~★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥ ~
June 14

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

★~ Pop Goes The Weasel Day:

Let’s all sing it together now — “All around the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel . . . something, something, something or another . . . Pop! goes the weasel. Forget the words? We’re not surprised. They’ve only changed a dozen or so times since the mid-nineteenth century. The tune was adapted to fit social and political environments as time passed, and it was brought from Britain to America. Originally, it was supposedly about the poor people of London spending their money on drink at the Eagle Tavern and then having to pawn their Sunday best for more money. I guess that is still better than ‘Ring around the Rosie,’ which is about the bubonic plague and death. So how does one celebrate ‘Pop Goes the Weasel Day’? Well, you could drink yourself into the poor house, or at least toast the weasel with a cocktail or a root beer. It also makes a fine song to sing at your summer family reunion.

★~ Family History Day:

Every summer, family reunions are so busy with playing ‘Pop Goes the Weasel’ that most of us forget the true purpose of this day: to share the folklore, legends and myths that bind us together. So, this summer, make it a point to gather some good stories — fact and fiction — about your family members as you make the summer rounds. Put them in a book so later generations will know the stories about their “odd” family and perhaps feel a little less lonely.

★~ Happy National Strawberry Shortcake Day!

Shortcake is a European invention, but food historians generally agree that the idea of combining strawberries and shortcake together is the creative genius of cooks in the United States. The earliest recorded recipe for strawberry shortcake is found in Miss Leslie’s Ladies Recipe Book, published in 1847. The recipe is for something called “strawberry cake,” but it’s strikingly similar to strawberry shortcake.

The modern day Kitchen Witch shares Gramma’s strawberry shortcake story from the past along with her present-day strawberry shortcake recipe. Why not whip up some strawberry shortcake for tonight’s dessert and celebrate Strawberry Shortcake Day!

★~ Today in History

♥~ 1777 – Flag Day in the United States.  Today the government officially adopted the Stars and Stripes as our national flag. No one knows for sure, but it was most likely designed by Congressman Francis Hopkinson and sewn by a seamstress in Philadelphia named Betsy Rossthe .

♥~ 1834 – Isaac Fischer, Jr. of Springfield, Vermont  patented one of mankind’s greatest inventions sandpaper. Mr. Fischer’s sandpaper changed the coarse of history.

♥~ 1953 – Elvis Presley graduated from L.C. Humes High School in Memphis, Tennessee. Within three years, the truck driver-turned-singer had his first number-one record with Heartbreak Hotel.

♥~ 1975 – America reached the top spot on the Billboard pop music chart with Sister Golden Hair. The group had previously (March, 1972) taken A Horse With No Name to the number one spot.

♥ ~ 1992 – Mona Van Duyn became the first woman to be named poet laureate of the U.S. by the Library of Congress.

★~Born Today:

♥~ 1895 – Cliff ‘Ukulele Ike’ Edwards musician: ukulele; singer: Ja Da; Vaudeville, Broadway headliner: Ziegfeld Follies, George White Scandals; actor: Sagebrush Law, Sundown Jim, Millionaires in Prison, Marianne; voice of Disney character Jiminy Cricket; died Jul 17, 1971

♥~ 1904 – Margaret Bourke-White photojournalist: LIFE magazine; 1st woman photojournalist attached to US Armed Forces in WWII: covered Italy, siege of Moscow, U.S. Forces crossing into Germany, concentration camps; division of India, Mahatma Gandhi; Korean War correspondent; book [w/husband Erskine Caldwell]: You Have Seen Their Faces; died Aug 27, 1971

♥~ 1909 – Burl (Icle Ivanhoe) Ives singer: A Holly Jolly Christmas, A Little Bitty Tear, Funny Way of Laughin’, Call Me Mr. In- Between; Academy Award winning actor: The Big Country [1958], Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, East of Eden, Smokey, Our Man in Havana, The Bold Ones, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer; radio series: The Wayfaring Stranger [1944]; died Apr 14, 199

♥~ 1952 – Eddie Mekka (Edward Mekjian) actor: Laverne and Shirley, Guiding Light

♥~ 1961 – Boy George (George Alan O’Dowd) singer: group: Culture Club: Do You Really Want to Hurt Me, Karma Chameleon,

♥~ 1978 – Diablo Cody:  She started a popular blog about life as a stripper, and a talent agent came across it and helped her publish her memoir: Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper (2005). Then he suggested that she write a screenplay, and in just a couple of months sitting with her laptop in the Starbucks section of a Target store in Minneapolis, she wrote the screenplay for Juno (2007), which became a surprise hit. Cody won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, and it is the highest-grossing movie in the history of Fox Searchlight Pictures

★~ Did You Know:

♥~ Strawberries are the only fruit with seeds on the outside.

♥~ The average strawberry has 200 seeds.

♥~ The ancient Romans believed that strawberries alleviated symptoms of melancholy, fainting, all inflammations, fevers, throat infections, kidney stones, bad breath, attacks of gout, and diseases of the blood, liver and spleen.

♥ ~ Strawberries are the first fruit to ripen in the spring.

♥ ~ Strawberries are a member of the rose family.

♥ ~ Ninety-four percent of US households consume strawberries.

♥ ~ Folk lore states that if you split a double strawberry in half and share it with the opposite sex, you’ll soon fall in love.

♥ ~ Eating strawberries, which are rich in nitrate, can increase the flow of blood & oxygen to the muscles by 7%.  This prevents muscle fatigue, making exercise easier.

★~ Today’s Giggle

Writing your family history the right way! The children of a prominent family wanted to document their family’s history. The biographer they hired was warned of one problem. Uncle Willie, the “Black Sheep,” had gone to Sing Sing’s Electric chair for murder. The writer carefully handled the situation in the following way: “Uncle Willie occupied a chair of applied electronics at one of our nation’s leading institutions. He was attached to his position by the strongest of ties. His death came as a true shock. – from Ka Pupa Nihonih (Mayflower Quarterly – Nov 1990)

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Hope you have a terrific Tuesday. Cole and I have just arrived in Dublin, Ireland and am not sure what it what yet but I am sure we will muse together later!  In the meantime, leave me an El Morno comment; if you have an El Morno Minute! Odd Loves Company!