Pennsylvania Dutch Version of Dies Ist der Daumen – This Is the Thumb
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Pennsylvania Dutch Version of Dies Ist der Daumen – This Is the Thumb
Saturday, October 17th, 2009I’ve been asked several times for the Pennsylvania Dutch Version of the German rhyme Dies Ist der Daumen – This Is the Thumb. Today I received the version below thanks to Luke and Mary Martin. Here’s what Luke wrote…
My wife and I are also familiar with many of the German songs. This morning while looking for them, I found the finger rhyme, and your question about the Pennsylvania German variation. This is the song my father used to sing to us – seven children. Pennsylvania German has many varieties of spelling, and perhaps you can sharpen up the spelling. (My wife, Mary, and I worked at the pronunciation and spelling of the Pennsylvania German Finger Song. Mary grew up speaking Pennsylvania German.) Here it goes…
Des ist die Daume
Des ist die Daume
Der schittelt die Plaume
Der laest sie ouf
Der traught sie Haem
Und des glae Bopplemaul
Bopplet alles mit’n ahnna da Haem.This is the thumb.
This [one] shakes the plums,
This [one] picks them up,
This [one] brings them home,
And this little tattletale tells everyone at home.It was always spoken, not sung.
Thanks for your work in collecting old songs.
Luke Martin
(Pennsylvania)If anyone would like to give other variations of the spelling, feel free to in the comments below. Many thanks to Luke Martin for sending this version of the rhyme to us!
Enjoy!
Mama Lisa
Great Chinatown Restaurant in New York City
Friday, March 13th, 2009New Wonton Garden in New York’s Chinatown is a delicious, inexpensive restaurant. It’s not fancy by any means. But it serves yummy dim sum and wonton soup (oddles of varieties). A great place to go if you’re looking for taste without spending a fortune. We fed four for less than $40 including the tip. (Though we didn’t eat entries.) The soup was so filling with the dim sum that we were too full.
Blog about Living in New Orleans
Wednesday, February 25th, 2009Check out the Toulouse Blog about life in New Orleans.
Here’s an excerpt of what he had to say approaching the Mardi Gras…
When one is called to Carnival, the first question will always be: what do I wear?
…You must simply find or make a mask, one that calls you to wear it, that dictates the costume that accompanies it, that leads you to surrender yourself to the spirit of the mask.
It need not even be a mask. My “mask” this year is a tri-corner, Asian-styled hat. I do not have the costume, but I already see the costume. When you can see the character in the object, when you can see yourself in the character, you will have found the one.
Without that mask, you can only be The Tourist. We see them at Carnival common as sparrows, and the camera is their mask. They come, take Carnival’s blurry picture and go home with fabulous hangovers… If you come do not choose to be The Tourist. Carnival is an occasion to be the spirit you know inside you. So take on your mask,… and enter through the gate The Tourists never pass, down the carriageway that opens into the courtyard at the heart of Carnival. It is filled with masks and spirits.
If reading the Toulouse blog gets you in the New Orleans mood, head on over to Home of the Groove to listen to some New Orleans music – (including some songs typically played in the Mardi Gras parade). You’ll feel like you’re in the heart of New Orleans. Bon voyage!
Mama Lisa
Designers’ Sketches for Michelle Obama for the Inauguration
Tuesday, December 9th, 2008WWD Fashion asked designers to send in sketches for clothing designs for Michelle Obama and her daughters to wear on Inauguration Day on January 20th – when Obama officially becomes President. Check out the results at WWD.com.
The sketch above was done by Isaac Mizrahi for Michelle, Sasha and Malia.
My daughter and I enjoyed watching the slide show together and picking out the dresses we liked best!
Photos of a Phillies Parade – A Sea of People All in Red
Saturday, November 1st, 2008The Phillies won the American baseball World Series on Wednesday. Yesterday they had a parade in Philadelphia to celebrate it.
My friend Ray Lee sent me this photo below. He took it from his office building when the parade was passing by. I love the photo and wanted to post it here. After the original picture, you’ll see a couple of attempts I made to crop it and enhance the color. It’s interesting to see such a mass of people wearing red!
Thanks to Ray for sharing his photo!
Mama Lisa
Bay Ridge – A Norwegian Neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York
Thursday, September 18th, 2008Guest Blogger, Ed Gawlinski, has been involved in many cultural organizations throughout his life. He grew up in Brooklyn, New York, near Bay Ridge, which was then a Norwegian neighborhood.
