Peace Be with You

Hello my dawlinks!  It's your Yenta.  Were you expecting Bette Midler maybe?  Never mind bubelehs, she's a little busy, so I'm here.  Moishe and I are in Florida; the drive was wonderful.  We stopped by Ellen's cousin's for Thanksgiving, thank you Marsha and Gary.  The food was to die for, the company was fabulous and Gary's directions back to our winter home were perfect.  Maybe there's something to genetics, but I have to say, Ellen's "little" cousins are very smart and married beautiful girls that are no slouches in the brain department either.  You can tell them their Yenta said so.

So let's kibbitz about what this Thanksgiving thing is and what it leads into.  Liblings, honestly I don't believe it was intended to be a "shop til you drop" holiday.  When that bill comes and you realize you made a dent in your household income, peace will NOT be with you when it should be.  I can just hear it now, "Yenta!  Oy gavault!  What do I do now?" 

So, before you get to that point, you're going to listen to your Yenta, no?  Of course you are....  Sit......  Comfy?  Gut (good).  One more thing bubelehs, I won't be using Yiddish this time.  I know you're disappointed, but there's a lot of information here, trust me; you'll like it. 

Peace.  That symbol that you might know from the mid to late sixties and early seventies, that "thing that has made a fashion comeback" was more than just a sign for Hippies like me.  A few us, quite a few of us, knew what it stood for, and even knew how it came about.

And it's not what you think, liblings.  The Peace sign's origins began in England in 1958.  Designed by Gerald Holtom, a textile designer, to represent the naval semaphore signs for N and D which stood for "NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT".  Yes, my dawlinks, originally that's what the Peace sign was for, and over the years it became what you now know it as.

The design was created for the CND, (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament), and their first march from Aldermaston, an atomic weapons factory, to London.  It was a total of 53 miles, on Easter weekend, in awful weather ... cold and raining, you shouldn't know from it.  Men, women, children, babies, people of Parliament and other dignitaries took part, but it didn't seem to draw enough attentio. So it was decided that for the next year, the direction would be changed.  On Easter weekend, 1959, the march grew in number of participants, and proceeded from London to Aldermaston.

The anti-nuclear sign grew in recognition, and the decision to NOT patent it was made.  The reason being that the use of the symbol needed to as free as our thoughts and our freedoms.  It was understood that the possibility of it being misused was inherent, but the positives outweighed the negatives.  The peace sign, as it came to be called, traveled the world, and with it, it's message of freedom. 

Freedom from nuclear weapons, freedom to live, freedom to express, freedom to gather together, freedom to say "hello" to a stranger, freedom to help out a neighbor, freedom to share, freedom to swallow your pride and apologize for something from years ago; FREEDOM. 

Yes, freedom isn't free dawlinks.  We sit and enjoy and speak our minds and our hearts, and at times perhaps tread where we shouldn't, but someone, perhaps someone you know, paid for your freedom, and paid dearly.  This we should never forget, but remember how your Yenta remembers; Our "fallen" are not to be mourned, but celebrated.  There is our Peace sign, our Freedom, our Thanksgiving, our heart and soul.  Thank you Gerald Holtom for your beautiful creation (Peace sign).

Now you try it.  Go thank someone. Share your Hanukkah, your Solsitce, your Kwanza, your Christmas with someone. Celebrate the New Year ahead. You have the freedom to do it.  It couldn't hurt!

Your

Yenta

For those that want to look up the CND here's the website www.cnduk.org

Image: CloseUp of "The Lumigrate Peace Fleece", created and gifted to Lumigrate/Mardy Ross to use for marketing and raising awareness and funds related to fibromyalgia education and outreach, holiday season 2010.  Look for it use at Lumigrate.com by Searching on Lumigrate Peace Fleece