Human beings are strange animals. We all seem to think that everything we think and speak is something new and original and profound. It’s not until we mature into thinking adults (most of us) that we realize just how repetitive and cyclical almost everything is. Todays post will concern a few classic nursery rhymes we’ve all heard or used and the approximate date of their origins. Have fun.
👼
“Hush-a-Bye Baby” – 1765, New England
Hush-a-bye baby, on the tree top,
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock;
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall,
Down will come baby, cradle, and all.
👼👼
“Baa, Baa, Black Sheep” – Pre-1760, England
Baa, baa, black sheep,
Have you any wool?
Yes, sir, yes, sir,
Three bags full . . .
👼👼👼
“Hey Diddle Diddle” – Post-1569, Europe
Hey diddle diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon . . .
👼👼👼👼
“Sing a Song of Sixpence” – Pre-1744 – England
Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket full of rye;
Four and twenty blackbirds,
Baked in a pie.
💞💞💞
Here’s a special ditty just for Mary (my better-half).
“Mary, Mary” – 18th Century – England
Mary, Mary quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockle shells,
and pretty maids all in a row.
Secular tradition claims the original ” Mary” was actually Mary, Queen of Scots
As I spend a great deal of my day sitting at this computer, it gives me time to think and possibly overthink everything. I feel like I have a comprehensive view of the world and all of it’s effed up citizens and countries. The more you discover about the human race the worse it seems to get. If the World Cup didn’t tell all of us Americans just how lucky we are in comparison to every other country on earth, just listen to their citizens as they post about us. Americans do more pissing and moaning about their circumstances and never fail to trash American at every turn. These visiting Europeans are setting a fine example for all of our disgruntled Americans. They’ve been lied to for decades about this country and realized it almost immediately upon their arrival. The “bitchers and moaners” in this country should be required to spend a couple of weeks anywhere else and maybe just maybe they’ll gain a better perspective about their home. Take thousands of dollars of your hard earned money and attend the next World Cup. Pay for travel, food, lodging, and entry fees and then get back to me. Just be careful and don’t drink the water. LOL
“Good leaders make for good countries.” ME!
“High sentiments always win in the end. The leaders who offer blood, toil, tears and sweat always get more out their followers than those who offer safety and a good time. When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic.” George Orwell
“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.” Gen. George S. Patton Jr.
“I am more afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion than an army of lions led by a sheep.” Talleyrand
“My view is that to sit back and let fate play it’s hand and never influence it is not the way man was meant to operate.” John Glenn
“Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way.” Abraham Lincoln
I did a lot of reminiscing today as I was leafing through many old files and folders from my early years a a police officer. As I reviewed these documents I was truly amazed just how much paperwork I still retained from those “good old days”. I found a few things that were really old but still really funny. The following statements were supplied to actual police officer’s and were copied directly from their official accident reports. As always the truth is stranger than fiction.
WOMEN
“I thought I could squeeze between two trucks when my car became smashed.”
“A pedestrian hit me and went under my car.”
“I had been shopping for plants all day and was on my way home. As I reached an intersection a hedge sprang up obscuring my vision. I did not see the other car.”
“A invisible car came out of nowhere, struck my vehicle and then vanished.”
“I was taking my canary to the hospital. It got loose in the car and flew out the window. The next thing I saw was his rear end and there was a crash.”
🚘🚓🚛
MEN
“I saw the slow moving, sad faced, old gentleman as he bounced off the hood of my car.”
“A truck backed into my windshield into my wife’s face.”
“In my attempt to kill a fly, I drove into a telephone pole.”
“The guy was all over the road. I had to swerve a number of times before I hit him.”
“The other car attempted to cut in front of me, so I, with my right front bumper, removed his left rear tail light.”
“When I saw I could not avoid a collision, I stepped on the gas and crashed into the other car.”
🚗🚘🚙
Welcome to the OMG club. Now you’ve heard it all too.
I wasn’t sure I’d be posting today since my best and fastest computer stopped cooperating a few days ago. With the assistance of my better-half, some written instructions from my nephew (who built it), and three or four thousand juicy curse words, I’m once again operational. A tip for those of you who may have computer issues of your own: RULE 1 – do not drink shots of whiskey while attempting to relocate and adjust tiny little switches in the computer. It slows down the progress immensely. Along with that my better-half found out just how skilled I was at stringing those curse words together. Her training continues. LOL Todays post is titled BIZARRE for a reason.
