How Big Is A Foot?

I've heard that our standard measurement of twelve inches – with some modifications – dates back to the measurement of fourteenth-century King Edward III of England's OWN foot! (And this wasn't the last time the English altered or set something and it stuck … the length of the marathon in the Olympics was set to its current length in 1908 when London first hosted the Games.) Not quite a detail I wanted to bring up with my daughter Sarah when she finished reading her school library book to me this morning, Rolf Myller written and illustrated (ISBN 0440404959), and the drawing style reminds me of James Thurber) whose title is my title today. It's always cool to hear my kids read without much argument, and after waking up to BURST exercises, a bath, and Bible study, well worth it!

Yesterday at work I had to fight the urge to fall asleep – heck, my eyesight needed recovery after I'd spent some time shoveling snow outside my office AND THE SUN IS bleeping SHINING OUTSIDE – and lately I have felt the fatigue at night after the kids are in bed and we eat dinner at home … last night was spaghetti with garlic bread and the kids lapped up two servings each. Well, one and a half because Sarah couldn't finish her second plate (but Martha did and regretted it later) and Jeffrey put the remainder of his second portion back in the pot. I enjoyed the spaghetti too, Martha did a great job on it – she's usually the cook because I'm the last one to get home from work – and I thought I'd eagerly eat a second plate, but I was full too after one! Got the rest here at my office for lunch today …

There's a world – in Sliders terminology, a parallel Earth – where the total human population on the planet is half a billion people. Compare that with our own just over seven billion. With fewer people overall, public transportation is free, whatever goods you pay for have prices resembling the 1950s (12 apples for twenty-five cents), and if you need extra cash just go to an ATM-like kiosk, state your name and where you're staying and ask for any amount of money. You'll get entered into The Lottery and if you win you get unlimited privileges for twenty-four hours, and the five million dollar prize will go to your family as inheritance. For you, the lucky Lottery winner, will kill yourself to “make way” for your survivors as well as for others to keep enjoying this world. Or the Lottery Police will do it for you.

I cite the basic premise of “Luck of the Draw” because I watched this episode Monday night and also because it's the episode that introduced me to the television show Sliders. It's also one of the most unnerving – considering how lottery fever often infects people in our world (and they're not even getting money back unless they win and win big) I have to wonder how many people would play who play incessantly now if the price of their winning was their premature departure from this mortal coil. “Right-to-lifers” in Lottery World are not foes of abortion but rather of the Lottery itself – by one statistic cited in the episode, it's already killed fifty thousand people nationwide. I don't play a lottery myself (not very often) but when I see people do it, when I myself do so, I'm a mite more fearful of any of us winning! Not because we're going to get killed for winning, but that all our wants will suddenly become needs because – well, what outside of time will stop us fulfilling them?

It's the first day of spring, and I'm dwelling on that? Well, tonight is the Wednesday before Palm Sunday, the last Wednesday our church will be serving Lenten soup and sandwich suppers (which as usual I can't get to due to my work schedule), and upon bringing Sarah and Jeffrey to school I settled down and enjoyed some quiet. Personally, I enjoy it way too much lately. And I've promised to play catch up on the books I've read, at least writing something about them. And related to the beginning, believe it or not (though you don't find this out until the end, kinda like Battlestar Galactica's time frame) is Joan Aiken written and Alan Lee illustrated The Moon's Revenge (ISBN 0394993802), where a boy who's the seventh son of a seventh son doesn't want to be just a coach maker like his father.

No, he wants to play the fiddle; no, he wants to be the best fiddle player ever! And as the seventh son of a seventh son, he gets to make a wish on the moon after he throws seven shoes at it, one a night over seven nights. You would think throwing the shoes would do nothing to the moon (it being so far away and all) but the moon – or at least the personification of it in this children's story – takes his sister's voice as payment. AND for seven years the boy Sep can't wear any shoes on his feet either. Turns out his fiddle-playing skills come in handy when the seven years are up and a sea monster comes for the city, and the village is saved. While Sep still becomes a coach maker, he does acquire the rep of the best fiddler around, ultimately playing at all six of King Henry VIII's weddings. About a hundred fifty years after Edward.

Enjoy day one of spring with the snow! David