How wonderful — Owl Chatter Vermont-friend Lizzie tells us there was a big Hackberry tree in the front yard where she grew up and she can still picture it. Here’s one from down in Florida.
The hackberry is a deciduous tree, meaning it sheds its leaves in autumn. They are usually medium-sized, growing up to around 80 feet tall.
Small flowers appear in early spring while the leaves are still developing. Male flowers are longer and fuzzy. Female flowers are greenish and more rounded.
The fruit is a small drupe (fleshy with thin skin and a central pit) about a half-inch in diameter, edible in many species, with a dryish but sweet, sugary consistency, reminiscent of a date.
Drupe is a new word for me. It’s an anagram of prude, but with three of the letters retaining their position. On the issue of an anagram with all five letters changing their spot (like DECOR and CREDO, and DOULA and ALOUD), someone noted it shouldn’t be too rare since each five-letter word will have 44 permutations like that. Is that true? How do you get to that?
I asked the guy who wrote that (mathgent) how he got it. Apparently, it’s over my paygrade because he answered: “Permutations of an ordered string where no item is in the same position are called derangements. There’s a complicated formula for calculating it. It’s a summation of factorial expressions.”
Derangements! Cool. Does our official Owl Chatter mathematician have anything to add?
Our friend Joe recommended a book on Jewish Humor by Columbia prof Jeremy Dauber. It got off to a good start:
“You want to hear a joke? I’ll tell you a joke. What’s green, is nailed to the wall, and whistles?
I give up.
A herring.
But a herring’s not green!
Well, you can paint it green.
But it’s not nailed to the wall!
You could nail it to the wall. If you wanted to.
But a herring doesn’t whistle!
All right, fine, so it doesn’t whistle.”
He then asks if that’s a “Jewish” joke, and if so why? The syntax? The smart-ass sensibility? The subversive jab at the very form of a joke? The refusal to provide the closure of a punch line? Or is it just a joke about herring?
We’ll have to leave it there for now. Willis Reed died.
In the puzzle today, 10D was ZIPTIE, “plastic fastener.” Rex conceded there are many uses for them, but it gave him the willies since he associates them now with the Jan 6 insurrection and police action.
It led to this comment from JHC:
“Rex: My kids have a subscription to a monthly science kit. This month one of the projects was to build a homemade air rocket launcher. At one point the parts were secured together with a ZIPTIE. So there’s a much more innocuous image for you to associate with the product.
“With Passover coming up, I’m reminded of a sidebar in our Hagaddah that talks about how wine is used at the Seder as a symbol of freedom when so many have become enslaved to alcohol. The lesson is that no object is inherently good or bad; it’s the choices people make in using it that have moral value.”
OK, fair enough. But has anyone told Zelensky about that rocket launcher kit?
Headline in The Onion: Catholic High School Newsletter Has Updates On Which Alumni Are In Hell Now.
Willis Reed, Hall of Fame ballplayer for the Knicks, died yesterday. He was 80 and had heart disease. By all accounts — 100% — he was a real mensch. His death was confirmed by his teammate and U.S. Senator from NJ, Dollar Bill Bradley. I remember seeing Reed play in one of his first games as a rookie in Madison Square Garden when I was in high school. You could sense a new era beginning for the Knicks (even though they lost that night, d’oh!). They won two championships during Reed’s tenure (1969-70, and 72-73) and have not won any since. He was the league MVP in 69-70, Rookie of the Year in 1965, and an All-Star seven times.
Reed will always be remembered for his gritty, emotional appearance in Game 7 of the first championship run. He had torn a muscle in Game 5, and sat out Game 6. It wasn’t clear if the Knicks could beat the Chamberlain-led Lakers without him. He skipped the pre-game warmups getting treatments. But he limped onto the court to start the game to thunderous applause, and sank his first two shots. His teammates took over from there and carried the night. I remember listening to the game on the car radio as my brother drove us up to Boston.
In 1990, around the 20th anniversary of Game 7, Reed told The Times: “There isn’t a day in my life that people don’t remind me of that game.”
His #19 is the first number retired by the Knicks.
This is a story I hadn’t heard. On Oct. 18, 1966, at Madison Square Garden, Reed was embroiled in a battle with the Lakers’ Rudy LaRusso, a bruising 6-foot-7 forward. Throughout the game, Reed had been complaining to the officials about LaRusso’s tactics, but when his pleas were ignored he acted on his own.
Lined up at the free-throw line late in the third quarter, Reed elbowed LaRusso to the side of the head. On the way up court, LaRusso responded with a chopping punch. Reed, in a sudden fury, shook off Darrall Imhoff’s bear hug from behind and floored the 6-foot-10 Imhoff, cutting him near the eye; he broke the nose of John Block, a 6-foot-9 rookie, who had foolishly stepped into his space; and he finally chased LaRusso into the Lakers’ bench, throwing wild punches and sending several of the players fleeing.
Reed later took his teammates to task for not jumping in to help him. In his defense, Dick Barnett said, “Man, you were winning.”
Off the court, Reed was gentle and very generous, always taking rookies under his wing and lending them whatever they needed until they got established. He had a good heart.
Rest in peace, Willis.
Good night everybody. See you tomorrow.
The Wellington Files 