Clump #95:  Look through and order from catalogs; make one more plea for family gift ideas.

I put out the last call for gift ideas today.   It’s now or never, but the task shouldn’t be too hard.  Buying presents for loved ones should be a pleasure for both parties.  When I was emailing my kids, I wanted to put one word in italics, and then couldn’t get the italic icon to un-click.  My note ended:

“…Please let me know soon!”

Thanks, Mom (can’t seem to get out of the italic setting, so just continue to hear the desperation in my voice).”

A wonderful comment was left on yesterday’s post: “Would that our lives were ordered with the peak of beauty coming at the end.”  This was a reference to the deep, red, gorgeous leaves of the Japanese maple.  It really affected me, especially since I’ve been thinking recently along the same lines.  I was purchasing a gift for someone “over 50.” Without giving away the specifics to a person on my list who might be reading, I could choose this item either billed “for older people,” many “for seniors,” but the one I was attracted to was entitled “… for enlighteners.”

It made me want to start a new movement to change the lexicon, and of course, then, the image of older people.  Instead of worshiping youth, we would revere enlighteners.  No more “crones,” evoking crooked noses and hairy warts.  A new definition of beauty would certainly follow.

Here is a photo of a beautiful rose in full glory, not in June,  but late fall:

I must acknowledge that today is the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy.  I still have a scrapbook I kept during that time.

Between torn out magazine photos of babies and dream rooms, I placed the Weekly Reader insert that was given out to our class to explain the tragedy:

I must have had a sense of the historic importance.

The flyer introduced our new president:

And contained a very factual description of the murder:

I remember sitting that night, on our front steps, in a state of disbelief. The phrase “trying to wrap my head around it” hadn’t been coined yet. But that was the feeling.  Lost was the trust I had previously felt for the adults in running the world. I know I wasn’t alone.

“the peak of beauty coming at the end.”