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

Matchbooks from Chattanooga

How many of these places still exist, and how many have changed in some way?

The Hotel Patten building still exists, but it became apartments for the elderly.  Chattanoogans, let's update this list.  One down, fourteen to go.

Vertiginous view

Someone shared this postcard of the Lookout Mountain Incline on a Chattanooga Facebook page this evening, and soon a commenter used the word "vertiginous."

Word of the Day

ver·tig·i·nous / vərˈtijənəs / adjective = causing vertigo, especially by being extremely high or steep; relating to or affected by vertigo.  Example:  "The photograph shows the vertiginous drop to the valley below."

Have any of you readers every ridden this incline?  Or another incline somewhere?

Family Matters ~ by Rohinton Mistry, 2002

The title says it all: family matters. We could take it either of two ways, as an assertion that family DOES matter, or that the book takes a look at family business, family stuff. This book says both. And reading it made me consider both aspects of my own family. Having been through major surgery earlier this year, I could empathize with 79-year-old Nariman Vakeel, who had Parkinson’s disease and a broken ankle, because neither of us could take care of ourselves. He was totally dependent on his family in a way I never was, because of his broken ankle, but I could certainly relate to his feelings. He ended up in the home of his daughter Roxana, her husband Yezad, and their two sons, all crowded into a small home in Bombay. I could also relate to Yezad, who was fascinated by photographs his boss showed him, old photos of Yezad's neighborhood:

"The photographs had made him [Yezad] aware how much the street and the buildings meant to him. Like an extended family that he'd taken for granted and ignored, assuming it would always be there. But buildings and roads and spaces were as fragile as human beings, you had to cherish them while you had them" (p. 197).

I don't have the photos that Yezad studied, but I have photos of my town, Chattanooga. This one is dated 1942, when I was two years old.


It looks nothing like Chattanooga today, except of course for Lookout Mountain in the background serving as an orienting landmark all of my life. Everything changes as buildings are demolished to make room for new ones, as dying parts of town come back to life and new businesses crop up. "The way things used to be" is a fragile sort of thing, as the quote above says.

Yet looking at our old photos sparks memories and, sometimes, helps us see new things. This photo of my grandfather when he was sixteen reminds me of my recently married grandson, the high forehead, the nose, the eyes. I am amazed at the resemblance. My grandfather -- William Elmer Setliffe, Sr. -- died in 1944, when I was only four and the town still looked a lot like that photo of Chattanooga above.

Let me close with two more quotes from the book. Both are from Yezad's boss:

"Everyone underestimates their own life. Funny thing is, in the end, all our stories -- your life, my life, old Husain's life, they're the same. In fact, no matter where you go in the world, there is only one important story: of youth, and loss, and yearning for redemption. So we tell the same story, over and over. Just the details are different" (p. 197).

"From three pictures, so many memories. And this can happen with every single photo -- each one conceals volumes. All you need is the right pair of eyes," he made the gesture of turning a key, "to unlock the magic" (p. 197).

Family Matters ~ by Rohinton Mistry, 2002
Rated: 8 of 10, a very good book.