The Merry Month of May

Maia, the Greek goddess of Spring, with her six sisters 

Dear George,

It’s just four more days until the start of May, and already my mood is getting cheerier.  We’ve had an o.k. April, but sporadic snowstorms and too much rain have put a damper on it.  I was amazed by the photos from my hometown in the U.P. — snowdrifts ten feet tall in mid-April.  May, though, is definitely the best.  Flowers in full boom, birds are singing from all directions, and good weather for taking a stroll after supper.  Our Cincinnati summers get hot and humid in June and July, but May is ideal.  I was pleased to discover on the Internet that Americans in general share my opinion.  In December 1960 the Gallup Survey asked people to name their favorite month of the year.  May came in first, followed by June and July.  Gallup repeated the question in June 2005, and May again was the most popular.  Here are some facts about May that will put one in an even better mood. 

Love,

Dave  

MAY SYMBOLS (2, 16) [Note: Numbers refer to sources at end]

Name: May was named after the Greek Goddess of Fertility, Maia, who oversaw the growth of plants and vegetation.     

May Birthstone: Emerald (symbolizing rebirth and fertility) 

May Flower: Lily of the Valley (symbolizing the return of happiness)  

Zodiac signs: Taurus (Apr. 21 - May 20); Gemini (May 21 - June 2) 

CURIOUS MAY FACTS (1, 9, 16) 

In any given year not one other month begins or ends on the same day of the week as does May.  

May is the only month of the year in which no U.S. president has ever died.  

May was called Tri-Milchi in Old English because it was the month in which dairy cows could be milked three times a day.  

According to Google, “may” is the 55th most frequently used word in the English language.  

“MAY” IN OTHER LANGUAGES (8, 15, 16) 

Maius (Latin), Mei (French), Maggio (Italian), Mai (German and Danish), Maj (Polish, Russian, Swedish, and Norwegian), Mei (Dutch), Mayo (Spanish), Traven (Ukrainian), Toukokuu (Finnish), Wuyue (Chinese/Mandarin) 

MAY SUPERSTITIONS (2, 7, 24) 

It is unlucky to buy a new broom or to wash a blanket in May.

May is a bad luck month to get married (“Marry in May and you’ll rue the day.”)   

If you get up early and wash your face in the May dew, it will remove all your freckles and pimples.

Cats born in May won’t catch mice but they will bring home snakes.

“A dry May and a leaking June / Make the farmer whistle a merry tune.” 

MONTHLONG CELEBRATIONS IN MAY (16)  

Date Your Mate Month

Zombie Awareness Month

Fungal Infection Awareness Month

Chocolate Custard Month

Better Hearing and Speech Month 

Better Sleep Month

Loaded Potato Month 

National Smile Month 

MAY 2018 HOLIDAYS (6, 7, 13) 

May 1: May Day 

May 5: Cinco de Mayo

May 7: World Naked Gardening Day 

May 7: Kentucky Derby 

May 8: End of the Second World War 

May 8: Teacher’s Day 

May 11: National Eat What You Want Day

May 13: Mother’s Day

May 14: National Dance Like a Chicken Day 

May 16: Ramadan begins 

May 19: Armed Forces Day

May 28: Memorial Day 

May 28: Victoria Day (Canada) 

COUNTRY SINGERS BORN IN MAY (12) 

May 1, 1967: Tim McGraw, county western singer 

May 3, 1964: Wynona Judd, country singer

May 4, 1959: Randy Travis, country singer

May 5, 1942: Tammy Wynette, country singer

May 9, 1914: Hank Snow, country singer

May 18, 1952: George Strait, country singer

May 26, 1949: Hank Williams Jr., country singer

May 30, 1964: Wynona Judd, country singer 

 A FEW OF THE FAMOUS PEOPLE NAMED MAY (18, 19) 

Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888).  American novelist, poet; author of Little Women. 

May Miller (1899-1995).  African-American poet, playwright, educator, leader in the Harlem Renaissance   

Rollo May (1909-1994).  American existential psychologist, author.  

May Sarton (1912-1995).  American poet, novelist, and memoirist.  

Elaine May (1932- ).  American screenwriter, oil director, actress, comedian.

