Then One Foggy Christmas Eve

Sometimes cultural icons become so much a part of our lives that we forget how they started. Maybe we never knew how they started.

Case in point: Santa’s reindeer and Rudolph. We all know the song and the basic story, but do we know how each began?



I looked it up on Google and here are a few things I found:

- According to at least one website, there were eight reindeer in the original story but no Rudolph.

- This website says the extra reindeer was created by an advertising guy at Montgomery Ward Department Stores in 1939 and his brother-in-law wrote the song a few years later. Gene Autry had a big hit with the song in 1949 and the legend took flight, so to speak.

- The same site also says the story changed over the years and in the original, Rudolph’s parents were not embarrassed by his red nose.

- Rollo and Reginald were also considered as names for the character, according to this site. Hmm, Reginald the Red Nosed Reindeer? I think not.

- And this site points out that the original eight reindeer were all female.

Christmas isn’t the only holiday each December. Although it is named for the holiday, the site All Things Christmas does a pretty good job of providing background information on many celebrations.

The origin of Christmas is religious but in American culture it can be viewed as a center piece celebration for family, friends, love and nature. For me, the Merry Christmas greeting and the good wishes that go with it include sentiments involved in Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice ... even Festivus.

So to quote the last line in another famous poem, “Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.”

Christmas Meme

I saw this on DeeJay’s Age Is All In The Mind blog and thought I’d do this myself. Post your version too and let me know where.

1. Do you put up a real tree or artificial?
Artificial – much less messy. No tree this year, however, because we’re in the middle of a huge ‘reorganize the house’ project. We did put up some decorations on the fireplace mantle and on some shelves and there are lights in some of the trees in the front yard.

2. When do you put up your tree?
At the end of November, usually on Thanksgiving weekend.

3. When do you take down the tree?
New Years Day.

4. Do you like eggnog?
No

5. Favorite gift received as a child?
A plastic kid-size steering wheel/instrument panel thing so I could pretend to be driving a car. It was similar to this:



6. Worst Christmas gift ever received?
No one thing, just the occasional shirt or sweater that didn’t go with anything else in my wardrobe.

7. Favorite Christmas movie?
It’s A Wonderful Life



8. Have you ever recycled a present?
Do you think I’m going to admit that here? I know some of my readers in real life. :)

9. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas?
Pumpkin pie

10. Favorite Christmas song?
The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire), especially the classic Nat King Cole version and a 1990s version by Trisha Yearwood

11. Most annoying thing about this time of year?
Crowds at the mall and too many parties.

12. What you love most about the holiday?
A chance to think about friends and family.

13. How many reindeer did Santa have?
Uhh, I’m not sure. So I looked it up ... eight plus Rudolf. More about this in another post.

14. Best Christmas memory?
I can’t name a best, but one of the most memorable was the first one with my wife. We had a nice meal, opened presents and then I lit a fire. It was our first fire in that house and I didn’t realize the fireplace flue wasn’t fully open. Smoke started pouring into the room, the smoke detector went off, we opened the door to vent the room – the outside temperature was in the teens that night. Fortunately the only damage was to my ego and the only injuries came from laughing so hard it hurt.

15. If you could have one Christmas wish what would it be?
To have one more Christmas with my parents. The last few years they were alive, I was never able to be back home on Christmas Day and if I could relive those years, I would be there every Christmas.

Summer Is Coming

Here is a very interesting quirk of nature. Today is the Winter Solstice, the day with the shortest daylight and the longest amount of night; it is the official first day of winter.

Here is the quirk part: the coldest two or three months of the year are ahead of us, yet each day from tomorrow till June, there will be more daylight than the day before. More sunshine, colder temperatures … go figure.

As is often the case, nature provides an interesting balance. Winter is a pain in the butt, with depressingly cold temperatures and bad weather conditions including ice and snow. But each day is longer, providing more depression-relieving sunshine as well as the optimistic reminder that summer is coming.

Of course, all of this applies to the Northern Hemisphere. In the Southern Hemisphere, today is the longest day and the Summer Solstice.

Santa Claus could be wearing a Speedo in Sydney.

Tonight’s Channel Surfing

My new computer has a TV tuner, which means I can surf the channels while I surf the net. I could just stop on the Guide channel and read the list of what’s on, but nooooo – I’d rather stop at each channel to confirm my suspicion that there isn’t anything on tonight that I want to watch.

Care to join me for my channel surfing tour? Here’s some of what’s on:

Home Alone

Mary Poppins

Jingle All The Way – Friday must be movie night.

Man vs. Wild – if you catch a Paraná for food, make sure you cook it thoroughly because it has many parasites … I’ve always wanted to know that.



