Month: June 2010

Asteroids, Blondin, and Dick Cheney’s Chest

June 30th is a WAY WACKY day in history. Don’t believe me?

Check this….

1859 French acrobat Blondin crossed Niagara Falls on a tightrope as 5,000 spectators watched.

1908 An asteroid exploded above Tunguska in Siberia, leaving 800 square miles of scorched or blown-down trees.

1917 Jazz singer Lena Horne was born in Brooklyn, N.Y.

1921 President Warren G. Harding appointed former President William Howard Taft chief justice of the United States.

1934 Adolf Hitler began his “blood purge” of political and military leaders in Germany in what came to be known as “The Night of the Long Knives.”

1934 Harry Blackstone, Jr. was born. He was an American Illusionist and Magician.

1936 The novel “Gone with the Wind” by Margaret Mitchell was published.

1952 The radio soap opera “The Guiding Light” made its TV debut on CBS.

1963 Pope Paul VI was crowned the 262nd head of the Roman Catholic Church.

1971 The 26th Amendment to the Constitution, lowering the minimum voting age to 18, was ratified as Ohio became the 38th state to approve it.

1994 The U.S. Figure Skating Association stripped Tonya Harding of the national championship and banned her from the organization for life for an attack on rival Nancy Kerrigan.

2001 Doctors implanted a dual-purpose pacemaker in Vice President Dick Cheney’s chest.

Four words for all of this…..“Whack-A-Doodle-Doody”

more of da zue

I have such a connection with the animal world. I simply love the furry beasts. D-O-G-s are my favorite. But, every time I go to the zoo, I find myself captivated, delighted (in some ways) and enthralled.

We’ve not had zoos all that long in the U.S. In 1860, Central Park Zoo, the first public zoo in the United States, opened in New York, although in 1859, the Philadelphia Zoological Society had made an effort to establish a zoo, but delayed opening it until 1874 because of the American Civil War. Zoos were really crappy to animals back then. Some still are. But some do a pretty decent job at conservation, and protection. So, the balance.

A Day at the Zoo.

Today, we took the grandkids to the Cincinnati Zoo. Haylee, Levi, and (new big brother) Isaac. We saw a lot of things. A lot.

We met some fine animals today too. I cried a couple of times. It always happens to me at the zoo.

Stand By Me.

Ah, one of my favorite movies, Stand By Me. I just love it. Reminds me of the childhood of…. well…. some child somewhere.

So here’s my Mary and my Jerry, up on the train tracks above Seven Mile Creek. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, if a train comes, you see. It reminded me of Stand By Me.
Jerry and Mary went on to look for Ray Brower. About a half mile away, they found a large plastic bag, about the size of a body, near the tracks. Creepy for a minute. It wasn’t Ray Brower, however. Mary looked.

For more about the movie, follow this link.

Cool Birthdays!

There are some very cool birthdays on this day. Babe Didrickson Zaharias (Incredible female athlete, 1911); Arthur Middleton (Signer of the Declaration of Independence, 1787); Pearl Buck (American Nobel Prize-winning author, 1892); Sean Hayes (Actor, 1970); Chris O’Donnell (Actor, 1970); oh, there’s a bunch more.

But on this very amazing day, especially, Titus Neil Moreland, son of Joshua and Tiffany Moreland, was born at 8:16 this morning. Six pounds and 14 ounces. Twenty inches tall. Adorable from head to toe.

There’s a full moon tonight too. That’s gotta’ be good.

(Not a Polly Kronenberger photograph. Not sure who took this. Probably Josh. I did some post production work, however.)

By son

We have lots of Buffalo stuff here in the U.S.

Buffalo, NY, Buffalo Wings, Buffalo China, Buffalo Bills, Buffalo Burgers, Buffalo Marshmallow Cups, Johnny the Big Buffalo Pro Wrestler, Buffalo Balloons, Buffalo Icecream. I mean, the list goes on and on. Why? I ask you. Why????? This fixation with Buffalo? Buffalo Nickels, Buffalo Lodges, Buffalo Diaper Company…. blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…..

You have something green between your…

So how do you tell a fish this sort of thing?

“Dude. You’ve got a little piece of food on your head?” Embarrassing for the fish. Embarrassing for you. There’s just no good etiquette on this one.

If I had wings, I’d learn to fly.

At times like this, I just only can say, “Mother, Mother Nature.”

Picking your….

Well, I’ll admit it. I like toothpicks by golly. For a lot of different reasons, most of which don’t really have to do with picking your teeth. They come in handy all over the place. Propping eyelids open, and such. The best way I’ve ever used a toothpick was back in 1984, when I needed to break into my dorm room. I lit the thing up, held it under the smoke alarm, and within minutes, the entire dormitory emptied. I got back into my room that way. Some folks might argue that it would have been easier to just knock on the door, and wake my roommate up in the conventional manner. But I say, nah, nadda, nope, no way. The toothpick saved the day.

As a side note: Charles Forster invented in the toothpick. In the mid 1800s. While working for his uncle’s import/export business in Brazil, he noticed that the natives had beautiful teeth, which he attributed to their use of handcrafted toothpicks. He decided they needed to be mass produced in the U.S. And there you have it.

Mississippi, 1964

On June 21, 1964, three civil rights workers disappeared in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Their bodies were found buried in an earthen dam six weeks later. Eight members of the Ku Klux Klan went to prison on federal conspiracy charges; none served more than six years.

I was about 2 months old at that time. Some things have changed since then. Some things haven’t.