…the color is gone from your life. Maybe you can borrow some from the world around you. Yellow and orange from the fading sunlight spilling into the shop at the end of a long day. Velvety red from a well-worn reading chair. Deep brown from a rich leather-bound copy of your favorite book.
    The color is there, Theo. Please don’t give up looking.
                          from The Bookshop of Dust and Dreams
                                           written by Mindy Thompson
                                                     Penguin/Viking, 2021
    A couple of years ago, my middle grandson and I had a conversation about color. He noted that primary colors (red, yellow, and blue) when combined, made secondary colors (orange, green and purple). 
    So I naturally asked the next question. What do the secondary colors make when they are combined? Of course he answered “tertiary.” But what are those? According to celebratingcolor.com, tertiary colors are the mixture of two secondary colors. Unless you are considering light waves, orange + green, orange + purple, and green + purple all equal a shade of brown.
     We can also combine adjacent colors. Yellow and orange mix to get amber or marigold. Red and orange produce vermilion or cinnabar. Magenta is formed from red and purple. Blue and purple give us violet. Blue and green give us teal or aqua or cyan, and green plus yellow equals chartreuse.
    And what about mixing those? The English word for the fourth degree, the word that comes after tertiary, is quaternary. Mixing marigold with violet, aqua with chartreuse, or vermilion with teal all also lead to the several shades of brown. Wikipedia lists 32 quaternary colors, although most on their list are tertiaries, not combinations of them.  
    So what’s the point? Talking of brown on another gray Ohio day seems pointless until I begin to consider the various shades of sparrows, finches, and (a hope for returning) house wrens at my feeder. Even the seemingly perpetual gray sky is pointed out by the brown bones of my oaks, maples, and redbud. 
    I’ve known people who loved brown and people who hated it. Several lists I perused put blue (in its many shades) at the top of the favorite list. Orange hits the bottom.
    Setting aside shades and tints, tones and hues, colors can influence our moods and even our physical beings. A whole branch of brain science is devoted to color psychology, how we react to and are influenced by the colors in our world. A big part of it is cultural. In the United States, we have chosen black for a mourning color. Other cultures have chosen white. Our brides like to dress in white. Other cultures prefer red. 
    According to colorpsychology.org “red enhances human metabolism, increases respiration rate, and raises blood pressure while green slows human metabolism and produces a calming effect.” 
    Color therapy goes a step further. It promotes the idea that colors can influence not only our moods but our health. While little research has been done to substantiate these ideas and theories, according to verywellmind.com, experts have found that color can influence how we feel and behave. Red energizes. Brown is associated with stability. Since turquoise balances blue, green, and yellow, it gives a feeling of security. Of course, all these effects depend on personal, cultural, and situational circumstances. If you Google “color psychology test” you’ll find many free discussions of what your favorite color says about you and how to use different colors to their best advantage. Take one (or many) of these for fun. 
    Although yellow has been my favorite color for a long time, I’m drawn to colors I find in nature. The wide varieties of green include chlorophyll-induced leaves on trees, bushes, and flowers. And algae, like pond scum, mosses, and some mold. We learn about blue through experiencing the expansive, blue sky and the vast, living ocean. According to color therapy, bringing together the balance of green with the tranquility of blue creates a strong healing force used to support both physical and emotional healing and well-being.  
    Cyan might be the perfect color. It is blue-green without even a hint of red. It might be my new favorite.
    Picture book art uses the four-color printing process known as CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black). By combining various amounts of each ink, printers produce their wide color range. Artists and illustrators use their color sense and their color palettes to add meaning to an author’s text.
    Today might be a red-letter day. I could give myself the green light on a new story idea. A friend might call me out of the blue. Any moment could open to a golden opportunity.
    
