~★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥ ~
October 13, 2014

★~ Today’s Quote:  It’s actually very difficult to make something both simple and good. ~ Paul Simon

★~ Columbus Day: 

In fourteen hundred ninety-two
Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

Celebrating Columbus Day has become so convoluted it’s hard to know who is celebrating it and who is not. The controversy runs between “Happy Columbus Day! Celebrate by walking into someone’s house and claiming you own it.” and “Why are you mad at Columbus? Revoke your citizenship if you’re not grateful for his discovery”

I’ve included some links below under today’s Gallimaufry.

★~  Canadian Thanksgiving:

In Canada Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday in October. Unlike the American tradition of remembering Pilgrims and settling in the New World, Canadians give thanks for a successful harvest. The harvest season falls earlier in Canada compared to the United States due to the simple fact that Canada is further north.

The history of Thanksgiving in Canada goes back to an English explorer, Martin Frobisher, who had been trying to find a northern passage to the Orient. He did not succeed but he did establish a settlement in Northern America. In the year 1578, he held a formal ceremony, in what is now called Newfoundland, to give thanks for surviving the long journey. This is considered the first Canadian Thanksgiving. Other settlers arrived and continued these ceremonies. He was later knighted and had an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean in northern Canada named after him – Frobisher Bay.

At the same time, French settlers, having crossed the ocean and arrived in Canada with explorer Samuel de Champlain, also held huge feasts of thanks. They even formed ‘The Order of Good Cheer’ and gladly shared their food with their Indian neighbours.

After the Seven Year’s War ended in 1763, the citizens of Halifax held a special day of Thanksgiving.

During the American Revolution, Americans who remained loyal to England moved to Canada where they brought the customs and practices of the American Thanksgiving to Canada. There are many similarities between the two Thanksgivings such as the cornucopia and the pumpkin pie.

Eventually in 1879, Parliament declared November 6th a day of Thanksgiving and a national holiday. Over the years many dates were used for Thanksgiving, the most popular was the 3rd Monday in October. After World War I, both Armistice Day and Thanksgiving were celebrated on the Monday of the week in which November 11th occurred. Ten years later, in 1931, the two days became separate holidays and Armistice Day was renamed Remembrance Day.

Finally, on January 31st, 1957, Parliament proclaimed…

“A Day of General Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed … to be observed on the 2nd Monday in October.

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!  I’ll think that I’ll celebrate by roasting’ a turkey breast.

Wait! Are you wondering about football??  Canada doesn’t have as much Thanksgiving football as the US but they do have the Thanksgiving Day Classic, an annual doubleheader between four CFL teams.

★~ Yorkshire Pudding Day:

Despite its stately moniker, Yorkshire pudding is nothing more than a savory popover. The first recipes for the dish appeared in the 1700s, but the exact origin is unknown. Yorkshire Pudding is made by combining flour, eggs, salt, milk, and pan drippings from prime rib or roast beef. The result is a light, doughy roll with a small well in the center that is usually filled with gravy.

Yorkshire Pudding is still a very popular dish in modern-day Britain, and often makes an appearance at big Sunday dinners. In fact, culinary historians refer to it as the national dish of England.

On Yorkshire Pudding Day do as the Brits do and serve it for a late Sunday brunch, preferably with a hearty roast or sausages.

Yorkshire Pudding Recipe

★~ Today in History:

♥~ 1884 – Greenwich, England was accepted as the prime meridian of  world time calculations. The decision was made at the International Meridian Conference in Washington DC.

♥~ 1917 –Fatima, Portugal experience what has been described as “The Miracle of the Sun.”  As many as 100,000 people gathered in Fatima, expecting visions of the Virgin Mary.  Watchers claimed the sun changed colors, spun around, and moved back and forth across the sky, seeming to speed toward the earth. The event was officially accepted as a miracle by the Roman Catholic Church on 13 October 1930.

♥~ 1951 – A football with a rubber covering was used for the first time, as Georgia Tech whipped Louisiana State 25-7. The game was played in Atlanta, GA.

♥~ 1963 – Beatlemania hit the London Palladium. The Beatles made their first appearance on a major TV show — for the BBC. Thousands of delirious fans jammed the streets outside the theatre to voice their support of the Fab Four. A few months later, Beatlemania would sweep the U.S. as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah!

♥~ 1971 – ‘Little’ Donny Osmond received a shiny gold record for his rendition of the Steve Lawrence hit, Go Away Little Girl. He went on to garner million-seller success with Hey Girl and Puppy Love. Donny was only 13 years old.