The Norwegian neighborhood is now a great place for Middle Eastern cuisine. There are many fine restaurants in this area. Many of the shops include Arabic in their signs. However, the Norwegians still have their annual Norwegian Day Parade there every May. May 17th marks the Norwegian Constitution Day celebration. This is when Norway declared its independence from Sweden. Swedish-Americans do not have any hard feelings about this. Swedes from Connecticut go to Brooklyn each May to participate in this Parade.
Back in the 1960’s many of the Catholic Churches in Brooklyn sponsored Drum and Bugle corps to keep their youth out of mischief. The people who played in one of these, The Ridgemen of Our Lady of Perpetual Help during the 1960’s have formed an “alumni” Drum and Bugle Corps and march in this parade every year.
Off Topic Note from Mama Lisa: Ed’s story about the bugle corps keeping the youth out of mischief was interesting. This must have been common in the past. It reminds me of the story of how Louis Armstrong starting playing the trumpet… (Click the link if you’d like to learn more!)
A Walk Around Cultural Brooklyn
Monday, September 15th, 2008Guest Blogger, Ed Gawlinski, has been involved in many cultural organizations throughout his life. He grew up in Brooklyn, New York. You can tell his heart still belongs there by something he wrote to me the other day, “It is a small world, and in some ways it revolves around Brooklyn!” Here’s what Ed wrote last month…
I was in Brooklyn, NY this past weekend visiting my mother, who is in her 90s. I took a walk through what a few decades ago would have taken me from an Irish neighborhood (Sunset Park) into a Polish neighborhood (Park Slope). The ethnic flavor has changed over the years. The current flavor is mostly Mexican. There are a lot of Mexican restaurants that look very inviting. The ones that I have tried have excellent food. On Sunday there was a block party on the street next to Sunset Park. At this event there were several young children performing Mexican folk dances. They were quite good and their costumes were stunning.
I thought you might like to see a few pictures of this…
I took those pictures on a walk to Greenwood Cemetery. There are a lot of famous people buried there and they have fascinating walking tours through this beautiful cemetery. Sunset Park and Greenwood Cemetery were also part of the Battle of Brooklyn. This was the biggest battle during the American Revolution. In Greenwood Cemetery there is a monument commemorating this part of the Revolutionary War. This monument includes a statue of the Greek Goddess Minerva who is looking out at New York Harbor. If you stand behind Minerva you can see that she is looking at the Statue of Liberty. Lady Liberty, in turn is looking at Minerva.
Here are a couple of pictures of this that you might enjoy.
If you come to New York City as a tourist, don’t miss Brooklyn. Take the RR subway to the 25th Street station, walk up the hill to Greenwood Cemetery and take the walking tour. When you finish, and go out the main gate, turn right and have something to eat at the Mexican restaurant, or cross the street and eat at the Polish restaurant. Then take the 5th Avenue bus to 60th Street and see the biggest church in Brooklyn which was founded by Irish immigrants but now has ministers for Spanish and Chinese speaking parishioners. Walk up to 6th Avenue and notice the minaret of a mosque a few blocks on your right. Continue to 8th Avenue to shop at the large number of Chinese stores. Don’t expect to see many signs in English. You should end your tour back at 5th Avenue and find a Middle Eastern restaurant between 70th Street and 90th Street. Catch the RR subway back to Manhattan on 4th Avenue.
Enjoy!
Ed Gawlinski
Touring Amish Country
Tuesday, September 11th, 2007Last month we brought our children to the Amish country in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
The Amish are a group of Christians originally from Germany, Switzerland and the Alsace region of France. They immigrated to the US in the 18th century. They believe in being separate from the society around them.
Amish people don’t use electricity, automobiles or other modern conveniences. Amish kids don’t use bicycles (though they do use Amish style scooters).
When you visit a region where the Amish live, you can see them driving around in horse drawn buggies. If you’d like, you can even get a tour of the area in a buggy. That’s what we did. Our driver was very nice and he gave our kids an extra thrill by letting them take turns driving it.
Driving around Amish country, you can see the dresses and clothes the Amish wear hanging out to dry. The Amish prefer dark colors: black, maroon, deep blues and purples. The women wear dresses that hang below the knee with bonnets covering their heads. The men wear pants, shirts, jackets and hats. Married men don’t shave off their beards.
Our buggy driver had been Amish as a child and he welcomed questions about the culture. Of course we had a bunch!
Do the Amish have plumbing? Yes, they have indoor plumbing. Do they use anything for heat? Yes, they use coal stoves and generators. The important thing is that they don’t have to rely on the outside world for their energy (like an electric company). Do they pay taxes? Yes, they do – but not Social Security (a tax that you pay in the US to help old people afford to live after they retire). They don’t pay Social Security because they sign a waiver that they won’t receive it when they grow old. Do Amish people go to doctors? Yes, they do. They don’t generally use telephones unless it’s for something like a medical emergency.