Katherine Hepburn suffered from a phobia of dirty hair. When she was shooting films for Twentieth Century Fox, she would sniff the heads of cast and crew to make sure their hair was squeaky clean.
In Vermont it is illegal to whistle underwater.
Pennsylvania law books record a 1971 case of a man suing Satan – for his own bad luck and downfall. The case was thrown out of court on the grounds that Satan did not live in the state of Pennsylvania.
Don’t ever fall asleep in a bath tub in Detroit. You could be arrested because sleeping in bathtubs is illegal in the city.
“You have to be saved to get into heaven . . . you only have to be you to get into hell.” Marilyn Manson
In the ancient city of Jericho the dead were buried under the houses they lived in. But first their heads were severed, covered with plaster and clay, and decorated for their families to worship.
Catherine, wife of Russian czar Peter I, had a wandering eye, and Peter caught on. To teach Catherine a lesson, he forced her to watch her lover be killed, then pickled the lover’s head and kept it in their bedroom.
In the 17th century, midwives had a custom of saving a woman’s afterbirth, or placenta, and then burning it. The superstition was that the number of times the burning placenta popped indicated the number of children the mother could expect in the future.
For decades sports stars have claimed that appearing on the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine was the fastest way to a slump or defeat.
When John Madden was the coach of the Oakland Raiders football team, he wouldn’t let the team leave the locker room until running back Mark van Eeghen had belched.
“Today is the start of another new month and believe me when I tell you that they’ll keep coming faster and faster as you age. I’ve made the decision recently to once again reduce this blog to posting only twice a week instead of the current three days (Tuesdays, Thursdays & Saturdays). It makes sense going forward for me to begin posting only on Tuesdays and Thursdays because the readership during the summer months is substantially reduced. If things improve in the Fall and I’m sure they will, I’ll probably reconsider my decision. That being said I hope you all have a pleasant and happy summer.”
Now on to todays post. This post is primarily for those of you who either have or have contact with young children. These questions were compiled by a large group of highly educated professionals. They’re not a right or wrong kind of quiz but one that will certainly spark some interesting conversations. This first installment will give you ten questions to work with. Future installments will continue until we’ve reviewed all 268. Have fun reviewing them with the kids and hopefully you’ll both learn a few things about each other.
If you ruled the world and could have anything you wanted, and people would do anything you wanted, do you think you’d get greedy and mean or be good and fair?
Do you think boys or girls have it easier?
If your mother promised to be home at 2:00 in the afternoon to take you to the movies but didn’t show up until suppertime and didn’t even phone, what would be a good punishment for her? Would punishing her be likely to make her on time in the future?
If all of your best friends were wiling to be absolutely honest and tell you exactly what they liked and disliked about you, would you want them to?
Would you rather have a strict teacher who was fair and taught you a lot or one who was relaxed and fun but didn’t teach you much?
One day your father gets a really weird idea and dyes his hair green and puts a ring through his nose. Knowing everyone would be looking at him and snickering, would you go shopping with him if he wanted your company?
When you make a mistake, do you make up excuses? If so, do you think people believe you?
If you could have a round-trip in a time machine and travel any distance into the past or the future, where would you want to go?
If a friend had an important secret and didn’t want other people to learn about it, would telling you the secret be a big mistake?
If your parents were worried about a serious problem that had nothing to do with you directly, would you want them to tell you about it or would you rather not know?
Well, there you have the first ten questions. I hope they’ll help you help the children to learn about themselves.
Today I thought I should step away from all of the excitement connected with the World Cup. The endless supply of Tik-Toker’s are doing a fine job of informing the world about the USA and I’m sincerely happy about that. Reality will return soon enough, so enjoy our time in the sun as best you can. Todays post is a collection of thoughts and opinions by one of my favorite writers and philosophers, Oscar Wilde. He was a figure both loved and hated due to his many writings and personal exploits. I’ve always appreciated his Irish sense of humor and skilled and vicious use of sarcasm. A warning for those of you (myself included) who wield the sharp sword of sarcasm at every turn. It’s always a hazardous hobby even on the good days. Let’s get started.
