Sunday Sundries, 17

1. A gender difference? Or just something going on in our car?

We are driving along ... While Joyce is changing her email password on her smart phone, she narrates aloud each single step. I'm the more silent type. I would execute the entire process without saying a word--unless something went wrong, of course, and then I would utter some grievous execrations.

2. On the TV news the other day a reporter, talking about a manhunt for some guy, said, "No one's put eyes on him yet."  Really? What's wrong with No one's seen him yet?

3. I had a moving experience this week, all courtesy of Facebook and some incredibly generous FB friends. Early in the week I got a "friend" request from a student from long ago. Not long after I accepted, he posted on my Timeline a fairly lengthy tribute to me--to some enduring effects in his life that he attributed to me. Well, that touched me. But then some other former students and colleagues weighed in, adding their own stories and/or "likes." Sometimes they credited me for things that my long-ago colleagues had done in their classes, but, hey, at this stage I'm going to soak up all the honey I can! Anyway, it soon trickled away--as all threads eventually do. But I cut and pasted it all into my journal. And I will read it again and again and again ... and feel, each time, an overwhelming gratitude.

Addendum: The "likes" included friends from my childhood, a favorite Hiram College professor from the 1960s, students from forty years ago--and four years ago, family, local friends ...  Wow ...

4. Do you remember Sundays with the massive Sunday papers spread out all over the room, all day, while various family members read various sections, then passed them on? I do. And I mourn their passing.

We take four newspapers here at home: the Akron Beacon-Journal, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the New York Times, the semi-weekly Hudson Hub-Times. The PD, of course, no longer prints every day for subscribers (several days a week it's online only), and the other papers--even on Sundays--are but thin reminders of their former glory. In fact, I think all four Sunday papers combined would not equal the mass of the Sunday PD that I knew in boyhood.

Anyway, I read the Times each morning online, then, later, clip anything I want to keep--or read stories that I'd rather read in print. The Beacon and the PD I look over as I'm preparing supper--though I also read through the PD each afternoon on my iPad. The Hub I breeze through when it arrives.

As I look down the street in the early mornings, I don't see too many people who seem to be subscribers (their driveway aprons are bare). Changing times. And ... changing Times. I never could have imagined/never could have dreamed that the daily newspaper would become an anachronism, certainly not in my lifetime.

5. There's too much clutter in my life. Where do I find the energy to deal with it? I have a former student from long ago who told me recently that he throws away/recycles/donates something every single day--it's a routine for him. Maybe I should give that idea a whirl? If I did that with two things a day, that would be more than 700/year; three would be more than 1000?  I'm going to try it! Updates in future posts!

6. At 7 a.m. today (Sunday): an oddity. All three of our antique clocks (a cuckoo and two mantel clocks) chimed/struck/cuckooed simultaneously. Never happens ...