Today is Sunday, May 8 and there are only 22 days until the unofficial beginning of summer, aka Memorial Day.  Start planning those barbecues. You may also want to make sure you have sunglasses handy when all that pasty white flesh gets out in the sunshine.  Today we remember the birthdays of Mary Lou Williams, Toni Tennille and Felicity Lott.  On this day in 1639 William Coddington founded Newport, RI, in 1794 the US Post Office was established and in 1952 Mad Magazine debuted.  It is Furry Day in Helston, England, Stork Day in Ribe, Denmark and Mother’s Day in the US.  It is also National Coconut Cream Pie Day.

As always, I try to provide information for special holidays.  Today is Mother’s Day, a celebration honoring the mother of the family.  The first Mother’s Day was celebrated in 1908 when Anna Jarvis held a memorial for her mother in West Virginia.  In developing the holiday, Jarvis noted that”Mother’s” should be “a singular possessive, for each family to honor its own mother, not a plural possessive commemorating all mothers in the world.”

Although she was successful in founding Mother’s Day, she became resentful of the commercialization of the holiday.  Jarvis believed companies had misinterpreted and exploited the idea of Mother’s Day.  She protested at a candy makers’ convention in Philadelphia in 1923 and at a meeting of American War Mothers in 1925.  By this time, carnations had become associated with Mother’s Day, and the selling of carnations by the American War Mothers to raise money angered Jarvis, who was arrested for disturbing the peace.

Moving on I wanted to share an amusing little conversation I had with my younger grandson.  He was out on the front lawn kicking all the dandelions.  He said he liked to do it to scatter the seeds.  I told him his father would just love that.  He said his father would be proud.  I said that was not the word I was thinking of.  He said yeah but the word still starts with P.

Moving on again, let me just say that I am still in despair.  I know I have railed about this before but I cannot help it.  Because the weather has been so lousy lately, I have been relegated to watching more TV than usual, which means I see more commercials.  I cannot believe what I see.  There is one commercial which takes place at a car show.  At one point, a model gets in a car and drives away.  I am not sure how stealing a car would make someone want to buy that car.  I would be concerned that someone would steal my car if I bought it.

Then there is the commercial that has people making beverage choices by being hit in the head with fruit.  Or the snack commercial that has a cartoon animal interacting with people.  One commercial I find interesting is the restaurant that touts the fact that their beef is now hand carved.  What were they using before?  How does hand carving change the quality of the beef? If it is lousy, it is lousy, regardless of how you carve it.  The ones that get me the most are the cologne commercials.  They make no sense.  One example is the one where a sexy woman walks in dressed in a fancy gown and starts to climb a piece of fabric that happens to drop from the ceiling.  She reaches the top and walks on the roof.  What does any of that have to do with cologne?  Maybe it means you can still smell good after physical exertion.

I had an experience recently in the parking lot of the grocery store that I thought I would share with you.  This store has some of the laziest customers I have ever seen.  They do not take their carts anywhere when they are done.  Generally, they just leave them in the space.  The other day I was walking back to my car, having made one of my almost daily trips to the store.  As I was approaching my car, I saw the woman parked next to me take her cart and put it behind my car.  I got to my car just as she was getting in hers.  I took the cart and put it behind her car.  She saw me do it and said, “You just put that cart behind my car.”  I said, “Yes I did, but you had just put it behind my car.  I was just returning the favor.”  Based on the look I got I am glad she was not armed.

Just one more little item and then I will let you go.  The other day I was going out to check the mail and a neighbor from a few houses away was driving by.  He stopped, opened his window and asked me how Kenny was doing.  I told him I did not know a Kenny.  He asked who lived in the house and I said I did.  Before continuing, let me point out that I grew my mustache in 1972
and my beard five or six years ago.  We moved here last August.  I mention this because when I told him I lived in the house he said he did not recognize me with the beard and mustache.  We chatted for a couple minutes and he expressed his condolences.  As he got ready to leave I said, “By the way my name is Bill, not Kenny.”  He looked surprised and said, “Where did I get Kenny from?”  I told him I had no idea.  He just shook his head and drove off.

This week our fact tells us that the Bible is the most shoplifted book in the world.  I wonder how many of them are brought back when they read the part that says, “Thou shalt not steal.”

Be sure to visit or call your Mom, wish her a Happy Mother’s Day and thank her for being your Mom.

That’s it for this week.  Now go buy a coconut cream pie and share it with some friends.