Heads or Tales

Chicago and the American Girl Store

 I have just returned from a visit to Chicago with my daughters and Anne’s good friend, Mary.  Anne’s fortieth birthday is just around the corner, and she wanted to see Oprah.  There we were, walking down the Miracle Mile when Mary made a detour into the American Girl Store.  I was all ready deep into deciding that here was another example of way overpriced objects for girls to yearn for.  I suppose that they are, but that store is girl heaven.  The minute I walked in, I felt the kid I was step up from the depths of my adult self.  Nothing there is rushed. There’s a little tree house for book browsing.  The second floor, however, is what hooked me .  We walked past a place for all the dolls to get their hair done...here's the thing...I never get my hair done, but those ladies stood behind the little beauty chairs as if this was business.   We walked past the doll hospital where a lady stood in a doctor’s uniform. We walked around the corner and into the restaurant.  What a place.  My resolve dissolved.  Lots of windows looked out on trees and the city.  The room was big and quiet and the families eating there, were happy..not the McDonald’s kind of happy, but the kind of happy you are when someone knows and sees you. I know that sounds pretty sappy.  I know lots of money is spent in that place.  I know, in reality, that the American Girl store is all about making money, but  whoever designed that restaurant room hit something universal. 

A Math Thanksgiving Story

Here is a Thanksgiving story from Mathematwist by T.V. Padma.  I reviewed her book in this blog in March of 2008.  The story is called “Dividing a Goose.”  It’s a story of Jewish origin.  I think with a little snip here and there, it can become, for the season at least, a grand Thanksgiving story.  I’ll just give the bare bones…..

A father sits at the table with a single goose for his family.  “This goose will not feed us all,” he says sadly.   The father sees the carriage of a wealthy man roll by and has an idea.  “I believe I can stretch this one goose into enough for all of us.”  The poor man goes to the rich man’s house and tells him that he has brought a goose as a gift and that the goose is all his family has.  The rich man invites the poor man to supper and asks how he can divide the goose among the rich man, his wife, two sons and two daughters and himself.

 The poor man picks up the carving knife and gives the head to the rich man, telling him that he is the head of the house.  He gives the two legs, one to each son saying that soon they will leave home to walk new paths.  He gives the wings to the daughters saying they will soar into the sky one day.   He then says that what is left of the goose, he will take.

 The rich man insists that since he did such a fine job that he should take a whole goose home with him for his own family.

 The poor man says that is too kind.  Instead he offers to divide the five other geese among everyone.  The rich man agrees.

 The poor man takes one goose and presents it to the rich man and his wife.  “Now you are three,” he said.

 He takes a second goose and gives it to the rich man’s two sons.  “Now you are three.”

 He gives the third goose to the two daughters.  “We are three,” they exclaim.

 “Now these geese and I are three,” says the peasant as he pulls the two remaining geese towards himself.

 The peasant leaves for home with two more birds under his arm than the one he started with…plus a reward of gold from the rich man for his remarkable ability to divide geese and resolve issues gracefully.

 

Place this story in Colonial America and make the geese into turkeys and tell this story before Thanksgiving!!