The 70th Edition

(NOTE: View a larger picture by clicking on the photo(s) above.)

Summer has lost it grasp and Winter is trying to sneak in among the colors. We have had a few nights close to the freezing mark, but the weather possesses a lot of fickleness at this time of year. The colors are always a wonder to behold but now the leaves are also losing their grasp. As we cross the Cumberland River from Wilson County to Sumner County, there is a mass of trees of every hue in brilliant colors along the river. I intended to take a picture of them to show you, but I kept forgetting my camera. I did remember to take it this last Friday, but after strong winds and rain on Thursday I found the trees now of dull hue and falling leaves. The best I could do was the tree you see above, one in the parking lot where Carolyn has her therapy every week.

Carolyn is continuing to amaze her therapist and doctor with the rate of her progress. Of course the therapy and exercise is painful, but it is stretching the aggravated muscles into shape to allow her to move normally once again. Our daughter, Debbie, flew in from California to help out the second week after surgery. We were happy to have her here even for a short visit of great help. Five weeks of therapy are now completed. She will visit her doctor again on the 12th of November. It is hoped that she will be released from treatment at that time and we can be on our way to wherever. The way it is planned at the moment, we will leave Lebanon on November 15. We will have been here for two-and-one-half months. We have “enjoyed” our stay but we are ready to go. But before we go, how about a little dab of history.

The arrival of the European settlers here in the late 1700's found the region around Lebanon, Tennessee dotted with mounds and sites of fortified villages of the prehistoric Native American Indians. It was their hunting grounds, where wild game abounded in the cane brakes and cedar forests. Wilson County was established by the Tennessee General Assembly on Oct. 26, 1799, three years after Tennessee became a state. On Nov. 13, 1801, the town of Lebanon was authorized. The appointed commissioners chose the land around a gushing spring where in 1800, Neddy Jacobs had built his log cabin. Seeing the spot in a grove of red cedars, commissioner Christopher Cooper said, "This is the place." The cedars gave the place its name, Lebanon, a reminder of the Biblical land of the cedars. On Nov. 23, 1819, the City of Lebanon was officially incorporated. Cedars of
Lebanon State Park is just up the road from us. We couldn’t stay in the Park because there is a two week limit, and they don’t have full facilities such as we have at Shady Acres.

The other day Carolyn was rummaging in the pantry for a can of something-or-another and one of those cans of something-or-another fell out an banged her on her implanted knee. “Oh, she says, “that smarts!” Right. Well, you know me, it doesn’t take much to stimulate my “Hum, I wonder how we came to use ‘smart’ in that way?” curiosity. That sent me to my favorite word source, Evan Morris, The Word Detective. So if you have nothing else better to do than to read some of my nonsense, I might as well share with you what I found. Which is:

It wouldn’t be surprising to learn that “smart” (learned) and “smart” (pain) are actually two different words from unrelated sources. English is full of such homonyms, words spelled (and often pronounced) the same but with different meanings and different origins.

“Smart,” however, is one of those cases where the two primary senses, even though they seem hard to connect to each other, share a common origin. “Smart” meaning “hurt” is actually the grandparent of “smart” meaning “on the ball.” It’s the same word.

The source of “smart” is the prehistoric Germanic root word “smert,” which meant “to be painful; to hurt,” and which eventually produced our modern English “smart.” As a verb, “to smart” has always meant “to hurt,” usually literally, although later uses have invoked the word in a figurative sense (”The fact that it was his own mother who fingered him to the IRS was what really smarted”).

It was when “smart” the verb begat “smart” the adjective that things really started to get interesting. The earliest use of “smart” as an adjective was to mean literally “causing pain, stinging,” as one might speak of a “smart” lash with a whip. But by around 1300, “smart” was also being applied figuratively to “sharp” or “cutting” remarks (”He seldom failed of a smart word or two upon my littleness,” Swift, 1726). This led to “smart” being used to mean “strong, quick, intense” in manner, which led, by the 17th century, to the word being used to mean “clever,” “witty” or “knowledgeable.” The sense of “smart” people being quick, witty and fashionable led shortly thereafter to the use of “smart” to also mean “neatly attired” and “trim.”

Now aren’t you glad you learned that. Now you are so smart you know all about what it means “to smart.” You have already discovered that I am a philologist. It is from the Greek. “Philo” = “love“, and “logos” = “word.” So a philologist is a lover of words and human speech. You gotta love our language, it is so varied and intriguing. Don’t you think?

You are probably no different than we in receiving e-mail forwards from family and friends. Some, I find of such interest that I feel compelled to share on the blog. You will note the second picture above. Do you recognize the subject. It is an albino moose that was found wandering the woods in the upper peninsula of Michigan. To see one has to be rare. But look at the next photo. What are the chances of seeing two albinos together. It has to be astronomical.

The fourth photo shows such ingenuity that you just have to pause and applaud the guy who thought this one up. What to do if you don’t have a spare wheel. Would you have come up with this idea. Truly, a Mr. Fixit!

The last picture is just to test your depth of perception. It is a microscopic view of something familiar. Of course, you would recognize it. Yeah, you got it. Its toilet paper. Of course you would know that the Chinese first used toilet paper made of rice straw more than 1,400 years ago. Finally, in 1857, Joseph Gayetty introduced the first packaged toilet tissue, which proved to be more convenient than the previously common practice of using The Old Farmer’s Almanac. (In the almanac’s defense, it did have a hole in it for easy toilet-side hanging.) Nowadays, a roll made up of all the toilet paper Americans use in a year would stretch about 300 million miles—more than three times the distance between Earth and the sun.

Now why am I obsessing about toilet paper? I am sure that most of you (at least those in our age group) have had a colonoscopy. That is what I am facing this coming Wednesday morning. And that, is the “end” of the matter.

Since we have had to cancel our second tour in the Okefenokee Swamp (scheduled from Oct. through Dec.) we are returning to Fort Yargo until the end of the year, before we head farther south. The next time we catch up with you we’ll be back in Georgia.

As indicated by the title of this edition, this is the 70th time I have blogged during our sojourn in our ’mobile condo.” So far, about 80,000 words. It makes me tired just to think about it. These additions have also included around 300 pictures. As long as you out there are interested in what we have to share, we will keep doing it. You will let me know if you get tired of it, won’t you?



Heritage makes the person; Attitude makes the life.