What Inspires Me? Canada Did Something!
We talk-talk-talk about plastic waste while garbage islands—the size of Texas—float through the Pacific. We talk-talk-talk about overflowing land fill, about reduce and reuse. We talk. And we “bribe” ourselves to use less plastic with returnable deposits and nickel/dime bag charges and pat ourselves on the back when we put plastics into recycle bins to be repurposed and call it “doing something.”
Canada actually did something.
This is a photo of one of the huge plastic islands —See anything you discard?
Last Month the Canadian Government passed a ban on six categories of single-use plastic manufacture, import, export and sale.
A ban that begins now and will be fully implemented by the end of 2025.
“WE DON’T HAVE TO WAIT FOR A LAW TO BE PASSED—LET’S ACT UNLAWFULLY!
LET’S BAN SINGLE-USE PLASTIC THE EASY WAY—-DON’T BUY IT! DON’T USE IT!”
This is our park, our garbage cans, our picnic leavings—3 points for cleaning up after ourselves…but did we?
You may not remember it, but back in the good-old days, right here in the good old U.S of A, the highways, byways, parks, roadsides, parking lots were festooned with—trash! And everyone seemed fine with it. Really!
After all tossing trash out the window or into the bushes is easier, isn’t it? After all, isn’t that what all the marvelous new-fangled plastic, cardboard, Styrofoam containers and utensils are made for—one use and toss? So easy! Whooppee!
It took then first lady, Lady Bird Johnson, a shy thoughtful woman who loved flowers and nature, to say “Enough!” Convinced cleaner highways and streets would “make American a better place to live” Lady Bird launched her “anti-littering” campaign—publicly (and privately, no doubt). On Oct. 22nd, 1965, her husband, LBJ, signed the Highway Beautification Act.
Now, thanks to Lady Bird, while many of us still do it, we find littering deplorable. Doubt me? When the series Mad Men aired an episode where the Drapper family goes on a picnic and tosses their trash viewers were outraged. Here’s the Mad Men Picnic Littering clip.
But here’s the thing. We Americans don’t like anyone—especially “Government”—telling us what to do. We don’t want to be bossed around! We don’t like bans. Do we?
So why wait? Let’s show them who’s BOSS!
Let’s simply STOP! Stop buying and using single-use plastic. (And Styrofoam, too, while we’re at it. Styrofoam is as bad, worse than plastic.) But how? you ask. Below is a handy-dandy 5-item list of ways to stop buying and using single-use plastic.
“Hint: As Lady Bird did with her anti-littering campaign, get the kids involved. Let them help you—and us—be the change. ”
BYOB! BBD! BYOS! BYOC! BYOU!
Just as with using seatbelts, it might be uncomfortable at first, but we’ll get used to it!
What Inspires Me? The Perfect Game
While I was recently reminded (by The NY Yankees Museum Curator) that “perfect pitch” is a musical term, not a baseball term, there is such a thing as a perfect pitch. This is what a perfect pitch looks like.
Don Larsen’s final “Perfect Game” pitch to Yogi Berra
The “Ball Wall” exhibit in the NY Yankees Museum shows the trajectory of Don Larsen’s final (97th) pitch to Yogi Berra on October 8, 1956, in game 5 of the 1956 World Series, against the Brooklyn Dodgers at Yankee Stadium.
The "Ball Wall" features hundreds of balls autographed by past and present Yankees. There’s even a touch-screen finder to help fans locate their favorite players autographed ball.
The NY Yankees Museum is open to the public—tours are available. And the Museum is open on home-day games to ticketholders.
Cy Young, the winningest pitcher in baseball history, pitched three no-hitters over his professional baseball career, only one of which was a perfect game, for the Boston Americans in 1904.
As I write, there are fourteen MLB games scheduled. Weather permitting, that means that at least 28 MLB pitchers will take the mound, wind up and fire off perfect pitches—lots of them.
