I’ve been a lover of books since a very early age. The term bibliophile meant nothing to me back then. The first real book I ever read cover-to-cover occurred in 1952 at the ripe old age of 7. I was walking from the school bus a mile and a half to my home. Along the way I passed a neighbors house and noticed a number of large cardboard boxes filled with all sorts of things which had been placed there for a trash pickup the next morning. I noticed an old worn book sticking out of one of those boxes, pulled it out, and it was titled 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. I read a few lines from page one and was hooked. The book went into my bag and I couldn’t put it down and finished reading it in just two days. That book changed my life because I was forced to read it with a dictionary in one hand and the book in the other. There were so many words I’d never seen or heard before and it made the entire process a major learning experience not just for reading but also how to properly use a dictionary. The one unpronounceable word that has stuck with me ever since was rendezvous. For quite some time I pronounced it as “ren-dez-e-vos” and not “ron-de-voo“. Many thanks to my mom for explaining that to me and even now when I hear or see that word it takes me right back to 1952 once again.
Todays post contains the titles of ten obscure books published in the far past concerning everyone’s favorite topic: SEX. They are hilarious and can only be truly appreciated by a dedicated bibliophile. Are you one? Do you want to become one? I highly recommend it.
Is Pleasure Worth the Penalty – Henry Butter 1866
The Girdle of Chastity – Eric John Dingwall 1931
Training of the Young in Laws of Sex – Hon. Edward Lyttelton 1900
In and Out and Up and Down – Jo L.G. McMahon 1922
How to Pickup Girls on a Public Beaches – Raleigh Leo Stanley 1982
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Bullying and Sexual Harassment: A Practical Study – Tina Stephens and Jane Hallas 2006
Happy Though Married – Sophia Gertrude Wurtz 1922
A Kiss for a Blow – Henry Clark Wright 1920
Heroic Virgins – Alfonso P. Santos 1977
History of the Girls’ Friendly Society – Agnes L. Money 1897
BONUS – My Fav
Wed to a Lunatic – A wild weird yarn of love and some other things delivered in the form of hash for the benefit of tired readers – Frank Warren Hastings 1896
As you are aware I hunt like an obsessed bloodhound for topics that are a 7-9 on the weirdness scale. Fortunately for me all that weirdness has for some reason had little or no effect on me (I hope you are someone who doesn’t miss a satirical comment when you read it). Todays post will contain six blurbs about well-known people who were truly weirder than anyone ever imagined.
WALT WHITMAN
When American poet Walt Whitman died in 1892, his brain was put in a jar and donated to the University of Pennsylvania. The University doesn’t have it anymore because a clumsy lab technician dropped the jar on the floor and damaged the brain. The University quietly discarded it, and Whitman’s “Specimens Days” were over.
MARGARET WISE BROWN
American children’s author Margaret Wise Brown (1910 to 1952), who wrote many tender kitty-and-bunny tales, including Good Night Moonand The Bunnies Birthday, loved to hunt rabbits and she collected their severed feet as trophies.
VOLTAIRE
Voltaire always fainted whenever he smelled roses. He also drank seventy cups of coffee every day. Are the facts related, who knows?
EMILY DICKINSON
Poet Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) will’s final requests were that she would be buried in a white casket, that heliotropes be placed inside along with a posy of blue violets to be placed at her throat. All of her wishes were granted.
AGATHA CHRISTIE
Agatha Christie nearly pulled off a real-life hoax worthy of her mystery novels. Upset that her husband was leaving her for another woman, she set up an incriminating crime scene that almost got him arrested for “her murder”. Luckily for him, an employee at a distant seaside hotel saw news photos of Christie and recognized her as the woman who had slipped into their hotel under an assumed name. Although Christie claimed amnesia, the police were not amused after having wasted a week of searching rivers and bogs for her body.
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And last but not least goes to someone who finally discovered his true worth.
TUPAC SHAKUR
Requested that his ashes be mixed with marijuana and smoked by his friends in the band Outlawz.
