Bear with us for a few moments while we extend the group gush that began with last week’s admission that our first true love was, in fact, a word.

“Ethereal” was ours. You shared yours. We love them too.

I fell in love with quixotic, which came from Miguel de Cervantes’ “Don Quixote.” I always imagine a crazy man attacking windmills.

—Cynthia Chang

“Equinox.” When I was a young boy I thought that was the coolest word in the world. I said it so much that my dad, a high-school English teacher, surprised me with a No. 2 pencil with “equinox” in all caps stenciled on the side. I was elated. Everyone else in class had their Ticonderogas at the ready. I had my Equinox. I fondly remember my younger brother’s word crush: “Antidisestablishmentarianism”. Too long to run down the side of a pencil, though. I miss that pencil, and I miss my dad.

—Kevin Craver

I fell in love with the word lugubrious. It was on a junior high vocabulary test and I have adored it for 50 years.

—Linda Jones

Not sure when I fell in love with “incandescent” but I still love it. And my publisher actually let me keep it in my children’s picture book, “Flying Jack” (Boyds Mills Press, 2003), which was brave and astounding.

—Kathye Fetsko Petrie

Monkey. It’s just a fun word. Nothing at all to do with the meaning per se; I have always just loved saying it.

—Sarah Krikorian

I don’t remember my exact age, but I think it was around fourth grade, and the word was tintinnabulation. It was such a lovely word to say out loud.

—Patty Konarski

I’m an Indonesian book editor, living in Jakarta, and working in both Indonesian and English. My first word crush in Indonesian would be “matahari,” which means “sun.” But it’s actually composed of two words: “mata” (eye) and “hari” (day), so you can take it as meaning “the eye of the day.” I loved the image of an eye in the sky. My first English word crush would, I believe, be “realm.” For some reason, it conjured in my mind images of fairies. I still love both words.

—Rani Elsanti

My first word crush–and what is still my favorite word–is manifest. I grew up in the Episcopal church and it seems that I remember many of the hymns being about how Christ was God manifest, or the manifestation of God. I seemed to feel all the glory and magnificence of that powerful truth in that word: manifest. Interestingly, it’s a word I rarely use. It’s kind of a secret crush, I guess.

—Robin White Goode

I’ve had many word crushes over the years, and of course, can’t remember any of them but one: picturesque. I must have read it in a magazine when I was pretty small (5 or 6), and decided it was a word I should try to use. It got a lot of laughs when I managed to work it into a conversation with my parents one night at dinner, misapplying it to my cat, and mispronouncing it ‘picture-skew.’ It remained ‘picture-skew’ in my family from then on.

—Lesley (Powles) Champlin

Share more word crushes with me at hstevens@tribune.com.

Miley Cyrus got the words “love never dies” tattooed on her left bicep. Picture: Studiocitytattoo/facebook
Source: Supplied

SHE has embraced the wild child tag with gusto in recent years, and it doesn’t seem like Miley Cyrus is planning to stop anytime soon.

Hot on the heels of her decision to lob her flowing locks off in favour of a scruffy bob, Cyrus has added to her tattoo collection.

The petite beauty, who is happily dating Australian actor Liam Hemsworth, might just be tempting fate with her new inking, however.

Cyrus showed up at Studio City Tattoo in California yesterday with a few friends, including Hemsworth.

She was the only one of her party to gain any body art on the trip, and chose the phrase “love never dies” on the inside of her left bicep.

The Party In The USA singer already has 11 tattoos.

The Hannah Montana star also has “just breathe” tattooed on her chest, “love” in her ear, a dreamcatcher on her side, an anchor on her right wrist, an ohm symbol of her left wrist, and a skull on her ankle.

On her right hand she has five tiny tattoos on her fingers: an equal sign, a peace symbol, a cross, a heart, and the word “karma.”

Cyrus’s latest ink may refer to her father’s decision to drop the divorce with her mother last year, rather than her budding affair with Hemsworth.

Whatever the inspiration, the 19-year-old seems determined to knock all those cutesy edges off, along with her recently dispatched tresses.

Miley Cyrus is well on her way to becoming a illustrated woman. She’s added yet another tattoo to her motley collection. There’s nothing fancy, or meaningful about it like her last two. It’s just a bromide.

Miley and boyfriend Liam Hemsworth popped into Studio City Tattoo in Los Angles last night (Feb. 18) and Miley sat for some ink.

The art work was a simple slogan on the inside of her left bicep. It reads: “Love Never Dies.” She poses with the artist Illya afterward. He’s also tattooed Miley in the past, according to reports.