                 -—stay curious! (and surround yourself with color)

“…next week is the School Sing. Are you excited?”
“Yes, teacher! I love to sing! La-la-laaa! Let’s sing ‘The Hokey Sharkey’”!
“Sorry, Clark. Here is our song.”
“‘If You’re Happy and you Know It’? Great song!”
                             from Clark the Shark and School Sing
                                                written by Bruce Hale
                                            illustrated by Guy Francis
                                                     Harper Alley, 2021
    When my older granddaughter was a baby, I volunteered to watch her during the week of in-service before my daughter and son-in-law started their new school year. 
    My granddaughter loved to listen to music on the family’s CD player and even knew which buttons to push to make it work. She had her favorite songs, too. Even though she was too little to really sing along, her face lit up with one of those big baby grins, and she toddled all about in a wonky kind of dance.
    After breakfast on maybe the third or fourth day, I was ready to play. I popped her favorite CD in the slot for background music. My reward was a loud “NO, NO!” I continued (oblivious, but enthusiastic) asking her which button to push. She started to cry. No music that morning. No music after naptime, either. My daughter shrugged an I-don’t-know answer to my why- doesn’t-she-want-her-music question.
    A few days after I got home, I understood. I was feeding my baby granddaughter earworms! The tunes were still swimming in my head, so why wouldn’t they swimming in hers, too? She just couldn’t tell me.
    Earworms really are a thing. The scientific name is Involuntary Musical Imagery INMI. Research cited on The Kennedy Center’s website claims that nine out of 10 of us experience earworms at least once a week. They can last hours, days, or weeks. According to neurologist Oliver Sacks, [An earworm] "is a special form of involuntary musical imagery which is out of control and can become quite unpleasant and intrusive.”  
    Researchers at Dartmouth College discovered that the auditory cortex is the part of our brains where earworms “live.” It is just as active when we imagine a tune as when we hear it in person or on the radio (or tv or other listening device). 
    The parts of our brains that recognize emotions and help us form memories are also involved in creating earworms. Our ability to retain melodies is incredibly strong. Earworms can be helpful when we need to remember facts, phone numbers, or grocery lists. Just sing them to a familiar tune. 
    My sister’s history teacher sang the American presidents to “Rock-a-Bye-Baby.” One syllable stood for one term, two syllables, two terms. I can still get up to Grover Cleveland’s first term and I didn’t even take the class! (If you try it, be aware. James Garfield only served for six months before he died in office. His initial “G” gets hooked onto Chester A. Arthur to create “GArthur.”) 
    Kelly Jakubowski, Assistant Professor in Music Psychology at Durham University (UK), compared 100 songs people identified as earworms with 100 songs that they did not. She found common earworm characteristics. An upbeat tempo is one. A simple, familiar melody like a nursery rhyme combined with unique pitch intervals is another. 
    Earworms are usually songs that get lots of  “air-play.” We hear them more often, so they stick with us. But that’s not the only way a song turns into a loop. Sometimes lyrics explore a meaningful insight. Or a song reminds us of an experience (good or not so good), or keenly expresses our thoughts.
    People who place a high value on the importance of music are more prone to earworms. Open-minded people, since they are more likely to think about or study an idea before they accept or reject it, are usually more suggestible and so are more likely to experience lots of earworms, or experience them for a longer duration.
    Even though most of us experience this phenomenon, only one-third of us are bothered by the experience or even notice it. If earworms interfere with a person’s daily life (cause extreme loss of focus or interrupt normal sleep patterns) they could be the manifestation of Obsessive-Compulsion Disorder and can actually be treated with medicine and psychotherapy. Called “stuck-song-syndrome” it is exceedingly rare. Only 100 cases have been recorded worldwide. 
    If you are bothered by a loop going round and round, you can try one of these methods that some of Ms. Jakubowski’s test subjects have recommended.

• Listen to the song the whole way through. Coming to completion may stop the loop.
• Try to replace it with a song you like. One annoying piece could just replace another, though.
• Ignore it. Hmmm. Ever try to NOT think of a white elephant (or a chartreuse donkey)? 

• Chew gum, vigorously. This advice is from C. Philip Beaman, Associate Professor of Cognitive Science at the Centre for Cognition Research and the School of Psychology & Clinical Language Sciences at the University of Reading, U.K.  

• Do something engaging. Earworms are most common when we’re bored or not thinking of anything specific. 

    Today is Winter Solstice. This darkest time of year is filled with candlelight, mistletoe, and earworms. Some of my favorite songs get stuck in my head, sometimes for several days in a row. Mostly, I don’t mind. They’re my favorites, after all.
       -—stay curious! (and hum along to the song in your heart!)

