As a young child, I always looked forward to December 6, when St Nicholas would enter our house, under cover of night, and fill our hung stockings with fruits and candy, or an occasional lump of coal, reserved for those who were naughty during the past year.  It wasn’t much, but added some merriment in early December.    

Historically, St Nicholas lived in the 4th century, in Asia Minor (where Turkey is today).  He came from a wealthy family, became a bishop in the church and devoted much of his life to helping people less fortunate than he.  The legend says that to help a needy family, he had dropped gold coins down a chimney which fell into a stocking, which had been hung up to dry.  Much later, European countries followed the custom of hanging up stockings every December 5, so St Nicholas could fill them with goodies.  Dutch children would put out their shoes for the same purpose.  (whychristmas.com) 

As a child, my home did not have a fireplace or mantle, so we hung the stockings from a shelf between our living and dining rooms.  The stockings were small, so the gifts were too.  I recall receiving candy and fruit, usually an apple or an orange.  But the unwanted item — a lump of coal, always found its way into my stocking.  Coal epitomized that the bearer had not always been good over the year.  Coal brought guffaws around.  My siblings fooled the good saint, as they never received any coal.

With our children, we continued the practice, but coal was no longer available, so the “better be good or else” never happened.  The goodies included fruit and candy, as before, but added some toys or crafts.

When our grandchildren arrived on the scene, the stockings were hung from a real mantle over a functional fireplace, and the stockings became larger, so the contents expanded over time, ultimately exceeding the storage capacity of the stockings.  Now, wrapped presents were stacked on the floor under each hung stocking, which also multiplied as our family expanded.  Where is that lump of coal when we need it?

Our St Nicholas stocking day continued when our oldest grandchildren attended college, as an elf assisting St Nicholas to mail the stocking and present fillers to their dormitory.  

The spirit of St Nicholas continues.  

In September, 2018, I wrote a post entitled “Getting an Education,” which essentially stressed that education entailed much more than book learning.  Since then I came across two quotes by George Santayana (1863—1952), an American philosopher.  I wished that I had included them in that post; namely:

— “ A child educated only at home is an uneducated child.”  

— “The great difficulty in education is to get experience out of ideas.” 

The parents who home school their children, for whatever reasons, would forcefully object to the first, but few would challenge the second.  The Santayana quote emphasized the importance of educating the whole child beyond the book learning experience.  A child must be able to meet challenges on their own, to learn how to relate with fellow children, and to embark on adventures where the outcome remains uncertain.

With the modern day high cost of college education, a current debate queries: Is the cost of a college education worth it?  Many college drop-outs have became immensely successful entrepreneurs, including the founder of Microsoft.  A well-known Marquette University basketball coach opined that it was, but with an important qualification: 

—“ I think everyone should go to college and get a degree and then spend six months as a bartender and six months as a cab driver.  Then they would be really educated.”  Al McGuire, American Basketball Hall of Fame coach (1928—2001)

But not all modern experience can be beneficial, such as spending too much time on the Internet engaging social media seeking “like” comments from friends or playing incessant video games.  Such activities may become an addiction.  Recently, The World Health Organization (WHO) have recognized a new disorder:  “Internet Gaming Disorder”, which reduces one’s desire for knowledge.  [“Gaming Disorder Identified by World Health Organization,” by Mike Brooks Ph.D. psychologytoday.com, posted June 29, 2018. 

Lastly, the American folksinger, Pete Seeger (1919—2014) waxed eloquently on the difference between education and experience:

— “Education is when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when you don’t.”   

Blotto definition:  “Extremely drunk.”  dictionary.com.  Everyone knows that meaning, but may not know how it came about.  At least one source claims that the term blotto originated in British military slang during WWI, and said to be derived from the word blot, meaning that the tipster had been soaking up booze like blotting paper.  wordhistories.net.  

Literature is full of descriptive terms for a drunken person, who can take on different personalities:  A happy drunk shares laughs; a belligerent drunk threatens violence.  Both act in a way that is much different from their sober self.   

One of the earliest American studies had been undertaken in 1737 by no other than Benjamin Franklin, an occasional tipster himself.  He compiled 228 terms for drunkenness.  Not to be undone,  the Dictionary of American Slang listed 353 terms; and The American Thesaurus of Slang noted close to 900 items.  See The Vocabulary of Drunkenness by Harry Gene Devine, Journal of Studies on Alcohol, Vol 42, Number 11, page 1038 (1981)

With such an outpouring of terms and phrases for drunkenness, a detailed selection proves too much for a short post, so I will limit my list to a manageable collection of twenty favorites:

— besotted, bombed, crocked, hammered, intoxicated, 

— inebriated, loaded, looped, plastered, pickled,

— polluted, potted, sloshed, smashed, soused, 

— stewed, snockered, stoned, wasted, zonked.