Let’s talk about the subjects most people immediately shy away from: Death & Serious Injuries. They are a part of our lives (at least at the end) but still a rather gruesome topic for discussion. For years I loved reading about the endless stupid deaths reported by the Darwin Awards and found them sad but still a little humorous at times. My goal in life was never to be mentioned in the Darwin Awards by dying in a stupid fashion. I realize that’s an odd thing to have on a bucket list but it’s still on mine. Here are a few trivia tidbits (both old and new) that might interest you on deaths and serious injuries.
Boating accidents claim an average of 700 lives each year.
Since 1924, 13 people have been killed in Pamplona, Spain’s annual “Running of the Bulls”.
From 1982 to 1997, cheerleading accounted for 57% of the catastrophic injuries and fatalities among young female athletes.
From 1973 to 1975 there were 81 known fatalities from hang-gliding,
In the United States, at least seven fatalities and numerous severe injuries have been reported among bungee jumpers using a hot air balloons as a platform.
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In 2007, 45 people were struck and killed by lightning in the United States, a quarter of them in or near water.
Each year about 50-70 confirmed shark attacks occur. 5-15 shark attack fatalities occur around the world.
There were 850 hunting accidents in this country in 2002, more than 10% of them were fatalities.
Once at the Middle Tennessee District Fair in Lawrenceburg, a 60-year-old woman was severely injured when she fell 30 feet from the top of Ferris wheel and landed on the spokes close to the center wheel axle.
Once a Washington, D.C. based study on the correlation between admissions to emergency rooms and outcomes from Washington Redskins football games showed that admissions of female victims of stabbings, gunshots, assaults, and other violence actually increases when the team wins.
In keeping with the theme of this blog “everyuselessthing”, I thought a short history lesson was in order to supply readers with a little known trivia tidbit about NASA and the first moon landing. In 1969 Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon as we all know but were you aware that William Safire, President Nixon’s speechwriter, gave the president a draft of a speech he might have to give if the moon mission failed. It is claimed that the president never saw it. Here is a copy of that speech.
Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace.
These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice.
These two men are laying down their lives in mankind’s most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding. They will be mourned by their family and friends; they will be mourned by their nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown.
In their exploration they stirred the people of the world to feel as one; in their sacrifice, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man.
In ancient days, men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood.
Others will follow, and surely find their way home, Man’s search will not be denied. But these men were the first, and they remain the foremost in our hearts.
For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind.
One final tidbit of irony. In 1999, on the 30th year anniversary of the moon landing, the three astronauts were shown this text for the first time by Tim Russert on Meet the Press.
I’ve spent almost half of my life working in some manner in law enforcement. I patrolled for years as a uniformed officer, a member of the detective unit for a time, and then two years in undercover vice and narcotics. I’ve seen many guilty individuals go to jail and I’ve seen almost as many get a slap on the wrist by the court system and put back on the streets without much punishment. That punishment almost never fits the crime? I also spent six years interviewing prisoner’s in numerous jails throughout the state of Maine. I’ve seen it all and heard it all and then some. The system is just barely adequate.
As I’m want to do I decided to dig into the past for possible answers to improve our system. I must say that things were unbelievably different from our current mess. I found these eight punishments from past centuries and maybe just maybe they should be reviewed for possible reuse today but with some modifications. If your a person who thinks the punishment should fit the crime, you’ll going to love these.
The Pillory – Hands and head tightly clamped between two pieces of wood in the village square. It made a great target for passing citizens to pelt the criminal with all sorts of things.
The Dunking Stool – This required the dunking of the criminal in freezing cold water. This was often punishment for nagging wives.
The Stocks – This would be the little brother of the Pillory. The offender was seated on a bench with hands and feet held between two planks. This was punishment for minor offenses and the length of the sentence was determined by the severity of the crime.
The Whipping Post – The name is self-explanatory. FAFO in it’s first incarnation. The sentence was usually 10 lashes from a whip made from 40 strips of leather.
A Scarlet Letter – Offenders were required to have a large red letter sewn onto their clothing and forced to stand in the square for up to three hours for public ridicule – “A” for adultery, “B” for blaspheming, and “D” for being a drunk.
Branding – A scarlet letter burnt into your cheek, back, thumb, or back of the hand. “L”- Liar, “T” for thief,, and “F” for forger. They had a whole alphabet to choose from.
