November 12

Saints celebrating feast days November 12 include, but are not limited to, St. Renatus, Christian, Martin I, Emilian, Nilus, Or, Josaphat, Nilus the Elder, Astrik, and Cadwallader.

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Brian Hyland, lyricist and singer of "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" celebrates his 60th birthday today (1943, NYC). He's still around, by the way, touring with his wife and son (songwriting collaborator and drummer, respectively). Download an MP3 of "Itsy Bitsy" here. Book him for your next event here.

I thought it might be interesting to learn where the term "polka dot" came from. It wasn't. The best guess is that it started out as poke-a-dot, which makes no sense to me.

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North to Alaska

About 20 years ago, I found myself turning 35 and in a rut. I had lived in the same state for ten years. I had a boring job. There was obviously only one thing to do: move to Alaska.

Never mind that I knew no one there, had very little money, and had never seen it in person. Alaska was The Last Frontier; its motto was "North to the Future." If I had to have a mid-life crisis, it would be much more interesting to have it in Alaska.

That settled, I bought a map of the state and The Alaska Almanac. I determined that Ketchikan was too close and Anchorage was too far. I had seen Juneau on television, so that was out. Finally, I settled on Wrangell.

I gave notice at work around the first part of September and bought a one-way ferry ticket on the Matanuska leaving Seattle October 28th. That gave me two full months to arrange the move, which was complicated by the fact that Wrangell was on an island so all my belongings had to be shipped up on a barge.

My friends were skeptical. My parents were horrified. "The worst thing that can happen," I droned about 100 times, "is that I will get up there, decide I don't like it and come back." Of course, everyone thought that this was probably the best thing that could happen, the worst involving large bears, crazed fishermen, earthquakes and tidal waves.

The two full months of preparation time, as it turned out, was six weeks too long to listen to my mother and two hours too few to be on time for the Matanuska.

Tomorrow: Missing the Boat

On to November 13
Back to November 11
Back to the Farm

© Marilyn Jones 2000 -2006