I think this speech from the first season episode of M*A*S*H, “Sometimes You Hear the Bullet” was Henry Blake’s finest moment:
“I don’t know. If I had the answer, I’d be at the Mayo Clinic. Does this place look like the Mayo Clinic? Look, all I know is what they taught me at command school. There are certain rules about a war. And rule number one is young men die. And rule number two is, doctors can’t change rule number one.” McLean Stevenson as Lt. Colonel Henry Blake on M*A*S*H
“The multitude of pilgrims
With palms before you went;
Our praise and prayer and anthems
Before you we present.” Lutheran Service Book #442, verse 3
“What is grief, if not love persevering?” Paul Bettany as Vision in WandaVision
“Look, all you can do as a parent is try to pack the days with as much good stuff as possible and hope that it outweighs the bad. You hope that the good stuff sticks.” Sterling K. Brown as Randall Pearson in This is Us
This description of Pac-Man is absolute poetry!
“I used to be obsessed with Pac-Man. I had it on my computer. I’d play it for hours after everybody went to sleep. Got the girls into it, too. And it’s strange, like, all these years later, the game really hasn’t changed, just different people playing it. And in the middle of it all is Pac-Man, right? Bright yellow little dude just doing his thing. Homie’s like Sisyphus. Decade after decade just eating those circles, I mean, trying different routes, trying his best to avoid all those ghosts.” Sterling K. Brown as Randall Pearson in This is Us
“I’d rather be divisive than indecisive, drop the niceties.” Lin-Manuel Miranda as Alexander Hamilton in Hamilton
“Let us curl, milady. Let us throw and sweep atwain until the heavens themselves drop their jaws in wonder and envy. And afterwards there’ll be beer and cocoa with marshmallows floating in the foam. And if, from now till the end of time, someone should ask what we were doing on the eve of the seventeenth of November, we shall proclaim that we were curling!” Dan Castellaneta as Homer Simpson on The Simpsons
This quote from From the Earth to the Moon makes me laugh…and also makes me wonder if it was a real saying!
“NASA stands for ‘Never Absolutely Sure of Anything.'”
It’s not quite that cold here…yet. Maybe later this week!
“And closer to home, we can expect a warming trend. Our midday temperatures reaching puberty levels, 13 to 16 degrees.” Alan Alda as Hawkeye Pierce on M*A*S*H
Today is the anniversary of the birth of the great Scottish bard Robert Burns. In honor of the occasion, I’d like to share a poem he wrote about the season of his birth, “Up in the Morning Early.”
“Cauld blaws the wind frae east to west,
The drift is driving sairly;
Sae loud and shrill’s I hear the blast,
I’m sure it’s winter fairly.Up in the morning’s no for me,
Up in the morning early;
When a’ the hills are cover’d wi’ snaw,
I’m sure its winter fairly.The birds sit chittering in the thorn,
A’ day they fare but sparely;
And lang’s the night frae e’en to morn,
I’m sure it’s winter fairly.Up in the morning’s no for me,
Up in the morning early;
When a’ the hills are cover’d wi’ snaw,
I’m sure its winter fairly.”
And here’s a look at the Burns Supper we enjoyed over the weekend…our menu is pretty much always the same (cock-a-leekie pie made from the Scottish Arms recipe, with sticky toffee pudding according to the Schlafly recipe for dessert), but someday, I just might make Scotch eggs!
“And we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.”