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.
I like many other people collect quotations from both the living and the dead, famous or not so famous, and at times from the infamous. There are only a few holidays such as Father’s Day and Mother’s Day that strike a melancholy chord with me because for most of my early life, they were the main focus of my love and caring. After my recent posting for Father’s Day, I needed a little pick me up and that’s what these quotations do for me. When I find one that strikes a note with me, I write it down and save it for future use. Here are a few that I’ve saved for years, and I thought I’d share them with you. It’ll make me feel better and I’m sure they will make some of you feel better as well.
“Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.” – Voltaire
“Wisdom isn’t taught; it’s not a science. Wisdom is a tattoo carved into the mind after a lifetime of failures and achievements.” – Jason Bacchetta
“The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Great thoughts speak only to the thoughtful mind, but great actions speak to all mankind.” – Emily P. Bissell
“Size isn’t everything. The whale is endangered, while the ant continues to do just fine.” – Bill Vaughan
“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” – Oscar Wilde
“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.” – Mark Twain
“There’s nothing like biting off more than you can chew, and then chewing anyway.” – Mark Burnett
Just sitting here this morning with three layers of clothes on and my feet still feel like blocks of ice. We decided to turn off the heat two weeks ago to save a few bucks when we thought “Spring had Sprung”, but we should’ve known better. Wrong again. Never let it be said that Maine doesn’t fail to deliver on crappy weather. So here I sit at my computer with my little space heater preparing to supply you with some straight facts you didn’t know you needed to know. Here they are . . .
The world’s oldest surviving recipe is a formula for making beer. It was discovered outside Baghdad in 1850 on a 3800-year-old Sumerian clay tablet.
A fetus acquires fingerprints by the end of the first trimester.
In 2003, the personal fortune of JK Rowling, best-selling British author of the widely popular Harry Potter books, surpassed that of the Queen of England.
Voltaire, the French philosopher, novelist, and ardent atheist, once held up the Bible and proclaimed, “In 100 years this book will be forgotten, eliminated.” Less than 50 years after his death, the Geneva Bible Society bought his house in order to produce and distribute Bibles.
You can in fact get cooties. Cooties are lice.
George Clooney once vowed never to remarry or have children, but Michelle Pfeiffer and Nicole Kidman each bet $10,000 that he’d be a father by age 40. On Clooney’s 40th birthday (May 6, 2001), the actresses conceded defeat and sent their checks. Clooney returned their money, betting double or nothing that he wouldn’t have any kids before turning 50.
Cigars are called “stogies” because pioneer drivers of Conestoga covered wagons made in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, preferred the long, cheap cigars available in that region. Over time, “Conestoga” was shortened to “stogie.”
The term “What in tarnation!” derives from the expression “What in eternal damnation!”
The percentage of American men who say they’d marry the same woman if they had to do it all over again: 80%. The percentage of American women who say the same: 50%.
There are 2,598,960 possible hands in Texas Hold ‘Em.
everyuselessthing.com 