B o x C i t y, I n c .
Volume 14, Issue 5
Over 2,000 Sizes
The History of Mother’s Day
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
Science Page
2
Poetry Page
3
A Tender Furry Tale
4
Word Origins
5
Editorial
6
Why We Say It
7
A Wise Man Tells You
7
Joke of The Month
8
Published monthly by Box City,
Inc. The Box City Bulletin is
distributed to employees, vendors,
customers and friends of Box City.
If you would like to receive this
publication please write to:
Howard Suer, Editor
The Box City Bulletin
P.O. Box 7069
Van Nuys, CA 91409-7069
Phone - (818) 780-4032
Fax: (818) 780-2607
Your poetry, or any interesting
submission will be considered
for publication. . . .Send it!!
Always remember, this is your
Bulletin. If you disagree with
any editorial content, we welcome opposing points of view as
well as comments on public
issues.
May, 2008
C
ontrary to popular belief, Mother’s Day
was not conceived in the boardroom of Hallmark. The earliest tributes to mothers date
back to the annual spring festival the Greeks
dedicated to Rhea, the mother of many deities,
and to the offerings ancient Romans made to
their Great Mother of Gods, Cybele. Christians
celebrated this festival on the fourth Sunday in
Lent in honor of Mary, mother of Christ. In
England this holiday was called “Mothering
Sunday.”
In the United States, Mother’s Day started
nearly 150 years ago, when Anna Jarvis, an
Appalachian homemaker, organized a day to
raise awareness of poor health conditions in her
community, a cause she believed would be best
advocated by mothers. She called it “Mother’s
Work Day.”
Fifteen years later, Julia Ward Howe, a Boston
poet, pacifist, suffragist, and author of the lyrics
to the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” organized a day encouraging mothers to rally for
peace. She believed mothers bore the loss of
human life more harshly than anyone else.
We have opinions, . . .but no
agenda and will print all opposing points of view concerning
any issue we editorialize.
In 1905 when Anna Jarvis died, her daughter,
also named Anna, began a campaign to memorialize the life work of her mother. Legend
has it that young Anna remembered a Sunday
school lesson that her mother gave in which she
said, “I hope and pray that someone sometime
will found a memorial mother’s day. There are
many days for men, but none for mothers.”
Anna began to lobby prominent businessmen like
John Wannamaker, and politicians including
Presidents Taft and Roosevelt, to support her
campaign to create a special day to honor mothers. At one of the first services organized to celebrate Anna’s mother in 1908, at her church in
West Virginia, Anna handed out her mother’s
favorite flower, the white carnation. Five years
later, the House of Representatives adopted a
resolution calling for officials of the federal government to wear white carnations on Mother’s
Day. In 1914 Anna’s hard work paid off when
Woodrow Wilson signed a bill recognizing
Mother’s Day as a national holiday.
At first, people observed Mother’s Day by attending church, writing letters to their mothers, and
eventually by sending cards, presents, and flowers. Increasing gift-giving activity associated
with Mother’s Day enraged Anna Jarvis. She
believed that the day’s sentiment was being sacrificed at the expense of greed and profit. In 1923
she filed a lawsuit to stop a Mother’s Day festival, and was even arrested for disturbing the
peace at a convention selling carnations for a war
mother’s group. Before her death in 1948, Jarvis
is said to have confessed that she regretted ever
starting the Mother’s Day tradition.
Mother’s Day has flourished in the United States.
In fact, the second Sunday of May has become
the most popular day of the year to dine out, and
telephone lines record their highest traffic, as sons
and daughters take advantage of this day to honor
and express appreciation for their mothers.
Page 2
Volume 14, Issue 5
keep hundreds of millions of people alive.
About Bananas
By Howard Suer
When I was a kid, the American chestnut
was a popular snack. I can still remember
the wonderful aroma of chestnuts roasting
over the open coals of chestnut vendors on
street corners in New York. Sometimes I
would buy raw chestnuts at the market.
After punching holes in them with a fork
we would place them on a metal tray in a
hot oven. Mmmmmm! Delicious.
A banana tree isn’t a tree at all; it’s the
world’s largest herb. The fruit itself is actually a giant berry. Most of us eat just a
single kind of banana, a variety called
Cavendish, but over one thousand types are
found worldwide, including dozens of wild
varieties, many no bigger than your pinky
and filled with tooth shattering seeds.
