Singing Valentines

Valentines Day is coming up on a Tuesday this year, February 14, and if you’re in a quandary about what to buy your wife or girlfriend, I have a suggestion for you.  Buy her a Singing Valentine. If you’ve never bought a singing valentine for your wife, or girlfriend, or fiancé, or other significant loved one in your life, you don’t know what you’re missing-or rather, what they're missing. 

I doubt that there is anything else you can do on Valentines Day that will equal the experience she will have when four tuxedo-clad men show up at her home or at her workplace, present a long-stem red rose and a card with your personal greeting on it and then sing two love songs to her.

Our quartet sang about 30 times last year, and the response was phenomenal.  The ones we sang in the home were the most personal, and the tears flowed every time.  But the ones we sang at the workplace, especially at schools, were the most fun, because our audience was larger, and the school children were so impressed.

We sang to women and men—that’s right, we’re gender neutral—and our audience included teenage girls, widows, mothers and daughters.  We started at 7 AM and didn’t quit until 9 PM. 

We were one of five quartets that circulated throughout the metropolitan area singing, and we presented 166 Singing Valentines.  It wasn’t inexpensive for the senders, but I bet every one of them felt it was worth every penny.  For the lovebirds I'm certain that it pays dividends later that evening.

If you would like to send a Singing Valentine to your sweetheart this year, most cities have the service available.  You can usually place an order online or by phone.  Just use the link http://singingvalentines.com/lookup.aspx  to locate the service in your area.  If you order early and you allow a four-hour window, you can probably get a discount.  The extras, like having the presentation at your Valentine dinner at your favorite restaurant are a little extra money, but are always worth it.

So here it is ladies and gentlemen.  If you are trying to come up with a good gift for this Valentines Day, I guarantee that you cannot do any better than a Singing Valentine.  If you don’t score big with your honey, it won’t be our fault.

Here are the lyrics to the two songs usually sung by the quartet:

Let Me Call You Sweetheart

Let Me Call You Sweetheart, I’m in love with you.

Let me hear you whisper that you love me too.

Keep the love light glowing in your eyes so true.

Let me call you sweetheart, I’m in love with you.

Heart Of My Heart

Heart of my heart, I love you.

Life would be naught without you.

Light of my life, my darling,

I love you... I love you.

I can forget you never.

From you I ne’er can sever.

Say you’ll be mine forever.

I love you.

Now I ask you, “How can she resist?”

Soaring in the Andes

I recently received a message that included a video presentation on YouTube. The subject was soaring (a.k.a. gliding, sail planning) and the venue for the video was the Chilean Andes. It featured spectacular scenery and sleek craft.

The video runs over thirteen minutes, but it is captivating and oh, so addictive to watch! These sail planes travel at speeds of 100 to 200 miles per hour, but they look so graceful that the speed is difficult to gauge.

One thing I noticed at the end of the video when the credits were running: There was not a single American in the race. That was a surprise, because I know that soaring is a good activity in this country as well as in Canada. There are contests in Denver. Colorado and in Calgary, Alberta, but to date, no one has entered in the international races.

That isn’t to say that we don’t have sites for sport gliding in both the Rockies and the Appalachians. Utah has several sites, and there are glider fields in Vermont, New York and North Carolina. For those in the Eastern United States, there is a glider port and school at Harris Hill just outside of Elmira, New York. Harris Hill is also home to the National Soaring Museum.

I encourage you to copy the link and watch the entire video, but I will explain that one of the facts I took away from it is that modern technology enables the gliders to have video cameras mounted on them, similar to those you see in the NASCAR races. Those cameras would enable television coverage of a race from the perspective of each racer’s cockpit.

With the accidents that have occurred recently at the Reno Air Race and elsewhere, the future of that sport is in doubt. In my opinion, glider races would be a safer sport and would provide every bit as much excitement as the faster air races.

I will admit that riding in a glider has just been added to my bucket list. After watching the video, I am hooked. I might just stop off at Harris Hill on one of my road trips up to Western New York to take a ride.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyaMcMzDkFM

The Gun That Won The West

Any of us who have studied the history of the United States is probably familiar with the title of this column, The Gun That Won the West. Of course, you will likely recall that a movie was made in 1955. No, it didn’t have John Wayne as its star, and the real star of the movie was not a person, but a gun, the Springfield Model 1865 Rifle.

That history is nice, but not completely accurate, as I am about to prove. It was another gun altogether that truly “won the West” for our country. It wasn’t made by Springfield, nor Colt, or any other American gun manufacturer, and it didn’t even use bullets and black powder to fire its deadly hail.