CSI: Miami – does David Caruso ever face the camera? For nearly every scene he is standing sideways. And do you think that just once … he could say the words to … a whole sentence … in a row … without … pausing?

A Crown Royal commercial – does it taste as good as it looks? I don’t remember. I mostly drink wine and sometimes beer.

White Christmas – Bing sings the classic to soldiers in the middle of a war zone. Hmmmm.

History Channel - a promo for a show about the hunt for John Wilkes Booth.

VH1 – The 100 Greatest Songs of the 1990s – You do know that the singer’s name is NOT Hootie, don’t you?

City Slickers – I’ve had two mid-life crisis periods and in neither case did I want to go on a trail drive.

Him - Four people arguing about Drew Peterson and his missing wife.

Rachel Ray – any day now, she’ll be on more channels than Law & Order reruns.



Travel Channel – a program about a haunted lighthouse

NUMB3RS – that’s how they spell it. A drama about numerology geeks who solve crimes. Isn’t it cool that geeks are finally stars? CSI, CSI: Miami, CSI: New York, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Cold Case – all shows with science geek characters in prominent roles.

Him again, on Dateline - a discussion about Drew Peterson and his missing wife. Him again! This is almost as annoying as the OJ case was.

BBC World News. Why do people who speak English with a British accent always sound so intelligent? This anchor’s story about a little girl’s missing goldfish sounds like a doctoral dissertation.

Weather Channel – patchy drizzle? Is that a meteorological term? And why are they playing the Charlie Brown music during my Local On The 8s?

ESPN – Dallas is winning, with 6 left in the 1st half.

ESPN2 – FLA ATL is ahead of MEMPHIS. Who is FLA ATL and why are these teams playing in the Louisiana Superdome? Guess I’m not much of a sports fan. Where is the NASCAR Channel?

Comcast SportsNet DC - with all these sports channels, I wish I was more of a sports fan. Where is the Dog Agility Channel? Can I get that if I buy the top shelf package? Or would I have 300 channels and nothing to watch, rather than my current 78 channels and nothing to watch?

Under The Mistletoe – looks like every Christmas movie except It’s A Wonderful Life is on tonight.

The 40 Year Old Virgin – OK, not every movie tonight is a Christmas movie.

Deanna Bogart Is So Cool

Because of a computer crash a few weeks ago, I am reloading my iPod. I decided to dig deep into my collection this time and find music I haven’t listened to in a long time. This little project led me to a performer I used to see a lot but haven’t seen in many years. I even knew her at one time, but I don’t know that she’d remember me.

Here is a video that showcases only a small part of Deanna Bogart’s amazing talent. She is an outstanding piano player, a great saxophonist, singer and writer and does some amazing live shows. Her style is blues and boogie with country, swing and a bunch of other things mixed in.




This is not a commercial; I’m just a big fan and I plan to go see her again soon.

Take a break and enjoy, then check her website to see if she is playing anywhere near you.

Life Lessons In A Song

Songs have always had the potential to provide advice and inspiration. Songs often champion a cause, portray someone’s life, serve as an anthem, paint a picture, conjure up a memory or lead to love.

My favorite song these days gives advice. The singer sees a news story about a man who just turned 102; the man is asked what he thinks is the secret to life. This is part of his answer:

Don't blink
Just like that you're six years old and you take a nap and you
Wake up and you're twenty-five and your high school sweetheart becomes your wife
Don't blink
You just might miss your babies growing like mine did
Turning into moms and dads next thing you know your "better half"
Of fifty years is there in bed
And you're praying God takes you instead
Trust me friend a hundred years goes faster than you think
So don't blink.

These lyrics are part of a fairly new song by Kenny Chesney, and as with many country music songs, the message is basic and direct. In this case: life goes by fast, don’t blink or you’ll miss it. There is nothing particularly original about the concept, but these lyrics give it a nice twist and Chesney’s voice has exactly the right amount of emotion to bring the message to life.

There are two other songs that I believe offer life lessons in a fairly simple, but powerful way (in spite of questionable grammar). In Tim McGraw’s “Live Like You Were Dying,” the singer looks into what someone might do if he found out he had a life-threatening disease and would die soon. Part of the answer in the song:

He said I was finally the husband
that most the time I wasn't
and I became a friend
a friend would like to have.
And all of the sudden going fishing
wasn't such an imposition
and I went three times that year I lost my dad

I went skydivin', I went rocky mountain climbing,
I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named Foo Man Chu;
and I love deeper and spoke sweeter
and I watch an eagle as it was flying,
and he said someday I hope you get the chance
to live like you were dying.

