BY THE NUMBERS
That quantity which is now known as ”a baker’s dozen” and President Woodrow Wilson’s “Fourteen Points” have each played a decisive role in my life.
That, of course, does not even come close to what some crypto-zanies insist we live by some system of mumbo-jumbo numerical oddities.
All I am claiming, is that those two patches of numbered history have guided me in much of my life. I suggest that you might examine your life and see if you, too, have lived “by the numbers” from time-to-time.
I learned, as a kid, that the “baker’s dozen” of anythings came about in French Revolutionary times when “big business”of that day – the local bakers – tried to eek out a little more profit by counting “eleven” of anything as being “twelve” - one dozen. That was not too difficult to do when the buyers could not really count anyway, and even easier if you could keep them talking about other things while filling their grocery order.
Someone blew the whistle on the wayward dough boys and those running the country at the moment try let it be known that any baker found short-loafing the peasantry would lose his head at the next guillotine gathering.
Not only did the short-loafing stop but baker’s – to be sure heads stayed attached to their neck- started donating an extra loaf or bun to each full dozen. That became our “Baker’s Dozen” - which is about the only time we find thirteen posted on the good side of life’s ledgers.
Knowing that story taught to develop a sense of fairness u dividing the blessings my older brother and I shared. Then, nine years later, the arrival of three new siblings enabled us to teach them to so treat each other; teaching them to do the same with each other. Behind it all, of course was parental guidance and the potential of parental punishment if things went otherwise. I, for one never tested the the theory completely,but just enough to know such authority was there somewhere.
Concerning Woodrow Wilson's “Fourteen Poiints:
My Sixth and Seventh Grade education seems to have been fashioned on creating congresspersons because we did a lot of debating which was “in” at the time. Among the assigned subjects: - worked to death for these formal arguments was - “Resolved: That the United States Should Be a Member of the League of Nations”
I remember being assigned to be windbag for both pro and con sides of the argument. I became acquainted with Wilson's fourteen points enough to spout endlessly about the ones which were working out and those that were not developing as Wilson had thought they might. Such actions caused confusion with the debating enemy and we won more often than lost.
In political affairs today one an use such lists and compilations to advantage. Few opponents will be strong on all points of contention and one has to be ready to exploit that lack of factual knowledge concerning any weaker link.
Both tactics still apply to living today.
A.L.M. Apil1 8, 2004 [c518wds]
