Things I think up while mowing the lawn

It's not well known, but at one time in our history, the English language had no letter "E". Of course, that made it the Nglish languag, didn't it? One day, a lexicologist (I'm sorry, "lxicologist") of some repute at the local University had the brilliant idea of adding the letter "e" to the language. As he pointed out, the way things stood when one read about "Lak Ri", one could never be sure if one were reading about a rather spooky pond, or that big body of water near Clvland. It was all just too confusing without a letter "e" for clarity's sake.

Of course, many progressive thinkers jumped on the bandwagon, and the letter began popping up with considerable frequency. The local prists didn't care for this change in the way things had always been. They enlisted the help of the local Constabl, and the lxicologist was promptly arrested and jailed.

Their punishments meted out to the man were not quite as cruel as we might imagine, this having taken place in that period of time between the dark ages and the not-quite-light-yet ages. While it is true that he was incarcerated, they did give him plenty of paper and some pencils for doodling, and they put him up for the night in a room with a nice bed. They also fed him a wonderful meal. As you can tell, he was subjected to drawing and quartering. When he touched his meat at suppertime, it was so hot that it caused him pain, so you could say he was also burned at the steak.

But perhaps the worst punishment suffered by the man was that during the night, at random times and quite frequently, the jailer (ummm... jailr) would tap on a metal pipe three times rapidly, then pause, then three more times, ad nauseum. Of course, as any boy who was in Mr. Cross' PE class in 7th grade knows, this is Morse code for the letter "S".

(Precisely why Mr. Cross thought it advisable to teach us Morse code in 7th grade gym escapes me. Perhaps he thought we were all destined to live our lives in solitary confinement in some prison, and felt that he was teaching us a survival skill. If so, I thank him for his attempt, if not for his assessment of me and my classmates.)

Anyway, as you can tell, the lxicologist was thoroughly and mercilessly "S"-communicated.

Now at the same time, certain bands of other Anti-E activists were roaming about the area, painting out any "E" that they found on any sign. One man in particular (a Mr. d la Cruz) was a rabid defacer of any sign brandishing the letter, and he had actually been so successful that it was quite unusual to see an "E" anywhere in the area where he operated. This is, of course, the opposite of today, when it is the most common letter in the language. Mr. d la Cruz and his assistants (the "Cruz-aidrs") roamed far and wide taking care of the offending letter wherever it was.

In time they heard of a merchant, that era's equivalent of Sam Walton, who had posted an enormous sign on a hillside. Think about the "HOLLYWOOD" sign in California, and you'll get an idea of the size of this thing. I assume the sign spelled out the name of the store, but that bit of information has been lost to history. There was, however, one huge letter "E" in the sign. This would never do. But painting over it was out of the question, so they knew they would have to actually tear the sign down, or at very least knock it over.

It was a long journey to the sign, so as they walked along they began to sing marching songs. And this is the one part of the whole ugly scene that has remained alive to this day. For the song they sang, as they trod off on their mission was, "It's a long way to tip a rare E."

And now you know.

It just keeps getting better!

A couple of days ago, I posted about an article on the Swedish news website "The Local" about the amount of money Sweden is making from people being fined for peeing in public. Today, although the story has moved off the front page, there's still a link to it. And the caption?

"Public peeing -- a golden shower for state coffers."

Don't Vote!

I've often said that these "Get out the vote" campaigns are a bad idea. If people care enough, and are educated enough, they'll vote. Those who don't care, don't vote, and that's a good thing.

So I was pleased to find this site:



You take a 30-question quiz, and it tells you whether you should consider voting or not, based on your cultural literacy.

I'll be honest, I didn't score very well. For one thing, it must be aimed at people who get their news from TV. The questions are simply a photograph of a person, and you are asked who it is and what his or her position is. It's multiple choice, so that helps. But to be honest, someone like me who gets most of his news from the websites (BBC, Google News, Deseret Morning News) hasn't got much of a chance. I know who Ehud Olmert is, but I don't know that I've ever seen a picture of him. Same with Mahmoud Amadinejad, Robert Gates, Nancy Pelosi. Actually, I got Pelosi wrong ... I mixed her up with Dianne Feinstein. I know who they both are, and I know the difference, but I couldn't tell you which one is which from a photograph.

They also put in some ringers. There were pictures of Paris Hilton and some other pop culture figures. I had no clue. I honestly think it was the first time I had seen a picture of Paris Hilton, and I didn't even know it was her until it gave me the answers at the end. As I was going through, I got a little mad ... after all, what does knowing who Paris Hilton is have to do with being able to vote? Turns out they've thought of that. If you get that one right, you get one point. It's nine points for knowing who Condoleezza Rice is, and ten for knowing George W. Bush.

