PRESIDENT'S CORNER - December 16, 2016
David Ornick sends this little Shakespearean ditty that seems a great opener for this week’s column:
“Blow, blow, thou winter wind” - Song from As You Like It
Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man’s ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh-ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
That dost not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remembered not.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly...
Really cold! Yikes…how about those temps and it’s still not winter. It could be worse…we could be in Buffalo! Or International Falls, MN. Brrrrrr!
I have been keeping an eye on the live webcam they have at the Chautauqua Amphitheatre rebuilding project. These folks really know how to get things done! They are on schedule and have planned an opening show in the Amp for about June 16 or 17, the week before the season starts! So, those of you that might be planning a trip up there next summer, have faith—the Amp will be done. We should be there for opening week.
Snowflakes: It’s nice to see some snowflakes appearing on the Member Lounge doors. Have you made your gift to OLLI yet? And I hear we have 3 new members of the 100K Club…WOW!
Books: I refuse to give up on book recommendations. This week you can check out the NY Times list of the best books of 2016. I have four of them on my Kindle. Recently, I got the new book from my favorite NYT columnist, Thomas Friedman. It’s Thank You for Being Late: an Optimist’s Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations. He gets under way by telling about how the year 2007 was such a turning point: the new I-Phone came out, Facebook and Twitter came alive, Android was launched, Amazon released the Kindle, Airbnb was conceived, in late 2006, the Internet crossed one billion users worldwide, Michael Dell returned to re-head the company he founded in 2007, IBM began building Watson and Intel introduced non-silicon materials into microchips for the first time. There’s more, but all these things helped the world reach a tipping point that has fueled an astonishing array of innovations and changes that have affected each and every one of us, dislocated society, caused confusion and anger in some quarters…you get the idea. It is, it seems to me, a book that must might need to be required reading for us all.
Most of us would hate to get through life without our computers and smart phones but we senior citizens have enough life experience to remember how wonderful it was and is to just sit and have conversation with good friends, read a real book, stop to smell the flowers on your walk through the park, and take courses that keep us fresh, learning new things, and meeting stimulating people.
Yes, I AM suggesting you take advantage of OLLI’s Winter Catalog and, if you haven’t fled to some hot and humid swamp, alive with creepy crawlies, then enjoy what we have to offer, and stick around to chat up a friend, make a new one, and wait out winter by reading good books, going to some of the great films coming down the pike, or seeing an opera or classic film. Nabucco is on the Met in HD schedule for January 7, and Turner Classic Movies January film is “Singin’ in the Rain,” showing on January 15 and 18 at 2 and 7 PM at the Regal.
Hymn: I won’t quote the whole thing here, but one of my all-time favorite holiday hymns is this one…I’ll only include the first verse…many of you will know it, and it surely speaks to this season, no?
In the bleak midwinter, frost wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.
Dates of the Season:
- December 21: Winter Solstice
- December 24: Hanukkah begins at sundown.
- December 25: Christmas Day
- December 26: Kwanzaa begins
Be well.
Jim Held, President