On average according Baseball Scouter, “each Major League Baseball (MLB) team throws an average of 146 pitches” during the course of a game.
Some of those pitchers might even throw no-hitters (alone or combined), although it could take the 120, 130, maybe even 140 pitches to do it.
But just imagine, a pitcher, over the course of nine innings, firing baseballs into the strike zone so fast, so hard, with so much finesse that though one after the other batters try—MLB Batters! the heaviest of heavy hitters! —they can’t get on base. Three hitter up-Three hitters down. Nine times. 27 batters who strike out, fly out, or are tagged out. Game over! A Perfect Game.
What are the chances of that? To date, there have been only 23 perfect games in MLB history, but only ONE in World Series competition!
“The “Perfect” Perfect Game would be one in which the pitcher threw each batter out on the first pitch. The batter would have to swing on the first pitch and fly out or get tagged out running to first. 27 pitches.”
While a Perfect Game in baseball requires phenomenal pitching, pitching is not everything.
A “No-Hitter” is all about the pitching.
A Perfect Game means no hits or walks, no hit batsmen, no fielding errors that allow a player on base, no uncaught third strikes, and no interference.
. . . no “fielding errors.” Every player on the field must make every play hit to them.
A Perfect Game is what baseball is about—teamwork. It’s a team win. Now that’s inspiring!
BTW: The NY Yankee Museum is open to the public, and on game days to ticket holders. For Tour info Click.
Monument Park, located in center field, recognizes legends who have appeared at Yankee Stadium, is free and open to ticket holders on Yankees home game days. Monument Park opens when the park opens and closes 45 minutes before the scheduled start of games.
Who Inspires Me? Opal Lee
A one-year new holiday commemorating Juneteenth, sort for June 19th, an event many outside of Texas didn’t know about before last year. A momentous event we might still not know about—and definitely wouldn’t be celebrating if it were not for the actions of one determined then 94-year-old woman: Opal Lee
Opal Lee walked from Fort Worth Texas to Washington DC— “a little old lady in tennis shoes”—2 1/2 miles at a stretch, to commemorate the 2 1/2 years it took for word of the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring all enslaved people free, to finally reached Texas.
When Opal arrived at the Capitol on September 23, 2020, she delivered to Congress a petition to declare Juneteenth a holiday with 1.5 million signatures. Watch a Video About Opal Lee’s Walk here!
“ None of us are free until we’re all free.”
Juneteenth marks the day in 1865 that word of the Emancipation Proclamation finally reached enslaved Texans—two years and six months after President Abraham Lincoln issued it—making Texas one of the last states to legally abolish slavery. In 1980, thanks to activist Opal Lee and others, Texas declared Juneteenth a statewide holiday.
In 2021, when President Biden declared Juneteenth a federal holiday, Opal Lee, called “The Grandmother of Juneteenth” was there!
For more about how Juneteenth came to be—and why—read/share Opal’s picture book, The Real Opal Lee
And for more about Opal enjoy Alice Fay Duncan and Keturah A Bobo’s picture book biography, Opal Lee and What it Means to be Free.
Even more: Maya Smart has curated an excellent list of Juneteenth Picture Books!
Happy Happy Juneteenth!
What Inspires Me? #18 Batter UP!
I watched a lot of baseball this weekend, including 5-year-old Jack’s T-Ball and Ben’s 8-10 Little League. Each time those pint-sized players stepped up to the plate—regardless of which team—I willed them a hit.
And as the spindly scowling pitchers went into their windup, I willed them strikes. Baseball is hard work. At one at bat, our pitcher, Jameson had to throw 11 pitches before the batter took a base. Eleven times that batter squared up, eleven times that pitcher wound up, eleven tense trys.
The MLB record for the most pitches at a single at-bat is 21. It was set in 2018 by LA Angels’ pitcher Jaime Barria who used up 21 pitches to finally strike-out San Francisco Giants’ Brandon Belt.
