When we were active with the Hash House Harriers, Donna and I loved a good hash trash, the post-trail writeup or monthly newsletter everyone called a “hash trash.” We still do, and even follow hash clubs on Facebook just to read the hash trashes they post. Sadly, not many clubs these days have members motivated enough to write them, and too many younger hashers have never read one and don’t know what they’re missing.
We’re lucky to live in a small 33-home subdivision with its own monthly newsletter, written by a volunteer on the homeowners’ association board. She started writing them two years ago as a way to share HOA news and meeting notices, but over time she’s gotten chattier, and this month’s newsletter is a doozy, almost dipping into the surreal. I mean …
November, according to Meg in the book “Little Women,” is the most disagreeable month of the year. I guess it depends on where you live. Here in Tucson, I can remember hot days like the last few weeks and a number of years ago snow. Over the last fifteen years the pumpkin parties have been warm like our last one and some were bitter cold, when everybody brought hot soup, cocoa and hot cider to share. November has some notable holidays and remembrance days that should be mentioned. The Saxons called November “blood month” because it was the time of year to slaughter cattle, for food for the winter. Election day is the first Tuesday of November and was chosen so for the farmers of America. Farmers could not take time off to go vote in planting season, growing or harvesting season, so November was ideal. Shakespeare was not a fan of November, as all months of the year are mentioned in his plays and sonnets, EXCEPT November. The rest of the country reaps an extra hour in November because of daylight saving time ending, but Arizona plays it cool and ignores it. Thanksgiving is the biggie for November, as we gather with loved ones to celebrate and give thanks for the harvests and the blessings we have. The Pilgrims of Plymouth celebrated in 1621, with geese, ducks and possibly turkeys, giving thanks for surviving a brutal existence. This celebration was helped along by the joining of the Wampanoag tribe of Algonquin Indians, who supplied maize (corn), squash, and venison. Their land was the area of Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Martha’s Vineyard. The Indians and the settlers lived in peace for the next 50 years.
On November 1, we celebrate the Day of the Dead, November 3. in 1957, Laika, a Russian dog, was the first animal to be sent into space, on Sputnik II. The great Chicago Fire of 1871 started on November 3, and Wilhelm Roetgen discovered the X-ray in November of 1895. On November 11 of every year we celebrate Armistice Day or Veterans Day here in the U.S. to remember all those lost in World War I. The first Harry Potter movie came out in November of 2001, Einstein’s Quantum theory of light was introduced in November of 1908, and Tut’s tomb was discovered by British archeologist Howard Carter in November of 1922. On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.
In November of 1859, a great construction marvel began, led by the French engineer Ferdinand de Lesseps. The Suez Canal project connected the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, was a French and British project to shorten the normal trip for cargo of 8900 kilometers around the Cape of Good Hope in Africa to the Indian Ocean. The canal shortened that trip to 193 kilometers, approximately 120 miles. The Suez Canal was originally a single lane with two passing locations, the Ballah Pass and the Great Bitter lake. There were no locks and all water above the Pass flowed North in Winter and south in summer. All water below the Pass, the current changed with the tides. In 1956, Egyptian president Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal in hopes of using all revenue to finance the Aswan High dam, which led to the Suez crisis and invasion by Israel, France, and Britian. The canal was closed for over a year until the United States put pressure on the invaders to withdraw. Today the canal has been upgraded, widened, and modernized to accommodate two-way traffic. An engineering marvel.
See what I’m sayin’? Now that’s a newsletter, one to savor and share. A dying art? I hope not!
Stay fresh, cheese bags!