T.G.I.F.

On the eve of a day with different meanings to different people, we will take a look at October 31 in tonight's blog.

Answers to Last Week's Friday Quiz

The waterfowl was a wood duck.

The camouflaged bird was a ruffed grouse.

The three types of buffalo pictured were:
American buffalo or bison, water buffalo, and Cape buffalo.
Sorry that the last one was cropped. I need to learn how to size the big ones.

Quotable and the Not So Quotable Quotes

'Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world. ~ William Shakespeare

From ghoulies and ghosties
And long-leggedy beasties
And things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us! ~ An Old Scottish Saying

Shadows of a thousand years rise again unseen,
Voices whisper in the trees, "Tonight is Halloween!" ~ Dexter Kozen

Those seemingly interminable dark walks between houses, long before street-lit safety became an issue, were more adrenalizing than the mountains of candy filling the sack. Sadly Halloween, with our good-natured attempts to protect the little ones, from the increasingly dangerous traffic and increasingly sick adults, has become an utter bore. ~ Lauren Springer

...And speaking of the dark, there have been some dark things written of history and historians.

Historians are gossips who tease the dead. ~Voltaire, Scribbling Books

History is the sum total of the things that could have been avoided. ~ Konrad Adenauer

The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid prejudice. ~ Mark Twain, Following the Equator

A history in which every particular incident may be true may on the whole be false. ~ Thomas Babington Macaulay

Perhaps history is a thing that would stop happening if God held His breath, or could be imagined as turning away to think of something else. ~ Herbert Butterfield, Christianity and History

Humor

Tennessee

A Tennessee State trooper pulled over a pickup on I-65. The trooper asked, "Got any ID?" The driver replied, "Bout whut?"

Arkansas

The Sheriff pulled up next to the guy unloading garbage out of his pick-up into the ditch.
The Sheriff asked, "Why are you dumping garbage in the ditch? Don't you see that sign right over your head."
"Yep", he replied. "That's why I dumpin' it here, cause it says: 'Fine For Dumping Garbage'."

A Thought about October 31

Little did Martin Luther realize when he nailed his theses to the church door on this day in history, that the Reformation would lead to the denominations of the protest we call Protestantism. His attempt to reform the church was just that, to bring about change that was much needed. Had he known that this day in history would be marked as the first day of the Reformation, perhaps he would not have chosen such a widely celebrated day.

Rarely, however, does one consider the day on which something as monumental as this is in the works. If anything, Martin Luther would have considered the traffic in and out of the building which would bring people who could read Latin past this door. The laity could not read it, only students and clergy. If the clergy saw it first it may disappear before very many students saw it. The holiday would be the best chance that a lot of students could get to read it before the professors got to it, so that is how Halloween also became Reformation Day.