Christopher Newport College First Decaders 1961 - 1971

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September - October 2023


Articles on this page:

1. Our Latin Calendar: SEPT. & OCT. (article). + PH. 2 (SEPT.

    Mosaic) & PH. 3 (OCT. Mosaic). 

2.  Announcements.

3.  CNU Alumnus A. J. Jelonek ('15) and Founder of CNC's First

     Decaders, A. Jane Chambers, Professor Emerita, Honored at 

     CNU's 2023 Awards Ceremony and Reception. 

 

4. More Special Wedding Anniversaries and Other Your News

     Items Discovered on Facebook and Elsewhere by Visiting

     British Sleuth Miss Marple.

5. Celebrating the 50th Reunion of the Class of 1973:  Part 2.

6. Seldom Known Facts about Our Pledge of Allegiance, Part 2. 

7. Humor or Cartoons item.



We welcome your FEEDBACK. Send to
cncmemories61_71@yahoo.com
or dave.spriggs@cox.net.

Published  September 16, 2023.

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Our Latin Calendar

Parts 1 and 2 of Our Latin Calendar were about the six deities for whom the months of January through June were named, and Part 3  was about Rome's two rulers for whom July and August were named. This last part is about the "Wrong Numbers" in the names of the last four months: September through December.

Julius Caesar replaced the ancient lunar Roman calendar  of 10 months with the solar calendar of 12 months, based on Earth's revolutions around the sun. His Julian calendar was the major western world calendar for 15 centuries, until refined and replaced in 1582 by the 12-month Gregorian calendar, under the direction of Pope Gregory XII.  Since neither Caesar nor Pope Gregory changed the names of the last four months of the old 10-month calendar, for 2000 years these months have had inaccurate names. 



September

The name of this month is from the Latin mensis september, meaning "seventh month." September is from Septem ("seven") and  -ber (a suffix equivalent to English "-th").  Note that -ber is the ending of all four of the names discussed here and that mensis is Latin for "month. "  Although September was the seventh month in the ancient Roman calendar, since the year 46 BC (date of the Julian calendar) it has been the ninth month.  The illustration on the right is described by Wikipedia as "a panel from a 3rd-century mosaic of the months, located at El Diem, Tunisia (Roman Africa)." It depicts two men making wine by crushing grapes with their feet, a characteristic activity of the month of September in Roman art.


October

How many arms does an octopus have? How many keys are in an octave?  What does the word October mean? Octo is Latin for "eight." Mensis October was the eighth of ten months on that oldest Roman calendar. In ancient Rome, October "marked the close of the season for military campaigning and farming" (Wikipedia). The mosiac panel on the left has a 8-pointed star (appropriately) above the heads of the two men, who are facing each other. Their arms and empty hands suggest they are making peace, or perhaps congratulating each other after winning a battle or completing the hard task of harvesting.



_________________________________________________________

From

Deities, Rulers, and Wrong Numbers: Our Latin Calendar

Part 4 of 4

by A. Jane Chambers

Originally published September 18, 2023

______________________________________________________________________



Announcements

1.  NOVEMBER 4 (SATURDAY)--ANNUAL FALL LUNCHEON at CNU: SAVE THE DATE! INVITATIONS will be emailed soon! To register officially, follow CNU's  INVITATION directions. PLEASE REPLY BY DEADLINE. A  PLANNING TO ATTEND LIST will be posted on this website in OCTOBER. 


2.  HONORING "CECY" CUNNINGHAM: We honored our first CNC president, "Scotty" Cunningham, by dedicating our Memories book to him, plus putting over $10,000 into the scholarship fund in his name, and later, encouraging CNU to name its Student Center after him. From 2007 onward, his widow regularly traveled from Maryland to our campus to attend every First Decaders event  she could, including 50th reunions, as long as she could, even into her nineties, and in 2014, along with her daughter and son-in-law, she came with many boxes of "Scotty's" memorabilia to donate to CNU.  On August 31, "Cecy" died, at age 98.  The family requests donations to the Cunningham Scholarship. Do we want to do more to honor her dedication to our university? Send your suggestions to First Decaders chair dave.spriggs@cox.net.


Here's the link to Cecy's obituary: https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/dailypress/...




3. MAY 12TH (FRIDAY) 50th Reunion, CLASS OF 1973: SAVE THE DATE! INVITATIONS will be emailed by CNU. To register officially, follow CNU's  INVITATION directions. PLEASE REPLY BY DEADLINE. A  PLANNING TO ATTEND LIST will be posted on this website in APRIL. 

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(Memories Book Bit)
This-N-That
 

Humor


Dr. Jane Chambers, Editor and Head Writer
Chatia Chalmers, Webmaster

Donations to our Treasury are gratefully accepted.  Make out checks to CNC First Decaders. Mail them to Sonny Short, FD Treasurer, 12738 Daybreak Circle, Newport News, VA 23602.

Your DECADER committee ALWAYS enjoys feedback on items that appear on this website. The feedback can be positive or negative...doesn't matter. It is just super for us to know that you are actually visiting YOUR website and have something to share.

Please don't hesitate to send us an email with a comment...we LOVE to hear from you!
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cncmemories61_71@yahoo.com
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