We noticed that some of the Amish houses we passed on our buggy ride had aluminum siding. We were curious if it was all right for the Amish to buy supplies from the outside world. (It was hard to imagine them manufacturing aluminum siding.) Our driver said the Amish will, in fact, sometimes buy equipment from outside their community.
My son asked if the Amish observe any holidays. Our driver said they celebrate Easter and Christmas.
Then we asked a general question about schooling. He said many Amish go to school in one room school houses run by the Amish instead of going to public schools. They only attend school until the 8th grade.
Finally, our driver told us about how the Amish organize themselves (at least in the Lancaster area where he grew up). He said that several households will make up a church district. The members meet every other Sunday for a service that is held in a member’s house (as opposed to a church). The following Sunday will be devoted to spending the day together as a community.
Much of Amish lifestyle is geared towards spending time together as a family or community. You can see this when you tour, when you often see whole families farming together.
Finally, we reached our destination, an Amish house and store. There we bought root beer floats made by two Amish boys. They said their mother had made the root beer herself.
It was interesting to see such a totally different way of life. I’m glad my children were able to see that people can live so differently, even in their own country.
There are indeed other ways to live, outside of our information packed, high-speed, electronic world – interesting and lively though it is!
(By the way – It’s important to remember, the Amish aren’t putting on a show for our benefit. They’re real people, going about their real lives. So if you do visit their area, treat them with respect and courtesy. One thing in particular to keep in mind is that Amish don’t like being photographed, so don’t take any snapshots of them without explicit permission.)
24 Hours on a Dairy Farm
Friday, September 7th, 2007This past summer we took a trip to Pennsylvania with our kids. Our first stop was at a dairy farm in a town called Paradise. The farm had about 40 cows and grew corn to feed them.
We each got to milk a cow – which was a weird experience. It’s something I’ve never done before. My son was particularly good at it – so I told him that maybe he should leave his video games behind and go and live on a farm! Just kidding of course!
The farmers normally use machines for milking. That way they get 4-5 gallons of milk out of each cow per day, as opposed to 1+ gallon per day if they milked the cows by hand into a bucket.
Most of the milk on the farm we visited is sent to Land O’ Lakes to make butter and to Hershey’s to make chocolate. That was interesting to find out, as later in our trip we were going to Hershey’s.
The farmer gave us a tour of the whole farm and talked about his crops. It was interesting to hear about how his whole life revolves around the weather – much more than for people living in the suburbs or a city. Yet he does use modern conveniences in that he uses high speed internet access to find out what the weather reports are. (He also uses artificial insemination to propagate his herd – rather than have a bull on site – which can be dangerous.)
On the tour, we all got to pick an ear of corn and to later feed it to the cows. The cows eat the whole thing: the corn, the corncob, the leaves and the silk. We learnt that cows have four stomachs for digesting – that’s why they can eat such tough food (that we can’t digest) like grass and corncobs.
Our kids got to feed two week old calves with very large bottles of milk. The calves are already pretty large at that age. So they need a lot of milk.
We slept in guest rooms in a special section of the farmer’s house. The next morning, all of the guests had breakfast together. We had raw, un-pasteurized milk – straight from the cows. I’ve never had milk that tasted so fresh and creamy! (It was recommended by the farmer that pregnant women and infants didn’t drink it.) They also served homemade yogurt, fresh sausage, scrambled eggs (the eggs came from the poultry farmer next door) and peach cobbler.
I think this was a great experience for the kids, while interesting and enjoyable for us adults. I’d recommend a trip like this for anyone. It gave the kids another perspective on the world, while being hands-on fun. It’s nice when vacations can be restful, yet open the mind to other possibilities in life!
Cherry Blossom Festivals Around the World
Sunday, March 26th, 2006In previous entries I talked about the importance of Cherry Blossoms in Japan.
In 1912 the mayor of Tokyo gave a gift of 3000 cherry trees to the city of Washington D.C., thus spreading the love of cherry blossom viewing to North America.
Nowadays, Washington D.C. hosts the National Cherry Blossom Festival. I’ve been there and it was really beautiful to see a mass of cherry blossoms in bloom.
Below are links to some Cherry Blossom Festivals Around the World. If you know of any others, please comment below.
Japan Guide to Cherry Blossom Viewing (Sakura Matsuri)
The Jinhae Gunhang Festival in Korea
Cherry Blossom Festival in Vancouver
Wulai Cherry Blossoms Festival in Taiwan
Cherry blossoms feast at San-Zi Township in Taiwan
Cherry Blossom Festival in Northern California
Cherry Blossom Festival in San Francisco
Cherry Blossom Festival in Seattle, Washington
Cherry Blossom Festival in Hawaii
Cherry Blossom Festival in Philadelphia
Cherry Blossom Festival in Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, New York
Cherry Blossom Festival in Macon, Georgia
Here’s a photo from when we went to view the Cherry Blossoms. I was pregnant with my son at the time.
