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Wife's grand mother had 9 children. 4 sets of twins. Her father was the only one not a twin.
Two male first cousins lost the same 3 fingers on their right hand from wounds in Vietnam.
One of my nieces and her husband were born the same day at the same hospital. 20 years later they married, she jokes it was LOVE at first sight.
SOME ODD FACTS.....
During you life time you will eat about 60,000 pounds of food. That's the weight of about 6 elephants.
The elephant is the only animal that can't jump.
How fast is a sneeze? A sneeze travels out the mouth at 100 MPH. Slower if we put our hand over the mouth.
Fingernails grow 4 times faster than toenails.
80% of women wash their hands after visiting the restroom.
Women blink twice as much as men.
But men are 6 times more likely to be hit by lighting.
Women might not like this?? Lipstick is partailly made from Fish scales.
Ants never sleep.
Mosquitoes have 47 teeth. Yipes!!!!
Whitby, Ontario has more doughnut shops per capital than any place in the world. Probably more Cops too.
A few days ago, I was thinking about my last remaining Aunt and Uncle. They have turned out to be two very loving and ornery people. Uncle Willie T has been a favorite of mine since I can't remember when? Uncle Willie T is very out spoken and opinionated, he has always told it like it is. They are getting on up in the years, I think he is 87 and she is 83. He still jokes about marrying a younger woman to which Aunt May always smiles.
They live about 23 miles from my location so I decided to appear at their home last Sunday unannounced. They live in an older house just off the interstate. In fact many years ago the highway department took must of their farm but left them with the house, barn and 12 acres. Uncle Willie T fought a hard battle to retain his land but to no avail. I sure didn't want to get him started on that old wound!!
As I pulled into his driveway I see Uncle Willie T getting out of his old red pickup truck out near the tractor shed. That's strange?? Aunt May isn't with him. You never see one of them without the other. When they go to town he drives and Aunt May give him directions, always been that way. Uncle Willie T has on his new go to town overalls. " Where is Aunt May ??" I asked. " She is over at the Church with her Ladies group." "Today I had to fin for my food so me and my friend Joe went over to that new Cracker Bowl Place." " I think you mean Cracker Barrel Uncle." " Boy, you know what I mean." Even at my age he still calls me BOY." Well. how was the food?? " Boy, the food was great, them pinto beans were outstanding, juicy and I think that cornbread was the best I ever had!! Just don't tell May. I continued to listen to hear all about his dinner and those folks he saw.
He told me the noise was loud with all those tourist pulling off the interstate for their dinner. " Young kids just don't mine their parents any more." " I wonder if them people ever look in the mirror as to how they dress while traveling?" he replied. "What do you mean how they dress?" Those fat women in them shorts with those close veins showing and the men look like they been wearing those wrinkled clothes for weeks and whats up with those teen boys with them tattoos?" I told you he was very opinionated. " When them boys with tattoos are older and in a nursing home the new game will be, what does my tattoo look like, not bingo." I had to laugh and agree with him. Aunt May had arrived home being driven by one of her Church ladies and Uncle Willie T was going out to greet them and tell them all about his day out at dinner. On the way home I was smiling about my visit with them and wondered how many more times we would have together. Uncle Willie T will probably out live me!!
I must have missed that day in school. I can't remember studying about this man and all his accomplishments. The man was an electrical genius. He is responsible for almost everything pertaining to electricity. He patented over 700 invention during his life time. After watching the History Channel story on his life I became intrigued with this person.
Born in Serbia and educated in Belgrade he began a career in studies and inventions of machines never before known to mankind. In 1884 he arrived in New York City with 4 cents and a few poems and some diagrams of his inventions along with an letter of introduction to Thomas Edison. The letter read." I know two Genius Mr. Edison, YOU, and the young man standing in front of YOU." Edison hired Tesla right on the spot. Edison had promised Tesla a 50,000 bonus for some of his inventions while he work for him. After these inventions were patented by Edison, Tesla asked for his bonus and Edison just laughed at him to which Tesla replied , " Mr. Edison I resign!!"
From this time on the two men would become competitors. Edison invention of DC power,(battery) he though would be the power of the future. Tesla on the other hand believed that his AC current,( alternating current) was the future. Tesla went to work for George Westinghouse and would receive royalties for his inventions while working for Westinghouse. Together they won the contract to light the Chicago Worlds Fair in 1893. Edison would not let Tesla use his invention of the light bulb for this project so Tesla invented a totally different type of light bulb in less than 6 months and lighting the fair was a huge success.
The first power plant in the World was another of Tesla's achievement's. Along with Westinghouse, they won the contract to build and install an electrical power plant to harness the power of Niagara Falls. This project bore Tesla's name and patent numbers and in 1896 carried the first power to a city Buffalo, N.Y. As we can see that Tesla is responsible for almost every thing electric in our world. Perhaps this man was not given all the credit he deserved during his life time.
" One of the outstanding intellects of the world who paved the way for many of the technological developments of modern times."
First, I must define what snipe hunting is in the South. Snipes are not existing fowl that new inexperience boys or girls have to hunt when they are in a group that's camping out in the woods. It's a prank that's always pulled on first timers in the group. You are given a burlap sack and sent out into the woods to hold your sack open while the older ones make a lot of noise and scare the snipes into running into your sack. My spine hunt was my first camping trip as a new member of the Boy Scouts.
The excitement of going on my first camping trip put me on a high for several days before the trip. The troop was going to spend two days camping in the wild, cooking our food, learning about nature and some of us were
going on this BIG SNIPE HUNT. The first night we sat up our camp site with tents and placed a circle of stone for our camp fire. We learned how to cook a potato in the fire by mixing water with dirt and forming a mud shell over the spud and placing it into the fire. Pork and beans were put into a big pot hanging from a iron tripod over the fire. I do remember that was good eating. After the meal the scoutmasters were off some where out of sight and some of the older boys threw cans of unopened beans into the fire and soon they exploded sending flaming wood embers into the woods and started some small fire that turned into larger fires. Man was those scoutmasters surprised to find the area where we were camping on fire when they reappeared!!
We all fought the fire and not a lot of damage to the woods. This didn't qualify us to get a merit badge for firefighting.
The scoutmaster announced the names of the new scouts that would be going on the Big Snipe Hunt. Man, we all thought this was so Cool. Little did we know at the time it was just a prank on us greenhorns. He said, " Each one of you take a sack and go down in the valley and we will stay up on the hill an make a lot of noise and the snipes will run toward you, hold you sack open and the snipes will run into your sack, the scout who catches the most snipes will get a prize. Darkness is upon us as we descend into the valley with anticipation. I just know I will win that prize. Sprinkles of rain begin as we are in place for the hunt. The others on the hill are making noise with shouts and whistles and here comes those snipes at us below. My sack is open wide but I haven't caught a one. I'm wondering why?? Well I found out later that all of us didn't catch a snipe. It begins to rain harder and I run back up the hill and go into my tent. The other hunters make it back to camp but Nick is missing. They form a search party to go and try to find me out in the woods but they don't know I'm in my tent several yards away with it pouring down rain.
I'm finally found asleep in my tent after an hours search by the wet scouts and scoutmasters. I guess my snipe hunt didn't go too bad? I never have caught one of those snipes but who knows I might???