May Britt (1934- ).  Swedish film actress; married Sammy Davis Jr. 

Lee May 1943- ).  Former Cincinnati Reds first baseman.  

Theresa May (1956- ).  British Conservative politican, current UK Home Secretary.  

May Andersen (1982- ).  Danish former model (Victoria’s Secret, SI Swimsuit Issue). 

SELECTED HISTORICAL EVENTS IN MAY (16)

May 10, 1869: Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads completed the Transcontinental Railroad.  

May 20, 1927: Charles Lindbergh took off on the first solo, nonstop flight across the Atlantic. 

May 23, 1934: Bonnie and Clyde were shot to death near Bienville Parish, Louisiana.

May 24, 1935: The Reds beat the Phillies 2-1 in major league baseball’s first night game at Crosley Field.  

May 6, 1937: The Hindenburg exploded over Lakehurst, NJ, killing 36 passengers and crew. 

May 6, 1954: Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile at Oxford, England. 

May 17, 1954: The Supreme Court, in Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, ruled that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional.  

May 16, 1983: Michael Jackson performed his “Moonwalk” dance for the first time on TV. 

May 22, 1992:  Johnny Carson’s last show on The Tonight Show. 

May 1, 2011: Osama bin Laden reported killed by U.S. forces in Pakistan. 

SONGS ABOUT MAY (22, 25) 

Autumn to May (Peter, Paul, & Mary) 

End of May (Michael Buble) 

First of May (The Bee Gees) 

The Lusty Month of May (Lerner & Loewe, Camelot) 

People Who Are Born in May (Julie London) 

Stormy May Day (AC/DC)

MAY QUOTES (4, 5, 7, 10, 11, 17, 23, 26)

For May wol have no slogardie a-night.  The season priketh every gentil herte, And maketh him out of his slepe to sterte.  (Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Knight’s Tale”) 

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May.  (William Shakespeare) 

May, queen of blossoms, and fulfilling flowers; With what pretty music Shall we charm the hours?  (Lord Edward Thurlow)   

Sweet May hath come to love us, Flowers, trees, their blossoms don.  (Heinrich Heine) 

I thought that spring must last forevermore; For I was young and loved, and it was May.  (Vera Brittain) 

April is a promise that May is bound to keep.  (Hal Borland)  

May: the lilacs are in bloom.  Forget yourself.  (Marty Rubin) 

SOURCES:

(1) 929thelake.com, “7 Interesting Facts You May Not Know About May”; (2) almanac.com, “The Month of May 2018”; (3) blogs.wfmt.com, “6 Songs to Welcome the Merry Month of May”;(4) brainyquote.com, “Month of May”;(5) bustle.com, “16 May Day Quotes That Celebrate Spring”; (6) calendar-365.com, “2018 Holidays”; (7) celebrationjoy.com, “Month of May: Fun Facts, Quotes, and Trivia”; (8) ducksters.com, “May in History”; (9) express.co.uk, “Top ten facts about May”; (10) gardendigest.com, “May”; (11) goodreads.com, “May Quotes”; (12) holidayinsights.com, “Famous May Birthdays”; (13) holidayscalendar.com, “May Holidays in 2018/2019”; (14) mentalfloss.com, “11 Famous Birthdays to Celebrate in May”; (15) omniglotcom, “Months of the year in many different languages”; (16) popculturemadness.com, “May Trivia”; (17) quotestree.com, “Month of May Quotes and Sayings”; (17b) ranker.com, “The Best Movies With May in the Title”; (18) ranker.com, “Famous People Named May”; (19) ranker.com, “Famous People Whose Last Name is May”; (20) rhymezone.com, “Words and phrases that rhyme with may”; (21) The Washington Post, “The definitive ranking of the best and worst months of the year”; (22) thecavanproject.com, “13 Songs About May”; (23) thefreshquotes.com, “21 May Day Quotes”; (24) the studyabroadportal.com, “6 interesting facts about the month of May”; (25) 

ussers.globalnet.co.uk, “Song Titles with Months in Them”); (26) wiseoldsayings.com, “May Sayings and Quotes”