♥~ 1973 – The Rolling Stones’ Goat’s Head Soup was the number one album in the U.S.

♥~ 1983 – The first cellular telephones in the U.S. were introduced in Chicago, Illinois by Motorola.  Dr. Marty Cooper’s groundbreaking invention: The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X was invented while  he was working as general manager for the systems division at Motorola, The phone became affectionately knows as “The Brick”–the world’s first commercial handheld cell phone. To celebrate conception of his invention, Cooper became the first person in history to make a call on a portable cell phone to the corporate offices of his rival at Bell Labs

♥~ 2010 – The 33 miners in Chile who had been trapped for 69 days after their mine caved in climbed into a rescue capsule and made a smooth ascent to the surface. All the miners were pulled up through a narrow escape chute from nearly a half-mile down in just under 23 hours.

★~Famous Birthdays:

[youtube]http://youtu.be/4fWyzwo1xg0[/youtube]

♥~ 1754 – Mary Ludwig Hays McCauley, was nicknamed Molly, by her husband, William Hays.  During the American Revolution, and specifically at the Battle of Monmouth, Molly helped out as a water carrier and was given a new nickname, Molly Pitcher. Her husband, William, was wounded during the battle. and so Molly dropped the water pitcher and picked up her husband’s job of loading and firing a cannon. General George Washington appointed her a noncommissioned officer; and Mary Ludwig Hays garnered a new nickname, Sergeant Molly.The name, Molly Pitcher, became a synonym for a heroine. Her nickname was given to another famous woman, Harriet Tubman, rescuer and heroine of abolitionist times.

♥~ 1873 –  L.L. (Leon Leonwood) Bean founded L.L. Bean mail-order/retail company which specializes in clothing and outdoor recreation equipment; died Feb 5, 1967

♥~ 1925 – Lenny Bruce comedian He said: “All my humor is based upon destruction and despair. If the whole world were tranquil, without disease and violence, I’d be standing on the breadline right in back of J. Edgar Hoover.” And, “I won’t say ours was a tough school, but we had our own coroner. We used to write essays like: ‘What I’m Going to Be if I Grow Up.’”

♥~ 1930 – Bruce Geller, author, composer, writer and songwriter, producer of Mission Impossible.

♥~ 1941– Paul Simon, singer and songwriter. Paul and his friend Art Garfunkel recorded a hit record, Hey School girl but the duo rose to fame in 1965, largely on the strength of the hit single “The Sound Of Silence.” Their music was featured in the film The Graduate (1967) propelling their careers forward.

♥~ 1957 – Chris Carter,  American television and film producer, director and writer.best known for creating The X-Files.

♥~ 1959 – Marie (Olive) Osmond singer: Paper Roses, Who’s Sorry Now, This is the Way That I Feel; TV host: Donny and Marie, Ripley’s Believe It or Not; doll maker and seller

★~ Columbus Gallimaufry:

♥~The story goes that Columbus had to persevere against the odds to get support for his venture, because everyone but him believed the Earth was flat. This just isn’t true. The ancient Greeks proved that the Earth was round about 2,000 years ago, and one even used the shadow of the Earth on the moon during an eclipse to estimate its circumference. The problem for Columbus is that he was bad at math and worse at geography, and everyone with an education knew it.. .click to read more. 

♥~ Open or closed today?  Retail stores and restaurants will be open, there will be no mail delivery, federal offices will be closed, and only a few banks (Chase, TD Bank, Wells Fargo, PNC, and Sun Bank are open) will be open for business.

♥~ Columbus Day is traditionally a big day for bargain hunters, Racked has a list of Columbus Day sales that may be worth checking out.

♥~ Columbus Day often brings to mind the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. This Monday, some cities and states would rather you think of the Sioux, the Suquamish and the Chippewa.The Seattle City Council has voted unanimously to celebrate “Indigenous Peoples’ Day” on the same day as Columbus Day, the federally recognized holiday.

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Chicago weather was beautiful all weekend so I won’t complain about the rainy days ahead. Usually, I enjoy rainy days I’m just not sure what kind of water issues we might encounter.

Remember, my two gallons of spilled milk and broken bottles?  Well, when we went back to buy two more gallons of milk, the counter person said, “back so soon?” and when we shared our sad story, they replaced our milk for free! Thank you Oberweis. 

Have a Monday – Merry or Bah Humbug…I’ll leave it up to you.

Odd Loves Company!