To continue the Christmas theme for this week I thought a few comments and cartoons concerning the holidays was badly needed. This short poem from the late and great Benny Hill should start things off properly.
Roses are reddish
Violets are bluish
If it weren’t for Christmas
We’d all be Jewish.
🎅🏻
He was no Edgar Allen Poe, but he always seemed to get his messages across. These next two tidbits were a contribution by our oldest favorite writer and poet, Anonymous.
The three stages of a man’s life:
1. He believes in Santa Claus.
2. He doesn’t believe in Santa Claus;
3. He is Santa Claus.
🎄
“Christmas is Christ’s revenge for the crucifixion.”
⭐
And finally, a few quotes from celebrities or former celebrities.
“I stopped believing in Santa Claus when my mother took me to see
him in a department store, and he asked for my autograph.”
Shirley Temple
✨
Santa Claus has the right idea: Visit people once a year.”
I’ve spent most of my day dealing with a belligerent computer program that refuses to do its job. I shouldn’t be too upset since it’s a program I purchased about 10 years ago. I suspect that it has finally gotten to the point where my new computer is more than it can handle. It was a program used to write what I spoke. Now I’ll be forced to step back a few years and begin typing everything myself. I suppose I’ve gotten a little lazy over the years relying on that software. That being said I’m posting a few limericks today that were originally written sometime prior to 1960. Enjoy them unedited.
As you are all aware collecting strange facts and stories is my life. It was also a hobby of one of my favorite writers, Isaac Asimov. I’ve mentioned him many times through the years because he was not only a prolific writer but a huge collector of obscure information. Today’s post will be information he collected about the deaths and actions of some interesting individuals. You need to remember that while he collected a lot of information, he was also a big history buff as well. Much of his information concerns people well-known from many years ago. See what you think.
The city morgue in the Bronx, New York, has been so busy at times that next of kin are required to take numbers like they’re in a bakery and then wait in line for their body identification call.
Through the door and windows, would-be assassins poured 73 bullets into Leon Trotsky’s bedroom in his fortresslike house in Mexico City. Thanks to a moment’s warning, Trotsky and his wife escaped unscathed by hiding under the bed. Later in the same year, which was 1940, Trotsky was slain by one man, using an ice pick, who worked himself into the confidence of the old Russian revolutionary. The assassin went by the alias Jacques van den Dreschd, but his true identity remains unknown to this day.
Someone maliciously shouted “Fire” at a copper miners Christmas party in Calumet, Michigan, in 1913. Panic ensued and 72 lives-mostly children’s-were lost.
Calumet Fire Disaster
Stephen Decatur, US naval hero of the Tripoli campaign and of the war of 1812, was challenged in 1822 to a dual by a fellow officer, Commodore James Baron, who was seriously nearsighted. To accommodate his opponent, Decatur agreed to exchange shots at only 8 paces. The duel began and Baron then killed him.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), The Elizabethan champion of the scientific method, died in pursuit of a better way of preserving food. He caught a severe cold while attempting to preserve a chicken by filling it with snow and later died.
George Eastman (1854-1932) was born poor and had little chance for schooling. Thanks to the profit of the company he founded, Eastman Kodak, he was able to contribute over $100 million to various educational institutions. Eastman committed suicide rather than spending his last years in loneliness and without the prospect of further accomplishments.
President Garfield Assassination
Alexander Graham Bell devised a metal locating tool to help find the assassin’s bullet in President James Garfield in 1881. The capture device was workable, but didn’t work on this occasion because no one had thought of removing the steel spring mattress the president was lying on. Metal, it turned out, interfered with the devices search. The unsanitary methods used in attempting to locate the bullet caused infection to spread throughout Garfield’s body and he died shortly thereafter.
Here are the final words of a favorite: Oscar Wilde
Here are a few limericks concerning food. They aren’t that bawdy, but they should still be considered “food for the soul”. So, enjoy them all especially the one with those juicycantaloupes.
I can tell that today is not going to be a fun day. First of all, this is a “change of season” month, and I find from years of experience that “change of season” months usually suck. The clouds are gray, the sky is gray, the garden plants are all dead, all the “cool” birds have headed south for the winter, and I’m hip deep in effing leaves. Here’s my good survival tip for living in Maine. You must always and I do mean always have an electric blanket somewhere nearby for heat emergencies at this time of the year. Last night I earned a “7” out of ten on my electric blanket. I was awakened at 5:30 a.m. not for my normal bathroom visit but because my teeth were chattering so loud, I was waking up the cat. I’m just not ready for this crap weather and the coming winter. Maybe it’s just old age creeping up on me which tends to be happening more and more these days.
As the years go by, I’ve given a lot of thought to my final days, and I’ve discovered that only two things really matter at that point. If you want to leave some sort of legacy all you need to do is leave two things: a self-written epithet for your headstone or (for you urn people) a really cool quote for your final words. Today’s post is a list of the final words of a few well-known people. Some are profound and some are not, you be the judge.