The Branks – A much more serious punishment. An iron cage was attached to the head with a sharp spike clamping the tongue. It was sometimes called the “scolds bridle” because many women were so punished for daring to talk back to their husbands.
The Billboes – (No relation to the Hobbit) A metal bar with attached handcuffs for the feet and then attached to the ground. Drunks and people who spoke out against the government were left to stand from dawn till dusk clamped to these.
I collect odd and unusual books and it’s not often I get truly surprised but it finally happened. I stumbled upon a book titled Bizarre Books – A Compendium of Classical Oddities. It lists in great detail some of the weirdest book titles, subtitles, and authors names I’ve ever seen. Over the next few months I’ll pick out a topic and list some of the titles mentioned in this book that apply. To start I’ve chosen a topic that will spice things up a little, Sex & Marriage. As you will see the human obsession with sex is nothing new. Here we go . . .
Seven Wives and Seven Prisons– The life of a Matrimonial Monomaniac – L.A. Abbott 1870
Shipping Semen? How to have a Successful Experience– Pennie Ahmed 1998
Sex + Sex = Gruppensex – Ruediger Bosschmann 1970
Orgasmus and Super-Orgasmus – Stephenson Verlag 1972
Castration: The Advantages and Disadvantages– Victor T. Cheney 2003
How to Pickup Women in Discos– Don Diebel 1981
Straight Talk About Surgical Penis Enlargement – Gary M. Griffin 1991
The External Genitalia of Japanese Females– Kanji Kasai 1995
In and Out and Up and Down – Jo L.G. McMahon 1922
High-Performance Stiffened Structures – Bury St. Edmunds 2000
It’s no secret that I’m what most people would classify as an old man. While it’s true who better to challenge your trivia credentials than me. My early childhood, ages 4-7, consisted of me, my father, and mother sitting in our small little living room in the evening listening to the radio. At that time TV was fairly new and not readily available to most people and the radio was all we had. It introduced me to many shows like TheLone Ranger, Fibber McGee & Molly, Jack Benny, Red Skelton, and my all time favorite The Shadow. My father purchased our first TV in 1955 when I was about 8 years old. It was black/white and about the size of a small modern day microwave and it changed everyone’s life forever. I know most of you won’t understand just how much fun it was on those evenings with just my parents, me, and that stupid old radio. I still miss those quiet evening eating popcorn, drinking Kool-Aid and sitting on the floor next to the radio.
Enough of my reminiscing, let’s get back to today. This post will contain a few questions about the good old days of radio. I really don’t think many of you will score highly but it’s just good fun to introduce some of you to how our wonderful world of Media got it’s start. As always the answers will be listed below. Have fun with it.
What character introduced the stories on Death Valley Days?
Who played The Great Gildersleeve?
Name two actors who made the Life With Luigi transition from radio to TV?
Who created The Lone Ranger?
Where did Ones Man’s Family live?
What character did Gale Gorden play on Our Miss Brooks?
Who played the title roles of Fibber McGee & Molly?
What were Molly Goldberg’s two kids’ names?
What did Ozzie Nelson do for a living on his show?
One of the earliest quiz shows on radio became TV’s first. Can you recall the name?
BONUS QUESTION
Who was the wealthy man-about-town with the hypnotic ability to “cloud men’s minds” to fight crime, famously introduced by the phrase, “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!”
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Answers
The Old Ranger, Willard Waterman, J. Carol Naish & Alan Reed, Fran Striker & George W. Trendle, San Francisco, Osgood Conklin, Bob Sweeney & Cathy Lewis, Rosalie & Sammy, For the most part, nothing, Uncle Jim’s Question Bee, BONUS – Lamont Cranston.
It’s been a long week of limericks and I’ve had my fill. I enjoyed the week immensely but it has had it’s drawbacks. I still find myself at odd hours of the night and early morning lying in bed thinking about how to rhyme words. Then I start mentally composing my own limericks and it’s driving me a little nuts. Todays post should help me to clear all of those limerick cobwebs from my brain. Her we go . . .
“To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not
that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is,
and of what is not that it is not, is true.”