Check out Miley getting inked; click photos to enlarge.

So far most of her inkings have mostly been small, understated and in support of a cause.

Her first tattoo, the words “Just Breathe” on the left side of her chest just under her breast, is also the slogan of a group fighting cystic fibrosis, a disease of the lungs. She got it in honor of a young child she met who died from the disease.

But her fifth tattoo covers most of her left rib cage under her arm. It’s a replica of the “dream catcher” that hangs over her bed. She also has a small heart and a cross tattooed on her fingers and the word “love” tattooed in one ear.

She added a sixth tattoo, an anchor, by Brazilian tattoo artist Fabio Sattori during her Gypsy Heart tour in Brazil.

The starlet arrived at the tattoo parlor at 8 PM with Hemsworth and a few other friends, according to TMZ, which broke the story.

Miley was wearing a sleeveless Van Halen tee-shirt. Check out Miley’s tattoo photos, including her most recent and previous inkings.

Related Posts: Check Out These Stories!

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Photo by Ronald W. Erdrich

Ronald W. Erdrich/Reporter-News
The telegram received by Leota Stewart notifying her of husband Jack’s death on March 23, 1945.

Photo by Ronald W. Erdrich

BELOW: This photo of Jack and Leota Stewart was taken sometime before 1942, possibly in Brownwood. Her scrapbook containing their letters to each other is on display at the Brown County Museum of History through the end of February.
Contributed Photo

Photo by Ronald W. Erdrich

Myrna Wright, manager for the Brown County Museum of History, lifts a scrapbook containing the letters and memorabilia of Leota Stewart. The book was one of five in the museum annex, detailing her letters to her husband in World War II and his death during that conflict.
Ronald W. Erdrich/Reporter-News

BROWNWOOD — Sandwiched between the yellowed pages of the scrapbook, a telegram said it all.

Myrna Wright, the manager for the Brown County Museum of History, read it aloud:

“The Secretary of War desires me to express his deep regret that your husband Lt. Jack R. Stewart was killed in action in Germany, 23 March 1945. Confirming letter follows.”

“Boy, that would be horrible to get, wouldn’t it?” she asked.

Leota Stewart’s husband had left for the war two years earlier. She wrote him as often as she could, as did he. She kept those letters and bound them into a set of five scrapbooks that eventually found their way to the museum.

“It’s really sad, because these letters are between a husband and wife during a stressful time, and then for her to hear he’s killed,” Wright said.

The books were in the museum annex across the street from the main building at 212 North Broadway along with other scrapbooks donated to the museum. Beverly Norris, the president of the museum, had been cleaning when she opened one up at random and became intrigued.

No one knew who Leota and Jack were, other than what was in the scrapbooks. Leota’s maiden name was Kennedy, but the couple had moved to Brownwood during the war from San Antonio, possibly because Jack underwent training at Camp Bowie.

The book on display seems to be the last one Leota kept. About 6 inches thick, it bulges with envelopes, photographs and letters. Early in the book are missives the couple sent to each other. Most of what she wrote was family news, followed by the weather and examples of how she was doing her best to stay upbeat in his absence.

On Feb. 25, 1945, she wrote:

“The war news sure does sound good now, doesn’t it? I hope that the bombing of Berlin and Tokyo continues until they throw up their hands and stop. I can’t believe that the war with Germany can last to much longer. The sooner it’s over, the happier we’ll all be.

I’ll be the happiest girl in all the world to know that you are on your way home to me — I’m so lonely without you and your coming home is the uppermost thought in my mind and heart always.”

His replies are shorter — there was only so much a G.I. could carry, and besides, it was wiser to write short letters often.

On Jan. 8, 1944, he described that it still was pretty cold where he was, not giving a location other than “France.” The snow had been on the ground a few days but he was getting pretty good at finding a roof to duck under for the night.

“The other night I slept in the Mayors office of a small town. When I went to bed, there were only two of us in there. When I woke up the room was so packed that another couldn’t possibly get in there,” Jack wrote. “There wasn’t a pane of glass in the place, but I was so sleepy that I slept like a baby for about twelve hours.”

The last letter he wrote to her was sent out the day before he died.

“Baby, you’ll never know how much I appreciate your faithfulness in writing so often, your dear letters always mean so much to me,” he wrote. “I’m still getting along fine honey and can’t complain at all except that I miss you most every day. I will miss you so much until we are back together again.”

The anguish Leota felt after his death can be seen in her attempts to learn the details of how he perished. The War Department wasn’t giving any details, and letters of his arrived after she received his death notification, one containing the names of the men in his unit.

