Ponder
Points
If you want your
bug spray to be effective the best time to use it is at 4PM. The
Department of Agriculture says that’s the time insects are the most
active. Go get ‘em.
So where’d we get
the word…’grocer’? It originally meant a person involved in the
wholesale trading of foodstuffs. Since he sold goods by in bulk or
by the ‘gross’ the word evolved as we use it today.
We use the
words…’to weasel out of something’ as a result of watching the
animal called a weasel try to squirm and wiggle it’s way out of a
trap once he’s been caught. People are said to use the same
technique to get out of tight situations.
So you’re in the
desert and you need a hardy beast of burden…Use a camel, right?
Wrong. A giraffe can go much longer without water than a camel.
Haven’t seen too many giraffes loaded up with stuff however.
I don’t know how
long camels and giraffes can hold out without water, but the average
human can make it about 11 days at 60 degrees.
Everyone knew that
Burt Lancaster started out as a lingerie salesman before he became
famous as an actor.
Speaking of famous
people…..Robert Mitchum once got fired from an auto factory in
Detroit for refusing to wear socks to work.
While we’re on this
…Ringo Starr got fired as a barman on a charter boat for talking
back to his boss after an all night party.
The temperature on
our sun can range from a low of only 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit to a
sweltering 15 million degrees on a hot day….
The largest bill
the US mint ever produced was for $100,000. It was never put into
circulation and only used for government matters. Until 1969 you
could still get bills issued in $10,000 denominations. Today the
largest is a $100 bill.
In football we call
the play a ‘down’…why is this? In the beginning days of football,
the player would yell out…”Down” when he was so that others would
stop piling on top of him. Now you know.
If you ever get
lost in woods and are starving…you can eat your shoes…the leather
therein has enough nutrition to keep your motor going for a little
while longer…if you’re wearing rubber sneakers…well, try some
berries or something else.
While you’re
there…be aware that the black mamba snake can travel anywhere from
25 to 30 miles per hour…been known to chase riders on
horseback….hope you can climb trees …hope it can’t.
You’d have better
luck chasing frogs unless you managed to go after the South African
sharp-nose…He can jump 33 feet in 3 leaps…don’t know how fast he can
run…do frogs run?
The penny accounts
for over 2/3’s of the total coins that we have in circulation…..the
mints have trouble keeping up with the supply since so many people
save them in jars and bottles….where do you keep yours?
What was the ‘day
of 2 noons’? Happened in 1883. At that time we had 100 time zones in
this country…a group of railroad officials devised what we now use
as standard time zones. Cut the number down from 100 to just 4. The
date was selected and the time went out at noon on that day by
telegraph. Since several of the zones had already passed noon, they
had another one.
Seven is the
number of what:
Well, the Seven
Dwarfs…..Sleepy, Happy, Dopey, Bashful, Grumpy, Sneezy and Doc.
The number of
Kings who attended Queen Elizabeth’s Golden Wedding Anniversary in
1977.
A human eyeball
weights 7 grams.
There are 7 Hills
of Rome.
The number of
recorded accidents in England in 1977 for accidents in the home
involving the use of putty.
While we’re on
this one, it’s also the number of accidents in 1994 in England in
which a tape measure hurt someone at home….who keeps up with this
stuff?
Speaking of the
English….we get the term….”back seat” from the English Parliament.
The party in the majority sits on the front rows, while the minority
party members take a back seat when in session.
In Waterloo,
Nebraska….if you’re a barber…you can go to jail for eating onions
between the hours of 7am and 7pm. Watch those hamburgers.
Saint Patrick
wasn’t Irish. He was from Britain. Was kidnapped by some Irish
bandits and escaped. Then he became a priest, eventually a bishop
and went back to Ireland as a missionary.
The first World
Series was won by The Boston Red Sox in 1903. They played the
Pittsburgh Pirates and beat them 5 games to 3, out of best of 9
games. Happened from October 1st to October 13th
of that year.
You want to know
how fast a train is traveling? Count the number of clicks you hear
in 20 seconds…that’ll tell you about how fast it’s going.
The slogan for
Coca-Cola in 1953 was…….”Things Go Better With Coke…” in 1929…..it
was “The Pause That Refreshes”.
The microwave
oven…That piece of kitchen equipment that we find indispensable.
Well, it was invented by one Percy Spencer while he was working for
Raytheon..He was working on improving the magnetron on a radar unit
when he noticed that candy in his pocket had melted. He got the idea
that microwaves could be used to heat food.
In 1797, a woman
got married in England…Not too unusual except she did so while
completely naked. There was a superstition at that time that said
that a woman who was wealthy married some fellow who had a lot of
debts….then the creditors could not come after her for payment of
her husbands bills if she got married in the nude. Doesn’t say what
she had to wear or not wear at the reception.
Ted Danson, the TV
actor…used to play the part of a bad attorney on the soap opera
called Somerset.
Don’t laugh….Kevin
Kline started his career as Woody reed, in the everlasting…”Search
For Tomorrow.”
Final one…Kim
Novak was Miss Deepfreeze of 1953…Where was this held?
Why….? Did you know
that Louis XIV owned 413 beds….now you do.
Along those same
lines….at the court of Louis the XV, (no telling how many beds he
had) your status was determined by the height of your chair….no one
but the King could sit in a chair that had arms on it.
The common sponge
has to filter a ton of water through its pores in order to gain one
ounce of body weigh. Wish that were the same with me.
Edison’s first
patented invention was a voting machine. No one took it serious and
it was many years before anyone considered that it had any
commercial possibilities.
Another little fact
about old Thomas…although he had his sight ..he preferred to read
books in Braille.
Final thought and
then I’ll quit…Tom did so poorly in school; his mother yanked him
out and taught him at home. She was a schoolteacher, so she must
have known what she was doing.
At one time you
could get 250,000 people in the Circus Maximus in Rome.
If you were
traveling in Ireland in the 1700’s and were challenged to a duel,
but you had no pistols, what to do? Well, most of the Inns of the
day had a spare set on hand for just such an event…..probably made
you pay your bill before you set out for the big day.
At least 50 million
bacteria are able to live in a single drop of liquid.
Ever heard of the
metal called Osmium? Well, it’s so dense that an ingot the size of a
dollar bill and about 1 inch thick would weigh over 13 pounds….
That sea creature
called an abalone……find one about 4 inches and try to pry it
open…good luck….says it can grip a rock with a force of over 400
pounds…..couple of strong men can’t even break it apart.
What’s the motto
for the State of Alaska? My sources say it doesn’t have one….
Henry Hudson, the
famous Dutch explorer should have bought some land when he arrived
in this country..He landed on the spot we now call Coney
Island….could have made a deal on it if he’d been smart.
Here we call it a:
Apartment, in
England it’s a ’flat’.
Elevator…over there
it’s a ‘lift’
Gasoline
here…petrol, there.
Lawyer
….solicitor…..
So far, the best
selling non-fiction book has been “Dr. Spocks’s Common Sense Book of
Baby and Child Care.”
Eskimos have over
20 different words for snow…..people in Texas don’t.
The monkey wrench
was named after the guy who invented it….Charles Moncke…
Drop a raisin into
a glass of fresh champagne and it will rise to the top, fall and
rise to the top again and again and again…….isn’t this interesting?