Mississippi
Indianapolis
and
Hallelujah
too!
I can read them
with my eyes shut
That is 
VERY HARD
to do!
                              from: I Can Read With My Eyes Shut
                                written and illustrated by Dr. Seuss
                                                  Random House, 1978

    The library my mom took me to when I was growing up was in a mansion. She told me that before it was a library, it belonged to Frances P. Bolton, first woman to represent Ohio in Washington, D. C.
    After finding out a lot of interesting facts about Mrs. Bolton, I found out my mom was wrong. Mr. and Mrs. Bolton donated land adjacent to their homesite to build the Hawken Academy, an exclusive school for boys. Now it's a co-ed pre-K through grade-12 day school.
    The mansion that became my library belonged to a man named William Telling (1869 - 1938). Growing up, Will sold strawberries and milk from his family farm, but his childhood dream was to be a conductor on a horse-drawn streetcar. After three years of living his dream, Will left his streetcar at age 22, with $1,100.00 he had saved. He also gained some valuable insight from the successful businessmen who talked to him while he toted them about the city. 
    Since Will knew the industry, he bought a milk route for $1,000.00, but it was a customer’s request for ice-cream that launched him on his journey to becoming a millionaire. He bought a small second-story storefront and, with his brother, sold ice-cream there. Still on the path to success, the Telling brothers merged their company. The Telling-Belle Vernon Company of Cleveland was once the largest dairy in Ohio and had franchises all over the state. Kraft bought the company in 1930, and it became the “Sealtest” Foods Division.
    Telling started building his mansion in 1928. By the time the house was finished, the Great Depression was in full swing, so Telling shared his house with his brother Frank and sister-in-law Gertrude as well as a cook and a gardener. The dormers, turrets, and chimneys turned the mansion into a castle.
    The building was acquired by the Cuyahoga County Public Library System in 1951. Detailed interior photos are found here. The building was listed in the National Registry of Historic Places in 1974.    
    I don’t know how many of its 26 rooms were used to hold books, but I spent most of my time in children’s biographies and roaming the halls and the passageways that connected room to room. 
    Security must have been a nightmare for a library. And the re-shelving! Just maneuvering book carts through the narrow hallways makes me shiver. And there are three floors.  
    I know all this has nothing to do with libraries, as such, except for my Frances P. Bolton “research” rabbit hole that ended in a place I had never heard of before today. 
    William Telling was new to me. I knew Sealtest, though. They sold the best cottage cheese, ice-cream and milk! I wish you could ask my mom.
    My plan was to write about libraries, though. Especially since so many people take them for granted. Of course, no one reading this does that! 
    Libraries are one of the last bastions of our democratic way of life. All are welcome. All are served. All questions are answered to the best of the librarians’ abilities. Reading recommendations are made. Storytimes are presented. And everything is free. Most libraries don’t even charge late fines.
    A Classification and Subject Index for Cataloguing and Arranging the Books and Pamphlets of a Library was produced by Mevil Dewey in 1876. He began working on his system three years earlier while he was studying at Amherst College. Now, so many areas are identified by their Dewey Decimal Classification numbers that the 23rd edition (published in 2011) is contained in four volumes. 
    Here’s my short (alphabetical, of course) list of what you can find at your library. The list is not meant to be inclusive and lists services as well as tangible and borrow-able items. Dewey numbers are, sadly, not provided.
    
Antique Values
Book Clubs
Crafting Ideas
Decorating Ideas
E-books
Fische records
Graphs
History
Internet Access
Jewelry Identification Guides
Kitchen Floor Plans
Librettos 
Meeting Spaces
Novels
Opinion Pieces
Privacy
Quilt Patterns
Recipe books
Social Workers
Telephone Reference Service
Used-car Guides
Vocabulary for Texting and Gaming
Wi-Fi
*
*
Zoological Charts
    *Any library lovers have an idea for X or Y?

