My Dad

So, as you all know, we lost our Dad last Saturday, 12/11/10 at 4:02 pm. (we didn't lose him. He died. We know exactly where he his, and I assure you, there is nothing lost about my Dad). And though we were all there (Mom and all 5 kids), and though it was very expected, it was still a bit of a surprise. Dad was a very stubborn man, and I don't think we completely expected his death. I half expected him to sit up and ask for food. He slugged on with that damned cancer for 20 years - why quit now?

His death was, and is a sad thing. It was and is a relief for him, because he lived in much pain and discomfort and awkwardness of routine for so many years, that I know he was just sick of it all.

His funeral was very nice - military honors, the bagpipes, and a full church service to a packed house. He'd have liked every bit of it.

However...the eulogy was so lauding, so over the top in its praise of Dad, that some of the speakers forgot, I think, the Dad was human. They described him as an annoyingly perfect individual who probably walked on water, and lay on beds of nails for entertainment.

In fact, he was funny, and quirky, and not always laudable.

Dad was quite a bit larger than life - he walked into an empty room, and it was suddenly full.

Yeah - he was human. When one speaker praised Dad's infinite patience, I think every member of the family reared back our heads and mouthed "WHAT?!?!?!?!" Dad had a pretty short fuse and was REALLY cranky at times.

The speakers forgot to mention Dad's motto, which was repeated often -

"Never let the bastards grind you down."

He said it in English and he said it in Latin and he had it mounted over many of his desks throughout his career. And he said "bastards", too, my church friends.

They didn't remind us that he said, "never let 'em see you sweat".

They didn't recount that he taught all the kids and grandkids (and probably his nieces and nephews), how to kill an attacker with one blow. (now, dear reader, I won't describe how that is done, because that may put someone on guard, but rest assured that every member of the Hixson clan is a trained killer - don't mess with us).

They didn't tell the story of how he shot a bat down from the 2 story fireplace in the family room, when he was so sick he could hardly walk even with a walker. (he was worried it would hurt his grandkids - don't you mess with them either. Just because he died last Saturday doesn't mean he can't come back and get you too)

No one ever explained that we were taught never to start a fight. BUT, if someone else started it, we were to by God finish it and finish it good. Hit hard. Hit fast. And it wouldn't hurt to hit low. For a committedly non-confrontational kid, it was good to have that advice. I only had to use it a few times, but was completely victorious when I did.

Dad was smart - very smart. He had many academic and business accomplishments. He was a stubborn, determined, stick-to-it kind of guy who didn't tolerate fools gladly. Hell, he didn't tolerate them at all. Try being a fool in front of him - I dare you. Actually, I wouldn't dare you, because if you're a fool, you'd try it, and my Dad was always heavily armed. Why, we found 3 loaded weapons in the room when he died - 2 within arm's reach. Yeah, buddy.

So, we miss him a lot. It's a hard loss, and I feel selfishly sad about it - selfish, because to want him to stick around would have been to want him to endure more misery, which is unthinkable.

But I miss the Dad who was funny and quirky and a bit of a loose cannon WAY more than I miss the saint who was described at the service.

As Dad would say, Keep smilin' kiddo. And never let 'em see you sweat.

And I'd say, "Love you, Dad"

And he'd say, "uh huh! you bet!"

Confused by Bibliomancy

I've always been attracted to the art of divination. Sometimes I gain valuable insights about the future by reading the movements of clouds (nephomancy) or, and this is my favorite, by watching a cats' movements or jumps (ailuromancy). Bibliomancy has also been the subject of much of my attention for many years: (1) A trusted book, often a holy book, that, by definition, is believed to hold the truth, is picked up and placed on its spine on a flat surface; (2) the book is allowed to fall open; and (3) a passage is picked with the eyes closed. This has proved to be a very accurate way for obtaining credible information about the future, but I'm always looking for other forms of "mancy" to, er, suit my fancy. and I thought I had stumbled on a new form of divination, "horamancy", which was destined to be the wave of the future, so to speak, or so I thought. The discovery of my new method occurred only a few weeks ago, but it only now that I am prepared to describe the events.

I awoke in the middle of one night and looked at the digital clock on the night table (Latin hora, meaning "hour") and read "3:16". To me, this was an obvious reference to John 3:16, which reads: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life". I felt confident and, to a certain degree, sanctified and saved, until I contemplated the other possibilities of interpretation. After all, there are many "3:16" citations in the various books of the Bible, so I felt it necessary to check a few, just to make sure they matched the intent of the most famous example cited above. First, I tried Genesis 3:16 and read: “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you”, but that seemed unrelated and harsh, so I looked at I Kings 3:16 and my eyes were met with the words: "Now two prostitutes came to the king and stood before him" At this point I was thoroughly confused, but decided upon one last attempt. I decided to consult the last "3:16" in the Good Book my finger quickly came to rest on Revelation 3:16: "So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth". It was time to call my experiment at horamancy a complete and abject failure! From that point forward I decided to stick with more proven forms of divination, such as xylomancy, divination using wood found in one's path, which I hear from experts to be quite reliable.

My bird, Toots...

We used to have 2 parrots, Winnie and Toots, who came to live with us in 1988 and 1989, respectively. Winnie passed away last year, sadly, but Toots lives on and is a relatively young 21 years old. "The girls" have always had a strong sense of self-preservation, especially with cats and dogs. They were always tolerant of the house pets as long as they kept their distance, but woe betide the critter who approached the cage. Ungodly shrieks, groans, screams and wing flapping have frightened each in our long string of 4 footed family members into keeping a respectful distance. The screaming then died down, unless the animal was bold enough to get too close again.Toots is perhaps more protective of her safety now that Winnie is gone.