Another “life” song is “The Dance,” from the first Garth Brooks album.

And now I'm glad I didn't know
The way it all would end the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance I could have missed the pain
But I'd of had to miss the dance.

Boomers often wake up to the realization that more of our life is behind us than ahead of us. Songs like this serve a great purpose in that they remind us that life is short. There can be much pain in life, but don’t avoid it; the experience makes us stronger.

Don’t miss out on life, live life. It goes by faster than you think, so don’t blink.

Life in 2007

A fifty-something friend sent me this. I don't know the origin, but I do know how true it is, no matter what your age.

You know you're living in 2007 when...

1. You accidentally enter your password on the microwave.
2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.
3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of three.
4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.
5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have e-mail addresses.
6. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceries.
7. Every commercial on television has a web site at the bottom of the screen.
8. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it.
10. You get up in the morning and go on line before getting your coffee.
11. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. :)
12. You're reading this and nodding and laughing.
13. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this message.
14. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.
15. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a#9 on this list
AND NOW U R LAUGHING at yourself.

Even If You Know How It Ends

Tonight my wife and I did something I’ve wanted us to do for as long as I’ve known her. We saw a live performance of the Charles Dickens classic A Christmas Carol.

I often feel the effects of holiday depression or holiday blues. I was on a slow, downward spiral this week, feeling worse as the days progressed, not sleeping well, losing interest in many things and feeling unmotivated. Friday was a fairly crappy day at work, ending with computer problems, followed by having to handle a work problem from home in the middle of my very late dinner. One of the radio stations I work with plays all Christmas music each December and the words “bah, humbug” formed on my lips each time I walked through their hallways this week. In short, I was feeling like a Scrooge. Merry Christmas, indeed! Christmas is a humbug!

Somewhere deep in my head, I was happy that my wife finally agreed to see A Christmas Carol with me after 13 years of saying no or making some excuse. It’s not that she doesn’t like plays or going places with me, she just doesn’t usually like going out. And my previous requests involved seeing this classic at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, DC – yes, the Lincoln assassination theatre. I saw it there once, more than 20 years ago, and have always wanted to repeat the experience. She just does not like to go into DC. What made things different this year is that there was a performance at the theatre right here in our county.

For me, A Christmas Carol is a lot like It’s A Wonderful Life. Even though I know how it ends, I enjoy taking in all of the steps leading to the end. Sometimes I get a little misty-eyed at the end because I see someone realize there is value and joy to living. Both of these stories put me in a good mood.

To add to the enjoyment of this evening, we saw this performance in a restored old movie house from the 20s or 30s. We share a fondness for these old buildings. This place is the heart of cultural life in the county; it might very well be the only cultural life in the county.

So with ten days left till December 25th, my Ghost of Christmas Future is pointing to a season that I might actually survive with smile on my face.

She's Fifty

If you know that the woman in this picture ...





is the same person as the girl in this picture ...




you might be fifty-something or older. Or you just might be a student of American history. Maybe you just watch a lot of television.

Caroline Kennedy turned 50 last week.

For me, this is the most memorable photo of the daughter of the 35th President of the U.S.

8, 6, 4 or …?

Years ago, the most debated holiday question was, “how early is too early for malls to decorate for Christmas?” Now the question is “how early is too early to open on the day after Thanksgiving?”



The last time I was crazy enough to shop on Black Friday was more than ten years ago. I was at the mall when they opened at 8 a.m. and finished buying presents by 11, just as it started to get crowded.

Now 8 is late. Many stores opened at 6 a.m. today, some at 5 a.m., Kohls and Penneys unlocked their doors at 4. Wimps!! Valu City opened at Midnight, as did some of the outlet malls. And people were already standing in line at many of these locations as the doors opened.

I did my shopping at 5 … p.m. on Tuesday. Black Friday sale prices were already in effect ay many stores and there were no crowds and no lines.

One of my favorite places to shop, however, is never crowded. In fact, I usually shop there alone and they are always open … the internet.

It’s Thanksgiving Already?

When did we get so busy? There isn’t enough time to do all the things we want to do and have to do. As recently as a few months ago, for example, I was posting to this blog a couple of times a week or more, but now I’m lucky to write something once a month. I know I’m not the only one who feels overscheduled. Several blogs I regularly visit have also been less active or inactive lately.

Sometimes I get so busy that I almost forget what month it is. For a brief moment yesterday I couldn’t quite comprehend the meaning of the letters and numbers I saw on my cell phone: Nov. 20.

There are certainly some tell-tale signs that it is indeed the third full week of November. For one thing, I’m on vacation this week and not really missing anything important at work. For another it’s cold and dark early in the afternoon. And the late-day traffic pattern I encountered on my way home from the mall yesterday was less commute and more holiday.

