A Good Word: Poignant

1 : pungently pervasive
2 a (1) : painfully affecting the feelings : piercing (2) : deeply affecting : touching b : designed to make an impression : cutting
3 a : pleasurably stimulating b : being to the point : apt

synonyms see pungent, moving

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I have recently gotten onto Facebook and have connected with a friend from grade school (who I had lunch with today) and another from high school. I graduated high school 35 years ago, and have now had various memories brought back into focus from 1974 and earlier. The word poignant - as in both painfully affecting the feelings and deeply affecting/touching - seems to fit the bill as the perfect word to use.

Here am I, from 1972, ready to take on the world! Notice the smile . . .

We Interrupt This Broadcast . . .Breaking News!

But only good news! My son Tim passed his Paramedic exams, and daughter Amy and son-in-law Matt have successfully bid on a house!

Lord, I feel old . . . great!

Words To Live By?

“Any idiot can face a crisis; it is this day-to-day living that wears you out.”

Writer Anton Chekov

“One must think like a hero to behave like a merely decent human being.”

Author May Sarton

“Since it is difficult to join them together, it is safer to be feared than to be loved when one of the two must be lacking.”

“The fact is that a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous.”

Philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli

This Guy Got It Right

"There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to do. … Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen."

English author and Dramatist Jerome K. Jerome

How Soon They Grow Up

That's what everyone tells you . . . and it's true. Tim and Amy in this photo, the day after Amy's wedding. The "shutter shades" went with the 80's band that rocked the reception. "XC" on Tim's shirt means "cross country"; the "W" stands for Wauconda. Get the message?

Note the talented beer bottle grip that holds not only the bottle, but also the cap.

Gotta luv em!

You Am What You Is

"Homo sapiens [are] a tiny twig on an improbable branch of a contingent limb on a fortunate tree."

Naturalist and Science Writer Stephen Jay Gould

A Study in Opposites

"No matter how much a woman loved a man, it would still give her a glow to see him commit suicide for her."

American Satirist H. L. Mencken

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of being an ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of everyday's

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right.

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with the passion to put use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints—I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways..."

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

(Public domain. )