Just so you’ll
know…..the elephant is the only mammal that can’t jump…oh, yes
and did I mention that they are also the only mammals with four
knees?

Julius Caesar was
so concerned over the traffic congestion in Rome that he was forced
to ban all wheeled vehicles from driving through the city during
daylight. Some of our cities could use his kind of thinking
today….wouldn’t you agree? 

While I’ve got
you to thinking about old Julius. At one time he was trying to
increase the population of Rome. Among other things, he offered
rewards to those having lots of children. But the real clincher was
the fact that childless women couldn’t ride anywhere, they had to
walk….and…..and here’s the big one…they were prohibited from
wearing jewelry.

 Sometimes we
forget that the rich and famous weren’t always so……Dustin
Hoffman, that award-winning actor…well, he once got fired as a
waiter at a restaurant called Ridleys in New York. Seems he ate six
steaks in one afternoon. Doesn’t say if he had anything else to go
with them.

 In
seventeenth century America, the average wife had thirteen children.
She would have been welcome in Rome…….

 Just so
you’ll know….the following are the colors that make up the
rainbow……red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. In
that order. Check it out.

 Things I know
you lay awake at night thinking about…’do cats have belly
buttons?’ Yes, yes they do, but they’re hard to see because they
are almost always covered with hair. They look like a long scar just
under the rib cage. All mammals except the duckbilled platypus and
the spiny anteater have belly buttons because they all had umbilical
cords.

According to my
information…it’s still illegal to shoot any game other than a
whale from a moving automobile in the state of Tennessee. Why?

 If you think
you have a dog that’s overweight…listen to this one. The
heaviest one on record that I’ve been able to find was a 310-pound
St. Bernard.

 So how did
they make root beer? Well, it used to be made partially from various
oils, birch, ginger, anise, lemon oil and then mixed with the root
of the sassafras tree. That’s where the ‘root’ came from.
Nowadays it’s made from the sap of a desert yucca bush. The Native
Americans used to use this same sap for soap. Tasty.

 We get the
word ‘eavesdropper’ from Old Saxon times in England. Seems you
couldn’t build your house right up against the property line. You
had to leave room for the rainwater to drip from the eaves. This
space was called the ‘eaves drip’. Naturally a person that
placed himself in the ‘eaves drip’ to be able to overhear
something became known as an eavesdropper. Makes sense to me.

 The coldest
place in the United States? Well, that’d be International Falls,
Minnesota. They have an average, get that ….average mean
temperature of only 36.8 degrees year around. I don’t know if
anyone lives there. The coldest inhabited place in the world is
located at Norislk, Russia. Stays a brisk 12.4 degrees average year
around. Don’t look for me there anytime soon.

 If you had
leprosy (Hansen’s disease) the only American hospital that could
treat you is located in Carville. Louisiana.

 Franklin
Pierce, the nations 14^th President. Seems he has been the
only President we’ve had thus far that served his entire term
without changing any member of his original cabinet. I wonder if
this was a good or bad thing?

 The Second
Continental Congress established the first United Sates Navy in
October 1775. It was disbanded after the Revolutionary War. The
present day United States Navy was established on April 30^th
of 1798.

 There is a
higher voter turnout for any election among the age group of 55-64
year olds. Seems something like 71 % of this age bracket vote on a
regular basis. The lowest (34.2%) was among those 18 and 19 years
old.

From our ..”How
Times have Changed” department. A lady named Annette Kellerman was
arrested in 1909 in Boston and charged with indecent exposure. Her
crime? Well, she wore a bathing suit that was shortened almost to
her shoulders and the trousers ended two inches above the knees.
Caused quite a scandal.

 I find this
hard to believe. It’s reported that you’d have to eat 11 pounds
of potatoes to gain 1 pound of weight. Not in my body anyway. My
sources say that a potato has no more calories than an apple.
Potatoes were once thought to cause your lifespan to be shorter and
to be the primary cause of leprosy and syphilis. Obviously these
folks didn’t have French Fries.

 There is
reportedly one atom for each 88 gallons of space in our universe. My
question is how do they measure space in gallons?

 The old
cowboy movies and stories tell us that ‘the six gun won the
West’. Well, wasn’t so. The Western movement became reality when
the windmill, steel plow and barbwire came into everyday use. That
and the advent of curtains in the old homestead.

 Next time you
run out of something to do. Go out and find a millipede. Count its
legs. They are supposed to have an average of 750. Look close.

 In case
you’ve ever wondered……identical twins don’t have the same
fingerprints.

 Along that
same note…..it takes an unborn fetus three months to form
fingerprints.

 Never thought
about this, but the strawberry is the only fruit to grow its seeds
on the outside.

The Beatles only
recorded one song that came from a Broadway musical. It was “Till
There Was You” from the musical…..”The Music Man”. Recorded
in 1964. Was included in their first album called…”Meet the
Beatles”.