Oh, and the mall. There he was, in all his red and white glory, Santa Claus, alone in the middle of a large, festive display, waving at the few kids who were in center court the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. You know he won’t be alone this Friday nor any other day between then and Christmas Eve.

I was shopping for holiday gifts and for myself. As I’m writing this, I’m loading my favorite songs onto my brand new iPod. My purchases also included clothes and a CD for me and the main present I’m getting my wife.

I intended to buy gifts for co-workers while I was there but discovered I don’t really know the proper etiquette for gift-buying for co-workers. For several years, I have exchanged gifts with 2 or 3 people I work closely with. In addition, I get gifts from various people in the sales department, but I don’t always give them gifts, in part because I can’t justify the expense of getting a gift for all of them and partly because I have trouble choosing just a few and not all. Is that wrong of me? Or right, because sales people always get gifts for people? How do you handle this?

My standard gift for the co-workers I do get gifts used to be a calendar that relates to something they are interested in. Calendars are the perfect gift because it is a daily reminder of the person who gave the gift and it is nice but not too expensive. But I realized while standing in the calendar store yesterday that I don’t really know much about what interests my co-workers. Am I losing my touch or maybe just not paying attention? Or do people who work together mostly talk about work and not all that much about their personal interests?

And what do they know about me? My favorite gifts are gift cards from book stores, camera stores or Starbucks. Only twice have I ever received such gifts. If it’s the thought that counts, then I get wonderful gifts every year. But from a practical standpoint, it is unlikely I will ever use those wonderful weekend packages at a nearby ski resort that I receive from the sales department at least every other year. And a really nice dinner at a classy restaurant in downtown DC doesn’t impress my wife enough for us to actually use such a thing and I don’t think she’d appreciate it if I took a date there.

That last paragraph makes me wonder if anyone used the calendars I gave them.

Back to Thanksgiving and our busy lives. Admittedly I have been a bit depressed this Fall. Part of it is a mild case of seasonal affective disorder and part of it is memories of the Fall of 2001. That year started with the terrorist attacks of September 11th followed by moving my parents into a nursing home in October followed by Dad’s death in November followed by all of those happy festive holidays that I just didn’t want to celebrate that year. All of that still hits me hard, and when combined with an overscheduled life and shorter amounts of daylight … well, you get the idea.

On the good side, however, I do have plenty to be thankful for. You, for one – thanks for reading this. I have a wife and three dogs who all love me, an incredibly great job and good health. The weather was warm and sunny here in Maryland today and I don’t have to be in an airport or on a highway tomorrow.

And tomorrow is a very leisurely holiday with no turkey to cook (my wife is vegetarian so we have zucchini lasagna for Thanksgiving dinner). So I guess for at least one day this month, I will have time to do all the things I want to do.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The First Boomer

Did you know that there is actually a first Boomer? And she recently applied for Social Security benefits.

Here is a blurb from a Hartford Courant article on the subject:

Earlier this month, the nation's first Baby Boomer filed for Social Security benefits. Kathleen "Kathy" Casey-Kirschling, born one second after midnight on Jan.1, 1946, will be eligible for benefits beginning in January 2008. The retired seventh-grade teacher is on the leading edge of what the Social Security administration refers to as a "silver tsunami," nearly 80 million Americans born from 1946 to 1964 who will qualify for Social Security over the next two decades.

I’m in no hurry to apply for those benefits, if they even still exist when I reach retirement age. But articles like this might serve to remind us that most Boomers are horribly unprepared for living without a full time job.

Movies For Us

Boomers rule the world but no longer own the cultural landscape. Brittney Spears proves that point, doesn’t she? Tonight, however, I found evidence that Boomers are gaining a foothold on at least part of pop culture.

Two examples that help support my point: 1) there is at least one movie out there that doesn’t conform to the norm of fast action and simple plot lines and 2) there are new movies starring actors over 50.

First, the new movies: at least two of the dozen that were previewed before the main feature I went to see tonight star actors over 50 and have plots dealing with Boomerish interests and Boomer music. One of the movies is The Bucket List, starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. A bucket list is a list of things one wants to do before kicking the bucket. You can see where this might be going. And the music-based movie I saw a trailer for is about the Rolling Stones and is directed by Martin Scorcese, of all people.

The movie I refer to that doesn’t conform to the norm is called Michael Clayton, starring Boomer-aged George Clooney. The movie moves along at a slow to moderate pace and features a complicated plot. There are no chase scenes, no sex, only one explosion and there is a great ending. The story begins with a short slice of the present, stopping at the explosion. Then the viewer is taken to four days earlier, and the complex story unfolds slowly back to the present, revealing pieces of plot and characterization in a deliciously slow manner up to the explosion again. The story continues to a mostly unpredictable and not completely tidy ending. They just don’t make ‘em like that anymore!

