Humble & Kind | City Reliquary Museum | Ancient Rome | YouTube Rabbithole
Alright @YouTheReader,
Today’s Tim McGraw tune on this Sunday Stumblin’ Along is his Humble and Kind. This song came out in ‘16 and thankfully a song like this made it to #30 on the US Billboard Hot 100. It proves there are still plenty of people out there who like listening to songs about trying to do good.
Tim McGraw simply sets the scene of the place where he grew up. Everybody who has a home knows its intricacies like an odd light that might need to be fixed or that you need to check under the flower pot by the door for a spare key.
Jeez, well, I’ve missed mass a few times, but I’m blessed to have a mother who is an absolute saint. Week to Week Notes for sure takes up a lot of my free time. I might go months without seeing friends, but I do make a point of emphasis to try to see my grandparents at least once or twice a month and it’s never wasted time.
These lines are about not taking the easy way out. Doing the extra deed or being truthful might be more work, but it’s worth it.
When you work hard at your dreams, sometimes you accomplish goals. It’s okay to feel a bit proud but don’t be over the top.
Put your head down and keep working. When you don’t expect anything from anyone, you become independent, which is a strength. McGraw is 100% right here, holding grudges or chips on your shoulder will only hold you back.
Ain’t that the truth?
Chrous was so nice, he had to sing it twice.
This verse too, has no reason not to sing it again.
Sometimes it’s best to just cool off with a popsicle and take in your natural environment, you don’t need the AC blaring or your phone ringing off the hook.
Great tune! I mean, who wouldn’t prefer to be humble & kind rather than arrogant & mean? Tomorrow’s tune is a bit more ego-fueled but it’ll probably draw more eyeballs. Usually, these sorta songs don’t get much traction if any. That said, I promise to try to always stay humble and kind, it’s the better way to live.
On to Stumblin’ Along…
Quite a few Sundays ago, somehow in my drunken stupor, I Stumbled Along to The City Reliquary in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The museum filled with cool New York City history is open on Saturdays and Sundays from Noon to 6 PM. For a $10 visit, you can see a ton of cool relics from The City. This week's Stumblin’ Along on Week to Week Notes features another piece on the history of Downer’s Pharmacy.
Located on the corner of North 4th Street and Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, Downer’s Pharmacy was once a staple in Brooklyn. Today it is a Diptyque that sells candles and perfume, but at one point it was run by a pharmacist by the name of WM J. Downer. Not to be a downer, but the name is perfect for an early 20th-century drug pharmacy, no?
There is very little information on this WM J. Downer fella. For instance, I don’t even know if his name is William but I’m about to run with that for this exercise. His name appears on many of the old artifacts seen on the display above. He concocted medicines such as acetylsalicylic acid (aka aspirin), DL-Menthol (for skin rashes), Berberine (for the heart), and Eucalyptol which is a key ingredient in mouthwash & cough suppressants. He also would put customers in a Lavender Haze with his lavender flower, which treats headaches, nervous disorders, and exhaustion. Apparently, the smell of lavender also calms babies, that’s a fun fact I learned from Shane.
Sidenote: I was thinking of asking City Reliquary if I could try one of the gumballs but I didn’t want to make a whole scene with it being behind the glassed-off display. They look good, might lose a tooth trying to crack the shell, but they look good.
There is very little on the internet about Downer the pharmacist, but I did see that he was a member of the Torrey Botanical Club as his name was featured in a February 1920 issue of Torreya. The Torrey Botanical Club was informally established back in 1860 by a Columbia College professor named John Torrey. They produced their first official publication called the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club back in 1870 and became an incorporated company in 1871. Since its inception, members of the club would collect and identify plants while occasionally meeting to discuss their findings. They are still around today as they have rebranded from a club to Torrey Botanical Society. The objectives of the organization today are “to promote interest in botany, and to collect and disseminate information on all phases of plant science.”
Now I don’t want to be telling stories and I can’t really confirm this, but a William J. Downer also appears in Sewage Works Journal from 1944. Could our WM J Downer have picked up from Brooklyn and decided he wanted to be a Chief Sanitary Engineer during WWII? Maybe, I mean they specifically call him Mr. Wm. J Downer in the piece below…
During WWII, WM J Downer was responsible for the Health and Safety of Illinois. Being a pharmacist and a member of the Torrey Botanical Club would be all the credentials I would need to put him in charge of wartime operating problems in municipal and army sewage treatment plants. He and his men would test out pools in the Illinois area to make sure they were clean of sewage. It appears the Illinois Department of Health at this time in 1944 lost a lot of good workers to the war or other wartime companies who would pay more for their services. Again, I don’t know for a fact if this is the same guy, but I’d like to think so, it’d make for a more interesting story.
This Week’s Bit on The Roman Empire
This week your quick bit on The Roman Empire brought to you by Week to Week Notes featuring Ancient Rome: The Exhibition in New York is on Meridian Sundial.
The Meridian Sundial was originally from Ancient Greece. It became much more prominent in Rome at the beginning of the Punic War of 263 BC. That war was between the Roman and Carthaginian Empires. 3 Punic Wars took place and the first one had battles that were ongoing from 264 BC to 241 BC. It started in the city of Messana (Messina today) which is the straits between Italy and Sicily. Carthage had a hold on Sicily while the Ancient Romans had the rest of Italy. After the first war, the Carthaginians would give up Sicily and the Lipari Islands, but they would start fighting the 2nd Punic War just a few years later.
Back to the Meridian Sundial, the Romans divided each day into two parts. They called the first part of the day Ante Meridian (before noon) and the second part of the day Post Meridian (afternoon). This is how we today have an AM and PM. That’s pretty important and cool!
To read the sundial is fairly straightforward. You would simply just look at where the shadow falls from the dial’s central rod and read the time it tells you on the flat disk marked with the hours of the day. The shadow moves across the clock’s face as the sun crosses the sky over the day. The hours on the sun dial’s face mark the incremental passage of time. Horizontal Meridians came in various forms and sizes. They could be found all over Roman Cities such as the one above. Some Romans even carried pocket-sized sundials with them and others even would fix a small rod to the center of a coin marked with hours. These Ancient people had their own pocket watches. Class.
(Source: Ancient Rome: The Exhibition in New York)
Make Your Own Meridian Sundial
Here is an arts and crafts project for Baby Shane since he won’t ask me to have a catch maybe he’ll like this…
Materials
- Pencil. Paper. Straw…Maybe use a paper straw. Bowl. Ruler. Scissors…Maybe don’t give Shane the pair of scissors.
1) Gather the supplies above.
2) Turn your bowl upside down and trace a circle.
3) Cut out the circle.
4) Use a ruler to find the center of the circle.
5) Poke a hole in the center of the circle and place the paper straw inside.
6) Use a ruler to measure and mark the times on your 1 to 12.
7) Check out PBS For Kids because they explain it much better with pictures than I can with words.
In 395 AD, the Roman Empire became 2 separate Empires. The Western Empire consisted of Italy, Gaul (present-day France), and Britain. Remember, the Romans wanted no part in trying to conquer the Irish back in those days. The Eastern Empire consisted of Egypt, Palestine, Asia Minor (present-day Turkey), and the Greek Macedonia. In the Western Empire, they spoke Latin. In the Eastern Empire, they spoke Greek. Both states practiced Christianity as their official religion from 380 AD onwards. Thanks, Grandma! ❤️