And I found one mistake: It shows Tony Blair as the Prime Minister of the UK. It does say that the test was last updated in January, so it's almost forgivable, but they really ought to get their act together.

Anyway, if you watch a lot of TV, take the quiz. If you don't get your news from TV, take it anyway, but don't worry too much about the score.

A man with my kind of sense of humor

The story goes that Mark Gubin was sitting on the roof of a large building he owns in Milwaukee one day, having lunch with his assistant. She commented on the planes flying approaches to the nearby airport, and suggested that they paint a large sign welcoming people to Milwaukee. He said, "You know what would be even better?", and the result is this:

Google Sightseeing Story

In case you can't tell, the roof says "Welcome to Cleveland".

Read all about it in the newspaper column:

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=333812

There are days ...

There are days when the news reporters outdo themselves. From "The Local", Sweden's news in English:

"So far this year the Swedish state has earned 1.8 million kronor from people caught peeing in public. That's no piddling sum..."

An Abbyville Success Story

Abbyville, Kansas is a small town (2000 census: 128 people) on the wide, flat Arkansas River valley about 20 miles west of Hutchinson. Like many small towns in the western 2/3 of Kansas, it's not getting any bigger. Abbyville has kept it's population fairly steady in recent decades because of it's proximity to Hutchinson. People can live in Abbyville and still work, shop and worship in the city. From Hutchinson, a recently four-laned highway makes the trip to Wichita a breeze. So Abbyville has some things going for it, but things did not look so great for the two churches in town a decade or so ago.

Abbyville had a Methodist church and a Christian church, both of which were slowly but surely dying. I don't have a lot of information on the Methodist church, but the Christian church was Norma's home church, so I've been there several times. The congregation was aging, there were few young families coming, the building was beautiful but tired. I'm sure the situation down the block at the Methodist church was similar. It took some far-sighted people (and the help of God) to propose a solution. It took even more blood, sweat, toil and tears to make that solution come to fruition.

What they did was merge the two churches! I'm not privy to the actual workings of the merger, and I am sure there were more than a few ruffled feathers, but the merger stuck. The Methodist's building was in better shape than the Christian church building, so everyone met there for many years. The preacher, a man who grew up just down the road a couple of miles, is the sort of man you can't help but like. He's full of energy, but he keeps it easy-going enough that I don't see how anybody could feel pushed or railroaded. He melded the two styles of worship well. When I visited, I still saw vestiges of Methodist worship, but nothing that was off-putting to me. After all, the real differences between the two groups is mostly in worship style, not in substance. There were a few defections over the merger, I'm sure, but for the time being, Abbyville still had a congregation where the locals could worship and fellowship on Sundays.

Problem is, this didn't solve the aging congregant situation, nor did it attract young families. The attendance figures continued to drop into the 60s, then the 50s, then the 40s sometimes. So what did they do? They built a new building! Talk about stepping out on faith.

My brother-in-law didn't remember the exact numbers, but he believed the building cost around $400,000. The land appears to have been donated, and I'm sure there were other items and labor donated. The old buildings and land were sold, but a quick mental calculation shows that there's still a huge debt that's been taken on by this little church. And if the merger wasn't enough, my observations of human nature tell me that there were probably more than a few people unhappy about the building plan, so there may have been additional defections from the church.

All that aside, the physical facilities are stunning. The layout is practical and functional, and "form follows function". Beautiful, sturdy pews face a simple stage. The stage is equipped with a powered projection screen for the ceiling-mounted projector. A small booth at the back of the sanctuary contains all the sound and computer equipment. Sliding partitions block off additional space for a fellowship hall, which is also easily used as overflow for larger services. At the back of the hall is an ample kitchen. The kitchen is particularly impressive, with lots of cabinet space, an island with a mini-sink, three main sinks in stainless steel (three sinks meet state requirements in case the church wants to prepare food during the large rodeo that's held across the street every summer), two matching ranges and two matching microwave ovens. I'm told that in the original plan, everyone thought that the kitchen was too small, so it was expanded. One wall opens out to the fellowship hall, with a long counter perfect for potlucks. I could go on and on about the space, but I'll settle for a few pictures:

And the upshot? Attendance is UP! Way up. Average attendance is now over 100, with plenty of young families. The day we visited, a couple dedicated their baby. My sister-in-law told me that the minister keeps preaching that the church is NOT a building. But, like she says, the church needs a place to call "home", a base from which to operate, a focal point for the work in the community. And Abbyville has it!

Marriage License Hijinx

We attended Norma's niece's wedding this weekend. This afternoon, the preacher handed them the duplicate of the license that the county had given him. With it was a receipt for the fee, and another little slip of paper entitled, "Now you have your marriage licence ... what to do next."

It was generally agreed in the group that if the couple didn't know what to do next, it was time for somebody to have a long talk with them.