It’s nice to see there are movies for us out there.

Class Update

My first online college class will be done in one more week and I have to admit it is more challenging than I expected.

Some observations:

Dream come true. The online option makes my dream of finally finishing college a real possibility. My long work hours and the commuting insanity around here would make going to class on the main University of Maryland campus totally intolerable.

Cutting class. It is way to easy to “cut class” when the classroom is a laptop computer. The classes aren’t “scheduled” in the sense of 2p-3p M W F. But you do have to log in several times a week, and the courses are divided into weekly segments with readings, assignments and conference participation. The bad pattern I already have is that I don’t really hunker down till the weekend.

I need a bigger monitor. I had six windows open a little while ago for one fairly simple assignment, but could only arrange three at a time on this 14” laptop monitor. A 20” wide screen should do it. In fact, taking these classes has driven my decision to buy a desktop as my next computer rather than a laptop.

Beer and wine. When I was last in college, three decades ago, I spent Saturday nights drinking a lot of cheap beer while trying to ignore class work. Tonight, a Saturday, I spent two hours sipping some very good red wine while wrapping up this week’s class assignments.

I need new glasses. For a 50-something who reads books and magazines often, reading on a screen is a big adjustment. I already spend about 75 percent of my workday on a computer. My eyes are rebelling.

Time management. This class is only a 1-credit hour Library Science course and I’ve used the grace period for posting assignments three of the six weeks. What will I do when I start my first “real” 3-credit hour History course in two weeks?

Social isolation. My current class has about 70 students, but I haven’t met even one. In a brick-and-mortar setting, there would likely be at least some socializing. Online, it is just me and the instructor. Tonight was the first time where an assignment actually involved another student. I assume my next class will be smaller but will require more interaction. The instructor is setting up a cyber chat option for the class.

Potential success. Taking only one class per semester means I’m at least five years from a degree, maybe more. I’m guardedly optimistic about reaching that goal. With the overscheduled life I lead, sticking to studying will be a big challenge. I want this, but it is still too early to tell if I’ll get it.

This Thing is Fifty

A bright silver flying object changed our world fifty years ago this week. It was the size of a basketball and weighed ten pounds less than I do. Americans could see the small speck twice a day as it crossed the sky like a slow shooting star. Russians could brag about it constantly.


Sputnik was the first human-made satellite in space. It didn’t do much compared to today’s satellites but it scared the hell out of us because of what we thought it and its successors could do. Our morale was shaken too because we apparently lost the coin toss in the space race game and were now on the receiving end, defending our pride and global status. Over the next twelve years we took the ball and ran with it, to take this metaphor a bit further, and scored the ultimate game-winning moon landings.

Today there are nearly a thousand satellites orbiting the earth at any given time. Our lives depend on them in ways we may rarely realize. Weather forecasting, Tom Tom and Desperate Housewives enter our lives by way of satellites. Cell phones that teenage users, map photos clear enough to display license plate numbers, real-time troop tracking – all enabled by satellites.

We won the race to the moon but haven’t been back since 1972. Outer space exploration that once promised Mars colonies and lunar vacations is now limited to multi-national high tech constructions projects. The science that launched humans out of Earth’s gravitational pull continues to have positive influence on our ground-based lives but only connects to the final frontier in movies.

October 4th marks not only the birth of the space age but also the beginning of highly-visible acting careers for Hugh Beaumont, Barbara Billingsley, Tony Dow and Jerry Mathers.



Here are a few other things associated 1957:

- Celebrities Melanie Griffith, Matt Lauer, Paul Reiser and Geena Davis were born and Humphrey Bogart died.

- Liz Taylor’s 3rd marriage and I Love Lucy’s last episode.

- Buddy Holly and Tommy Dorsey shared space on the pop music charts and John Lennon met Paul McCartney.

- Dwight Eisenhower was president, gasoline costs 24 cents per gallon and you could buy a new Ford for $2000.

- My hometown New Orleans gets its 2nd and 3rd TV stations and the Governor of neighboring state Arkansas calls out the National Guard to prevent nine black children from entering a public school.

Boomers know first hand how much the world has changed in fifty years. But age doesn’t really matter. If you are reading this, your life has been influenced by a Friday night rocket launch in Russia on October 4, 1957. According to an article in the Washington Post this week, Sputnik led to the formation of a U.S. government agency that developed the computer network we now know as the internet.