Sunday Sundries, 235

 

1. AsOTW: This is a new one. The other day, driving home, I turned into our street (about a half-block away from our house), and I saw three walking women (in workout gear) in the street ahead of me, backs to me, walking fairly slowly. They were side-by-side, taking up the entire lane approaching me--and part of the lane I was in. I thought about the horn. Didn't use it. (Wuss.) One turned her head, saw me, turned back, did not tell the others, and so I crept along to our driveway, where, cursing (gently, gently) I turned. Oh, one other fact: THERE ARE SIDEWALKS ON BOTH SIDES OF OUR STREET.

2. I finished one book this week, The Fallen Leaves (1879), a late novel by Wilkie Collins (1824-89), whose complete novels I've been slowly reading, pretty much in the order he wrote them.

This one tells the story of an American, Amelius Goldenheart (!), who's left a Christian (and socialist) community here to go to England. There, he meets and is betrothed to a young woman (who hardly seems deserving, by the way), and while she is away on the Continent, he rescues a girl from the streets (it's that Christian socialist thing, you know?) and begins to care for her upbringing. (There are subplots, too--swindles, a missing daughter, etc.). Soon, as the young girl from the street begins to blossom, she feels her gratitude to Amelius changing into ... something else.

Let's just say that things work out in a not-very-surprising way.

I liked this: Another character (a friend of Amelius), hearing Sally (the girl) tell him that she is "fond" of Amelius, later says to himself in his carriage, "I reckon it's a sort of fondness that don't wear well, and won't stand washing" (249).

Not Collins' best novel--by any definition--but, hey, gotta read 'em all, you know?

3. We're nearing the end of the current season of Endeavour, a series we've long loved--just as we loved Inspector Morse (Endeavor tells us about the early career of Inspector Endeavour Morse). This season--four episodes--has not been my favorite. I love the actors, the characters--but the plots of the first three seemed devised by Agatha Christie with a bad headache--and perhaps a bit tipsy.

Episode 4 is another story. (We're not quite finished with it.) Wrenching in many ways. I don't want to say much more about it because the "problem" involves some central characters.

Watching via PBS app. (Link to some video.)

4. We didn't get to the movies this week--always a bad week when that happens ...

5. My Sunday bread-baking ritual continues. I feed the sourdough starter (now about to have its 33rd birthday) about 9:15 on Saturday night, then, about 7 a.m., put some of it back in the fridge and bake something(s) with the rest. Today, it's a couple of multigrain loaves. (They're rising in their pans as I write this--see pic.)

6. Next Sunday I have my 57th high-school reunion (Hiram High School, RIP, class of 1962). All the Hiram classes meet for a common reunion each July (it was a tiny school, and the high school closed in 1964--though the elementary lingered for a while. Link to news story about closing of Hiram High.) Anyway, I'll get to see some "old" friends, I hope--and laugh about things we have never forgotten ... but really ought to!

7. During the 1978-79 academic year, Joyce and I were teaching at Lake Forest College, north of Chicago a bit. There, we bought this antique clock, which we've loved, and which inexplicably stopped a few months ago. I tried all my tricks. Nope. Knew I needed to call our Clock Guy--but just hadn't done it. Then, yesterday, Joyce moved it slightly (her magic hands!), and it started and has not stopped since. Confirming all I've always believed about her!

8. Last word--a word I liked this week from one of my various online word-of-the-day providers:

     - from the Oxford English Dictionary--a word we need to bring back--and quickly so!

gamphrel, n. A stupid or foolish person; a fool, a blockhead, an idiot.

Origin: Apparently formed within English, by derivation. Etymons: Scots gamf, -rel suffix.

Etymology:Apparently <  Scots gamf fool (although this is first attested later: see gamp adj.) + -rel suffix. Compare gomerel

 Scottish and Irish English (northern). Now rare.

1729  A. Ramsay Horse's Complaint  in Poems  II. 122 To Gallop with some Gamphrel idle.

1802  J. Sibbald Chron. Sc. Poetry  IV. Gloss. Gomrell, Gamfrell, thoughtless or foolish person.

1847  H. S. Riddell Poems, Songs, & Misc. Pieces  310 Heigh me! is thus the gamfrel gane?

1923  G. Watson Roxburghshire Word-bk.  143 Gamphrell.

1924 Northern Whig (Belfast)  5 Jan. Gamfril.

1996  C. I. Macafee Conc. Ulster Dict.  139/2 Gamfril, gamfral, gamphril, gamful, gampheral, a fool, a clownish person.