 The reason we
call a cab a taxi…is simply because the first ones were equipped
with a taximeter. This was a device used to measure the fare or the
‘tax’ that was due for the ride. Cabs used to paint the word
‘Taximeter’ on the sides of their vehicles…this, over time, go
shortened to just plain old …taxi.

 I’ll bet
you didn’t know that we use champagne to christen ships instead of
blood. Well, they did when they first started doing this ritual in
the South Seas and by the Vikings. Seems they believed that the
blood of their enemies would protect them against future harm if
splashed on the prow of their vessel. Over time, they switched to
wine and then eventually to champagne.

 While I’m
on the subject of the sea. Pirates believed that wearing earrings
improved their eyesight. Now, this idea was laughed out for years,
but recent investigation into acupuncture now leads some to believe
that the point on the ear lobe where the ear was pierced corresponds
to the same auricular point controlling the eyes. Maybe they had
something there?

 Basil
Rathbone played in over 15 Sherlock Holmes movies. Another fellow
named George Treville played the role in 9 films as well. I’d
never heard of him. Small wonder, he did these in 1912 and 1913.
Haven’t ever seen those on late night television, have you?

 Talk about
names that fit…..The Wild West show performer known as Calamity
Jane. Her real name was Martha Jane Canary. Eleven of her twelve
husbands met with untimely deaths.

 Here’s one
to think about. Do hummingbirds have hollow tongues? Nope, sure
don’t. They have a tongue called a bifid that can be rolled into a
tube to allow them to gather nectar.

 Next time you
are frustrated standing in line to get stamps…you might want to
call upon Saint Gabriel. In case you forgot, he’s the patron Saint
of Postal Services.

I like word
origins. Here’s one for you to think about. Giving someone the
“Cold Shoulder”. Where’d that come from? Well, it was used to
try and discourage an uninvited dinner guest from intruding again.
The host or hostess would serve the unwelcome person a cold piece of
leftover meat such as the cold shoulder of lamb and then walk
away……according to some the hostess would expose a bare shoulder
as well, along with a look of disdain.

 Some people
have more problems than I do…for instance, there was a Greek
General named  Hajianestis.
He was famous for leading the Army in the 1921 war against Turkey.
Well, seems like he often was afraid to get out of bed as he thought
his legs were too brittle that they would collapse. Sometimes he
imagined his legs were made of glass or sugar. Often he would
pretend to be dead and not respond to anyone trying to awaken him.
Wasn’t any big surprise that he was untimely relieved of his
duties.

 Next time you
throw that piece of plastic out to the window…consider this:
It’s estimated that a plastic container may take as long as 50,000
years to decompose.

 The Incas
didn’t consider themselves married until they exchanged sandals
after the ceremony.

 That oil the
jewelers use to lubricate clocks and watches. …Costs about $3,000
a gallon.

 Largest city
in North America at this time is ….Mexico City with a population
of over 19,000,000. Don’t want to be on the freeways at rush hour
in this place, do we?

 Bone China is
called that simply because it is mixed with powdered animal bone to
give it better strength and whiteness.   

 How about the
origin of this custom? We all clink our glasses when drinking a
toast. Why? I’ve heard several versions before, but this one says
that it was usual in older days to share your wine or whatever with
the person pouring. This was to insure that he or she wasn’t
giving you the one with the poison. To show that you trusted the
host or hostess you simply clinked your glass without sharing the
liquid. What if you were wrong?

Here’s looking at
you….Go to Panama and you’ll find that the Indian women in the
San Blas region think that large noses are very attractive and
things of great beauty. To make them appear longer they paint black
lines down the center of their noses. Their leaders must have huge
noses, as this is mark of greatness. 

I find this
strange…In this country you couldn’t use a dime for any
transaction over $10.00 before 1933. Congress had to pass a law that
year making the dime legal for any and all monetary transactions.
What was their reason in the first place?

 President
Woodrow Wilson made Mothers day a national holiday in 1914. It came
about due to the efforts of a Mrs. Anna Jarvis from West Virginia.
She started pushing for the holiday to celebrate motherhood in 1907.
Ended up speaking to churches, social groups of every sort. Finally
the idea caught on and you know the rest.

 Might be of
interest to you to know that in 1610 a bridge was built in Lima,
Peru. So what you might ask? Well, instead of water for the mortar,
they used the whites of 10,000 eggs. Still standing after all these
years. Called the Bridge of Eggs. For good reason.

 I don’t
have any suggestions on what you should do if you see a tidal wave
headed toward you. On open seas their speeds can sometimes hit 500
or more miles per hour. I can’t swim or run that fast and doubt if
you can either.

 The word
…’curfew’…comes from the French word….couvre feu….which
means …’put out the fire….’ So, that’s what you did …you
put out the fire and went to bed…..

 What made the
1886 World Series so unusual was the fact that they had 63 errors.