Four Dozen Pine Trees

 

More thoughts about a 13-month year: If each month had only 28 days, some holidays wouldn’t fall on the same days they do now. New Year’s Eve, for instance would happen on the 28th of the month – either December or March, depending on which came at the end of the year. Thanksgiving would always be Thursday, November 25. Valentines Day would always be a Sunday, like Mother’s and Father’s Days. I’ve read the Kodak company used a 13-month calendar from 1924 to 1989. Their extra month was called Sol, and it came between June and July. Leap day, when it happened, was December 29, and it was an extra weekend day. For years, George Eastman (Kodak’s founder) tried to promote worldwide acceptance but was unsuccessful. I’m not awfully surprised. We’ve been trying for ages to do away with Daylight Saving Time; something absolutely EVERYONE hates. Yet here we are, still adjusting all our clocks twice a year.

Four X Blocks

 

“Each Sabbath we invite all to come worship Jesus Christ in the community of His restored Church. In the sacramental ordinance, we covenant that we are willing to take upon us the name of Jesus Christ, always remember Him, and keep His commandments. He promises we can always have His Spirit to be with us. As we witness and remember Jesus each week, we abide and walk with Him. Just as the disciples on the road to Emmaus ask Jesus to abide with them, Jesus Christ promises to abide with us. In the Gospel of John, chapters 14 and 15, Jesus teaches His disciples and us how He can remain, belong, walk with us. His faithfulness is stronger than the cords of death. When we have a question, problem, or joy, Jesus Christ says, ‘I am your answer—your way, your truth, your life.’” – Elder Gerrit W. Gong

Four Bird Houses

 

Antoine-Joseph “Adolphe” Sax was an inventor and musician from Belgium. Adolphe was the eldest of eleven children, only three of whom survived to age 13. He studied flute, clarinet, harmony and solfège at the Royal School of Music in Brussels, but he abandoned a career in performance to create musical instruments in his father’s workshop. Adolphe made changes in the design of the bass clarinet that are still in use. His most famous invention is the saxophone, which combines elements of both woodwind and brass instruments. Adolphe designed a massive family of saxophones in 14 distinct sizes, from the tiny sopranino to the massive contrabass. Only four sizes are commonly used today: soprano, alto, tenor and baritone. The saxophone may be made of brass, but it’s classified as a woodwind instrument because it generates sound with a reed. Adolphe also invented the saxotromba, saxhorn and saxtuba, but somehow, none of them caught on. 

Twenty-Five Leap Frogs

 

Every year should have thirteen months. With thirteen months instead of twelve, every month would have exactly four weeks instead of 4.257. We could stop memorizing “Thirty days has September, April, June, and November, All the rest have thirty-one, Save February at twenty-eight, But leap year, coming once in four, February then has one day more.” Months would start on Monday and end on Sunday. Friday the 13th would disappear. I propose our 13-month year should start April first, the way it did until 1582. We’d still need an occasional leap day. It could happen at the end of March, and be an extra weekend day. The thirteenth month could fall between August and September, so September, October, November and December would go back to being the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th months, as their names imply. The new month could have the Latin name for 6th month: Sextilis. Or, we could name it for some Roman god.

Five Gold Stars

 

Samuel Augustus Maverick was born in South Carolina in 1803. Because he was christened with his father’s name, his family called him “Gus.” At Yale University, he was known as “Sam.” Sam dabbled in law and in politics. He owned a gold mine and a plantation, then he bought a lot of land in and around San Antonio, Texas. Sam was involved in the siege of the Alamo, and he was one of the signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence. Sam served in the legislature, as Bexar County Chief Justice, and Mayor of San Antonio. He refused to brand his cattle. He said he didn’t want to inflict pain on the animals, but his neighbors believed he just wanted to collect and claim any unbranded cattle as his own. Because of Sam, the word Maverick – meaning a person with a stubborn streak of independence, and also any wild, unbranded range animal – became a part of the English language. 

Three Bird Houses

 

In 1971, the Robertson family spent their entire life savings on a 50-year-old schooner – the Lucette – to sail the world. There were six of them: mom and dad (Lynn and Dougal), their 18-year-old daughter (Anne), 16-year-old son (Douglas) and a pair of nine-year-old twins (Neil and Sandy). Anne ended her trip in the Bahamas. In Panama, they picked up a 22-year-old student on his way to the Pacific. June 15, 1972, three orcas rammed the Lucette and it sank, leaving six people adrift in a small dinghy and an inflatable life raft. Anne’s sewing kit kept the crumbling life raft together 16 days until it couldn’t anymore. Then all six were crammed into the 10’ dinghy. The castaways survived on rain water, sea turtles, dorado and flying fish. The 38th day after the Lucette sank, the Robertsons were rescued by a Japanese fishing trawler. Their dinghy is on permanent display at the National Maritime Museum in Cornwall.

Twenty-Five Kitty Cats

 

Marion Clifton Davis was raised in a trailer on a dirt road. Starting at sixteen, he hustled pool and poker to pay for degrees in political science and law. He invested in land and mineral rights, and earned millions. One day on a whim, “M.C.” attended a presentation on Florida’s black bear. “I hate to confess this,” he said. “I didn't know Florida even had black bears.” M.C. started buying land in Florida’s pan handle: 50,000+ acres he named “Nocuse,” Muscogee for black bear. He planted eight million long-leaf pine seedlings on what he called a 300-year project. When lung cancer took his life, he was fifteen years into it. M.C.’s trees are centuries from maturity, but Nocuse Preserve is already home to several black bears. When gopher tortoises are found on nearby construction sites, they’re relocated here. Every year thousands of students learn about Florida’s wildlife at the E.O. Wilson Biophilia Center M.C. Davis built.