At the End of the Day

This day is done.  I feel like all I can say is, "At the end of the day you're another day older." (Lyrics from Les Misérables.)  So true, yet kind of sad.

The truth is, I had in mind the common phrase heard from commentators and guests in the media: "At the end of the day," meaning (in my estimation) "I conclude that, after all is said and done, this is what it boils down to ..."  

It’s trite; (Google defines as "overused and consequently of little import; lacking originality or freshness; … stale, timeworn, unimaginative, unoriginal, dull …")  But until I create a better phrase, I have no right to criticize.  In the end, the media will be what it is … regardless. 

Halloween Peak of Holidays? Piques Interest

It's a question I addressed years ago.  Is Halloween the peak of the year-end holiday season for most people, or just ten million of us?  Seeing yard decorations all month has piqued (excited) my interest again as I wonder if the increase is a peek into the future – a trend – or just a fad.

Retailers have passed the prime time, obviously; just take a peek at the Walmart garden department – it's Christmas next (my favorite) while I look forward to Thanksgiving.  Now I'm probably the only one who hasn't yet stocked up for trick-or-treaters.  However, I am piqued (angered) by the urbandictionary.com definition: "Greedy annoying kids who dedicate October 31st to looking ugly ..."  I disagree!  Where is the love?

Although my thrill over Halloween peaked when our kids grew up, it still brings back fun memories of meeting neighbors as I followed youngsters around East Mill Creek.  Now I just hope for leftover treats, since our children are gone and won't be sharing with their dad after the walking tour.

So I hope this satisfies loyal readers who have waited several years for a post to pique their interest in the homophone as a type of noun:
"each of two or more words having the same pronunciation but different meanings, origins, or spelling, e.g., new and knew."  – Google defined.

Happy Halloween and holiday season!

One of "Three Amigos" 10/24 (brothers not shown)

I Thought to Myself

After my 7:11 meeting last night, I thought I'd do quick shopping for Walmart milk ... and cereal.  Passing by the convenient McDonald's restaurant inside, I thought to myself, "Fast food could energize me till dinner at nine."

Yes, I did think I enjoyed the dollar cheeseburger, as usual (3 of 5 stars.)

Then I thought to myself about the work that lay ahead of me (editing books.)  The mountains of Halloween candy started looking like power snacks, I thought.  Besides, I've always thought a bag of Fun-Size M&Ms Peanut would be perfect for treating kids in costumes.

Having bought the bag of M&Ms, I really don't think it will last till the end of the month.  Since shopping, the thought has gone through my mind, "Peanuts are a healthy source of nutrients. That's what I need – fast!"

Good thing I thought to check the web:
"Your Heart Will Go Nuts for Peanuts
Peanuts are good sources of vitamin E, niacin, folate, protein and manganese. In addition, peanuts provide resveratrol, the phenolic antioxidant also found in red grapes ..."  – whfoods.com
[On the Internet, so I'm thinkin' it must be true!]

I get a lot out of thinking to myself, in contrast to thinking – especially when "I think to myself, what a wonderful world."
(Think Louis ... and thank God for trees, skies, friends, and babies.)

Leaving Liverpool

Why leave a comfortable life in England, and risk a fifty-day voyage to America?  During the period of emigration from 1840 to 1890, employers, family, and friends tried to dissuade Latter-day Saints (known as Mormons) from leaving Liverpool for “the promised land.” 

“The British Saints launched their first maritime immigration to Nauvoo, Illinois (via New York) with the voyage of the Britannia on 6 June 1840, ... from the port of Liverpool ...  Twenty-one-year-old convert Thomas Callister left his homeland, the Isle of Man, 9 January 1842, to embark for Nauvoo.  He wrote, ‘I left all my relatives and friends for the gospel sake.’  …   Robert Crookston … recalled, ‘We had to sell everything at a great sacrifice. But we wanted to come to Zion and be taught by the Prophet of God.  We had the spirit of gathering so strongly that Babylon had no claim on us.’  Continual guidance was given in minute detail …” to help the emigrants make the journey.  “By mid-nineteenth century, it was considered the most active international port of emigration in the world.”  – The Tide of Mormon Migration Flowing Through the Port of Liverpool, England, Volume 1 (©2013 published in the United Kingdom) by Fred E. Woods.