The gun I’m referring to was made in Italy around 1790. It was the Girandoni Air Rifle, and it was used by the Austrians against Napoleon in its first battles. The Girandoni found its way to the newly formed United States and was first used by the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1803 to explore the new territory known as the Louisiana Purchase.

I recently watched a video presentation produced by the National Firearms Museum that told the history of the Girandoni air rifle as it related to the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The Senior Curator, Phil Schreier, explained how the gun worked and he showed a model of the gun. I downloaded the video from YouTube, so you can watch it too if you’re interested. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pqFyKh-rUI

One of the questions that has always baffled me—and apparently it also been asked by historians—is how did the party of 38 men and one woman (Sacagawea) traverse thousands of miles of Indian territory without ever being attacked and massacred by the overwhelming numbers of hostile natives?

The answer lies in the fact that every single time that the exploration party encountered native tribes, they provided gifts and then Meriwether Lewis would demonstrate the Girandoni Air Rifle for the tribe. The fact that the rifle could fire 22 rounds in less than 30 seconds with extreme accuracy must have really impressed (and scared) the natives.

Now, here’s the wrinkle that makes this gun so historical. Lewis and Clark only had one such rifle with them! Of course they never divulged that secret to the Indians. Better to let them think that the firepower of the few white men was far more than the huge difference in numbers possessed by the tribes.

According to Mr. Schreier, the journals of the expedition contain no less than thirty-nine references to the Girandoni demonstrations, and it was probably this alone that provided safe passage for the expedition all the way to the Pacific Ocean with no conflict at all.

It is my opinion that, had Lewis and Clark not used that Girandoni Air Rifle as a means to demonstrate their superior firepower, we might not have had a “West” to win. True, the Springfield Rifles and those pioneers who carried them did their part, but it was that single gun that opened the territory to exploration and settlement.

Mr. Schreier also refers to the Indians as being armed, but I have read some of the history of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, and I contend that the natives were armed mostly with primitive weapons. True, they had superior numbers of warriors, and bows and arrows, knives and lances were not to be scoffed at. But those were the main weapons, although some of the braves had obtained guns from earlier trappers and traders. It was only after the pioneers started their migration to the western lands that the tribes became well equipped with firearms.

Imagine how anxious the tribes would have been to obtain some of those Girandoni Air rifles! It was the first “repeater” they had ever seen. The chiefs certainly must have believed that the entire band of explorers was armed with those formidable weapons. There were many tense confrontations, but they always ended with no hostilities and the chiefs backing down.

There is one other point that Mr. Schreier makes in the video that our present day leaders seem to have forgotten. The Girandoni Air Rifle demonstrations brought peace through strength. None of those 46 caliber balls ever had to be used in anger. Lewis's parlor trick was enough to ward off any thoughts of war by the tribal chiefs.

If you really care enough to read about the expedition without having to pore over the thirteen journals and one million words penned by Lewis, you can get a great version from the book by Stephen Ambrose, Undaunted Courage. It is available at Amazon or can likely be borrowed from your local library.

If you are more interested in a visual/oral demonstration and history of the Girandoni Air Rifle and its subsequent more modern versions, you can stay on YouTube and find all manner of videos detailing the mechanics of the gun. It is quite a piece of weaponry.

ICE Numbers

No, this isn’t a column about immigration. The ICE in the title is abbreviation for “In Case of Emergency.” Here is something we should all do immediately after reading this column. That is, if you haven’t already done it.

Nowadays we all carry cell phones so that we’re in constant communication with the world. Even I broke down and got a cell phone last year, and that is a real first for me.

I know we all think we’re invulnerable and will live forever, but accidents do happen and so do medical emergencies. If you are ever incapacitated, unconscious or worse, you’ll want your close family informed ASAP. You might not be able to call, but one of the things EMTs check for is identification and emergency numbers to call.

Here is a tip that could make that call available immediately. You probably already have your cell phone set to speed dial your spouse or other ‘most important partner’ in the number 2 position (the first number you can set for speed dial on my phone). That’s good, but here is how you want to edit it: Instead of just the name (ie – Carol Smith) make it ICE-Carol Smith.

ICE is understood by emergency responders, and they will be able to make that dreaded call a lot faster once they know who your emergency contact ICE is. It could make a lot of difference in how fast that loved one can get to your side.

You don’t have to do anything to your speed dial number, just to the contact name in your list of contacts, but you do want to have your ICE as the first speed dial number on your cell phone. If that person is in any other position, make sure you change it so that the first number is your ICE.

One other thing you might consider is a backup ICE in case you and your ICE are both involved in an accident and incapacitated. Make the alternate your ICE2. Put that person in the second speed dial position on your cell phone.

Do it now!

