Facts in History

Boxing Day
(December 26th)
-=+by Dallas Hinton+=-

From: <bob@nwstar.com>
Subject: Boxing Day
Date: Tuesday, December 26, 2000 8:27 PM

Origins: Few Americans have any inkling that there even is such a thing as Boxing Day, let alone what the reason might be for a holiday so named. However, before one concludes we're about to rag on Americentric attitudes towards other cultures, we should quickly point out that even though Boxing Day is celebrated in Australia, Britain, New Zealand, and Canada, not all that many in those countries have much of a notion as to why they get the 26 of December off. Boxing Day might well be a statutory holiday in some of those lands, but it's not a well understood one.

SNIP...

UPDATE:

I am informed that the original copyrighted source for this text is located at http://www.snopes2.com/holidays/xmas/boxing.htm. I have therefore removed the content from fidonews.org and added a link to that page. Please visit that site to continue reading. To the original author, 'we apologise for the inconvenience.' [DA] [jb 3/22/01] /UPDATE

...UNSNIP

By Dallas Hinton as told to Bob Seaborn on a cold bleak Canadian night.
UPDATE: Yeah, right. Give credit where credit is due, willya? :( [jb] /UPDATE

By: Mike Luther
To: Warren Bonner
Re: Very good!

Stewart ..

> Fidonet is like a Little Fugue. Sometimes a two minute
> masterpiece,

WB> Can you write that for piano? I don't do guitar very well...
WB> <Ducking for cover> 8^)

I hope that one was tongue in cheek remark! Grin. It's the leading entry notes in the right place for Bach's Little Fugue in G! Oh yes, written for organ, but playable darned beautifully on a piano.. chuckle.

My beloved Mother was a performing arts graduate in piano from the American Conservatory in Chicago back in the early '30's. I literally cut my teeth on her Story & Clark upright at home. We won't go over what happened next just after being caught at that. And the first music I can remember hearing was that particular composition, at around four years of age. She could play it PERFECTLY, both as-written, and as individually interpreted.

Now, she's been ten years in a nursing home, totally paralyzed right side and total loss of speech, but still totally able to comprehend everything for all these years, I look longingly at that forever stilled right hand that I can see so vividly starting those exact notes. That, while at the same time, from her and Dad's coaching and our culture, realizing that there is NOTHING that we can do to ever recover even one minute from the past.

It's gone. It isn't worth arguing about and must provide us with a reference framework to avoid making the same errors for today and into the future. That perspective has a point here in Fido, as I see it.

Her final piano was a full Baldwin concert grand. I can't do NEARLY the job she could on that composition. You can spend hours and hours at just one segment, getting things just right in any complex score. At least that's my personal perspective.

Some Bach does scale somewhat to guitar; not so's I can determine on my own Johnny Smith, the Little Fugue! Grin.

I see her darned near every day. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't notice things. As we grow older, I think all of us have to stop and wonder what's important, what we can do to make things better at what we dabble, not tear things apart.

I've been in FidoNet for a while longer than her decline.

My original post thread to Janis was as strongly complimentary as I could be, together with a long time understanding of how FidoNet seems to work. It was positioned against where I realize we must go into the future - or die.

Playing Fido is much like playing music. It isn't a specific score we HAVE to play, exactly as the policy is written!

I had the unbelievable good fortune when Carl Heifitz was here for a concert last month, to be able to attend a public two hour guest lecture that he gave for the local congregation. His topic was how interpretation changes music, based on what our personal experiences bring to the score. This from the winner of the Competition in Moscow, who refused to back down and played Jewish music for his allowable "artist's choice" piece after winning the competition there. He also donated his entire winnings to the families of Soviet Jewish persecution WHILE in Moscow after he won it!

The announcer refused to announce his choice of music until, between she and the KGB agent coaching her, he simply said, "If you don't, I'll announce it personally." They gave in. It was twenty minutes before the cheering stopped because you couldn't send the whole damned concert hall to the Gulag...

Sounds something like some tales of Fido to me, right? Grin!

Of note. The Russian broadcast for the acceptance concert, given by all the contestants, was stripped of his performance, but we, courtesy of a live PBS feed during the event, have it available in the West!

Sounds something like some tales of Fido to me, right? Grin!

During the entire two hour lecture, he would take the Stradivarius. He'd play certain segments of things exactly as the author wrote it. Then he would play it as if it were colored the way he heard it, based on the viewpoint of how a German Holocaust survivor would have 'heard' that music. And then .. gave the concert the next day based EXACTLY on that enriched perspective of the score. His family survived it and he was able to actually go back and visit the family home, as well as actually meet the immediate neighbors of his family.....

