18 September 19

It's getting close to the end of the 2019 baseball season! At least the "regular" season, where the battles are raging to narrow the field down to the eight teams for the playoffs, including the race for the "wild card" spots . . . This year's crop includes the familiar Yankees, Cardinals, Braves and Dodgers, but the Red Sox are gone. (The Cubs still have some chances!) Snoopy is happy to be a player on Charlie Brown's team!

17 September 19

Today is the Feast of St. Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), German mystic and artist. She is most famous for her descriptions of extremely vivid mental visions (which we might call hallucinations) that she interpreted in art, music and word as witnessing to her the power of God in all of nature. Her term for the grace of God inherent in all living things was viriditas, or greenness. This is a very good day to listen to her mystical/meditative musical compositions. Her artistic interpretations include many mandalas (geometric figures representing the universe). My tie has rose windows and other iconic medallions.

16 September 19

On this date in 1620, 102 passengers set sail from England on the Mayflower, headed to the British colonies in North America. They intended to sail to Virginia, but weather conditions and navigational errors pushed them northward. On 21 November they landed at what they called Plymouth Rock in what became Massachusetts. My compass navigation tie (from Mystic Seaport, Connecticut) honors the science of finding directions!

15 September 19

My tie for today was chosen by Wilma Wollenweber, to honor her 90th birthday! Our celebration continues after the party yesterday with a family lunch today. She loves flowers and has admired this tie for a long time. I'm very happy to be her son (-in-law).

14 September 19

It's a rare Saturday for me to wear a tie. Today we are having a very special party to celebrate Mom's (Wilma Wollenweber's) 90th birthday! The true date is 16 September but this was the best possible chance to gather family and friends. She knows that "something" will happen at 2 p.m., but she does not know that we are expecting about 80 people to greet her, and we've gathered about 100 cards and email messages for a surprise. The story for my tie is that she and Dad brought it to me from Zambia in 2000, at the end of their short-term missions trip for the Wesleyan Church.

12 September 19

Are you good at "reading between the lines"? My shirt is covered with lines but I don't know what you might be able to find there. September is Subliminal Communications Month, and I'll bet you didn't get that message yet, so now it's out in the open. Many studies of subliminal communications focus on how commercial advertisements and logos can be seen as concealing secrets. My tie features Poppin' Fresh, the Pillsbury Doughboy®, wearing sunglasses as a bit of "disguise." Behind him, the dark background embeds words that say that he is "Dough Cool."

11 September 19

September is National Piano Month. I learned to play the piano when I was 5, in 1958, and my first teacher was my sister Gloria. Today my tie shows a ribbon of piano keys!