Archive for the ‘louisiana’ Tag
Everyone seems to love weird facts and even weirder trivia. I try to distribute as much of that nonsense as I possibly can, and today will be no different. The following facts you may know, or you may have heard of before but in general they’re a little different.
- Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson enjoyed the soft drink Fresca so much that he had a special tap installed in the White House for his use.
- The ideal knuckleball should complete less than one single rotation on its way to home plate. Its erratic path is created by the difference in air molecules traveling over the baseball seams and smooth surfaces.
- Ice skaters skate on water, not ice. At 32°F, ice has a liquid surface measuring 400 billionths of a meter thick. Below -31°F, the liquid layer becomes so thin that the skater’s blades would stick rather than glide across the ice.
- The Puritans founded America’s first college, bookstore, and newspaper.
- The percentage of American men who say they would marry the same woman if they had to do it all over again is 80%. The percentage of American women who say the same is 50%.
- There are 2,598,960 possible hands in Texas Hold’em.
- The word salary comes from the Latin “salarium” meaning “payment in salt.” Roman soldiers were paid partially in salt, a highly valuable commodity at the time.
- High quality crystal produces a clear ringing sound when struck, hence the phrase “crystal clear.”
- To actually see a rainbow, you must have your back to the sun.
- Human foreskins discarded after circumcision are sold to biomedical companies for use in artificial skin manufacture. One foreskin contains enough genetic material to grow 250,000 ft.² of new skin. They are also used as a “secret ingredient” in popular anti-wrinkle gels.
NOW YOU KNOW EVERYTHING
As I was rummaging through my collection of books I discovered one I forgot I had. It was buried beneath a pile of other useless information. It’s called Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader and I gave it a quick read. Being a former cop and an employee of the Maine Criminal Justice System, I tend to read things about the courts and laws before anything else and I’m glad I did. The Bathroom Reader made me aware of some strange and ridiculous laws from around the country. Here are just a few.
- The law prohibits barbers in Omaha, Nebraska, from shaving the chests of customers.
- In St. Louis Missouri, it’s illegal for you to drink beer out of a bucket while you’re sitting on a curb.
- In cotton Valley, Louisiana, law forbids cows and horses from sleeping in a bakery.
- The maximum penalty for double parking in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is working on a chain gang with nothing to eat but bread and water.
- In the state of Alabama, it’s illegal to play dominoes on a Sunday.
- In Las Vegas Nevada, it’s against the law to pawn your dentures.
- If your 88 years of age or older, it’s illegal for you to ride your motorcycle in Idaho Falls, Idaho.
- In California, it’s illegal to hunt whales from your automobile. It’s also against the law to use your dirty underwear as a dust rag.
- It’s illegal to sleep with your boots on in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
- In Natoma, Kansas it’s illegal to throw knives at men wearing striped suits.
These 10 items are mild compared to some of the others I’ve seen over the years. We Americans are great at passing a law after law but very lax in eliminating silly crap like this from the rolls. I’m going to make an effort to finds a few that are even crazier than the ones you just read.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE, MY ASS
I’ve had the pleasure over the years of listening to and sometimes enjoying many styles of music. I have eclectic tastes ranging from opera to blues to jazz but by far many of my most favorite singers have been the balladeers such as Gordon Lightfoot, Harry Chapin, and of course, Jim Croce.
Both Harry Chapin and Jim Croce died before their time which was a great loss to me and remains so to this day. It’s been 43 years sine Croce was killed in a plane crash in Louisiana and 35 years since Chapin died in 1981 in a car accident.
Here’s a short blurb on Croce’s death. He’ll always remain on my IPod and continue to make me smile when I listen to his music.
“On Thursday, September 20, 1973, during Croce’s Life and Times tour and the day before his ABC single “I Got a Name” was released, Croce, Muehleisen, and five others died when their chartered Beechcraft E18S crashed into a tree, while taking off from the Natchitoches Regional Airport in Natchitoches, Louisiana. Others killed in the crash were pilot Robert N. Elliott, musician Maury Muehleisen, comedian George Stevens, manager and booking agent Kenneth D. Cortose, and road manager Dennis Rast. Croce had just completed a concert at Northwestern State University’s Prather Coliseum in Natchitoches and was flying to Sherman, Texas, for a concert at Austin College. The plane crashed an hour after the concert. Jim Croce was 30 years old.”
R.I.P. JIM
YOU’RE STILL MISSED
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