Things you didn't know about Jack

I should be cleaning/cooking/being productive, but instead I'm doing this post.
It won't be long, just a quick minute to squeeze in some details on JFK that your life may be missing.


He was a Gemini.

He didn't want to be president, he wanted to be a professor. He loved English.
   But when his older brother Joe Jr. died flying a WWII mission, Jack was expected (and pressured)    to fill his shoes. And because his father, Joe Kennedy had always wanted to be Prez but couldn't, it fell on Joe Jr. And then to Jack (and after Jack's death, to Bobby).

His undergrad thesis was published as the book Why England Slept. He remains the only president to win a Pulitzer.

He was a war hero.

He had Addison's disease and severe back problems, and was in pain most of the time.
He was actually wearing a back brace when he was shot, which prevented him from being able to better duck after he was initially struck in the throat.
It was this pain that also kept him from being able to pick up his children, which caused him much grief.

He pioneered the Peace Corps.

He was the first (and still the only) Roman Catholic to be elected.

He never carried cash with him.

He was the 2nd president with the most pets (coming after Teddy Roosevelt).

He loved daiquiris.

He usually swam twice a day in the White House pool (which was kept at 90 degrees per his request).

His highest rating as president came right after the Bay of Pigs invasion, when he hit 82%!

He was a fatalist and always knew he would not reach old age.  
He predicted his death several times.

He strongly advocated for civil rights and social welfare.

He was going to dismantle the C.I.A.

Well I must dash. Don't you feel smarter now?

A woman who'll kiss on the very first date is usually a hussie

With lyrics like 

"Squeeze her once when she isn't lookin',
If you get a squeeze back, that's fancy cookin',
Once more for a pepper-upper,
She will never get sore on her way to supper."

how can you not absolutely love the song Shipoopi, from the Music Man?!

I grew up on Music Man and absolutely adore it. And today happens to be one of those days when I catch myself humming songs from it under my breath.

Maybe I love it because it is set in Small Town America, during one of my favorite time periods (it is set in 1912 to be exact), when they used to have shoes that buttoned and local ice cream socials.
Maybe it is because there are hilarious raunchy undertones, or maybe it is because there is a crazy kook of a mayor's wife that calls classic literature "dirty books." Or maybe, most of all, it is because the female lead is a stubborn but smart woman named Marian (same spelling as my name!) and she is a librarian.  

Growing up when I told people my name, I used to have to say "Marian, as in Madame Librarian." In fact, when I graduated college, you give the announcer your name on a card and if it has any tricky pronunciations you are supposed to put a note to help guide them.

Sure enough, I wrote (rhymes with librarian) on mine, for fear of being graduated under false pretenses as "Mary Anne." ugh.

I couldn't find the right versions of "Shipoopi" or "Marian" on YouTube, but here is another fabulous number "Ya Got Trouble."

FRIENDS, THE IDLE BRAIN IS THE DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND!

Something there is that doesn't love a wall

"Mending Wall" is my favorite poem by Robert Frost, and one of my most beloved poems in general.
The language, the flow, the meaning of it always get into my bones.
We have a little "poetry wall" at our apartment, where I've framed a few of my favorites and hung them under the wine rack. "Mending Wall" is there, alongside an e.e. cummings, Mary Oliver, and W.H. Auden, among others.

It is written in blank verse but has a bit of assonance, and is written so simply. It is matter-of-fact.
The narrator is mischievous and frustrated with his old-school neighbor who insists that the two always rebuild the stone wall that divides their property, always saying "good fences make good neighbors."The narrator sees the fence as outdated and unnecessary, yet helps mend it whenever the something "that doesn't love a wall" tumbles it down.

Some days I feel like the severe neighbor, building the wall back up, and some days I feel like the narrator, spirited and young and laughing at the traditions of others. And some days I feel like the wall itself.

The language of this poem may be confusing to some, but that's ok. Just read it and savor it and picture New England and two men hunched over, lifting stones back into their proper places.
Without further ado, "The Mending Wall".


Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

Intolerance, served up hot and fresh!

