It is Sunday, May 25 and there are only 214 days until Christmas.  Now is the time to start planning you meal for the day and start buying what you will need, before they raise the prices for the holiday.  Today we remember the birthdays of Jacopo Pontormo II, Igor Sikorsky and Anne Heche.  On this day in 585 BC the first known prediction of a solar eclipse was made, in 1878 Gilbert and Sullivan’s opera “HMS Pinafore” premiered in London and in 1986 Hands Across America had 7 million people hold hands from California to New York.  In Chad, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania and Zambia it is African Freedom/Unity Day, in Yugoslavia it is the Day of Youth and tomorrow is Memorial Day here in the US.

I know that I have talked about Memorial Day in the past.  While I do not want to go into a long explanation again this year, I do want to take a moment to recognize the day.  This is a day to remember the men and women who died in the Armed Forces in the service of their country.  Far too often we look at it as a day off from work and the unofficial beginning of summer.  While I do not want to spoil the fun and excitement of the day, I would ask that you take a moment to remember what the day represents.  As I have said in the past, if your town is having a Memorial Day ceremony, take some time from your day to attend and remember those who gave themselves for our freedom.  Thank you.

How many of you read about Hands Across America and wondered what it was?  Well, I’m glad you asked. This was a benefit event and publicity campaign to raise money to fight hunger and homelessness and to help those in poverty.  On May 25, 1986 some 7 million people joined hands to form a line that stretched 4,152 miles from RMS Queen Mary pier in Long Beach, CA to Battery Park in New York City.

Celebrities took part all across the country.  In New York Brooke Shields, John Cardinal O’Connor, Yoko Ono and Harry Belafonte participated.  Dionne Warwick and Tony Danza were in Trenton.  Others included Jerry Lewis in Philadelphia, Michael J Fox in Columbus, OH, 50 Abraham Lincoln impersonators in Springfield, IL, Bill Clinton in Little Rock, AR and Mickey Mouse, Goofy, Kenny Loggins and John Stamos in Long Beach, CA.

Since that first big event it has slowly faded away.  Hands pulled in only $34 million total, and once the event spent around $17 million to pay its bills, it only netted a little over $16 million.  Robert Hayes of the National Coalition for the Homeless told the New York Times that the event’s organizers “spent too much to raise too little and promoted a national extravaganza empty of content.”  I hope that satisfies your need for useless information.

Last week the lovely Elaine and I had the opportunity to attend a wine festival, “Pour Into Summer” down the shore on Long Beach Island.  We had a great time!  We were with our friend Pat, the weather was great, we were by the water, they had a really good band and we were drinking wine.  What more could you possibly want?  It was also a great place to people watch.  I was surprised at how many people felt it was necessary to bring their dogs to this event.  Several times we almost tripped over dogs that were lying there while their owners sampled wines.  I do not hate dogs; I just think that sometimes they should stay home.  The same with kids.  Again, I do not dislike kids; I just feel that you should not bring them to this type of event.  They could not sample the wines and there was nothing else there for them to do.  It would have been less expensive to buy a bottle or two of wine, invite some friends over and stay home.  That way the kids would have toys to play with.

I did see several people that I thought were interesting.  Of course there were the wine snobs.  Picture this – the festival is being held in an open field, the wineries have tents, people are wandering from tent to tent sampling wines and suddenly from one of the tents, a guy comes out to hold his glass of wine up to the light to, I don’t know; make us think he knows what he is doing?  The only purpose that I could think of was that he was checking to see if a bug had flown into his glass.  The amount of wine they gave in a sample did not warrant much else.

We also ran into a pair of women who, once they got to a place where samples were being poured, stayed until they had tasted everything the winery had to offer.  Blocking the area so that others could not get a sample was bad enough, but they had to discuss each taste before going to the next one.  From what I could hear they had no real idea of what they were talking about and less so as the afternoon progressed and they continued to sample.

We saw one woman who appeared to be at least five months pregnant, but was not.  She looked like she had taken two tube tops and used one as a skirt and one as a top.  Neither one fit her (they might have 60 pounds ago) and the thing that made it less attractive were the very obvious stretch marks on her belly.  This is someone who should be required to see herself the way she actually looks and not the way her fantasy says she looks.  As she sampled the wines, she had her son taking notes for her on the winery list.  We saw her several times throughout the afternoon and she was quite happy.  Her son must have had a ton of notes.

It cost $15 to get in and my concern was that I get my money’s worth and still be able to drive afterward.  Overall, I think I did.  We paused and sat and enjoyed the weather a couple times and then went around the tents again.  We drank some good wines, some not-so-good wines and some so sweet they set your teeth on edge.  We are already making plans for next year that include chairs, snacks and staking out a central location to put our stuff.  There is nothing better than being out in good weather, drinking wine with a field full of people doing the same thing.  

Our fact this week tells us that a woodchuck breathes only 10 times during hibernation.  You can be sure that at least half the time he has a wife who nudges him, complaining that he is snoring.