Welcome to December 19! BIRTHDAYS: Henry Clay Frick, 1849; Albert Michelson, 1852; Ralph Richardson, 1902; Eve Bunting (childrens author), 1928; Cicely Tyson, 1939; Richard E. Leakey, 1944; Robert Urich, 1947; Kevin McHale, 1957; Jennifer Beale, 1963; Alyssa Milano, 1972. THIS DAY IN HISTORY: On this date in 1732 Poor Richards Almanack began publication in Philadelphia by Ben Franklin. On this date in 1776 Thomas Paine published The American Crisis, which included the words These are the times that try mens souls. On this date in 1777 George Washington and 11,000 troops established a camp at Valley Forge, PA. On this date in 1787 Thomas Jefferson received a copy of the Constitution. On this date in 1871 corrugated paper was patented. On this date in 1959 Walter Williams, the last Civil War Veteran, died at the age of 117. On this date in 1972 Apollo 17, the sixth and last manned moon-landing mission to date, ended with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. On this date in 1984 Wayne Gretzky scored his 1,000th point in his 632nd professional hockey game. MEANINGLESS FACTS: The top 10 brightest stars are as follows -- Sirius, Canopus, Rigel Kentaurus, Areturus, Vega, Capella, Rigel, Procyon, Achernar, and Betelgeuse... Four gills equals one pint which equals 28.875 cubit inches... Ten millimeters equals one centimeter which equals 0.3937 inch. TRIVIA: In the Bible, what bird is said to carry its young on its wings? Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love (Thanks to BC)! ****************************************************** Huge today, I know, but something for everyone... I hope... :) ts Thanks to CRJ -- [email protected] editor of a great bulletin, which I used to receive and would love to have again (hint, hint, :), ). Weeweechu One beautiful December evening Pedro and his girlfriend Rosita were sitting by the side of the ocean. It was a romantic full moon, when Pedro said, Hey, mamacita, lets play Weeweechu. Oh no, not now, lets look at the moon said Rosita. Oh, cmon baby, lets you and I play Weeweechu. I love you and its the perfect time, Pedro begged. But I wanna just hold your hand and watch the moon. Please, Corazoncito, just once, play Weeweechu with me. Rosita looked at Pedro and said, OK, one time, well play Weeweechu. Pedro grabbed his guitar and they both sang..... Weeweechu a Merry Christmas, Weeweechu a Merry Christmas, Weeweechu a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year. ****************************************************** The Wrench Who Stole Racing By Greg Engle Cup Scene Daily Then he went up the vent, the old liar. On their walls he left nothing but some hooks and some wire. And the one speck of food that he left in the RV, Was a crumb that was too small for even little John Andretti. Then he did the same thing to the other Fans RVs Leaving crumbs much too small for ANY John Andretti. And last thing he did was climb the flag stand. And took ALL the flags, red ,yellow, black, checkered and green! It was a quarter past dawn, all the Fans were still a-dreamin The Fans still a-snorin, when he packed up his old Grand Prix. Packed it up with all that Fan stuff. The Mark Martin hats! The Stewart t-shirts! The die-cast cars! The Dale Jarrett socks! And finally the flags, red, yellow, black checkered and green. Up the side of Mount Rockingham, the old Wrench he did climb. His trunk piled high from his overnight snide. He went to the top, and peered over the far edge, And got ready to dump the bags over the ledge. Pooh-pooh to the Fans! He was Wrenchly humming, Theyre finding out that no racing is coming! Theyre just waking up! I know just what theyll do! There mouths will hang open a minute or two! Then all the Fans down in Fan-ville will cry BOO-HOO! Thats a noise grinned the Wrench, That I simply MUST hear!. So he paused. And the Wrench put a tiny hand to his ear. And he heard a sound rising from the track way down there. It started in low. Then it started to grow. But the sound wasnt sad. No BOO-HOO! And he looked very hard at the track down below. And saw them pushing RACE cars onto pit row! The Wrench popped his eyes. Then he shook! What he saw was a shocking surprise! Every Fan down in Fan-ville, the tall and the small, Was cheering! Why, theyd race after ALL! He HADNT stopped the race from coming. IT CAME! Somehow or the other, theyd race just the same! And the Wrench, with his wrenchy feet ice-cold in the snow, Stood puzzling and puzzling: How could it be so? How could