Category: Rev. Joe Dirt’s Ramblings

The unsolicited, unreasoned, uninformed, unapologetic opinions of Rev. Joe Dirt

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Mama Carr’s Poke Bonnet

The book, Dictionary of Word Origins by Jordan Almond, magically appeared in the downstairs throne room. Knowing my propensity to read during my regular regal ruminations, knowing my love of words,  Señora finding the book at an estate sale,  bought it and placed it in the throne room.

This morning I came across the following entry:

Poke bonnet: This bonnet got its name from the fact that the front of it “poked out” far beyond the face. A bonnet that didn’t do so was called a “kiss-me-quick”.

I cannot think of my mother’s mother, my grandmother, who the whole world called Mama Carr, without picturing her wearing her poke bonnet.  While she did not wear it on her occasional trips to downtown Checotah, with chickens to care for, a garden to look after and a cow to milk, she was routinely outside, putting on her bonnet if it was the less bit sunny. Surprisingly, when I looked through Continue reading “Mama Carr’s Poke Bonnet”

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #1,560

yeah I know you did not ask!

I wonder if at the various universities and colleges that teach Internet technologies if there are special writing classes, perhaps in the Marketing Department under Internet.

There seems to a certain, very common style of article on many websites.  There is a teaser headline that grabs your attention, so you open the article. You then start reading or perhaps scanning to through the article to find the tidbit that attracted you, but it is not readily apparent. So you scroll, and scroll some more trying to find it.  As you do so you go past one advertisement after another.  If you are exceedingly lucky you find the tidbit towards the end of the article, but it frequently has an O. Henry twist to it.  Not uncommonly, however, there is nothing in article that relates to the teaser.

It is amazing what we humans are willing to do to other humans in the endeavor to extract money from them.

And so it should not go.

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Interesting Cultural Difference

In my Spanish class this morning we were practicing the grammatical structure used in Spanish when talking about hypothetical situations.  My teacher kept pushing me for more examples, and I was struggling to come with some after the first rush of inspiration.  So I made up one about growing horns and chasing Señora around the house…thinking I was talking about being a bit randy (or horny, if you prefer) which, lamentably, is occasionally hypothetical as I continue this head long rush of aging.

“Oh Señor, I am so sorry,” my teacher said to me.  Apparently in Mexico and probably other Hispanic countries when they say a man has grown horns it means his woman is running around on him behind his back aka he is being cuckolded.  But it can apply to the woman too.  He showed me a painting by the Mexican artist, Frida Kahlo, of herself,  as a deer, with a huge rack of antlers and her  body pierced by many arrows.    Her husband, the Mexican muralist, Diego Rivera, was famously a less than faithful spouse.

Vive les différences culturelles.

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Saint Augustine and Anti-Semitism

It probably says more about my naivety than anything else, but I did not discover that there was such a thing as anti-Semitism, prejudice against Jews, until I was a freshman in college.  That year the entering freshman class at the University of Rhode Island was huge, and in the economy dormitories they were housing three students in rooms meant for two.  In mine, besides myself, there was Continue reading “Saint Augustine and Anti-Semitism”

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Nice Compliment?

I have started working with a new iTalki.com teacher on my Spanish language learning journey, a young accordion player – accordions being prominent in Mexican music – from Guadalajara, Mexico.  He has a Masters in French, but teaches Spanish online as there is more demand for it and he can charge more. Besides Spanish and French, he also speaks some Italian and wee bit of Arabic.  While he speaks English, he does not list it on his iTalki profile as he is after more advanced students. As he said to me, he does not want to be someone’s dictionary.  I know he lived in Chicago for a while, actually not too far from Barrington.  However, given the size of the Hispanic community in the Chicago area, it would be very possible to live there and only speak Spanish.

The other day for some reason he asked me what I thought of my Spanish. Being the wise ass that I am I used the line I use with waiters in Mexican restaurants, hablo español como un perro negro, I speak Spanish like a black dog. It never fails to elicit a laugh from a waiter.  I went on to say, in Spanish, that I speak a very Gringo type of Spanish, and I wish I was more fluid than I am.

His reply to me was, “I just wish my English was as good as your Spanish.”  Of course, I have never conversed with him in English to know the level of his English skills  but nevertheless I am going to take it as a compliment.

And so it goes.

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Reconsidering JFK – A Wondrium Course

If you are of my generation or older you remember the day President John F. Kennedy was shot, 22 November 1963.  I was in 6th grade at an elementary school in Toms River, New Jersey. It was the first time in my educational career that I had had a male teacher.  He was a very tall, skinny man who I remember mainly because he was male and his reaction to the Kennedy news.  When they announced over the loudspeaker that the President had been assassinated, this man cried.  However, when I raised my hand after Continue reading “Reconsidering JFK – A Wondrium Course”

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Missouri religious leaders sue to overturn Missouri’s ban on abortion

One of the guiding principles of my life is live and let live.  If I were being honest, I would have to admit to falling short of this goal far too often, but it is a light I steer towards.  In that same vein I have a mantra I recite whenever I am speaking or thinking about religious beliefs or sexual orientation, “Life is tough, whatever gets you through the day, whatever gets you through the night.”

My issue with many Christians, especially Evangelicals and Catholics, and Continue reading “Missouri religious leaders sue to overturn Missouri’s ban on abortion”

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My new nickname?

I don’t remember exactly when my mother went into the nursing home, but it is pushing ten years that she has been in one or the other.  Her health is reasonable, but she suffers from dementia, Alzheimer’s to be specific.  This September she will be ninety.  The first half of her time in nursing homes she knew I was someone, but for the last several years she has had no clue who I am.

I do not visit her near as often as I should or would like to.  I live in a suburb of St. Louis, and she is in Continue reading “My new nickname?”

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #1,799

yeah I know you did not ask!

In a post I used the phrase “in the Weinhaus-Rush household”, being a senior with a floppy neural network (do they make a Viagra for that?), I began to play around with the meanings of our two last names.

All my life people have made puns or jokes on my last name.  In the start of the Cold War era in the fifties it was, “Hey David, are you a Rush-AN?” During the hippie sixties it was, “Man, what a rush”, referring, of course, to the effects of drugs, generally said as someone passed me in the hallways at school.  My least favorite has been, “Hey, RUSH Limbaugh.” I quickly dissuaded folks from the use of that obnoxious appellation in regards to me.  And there is always the omnipresent jest, “Hey what’s your rush, Rush.” For the purpose of this randomness we are going with sixties version.

Indubitably, you are aware that Weinhaus is German for wine house as in the anglicized name, Amy Winehouse.

So our household is the Wine House Rush or perhaps the Rush Wine House.  Apparently, we are running some sort hippie opium den tavern/pub/wine bar.  Man, what a rush! Y’all come on down here, hear, aprisa, before the Ruskies  and MAGAs take over.