She took it upon herself to directly ask the men who served with him. She knew they would give her a straight answer.

“I’m able to take the truth and facts even at their worst. It’s just wondering and trying to figure things out, the things I don’t know, that make everything so hard on me. If he’s dead, then I want to hear from some of you fellows who really know how he died. I’ll believe what the men say who knew him and worked with him,” she wrote in a letter to Cpl. Arno Feltner.

Jack’s commanding officer eventually replied, telling her that her husband died quickly, a victim of a German sniper Jack had found along the road while traveling with two other men. He couldn’t tell her where he was buried and said the killer had escaped.

“Jack, if I may use his first name, was with me for several months, we were good friends,” wrote Walton Vines. “We sat and talked into the early hours of the morning. I admired his character, his death was a personal loss to me as well as to the men in the battery who thought real well of him.”

“Lt. Stewart spoke of you very often,” he continued, adding that his words were, “always words of love for you.”

The mementos in the book change after that. The letters are replaced by notices from government agencies and insurance companies. A public affairs package detailing the 36th Infantry Division’s fight across Europe appears, then greeting cards and then finally blank pages near the end.

“Did she ever marry again? We don’t know,”Wright mused. “It’s a mystery.”

The Beach Boys haven’t always been harmonious. During the 50 years since the band got started in Hawthorne, Ca., Brian Wilson, the architect of the Beach Boys sound, and the rest of the band had long gone separate ways.

The touring Beach Boys, without Mr. Wilson, have been led by Mike Love, his cousin. Mr. Wilson, meanwhile, has toured with his own band, revisiting his masterwork, “Pet Sounds,” and reconstructing the hugely ambitious album that divided the Beach Boys, “Smile.” Mr. Love has waged legal battle, successfully and unsuccessfully, against Mr. Wilson and Mr. Jardine over songwriting credits and the Beach Boys brand name.

At the Grammy Awards on Feb. 12, Mr. Wilson and the other surviving Beach Boys founders — Mike Love and Al Jardine — performed together publicly for the first time in more than two decades, singing “Good Vibrations” with other past and present members of the Beach Boys, Bruce Johnston and David Marks. It was the public inauguration of a reunion that will have the group touring extensively this year, including New York City shows at the Beacon Theater on May 8 and 9. The Beach Boys have also been working on a new album, with songs by Mr. Wilson and the producer Joe Thomas, at Ocean Way Recording, a celebrated Hollywood studio. A live tour DVD and a PBS special are also in the works.

On Friday afternoon Mr. Wilson and Mr. Love shared a brief phone interview. Here is an edited transcript.

Q. I’m very curious about the new album. How is that going?
Mike Love: It’s going really well. Brian has worked on some great tracks, great melodies, great harmonies, and he’s been dealing it out to all of us. It’s really sounding good.

Q. Is it close to complete?
Brian Wilson: Well, not really. It’s about halfway done.
Love: There’s a couple of songs that are close and the rest of them are a work in progress, and we plan on going back into the studio in another couple of weeks and keep going until we’ve got it finished.

Q. Does Ocean Way bring back memories?
Wilson: I saw Jan and Dean record there one time.

Q. Are the songs written and just waiting to be arranged and recorded?
Wilson: Most of them have been written. We’re going to have to write a few new ones, but most of them have been written. On the album, one song flows into another and that flows into another like that, until it’s over, until there’s no more album.

Q. So it’s something like “Pet Sounds” and “Smile.”
Love: There’s a little bit of a suite that’s meant to end the album, so it’s going to have a nice little touch that way.

Q. Any Theremin on there?
Wilson: That I can’t answer. Mike, what do you think?
Love: If there’s a reason to put a Theremin on, I’m game. So far I haven’t heard any in the studio.

Q. Brian, how does it feel to have Al’s and Mike’s voices harmonizing with yours again?
Wilson: The guys are all amazing. They’ve never stopped blowing my mind for 50 years.
Love: Al sounds phenomenal on a couple of things. His voice cuts through in a certain range so beautifully. I’ve sung plenty of leads in my day but I really like the low parts, the bass parts and stuff. And it sounds great — the high parts, the low parts, the midrange and stuff. The Beach Boys, I was just thinking about it, we’re kind of our own genre. Our music is pretty unique because of Brian’s incredible talent at structuring harmonies. It’s just really beautiful. Sometimes in the studio we just really stand back and say “Wow, that sounds great.”

Q. Is a full live set rehearsed and ready?
Love: You know, we haven’t done rehearsals yet for the live show, but we have a tremendous amount to choose from, so I don’t think that’s going to be any problem at all. And we have all the voices intact. Bruce Johnston will do a couple of tunes, and Al Jardine is really great on a few leads, and myself and Brian — there’s a lot to choose from.