they still cheer? Theyll race without hats! Without flags, without root beer! And yet, somehow, theyll still put on a show. Race round the track, off theyll go And he puzzled awhile, and puzzled and puzzled till his puzzler hurt so. Then the Wrench thought of something he hadnt before! Maybe racing, means a lot more, than hats, or T-shirts or stuff from a store, he thought. Maybe the drivers going around head to head, racing each other counting the laps that each have lead. The Wrench screwed his mouth and looked up in the air, Maybe at the end of 500 miles or more, after racing each other close, door to door, one-hundred ninety miles an hour, sometimes a little more. The Wrench rubbed his pointy, wrenchy chin. Hmm...A TRUE test of a man is how far and fast he will go. And what happened then? Well...in Fan-ville they say That the Wrenches small hands grew three sizes that day! And the minute his steering didnt feel so tight. He whizzed, raced really, with his load through the bright morning light. And he brought back all the Fans things! And he brought back the flags, red, yellow, black, checkered and green. And he...HE HIMSELF...! The Wrench dropped the green flag from the flag stand that day, But not before all the Fans heard him say: Gentleman start your engines! Let the racing get underway! The End ****************************************************** From a friend: Twas The Night Before Christmas (as if written by a technical writer for a firm that does US government contracting) Twas the nocturnal segment of the diurnal period preceding the annual Yuletide celebration, and throughout our place of residence, kinetic activity was not in evidence among the possessors of this potential, including that species of domestic rodent known as Mus musculus. Hosiery was meticulously suspended from the forward edge of the wood burning caloric apparatus, pursuant to our anticipatory pleasure regarding an imminent visitation from an eccentric philanthropist among whose folkloric appellations is the honorific title of St. Nicholas. The prepubescent siblings, comfortably ensconced in their respective accommodations of repose, were experiencing subconscious visual hallucinations of variegated fruit confections moving rhythmically through their cerebrums. My conjugal partner and I, attired in our nocturnal head coverings, were about to take slumberous advantage of the hibernal darkness when upon the avenaceous exterior portion of the grounds there ascended such a cacophony of dissonance that I felt compelled to arise with alacrity from my place of repose for the purpose of ascertaining the precise source thereof. Hastening to the casement, I forthwith opened the barriers sealing this fenestration, noting thereupon that the lunar brilliance without, reflected as it was on the surface of a recent crystalline precipitation, might be said to rival that of the solar meridian itself - thus permitting my incredulous optical sensory organs to behold a miniature airborne runnered conveyance drawn by eight diminutive specimens of the genus Rangifer, piloted by a minuscule, aged chauffeur so ebullient and nimble that it became instantly apparent to me that he was indeed our anticipated caller. With his ungulate motive power travelling at what may possibly have been more vertiginous velocity than patriotic alar predators, he vociferated loudly, expelled breath musically through contracted labia, and addressed each of the octet by his or her respective cognomen - Now Dasher, now Dancer... et al. - guiding them to the uppermost exterior level of our abode, through which structure I could readily distinguish the concatenations of each of the 32 cloven pedal extremities. As I retracted my cranium from its erstwhile location, and was performing a 180-degree pivot, our distinguished visitant achieved - with utmost celerity and via a downward leap - entry by way of the smoke passage. He was clad entirely in animal pelts soiled by the ebony residue from oxidations of carboniferous fuels which had accumulated on the walls thereof. His resemblance to a street vendor I attributed largely to the plethora of assorted playthings which he bore dorsally in a commodious cloth receptacle. His orbs were scintillant with reflected luminosity, while his submaxillary dermal indentations gave every evidence of engaging amiability. The capillaries of his malar regions and nasal appurtenance were engorged with blood which suffused the subcutaneous layers, the former approximating