Later, my son Max, who coaches Ben’s team, mentioned during pre-game prep, how pitcher and catcher aside, players might only have a couple of chances to get hands on a ball, so they had to be ready, and they had to make it good. Which got me thinking about all of us…
In 1923, arguably Babe Ruth’s best season—the only season he was named the American League’s MVP—his batting average was .349.
Not only is that the NY Yankees highest single-season batting average it’s also the Yankee’s all-time highest batting average. (The Babe’s MLB career batting average is .342.)
In baseball, the batting average (BA), is defined as the number of hits divided by at bats. Which means that out of ten times at bat, Babe Ruth got a hit less than 3 1/2 times—which means about 7 times he was OUT!
There is only one player in the history of Major League Baseball with a BA of 1000—One Thousand! His name is John Paciorek.
Drafted by the Houston Colts, Paciorek played in the minors until 1963 when he was promoted to the Colt 45’s active roster. In his one and only MLB game—Colt 45’s vs NY Mets—right-fielder Paciorek went to the plate five times. He hit 3 singles, walked twice and scored 4 runs. That day Houston beat the NY Mets with a score of 13-4.
Paciorek aside, the highest all-time single-season Batting Average record was set by Tetelo Vargas, an outfielder on the Negro League’s NY Cubans.
In 1943, at the age of 38, in his final recorded season, Vargas posted a batting average of .471. That means he got a hit almost 1 or of every 2 at bats. But not ever player is a heavy hitter. The MLB’s average Batting Average is about .250.
Which means every time an MLB batter—the best of the best—takes the mounds chances are about 4 to 1 they’ll make an out. But they keep taking that plate. They keep swinging. That’s what inspires me!
So I’ll end with the advice Coach Max gave his players this weekend:
Square up before every pitch.
Keep your eye on the ball.
Want to hit!
What Inspires Me? #17-Humans Who Serve
It’s Memorial Day! We say Happy Memorial Day? Bittersweet really. Originally known as “Decoration Day” a Springtime memorial ritual begun after the Civil War, Memorial Day was declared an official holiday in 1971, a day to honor humans who died while serving in the U.S. military.
For many of us, Memorial Day weekend is a joyful time heralding the beginning of summer fun, corn on the cob and potato salad, graduations, celebrations—and maybe that’s as it should be. For when we think our loved ones who served, isn’t that why they served? Why they sacrificed themselves, their liberty, their double scoop—to “ensure the blessing of liberty” for all of us. Humans for humanity.
Humans as in veterans who served in the military. And those who are serving now. Those humans who put their lives on hold to protect and defend our way of life. No matter what we (or they) may think about the politics of where and what battles they may be call into, they serve.
Today, while celebrating Memorial Day, I thought you might like to meet some veterans and learn their stories, collected by Brandon Stanton for his blog Humans of New York.
I first heard about Brandon Stanton and Humans of New York, listening to Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! He was a guest of the quiz. Fascinated by his project—which has become quite a lucrative career—I dug deeper. Humans of New York began as a photography project in 2010.
Brandon’s “initial goal was to photograph 10,000 New Yorkers on the street and create an exhaustive catalogue of the city’s inhabitants.” Somewhere along the way, Brandan wrote, “I began to interview my subjects in addition to photographing them. And alongside their portraits, I'd include quotes and short stories from their lives.”
For the series “Invisible Wounds” Brandon interviewed veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Here is the link to view “Invisible Wounds.”
Happy Memorial Day!
Happy Memorial Day and thank you Veterans. You are not forgotten.
What Inspires Me? #16 Ken Burns UNUM
Ken Burns has been making documentary films for about 40 years. These include The Civil War (1990), Baseball (1994), Jazz (2001), The War (2007), The National Parks: America's Best Idea (2009), Prohibition (2011), The Roosevelts (2014), The Vietnam War (2017), and Country Music (2019). His newest film Benjamin Franklin is showing on PBS now.
