~★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥ ~
April 15, 2011

★~ Today’s Quote:  A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying… that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.  ~Alexander Pope, in Swift, Miscellanies

★~ Rubber Eraser Day: Without the invention of the rubber eraser, our faux pax would not be erased and our documents and drawings would be messy. We would live in a constant state of, “do over.”  Today we are grateful for the invention of erasers!

★~ Today in History:

♥~ 1770- The rubber eraser was invented (more or less)by the noted scientist Sir Joseph Priestley (discoverer of oxygen).

♥~ 1934 – Dagwood and Blondie Bumstead welcomed a baby boy, Alexander, to the comic strip, Blondie. The child would be nicknamed, Baby Dumpling.

♥~ 1955 – “Two all beef patties…” This is the anniversary of McDonald’s. Ray Kroc opened the first McDonald’s — in Des Plaines, IL. Kroc began his career by selling milk shake machines. Among his first customers were the McDonald brothers from Southern California. After selling them several machines and watching the efficiency of their drive-in restaurant, Kroc bought the rights to market the brothers’ good fortune and hired them to work for him. On his first day of business, sales of 15-cent hamburgers and 10-cent French fries totaled $366.12. Thirty years later, McDonald’s grossed a whopping $8.6 billion annually

♥~ 1956 – The worlds’ first all-color, TV station was dedicated — in Chicago, IL. It was named WNBQ-TV and is now WMAQ-TV

♥~ 1971 – George C. Scott refused the Oscar for his Best Actor performance in Patton at the 43rd Annual Academy Awards ceremony at LA’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. He had previously told reporters that he did not want the honor, saying (after the votes had been cast and tallied), “It is degrading to have actors in competition with each other.” Scott called the Oscar ceremony, “a two-hour meat parade, a public display with contrived suspense for economic reasons.

♥~ 1989 – Roy Orbison’s You Got It hit #9 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was the first top-ten hit for Orbison since Oh, Pretty Woman in 1964.

♥~ 1947 – Jackie Robinson played his first major-league baseball game (he had played exhibition games previously) for the Brooklyn Dodgers. He went 0-for-4 against Boston. Robinson did get on base due to an error and scored the winning run in a 5-3 win for the Dodgers.

★~Born Today:

♥~1452 – Leonardo da Vinci artist: Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, The Virgin of the Rocks, The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne; died May 2, 1519

♥~ 1866 – Butch Cassidy (Robert LeRoy Parker) Old West outlaw: leader of The Wild Bunch gang; legend has it that he was killed [w/Sundance Kid: Harry Longabaugh] in a Bolivian shootout Nov 3, 1908; other legend has it that he and Sundance faked their deaths [that another pair of outlaws was actually killed] and lived happily ever after, under aliases, in the U.S.

♥~1933 – Elizabeth Montgomery actress: Bewitched, Robert Montgomery Presents; died May 18, 1995

♥~ 1951 – Heloise (Ponce Kiah Marchelle Heloise Cruse Evans) newspaper columnist, writer: Hints from Heloise; she took over the Heloise empire after her mother, the original Heloise, died in 1977

♥~1990 – Emma Watson actress: Harry Potter series

★~ Did you know: Before the rubber eraser, crustless bread was used to rub away errors. It was a process that never produced results and also wasted a lot of precious food. Not to mention giving new meaning to the term ‘crumby writing.’

♥~ In 1770, Joseph Priestley discovered the ability to erase lead pencil marks using pieces of Indian rubber.

♥~ In 1858, Hyman Lipman of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania patented the eraser-topped pencil.

♥~ The first erasers were made of rubber. These days, erasers are made from either rubber or vinyl.

♥~ The longest eraser and pencil weighs in at over 18,000 pounds, with a 2 1/2 foot long eraser at its end. The ‘lead’ alone weighs over 4,500 pounds, and is made using a graphite core 10 inches thick,. A whopping fifty gallons of paint were needed to finish off the outside of the pencil. In all, an estimated two million regular pencils could be made out of the materials used in the construction.

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A first grade teacher was trying to stimulate creative thinking in her pupils. She stood in front of the class with her hands behind her back and said, “I’m holding something behind my back. It’s round and it fits in the palm of my hand. Who can guess what it is?”

Billy’s hand went up and he asked, “Is it a baseball?”

“No, Billy,” replied the teacher, “It’s not a baseball. But you’re thinking, and I like that.”

Suzy’s hand went up and she asked, “Is it an orange?”

“No, Suzy,” replied the teacher, “It’s not an orange. But you’re thinking, and I like that.”

Then Johnny spoke up: “Hey, teach, I don’t know what you got in your hand, but I got something for you in my pocket. It’s long and hard and pink on one end.”

Shocked, the teacher cried, “Johnny, that’s disgusting! You march yourself to the principals office right this instant!”

“Hey, relax,” said Johnny. “I was talking about my pencil… But you’re thinking, and I like that.”

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The big question still remains…why can’t you ever find a pencil or an eraser when you need one?

Its Friday! I hope all your cares and worries are erased away!

♥