National Lighthouse Day, on 7 August, honors the act of Congress (Bill 9) in 1789 that created federal support for the building and maintenance of lighthouses. This great tie, named "Sentinels" by designer Erich Holch, was a birthday gift many years ago from my sister Faith Lang, who loves lighthouses.
My New York City tie is here to celebrate the Statue of Liberty. The cornerstone for its installation on Bedloe's Island was laid on 5 August 1884. The island became known as Liberty Island through an act of Congress in 1956.
Today I turn 73 years old! My tie celebrates my ties -- it features a cascading image of ties hanging in my closet. I have five rotating racks of ties, and five times 73 equals 365, which is approximately the total number of ties in my collection! For breakfast I had a free bagel sandwich from Berea's Native Bagel Company. Besides spending the day with Beth I will get to enjoy dinner with Ben, Amanda and my grandchildren!
The number 73 is famous for being a "Sheldon prime", a rare mathematical coincidence popularized by the character Sheldon Cooper on the TV show The Big Bang Theory, where it is the 21st prime number, its reverse 37 is the 12th prime, and the product of its digits (7 × 3) equals 21.
Granddaughter Evelyn wanted me to wear a tie that had pink AND purple flowers for her birthday. I showed her four possibilities and she chose this one! It’s from Turkey and as she said it has all the colors in the world! Happy Birthday, Evelyn.
Jonathan Kleppinger is a crossword puzzle freak, and that applies as well to cryptics and all sorts of word games. When I gave him the clue to choose a tie for me to wear on his birthday (1 August), he instantly filled in the answer with my crossword puzzle tie! Many daily puzzles get more challenging toward Saturday, but this one was quite easy. Happy Birthday, Jonathan!
The last Friday in July is always National System Administrators Appreciation Day. I shepherded the Blackboard system at Eastern Kentucky University for 24 years! When I retired in January 2024 the Blackboard corporate staff (now Anthology) rewarded me with two wonderful neckties, one with the words Blackboard Learn and the other featuring the "Space Dog" logo. Space Dog was the iconic mascot for a special user-help tool called Assist; it was retired after 3 years because some people said it took up too much screen space.
The French Republican Calendar honored the watering can (Arrosoir) on 10 Thermidor, which corresponds with our 28 July. My special tie was a gift in 2012 from my then-EKU comrade Charles Woolum, who worried that I did not have enough ties for all the possible occasions.
Today we're having a family supper that includes brother Mark and nibling Nathan Wollenweber. Nathan is a devotee of Viking and Nordic culture, and so I've chosen to wear my chain mail tie! The Hurstwic Web site explains that "mail is a protective iron fabric made up of thousands of interlocking iron rings. In the Viking era, mail was always made with a 4-in-1 pattern, in which each ring passes through its four nearest neighbors." My tie captures the chain mail pattern in aluminum rings.
Today we are celebrating the life of Wilma Wollenweber (1929-2026)! She loved my "flowers on dark green" tie, naming it almost every time I asked her for her choice. Our service at Richmond First United Methodist Church is led by Eric Espada and includes remembrances from several friends and relatives, organ and piano music by Beth, a solo by me, a homily by Bruce Nettleton, and scripture readings and candle-lighting by great-grandchildren. The church is providing lunch, and afterward our family will set Wilma's cremains alongside her husband Robert's at Madison County Memorial Garden. Wilma lived a wonderful life of 96-plus years and will be remembered joyfully by many people.
Today's tie was chosen by my friend Mary Cox-Sweet, to help celebrate her birthday! Mary is a devoted follower of my tie posts. When she saw my cursive handwriting tie back in January, for National Handwriting Day, she added a happy comment that "We had those letters on our classroom walls too!"
National Zookeepers' Week is celebrated annually in the third week of July. My tie shows a wide variety of wild animals, tessellating the plane. The extra photo shows the "zoo" of stuffies and their books, created by our grandchildren two years ago.
Peter Schickele (1935-2024) was born 91 years ago today. He began discovering the unpublished musical works of "P. D. Q. Bach" in 1965, performing them worldwide through 2018. July 17 is also the anniversary of the premiere (in 1717) of Handel's "Water Music," and marks the birthday of jazz musician and pianist Vince Guaraldi (1928-1976), most famous for his compositions for the animated Peanuts® cartoons.
My tie shows Mickey Mouse, Goofy and Donald Duck with musical instruments. There are at least three Disney cartoons closely related to the images on this tie – “The Band Concert” (1935), “Mickey’s Amateurs” (1937) and "Symphony Hour" (1942). All have the three characters, and there are scenes with tubas/sousaphones.
On 15 July 1799, the "Rosetta Stone" was discovered in Egypt. My tie is covered with Egyptian hieroglyphs from this inscription-bearing rock originating around 196 BCE. The Rosetta inscriptions record a long Ptolemaic decree in three written languages. The correlation of the texts allowed linguists in modern times to decode many ancient Egyptian texts. The top and middle texts are in Ancient Egyptian using hieroglyphic and Demotic scripts respectively, while the bottom is in Ancient Greek.
The rock was eventually used as building material in the construction of Fort Julien near the town of Rashid (Rosetta) in the Nile Delta. It was discovered there in July 1799 by French officer Pierre-François Bouchard during the Napoleonic campaign in Egypt. It was the first Ancient Egyptian bilingual text recovered in modern times, and it aroused widespread public interest with its potential to decipher this previously untranslated hieroglyphic script. Lithographic copies and plaster casts soon began circulating among European museums and scholars.
When the British defeated the French they took the stone to London under the Capitulation of Alexandria in 1801. It has been on public display at the British Museum almost continuously since 1802 and is the most visited object there.
Today we are meeting with pastors Eric Espada and Bruce Nettleton to plan the memorial service for our Mom Wilma Wollenweber. She died on 15 June. The service will be on Saturday, 25 July, at 11 a.m., at Richmond First United Methodist Church. My tie for today is one that Mom and Dad brought back from Zambia in 2000, when they were on a yearlong mission adventure with Wesleyan World Missions. The tie's label says it is from "Zambia - The REAL Africa."
Paper Bag Days are celebrated annually on 11 and 12 July. William Goodale received a patent on 12 July 1859 for his machine that cut paper so that it could be easily folded. Later, Margaret Knight received a patent for her paper-bag-folding machine on 11 July 1871. We created this paper bag necktie five years ago!