The arguments we have here over this and that haven't changed much in the last ten years in Fido. Janis and this crew can get exactly what is needed for our future from P4 just as it stands, just as beautifully as I heard Bach and all the rest played, when somebody who really cared and really wanted to contribute to the betterment of a group .. did so.

This group of RC's and Janis HAVE the opportunity and the ability to do what is necessary, in my opinion, to make something better of us, by interpretation, yet within the framework of what we have. The majority of the RC's as little as I know of them, seem to have what I think it takes to do this and have, as it seems, elevated someone whom they feel has what is needed to do the job.

To do it will take, as I wrote, a long time of learning in Fido, to do just a few minutes work and just get the job done. I'm interested in seeing what decisions and efforts come out of all this before I form a follow-on view of where we are going.. and.. if we are going.

WB> Can you write that for piano? I don't do guitar very well... WB> <Ducking for cover> 8^)

Yeah .....

A long time ago I realized I don't do piano or guitar real well. Nor Fido, but I try. So I copied off the first few measures... Grin..

Mike @ 117/3001

--- Maximus/2 3.01
* Origin: Ziplog Public Port (1:117/3001)

A Few Words From the Plagiarist
Bert Happel
1:2255/10

I doubt that many who are reading this issue recall my prior FidoNews publication in December of 1998 (v5#51). It was a repayment to the editor (Dale Lovell) for his kindness during that year's FidoCon in Cincinnati (I hadn't made a room reservation before leaving central Indiana and Dale put me up gratis in the Snooze Suite). Little did I know that my seasonal drivel would become my likely source of immortality.

FidoNet was only a few years old back then and echomail still new. Yet readership of FidoNews was fairly widespread. The proof is on <gasp> the Internet. If you perform a search on "Bert Happel" you will find several hits where someone has stored (and sometimes HTML prettified) the poem.

I went online with The I.O. Board BBS on August 14, 1986. The system was a dual-floppy Victor 9000 with 896K RAM (no, that's not a typo - as an IBM comparable but not a compatible, the V9 didn't conform to all of the PC limitations). In the morning I'd load the BBS into a 600K RAMdrive and use all 620K of drive A: (there's another of those non-compatible tweaks) for messages while all 620K of drive B: stored the online files. Since I ran it on my apartment voice line the BBS was only available from 8am-6pm Monday through Friday while I was at work. Within a couple months I obtained a second phone line for full time operation of the BBS. Within several months I spent $1000.00 on a used Victor VI with a 20MB hard drive. The BBS had more storage than at my office!

The late 80's through 90's were boom times for BBSing. After borrowing a friends 1200 baud modem I caught modem-fever. After beginning with Fido v11 I joined IFNA and purchased a copy of Fido v12. My goal was to run a reliable and friendly board. Fancy graphics weren't important (and I ran Fido v12 which offered few ANSI graphics options). After a year online the BBS had received 4000 calls before I joined FidoNet as a regional independent. For it's second birthday the BBS joined the Central IN Net. The second year saw an additional 8000 calls and expansion to 65MB of storage. The third year saw 12,000 calls to the system.

I never pushed the technological envelope but added features as I could. The BBS got a 1x CD-ROM drive in June of 1990. In March of 1993 the motherboard was upgraded to a 386/40 CPU (the same hardware it continues to use!). In February of 1996 the BBS added a 7-disc CD jukebox.

From there it has been downhill as the Internet rolled into our lives. The caller database peaked at over 500 callers within the previous 90 days and 35 calls received a day. Currently there are 3 callers within the past 90 days and receiving one or two calls a day.

So after more than 14 years and 4 months online I feel it's time to find a new hobby. My involvement with the BBS has declined since moving the system to my office three years ago. I enjoy scanning the echos but faithfully read very few of them. The BBS was a wonderful 20th century phenomenon - and in days it will be the 21st Century.

Operating The I.O. Board BBS allowed me to form many friendships that still exist today. I wish I could thank all those who assisted me over the years but most of them have moved on and some have passed on. Some folks assisted beyond belief, some were scoundrels and one was a fugitive from the law. My colleagues in Region 11 have been congenial and consistently worked for the betterment of FidoNet.

I wish you all the best. As long as FidoNet continues to serve a purpose in your life and the life of your callers, may you enjoy your system and the responsibility in operating it.

Bert Happel Soon to be Ex-Sysop of 1:2255/10 bhappel@indy.net