Closing Out 2011

This is my 53rd column for the year 2011 and how, you may ask, can that be since I only publish on Saturdays and there are only 52 weeks in the year? Well, this year has been special in that it both started and ended on a Saturday. Therefore, there actually were 53 Saturdays in 2011.

Okay, go ahead and find you r calendar and count the weeks to be sure – I’ll wait.

Because this is a bonus Saturday, I’m going to use it to do something I’ve never done before. I’m going to write the closest thing to a newsletter that I can come up with. So, if you don’t care to read peoples annual newsletters, you have my permission to skip this column. (But I hope you won’t)

The year has been momentous for me. I continued to work on my “bucket list” with a couple of road trips, managed to keep my finances in order and healthy, spent almost the entire month of July shuttling between home and the hospital, and gained back some of the pounds I lost over the past two years of dieting.

First, let’s tackle that added weight! You would think that a cardiac event and a steady diet of Healthy Choice, Smart Ones and Lean Cuisine would at least keep a person at the current weight. But no, all the extras that came to the table on Sundays (dinner with the extended family) and on road trips (not all motels and hotels come with microwave ovens in the rooms) added on the pounds a little at a time. At year’s end I have put back on 12 of the 30 pounds I lost last year. It looks like there’s gonna be some fast days in 2012.

In May, Judy and I drove to New England. In the process I added four more states to my list of places I’ve visited: Delaware, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Maine. The only states I haven’t ever been through are North Dakota and Alaska. Well, maybe I haven’t been to eleven of them. According to President Obama, he visited 57 states during his 2008 campaign, but he never got to Hawaii or Alaska. Somehow, I doubt that I’ll ever get to all 59 states, but there’s still time. I still have to learn the names and locations of nine of them.

My implanted pacemaker was due for a checkup in early July, and when the technician hooked up the monitor she discovered that I was in atrial flutter again. That’s when the upper heart chamber (atrium) beats faster than the lower one (ventricle). The doctor scheduled me for a procedure called ablation. They insert a catheter with a laser on the end through the groin and up into the heart. Then the laser burns a little tissue in the atrium. That interrupts the heart’s natural pacemaker and brings the heart back to sinus rhythm. It sounds painful and complicated, but I was in la-la land during the whole thing, so all I cared about was that it worked. Ta-da!

Complications set in and I was back in the hospital two more times in the next two weeks for repairs. Then, after that finally worked, my ticker decided to act up and I got a ride back to the hospital in an ambulance for a three-day stay and yet another catheterization.
All this medical care cost Medicare beaucoup bucks, and I didn’t even enjoy it.

With all that surgery, you’d think that I’d be good as new, but that isn’t the case. My Cardiologist says that there are no further grafts or PTCA procedures—called Balloon angioplasties—available to me to salvage whatever is left of my heart, so medicine is my only remedy. The next time I have a cardiac event will probably be my last time. That’s life and I accept it!

In October we drove up to Chapel Hill, NC for my sister-in-law’s reception. She remarried two years after my brother, Don, passed away, and I’m very happy for her and her new husband, Allan. Then we continued to Indiana to visit Judy’s aunt and uncle, and on to Kansas City to visit old friends there. We returned via Alabama with the intention of doing some sightseeing in the northern part of the state, but the weather foiled us, and we didn’t see half of what we had planned. Oh well, another time we’ll get there, since it is an easy drive over and back.

October also saw my grandson, Chase, go to Army boot camp at Fort Leonard Wood. He just came home on leave last week, and he seems to be 30 pounds lighter and about 4 inches taller. We’re very proud of him.

You may have noticed that I started something new back in November. I have a new daily message that I send out to those in my address book called, “Your Daily Dose of Humor.” I send a joke, a cartoon or a video each day. I get these from you, and I dole them out one at a time instead of immediately forwarding them. I have a continuous feed and always have a dozen or more ready to send.

By the way, if you ever prefer that I stop sending you my column alerts or daily humor updates, just send me a short message and I’ll remove you from the list. You always have that option.

I hope that the year 2012 will be at least as good as this past one has been, and I also hope that I haven’t bored you with my summary of 2011. I know that I’m living on borrowed time from now on, so I guess I have to hope that I’ll get in another 52 columns next year. I look forward to it with optimism, enthusiasm and anticipation.

Happy New Year!

Donations That Give 100-percent

Here is a wonderful idea that I read about this past week. It is too late this year to take action, but keep it in mind for next year around Thanksgiving. In fact, I will try to make a note to publish this column again about the middle of November to remind you.

I read a column authored by Crista Huff that told of anonymous donors were paying off the layaway bills for customers at Kmart. She thought it was an excellent way to provide charity without all the administrative costs.

