MARILYN CORNWELL: traditional

Traditional: belonging to the customs or ways of behaving that have continued in a group or society. Typically it has special significance or symbolic meaning.

The latin verb it comes from means to transmit, to hand over, to give for safekeeping. Don't we have patterns large and small that are created and then repeated by circumstance, for efficiency and effectiveness? I think of this as being in support of survival. For example, what if we could drive on any side of the road on any day? But this wouldn't be considered a tradition. This is part of conventions. They are a set of agreed, stipulated, or generally accepted standards, norms, or criteria, often taking the form of a custom.

And then there is custom - a usage or practice common to many or to a particular place or class or habitual within an individual, considered as unwritten law, or conventions that regulate social life.

So traditions and conventions and customs are intertwined. What got me interested in traditions was the headlines of news articles. Traditions in news articles and headlines is represented as a phrase with one of the following: interesting, shocking, dangerous, jaw dropping, strange, amazing, Swedish, and German. I found it hilarious that Sweden and Germany made it to the strange and shocking group. Other countries are represented in the cultural traditions search term.

This leads one to laughing, so it must mean that it is time to move to the joke about 'tradition' that is reproduced everywhere.

During a service at an old synagogue in Eastern Europe, when a particular prayer was said, half the congregants stood up and half remained sitting. The half that was seated started yelling at those standing to sit down, and the ones standing yelled at the ones sitting to stand up. The new rabbi, learned as he was in the Law and commentaries, didn't know what to do. His congregation suggested that he consult a housebound 98-year-old man who was one of the original founders of their shul. The rabbi hoped the elderly man would be able to tell him what the actual tradition was, so he went to the nursing home with a representative of each faction of the congregation.

The one whose followers stood during the prayer asked the old man, "Is the tradition to stand during this prayer?"

The old man answered, "No, that is not the tradition."

The one whose followers sat said, "Then the tradition is to sit!"

The old man answered, "No, that is not the tradition."

Then the rabbi said to the old man, "But the congregants fight all the time, yelling at each other about whether they should sit or stand."

The old man interrupted, exclaiming, "THAT is the tradition!"

We've launched the Fantasy of Trees social media postings. The Fantasy of Trees is the Rotary Club of Grimsby's annual fundraiser. It is a display of Christmas trees, wreaths, and more. Raffle tickets are sold and the tree, wreaths and items are won and taken home in time for Christmas. There's an auction table and some of the trees and wreaths are sold that way. Trees are sponsored and decorated in creative and interesting themes.

I decided that we might be able to expand our display and revenues with really great wreaths. Here's the pinterest page for the wreaths that we've created over the year - this is a screen shot of the page a few days ago.

The festival runs Nov 22 to Dec 8, 2019 - you might want to be a sponsor of one of these great wreaths!