Q. Brian, back in the 1960’s you often did not tour with the Beach Boys. You stayed home and worked in the studio. Has touring “Smile” and “Pet Sounds” changed how you feel about performing?
Wilson: It gets easier as I go.

Q. What are the new songs about?
Wilson: We try all different avenues, to explore different avenues of music.

Q. Can you give me an example?
Love: There’s one song that comes to mind: “That’s Why God Made the Radio.” It really showcases the harmonies incredibly, and philosophically I think it’s a wonderful thing. It’s a new song that sounds as good as any song we ever did. Whether it will be successful, who knows? You always hope that things will be successful, but you don’t really know until the public has had its chance to hear and listen and perhaps purchase.

Q. Is that going to be part of the live set?
Love: We haven’t really decided. It kind of depends on when it comes out. There are so many songs that people would love to hear that are pre-existing, but I’m sure sure there’ll be a chance to do one or two from our new album.

Q. So you’re friends now? After all the lawsuits?
Wilson: Just a lawsuit.
Love: It’s the distant past.

The Brown County Museum of History will display Leota Stewart’s scrapbook through the end of February. Museum hours are 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays.

Photo by Ronald W. Erdrich

Ronald W. Erdrich/Reporter-News
The telegram received by Leota Stewart notifying her of husband Jack’s death on March 23, 1945.

Photo by Ronald W. Erdrich

Contributed Photo
This photo of Jack and Leota Stewart was taken sometime before 1942, possibly in Brownwood. Her scrapbook containing their letters to each other is on display at the Brown County Museum of History through the end of February.

Photo by Ronald W. Erdrich

Ronald W. Erdrich/Reporter-News
Myrna Wright, manager for the Brown County Museum of History, lifts a scrapbook containing the letters and memorabilia of Leota Stewart. The book was one of five in the museum annex, detailing her letters to her husband in World War II and his death during that conflict.

BROWNWOOD — Sandwiched between the yellowed pages of the scrapbook, a telegram said it all.

Myrna Wright, the manager for the Brown County Museum of History, read it aloud.

“The Secretary of War desires me to express his deep regret that your husband Lt. Jack R. Stewart was killed in action in Germany, 23 March 1945. Confirming letter follows.”

“Boy, that would be horrible to get, wouldn’t it?” she asked.

Leota Stewart’s husband had left for the war two years earlier. She wrote him as often as she could, as did he. She kept those letters and bound them into a set of five scrapbooks that eventually found their way to the museum.

“It’s really sad, because these letters are between a husband and wife during a stressful time, and then for her to hear he’s killed,” said Wright.

The books were in the museum annex across the street from the main building at 212 North Broadway along with other scrapbooks donated to the museum. Beverly Norris, the president of the museum, had been cleaning when she opened one up at random and became intrigued.

No one knew who Leota and Jack were, other than what was in the scrapbooks. Leota’s maiden name was Kennedy, but the couple had moved to Brownwood during the war from San Antonio, possibly because Jack underwent training at Camp Bowie.

The book on display seems to be the last one Leota kept. About 6 inches thick, it bulges with envelopes, photographs and letters. Early in the book are missives the couple sent to each other. Most of what she wrote was family news, followed by the weather and examples of how she was doing her best to stay upbeat in his absence.

On Feb. 25, 1945, she wrote:

“The war news sure does sound good now, doesn’t it? I hope that the bombing of Berlin and Tokyo continues until they throw up their hands and stop. I can’t believe that the war with Germany can last to much longer. The sooner it’s over, the happier we’ll all be.

I’ll be the happiest girl in all the world to know that you are on your way home to me — I’m so lonely without you and your coming home is the uppermost thought in my mind and heart always.”

His replies are shorter — there was only so much a G.I. could carry, and besides, it was wiser to write short letters often.

On Jan. 8, 1944, he described that it was still pretty cold where he was, not giving a location other than “France.” The snow had been on the ground a few days but he was getting pretty good at finding a roof to duck under for the night.

“The other night I slept in the Mayors office of a small town. When I went to bed, there were only two of us in there. When I woke up the room was so packed that another couldn’t possibly get in there,” Jack wrote. “There wasn’t a pane of glass in the place, but I was so sleepy that I slept like a baby for about twelve hours.”

The last letter he wrote to her was sent out the day before he died.

