Winning Words 3/19/10
“I like visiting people’s homes on St. Joseph’s Day, when they set up altars and serve food, giving tribute to this saint. I enjoy it much more than Mardi Gras.” (Poppy Z. Brite) March 19 is St. Joseph’s Day. A statue of the saint, placed in a home for sale, is supposed to help it sell. The most famous Joseph that I know is my grandson. Let’s use today’s Blog to list famous and infamous people named, Joe. ;-) Jack

FAMOUS AND INFAMOUS JOSEPHS FROM JACK: Joe DiMaggio; Joe Namath; Joe Biden; Joseph McCarthy; Joe the Plumber; Mean Joe Green; Joe Ratzinger (the Pope); Joe Stella; Joey Spano; Joe Cool; Cotton Eye Joe; Joe Schmo; Joe Montana; GI Joe; Cuppa Joe; Shoeless Joe Jackson; Joe (Giuseppe) Verdi; Joseph Haydn; Joe Torre; Joe Paterno; Joe Blow; Joseph Campbell; Joeseph Goebbels; Joe Kennedy; Joe, Joe the Dogface Boy; Josephus;

FROM PRJS IN MICHIGAN: Joseph is a good name....with "the Lord" as a part of it....glad to hear that you have a grandson with that name. FROM JACK: Mary and I are the only ones who continue to call him, Joseph. All the others use, Joe. How would it sound if there was no room in the inn for Mary and Joe...or Joe of Arimathea?

FROM MF IN MICHIGAN: I have a nephew named Joe Flynn, he survived a near fatal brain bleed as a newborn, spent 3 weeks at Mott Childrens Hospital, is now 4 years old and lives happily with his twin sister and older brother and sister. He continues to be famous. FROM JACK: What a great story.

FROM SH IN MICHIGAN: The most infamous Joe I can think of was Joseph Stalin. He was responsible for the collectivization of Ukraine and the artificial famine that starved anywhere from 6 to 10 million people. It has come to be known as 'the hidden holocaust.' Author Robert For those interested in learning more, author Robert Conquest gives a comprehensive account of this autrocity in his book, "Harvest of Sorrow."

FROM ML IN ILLINOIS: joseph ernest lillstrom, my crazy-wonderful brother. i miss him. FROM JACK: Oh, how I remember him. What a fine person.

FROM LP IN MICHIGAN: We just listed our house on the market today. Though setting up tributes to a statue feels bit like idol worship so I think I will forgo it and hope for the best. Perhaps I will look up the deeds of St. Joseph instead. Oddly I can't think of any "Joe's" that I know. . . FROM JACK: People who set up statues are hoping for the best, too. However, I probably wouldn't set up St. Joseph, either. But who knows, it might influence a prospective Catholic buyer. MORE FROM LP: Ok... didn't know that Joseph (as in Joseph and Mary) was sainted... Having a "duh" moment now...

FROM MOLINER CF: Joe Stalin. How much more infamous can you get than that? Mighty Joe Young. Now there's one nobody else is going to submit. Or Shoeless Joe. FROM JACK: Evidently you haven't read the Blog.

FROM SG IN TAMPA: I don't have a Joseph grandson, but we do have a Matthew, Mark, Michael, John, Thomas, and Patrick. Plus a Liam, Ken. Austin, and Tyler. FROM JACK: Maybe the next one.

FROM DC IN MICHIGAN: I thought a person buried the statue in front of the house one wanted to sell. Anyway, Hedy had lots of those plastic statues of St. Joseph to sell. I was thinking March 19 was also St. Urho's Day, but I looked it up in a Finnish cookbook I have, and it is March 16. If we had a potluck on that day, I always made grape jello for the troops. I also made a little St. Urho's hanging for Gene Danielson. It was on purple and had a grasshopper on it. FROM JACK: Alden Erlandson was always a great one for celebrating St. Urho's Day....the guy who chased the grasshoppers out of Finland.

FROM PRJM IN MICHIGAN: I have a wonderful grandson named Joseph, too. Since it means, in a convoluted way, "Do it again, God" I wasn't surprised when, three years later, another grandson came to be his brother, named Ryan. I laughed when I found out my daughter-in-law was unexpectedly expecting because, like Jacob's Rachel, she named her first son Joseph.

FROM MO IN ILLINOIS: Of course the infamous Joseph Stalin: I was surprised to read in the Harry Truman Biography (David McCullough) that Stalin was only five foot-three. Truman called him "a little shrimp of a man"! I guess because he wielded such power, one thought of him as a big man. FROM JACK: That surprises me, too. Most pictures of him show him sitting down.