Cavendish Bananas
spectacular banana than the Cavendish. It
was larger, with a thicker skin, a creamier
texture, and a more intense, fruity taste—
but the Gros Michel disappeared. A disease
began to ravage banana crops—and by
1960, fifty years after the malady was first
discovered, the Gros Michel was effectively
extinct. The banana industry was in crisis,
itself threatened with disappearance. It was
only at the last minute that a new banana
was adopted—
the Cavendish,
which was immune to the disease.
Those chestnuts are gone forever. In 1904
a chestnut blight was discovered in the
Bronx Zoo. By 1950 billions upon billions
of chestnut trees throughout America had
succumbed to this exotic
fungus. . . . The American chestnut tree was almost extinct. Those magnificent tall trees, treasured for their beautiful
hard wood and of course
their delicious nuts were
gone forever. (The chestnuts you see in markets Chestnut Tree
today are mostly imThere is no counported from Italy.)
try on earth that Pink Velvet Bananas
loves
bananas
But, let’s talk about bananas.
more than India. There are more varieties
of the fruit there than anywhere else. If you
Today, bananas face a disease epidemic visit India, it is recommended that you
that could lead to their extinction. There is search for the lovely Thella Chakkarakeli, a
no known cure. A new blight is tearing candy-sweet fruit that is moist enough to be
through crops worldwide. It has spread to considered almost juicy.
Pakistan, the Philippines, and Indonesia. It
is on the rise in Africa. While it has yet to India grows 20 percent of the world’s baarrive in our hemisphere, in dozens of in- nanas—about 17 million tons each year.
terviews conducted since 2004 by Dan That’s three times more fruit than the
Koeppel. Dan couldn’t find a single ba- world’s number two banana producing nanana scientist who believes it won’t. For tion — Ecuador. More than 670 types of
the past five years scientists have been bananas, cultivated and wild, grow in that
trying—in a race against time—to modify Country. Thirty-two forest bananas are so
the fruit to make it resistant to this new rare that only a single plant or two have
disease.
been discovered.
The Cavendish is not the fruit that your
grandparents enjoyed. That banana was
the Gros Michel—by all accounts a more
Americans eat more bananas per year than
apples and oranges combined. And in many
other parts of the world, bananas—more
than rice, more than potatoes—are what
Bananas are originally from the fertile
coastal soils of Asia and India, and are
named after the Arabic word for finger.
Bananas are the world’s largest fruit crop
and the fourth largest product grown overall — after wheat, rice, and corn.
BANANA NUTRITION FACTS
Bananas have five times as much vitamin A and iron and three times as
much phosphorus as an apple. In addition, bananas are also rich in potassium
and natural sugars.
Because of their calming properties,
pregnant women often eat bananas to
combat morning sickness. They help
to replenish the body and restore a
healthy blood glucose level. This technique is used in many other cultures
that rely more heavily on natural cures.
Bananas have no fat, cholesterol or
sodium.
A banana contains 20% of your daily
recommended allowance of vitamin
B6. B6 is significant in the production
of antibodies in your immune system.
It also helps in protein metabolism, red
blood cell formation and functioning
of the central nervous system.
Bananas contain more digestible carbohydrates than any other fruit. The
advantage is that the body burns off
calories from carbohydrates more
quickly and easily than calories from
The Box City Bulletin
Editor’s Note: Every year we publish this poem
“RAGS”. It is a heart wrenching poem with such a
poignant message.
It will probably leave you with tears streaming down
your cheeks. However, there is a message in this poem
that must be said.
They Called Him Rags
By Edmund Vance Cooke, (1866-1932)
They called him Rags, he was just a cur
But twice on the Western Line,
That little old bunch of faithful fur
Had offered his life for mine.
And all he got was bones and bread
And the leaving of soldiers' grub,
But he'd give his heart for a pat on the head,
A friendly tickle or rub.
And Rags got home with the regiment,
And then, in the breaking away—,
Well, whether they stole him, or whether he went,
I am not prepared to say.
But we mustered out, some to beer and gruel,
And some to sherry and shad,
And I went back to the Sawbones School,
Where I was an undergrad.
One day they took us budding M.D.'s
To one of those institutes
Where they demonstrate every new disease
By means of bisected brutes.
They had one animal tacked and tied
And slit like a full-dressed fish,
With his vitals pumping away inside
As pleasant as one might wish.
Page 3
I stopped to look like the rest, of course,
And the beast's eyes leveled mine;
His short tail thumped with a feeble force,
And he uttered a tender whine.