Obviously, I left out a few clever terms like squiffy, tipsy, crapulent; as well as phrases like:  

— Three sheets to the wind,  Pie eyed, 

— Feeling no pain, Higher than a kite, 

— In your cups, Drunk as a skunk

— Under the influence.

In conclusion, I must provide a warning:  all this writing about over-imbibing in alcoholic beverages may lead a person to drink.

As a rule, I avoid writing about political issues, particularly during the contentious Trump presidency, when the salient facts on many issues seem to take a back seat to support the desired result, whatever that may be.  In other words, “the ends justifies the means,” — not a new phenomenon!  

The practice goes back to ancient times, and may have been first expressed by the poet Ovid in his poem “Heroides,” as “existus acta probat,” meaning “the outcome justifies the actions”  (idioms.thefreedictionary.com)  In Ancient Greece that concept was known as “Consequentialism;” i.e., “the moral words of an action is determined by its potential consequence, not by whether it follows a set of written edicts or laws.” Said a different way:  “Morally wrong actions sometimes become necessary to achieve morally right results.”  (Wikipedia, Consequentialism.)  Sound familiar?

With our modern day 24/7 news cycle on Cable and Social Media, many stories go viral without first checking the underlying facts, which often prove to be incomplete or wrong.  Our culture is hopelessly split on many issues, so when a person reads or hears a report that satisfies their political views, they pass it on to others irrespective of its factual correctness.  In today’s world, many people have become “ethics challenged,” as they select a preferred result, and then fudge the facts to support it; rather than marshal the facts first, and then use them to reach a proper conclusion.  Two pointed quotes:

— “The principal that ‘the end justifies the means’ is and remains the only rule of political ethics; anything else is just a vague chatter and melts away between one’s fingers.  Arthur Koestler (1905—1983), a Hungarian born author, opponent to Communism, who became a British citizen.

— “You’re entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts!”  Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927—2003), US senator from New York. 

As per Koestler, politicians may not be able to help themselves; but as per Moynihan, journalists should at least unearth true facts and hold the politicians accountable.  

The polarization in our congress and country adopts the game plan: “If you are not with us, you are against us,” with few, if any, remaining in the center to broker compromise, as each side hunkers down into their ideology and unsupported facts.   

This polarization extends to college campuses.  Universities must include “safe spaces” for students, who do not wish to hear opposing views.  Apparently, free speech has been expanded to exclude unwanted speech, thus failing the time honored practice of discussing issues to expanding one’s understanding of the differences, which understanding could lead to some reasonable resolution.

Silence defined:  Complete absence of sound.”  dictionary.com.  At times, we all welcome important silence in our lives, particularly when things break down, but we also enjoy the speech and sounds of friends and music.  As a state, silence would be boring and monotonous without some sound in our lives.   

We all know people who talk too much, and some who talk too little, remindful of two ancient proverbs:

— “Speech is silver; silence is golden.”

— “Talking comes by nature, silence by wisdom.”

Both reflect the thought that wisdom entails good judgment in knowing when to speak and what to say.  More recently, other celebrities  took a different tact, with a twist of humor:

—“ if God wanted people to talk more than listen, he would have given people two mouths instead of two ears.”  Anwar Sadat (1918—1981), the third president of Egypt, who was assassinated for making a peace treaty with Israel.

— ” Silence is golden when you can’t think of a good answer.”  Muhammad Ali (1942—1974), the silver tongued boxing champion, who rarely kept silent on any subject.   

In music, sound predominates, but silence still remains an important part.  Even musical notation include an occasional rest — imposed silence between the notes.  Using an oxymoron in the title, the noted song writer and performer, Paul Simon, composed “Sounds of Silence,” which reached the top of the charts in 1966, and served as part of the sound track for the movie, The Graduate in 1967.  It addressed humanity’s inability to communicate effectively with one another, and our ready acceptance of group think, as expressed by the mass media:   

— “. . . People talking without speaking.  People hearing without listening.  People writing songs that voices never share.  No one dared.  Disturb the sounds of silence.”  

To a musician, even one who turns the amps up loud, music is a mixture of both sounds and silence.  The sounds are the notes or chords; the silence, the spaces between.  Otherwise music would be just one loud noise. 

But, when it comes to silence, “Mums the word.”