Near the River Mersey docks (area now called the Waterfront) of Liverpool was the residence of the boy George Q. Cannon and his parents, George and Ann (Quayle) Cannon from the Isle of Man.  Elder John Taylor, father George’s brother-in-law, was called from Toronto to serve a mission in England for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Arrived in Liverpool 11 January 1840, he taught the gospel to the Cannon Family including five children, and found comfort in their home at 43 Norfolk Street as headquarters during his ministry in England, Ireland, and the Isle of Man.  To this hospitable home the Apostle brought his companion, Elder Parley P. Pratt, who had arrived in England three months later.  George Cannon gave notice to his Liverpool employer 3 September 1842.  “He had previous to this offered me five shilling a week more wages …  Saturday morning about nine o’clock, 17th of Sept., 1842, we hauled out of the Waterloo dock on board the ship Sidney [450 tons], Captain Cowan [with 180 LDS passengers bound for New Orleans], and were towed by a steamer past the light ship …  On Sunday, the 18th, we all left Liverpool in good spirits …  We are now launched on the bosom of the mighty deep, and sea-sickness has made the passengers for the most part very ill.  My dear Ann is dreadfully affected with this nauseous sickness, perhaps more so on account of her pregnancy.”  As reported in the Millennial Star January 1843, Ann Quayle Cannon died aboard the ship 28 October 1842.  – Cannon Family Historical Treasury (©1967 published by George Cannon Family Association) edited by Beatrice Cannon Evans and Janath Russell Cannon.

“By 1851, the British census noted that Liverpool had a population of 367,000, the second largest city in all of England.  Nearly 90,000 Latter-day Saint converts [including many Scandinavians] migrated through the city during the nineteenth century.”  – Pioneer, Volume 62, Number 2, 2015, published by the Sons of Utah Pioneers, "Gathering Early Saints through Liverpool", by Fred E. Woods, BYU Department of Church History and Doctrine.

“Between 1830 and 1930 about forty million people left Europe in search of a new and better life.  About nine million of them sailed from Liverpool, mainly travelling to North America, Australia and New Zealand …”

– www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/kids/games-quizzes/emigrants/

Since I drove a sleek VW diesel out of Liverpool 17 August 2015, and endured a few hours of travel home to Utah, my heart has filled with gratitude for sacrifices made by my ancestors and others.  I will never forget leaving Liverpool.

Docks at Liverpool Waterfront and River Mersey

View of Norfolk Street in Liverpool, and River Mersey

View up Norfolk Street, approximately from #43; (all old commercial now)

What's OK in UK

OK, I know it’s been over a month since my last post – a relief for readers, a break for worn-out me.  To prepare for my two-week Hilton genealogy trip to the UK, my sweetheart asked me to clear the garage, and convert my office to a guest bedroom for grandchild sleepovers.  After six years of carefully collecting all that I shall ever need, it was a chore.  Backyard improvement and finding the garage door opener also faced the deadline.  So that explains my neglect and ... bad back.  Good luck!

Having sufficiently recovered (walking, not running) just in time, I flew 8/7 (7/8 in UK) with my generous client neighbor to Amsterdam and Manchester, enduring the pain with the help of some smashing on-board movies.  I learned a lot.  Delta or KLM lost a lot, namely my big checked bag, dutifully delivered to our hotel two days later.  I managed OK in UK, as I was savvy enough to have packed critical items in my carry-on luggage.  No problem, mate.

As you know, “The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a sovereign state in Europe.”  – Wikipedia

And, of course, “The U.K., made up of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, is an island nation in northwestern Europe.  England – birthplace of Shakespeare and The Beatles ...”  – Google

(We passed the carriageway exit to Shakespeare’s birthplace, Stratford-upon-Avon, in my hurry to get on with research straight away.  Mrs. Cannon, my favorite English teacher, would have stopped to pay homage to the "Bard of Avon."  The Beatles Story museum below our hotel in Liverpool was a must-see, however – just a few steps away.  OK, with limited time in UK, it was a matter of priority.)

What else is OK in UK?

The blessing of lovely, cool weather for two weeks, with a few nice sprinkles of rain in England.  Good fortune to have my patched, second-hand London Fog jacket from Salvation Army, to not look like a tourist.