It was Rags, yes, Rags! who was martyred there,
Who was quartered and crucified,
And he whined that whine which is doggish prayer
And he licked my hand—and died.
And I was no better in part nor whole
Than the gang I was found among,
And his innocent blood was on the soul
Which he blessed with his dying tongue.
Well! I've seen men go to courageous death
In the air, on sea, on land!
But only a dog would spend his breath
In a kiss for his murderer's hand.
And if there's no heaven for love like that,
For such four-legged fealty . . .well!
If I have any choice, I tell you flat,
I'll take my chance in hell.
~
Page 4
Volume 14, Issue 5
“FREEDOM ”
By Jeff (last name unknown)
Freedom and I have been together 10
years this summer. She came in as a baby
in 1998 with two broken wings. Her left
wing doesn't open all the way even after
surgery: it was broken in 4 places.
She's my baby.
Jeff
W
hen Freedom came in, she could
not stand. Both wings were broken, her
left wing in 4 places. She was emaciated
and covered in lice. We made the decision
to give her a chance at life, so I took her
to the vet's office. From then on, I was
always around her. We had her in a huge
dog carrier with the top off, which was
loaded with shredded newspaper for her
to lay in. I used to sit and talk to her, urging her to live, to fight; and she would lay
there looking at me with those big brown
eyes. We also had to tube feed her
f
o r
w e e k s .
Even after 4-6 weeks, she still couldn't
stand. It got to the point where the decision was made to euthanize her if she
couldn't stand in a week. You know you
don't want to cross that line between torture and rehab, and it looked like death
was winning. She was going to be put
down that Friday, and I was supposed to
come in on that Thursday afternoon. I
didn't want to go to the center that Thursday, because I couldn't bear the thought
of her being euthanized; but I went anyway. When I walked in, everyone was
grinning from ear to ear. I went immediately back to her dowl cage. There she
was, standing on her own, a big beautiful
eagle. She was ready to live. I was just
about in tears by then. That was a very
g
o
o
d
d
a
y
.
We knew she could never fly, so the director asked me to glove train her. I got
her used to the glove, and then to Jesses.
We started doing education programs for
schools in western Washington. We
wound up in the newspapers, radio
(believe it or not) and some TV. Miracle
Pets even did a show about us.
In the spring of 2000, I was diagnosed
with non-hodgkins lymphoma. I had
stage 3, which is not good (one major
organ plus everywhere). I wound up
doing 8 months of chemo, lost the hair t h e who l e b i t . I mi s sed a lo t o f
work. When I felt good enough, I would
go to Sarvey and take Freedom out for
walks. Freedom would also come to me
in my dreams and help me fight the cancer. This happened time and time again.
Fast forward to November 2000, the day
after Thanksgiving, I went in for my last
checkup. I was told that if the cancer was
not all gone after 8 rounds of chemo,
then my last option was a stem cell transplant. Anyway, they did the tests; and I
had to come back Monday for the results. I went in Monday, and I was told
that all the cancer was gone. Yahoo!
So the first thing I did was get up to
Sarvey and take the big girl out for a
walk. It was misty and cold. I went to her
flight and jessed her up, and we went out
front to the top of the hill. I hadn't said a
word to Freedom, but somehow she
knew. She looked at me and wrapped
both her wings around me to where I
could feel them pressing in on my
back (I was engulfed in eagle wings),
and she touched my nose with her
beak and stared into my eyes, and we
just stood there like that for I don't
know how long. That was a magic moment. We have been soul mates ever
since she c a me to me. This is a very
s p e c i a l
b i r d .
On a side note: I have had people who
were sick come up to us when we are
out. Freedom has some kind of hold
on them. I once had a guy who was
terminal come up to us. I let him hold
her. His knees just about buckled and
he swore he could feel her power
coarse through his body. I have so
many stories like that.
I never forget the honor I have of being so close to such a magnificent
spi ri t as Free do m's.
I hope you enjoy this.
Jeff
Page 5
The Box City Bulletin
CLOTH
BELLADONNA
Way
In 10th century England, anything you
back in the
Renaissance days of
the evil Borgias of
Italy, when political
purges were accomplished with poison
Poison Ring
rings and with foods
and wines that were drugged with fatal
doses, the lovely dark eyed ladies found a
pleasant use for belladonna, the extract of
the deadly nightshade. They discovered
that a drop of belladonna in each eye
would expand the pupils and give them an
expression of languorous beauty. And
that my friends is the reason for the name
belladonna, which in Italian means “fair
lady.”