For little Max, however, they made an exception.

Max is a 55 pound Lab/Shepherd/something with a curly tail ball of energy and excitement.When he came to live with us at the age of 6months, he immediately approached the cage - - and the parrots seemed fine with it. Never screamed, never threatened. They allowed him to stick his head in when I had the door open, and they even seemed to throw food out just for him. As a pup, he even put his paws on the side of the cage to get close enough for a sniff. The response has ever been one of benign tolerance. After Winnie died, Toots has remained friendly. Max is permitted to stand right up against the cage while he looks out the window - never gets chased or nipped (I say "nipped", but it's really a full out "chomp"). I guess I thought she'd mellowed.

Wrong.

This week, we have a house-guest - a very friendly, quiet, mild-mannered hound named Bella - about 2 years old and somewhat interested in what's in the cage. Not aggressively interested, just curious. Is this permitted? No, it is not. Toots growls, snarls, screams, and makes threatening wing flapping gestures every time sweet Bella approaches. She walks away and it stops. Max walks up alone to eat the kibble off the floor and Toots is quiet, almost friendly. I know Toots is a small creature and very concerned about self-preservation - who could blame her? - so I shouldn't laugh. I think she can tell the difference between me laughing with her and at her. It is pretty funny, though. Bella comes to me for reassurance that she's still an ok dog. Once she gets a pat, she tries again. I think she's finally given up now and will simply stay out of the sunroom. Toots sits in the sun on her perch and shreds vegetables. All is right.

Usually this type of sign/symbol is associated with circular traffic movements, but in this case it is used by historians to describe the seemingly complicated but, in reality, rather simple peregrinations of three of the great proto-Germanic peoples that occurred during the great migratory period of the fourth century c.e. The peoples were, of course, the Regurgilites, Cololites, and Coprolites. All of these tribes originated in the bowels of central Europe and moved slowly at first, and then quite rapidly towards a sudden termination at the great battle of Cloaca, near the present-day city of Merde, France. The symbol represents not only the physical movements of the different peoples, it also illustrates the tendency of these great warriors to merge, diverge, and submerge their identities among, between, and within each other. This complex set of relationships was first elucidated in 1873 by Col. (retired) Francis Lawton-Bliss, a talented amateur fly fisherman with almost no interest in any pursuit other than catching trout in the wild and generous rivers of western Scotland. Fortunately, like Martin Luther, a distant relative on his mother's side, he experienced this insight, a sudden illumination of the mental faculties akin to satori or nirvana, while expelling the remainder of a large meal, though by what manner we do not know, near his campsite. Two years later he was made a Knight of the Garter for his achievement and shortly thereafter he was eaten and digested by the natives of the Outer Hebrides while he searched for a fish of supposedly unbelievably large dimensions.

Family of Linguaphiles

We are a family of people who love language and languages. I was thinking about this the other day, mentally tallying up the various languages represented in our family. It is a fairly long list. Including my parents, siblings, siblings' significant others, and nieces and nephews we have the following covered (with varying degrees of fluency): German, Russian, French, Korean, Greek, Latin, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Lithuanian, and a smattering of Polish and Malay.

Pretty impressive. At least, I'm impressed.

My brother has a room dedicated to the study of German. One niece has been teaching English in Korea for several years, her sister is a budding German/Spanish high school teacher, and their cousin (also my niece) has taken just about ever language offered in her school.

The most recent accomplishment is held by my nephew-the-Marine who just aced his Korean language test. Congratulations, kiddo!

Personally, I took five years of German and I have a Spanish lesson book. I may not be holding up my end of things. Perhaps some studying and podcasts are in my future.

Der Stubentiger

In German the word "die Stube" refers to the parlor of a house and "der Tiger" is the king of beasts, the tiger, so "der Stubentiger" is a colorful nickname for a domesticated cat, a "parlor tiger". Make no mistake, though, this "tame" cat is only one step away from being feral and can easily adapt to a life on the hunt, filled with the terrified sounds of small mammals and birds, perhaps a reptile, maybe even an amphibian, as this "most perfect of all animals" walks through its kingdom. Most scientists agree that, had the cat been equipped with opposable thumbs, the species would surely have ruled the world. Cats are clearly more intelligent than human beings, really belonging to a higher order altogether, and undoubtedly man made a very narrow genetic escape from being enslaved, forced to do the bidding of Cattus cattus. This is the true reason why many are against genetic engineering, being fearful that cats will one day rule the world. In fact, although lions and leopards are mentioned in the Bible, the cat is nowhere to be found in the Holy Writ. Silence only or a conspiracy of silence?

"If I won a major lottery!"

This is the first in a new series, entitled: "If I won a major lottery!" My first purchase would be a stereo microscope ($200-$1,500), pictured on the left. With this piece of equipment I could observe worlds significantly smaller than ours. The life represented under its lenses would be familiar: very small insects, pieces of pollen, individuals strands of hair or fur, and other objects difficult to see with the naked eye. The magnification would not be high enough to witness the birth of new viruses or the replication of DNA, and I doubt if many major scientific breakthroughs should be expected, but I would stay up very late into the night to clearly see an ant leading an aphid to the milking barn, or the silken fibers of a spider forming a web, provided that the animals in question were kind enough to cooperate! I must admit that there exists a major problem with the source of funding for this purchase: the lottery. I don't "play" this ridiculous "game", nor do I plan to do so in the future. Other monies will have to be sought.

Note 1: The use of quotation marks ("") around certain words does not imply condemnation of the affected nouns (ed.)
Note 2: On the other hand, the use of these punctuation marks must signify some reaction that the author does not want to clarify with actual text