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FDR said it best, when he said that December 7, 1941 would be a "date that will live in infamy." Americans will never forget the day that Pearl Harbor was bombed, and I was proud today to see patriotism and honor on display today as flags were flown at half mast.
Mom and I had the priviledge of going to Honolulu back in 1984, and our visit to the USS Arizona Memorial was definitely the highlight of our trip.
This picture of the Arizona is eery, but yet it's one of my favorite pictures of Pearl Harbor.
I've talked to the 'Rents before about their memories of December 7, 1941. They were both 7 years old. Dad said that he remembers someone coming into church and interrupting the service with the news. His memories of that day are as clear as my memories of 9/11.
I had the honor of meeting a Pearl Harbor survivor tonight at church. His name is Lee Ebner. He was at the signalman station high above the deck of the USS West Virginia 70 years ago today, and he said he still vividly remembers that morning - from seeing the face of one of the Japanese pilots as he flew by, to hearing and feeling the explosions. In fact, he said just about every time he looks out his windows at home, he expects to see the Japanese planes flying by.
TWIT honors those 2402 military personnel that were killed during the attack on Pearl Harbor, and we salute those that survived.
I've mentioned previously how much I truly enjoy the lunchroom conversations from my 11:30 lunchtime gang of coworkers. The topics vary bigtime - on any given day, you could hear us talking about hunting, Facebook, church, Dancing With the Stars, the Scouts, recipes, old TV shows, music, etc etc. Toward the end of our lunchtime today, the conversation took a more scholarly theme: it's vs. its.
My coworker, childhood friend and faithful reader SH was leaving the lunchroom before her lunch time was over, saying she had to go do some research on something for her son's homework. They were discussing when you use "it's" and when you use "its." She asked me about it, and with about 99% confidence, I told her that you use "it's" as a contraction for "it is" and you use "its" as a pronoun when you're talking about possession. We discussed it for a few more minutes, and then I said this reminded me of a joke: How many Master's Degree'd people does it take to figure out it's vs. its? In this case, it took two.
Let me preface by saying TWIT does not condone drinking and driving. That having been said, TWIT would like to say that today is Repeal Day. On this day back in 1933, Prohibition was repealed. It's a rainy, messy night here in Louisville tonight, so to all of my local faithful readers, please stay in for the night and fix a cocktail in honor of this occasion. There's no need to travel out in this rainy weather to go to your favorite bar or speak-easy --- just stay at home.
As I mentioned the other day, we're in full-blown Christmas mode here at The Compound. This week at work, our department started listening to a local FM radio channel that plays nothing but Christmas music starting the day after Thanksgiving and going until midnight on Christmas Day. Sure, we hear the same song probably a dozen times during the 8-hour day sung by a dozen different artists, but we don't mind at all.
If you love Christmas music as much as my coworkers and I, here's a site for you. Visit http://www.christmas-carols.net/ and you can get the lyrics to a ton of Christmas songs. And they even play the music, so you can sing along. "Here we come a-Wassailing . . ."
Since Thanksgiving, I've gotten into Christmas mode. Today, it's almost full-tilt. The Compound is decorated, the office is decorated, we've watched a few Christmas show, and we've been listening to Christmas music all week long at work. I guess I've got Christmas on my brain, because for the past week, everytime I've read a news headline that mentions Newt Gingrich, I've had to do a double-take because at first glance, I thought it said "The Grinch." Take a headline on the AOL news page earlier this week - "Will Gingrich Usher In A New Compassionate Conservative Era?" I had to look twice because I thought it said "Will The Grinch Usher In A New Compassionate Conservative Era?" And today on AOL, another headline said "Gingrich Clarifies Position on Personhood." I thought for sure it said "Grinch Clarifies Position on Personhood."
Before you start bashing me, this post is strictly bi-partisan. I'm not making a comparison between Newt Gingrich and the Grinch Who Stole Christmas. I'm merely saying that their two names have made me do a double-take, that's all.
It's only December 2, and we have Christmas in just about 99% full tilt here at The Compound. The only thing left we have to do is put up my tree in the living room. But I digress. We usually don't have Christmas decorations out early, but we do have our favorite Arby's Currier and Ives glasses out a few days before Thanksgiving, just so we can get a lot of use.
Ever since I can remember, I've always liked glasses and coffee cups. And nothing makes me happier thank drinking my egg nog or any other beverage out of our Currier and Ives glasses during the holidays. We've had these glasses for at least 25 or more years. That in itself is newsworthy - given the fact that we've kept them around that long without breaking them.
I remember when we got the above glasses. Dad, Grandma and I were out shopping one night and stopped at Arby's for some carryout (that was when carryout wasn't cool) and I remember bugging the crap out of them until they bought a set of the glasses. Just one glass was not going to suffice; we had to have a full set. And of course, they bought them for me.
I picked up Arby's carryout for supper tonight, and in honor of all things old school, Mom got out the glasses for us to use. Sure, they're small and only hold 6 or 8 ounces, but we still used them.
Tomorrow morning, I will make sure that we use our Arby's Currier and Ives coffee mugs!
It's been a weird day today, faithful readers. Work was weird. Home is weird. And everything in between was weird. I'll just leave it at that and say welcome to December. It's one of my favorite months of the year, mainly because it's finally getting colder, and I love the cold months.
I hope all of you had an uneventful December 1. And hope that you have a great Friday and an even greater weekend. Get all of those Christmas decorations up while you have the chance.
And in case you're wondering, I was able to get our friend's computer back up and running last night. Even I was impressed with my mad computer skilz.
