World Without End

RULES FOR SONS:

When negotiating, never make the first offer.

When entrusted with a secret, keep it.

Hold heroes to a higher standard.

Return a borrowed car with a full tank.

When shaking hands, grip firmly and look them in the eye.

Don’t let a wishbone grow where a backbone should be.

Carry two hankies; one in your back pocket for you, and one in your breast pocket for her.

Marry a girl = marry her family.

Be like a duck: calm on the surface and paddling like crazy underneath.

Never be afraid to ask out the best looking girl in the room.

Never turn down a breath mint.

Write your own eulogy. Never stop revising.

Eat lunch with the new kid.

After writing an angry email, read it carefully. Then delete it.

Manners maketh the man.

Give credit. Take the blame.

Write down your dreams.

Be confident and humble at the same time.

Visit your parents often. They miss you. - Source Unknown

Washington Sidewalk

Since 1995 Dolly Parton’s program Imagination Library has been donating books to children of all ages and income levels, all over the world. On February 27 the country music icon went to Washington, DC to deliver her 100 millionth children’s book. I suppose it’s only fitting that her 100 millionth donation was a book she herself had written. "Coat of Many Colors" is a picture book featuring the lyrics of Dolly's song of the same name. Dolly started Imagination Library to honor her father, Lee Parton, who never learned to read. About the program, librarian of congress Carla Hayden said, “There is no way to truly quantify the impact this program has had on developing young readers across America and in other parts of the world.”

Nine Arkansas Crossroads

Amelia Earhart disappeared in 1937 while attempting to circumnavigate the globe. Three years later human bones were found on a desert island not far from her destination. The bones were analyzed at the time in Fiji, and it was concluded that they were the remains of a male. Last week a forensic anthropologist in Tennessee announced that the bones were almost certainly Earhart’s. He’d studied the measurements of the bones and compared them with photos of the famous aviatrix. He even consulted a seamstress on the relationship between inseams and the lengths of tibias and fibias. If the bones in question hadn’t been misplaced, a DNA test might have put this 80-year-old mystery to rest. When asked for her opinion, Earhart’s neice said, “I'm convinced she simply ran out of gas. No one has produced credible evidence of any of the other theories. The simplest explanation is the most likely.”

Garden Path

This year our quilt class is working on Jen Kingwell’s quilt, Green Tea and Sweet Beans. Like most of her designs, this is an impossibly ambitious project, with a frenetic, busy-looking end product. Two years ago we did Kingwell’s Gossip in the Garden https://mombowe.blogspot.com/2017/10/gossip-in-garden.html . We replaced several of the complex appliqued blocks with simpler foundation-pieced designs, and I think we were quite satisfied with the results. When introducing the pattern for today’s block, our instructor compared doing that with cutting corners in a marathon: she said both were “cheating.” I’ve had nearly three weeks to consider what she said, and I’ve decided I don’t care. Doing everything Ms. Kingwell’s way won’t be relaxing; not while I’m stitching the blocks together, and not later when I’m admiring the finished quilt. If doing things my own way is cheating, then you can call me a cheat. I'm fine with that.

Four Arkansas Crossroads

“The story is told that reporters were interviewing a man on his birthday. He had reached an advanced age. They asked him how he had done it. He replied, ‘When my wife and I were married we determined that if we ever got in a quarrel one of us would leave the house. I attribute my longevity to the fact that I have breathed good fresh air throughout my married life.’ I plead with you to control your tempers, to put a smile upon your faces, which will erase anger; speak out with words of love and peace, appreciation, and respect. If you will do this, your lives will be without regret. Your marriages and family relationships will be preserved. You will be much happier. You will do greater good. You will feel a sense of peace that will be wonderful.” – President Gordon B. Hinckley

Spinning Wheel

On March 10, 1876 Alexander Graham Bell made the very first telephone call. He spoke to his assistant, Thomas Watson, in another room: “Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you.” Bell invisioned the world changing for the better because of his invention. In a letter to his father, he wrote that someday friends would converse with each other without having to leave home. Bell went on to create more new inventions, including the photophone in 1880. This first wireless telephone transmitted sound on a beam of light instead of electrical wires. It’s the forefather of fiber optic telephone systems. Bell repeated his famous first phone call in 1915 when transcontinental telephone lines connected the East and West coasts. This time Watson replied that it would take him a week as he was in San Francisco and Bell was in New York.

Arkansas Crossroads

Edward Everett was an American politician, pastor, educator, diplomat and orator from Massachusetts. If you’ve ever heard of him at all, you probably know him as the man who gave the “other” Gettysburg address. Everett spoke eloquently (and exhaustively) for two hours before Lincoln upstaged him with a two-minute speech. Most of us can recite Lincoln’s address but know nothing of Everett's. Here’s a story about Edward Everett you probably haven’t heard: “Once a man who had been slandered by a newspaper came to Edward Everett asking what to do about it. Everett replied, ‘Do nothing! Half the people who bought the paper never saw the article. Half of those who saw it did not read it. Half of those who read it did not understand it. Half of those who understood it did not believe it. Half of those who believed it are of no account anyway.’” – from Staying Up, Up, Up in a Down, Down World by Zig Ziglar