Sunday Sundries, 219

1. AOTW: I don't really have anyone this week--although, this morning, there was a woman with a cart in the grocery store, a woman determined to get ahead of us in the check-out line (she did it, too), but, on the other hand, Joyce and I were kind of ... dawdling. So ... cause and effect? So, once again, I will claim the mantle for myself, earning it in all sorts of ways this week, ways I'd prefer not to get into!

2. The wind has been fierce a couple of recent days. One day, in fact, it blew down a section of our cedar fence that separates us from the next-door funeral home (metaphor?). And it reminds me, this wind: When my brothers and I, as kids, were afraid of the wind back in north central Oklahoma, Dad always used to calm us by telling us it was just "Windsy," a friendly fellow who just wanted to be noticed.

Of course, Windsy had an older brother with a fouler temper--Funnel Cloud. But I managed to escape my twelve boyhood years in Okla. and Tex. without ever actually seeing one--other than the dust devils dancing in plowed fields outside of town. And they were red devils--the sod in Okla., you know?

3. I finished one book this week (very nearly two!)--The Perilous Adventures of the Cowboy King: A Novel of Teddy Roosevelt and His Times, by the amazing Jerome Charyn (1937-), who keeps cranking out fine novels, year after year. I've been reading him since the late 70s when, I think, the first I read was The Seventh Babe, 1979, a novel about a left-handed third baseman. But his first novel was 1964, Once Upon a Droshky (which I haven't read ... maybe it's time?). He also has a series of mysteries--about a dozen now--featuring detective Isaac Sidel. I've read some of them--lots of fun.

The novel--narrated by TR himself--follows Roosevelt from young manhood to the assassination of Pres. McKinley in September 1901 (and, thus, TR's ascension to the presidency--he was McKinley's VP). We learn about TR's boyhood health issues, his time in the Wild West, his political career in NY and NYC, his married life and fatherhood, and, of course, the Rough Riders and the Spanish American War.

Charyn clearly shows us the political forces of the day--and the widespread corruption (has anything changed?)--and shows us a Roosevelt who, though he of course has "issues" of his own, had a moral and ethical sense that separated him from many of his political colleagues.

Charyn is always a wonder to read--and this one is no exception.

4. Yesterday (Saturday) Joyce and I drove down to Green, where our son and his family live--to Green HS, where the community was having its Celebration of Excellence. And among those honored yesterday? Our grandson Logan (who just turned 14), an eighth grader who won first place in an essay contest called "Laws of Life." His piece--a very touching one (which he read aloud to the sizable crowd at the event)--was about his mother's brain-tumor surgery five years ago--how it affected her, him, their family. A proud grandma and grandpa were there!

5. For some reason, we waited a while to start streaming the third season of True Detective on HBO--but we are "enjoying" it. I put quotation marks around enjoying because it's about the disappearance of two elementary school kids--brother and sister--and the desperate search to find them. (Don't want to give anything away ... so no details about it.) We're in the third episode now (we stream, oh, about 15 min/night--can't take the grimness these days)--and there are seven in total, I think? (Link to some video.) The show moves through three distinct time periods, one of which is very late in the life of one of the principal detectives, Wayne Hayes, played by Mahershala Ali (pictured in foreground below).

6. And--a grim note: I will meet this week with our accountant re: income taxes ...

7. Last Word--A word I liked this week from one of my various online word-of-the-day providers:

     - from wordsmith.org

throttlebottom (THROT-l-bot-uhm)

noun: A purposeless incompetent in public office.

ETYMOLOGY: After Alexander Throttlebottom, a Vice Presidential character in Of Thee I Sing, a 1931 musical comedy. Earliest documented use: 1932.

NOTES: In honor of Presidents Day, this week we’ve been looking at words with presidential connections. It’s about time we paid our dues to the Vice President too. A VP, by its very nature, is meant to play a second fiddle though it’s not uncommon to find an eminence grise in that office. Here’s how the term throttlebottom came to represent VPs and other similar (mostly) harmless figures.

The first musical comedy to win the Pulitzer Prize, Of Thee I Sing, is a brilliant political satire that gave us today’s word. In this masterly operetta (music: George Gershwin; lyrics: Ira Gershwin; libretto: George Kaufman and Morris Ryskind), presidential candidate John P. Wintergreen runs a political campaign based on the theme of love. His National Party sponsors a beauty contest, with Wintergreen to marry the winner. Instead, Wintergreen falls in love with Mary Turner, a secretary at the pageant, and marries her on the day of his inauguration. Diana Devereaux, the contest winner, sues President Wintergreen for breach of contract; France threatens to go to war, since Devereaux is of French descent; and Congress impeaches him. Wintergreen points out the United States Constitution provision that when the President is unable to perform his duty, the Vice President fulfills the obligations. VP Throttlebottom agrees to marry Diana and forever etches his name in the language.

USAGE: “[Lyndon B. Johnson] wanted to be Vice President, both to position himself as JFK’s successor someday and because he believed that he could convert any job -- even Throttlebottom’s -- into a power base.” James MacGregor Burns; The Crosswinds of Freedom; Knopf; 1989.