See Rock City

I was surprised to find a 38-page Rock City advertising booklet in our Crown Center's tiny library this past week, so I checked it out and read it, grinning all the way.  For those who don't know, Rock City is located on Lookout Mountain just outside of Chattanooga, Tennessee.  And that's my hometown.  I raised my children on Signal Mountain, on the other (the north) side of the Tennessee River that runs between the two mountains.

I remember seeing bird houses painted red with "See Rock City" on the black roof and barns with the same color scheme.  This barn says, "See 7 states from Rock City."  Are those still part of their advertising?  I didn't see bird houses or barns in this little booklet, so neither may be part of the current advertising.

I have no idea who may have donated the booklet to Crown Center (many hours away in St. Louis), but I had fun reading it and remembering actually visiting the place.  Lookout Mountain is also famous for the Civil War's Battle above the Clouds, another tourist draw.

A quote from the Clean Speech reading for today:  "If you were dealing with some crisis, like a stolen car or a sick child, wouldn't you expect your friends to have a little bit of compassion for you?  Of course you would.  So if you recognize that everyone around you is in the midst of some challenge of their own, shouldn't you have a little bit of compassion for them? . . . Everyone struggles" (p. 27).  Everyone needs compassion.

Deb at Readerbuzz hosts the Sunday Salon

The story of a life

Write a sentence about the person who lives here, with her books and her plants.  What's she like?  Well, bookish, for one thing.  What do you think she's reading?  Please share your sentence in the comments.

Women's History Month & International Women's Day

and

March 8th is reserved each year across the globe as a day for encouraging everyone to stand up for women’s rights and gender equality.  The first celebration took place in Chicago in 1908.

World Book Day ~ that's today!

World Book Day was created by UNESCO on 23rd April 1995 as a worldwide celebration of books and reading.  The day is marked in over 100 countries around the globe.  Their mission is to promote reading for pleasure, offering every child and young person the opportunity to have a book of their own.  Why does it matter?  Mainly because reading for pleasure is the single biggest indicator of a child’s future success, even more than their family circumstances, their parents' educational background, or their income.  They want to see more children, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, with a life-long habit of reading for pleasure and the improved life chances this brings them.

Clean Speech St. Louis

Our communities are torn apart by division and strife.  The way we speak is both the problem and the solution.  Clean Speech St. Louis is a community-wide education and awareness campaign to unite us in the practice of Jewish mindful speech, to build a more positive, respectful, and peaceful world.  People at the Crown Center for Senior Living are taking part in this program, and that includes me.  I have done this since the beginning, so it's my third time to participate.  Here are my posts for 2022 and 2023.

Language ~ two charts

lan·guage /ˈlaNGɡwij / noun = 1.  the principal method of human communication, consisting of words used in a structured and conventional way and conveyed by speech, writing, or gesture.  Example: "I want to study the way children learn language."  2.  a system of communication used by a particular country or community.  Example:  "Her book was translated into twenty-five languages."

Language can be conveyed in signs, using our hands.  That's very useful when a person speaks a different language (as in the American Indian illustration above) or is deaf (by spelling out words, as below).

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