I can't stand it anymore. I've got to say something.  When I checked Facebook this morning and saw some of the shit people are posting I lost it.
Who ever would have thought we would reach a time when biting into a savory chicken sandwich could constitute a political action?

It's absurd to think about politics, God, and sexual orientation all criss-crossing among the waffle fries, and quite frightening. And yet, in a way, fascinating because this whole Chick-Fil-A insanity has in a small and unique way put power in the hands of the people; the new way of expressing antipathy toward gay marriage is to go buy fast food.
I never thought I would see the day!!

Gaging by the rash of emotional Facebook statuses, most everyone has an opinion on this. And these emotions are intense, on both sides of the sandwich.
Some people casually state that they won't stop eating their chicken sandwiches because they will eat what they enjoy regardless of this shitstorm, others are vehemently anti-Chick-Fil-A and urging friends that support gay rights to join, and then of course you've got the nuts crusading for a "traditional" view of marriage (that term sounds so innocent because it leaves out the fact that it is excluding others' rights), and the in-betweens that think the whole thing doesn't matter.

Let me tell you that I think it DOES matter. Doing what is right will never cease to matter.

Standing for your ideals, even on a level that seems as small as where you're going to eat lunch, is part of who you are.
And if you're eating there to promote the limitation of rights for millions of Americans, I feel sorry for you.

And you will lose. It is only a matter of time, and the revolution has already begun. Even now other restaurants are disassociating themselves with Chick-Fil-A, and they have lost thousands of lifetime customers, customers that want to be able to marry whoever the hell they want, customers that believe anyone should have the right to marry whoever the hell they want, and customers that don't follow the intricacies of the issue much but are clear they don't want their money used as a donation via Chick-Fil-A profits to anti-gay organizations.

I understand that you may be committed to equality and still eat there. That is your choice.
This post is mainly me channeling my frustration with homophobia through Chick-Fil-A.
It would be one thing if the owner was outspoken on hating gays. It is completely another to use the money of customers to put his intolerance into action.

I would like to know how many current customers are dedicated and rabid homophobes, and how many don't give a shit and just want to eat their chicken sandwich without it being characterized as a personal statement.

I would also like to know how people would react if the debate were framed in a different light of discrimination.

 For example, statistically the number of gays living in America is estimated at 4-9 million.  America's Asian population is in the same range.
So what if Chick-Fil-A decided that Asians were the enemy and started using their profits to keep Asians down?  There would be an outrage.
Because IT ISN'T FAIR.
Don't you think fairness should apply to ALL AMERICANS, regardless of their sexual orientation?
 
It is pathetic the way that people think they are doing something Christian, that they are preserving the holiness of matrimony by picking and choosing who can say "I do." As if they have the right to. As if they are better because they were born differently.  Most of the people disgracing the name of marriage are heterosexuals that cheat on their spouses of otherwise abuse the sanctity of marriage, not couples that deeply love and respect one another, and happen to have the same set of genitals.

I know this may shock some of you but... God doesn't hate gays. God doesn't hate anybody.  God did not write the Bible, contrary to popular belief. A group of about 40 dudes, all with their own beliefs and biases, wrote the Bible over a couple hundred years. That is why different books within it have such different tones/styles/messages.  Don't get confused--I am not trying to discredit the Bible or hate on some pretty talented ancient authors--the Bible is a lovely book with a nice message most of the time, like that of Psalms 145:9: The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works.
Or Lamentations 3:33: He does not enjoy afflicting or bringing grief to the children of men.
I feel that one's true beliefs are in one's heart, and that individuals should base their decisions as such, rather than quoting the beliefs of others.



In conclusion, just remember that a similar issue of prejudice was at its peak in this country 50 years ago, and we now have a black president.  Like I said before, it is only a matter of time.

 

So friends (and you know who you are), keep your heads up.  Maintain your dignity, and do not sink to the depths of your enemy.  They can look like jackasses without your assistance.

This debate, now revolving around that symbolic chicken sandwich, certainly shows us that hatred never tasted so good.