's on the 19th or how it originated, But right near the middle of poetry month here is a nifty little holiday to celebrate poetry. So let's celebrate it, but first a dumb joke:
Q: What's a quatrain?
A: Not much. what's a quatrain with you?
According to Merriam Webster, A quatrain is a unit or group of four lines of verse. I have decided to write the heart of my A to Z post in quatrains today. I am following an ABCB rhyme scheme
My A to Z Q Post
The A to Z Challenge
Is a big to do
Each year I struggle
As I get to Q
My theme this year
Has been Holidays
I've tried to approach it
In some different ways
Each Day, save Sunday
Calendars I consult
And search for Holidays
That I can exult
When I find the occasion
That I like better
I match the event
With that day's letter
For example April 2nd
Was Children's Book Day
B is for Book
I put on display
On the days of the alphabet
That start with A, E, I, O or U
I created my own holiday
Don't ask Y, but it's true
Today's Holiday
Wasn't hard to find
It was Poetry
And the creative mind
But how would that match
With the letter Q?
I just scribbled out some
Quatrains for you
This has been Poetry Friday
And Also A to Z
Thanks ever so much
for joining me.
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Today's song of the day comes from the late Rich Mullins. It is Quoting Deuteronomy to the Devil
The Spotify A to Z playlist is now through Q
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If you are joining from Poetry Friday, I want to mention two blogs participating in the A to Z challenge that are including poetry in all their posts. The first is Sue's Trifles where her most recent post was a poem using pararhymes. The other blog is the Versesmith, where the most recent post was about prompts and preludes.
If you are joining from A to Z blogging, I want to tell you about another April challenge and that is the 2024 Kiddy Lit Progressive Poem. On April 1st one poet started it off with a couplet and each subsequent poet has posted the earlier couplets and then added their own, For April 19th it is Reading to the Core's turn. Her submission is right here. I will be adding a couplet on the 28th of April.
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