(Aristotle)
I feel better now that Aristotle has explained things for me.
In the Jurassic Park movies. the fierce Velociraptors are about as tall as an adult human. In real life, however, they were only as tall as a turkey.
Confucius has more than three million living descendants.
Pablo Picasso, the influential Spanish cubist, wasn’t breathing when he was born in 1881. His face was so blue that the midwife left him for dead. One of his uncles revived him by blowing cigar smoke up his nose.
From the 1300’s to the 1600’s, the heads of England’s slain enemies – including William Wallace and Thomas More – were displayed on London Bridge.
The first recorded mastectomy was performed in A.D. 548 on Theodora, Empress of Byzantium.
The word “hooch” comes from the Hoochinoo Indians of Alaska. They made a liquor so strong it could knock a person out.
Spoons were such a rare novelty in Elizabethan England that wealthy aristocrats would bring their own folding spoons to fancy banquets.
AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST
Here is a riddle found inscribed about 3500 years ago on a stone slab. It’s mainly for my better-half who should have no problem coming up with the correct answer.
In your mouth and your urine, constantly stared at you,
I pride myself on having a huge and varied collection of limericks as you well know. Most of them are very old with the identity of the writers long forgotten. For the next two weeks I’ll be highlighting some of the more famous limerick writers with samples of their work. Most were well known poets, writers, and authors. Some of their limericks will be off-color and a bit sexual so I recommend that younger children be monitored. Over the next two weeks you’ll be introduced to some of histories best limerick authors. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have.
The first thing I’d like to do is give you a short history lesson on limericks because they’ve been around a lot longer than you might think. The first known limericks appeared in the early 18th century and they just happened to be written in French (and they weren’t called limericks then). Around that same time the Irish Brigade was serving in France (1691 to 1780). The short poems were eventually imported to Limerick, Ireland where their current name originated. Edward Lear 1812-1888, initially wrote many rather mild limericks. It wasn’t until the Victorian Era that the citizenry seized upon the limerick as a way to vent as many four-letter words as possible, much to the delight of young schoolboys. It seems that the bawdiest limericks of that time tended to be written by the British. A few samples of Lear’s tamer limericks will be featured in my next post in two days.
Here is a sample a moderately bawdy limerick of the era:
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Said a widow whose singular vice
Was to keep her dead husband on ice,
“It’s been hard since I lost him.
I’ll never defrost him,
Cold comfort, but cheap at the price.”
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My next post will be an introduction to Edward Lear who authored many limericks over many years.
I realize that it may be a little too early to be posting on this subject but what the hell. Every year I tease myself by listing a number of resolutions for the new year. My success rate leaves much to be desired but occasionally I actually DO complete a few. I’m posting early because my rate of success this year has been dismal. I’d blame some of it on my better-half who just completed her first year of retirement. To say she’s been a huge distraction is an understatement – goodbye to my wonderful days of PEACE & QUIET. Here’s my list for 2025 and all my lame excuses.
Read at least 100 books by years end(more if possible). If I finish reading my current book by years-end I will have read only 88 books. FAILED
Complete at least four illustrations for use as gifts for next Christmas. COMPLETED
Complete one sculpture using a technique I haven’t used before.FAILED – Due to my total lack of interest and laziness. Maybe this coming year I can get it done.
Show more patience to my better-half’s retirement adjustments.COMPLETED – I’ve shown more patience than ever before but I have a long way to go to satisfy her.
Attempt to write some serious poetry that’s worth reading.FAILED – Completed a few poems and a couple of limericks but I wasn’t happy with the less than adequate results.
Continued monitoring of the grandsons for new and exciting cuss words.COMPLETED – This may have been the easiest one to complete. It’s official, and thanks to day care, school, and some family adults the “F-Bomb” has been released. I’m so proud!!
Continue to ignore all of the weird and bizarre health tips from the Internet.COMPLETED – Thanks to all you internet experts and your misguided and incorrect medical BS.
My final tally was disappointing – 4 of 7 completed. I still have a few weeks to give a great deal of thought for my resolutions for 2026. It’s good to set goals even if you’re reasonably certain they won’t all be met.
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