Buy Me Some Peanuts and Cracker Jacks

AT THE OLD BALL GAME,
WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Cracker Jack

Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the crowd;
Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack,
I don't care if I never get back.
Let me root, root, root for the home team,
If they don't win, it's a shame.
For it's one, two, three strikes, you're out,
At the old ball game.

"Take Me Out to the Ball Game" ~ 1908
Tin Pan Alley song by Jack Norworth and Albert Von Tilzer
~ Unofficial Anthem of North American Baseball ~

The turn - of - the century snack was recently featured
in this tasteful tableau at the Richard H. Driehaus Museum

1881 Drawing of the Samuel M. Nickerson House (completed 1883)
Now the Richard H. Driehaus Museum
40 East Erie Street, Chicago ~ Corner of Wabash & Erie

Although the Cracker Jack Prize has now been replaced by a
mobile app that allows you to play a digital baseball game
on your phone, it is still alluded to in plenty of political cartoons:

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"That's a crackerjack!"
"The More You Eat, the More You Want!"
~ Product Slogans from the 1890s ~
Somehow, all these years, I have remained unfamiliar with "Cracker Jack" as a colloquialism meaning "of excellent quality." Thus, when Gerry asked me to proofread a speech he was preparing, I was puzzled by his use of "cracker - jack" as an upbeat, gung - ho adjective and advised him that some Americans (surely not just me?) might not think of "cracker - jack" as a positive modifier. I worried that it might sound a bit too much like "crack - pot" or bring to mind not just the caramel corn concoction but also the cheap plastic trinkets, miniscule toys, and faux jewelry offered inside of each box as a prize. Some prize! Conotations of value-less-ness sprang to mind.

As alternative adjectives, I suggested: "compelling, dynamic, energizing." But Gerry was searching for "an antiquated term of excellence" -- those all sounded too new - age. So perhaps best to leave "cracker - jack" in the sentence. I didn't want to steer him wrong, after all. And, despite the fact that it was news to me, I could plainly see that the dictionary was defining "cracker - jack" as "exceptionally good." I thought maybe it was a British thing -- like the popular kids' television show, familiar to Gerry but unbeknownst to me; but no, the dictionary also said "North American informal."

So maybe I am the only one -- in America or England! -- who never uses it that way. I'm the first to admit that I'd probably get only a 20,000 on that facebook vocab quiz -- not a 30,000 like all of our genius friends. In fact, I can't say that "cracker - jack" is really in my vocabulary at all, except to refer to the movie / baseball snack -- and even then, I don't say "Cracker Jack" -- I say "Cracker Jacks." Not to mention that it is not even my favorite kind of carmel corn -- too sticky for my taste; and to tell the truth the prizes have always been just lame -- okay, nostalgic! Still and all, I like the song, even though I've been singing it wrong all my life.

P.S. 2023
Aaron's game day photos / post
********************

Photograph by my friend Elaine Nicol
While we're on the topic of time - honored treats, check out the winner and runners - up of Best Biscuit in Britain! Gerry and I had a lot of fun watching the countdown on British television a couple of Christmases ago. He approved of the winner -- the Chocolate Digestive (either dark or milk; though he usually prefers plain -- futher down on the list at #9). But I was rooting for the arch rival Chocolate Hobnob which ended up in second place (again, either dark or milk; as with Digestives, plain Hobnobs -- #19 -- are also delicious).

Not to brag, but I have gained some small fame by
frosting my Chocolate Hobnobs to resemble Christmas Puddings!

December 15, 2012
SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS ON MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Sunday, July 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

An Egg for Arbor Day

CAPSULA MUNDI ~ BURIAL PODS
WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

"Capsula Mundi is a cultural and broad-based project, which envisions a different approach to the way we think about death. It's an egg-shaped pod, an ancient and perfect form, made of biodegradable material, where our departed loved ones are placed for burial. . . . The Capsula will then be buried as a seed in the earth."

With Easter (April 21), Earth Day (April 22), and Arbor Day (April 26, 2019)
all taking place last week, it seems the perfect time to learn

More about burial pods:
Facebook
Business Insider

&

More on the general topic of burial:
From Here to Eternity:
Traveling the World to Find the Good Death
by Caitlin Doughty

"Adults who are racked with death anxiety are not odd birds who have contracted some exotic disease, but men and women whose family and culture have failed to knit the proper protective clothing for them to withstand the icy chill of mortality."

~ Irvin D. Yalom, psychiatrist and professor ~
(b June 13, 1931)
"The ritual doesn't involve sneaking into a cemetery in the dead of night to peek in on a mummy. The ritul involves pulling someone I loved, and thus my grief, out into the light of day. . . . No matter what it takes, the hard work begins for the West to haul our fear, shame, and grief surrounding death out into the disinfecting light of the sun."

~ Caitlin Doughty, author, mortician, Good Death Advocate ~
(b August 19, 1984)

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Stained Glass Dome ~Driehaus Museum ~ Chicago

Movies about Emily Dickinson:
The Belle of Amherst, 1976
A Quiet Passion, 2016
Wild Nights with Emily, 2018

Poem by Emily Dickinson
Sic transit gloria mundi
["Thus passes the glory of the world"]

"Sic transit gloria mundi,"
"How doth the busy bee,"
"Dum vivimus vivamus,"
I stay mine enemy! —

Oh "veni, vidi, vici!"
Oh caput cap-a-pie!
And oh "memento mori"
When I am far from thee!

Hurrah for Peter Parley!
Hurrah for Daniel Boone!
Three cheers, sir, for the gentleman
Who first observed the moon!

Peter, put up the sunshine;
Pattie, arrange the stars;
Tell Luna, tea is waiting,
And call your brother Mars!

Put down the apple, Adam,
And come away with me,
So shalt thou have a pippin
From off my father's tree!

I climb the "Hill of Science,"
I "view the landscape o'er;"
Such transcendental prospect,
I ne'er beheld before!

Unto the Legislature
My country bids me go;
I'll take my india rubbers,
In case the wind should blow!

During my education,
It was announced to me
That gravitation, stumbling
Fell from an apple tree!

The earth upon an axis
Was once supposed to turn,
By way of a gymnastic
In honor of the sun!

It was the brave Columbus,
A sailing o'er the tide,
Who notified the nations
Of where I would reside!

Mortality is fatal—
Gentility is fine,
Rascality, heroic,
Insolvency, sublime

Our Fathers being weary,
Laid down on Bunker Hill;
And tho' full many a morning,
Yet they are sleeping still,—

The trumpet, sir, shall wake them,
In dreams I see them rise,
Each with a solemn musket
A marching to the skies!

A coward will remain, Sir,
Until the fight is done;
But an immortal hero
Will take his hat, and run!

Good bye Sir, I am going;
My country calleth me;
Allow me, Sir, at parting,
To wipe my weeping e'e.

In token of our friendship
Accept this "Bonnie Doon,"
And when the hand that plucked it
Hath passed beyond the moon,

The memory of my ashes
Will consolation be;
Then farewell Tuscarora,
And farewell, Sir, to thee!

**************

The Glory of the World!

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS ON MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Tuesday, May 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ See related post: E is for Earth, Easter, Eggs
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com