    “Like with like” may not have been Melvil Dewey’s motto, but it could have been. I still remember some Dewey numbers. They come in handy when I’m looking for a quilt pattern or information about elephants or donkeys. All quilt patterns are 746.46. If you know that, you can find what you’re looking for in any library in the world. 
    Now, where did I leave my glasses?
                                      -—stay curious! (and organized)

Normally, on this page, I’d tell you about all the things that scare me, such as:
        Book reports.
        Reading in class.
        Thunder.
        Lightning.
        Poisoned darts.
        Poisoned apples.
        Fairy tales.
        Vampires.
        Principals.
        Drowning in the bathtub.
    But this is not normal. There’s no time for all that.
                    from: Alvin Ho: Allergic to Dead Bodies, Funerals,              and Other Fatal Circumstances
                                                written by Lenore Look
                                             illustrated by LeUyen Pham
                                         Schwartz & Wade Books, 2011

    The day a young bully in my neighborhood ran his bike into mine and I knocked my head against a tree and chipped a front tooth, I recognized fear. I was not really afraid of the little bully. He was mean, but he was smaller (I think younger, too) than me. He was just mean. And he had a big mouth. I was worried that my tooth would not grow back if it fell out. It was loose and it was not a baby tooth.
    Of course, I cried all the way home. I was eight.
    I recognized fear that evening. My parents marched me over to the little bully’s house. My irate dad yelled something unflattering about the way the boy was being raised. My mom sized up the devolving situation in a heartbeat and asked the parents to pay my dentist bill, which I’m pretty sure they did. The dentist reassured my parents and me. I did not lose my tooth.
    But there was that little neighborhood bully. Under the kitchen table. Crying. Oh my. His undershirt-clad father was pulling his belt from its loops. I never saw such a thing. And I learned something that day. Grown-ups can be bullies.
    And even bullies cry. 
    Maybe that kid grew up to be an ok grown-up. I doubt it, but ya never know. My curiosity is focused on what caused the bullying behavior in the first place. I was minding my own business, coasting home on my bike. 
    I think it’s a power-thing. Power through intimidation seems to be a common theme in today’s society. When we are intimidated, we feel fearful. According to dictionary.com fear is “a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined.” 
    We have much to be fearful of these days: COVID-19 and its ever-growing bevy of variants; oversized storms; rampant pollution; unbridled growth of the plastics industry; AI; increasing violence, random and purposeful; liars; politicians who refuse to contain gun violence…closed in spaces, wide open spaces, heights, spiders, public speaking…
    Some of those fears are real. Most are not. Most live in our imaginations where they can be stoked and fomented by the bullies of our day, those small people with their big, mean mouths.
    In the early 1930s, our country found itself in the midst of the Great Depression. One in four Americans was unemployed. Production plummeted. Food was scarce. And the dust bowl. And the rising threat of European politics. And polio. 
    It was a time of great fear. Franklin Roosevelt understood the people’s anxiety. His very smart lines from his first Inaugural Address are as useful today as they were on March 4, 1933.
    “So first of all let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself; nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes the needed effort to bring about prosperity once again.” 
    FDR encouraged a people, scared stiff, to move again. Americans in the 1930s showed courage. They were not fearless. They were scared. Scared of disease, dust storms, starvation, but rose to action through New Deal programs and their own courage. 
    Brette Warshaw writes interesting definitions on her website called whatsthediff.org. Here’s my take on what she says about the difference between courage and bravery. Bravery is a character trait. It’s how a person is made. A brave person does brave deeds without much thought. It’s just the thing to do, like taking the dare to eat a worm on the playground, or catching the mouse that squeezed inside looking to stay warm, or jumping off the high dive.
    Courage is the ability to feel fear, but act bravely anyway. A courageous person acts because the action is warranted and necessary. Jumping into a pool or lake to save someone’s life is an example. Or causing “good trouble.” Or video-taping a murder and sharing the image with authorities and news outlets. 
    Here are Brette Warshaw’s words: The difference between bravery and courage “can be traced back to the etymology of the words. The root word for bravery is the Italian word bravo which means 'bold.' … The root word for courage, however, is coeur the French word for 'heart.'"  
    Alvin Ho, in the story quoted above, took heart. He faced his fear of death and summoned his courage. All ended well for him, his friends, and his family. Of course it did. It’s a children’s book. That’s partly why I love them so much!
    I’m not a particularly brave person, but like Alvin, I’ll summon courage in the face of fear and try my best to act bravely.
               -—stay curious! (and courageous, but wear a mask)