A Quote to Start Things Off

""I'd love to go to Santa Fe at some point, Emmett said, but for the time being, I need to go to New York. The panhandler stopped laughing and adopted a more serious expression. Well. that's life in a nutshell, aint it. Lovin' to go to one place and havin' to go to another. Amor Towles in the Lincoln Highway.

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Snow kidding! These "kids" now range from 17 to 23

Friday, April 8, 2022

G is for Grief , Griffey, and Geode

#AtoZChallenge 2022 Blogging from A to Z Challenge letter

 


Good morning  and welcome to Day 7 of the A to Z challenge. This year I chose 3 themes for the challenge: Limericks, MLB sluggers in my lifetime, and A to Z wordles. For more information about these themes click here


Part I: A to Z Limericks

As I prepare to write the limerick for April 8th it is A pril 7th and today is the 13th anniversary of my brother's death.  He was 38 years old and died of a heart attack in a nursing home in what is now my home town of Elgin, Illinois.  Today's limerick is dedicated to him, Keith Bertram Roller.

The funny thing about grief
Is that time only gives some relief
Whether 1 year or thirteen
I know one thing for certain .
I know that I'll always miss Keith.


Part II: A to Z Homerun hitters of my lifetime

Of the 6 home run specialists we've profiled this month only 1, Cal Ripken Jr. has been in the to 50 in career long balls.  Ripken's 431 blasts put him exactly 50th on the all time list.  Today and tomorrow we get back to back players in the top 10.  



Only 6 players in MLB history have gone yard more times than Ken Griffey Jr.. Griffey hit 398 of his 630 homers between 1988 and 1999.  All of these were with the Seattle Mariners his original team.  Those home runs alone would tie him for 60th all time with Dale Murphy.  After 1999 he hit   210 with his Dad's former team the Cincinnati Reds and 3 more with my beloved White Sox before hitting 19 more for the Mariners after returning to Seattle for his final 2 seasons.



Part III: Wordle Starting Words from A to Z


Note: Correct letters in the correct places will be shown in bold. Correct letters in incorrect places will be shown in italics.




A geode is a rock contained with crystals or other mineral matter. My best friend form my college days grew up on farmland not far from the university.  There is a dried up creek bed on the property and we have collected geodes from there on multiple occasions.  So on March 7th, I used geode as my opening word for that day's wordle.


G E O D E - I went digging with Geode and I came up with the O and the D in incorrect positions.
B L O O D - Blood was my first of 2 illogical guesses as I had already determined that the O was not in the medial position.  I was able to determine that the D was in the final position.
S O U N D - On my third guess I still only had the O and the D which I had since geode, but now I had them in their proper places.
H A R D Y - This was my second illogical guess as I neglected to use the O altogether and I put the D in what I knew to be the wrong place.  Some people do place this way I like to only guess words that have a chance of being the word.  That being said the guess did reveal all5 letters needed for the actual solution.
H O A R D - I may have actually solved it sooner if I stuck with logical guesses. I did find it interesting that I started with geode and ended with hoard because when my kids were growing up I used to hoard their geodes so they could use them at nature swap at our local zoo.  

Todays topics were a mixture of many emotional memories in my life.  My memories of my brother, my friendships over the years, my love for baseball and being able to share all those with my wife and children are some of the truest treasure of my life.  For more A to Z challenge click here.  

5 comments:

Dave Roller said...

Started with geode like I did last month and got the answer in 4

Liam Sullivan said...

My son is only 14 and never saw Ken Griffey, Jr. play but he asked for a Griffey jersey for Christmas. It's good to have someone in the younger generation who appreciates the baseball greats!

Hannelore Adler (SteampunkCowCorn) said...

Geodes are so beautiful! I love them. I´m so sorry for your loss, I can imagine how much you are missing your brother, those anniversaries are hard. Sending a big virtual hug.

Joy Weese Moll said...

Those are all three great themes. I like a limerick with about a real thing.

Jayashree Srivatsan said...

Geode is a new word i learnt today and yes time teaches us to handle the pain , does not remove it totally

Jayashree writes

A to Z 2023 Road Trip

#AtoZChallenge 2023 RoadTrip