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Callahan's January 2000 Bar Rag!"To Callahan's Warmth
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" Here's to friends we can count on, living, dead and missing. We count your memory with each beat of our hearts. Many of us count your importance by the fact that we still draw breath. You gave to us the ability to appreciate the true beauty of the human spirit. The ineffable quality that makes one person risk his or her life to protect another. Here's to you." ******SMASH****** --: (AJONZ3) An anniversary...and a belated thank you Hi all - and Happy New Year! Lots of news this month.. starting with the naming of three new tenders. We're very please and grateful that JP (JP) and Brigitte (SPROCKIES) have become conference 'tenders this month; and GreyLensman (PHOTO11) has become our first official conference *and* message board 'tender. We warmly welcome them all! Brigitte will begin hosting a Monday Night conference later this month and Ken will start hosting on Thursday nights. Ken will host on all four Thursdays which means we'll have two rooms open on Poetry Nights. Hard as it may be to believe, there are those out there who just don't care for poetry..:) David introduced us all to a new drink concoction named Benedictions - similar to a God's Blessing but made with hot cocoa instead of coffee.. It's been a big hit at the bar! We're celebrating the Earth this month in Callahan's - and all the ways people measure time. It appears most of us have survived Y2K intact and with all the hoopla we may have forgotten that to most of the world's population, the year is not 2000 at all! Whatever year you may be celebrating at the moment, it looks quite likely (I guarantee it!) that before the Earth fully orbits the Sun again, we'll be having a non-cyber Gathering of Callahanians. Do join our board discussion to help choose a place (or places) and time.. Cstar and Ken have both reminisced on our board recently in a thread that Cstar began - and reading their stories it's hard not to be caught up in the emotion of what Callahan's means to many of us.
I can only hope it means as much to all of
our readers as it does to our regular patrons
and friends.. and that we all translate the
warm feelings we have for *the place* into
warm feelings for our fellow patrons and friends
- old and new - who make the place so magical.
And the beat goes on...! We added quite a bit of content to our Website this month starting with the Longer Puns area. Individual new longer puns include An Accident, the Bellringer, Twins and A Bit Deep. We also added a collective poem, created by several patrons in a collaborative action, named Cries. And as usual, several new patrons were added to our Patron's Page. Poetry night isn't just for poets. Feel free to drop by and just lurk for a while; we manage to do about six poems an hour, some of which are bound to appeal. The next dates are January 6 and 20. We did have a flood of people join us for the New Years Eve party... and as is typical - lots of folks spent their holidays with Callahan's... sharing Christmas Eve and Christmas day with us - their on-line family. We've had a wonderful year in Conference... watching the average attendance number jump from around 10 to around 15...a jump of over 50%! We'll be working towards a conference each month to support our Monthly Message Board Themes in Callahans.... so look for the theme in the Message Board each month, and then look for an announcement regarding when the conference supporting that Theme will be... As usual we had lots of fun threads but we also had an unfortunate blowup and two threads were closed to further posting. We're learning to disagree better though and are confidant that in the aftermath of the disturbance, we have become a healthier community of friends. Happily, we spent much more time on other matters such as Teaching Reading, and on redecorating (yet again) in the Dear Lou thread. Lou *thinks* he sees an expensive ongoing project happening but... it was just a tree..:) Vickie reported on the results of Operation Butterball, which was an overwhelming success. Your participation is appreciated and everyone involved is grateful to Elizabeth Kate and Vickie for co-chairing the campaign this year. Big News! Selena is pregnant! She's was a bit confused about how this turn of events took place - but we explained it all to her very carefully. Also - she and Brendan have opened their new bookstore - read all about it... Why? Some questions have no answers! One of the liveliest discussion in December was initiated when David described his *annual* Christmas clean up. His apartment sparkles but - when will he clean it again? Cstar started a thread named "Counting on You " that was both serious and silly at times. See for yourself. We discussed the nature of being confrontational in Wanna Fight? which may help us all realize how confrontational we may seem - or be at times. And finally, maybe the best thing that happened
in December was the introduction of a new
drink in the bar. David Kirwand mixed up something
called a
Benediction
Birthday Greetings were heartily extended to:
Ilyana, as usual, was first to solve Mikel's December 1999 riddle! Barb and Gwen (PUNSTERGAL) came in second and third. Congratulations to all! It's a lot easier to create a riddle than to solve one. We're always on the lookout for help with content here so send us your riddle creations today! And see our January 2000 Riddle for your chance to win a Spider Robinson book from our bookstore! A dear friend of mine sent me this card. I found it quite funny, I hope you do too. When I was little, I always had lots of fun! I lived in this big penthouse in a little town called Mayberry, with my brothers Arnold and Willis and Bobby and Peter and Greg and Potsy, and my dogs Tiger and Petey. We played games with the girls down the street-- Joanie and Jenny Piccolo and Marcia and Jan and Cindy and Shirley and Laverne. They were all really great. When we got a little older, sometimes we'd all hop in our friend Ruben Kincaid's bus and head over to the other side of town to see my friends Fat Albert and Dumb Donald and Arnold Horseshack and Radar O'Reilly. They were cool, but not like this one guy-- his name was the Fonz. He worked at this nuclear plant for a really mean guy named Mr. Burns. The Fonz had a girlfriend, Jodi, and she lived with her uncle, Mr. French and her Aunt Bea. They were very nice! Not like that old Mr. Sanford. He was a grouch, but his son J.J. was a real hip dude. He was always sayin' stuff like, "DY-NO-MITE!!", and "NA-NU-NA-NU!", and "KISS MY GRITS!" ...... Yeah, J.J. was a good guy. And I always liked his sister, Tootie, too! Unfortunately, their Mom, Mrs. Garrett, never liked me... (Inside of card said:) She said I watched too much TV and needed to get a life... Yeah right. "Whatever" Carlton Cards The scary part about this card is that I knew all of the characters mentioned... LOL -- JUDY (JUDITH64) Forward, Ho Poem of the Month - Summer Solstice Why is the December poem called "Summer Solstice"? Because its author, Vickie (MIDUSTOUCH), hails from Australia. Perhaps I should say "howls", her poem was notable for getting half a dozen Callahanians to exercise their canine vocal powers. Here am I, No moon to watch, So waiting, -- Vickie (MIDUSTOUCH), December 1999 Here is a sample of what went on in Pun Night. Stop by on Tuesdays and join the fun. Walt PunRef> Well, let's start round 2 with
the topic of all things military - and since
I'm in a good mood, Walt PunRef> round 2 in military - in general
-- Punday Night December, 1999 " I thought I could change the world. It took me a hundred years to figure out I can't change the world. I can only change Bessie. And honey, that ain't easy either." -- Bessie Delany We hope you find the Bar Rag entertaining and informative. We can always use good pieces and writers here. If you have something you would like to submit, or have a comment, good or bad, about the newsletter, or if you wish to be added to or removed from our Bar Rag mailing list, simply send us a note. |