Deadly Nightshade
used to cover yourself or roll the baby
in was called clath or
cild clath, “child
cloth” or swaddling
clothes. As the word
developed, it came to
be applied to the sails
of boats, then to the
canvas from which
sails were made. To
Baby in
the covering for a swaddling clothes
royal throne, and so
on.
By the 12th century, the word clath had
acquired the broader meaning of
“material,” and from that time on, England has been an important cloth center.
Long before these events in England, the
Arabs knew a cloth that they called alquton. The Spanish named it coton. The
French had coton too. By 1400 this
word passed into middle English. Finally another “t” crept in, giving us our
modern word cotton. Untwilled linen or
cotton fabric called duck derives its
name from the Dutch word doek, which
just means cloth.
Belladonna
FO R FE I T
O
riginally in Old English forfeit was a
crime, as was forfait in Old French. If you
were discovered committing a forfait, you
were arrested. The French word was a compound of the Old French fors, “outside,” and
fait, “done,” hence “done outside” or beyond the bounds of the law.
A sister word of forfeit is counterfeit from
the French word contrefaire, “imitate.”
Today, its meaning is not much more than a
penalty in games. Although, if you break
the law with a traffic infraction you are required to post bail. If you are found guilty
of that minor crime, you can forfeit bail as
your penalty.
Isaac Newton’s Laws of Motion . . .
T
or motion, at
a constant
speed in a
straight line,
except when
this state is
changed by
forces acting
upon it.
he three laws of motion devised by
English physicist Sir Isaac Newton
(1642-1727) explain the basic principles
that, (except under extraordinary conditions or at very high speeds), govern the
movements of all objects on the earth
and in space.
First published in 1687, the laws opened
the way for the inventions and calculations that nearly 3 centuries later, took
man to the moon. The laws are:
1.
A body continues in a state of rest,
2.
Earth’s Moon
Force is equal to mass multiplied by
acceleration . In other words, a given
force on a given mass will produce a
given acceleration. On twice the mass,
it will produce half the acceleration. If
the force on a given mass is doubled,
however, the acceleration will double
too.
3.
To every action, there is an equal and
opposite reaction.
Volume 14, Issue 5
Volume 14, Issue 5
Page 6
Shantytowns in The U.S.A.?
By Howard Suer
I just finished viewing a video by the
BBC about shantytowns in California.
What surprised me the most was that I
had to see it on British television.
It started out by explaining that 60,000
homes were repossessed in America last
month. The people who were evicted by
those repossessions were victims of a
tremendous exploitation by supposedly
“reputable” financial institutions who
lured many into purchasing homes with
attractive media advertisements saying,
“poor credit? No problem. We specialize in poor credit” Low interest rates,
and affordable payments were promised.
The scheme was so obvious, yet these
giant lenders were permitted to exploit
the masses with almost predictable results.
Sure, they specialized in poor creditbecause those low interest loans were
only temporary. In a few years the
higher interest rates kicked in on those
adjustable rate mortgages.
Suddenly
those “homeowners” could no longer
afford to pay the high monthly payments, so the home was repossessed by
the lender who “specialized in poor
credit.”
That was the plan all along. They knew
they would wind up owning all those
houses in a few years, and with the rising
demand for houses, they would make a
killing on the appreciating housing market.
as they rubbed their hands together, gleefully
imagining the wonderful effect it was going
to have on the “bottom line” of their financial
statements this year.
They could not have anticipated that the inflationary economy, together with a recessionary factor, would dry up the housing
market.
Suddenly they were confronted with billions
of dollars in defaulted debt and property assets without a market.
Okay — so Bear Sterns is in trouble. That
may have a domino effect on other financial
institutions throughout the Nation, if not the
world. But what of the people who were
victimized by the greedy plot in the first
place? The ones who put their money into a
home they thought they would one day own
(the American dream)? Where are they?
Today, in America, we have a phenomenon
known as “homeless working people.” People who have lost their homes and everything
else. Some were forced into bankruptcy, and
now cannot afford to even rent a home to live
in.
Tens-of-thousands of these people are
living in their cars, in shantytowns, under
freeway overpasses, and in homeless shelters
throughout the country.
After the stock market crash in October
1929, which was followed by the great depression of the 1930’s many people were
homeless. Hoovervilles (named after President Herbert Hoover who was blamed for the
crash), cropped up throughout the country’
Today, in America we have a new phenomenon. The shrinking middle-class isn’t disappearing. They are becoming either the new
rich or the new poor.