Life on Ludlow

Dear George, 

Last week Katja and I were upstairs watching TV when we heard a huge crashing noise outside our house.  I looked out the window, but there weren’t any cars that had collided at our corner  Because it had just started raining, I concluded the sound must have been a thunder clap.  A few minutes later though a fire engine pulled up across the street.  I went downstairs to reconnoiter and discovered a large gray pickup truck upside down on its roof in our neighbor's driveway.  The truck had been speeding up Ludlow Ave., jumped the curb, knocked down a fire hydrant, destroyed our neighbor's front porch, and skidded to a stop about two feet from the pillar that holds up our front porch roof.  Amazingly neither of the two passengers were injured.  It's not the first time something like this has happened.  I overheard someone say that the truck had been speeding 70 m.p.h. up the hill.  I complained online to the city but I haven’t heard back.  They did, however, put one of those big monitors that shows drivers their speed on my neighbor’s curb.

I’ve been plagued with muscle pains in my legs for months, and, even though I’d had a recent checkup, I called the doctor’s office to make another appointment.  My doctor wasn’t available for six weeks, so I went to see his junior colleague.  The colleague agreed with me that the pain might be due to the statin that I’ve taken for many years to lower my cholesterol.  He recommended that I not take it for a week to see what would happen.  Just by chance, I had a routine checkup with the cardiologist a few days later, and he told me to stop taking the statin altogether.  Katja thought this was frightening and called him to discuss it, but she never got through.  Happily, all the pain is gone and my legs are back to normal.  Even more surprising (after a couple of decades of taking Ambien every night to get to sleep) I now have no sleep problem at all.  I don’t take any pill, fall asleep in five minutes or less every night, and sleep soundly till eight a.m.  When I checked on the Internet, I discovered that insomnia is one of the most frequent side effects of the statin I was taking.  I can’t help but think that my doctor knew this all along.  

Katja and I are still trying to adjust to our close friend Donna Durham’s moving to Nashville last December.  Katja and Donna were colleagues together at their agency, and, when we all bought sheepdogs fifteen years ago, the three of us started spending a lot of time together (along with Sophie, Mike, and Duffy).   Friday nights at the movies, getting together for dinner at least once a week, doing Jumbles and the I Ching, watching the Oscars, the Super Bowl, and the Wimbledon finals.  Among other things, Donna and I probably spent 2000 hours over the years hiking with the sheepdogs at Miami Whitewater Forest, Fernbank, Eden Park, and elsewhere.  Suddenly lots of fun and excitement has disappeared from our lives, and I don’t know how we’ll fill the void.   

There are, of course, some pleasures in life to be had.  One of them is that Katja and I watch a couple of episodes of Frasier on Netflix every night before going to sleep.  It’s a very warm, funny, feel-good show, and both of us are hooked.  Part of the appeal is the connection between Frasier and his dad, Martin Crane, who lives with him.  Frasier and Martin are near-complete opposites.  Katja and Frasier seem to share identical interests: the opera, symphony, chamber music, theater, literature, fining dining, antiques, elegant clothes, home furnishings, the wine club, etc.  On the other hand, Martin, a retired cop, is a low culture guy: sports, camping, TV, beer, his dog, etc. — just about all the things I like most in life.  We’re always pleased that Frasier and Martin manage to get along as well as they do.  

Katja belongs to a long-established women’s writing group called the Contemporary Club, and she is obligated to write and present a paper every year or two.  Months and months ago she decided to do a paper on translation.  She majored in French in college, studied French literature in graduate school, and did a number of jobs as a translator along the way.  She put off her paper until a month before the due date, then took out 22 books from the library, and worked night and day.  Lots of pressure and anxiety.  It turned out very successfully, and now I think Katja misses having such a compelling mission.  She was thinking about doing a paper on Elie Wiesel, and I encouraged her to start on it soon.  She’s thinking it over.   

We went to see the tax guy recently.  Katja is in charge of financial matters in our household, and I got upset (as I do every year) by her list of forty plus charities to which she donates.  Some make sense to me, but there are lots of things that we have no personal connection to at all, e.g., tigers, Tibet, the Smithsonian, National Parks, firefighters, etc.  I asked the accountant if we were giving too much to charity.  He smiled and said no, that our charitable donations were perfectly fine for our income.  I ask him that same question every year and he always gives the same answer, but it doesn’t seem to stick with me from one year to the next.  