I guess we’ve all seen the stories that circulate in emails about those huge salaries that directors of the large charitable organizations draw. Whether or not they are truly that large, there certainly are a lot of expenses that eat up our donations.

So here is a neat way to provide for those in need and feel good about doing it on a personal, hometown level. The article that brought this to Miss Huff’s attention, and later to mine, Was published in the Detroit Free Press and titled, Anonymous Donors Pay Strangers’ Christmas Layaway Accounts. If you care enough to read that article, I’ve provided a link for you.

Here is some of the advice I took from both the article and the column. Don’t just blindly pay on someone’s layaway account, but try to do some investigation (perhaps with the department manager) as to what is on layaway and to whom the gifts will go. Maybe the manager will have some useful input as to the financial situation of some of the people who have gifts on layaway. In one case cited in the article the person in need was one of the store employees who had recently lost her husband and was providing for several kids.

You might be thinking that paying off a layaway account could be a big expense for you, a larger amount than you really want to give. That’s okay too, because you don’t have to completely pay off an account. Maybe you can pay off $25-50 of an account. It still helps, and your donation could change a hopeful gift to a realized one.

One thing you want to keep in mind is that you should leave a balance of a few dollars on the account so that it remains open. The Layaway Manager can call the customer to break the news that the balance is minimal. If you pay the account off and the customer is not present to take the merchandise, there is a chance that it will get put back into inventory and the customer will never get it.

Of course there are other ways that you can donate so that some little boy or girl will get a gift. The best ones I can think of are the United States Marines’ Toys for Tots program and the Angel Tree that is usually in the vestibule of Wal-Mart, Kmart or Target stores. Go investigate these programs if you want to donate but cannot afford a large amount.

Whatever the gift, If you are blessed with some spare cash and want to make a difference, I cannot think of a better way to do it than to use one of these vehicles to donate and get the biggest “bang-for-the-buck.”

And remember that charity doesn’t have to be a Christmastime activity. As the song, The Secret of Christmas says, “It’s not the things you do at Christmas time, but the Christmas things you do all year through.”

How Do You Spell Hanakkuh?

No, in answer to your question, I am not Jewish. Not that I would mind if I was, but I am not, and I don’t expect to convert at this late stage of life.

Earlier this week a conversation started over the spelling of the Jewish Hanukkah (sp?). The original dialog included a Jew who wished us all a Merry Xmas and himself a Happy Chanukah.

I sent back a query as to how the Jewish Festival of Lights (this year it starts at sunset on December 20 and ends at sunset on December 28) should be spelled. I’ve seen it spelled several different ways, as I’m sure you have.

One of the other recipients of my group email responded with a link to Sixteen Ways to Spell Hanukkah. That link spurred my curiosity and I read the column along with some posted comments.

I will give the credit for the article to its author, Joe Maller, but I will summarize it for you as to the parts I wish to use. The link is available by clicking on his title in case you want to read it.

The sixteen accepted ways to spell “the word” are: Chanukah, Hanukah, Hannukah, Chanuka, Chanukkah, Hanuka, Channukah, Chanukka, Hanukka, Hannuka, Hannukkah, Channuka, Xanuka, Hannukka, Channukkah, channukka and Chanuqa.

I must say that through research I found 5 more ways to spell “the word”, but I won’t spell them now. I will give you the four phonetic variations, which were used above:
· The word starts with “H” or “CH”
· The second consonant is “nn” or “n”
· The third consonant is “kk” or “k”
· The word ends with “a” or “ah”

Mr. Maller also provides the number of Google “hits” that were tried during the year 2011, and there are literally millions of them. I don’t profess to know how Google keeps track of these things, or how Mr. Maller had access to the numbers.

The “preferred” spelling at the Library of Congress in Washington is Hanukkah. My Jewish friend with whom the discourse started spells it Chanukah, and the Hebrew spelling—in case you’re interested—is חֲנֻכָּה.

A big reason that Jewish words are spelled differently in our translation is the fact that Jews love to argue. And they aren’t necessarily argumentative; they consider it a good mental exercise. What better to argue over than the spelling of a word? It’s harmless, and you know that if you put two Jews together and ask them how to spell Hanukkah, you’ll get twenty minutes of debate, 5 different spellings and each of them will go away with the same spelling they started with, discarding any others because each thinks his is the “right one” and shaking their heads to cool their brains after all that exercise.

Now that you and I know how to spell “the word”, I also found a cute video in one of the posts on Mr. Maller’s article. If you have a few minutes do watch it.

http://vimeo.com/8264593

And before I forget, I want to wish you a Merry Christmas or a Happy Hanukkah (sp?)