Yes, there are more rich people than ever
before in our history. . . . And more poor
people as well.
Last month I took my wife to a fancy restaurant for her birthday. As expensive as it was,
every table was occupied. I had to make the
reservations a week in advance just to get a
table for two. Looking around, my wife remarked, “They say the economy is bad, yet
look how crowded this expensive restaurant
is.” I responded, “This is proof that the
economy is bad. There are more rich people,
and many times more poor people. The
businesses that cater to the upper financial
class are thriving. Most other businesses are
experiencing a decline in revenue.”
Homeless Shelter
As our Country’s leadership changes hands
after our November elections, I hope we will
see responsible government officials addressing some of these massive domestic
problems. We cannot abandon these Americans who were victimized by greed.
What happened next was ironic. Those
powerful financial institutions with
names such as Bear Sterns, etc. shot
themselves in the foot. . . . As they
started foreclosing on those homeowners
who could no longer afford the higher
mortgage payments, they were acquiring
properties by the thousands. I can just
picture the grinning faces of the directors
Editor’s Note: I know this editorial will
stimulate some discussion. Opposing points
of view are welcome and will be published
in the next issue of the Box City Bulletin.
A 1930’s Hooverville
The Box City Bulletin
Page
Page 7
7
Why We Say It — (Phrase Origins)
“ ’ T i l l D e a th Do Us Pa r t ”
W
e’re all familiar with this phrase; it’s
part of the wedding vows. However, did
you know a subtle change was made to
these vows for marriage among slaves in
American History?
The traditional saying till death do us part
was amended for American slaves to, “till
death or distance do us part” because families were often broken up when slaves were
sold down the river.
KICKS: Get a Kick Out of
T
R A C K O N E S B R AI N S
T
he phrase goes
back to the turn of
the 20th century,
and was used to describe the effects of
liquor or drugs, not
love. The case for drugs is strong, for the
related expression “to get a charge out of”
something derives from the addicts’ use of
charge for the injection of a narcotic.
“Kicks,” refers to anything that gives one a
thrill or satisfaction and comes from the
same source as the phrase.
Cole Porter’s “ I Get a Kick Out of You” is
not the source of this expression, though
nowhere are the words put to better use.
his Phrase does have its origins in the
rack, that old instrument of torture introduced into the Tower of London by the
Duke of Exeter in 1470 and often called the
“Exeter’s Daughter,” at that time. The machine was called the rack or reck, from the
German recken, “to stretch or draw out,”
and was usually a wooden frame (adapted
from those used in leather factories), with
rollers at each end. The victim was fastened
to the rollers by the wrists and ankles and
the joints of his limbs were stretched by
their rotation, sometimes until they were
torn from their sockets. The rack was abolished in England by 1640, but its memory
lived on in many vivid uses of its name.
The powerful image of someone racking,
stretching or straining his brains to find the
answer to a question is found in language as
far back as 1583, at a time when the real
rack was still being used.
A WISE MAN TELLS YOU
“Monkeys are superior to men in this:
When a monkey looks into a mirror he
sees a monkey.”
—Malcolm de Chazal, 1902-1981
“In nature, there are neither rewards or
punishments; there are consequences.”
—Robert Greene Ingersoll, 1833-1899
“To one with faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.”
—Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1225-1274
“Nothing emboldens sin so much as
mercy.”
—William Shakespeare, 1564-1616
“Science without religion is lame; religion
without science is blind.”
—Albert Einstein, 1879-1955
“After your death you will be what you
were before your birth.”
—Arthur Schopenhauer, 1788-1860
“Make me chaste and continent, but not
just yet.”
—Saint Augustine, 354-430
“Indeed, I tremble for my Country when I
reflect that God is just.”
—Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826
“When grief is fresh, every attempt to
divert it only irritates.”
—Dr. Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784
“A hen is only an egg’s way of making
another egg.”
—Samuel Butler, 1835-1902
“You don’t have to deserve your mother’s
love. You have to deserve your father’s.
He’s more particular.
—Robert Frost, 1874-1963
“Death is nothing to us, since when we
are, death has not come, and when death
has come, we are not.”
—Epicurus, 341-270 B.C.
“Man will do many things to get himself
loved; he will do all things to get himself
envied.”
—Mark Train, 1835-1910
“A certain amount of opposition is a
great help to a man. Kites rise against,
not with, the wind.”
—John Neil, 1793-1876
“One man’s courage makes a majority.”
—Andrew Jackson, 1767-1845
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