Since we have enough money to help support the Dalai Lama, I decided that perhaps we should spend more on ourselves.  We’re on spring break right now from our OLLI courses, and it seemed like a good time for a beach vacation.  Katja was thrilled when I brought it up.  The beachfront hotel prices that I found online were hefty, so we went down to the auto club to see if they could get a better deal.  Much to my dismay, the prices they found were double what I saw on the Internet.  I asked Katja what looked best to her, and she picked a highly rated resort on Siesta Key near Sarasota.  I took a deep breath and made the reservation.  We’re all excited.  I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Love,

Dave

What Do Translators Do?

[Note: The following is an excerpt from a paper that my spouse Katja L. presented to the Contemporary Club, her Cincinnati women’s writing group, on April 9, 2018.]

Dear George,

The art of translation has been of longstanding interest to me.  Primarily because I was surrounded by relatives and friends who chattered away in languages that I couldn’t understand.  English was the lingua franca of our home but my earliest memories of non-English are of my father and mother speaking in Yiddish.  My father loved to recite long passages from King Lear and the Merchant of Venice in Yiddish, whereas my mother belted out musical numbers on our well-tuned upright piano in that hysterically funny sounding language which she spoke effortlessly with her father.  My weekends were spent with my grandparents in Germantown, Philadelphia, and they spoke Yiddish in between the hours when we all listened to the Metropolitan Opera on the radio in Italian, German, French, and occasionally Russian.  My grandparents would translate the operas into Yiddish (for me), and I would try to make sense of it all by nodding my head and translating a word or two into some shred of understanding. 

My grandparents kept an orthodox household which meant we sat in the dark all day Saturday, waiting for our beloved opera to begin and then, for four hours, we sat in silence (except during the Opera Quiz).  After the opera, we all went on our Saturday walk, both adults discussing in Yiddish and English the pros and cons of the afternoon opera.  If Richard Tucker had sung that afternoon, their lives were made complete.  “A cantor and an opera singer!”  What could be better!  I was five years old at the time this routine began, and to my young ears Yiddish mimicked gibberish — a crazy mixture of sounds that sounded like perpetual jokes.  It was the lilt, the tone, the gestures which accompanied it, and the fact that I was unable to read it or understand it which frustrated me.

Moving on to other languages, I remember the relief I felt when I learned to read Hebrew and received a reward (a Bible) for translating the chapter about the Jewess Rebecca in Ivanhoe from Hebrew into English.  Of course, the fact that the original was in English helped enormously although there were no Cliff Notes at the time. 

In high school I was introduced to Montaigne and Rabelais, and that was when I began to learn the importance of translation.  Years were spent learning to understand the vocabulary, word-play, and acrobatic sentence structure of Rabelais, the serious, clarity, and irony of Montaigne.  Translation became terribly important to me during my many years of graduate study in French for it introduced me to a different culture, religion, history, ideology, philosophy, and above all meaning. 

Graduate study led me to a variety of jobs as a translator.  One was with the the Ford Motor Company where I managed to turn a manual into English that had originally been written in Japanese and previously translated into French.  This task required numerous trips to the Ford plant in Batavia where I met with the engineers and learned the functions of various auto parts.  I then spent hours searching through engineering dictionaries trying to decipher French and English engineering vocabulary. 

While working for Laura Strumminger, French historian and Head of the Department of Women’s Studies at UC, I had the opportunity to translate articles and books from the French into English. 

When Kings Island was being built, the need for a French-English translator for signage throughout the park was needed, and guess who ended up translating the golf course and miniature golf course signs!

The utilitarian aspects of translation are certainly important.  Once in France I had a job as both interpreter and translator for the Bic ballpoint pen company.  They were in negotiations with the Texas instrument company called Casio. 

It was during this period that I was introduced to some of the conundrums of translation and interpretation.

•     Does one interpret word for word?

•     Does one interpret bad or ugly remarks or does one smooth things over?

•     How does one choose the words one uses? 