“Baby, you’ll never know how much I appreciate your faithfulness in writing so often, your dear letters always mean so much to me,” he wrote. “I’m still getting along fine honey and can’t complain at all except that I miss you most every day. I will miss you so much until we are back together again.”

The anguish Leota felt after his death can be seen in her attempts to learn the details of how he perished. The War Department wasn’t giving any details, and letters of his arrived after she received his death notification, one containing the names of the men in his unit.

She took it upon herself to directly ask the men who served with him. She knew they would give her a straight answer.

“I’m able to take the truth and facts even at their worst. It’s just wondering and trying to figure things out, the things I don’t know, that make everything so hard on me. If he’s dead, then I want to hear from some of you fellows who really know how he died. I’ll believe what the men say who knew him and worked with him,” she wrote in a letter to Cpl. Arno Feltner.

Jack’s commanding officer eventually replied, telling her that her husband died quickly, a victim of a German sniper Jack had found along the road while traveling with two other men. He couldn’t tell her where he was buried and said the killer had escaped.

“Jack, if I may use his first name, was with me for several months, we were good friends,” wrote Walton Vines. “We sat and talked into the early hours of the morning. I admired his character, his death was a personal loss to me as well as to the men in the battery who thought real well of him.”

“Lt. Stewart spoke of you very often,” he continued, adding that his words were, “always words of love for you.”

The mementos in the book change after that. The letters are replaced by notices from government agencies and insurance companies. A public affairs package detailing the 36th Infantry Division’s fight across Europe appears, then greeting cards and then finally blank pages near the end.

“Did she ever marry again? We don’t know,” mused Wright. “It’s a mystery.”

Life in the Laugh Lane: Sweet words of love, lamb and liverwurst

Written by Bill Rifkin
Thursday, 16 February 2012 00:00

The oft stated line, “It’s the thought that counts” is nonsense. If it was just about the thought, then previous Valentine’s cards and gifts would have been received in the spirit in which they were intended. Of course, this was all a long time ago.

Once I tricked my wife into marrying me I adopted the less romantic, but safer, course of asking, “So what do you want for Valentine’s Day?” Akin to the adage, “slow and steady wins the race,” is my theory that I will not win any bonus points for spontaneity, but at the same time, I will not inflict permanent damage upon our marriage.

How I entrapped the poor thing into marrying me is a story for another day. The point is that it was on pre-wife girlfriends that I fine-tuned my romantic gift giving. Of course, by using the term “girlfriend” I am taking some literary liberties. On Feb. 14th each year, some unfortunate member of the female species would be the object of my earnest, yet ineffective attentions.

Only very rarely would she have agreed that the term “girlfriend” was accurate with regards to me.

I would buy a nice card, either funny or sappy. But I would ruin it by writing some truly awful poetry of my own. Somewhere happily married women haul out their boxes of old Valentine’s cards to show their husbands my pathetic attempts. I can picture them snuggled around a fire, glasses of wine in hand, and laughing to tears reading my tripe. “Can you imagine, this guy I hardly even knew wrote me this? All I remember is that he was goofy looking and chubby. I felt sorry for him and once let him buy me a cup of coffee after a class or something. From that he felt compelled to give me a card? Well I guess he was grateful for the little attention he got. In fact, I remember him saying so at the time.”

Sure everyone wrote bad poetry when they thought they were in love, but mine was so bad that once when the object of my affections read it, she not only broke up with me, but actually pursued a restraining order. The poor judge didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I do remember him demanding of me, “Who compares their love to a rack of lamb?” From my actual experience a short list of key words to never use in a Valentine’s Day card would include: ovulation, psychotherapy, liverwurst, skin-tight, brontosaurus and migraine. You get the idea.

My early awkward attempts at gift giving were no better. Books can be nice, but why would I think novelizations of Porky’s and Star Wars would be seen as romantic by a woman? With the very best of intentions, and thinking I was being generous, I have actually given women gifts such as a cassette deck cleaner, a subscription to The New York Times and an early VCR copy of Blazing Saddles (a funny but crude, male humor type of movie).

I grew expert at interpreting the precise mix of disappointment, revulsion, bemusement and fear in a woman’s expression as she unwrapped my gifts. Once in desperation, I simply tucked some cash into the card. Boy did that not go well.

Now to be fair, I have been on the receiving end of some less-than-romantic gifts myself. In high school, the girl everyone within 100 miles knew I was smitten with gives me a card and I was so shocked that I didn’t get the joke that the coupon for 10% off on joining Weight Watchers did not mean we were now going out.

But the morale of the story, and the magic of Valentine’s Day, is that love is so strange and illogical that even someone as clueless, inept and awkward as me was able to get it right once.

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