Photo of the Washington Monument
Tuesday, March 14th, 2006Here’s a great photo my friend Ray Lee took. He was looking at the Washington Monument from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C.
Thanks for sharing your photo Ray!
Lisa
The Movie Musical 1776
Tuesday, January 10th, 2006A while back I was writing about visiting Philadelphia with kids.
If you’re planning to visit Independence Hall in Philadelphia, I would recommend watching the musical 1776 (filmed in 1972) before your trip. It really brings Independence Hall to life.
It helps you and your kids understand what took place in that one room, called the Assembly Room, in the days leading up to the Declaration of Independence.
Plus, it’s a lot of fun!
Independence Hall
Monday, September 26th, 2005
(Philadelphia with Kids – Part 3)This is the place where both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were written. It’s the most important building in American history.
The tour was nice and quick, so the kids could deal with it. It was basically in three rooms. The first room was the main Philadelphia courthouse in 1776. The guide told a great story that my son Calvin loved: In colonial times, the Coat of Arms of King George III hung prominently behind the judge’s bench. Then, after the Declaration was signed, it was torn down in a raucous ceremony and dragged through the streets of the city!
While in the courthouse, our tour guide also talked about the history of the creation of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
Then we went to see the room where both documents were created and signed. We saw the seat where George Washington sat.
It was a good time to bring Calvin. He had just studied the early history of the US government in 5th grade.
Independence Hall is a must-see for anyone visiting Philadelphia. And it’s important that older kids understand the significance of the building where the country was born. It’s also good for them to understand how the quality of thought and debate at that time remains unsurpassed in the nation’s history.
The tour was short enough that the kids tolerated it. My 4 your old daughter actually fell asleep in her stroller, so we were lucky.
The Liberty Bell
Sunday, September 25th, 2005
(Philadelphia with Kids – Part 2)We had to get free tickets to visit the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall.
Once there, we were surprised at how tight the security was. We had to go through metal detectors. It reminded me of going through airport security.
Once inside, you go through a large hall with a self-guided tour where you read about the liberty bell, and see memorabilia related to it.
One interesting point is the Liberty Bell was made in England to go in the bell tower on top of Independence Hall in Philadelphia. It weighs over 2000 pounds.
On the bell it says, “Proclaim Liberty thro’ all the Land to all the Inhabitants thereof.”
Within less than a year of the bell being hung in the tower it cracked. That changed the sound of the ring. But they still rang it for major events including the ratification of the Constitution.
On the government’s site for the Liberty Bell it says, “The old State House bell was first called the ‘Liberty Bell’ by a group trying to outlaw slavery. These abolitionists remembered the words on the bell and, in the 1830s, adopted it as a symbol of their cause.”
The Liberty Bell rang for the last time in February 1846. While it was being rung for George Washington’s birthday, it suffered an irreparable fracture.
Interesting Point: The Liberty Bell March, by John Philip Sousa, was written for when the bell was brought on tours around the U.S. They had parades with it. It turns out the Liberty Bell March was also used by Monty Python as its theme song. It’s very disconcerting to hear the Monty Python theme play in the background while visiting one of America’s most famous patriotic relics!
The U.S. Mint
Sunday, September 25th, 2005
(Philadelphia with Kids – Part 1)My husband Jason, and I took our 11 year old son and 4 year old daughter to Philadelphia in August. We went with our friend Raymond who lives near there.
My son, Calvin, really wanted to visit the US Mint there to see how they make money. (Mints only make coins and medals not paper money.) That was our first stop. We got to the front door and a guard asked us if we had any cameras – they’re prohibited. Ray’s cell phone had a built in camera, so that counted. The guard said we couldn’t take it in and that there was no place where it could be stored.
Jason graciously said he would take the cell phone and just walk around the area with my daughter, who would be bored inside anyway. So just Raymond, Calvin and I went in.
The mint only offers “self-guided” tours. You basically walk down a long hallway with a window looking down on the area where they make the money. As you move along, you read signs about the history of the US Mint. There are interesting facts about how the money is made and information about the people who are on the coins and medals.
It was disappointing how little you could see what was going on below. We read how they make blanks of each type of coin and then the blanks go into machines that imprint them. It was impressive to see the huge vats of blank pennies.
But, like my son said, “It was good, but you couldn’t get close enough to the coins.”
________
Copyright ©2009 by Lisa Yannucci. All rights reserved.
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