ON WOMEN
“American women are pretty and charming: little oases of elegant unreasonableness in a vast desert of practical common sense.”
“Women are meant to be loved, not understood.”
“A woman will flirt with anyone in the world, as long as other women are looking on.”
“I like men who have a future, and women who have a past.”
“If you really want to know what a women means, which is dangerous, always look at her but never listen.”
ON MEN
“Men become old, they never become good.”
“I sometime think that God, in creating man, rather overestimated his ability.”
“If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is likely to be bad for him.”
“A man can be happy with any woman, so long as he does not love her.”
ON LOVE & MARRIAGE
“London is full of women who trust their husbands; one can always recognize them because they look so thoroughly unhappy.”
“The only real tragedy in a woman’s life is that her past is always her lover, and her future is invariably her husband.”
“There is nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman; it’s a thing that no married man knows anything about.”
“Men marry because they are tired, women because they are curious: both are disappointed.”
❤️❤️❤️
ONE OF MY FAVORITES
“No great artist sees things as they really are; if he did, he would cease to be an artist.”
Today I’d like to talk about marriage. It always seems like a topic that everyone has an opinion on and so do I. As far as I can see there are no real experts on marriage. If there were they couldn’t possibly explain why a little more than fifty percent of all marriages fail miserably. I have the right to speak on this subject because I’ve been married twice and divorced twice. I married for sex initially (bad move) and then married for love (or so I thought), (another bad move). Do I have solutions for this trend – I do not. As best I can determine getting married is much like going to Las Vegas and losing everything you own and then complaining about Las Vegas for ruining your life. I’m currently unmarried and my better-half and I have been together for almost thirty years. That just tells me when it’s the right person, life can be good.
Todays post will cite a number of well known celebs on their thoughts on marriage. This should convince you that they have no clue either. Here we go . . .
“Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same.” Oscar Wilde
“The most happy marriage I can imagine to myself would be the union of a deaf man to a blind woman.” S.T. Coleridge
“Marriage is popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity.” George Bernard Shaw
“If variety is the spice of life, marriage is the big can of leftover Spam.” Johnny Carson
“If you are afraid of loneliness, don’t marry.” Anton Chekhov
“Never go to bed angry. Stay up and fight.” Phyllis Diller
“I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury.” Groucho Marx
“I don’t worry about terrorism. I was married for two years.” Sam Kenison
“It’s true that I did get the girl, but then my grandfather always said, “Even a blind chicken finds a few grains of corn now and then”. Lyle Lovett – after marrying Julia Roberts
“Marriage is like putting your hand into a bag of snakes in the hope of pulling out an eel.” Leonardo da Vinci
My Fav
“Marriage is like a bank account. You put it in, you take it out, then you lose interest.” Irwin Corey
In my experience secrets are almost never kept. I’ve been guilty of “loose lips” a few times and ended up regretting it. Paybacks for breaking someone’s confidence can be catastrophic as I can attest. Todays post will contain information about secrets from a number of sources. The first entry comes from a famous New York columnist:
WALTER WINCHELL
“I usually get my stuff from people who promised somebody else that they would keep it a secret.”
A FEW ANONYMOUS
“There are two kinds of secrets: one is not worth keeping, and the other is too good to keep.”
“There is a skeleton in every house.”
“He who tells a secret is another’s servant.”
“Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead.”
It seems that everyone on the planet has opinions on secrets and they love to call them proverbs.
FRENCH: “Nothing is so burdensome as a secret.”
YIDDISH: “After nine months the secret comes out.”
RUSSIAN: “Confide in a dumb man, and he will speak.”
SPANISH: “He who keeps his own secret avoids much mischief.”
LATIN: “Sooner would men hold fire in their mouths than keep a secret.”
And finally an old standby from the BIBLE:
ECCLESIASTES 10:20“Even in your thought, do not curse the king, nor in your bedchamber curse the rich; for a bird of the air will carry your voice, or some winged creature will tell the matter.”
TELL ME ALL YOUR SECRETS, I WON’T TELL ANYONE, I PROMISE
everyuselessthing.com 