You are currently browsing the daily archive for February 11, 2009.
Tomorrow celebrates the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln. In honor of the bicentennial of his birth, churches, schools and anyone with bells all across Vermont will be ringing their bells at 2:12 p.m. for ten minutes. 2:12 was chosen symbolizing the date of Lincoln’s birth since records of the time of his birth are apparently not available.
According to an article in the Times-Argus:
Coffin [a historian] said this week’s bell-ringing ceremonies are appropriate.
“Vermont is filled with bells that were in the belfries at the time of the Civil War,” he said, adding that those bells were rung to signal great Union Army victories and General Robert E. Lee’s surrender.
“The bells were tolled because of the devastating news that Lincoln had been killed. It just hit Vermonters like a shock,” he said of Lincoln’s death so soon after Lee’s surrender. “Vermont went from a state of jubilation at the war’s end to a state of mourning.
“Many Vermont communities held funerals for Lincoln, they called them funerals,” he said. “Eulogies were preached.”
Here are some facts about Lincoln from A. Lincoln Library:
- He was the tallest president at 6′ 4″
- He was the first president to have a beard
- Lincoln had a dream about his own death one week prior to his assassination.
Some other facts:
- Lincoln is the only president to hold a patent.
- John Wilkes Booth’s older brother saved Lincoln’s son Robert’s life when he fell between a train and the platform.
- He has no living heirs.
“Whatever you are, be a good one” — Abraham Lincoln
Grace in small things – check it out.
Here are the 5 things for which I am grateful today:
1. Advil – since I have a miserable on-again off-again headache.
2. Family time – I love it when everyone is in one room relaxing together.
3. The forecast – Since I think we may be getting snow again
4. Tweaks and tickles
5. Being able to recognize that I am very lucky in many ways
This morning the thermometer in my truck read 51 degrees which was accurate given the state of melt that had occurred and was still occurring. Hello….Mother Nature, this is FEBRUARY and we live in VERMONT. There is supposed to be snow and lots of it. While it was so warm that I could walk outside and run errands without a jacket of any kind, it also means the MUD. Lots and lots of mud -everywhere and I despite mud. We have a whole season up here that revolves around mud and hardly anyone that lives in Vermont actually sticks around for it. Usually it is March into April, not February!
Here are pictures outside of our house this afternoon.
Mud….it’s sad, it’s depressing and can only be made worse by one thing……RAIN. That’s what the weather service is forecasting for tonight and tomorrow. Oh joy!