the coloration of Albions floral emblem, the latter that of the Prunus avium, or sweet cherry. His amusing sub- and supralabials resembled nothing so much as a common loop knot, and their ambient hirsute facial adornment appeared like small, tabular and columnar crystals of frozen water. Clenched firmly between his incisors was a smoking piece whose grey fumes, forming a tenuous ellipse about his occiput, were suggestive of a decorative seasonal circlet of holly. His visage was wider than it was high, and when he waxed audibly mirthful, his corpulent abdominal region undulated in the manner of impectinated fruit syrup in a hemispherical container. He was, in short, neither more nor less than an obese, jocund, multigenarian gnome, the optical perception of whom rendered me visibly frolicsome despite every effort to refrain from so being. By rapidly lowering and then elevating one eyelid and rotating his head slightly to one side, he indicated that trepidation on my part was groundless. Without utterance and with dispatch, he commenced filling the aforementioned appended hosiery with various of the aforementioned articles of merchandise extracted from his aforementioned previously dorsally transported cloth receptacle. Upon completion of this task, he executed an abrupt about-face, placed a single manual digit in lateral juxtaposition to his olfactory organ, inclined his cranium forward in a gesture of leave-taking, and forthwith effected his egress by renegotiating (in reverse) the smoke passage. He then propelled himself in a short vector onto his conveyance, directed a musical expulsion of air through his contracted oral sphincter to the antlered quadrupeds of burden, and proceeded to soar aloft in a movement hitherto observable chiefly among the seed-bearing portions of a common weed. But I overheard his parting exclamation, audible immediately prior to his vehiculation beyond the limits of visibility: Ecstatic Yuletide to the planetary constituency, and to that self same assemblage, my sincerest wishes for a salubriously beneficial and gratifyingly pleasurable period between sunset and dawn. Versions of this article have been floating around the Net for years. According to one visitor to this page, ...this piece was compiled by students at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City, South Dakota. The article was printed in the Rapid City paper in December, 1983. I cannot recall the name of the paper, but I still have my clipping of it from that year so I do know from whence and where it originated. And Catherine writes, As a graduate of South Dakota School of Mines (SDSM&T) in 1978, I can tell you that I found it in about 1974 at the University of South Dakota (USD). I posted it on my dorm door at USD and at SDSM&T. I recall I may have even read it when working as a d-jay on KTEQ (the schools station). Interesting that it ended up in the newspaper in Rapid City. Who knows, it could have originally come out of Mines. ****************************************************** Thanks to WS: The Outhouse Once there was a little boy who lived in the country. They had to use an outhouse, and the little boy hated it because it was hot in the summer, cold in the winter, and stunk all the time. The outhouse was sitting on the bank of a creek and the boy determined that one day he would push that outhouse into the creek. One day after a spring rain, the creek was swollen so the little boy decided today was the day to push the outhouse into the creek. So he got a large stick and started pushing. Finally, the outhouse toppled into the creek and floated away. That night his dad told him they were going to the woodshed after supper. Knowing that meant a spanking, the little boy asked why. The dad replied, someone pushed the outhouse into the creek today. It was you, wasnt it, son? The boy answered yes. Then he thought a moment and said, Dad, I read in school today that George Washington chopped down a cherry tree and didnt get into trouble because he told the truth. The dad replied, Well, son, George Washingtons father wasnt in that cherry tree. ****************************************************** ANSWER: According to Deuteronomy 32:11, the eagle carries its young on its wings -- As an eagle stirreth her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings... (See also Exodus 19:4). ******************************************************
Posted on: Fri, 19 Dec 2014 15:21:16 +0000
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