~★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥ ~
August 18, 2014

★~ Today’s Quote:  Making one person smile can change the world – maybe not the whole world, but their world. – Unknown

★~ Bad Poetry Day:

Not everyone can be a Frost or a Dickinson or a Whitman or Hawk. Bad poetry day encourages you to give it a go anyway, by putting pen to paper and writing some terrible verse. If you’re feeling particularly cruel, you could read your bad poetry to friends, family and colleagues, and ask them what they think about your poem.

“There was a man who loved the bees; he thought they were his friend. He loved to sit upon their hives, but they stung him in the end!”

Roses are Red,
Violets are Blue.
Sugar is sweet,
And so are you.
…But the roses are wilting,
The violets are dead.
The sugar bowl’s empty,
And so is your head.

★~ Soft Ice Cream Day:

What would your number one complaint be about ice cream? Scooping it right? This might have become a world problem if  J.F. ‘Granpda’ McCullough and his son Alex, founders of Dairy Queen, hadn’t created soft ice cream, which is much easier to serve, back in 1938.

Soft Serve ice cream can be served on a sugar cone, in a waffle cone, as a part of a a banana split. It may be dipped in chocolate, or covered with a topping like sprinkles or crushed cookies.  The best place to celebrate soft serve ice cream is Dairy Queen, of-course

★~ Today in History:

♥~ 1899 – The Chicago Anti-Cigarette League was formed by Lucy Payne Gaston.

♥~ 1920 – Women throughout the United States rejoiced, as the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. It gave women the right to vote.

♥~ 1930 – Pluto the dog debuted in the Walt Disney cartoon “The Chain Gang.”

♥~ 1960 – The first commercially-produced oral contraceptive,Enovid-10, was introduced in Skokie, Illinois.

♥~1973 – Jethro Tull’s album, A Passion Play, landed at #1 in the U.S.

♥~ 1982 – The longest baseball game played at Wrigley Field in Chicago, IL went 22 innings before the Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the Chicago Cubs 2-1. The game had started the previous day and had been postponed, after 17 innings, because of darkness.

♥~ 1975 – The Blue Bell Inn in Lichfield, England, received history’s highest telephone bill. One month’s service, 4-billion, 386-million, 800-thousand dollars. Plus tax. It was a mistake.

♥~ 2003 – 24-year-old Ma Lihua from China tipped over 303,621 dominos, breaking the world record for longest solo domino tippage

★~Born Today:

♥~ 1587 – Virginia Dare – An expedition led by Sir Walter Raleigh landed at what is now Roanoke Island, North Carolina. Seven days later, on this day in 1587, Virginia Dare became the first child of English parentage to be born in America. Ellinor and Ananias Dare were Baby Virginia’s parents; her grandfather, John White, was the governor of the Roanoke Colony. As far as anyone knows, all was well with the little colony. That is, until four years later when a ship bringing supplies arrived only to find the colony gone. The settlers, including Virginia Dare, had vanished. No trace was ever found of any member of the colony. Legend has it that sometime in the 1600s a white doe was frequently seen in the area where the Dare family once lived. It is said that Virginia Dare returned to the colony as the doe.

♥~ 1936 – Robert Redford actor: All the President’s Men, Quiz Show, The Sting, Sneakers, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Out of Africa; Academy Award-winning director: Ordinary People [1980]; A River Runs Through It, Quiz Show

♥~ 1952 – Patrick Swayze dancer, actor: Dirty Dancing, Ghost, Father Hood, Red Dawn, Point Break, North and South; died Sep 14, 2009

♥~ 1978 – Andy Samberg actor: Saturday Night Live, Hot Rod

★~Color Gallimaufry:

♥~ WHY DO FIRST PLACE WINNERS GET BLUE RIBBONS? Knights who were part of France’s Order of the Holy Spirit, founded in 1587, wore a special cross on a blue ribbon, or le cordon bleu, around their necks. The French phrase came to be associated with honor, achievement, and a delicious chicken dish. And when passenger ocean liners started to race across the Atlantic in 1830, they did so for the Blue Riband, a coveted prize that didn’t actually exist in physical form until 1935. (Once it did, the winners claimed a trophy and a blue pennant they could fly on their ships.)