H. G. Wells (1866-1946) stated to his nurse: “Go away. I’m all right.”
Brigham Young (1801-77) stated “Amen”.
George Washington (1732-99) stated to his doctor, “Doctor, I die hard, but I’m not afraid to go.”
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) “Please put out the light.”
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) “Drink to me.”
Elizabeth I (1533-1603) “All my possessions for a moment of time.”
So how would you all like to have a homework assignment. If you’re so inclined, send me your epitaph and last words and hopefully by then I’ll have mine done and will I’ll post them.
I thought today would be a good day to post some poetry by youngsters. I’ve read all of the most famous poets, but they don’t give me the same kind of rush that poetry by younger people gives me. These were obtained from various English-speaking countries around the world. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have.
✍🏻
THE GRASS by Warren Cardwell, age 8, United States
The grass seems to dance,
It seems to walk,
It seems to talk,
It seems to like to
Have you walk on it,
And play with it too,
It seems to be stronger than you or I.
✍🏻✍🏻
THE JELLYFISH by Glenn Davis, age 11, Canada
Dome-like top, speckled, comets converging.
Gold-green flesh, wave edges urging.
Jellylike globules, soft lattice arms,
Spiked fury, leather lash meting out harm.
Golden-smooth rods, waving whiplike with water,
Beauty and danger, the jellyfish slaughter.
✍🏻✍🏻✍🏻
DEW ON A SPIDER WEB by Michael Capstone, age 10, New Zealand
I thought I’d start the month of October with a bang. Over the years I’ve posted thousands of limericks, and I hope I live long enough to post 10,000 more. I tried to pick a topic today to make these limericks a little more interesting. So, the topic for our October limericks is MOTHERHOOD. I’m sure all of you mothers out there, both male and female, will appreciate them.
Ask any foreigner visiting the United States as to our language with its many and varied slang words. It has to be impossible to understand for most of them because truthfully, it’s pretty hard to understand even if you were born and raised here. I’ve noticed in recent weeks while reviewing some British Tick-Tock participants who apparently are as confused about some of our language as I am. For years I’ve collected a huge list of clichés because they intrigue me. Some of them are cute but if you’re not an American you’ll have one helluva time trying to figure them out. Today I’ll share with you a few samples that you’ve heard but probably never knew where they originated. See would just think . . .
SLEEP TIGHT
This term is nothing more than a way of saying “good night and sleep well”. The phrase dates back to when beds were made of rope and straw. It is a shortened form of the expression, sleep tight and don’t let the bedbugs bite.” Before going to sleep at night, people would have to pull the ropes tight in order to have a firm bed to sleep on as the ropes would’ve loosened during the course of the previous night’s sleep. (I’ve actually slept on a rope bed and it’s like a sort of punishment or torture.)
SNUG AS A BUG IN A RUG
This expression dates from the 18th century, although a “snug” is a 16th century word for a parlor in an inn. The phrase is credited to Benjamin Franklin, who wrote it in 1772 as an epitaph for a pet squirrel that had belonged to Georgiana Shipley, the daughter of his friend the Bishop of St. Asaph. Franklin’s wife had sent the gray squirrel as a gift from Philadelphia, and they named him Skugg, a common nickname for squirrels at that time. Tragically, he escaped from Its cage and was killed by a dog. Franklin then wrote this little ditty:
Here Skugg
Lies snug
As a bug
In a rug.
KISS OF DEATH
This phrase derives from Judas Iscariot’s kiss given to Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane before he betrayed him (Luke 23:48 and Matthew 26:49). It’s also known as a “Judas Kiss,” meaning an insincere act of courtesy or false affection. In Mafia circles, a kiss from the boss may indeed be a fatal omen. The phrase is often used today in political or business contexts, meaning that certain associations or actions may prove to be the undoing of a person or organization, or the downfall of a plan or project. (I always thought it referred to several of my former ex-girlfriends.)
CATCH FORTY WINKS
A colloquial term for a short nap or a doze. Just why shutting one’s eye 40 times has come to mean a quick snooze is unclear, but it could have something to do with the fact that the number 40 appears frequently in the Scriptures and was thought to be a holy number. Moses was on the Mount for 40 days and 40 nights; Elijah was fed by ravens for 40 days; the rain of the Flood fell for 40 days, and another 40 days passed before Noah opened the windows of the ark. Christ fasted for 40 days, and he was seen 40 days after his Resurrection. As an aside: A “40” is a bottle containing 40 fluid ounces of malt liquor beer. Street gang members will drink 40’s and will sometimes pour out a little of the beer onto the ground for their dead homies. (Not so holy anymore.)
PUT A SOCK IN IT
This is a plea to be quiet, to shut up, to make less noise. It comes from the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries, when the early gramophones, or phonographs, had large horns through which the sound was amplified. These mechanical contraptions had no volume controls, and so a convenient method of reducing the volume was to stuff a woolen sock inside the horn.
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