Whenever I sit down to write one of these essays, I frequently start with an unusual personal experience and expand from there. I tried to do that this time, but it didn’t work. The rose, both physical and conceptual, seems to be so much a part of everyone’s thoughts and experience, any story I could tell probably would quickly be matched and exceeded by someone else’s. So, I gave up. But not entirely.

Anything so intimate and integral to so many people, which characterizes the rose, almost by definition is both ordinary and extraordinary. And occasionally surprising. The rose even plays a significant role in computing and computer science. A fulsome exploration of this unexpected phenomenon will be found in the section “The Rose and Computing” near the end of this essay.

For these (and other) reasons, I have no qualms about welcoming the rose into a place of honor on the list of what I like to call “extraordinary ordinary things.”

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Have you ever heard the expression “stuck a feather in his hat and called in macaroni”? If you grew up in the United States, you almost certainly have because it is part of a popular American nursery rhyme that goes “Yankee Doodle went to town, just to ride the poneys, stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni.” And just like most Americans, you have no idea what it means. I’m not going to explain it here because it is quite a story, but rest assured it will be explained later on.

The important thing at the moment is to recognize that a feather is more than one of the identifying characteristics of birds. In fact, the story of the feather (or feathers) in certain ways parallels the history and development of mankind. This is why the word is found in so many idioms and commentaries on the human condition.

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My wife loves thimbles. Not that she sews all that much; in fact, she hardly sews at all. Rather, she finds a thimble to be the ideal souvenir to remember each place we visit. In fact, the wall of our dining room is devoted almost exclusively to a display of souvenir thimbles.

I also love thimbles. Or at least one thimble, the thimble piece in the Monopoly board game. I don’t know why but when I was a kid, I always chose the thimble as my preferred playing piece. I haven’t played in decades, but every time I hear the word thimble, my childhood comes rushing back to me.

To the general mind, the thimble probably has nothing historic or fascinating about it; it is quite mundane. However, it has a history much more fascinating, and its uses are much more exotic than a non-aficionado could possibly imagine. This is why I believe the not-so-lowly thimble deserves a place on the list of what I like to call “extraordinary ordinary things.”

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