♥~ WHY ARE BARBERSHOP POLES RED AND WHITE? In medieval times, the trusted neighborhood barber didn’t just give men a trim and a shave. He also performed tooth extractions, bloodletting, and minor surgery. Thus, the white and red colors on the traditional barbershop pole are said to represent blood and bandages. The addition of blue to the mix on American barbers’ poles is probably an expression of patriotism.

♥~  WHY ARE PENCILS YELLOW? Pencils were either unpainted or painted a dark color until 1890, when the L. & C. Hardtmuth Company introduced the Koh-i-Noor luxury pencil, named after what was then the largest diamond in the world. The writing utensil’s high-quality Chinese graphite was the real selling point, and the company painted the pencil yellow to connote royalty and heroism. The gimmick worked so well that competitors soon started making their own yellow pencils. Sharp thinking!

♥~ WHY DO REFEREES WEAR BLACK AND WHITE STRIPES?  When a ref named Lloyd Olds got mistaken for a football player and passed the ball in 1920, he decided it was time to change clothes. A year later, he showed up at a game wearing the black and white striped shirt we know today.

♥~ WHY DO CELEBRITIES WALK THE RED CARPET? Long before movie premieres, red rugs and carpets were rolled out to welcome royalty and sacred figures. The ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus first mentioned the ritual in the play “Agamemnon,” and President James Madison stepped off a riverboat and onto a red carpet in 1821. By 1902, the red carpet was a more inclusive symbol of hospitality for railroad passengers. It was re-associated with royalty—the Hollywood kind—when it debuted at an awards show in 1961.

♥~ WHY ARE WHITE FLAGS WAVED TO SURRENDER? The white flag goes as far back as China’s Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 CE) and Ancient Rome’s Second Battle of Cremona (69 CE). The color was convenient before it was symbolic—white fabric was abundant, easy to see outdoors, and couldn’t be mistaken for the colorful banners armies carried when they were ready to fight.

♥~ WHY ARE BARNS PAINTED RED?  In the 18th century, farmers  covered their barns’ wood with a mixture of linseed oil, milk, and lime in an attempt to kill mold. It didn’t work but it did  turn the wood burnt orange. Next the farmers added rust, or ferrous oxide, to the mix which worked to kill mold and turned the wood that lovely shade of red known as falu. Then when mass-produced paints were made available in the late 19th century, red the least  expensive color available was a the natural choice.

♥~ WHY DO DOCTORS WEAR WHITE COATS? In the 19th century, most physicians tended the sick while wearing street clothes. With quite a few quacks running around at the same time, this business casual approach didn’t feel very official. Doctors started wearing white lab coats in the early 1900s to give the profession an image makeover. The coats bolstered their reputations by connoting scientific authority and sterility. (Medical innovation and more thorough training eventually helped, too.) Ironically, some modern hospitals ban white coats, because they cause anxiety in patients.

♥~ WHY ARE MOST FAST FOOD LOGOS RED OR YELLOW? It’s no coincidence. According to color psychology, warm reds and yellows subconsciously stimulate the appetite and trigger excitement and positivity. Fast food places use these colors on everything from logos to trays to décor to entice customers to happily gulp down food without hanging out too long. Cool colors, on the other hand, tend to suppress the appetite and slow everything down. The color of food packaging also affects how much people eat. White plates, boxes, and wrappings are said to encourage mindless overeating, even when a person is already full.

♥~ WHY ARE BASKETBALLS ORANGE? In 1957, regulation basketballs were either tan or, if both teams agreed to it, yellow. Butler University’s basketball coach felt an orange ball would be easier for both players and spectators to see, and the orange ball made a successful test run in the 1958 college championships in Louisville. Orange was added to the list of color options a year later and is now the standard.

♥~ WHY ARE TENNIS BALLS YELLOW? Same story, different sport. The governing bodies of tennis actually approve both white and yellow balls. Because it was easier to see on color TV, the fluorescent yellow ball quickly became the norm after it was introduced in 1972.

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If you are off to start a new school year we are cheering you on! Merry Monday Morn! Let’s make it a good week. And by all mean if you have some bad poetry to share please do!

Odd Loves Company!