My driving our VW on the wrong (I mean left) side of the road most of the time – quickly correcting at other times to avoid head-on collisions.  (My PTSD has finally abated.)

Super-fast traffic flow, as we were in a hurry to find our way to libraries, etc.

A plethora of roundabouts (traffic circles) with endless opportunity to see the four or five exit signs over and over again, then decide which way by process of elimination.
A shared sense of humor and calming of nerves.

British-speak, a sort of foreign, fast language with slang you can now learn on YouTube:

bloke (man)

half six (6:30)
football (soccer)

motorway (freeway)

smashing (very good!)

rubbish, dust bin (trash can)
bob in, pop in (arrive unexpectedly)

mate (buddy – usually a male stranger)

lovely, straight away, sorry (excuse me)

gent’s toilet or lavatory (men’s restroom)

booking (hotel or restaurant reservation, e.g.)

All-I-can-eat buffet “cooked” breakfast at Premier Inn hotels, our favorite research headquarters.

McDonald’s fast food, familiar service and toilets, saving time for more research – “I’m lovin’ it.”

Poundworld stores (like my beloved Dollar Tree in America) where everything costs a pound, and tourists find things forgotten at home or not allowed through airport security.

Staples office-supply store across the street from our Preston hotel – so helpful!

Unlimited photography allowed at Lancashire Archives in Preston the first week, for a reasonable fee of five pounds per day.  (With fast, free photos in other libraries added to that, I captured a couple thousand images of ancient documents and books that apparently have never been microfilmed/digitized.) Such a deal!

A metered parking place by a football field over a mile away from the British Library and train station in busy central London – OK because I was smart to have bought new walking shoes before the trip.  Energy fare at McD by the station – our comfort food.

North Wales, a beautiful world with everything bilingual (Welsh and English) – especially in the library at Prestatyn (pron. Pres-STAW-ton) town on the coast.  The best fish-&-chips shop and eight-room hotel in all of UK.

Walking up and down Norfolk Street where my ancestors, the George Cannon Family, lived by the Liverpool Waterfront.  (The neighborhood is now old commercial; a new 4th-floor terrace provides a commanding view of the area,)

Last but not least, the historic Liverpool Ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where we made an unexpected contact with a Hilton family member, and gained some new friends Brother Hilton and I will never forget.

Feeling the Spirit there.  Memories to last an eternity.

OK, not so fast, I know; but I felt compelled to share as I forget the painful moments, and recall the lovely times.

Liverpool Waterfront, River Mersey, and ferry to Isle of Man

Pioneer Day

Recalling “The Rich Trek” I posted 20 July 2014: “This week, Utahns celebrate Pioneer Day ...”

The Riches and Cannons made the trek a few months after that first group of pioneers.  “From Winter Quarters, now Omaha, Nebraska, to what was to become Salt Lake City, Utah, is approximately eleven hundred miles, as the pioneer companies went.  Leaving Elkhorn, the rendezvous for the trekkers a few miles out from the river, on the twenty-first of June, the Riches [and Cannons] arrived at their destination exactly one hundred and three days later, on October 2, 1847.  They had bettered the time made by the pioneer company by a full week.  The company in which the Rich family traveled to the West numbered about two thousand persons.”  (Charles Coulson Rich, p. 131)

“The situation in which this small colony of Mormons found themselves, from the autumn of 1847 to the summer of 1848, was extremely critical …  Perhaps no group of people in pioneer America was put so clearly and certainly on the spot.  …”  (Charles Coulson Rich, pages 142-143)

Relating to the purpose of the 1847 pioneer treks, George Q. Cannon wrote 36 years later, “I was much impressed by a remark made to me lately by an eminent man.  ‘It is very wonderful,’ said he, speaking of the Latter-day Saints, ‘that a colony of religious exiles in the heart of the continent should be contending to-day for precisely the same principles of liberty that the men of our American revolution battled for.’  He could see our true position.  …”  (April 1, 1883, Juvenile Instructor 18:99)

– Gospel Truth - Volume  2, Discourses and Writings of President George Q. Cannon, compiled by Jerreld L. Newquist, p. 347.

Freedom!!!

On this Independence Day of the United States of America,
I remember the cry of freedom that God heard.