Blue Moon

The next blue moon is December 31st--two days away. New Year's Eve. The last blue moon to fall on New Year's Eve was 20 years ago. The next one is 20 years in the future.

"Once in a blue moon." The saying is a metaphor and colloquialism arising long ago from our knowledge of the night sky, and it is used to call attention to the rarity of an event. When a month has two full moons, the second full moon is called a "blue moon." The last blue moon occurred  on the 30th of June, 2007.A blue moon isn't necessarily blue, so why do we use the word blue as the descriptive adjective? Personally, I think it simply has to do with our peculiar attachment to the sound of words--in this instance the rhyming of blue and moon. Think of these songs: Blue Moon and Blue Moon of Kentucky.

How rare is a blue moon? David Harper, writing on his blog in England, puts it this way. "On average, there will be 41 months that have two full moons in every century. So, you could say that 'once in a blue moon' actually means once every two-and-a-half years." (Source: RedOrbit Staff & Wire Reports)

The word month is derived from moon, but their durations don't coincide. Why not? "On average." Those words used by Harper say a lot about our human inability to design a useable calendar that is synchronized with the motions of the earth and moon around the sun. We opt for a repeatable notation called the calendar that doesn't quite fit the actuality. That is why we add one day to February every four years.

The Day Itself

I remember a warm day, but perhaps the memory is warmer than the day itself. It was early December, forty-two years ago.

I was off-duty, hanging around the dispatch office or the Ranger Club. It had to be one or the other. Jim O'Toole, a fellow ranger, stuck his head through the doorway. "Hey Tom;" he said, "There are a couple of new nurses arriving this afternoon. Let's go over to the nurses' dorm and be there to meet them." I was young and single and therefore amenable, and so we walked through the village and the sunny afternoon to the dorm up behind the hospital. No one was there in the lounge when we walked in. We sat, talking to pass the time, until a car pulled up. Out on the porch we looked down on an old, gray Mercedes Benz sedan, a little dust rising from its wheels. Two young women got out. Jim and I walked down and exchanged introductions with them. Pam Wickens and Sue Dean. Jim carried Sue's luggage up to her room and I carried Pam's.

I didn't know it then, but that day marked a swift change in my life, a new beginning. The following April, when the dogwood was in bloom and the waterfalls flowed in the wind like wedding gowns and veils, Pam and I were married in the little chapel by the river, there in Yosemite Valley where we had met not long before. Jim O'Toole was my best man, Sue Dean was Pam's bridesmaid.

And if you are wondering, the luck of the Irish failed O'Toole. I got my nurse, but he didn't get his.

Photo: Yosemite Chapel, Yosemite National Park, September 23, 2009

FOOTNOTE: The Mercedes Benz was Pam's, but it wasn't around by the time we got married. Pam and Sue were driving through the Merced River canyon one day between the park and Mariposa, the winding road paralleling the river. Sue was at the wheel and momentarily drowsed off, rolling and demolishing the car. It could have rolled into the river. The two of them weren't seriously hurt. I have always been very thankful for that, but I had ambivalent feelings about the car. I was sorry that I would never have the Mercedes around to drive. Heck, I had hardly had a chance to sit in it! But I knew the cost of maintaining the Mercedes in running condition would have been beyond our means. We were stuck with my old, black Volkswagen bug.

Self-Censorship

It is not something I would expect David Byrne to write. David Byrne--rock music star, and founding member and singer of the band Talking Heads. In his newly published non-fiction book, Bicycle Diaries, he says:

Self-censorship is part of being a social animal, and in that sense, it's not always a bad thing. *

Wisdom keeps its own company and often comes out of the mouth or pen of unexpected people. Self-censorship is the glue that creates and perpetuates community. We need more of it in this world, not less.

* Source: Denver Post "Books in Brief" column, November 22, 2009.

A Cauldron of Crows

The storm door fluttered shut behind me as I walked away from the door-step. I was greeted by a raucous pandemonium in the air. I looked up and saw what I can only describe as a cauldron of crows boiling in the sky. Between fifty and a hundred of them were flying like black warplanes in a giant, aerial dog-fight, swooping and turning in the air above the house, formed in a loose ball the size of a baseball diamond, every one of them shouting in their caw, caw, caw, caw language as they flew. I thought at first they might be mobbing an owl or hawk, but they weren't. They seemed engaged in some wild, exuberant celebration. Ten minutes passed without change and I turned and walked down the street on my way to the supermarket listening to the racket behind me and turning a few times to look back at the spectacle.

When I came back an hour later, there were only three crows quietly sitting in the tree-tops. The noisy crowd had dispersed or gone elsewhere. That was last weekend, and I have seen only one crow since. I have seen them in the neighborhood before, but only occasionally and never more than three or four at a time. Where did they come from? Where did they go?

Ephemeral

In his book The Secret Knowledge of Water, Craig Childs says, "We are not as ephemeral as clouds." (p. 48)

That simple sentence demonstrates the power of language. Within it is contained an unspoken sentence that I recognize and understand: "We are ephemeral."

Blog Changes - 3

I am still experimenting. I added text to "About This Blog" to give more information on what I am writing. I moved the "Comment" block to the left column. I removed the "Books to Read" block; there are always books to read and only the present and past of reading have value. And after writing "Two Wolves and a Lamb" yesterday, I had to practice what I preached about attribution, and I have identified the source for the Loren Eiseley quotation that is part of the blog header: "In the world, there is nothing to explain the world."

Two Wolves and a Lamb

Riding into downtown Denver, I got off the light-rail car at the Tenth and Osage stop, not because of my fascination with the many diesel locomotives stored in the rail yard just over the fence, but because of the "quotation" spray-painted on the side skirt of one of them. I wanted a picture.

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. --Ben Franklin"

The use of the metaphors "wolf" and "lamb" hook the reader. The idea expressed seems oversimplified, but it contains a core of thought and is certainly worthy of discussion, whether I might agree or disagree. My problem with the quotation is that it doesn't sound at all like something Benjamin Franklin would say or write. He was, after all, one of the fathers of American democracy. I did some research. He didn't write it and there is no record of him saying it.

I long ago became suspicious of quotations without documented attribution. Unfortunately, to falsely attach a well known name to a quotation is common practice. Why? What is wrong with Anonymous or Unknown if one doesn't want to take credit?

I think there are people who want to validate an idea or ideas. To do it, they use subterfuge. They know you and I are more apt to trust and be swayed by Benjamin Franklin than by an unknown name. A little lie is no big deal. After all, Ben won't complain. He's dead.

Of course this is a story I have concocted--plausible perhaps--but only one of many that might explain the facts. I don't really know why people do these things. What bothers me is the theft of Ben Franklin's identity. False attributions make him somebody he was not.

All I can do is nourish a healthy skepticism--and write about it. False attribution may seem a harmless act, but it is more than just another small lie. It is a not-so-trivial fraud on the mind.