Ken Burns documentaries are informative, well-researched, interesting—and as I did with Country Music—binge worthy. That’s no secret. But this might be. It was to me: UNUM!
UNUM is a new (to-me-at-least) feature on his website is all about connectivity.
Connecting historical dots.
Connecting events.
Especially connecting with viewers!
In more than 40 years of delving through history, Ken Burns team has noticed connectivity. that while note-worthy events in one part of the world occurred, in other parts equally noteworthy events were happening—historical, physical and cultural. There are obvious and no so obvious connections.
UNUM explores this through snippets of films organized into groups of historical or cultural significance as well as by time periods.
And what’s really cool—especially for research purposes, users can initiate their own searches on UNUM. Whatever clipping pop up as a result of that key word search will play a bit before the “key word” appears in the clipping and a bit longer so views will see for themselves how it fits in the grander scheme of things.
Teachers: What better way to connect students to historical events than with visual-oral-actual clipping! Civil Rights, Black History, Government, Prohibition, Vietnam, the Dust Bowl—you teaching it; UNUM for Educators!
UNUM is a proud partner of PBS LearningMedia, which provides educators with free standards-aligned videos, interactives, lesson plans, and other instructional resources for the classroom.
Writers of Fiction and Non-Fiction: UNUM for Educators provides the color commentary, visual and oral playlist for America-centric historical fiction and non-fiction—and not dry clippings on microfiche! You writing it—UNUM has it. If not, send word to Ken Burns—a documentary about that subject is either already in the works—or it will be!
But, don’t take my word for it, check out UNUM for yourself.
Be warned, once you delve into UNUM, you might find yourself down a rabbit hole you will not want to escape:
What Inspires Me? #15 Carrying Kevan
Just watch the video. Yes! Click and watch. You’ll see. Then scroll down to read more.
Kevan Chandler grew up in the foothills of North Carolina. He is the youngest of three siblings and the second to be diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy, type 2, a rare neuromuscular disease. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree in counseling from John Wesley College. In the summer of 2016, Kevan and his friends took a trip across Europe, leaving his wheelchair at home, and his friends carried him for three weeks in a backpack. Read More of Kevan’s story!
This photo and more are on the We Carry Kevan website.
Along with having a grand time traveling, Kevan and his buds give backpacks modeled after the one they customized for Kevan to families of others with disabilities so they can explore, play, travel—experience the world together!
Whether that means climbing all 30 million steps of the Great Wall
Enjoying a wee walk in the park
Watching a high school football game in the bleachers—maybe even the very back row!
Going Any Place a Wheelchair Can Not!
How can you help? Click over to the We Carry Kevan website and check it out. Your gift to We Carry Kevan will help us bring backpacks, support, encouragement, and love to individuals with disabilities and their families.
What Inspires Me #14-STRONG MUSEUM OF PLAY
PLAYTIME! We all need playtime. It’s like the adage, All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Well listen up Jack!
The mecca of playtime awaits!
The STRONG MUSEUM OF PLAY, is an entire Museum dedicated to play. Located in Rochester, New York, it’s named for Margaret Strong who “founded” the museum, originally as home tours of her collections which included more than 27,000 dolls. In 1969, Margaret obtained a provisional charter from New York to officially establish the Margaret Woodbury Strong Museum of Fascination. The Museum is open Saturday–Thursday: 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Friday: 10 a.m.–8 p.m. And virtually…
Museum Exhibits rotate—as most due—as I type, one can stroll through Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, try a Sky Climb, cruise the Toy Hall of Fame, the World Video Hall of Fame, and my favorite, naturally, Reading Adventureland!
No Boo-hooing if Rochester, NY is too far for you to visit in person, The STRONG welcomes virtual visitors to it’s online exhibits.
If, like me, your need for a dose of fascination, wild imagination, whimsy is STRONG, take a virtual tour! Playtime anyone?