You Learn Something New EVERY Day



Charles Stratton aka Tom Thuimb and his lovely bride Lavinia 1863

In search of the vocations and/or avocations for the third act of my life, I am exploring reading books for a group called "Learning Ally." You would know them under their previous monikers "Recording for the Blind" and in the 80s and 90s, "Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic". What has become manifest for the organization is that the visually impaired are actually one of many who can use the assist of this form of educational aide. It is a wonderful tool that frees so many people, young and old, to learn without restriction.


I thought that while I was going down a new potential occupational road, I should also use my ability to read and enunciate in a manner that gives back to the community and reflects my gratefulness for a gift of gab and narration that was given to me by Divine Providence and the right confluence of genetics.


The organization is run by a great bunch of young enthusiastic men and women and I began my training two weeks ago. You don't jump immediately to reading yourself, but in fact begin by checking the work of other long term volunteers. Everything is computerized now and so with headphones planted, I listened last week to a college primer on psychological development.


This time, I learned about Tom Thumb. I checked virtually the whole book (it was only about a 100 pages). I remember seeing a movie about what I understood to be a totally fictional Tom, played back in my childhood by the dancer Russ Tamblyn (father of Amber of the Travelling Pants). And I suppose he is or was in that stories abotu him began way back in the 17th century.


But a REAL person existed who took on the name and the characterization at the age of 5 or 6.  He was born Charles Stratton and found himself a lifelong employee, then partner of the circus show producer, PT Barnum. Mr. Barnum made a career out of his pronouncement "There's a sucker born every minute", and was a purveyor of what used to be known as the "freak" show back in the mid 1800s and into the 1900's. Finding Mr. Stratton, he created an international sensation, claiming that the boy-man was age 11 when he was age six. True Mr. Thumb never grew to any great height, but he did grow about three to four inches more than his original stature upon discovery by PT. He took London by storm meeting Queen Victoria and Prince Albert (before he was in a can). He married just around the time of the Battle of Fredricksberg during the horror of the Civil War and was a celebrity of his time distracting people from their woes. He died of a stroke in his early 40s and his lovely wife, remarried another little person who was either for real or not, a Count.


What else of importance did I learn today? And I have to tell you, I feel like I could now become a successful Jeopardy contestant if my memory allows  because of this new volunteer job.  You know the word "humbug"? I never really understood what it meant, partcularly as used in the short sentence by Scrooge to demean the Christmas holidays, "Bah, humbug!"  Come on, do you know what it means? Really. You always knew? Well, alas, my education has been lacking but thanks to PT and Tom I have been enlightened and I am delighted in the extreme, almost as much as when I discovered the word "quidnunc" (Really, look it up).


Well, until Mr. Barnum redefined the word to his liking, a "humbug" was a deception, a fraud, like many of his featured players.  So, when Mr. Scrooge was saying humbug, he was not just saying he did NOT LIKE Christmas, but that it was a fraud. Oh, no!


But as for me, I am purely excited by the day I have had, learning about Mr. Stratton aka Thumb, his wife, his life, Mr. Barnun, and the true meaning of the word "humbug".  This not working thing will be endless discovery I am thinking.