Word-Wednesday for September 30, 2020

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Word-Wednesday, September 30, 2020, the 40th Wednesday of the year, the second Wednesday of fall, and the 274th day of the year, with 92 days remaining.


Wannaska Nature Update for September 30, 2020
Rabbits Prepare for Winter

Nordhem Lunch: Closed.


Earth/Moon Almanac for September 30, 2020
Sunrise: 7:23am; Sunset: 7:05pm; 3 minutes, 33 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 7:10pm; Moonset: 5:46am, waxing gibbous


Temperature Almanac for September 30, 2020
                Average            Record              Today
High             59                     86                     52
Low              38                     20                     34


September 30 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Love People Day
• National Mud Pack Day
• National Hot Mulled Cider Day
• National Women’s Health & Fitness Day
• National Chewing Gum Day

September 30 Pun
Gatzke man starts chewing gum recycling company; seeks help to get it off the ground.

September 30 Word Riddle
What word will be the same even when it is turned upside down?*


September 30 Notable Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1659 Robinson Crusoe is shipwrecked (according to Daniel Defoe).
• 1659 Peter Stuyvesant of New Netherlands forbids tennis playing during religious services (1st mention of tennis in US).
• 1791 Mozart's opera Magic Flute premieres in Vienna.
• 1935 George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess premieres in Boston.

September 30 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1207 Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi, Persian mystic and poet.
• 1627 Robinson Crusoe (according to Daniel Defoe).
• 1906 Michael John Innes Mackintosh Stewart Innes, Scottish novelist.
• 1917 Buddy Rich.
• 1924 Truman Capote.
• 1927 W. S. Merwin.
• 1928 Elie Wiesel.
  

September 30 Word Fact
“Tl;dr” is an official word in the dictionary. Can you guess what it means?**


Words-I-Looked-Up-This-Week Writer's Challenge
Make a single sentence (or poem) from the following words:  

• aglet: the plastic coating at the end of a shoelace.
• dulciloquy: a sweet or pleasing manner of speaking; sweetness of speech; also: an instance of this.
• egrote: to feign illness in an effort to avoid work or school.
• mondain: n., a man belonging to fashionable society; adj., worldly, fashionable.
• nargyle: a foolish person fond of disrupting.
• portmanteau: a word blending the sounds and combining the meanings of two others, for example motel (from motor and hotel) or brunch (from breakfast and lunch).
• Rob Murray: Irish slang for curry.
• Rømmegrøt: a Norwegian porridge made with sour cream, whole milk, wheat flour, butter, and salt.
• snath: the handle of a scythe.
• trireme: an ancient Greek or Roman war galley with three banks of oars.

September 30, 2020 Word-Wednesday Feature
A Remembrance
WAKWIR isn’t the only young writer in the kith and kin of the Wannaskan Almanac community. Today we celebrate the life, imagination, and writing of Joshua Tyler Mehmel Birchem, who left us a year ago today.

In the fall of 2015, Josh’s sixth-hour English teacher, Mrs. Mai, tasked the class to write about a lighthouse, setting expectations of mystery and adventure. She quoted Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and provided each student with a picture.

Mrs. Mai’s assignment read as follows:
Write an essay in which the action centers around an abandoned lighthouse that is totally surrounded by water/ocean. Use vivid images and suspense to help the reader see what the lighthouse saw in its time of heavy use. If possible, have your lighthouse reveal its feelings through writing from the lighthouse's point of view.

Josh submitted the following:

The Lighthouse
By Joshua Birchem
In the beginning their ships were crude. Little more than splintery wooden hulls with a flap of canvas to power them. Guided by my light to their respective harbors, like some benevolent prophet leading them to their promised land.

At first they simply hauled goods, wealthy merchants sons wishing to travel, explorers, and settlers. It was the mighty Greeks who first used them in the art of war. Hundreds bringing impatient soldiers to death and glory in lands unknown, even exchanging blows with their counterparts in opposing navies.

It was not until Rome when the power of sea was truly realized. With the new arrival of the trireme dominating the seas they were unstoppable. I stood impassively and watched as the great fleets of Rome left the harbor in their systematic domination of the Mediterranean. Many a battle was won in the sea with arrival of these deadly ships, much to the woe of their foes. Unfortunately, not even they could save Rome from its petty infighting and barbarians at its gates.

In the ashes of once great Rome, an age of stagnation came upon us like a creeping plague. Many of my brethren fell into disuse and the fleets of old became driftwood, and wrecks. In this dark time the only great navy of note in the world were the Vikings, and even they became dust with the cruel march of time. Even I fell into disuse, for who needed a lighthouse when there was no one to guide. It was not until the Renaissance that the true golden age of sail came upon the sleeping world.

I was rebuilt higher, broader, and larger than any before. With invention of optics and better navigation, a new kind of ships entered the world. The ships of these times were massive constructs capable of carrying hundreds of people and goods. They were tall and elegant as any seabird that had ever lived, able to circumnavigate the globe and rain fire and lead upon ship and city alike. Great trading fleets visited worlds both old and new in the name of profit and greed. Bold explorers pushed the boundaries of the map in search of riches and glory. Many ancient civilizations fell to these monsters, tore down with steel and gunpowder.

Pirates prowled the waters between trading routes, like skulking wolves waiting for their next meal. Privateers with nothing to gain as a simple sailor, they turned to piracy to fill the void.

In this great golden age of sailing, powerful empires arose claiming all as their dominion. The greatest sea battles the world had ever seen appeared when these empires clashed in the vastness of the seas. Massive fleets numbering in the thousands battled for territory, resources, and renown in these great times, raining fire upon their enemies in the name of king and country.

The next great innovation in the naval wars of mankind was the engine. At long last the rule of the sail was gone, replaced by the cold heart of engineering and the cruelty of steel.

Armored ships came next. Great hulking beasts of iron and gunpowder, they decimated the proud wooden fleets of old. These hulking ironclads were nigh indestructible, ripping through ship after ship like some vengeful god.

It was only when meeting their counterparts did these monstrosities falter, uselessly pounding on one another until neither could fight. In response, the ships grew larger and again I was torn down in favor of a larger, brighter body.

In this era the ships had truly become huge, the greatest measuring up to a thousand feet long. Mobile runways that could launch many a plane or jet upon an unsuspecting foe. With these great advances in engineering also came advances in electronics, much to the dismay of my brethren and I.

For we have become obsolete. In the age of modern electronics, what need do ships have for a simple beam of light when they can have GPS? I am now a solemn lighthouse, standing eternal guard over an empty sea. Doomed to rot, forsaken by those that I once guided in my stalwart watch.

Mrs. Mai gave Josh an A.


From A Year with Rilke, September 30 Entry
No Miracles, Please, from The Book of Hours II, 15.

I would rather sense you
as the earth senses you.
In my ripening
ripens
what you are.

No miracles, please.
Just let your laws
become clearer
from generation to generation.

Be better than yesterday,
learn a new word today,
try to stay out of trouble - at least until tomorrow,
and write when you have the time.

*SWIMS

**Too long; didn’t read.