  

In November, 2017, I came across a fascinating article in the New York Times Review and Magazine section regarding translation.  It referred to a wonderful new translation of Homer’s Odyssey by Professor Emily Wilson of Yale University.   Dr. Wilson is the first woman to translate the Odyssey into English.  As I read the article and then the book, I wondered if the translator’s gender had an effect on the translation.  So many other things have an effect on a translation (scholarship, cultural background, history, linguistic evolution, choice of words) that it seems reasonable to think that gender is an additional factor.

Modern literary scholarship can actually be redefined by the translator’s word choices.  The whole question of “what is the story you are trying to tell depends on the word choices that you choose.  For example, the Greek word “polytropos” appears in the first line of the Odyssey as a description of Odysseus.  A literal translation of “poly” is “many”, and “tropos” means “to turn”.  Thus, polytropos literally means “many turns”.  However, the translator must choose a word in English that describes Odysseus. Sixty different translations have been made of this word, including: crafty; full of resources;  of many a turn; many sided man; deep; sagacious; adventurous; shifty; ingenious; various minded; of many  of twists and turns; cunning.  

Emily Wilson chose the word “complicated” in order to answer the question, “What sort of man is Odysseus?”…. 

Love,

Katja

At the Cutting Edge

Dear George, 

I see from our local newspaper that Greater Cincinnati is about to get its second axe-throwing bar.  I’m embarrassed to admit that I wasn’t even aware of the first one.  Coming from Menominee, of course, there’s a history of axe-throwing that dates back to the late 1800’s when we were the world’s largest lumber port.  Lumberjack competitions still feature axe-throwing as a mainstream event.  As children, we spent most of our time throwing our hunting knives, though we did try throwing our axes from time to time.  Not at one another, but at a stump or a fallen log.  It’s hard enough to get your knife to stick into a log, much less your axe. 

I’m proud of Cincinnati for being an axe-throwing pioneer.  It attests to our ruggedness and virility.  I doubt if they have any axe-throwing bars in Savannah or Martha’s Vineyard.  The promoters are pitching this to local business organizations, recruiting corporate teams who can then compete against one another.  Probably there aren’t any corporations that actually use axe-throwing in their daily work activities, but it is another way of encouraging cutthroat attitudes and excitement about violence.  

The ads for our new bar feature lots of women.  All are white, all are in their twenties or thirties, all are beautiful, and all are having a thrilling time.  One night a week will be “Axe Your Ex” night in which participants can throw axes at a large photograph of a man.  Whether or not it’s a photo of one’s actual ex is unclear to me.  In any case, this is definitely not a male-only pasttime. 

It seems important to drink alcohol while throwing axes.  In fact, I can’t even imagine sober adults throwing axes as their leisure activity.  I do worry a little bit about the volatile combination of drinking, inter-group competition, and axe-throwing.  Reportedly there have been no known cases to date of bar patrons turning their axes on one another, but we’ll keep an eye on the news. 

I thought about asking Katja if she wanted to go to the new bar, but I don’t think she’d be that interested.  Also it’s probably not a good idea to encourage axe-throwing by your spouse (for much the same reason we don’t have a gun in the house).  Next time that our son J visits, I’ll see if he wants to go.  This seems like more of a father-son activity.

Love,

Dave

Recalcitrant Spring

Dear George, 

Spring used to be a lot more reliable in Cincinnati.  The season regularly arrived in the second week of March, just in time for spring break at the university.  My tennis partner Irv and I headed out for the courts nearly every day.  Sunshine, warm weather, gentle breezes.  Life was good. 

That was then, this is now.  Our second week in March was a dreary affair.  Temperatures remained stuck in the thirties.  Cold rain most days, snow the rest of the time.  Sweatshirts, winter coats,  and gloves.  It’s as though Spring has been protesting the miserable state of the world with its own vengeful boycott.  I’ve been going out and looking at our yard every morning, always hopeful.   Still lots of dead grass and brown leaves.  Maybe a sprinkle of green here and there, and a couple of lonely blue flowerlets.   However, this weekend we may have turned the corner.  I went out yesterday and took some photos in our yard and our nextdoor neighbors.  Lots of dead stuff, but actually some touches of spring in full bloom.  Here is how it’s looking (from more wintry to more springy).  

Love,

Dave

P.S.  Happy Easter and April Fool’s Day.  (Such an unusual combination).