Coexisting is the bee's knees

"The bee's knees" is idiomatic and colloquial.  In the Roaring 20s it meant a highly admired person or thing — similar to other nonsensical expressions of approval like "it's the cat's pajamas" or "it's the cat's whiskers."  So it basically means a thing or person is excellent, top notch, or really cool.  Here's a YouTube video to learn more about this idiom, and you may also want to see what I wrote about other bee-related sayings a few days ago:  HERE.

Word of the Day

co·ex·ist /ˌkōəɡˈzist / verb = to exist in mutual tolerance despite different ideologies or interests.  Example:  "My neighbor and I are very different, but we have learned how to coexist."

Quotes from The Teacher of Warsaw by Mario Escobar (2022, historical fiction, 368 pages):

• "As long as we remember the ones who lived, they are still among us" (p. 48).
• "The best lesson we can ever teach is to show love to those around us without expecting anything in return" (p. 77).
• "Long ago I had learned that the only way to knock down the walls of prejudice and hatred toward difference was coexisting and building friend-ships that allowed the children to fight and then be reconciled again" (p. 18).
• "History always denies us the chance to recognize when we are at the beginning of an epoch-defining movement" (p. 45).
• "I felt closer than ever to my origins.  Being a Jew was the worst of crimes" (p. 80).
• "If God puts a starving child in front of me, what can I do?  Ignore him?  I don't have the stomach for that" (p. 76).
• "I would certainly have liked to shoot them all, but I knew all too well that it would not fix anything" (p. 65).
• "I admired many things about Jesus.  I appreciated his love for his enemies, his desire for peace, his mercy, and most of all his optimism" (p. 80).
• "We did not realize that our long walk had been the last we would take in freedom.  In a few days we would no longer be masters of our own destinies" (p. 50).

Here's a longer quote from Chapter 7, page 60:

We supported the man 'til an orderly met us and helped him into a bed.  An old friend of mine from my medical days, Dr. Jkobski, came out to meet us. 

"Korczak, what are you doing with these Germans?" he asked in Polish.

"The driver's appendix is about to burst.  You'll have to operate immediately."

 

"They're the enemy.  Let their Nazi doctors cure them."

 

I smiled and touched his shoulder.  "Love our enemies, remember?"

LOOKING AT HISTORY

My friend Shirley mailed me an article she'd clipped from the local paper dated last June, which says Chattanooga High School (CHS) will be 100 years old in 2024.  Shirley and I went to school there from 1955 until we graduated in 1958.  Back then the students went to high school for 10th, 11th, and 12th grades, with junior high school for 7th, 8th, and 9th grades.  No, those cars were not on the road when we went there!  We aren't THAT old, though some of those vehicles may have been around when my parents went to school there in the 1930s.

Library Loot

The Best Short Stories 2023: The O. Henry Prize Winners ~ by Lauren Groff (Editor), Jenny Minton Quigley (Series Editor), 2023, short story anthology, 432 pages

Continuing a century-long tradition of cutting-edge literary excellence, this year's edition contains twenty prizewinning stories chosen from the thousands published in magazines over the previous year.  Guest editor Lauren Groff has brought her own refreshing perspective to the prize, selecting stories by an engaging mix of celebrated names and emerging voices and including several stories in translation.  The winning stories are accompanied by an introduction by Groff, observations from the winning writers on what inspired them, and an extensive resource list of magazines that publish short fiction.

Deb at Readerbuzz hosts the Sunday Salon