~★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥ ~
August 14th, 2011

 

★~ Today’s Quote: Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright, The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light, And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout; But there is no joy in Mudville — mighty Casey has struck out. ~ Ernest Thayer

★~ It’s National Creamsicle Day! 

This enjoyable frozen treat is the perfect way to sit back, relax, and cool down on a hot August day. The combination of vanilla cream and fruity ice is pure genius!  A Creamsicle is a frozen dessert, with a center composed of vanilla ice cream, and an exterior layer of flavored ice (all around a wooden stick). Popular flavors for Creamsicles include orange, blue raspberry, lime, grape and raspberry.

Just remember to not to dawdle when you eat your creamsicle, they melt speedy quick!

★~ Today in History:

♥~ 1953 – David N. Mullany and his 13-year-old son, David A. Mullany, while trying to come up with a ball that would curve every time it was thrown, wound up inventing the Wiffle Ball. The ball had oblong holes on the top half, and a solid bottom. The original Wiffle bat was wood, but for many years it has been a skinny yellow fungo-shaped plastic bat. You can still buy the bat-and-ball set for a few dollars.

♥~ 1979 – Burglars broke into Jennie Martelli’s apartment in Niagara Falls, New York, and stole her kitchen sink. Nothing else was taken or damaged.

♥~ 1982 – Bill Neal became the first person to row a bathtub across the English Channel. In 13 hours and 29 minutes he paddled the 21 miles from Dover, England, to Cap Griz, France

♥~ 1992 –  A local health board in Massachusetts briefly closed a Chinese restaurant for the way it drained water from cabbage. They had placed the cabbages in laundry bags between two pieces of plywood in the parking lot and drove over them in a van.

★~Born Today:

♥~ 1851 – Doc Holliday dentist, gambler, gunfighter of the Old West: usually remembered for his associations with Wyatt Earp and the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral; died Nov 8, 1887

♥~ 1863 – Ernest Thayer writer: Casey at the Bat; died Aug 21, 1940.

♥~ 1945 – Steve Martin Emmy Award-winning comedy writer: The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour [1968-69]; comedian, actor: All of Me, Roxanne, L.A. Story, Parenthood, Father of the Bride, Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, The Jerk, The Man with Two Brains, Three Amigos, Planes, Trains & Automobiles, Saturday Night Live, Cheaper by the Dozen series, The Pink Panther series

♥~ 1947 – Danielle Steel (Schuelein-Steel) author:  of a romance novelist who has sold nearly 600 million books: Danielle Steel published her first novel, Going Home, in 1972. Her next five novels were rejected, but she kept writing, and she has recently published her 97th novel.

♥~ 1950 – Gary Larson cartoonist: The Far Side

♥~ 1961 – Susan Olsen actress: The Bradys, The Brady Bunch Hour, The Brady Bunch

★~ Did You Know:

 ♥~ Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of the Republic Sung in the Year 1888″ is a baseball poem written in 1888 by Ernest Thayer. First published in The San Francisco Examiner on June 3, 1888, it was later popularized by DeWolf Hopper in many vaudeville performances

♥~ A rivalry of sorts has developed between two cities claiming to be the Mudville described in the poem. Holliston, Massachusetts – where there is a neighborhood called Mudville, claim it as the Mudville described in the poem. Thayer grew up in nearby Worcester, Massachusetts, where he wrote the poem in 1888; his family owned a woolen mill less than a mile from Mudville’s baseball field. However…..

♥~ Residents of  Stockton, California —  also lay claim to being the inspiration for the poem. In 1887, Thayer covered baseball for The San Francisco Examiner — owned by his Harvard classmate William Randolph Hearst — and is said to have covered the local California League team, the Stockton Ports. For the 1902 season, after the poem became popular, Stockton’s team was renamed the Mudville Nine.

♥~ For a relatively short poem apparently dashed off quickly (and denied by its author for years), “Casey at the Bat” had a profound effect on American popular culture. It has been recited, re-enacted, adapted, dissected, parodied in more ways than can be imagined.

♥~ DeWolf Hopper gave the poem’s first stage recitation on August 14, 1888, at New York’s Wallack Theatre as part of the comic opera Prinz Methusalem in the presence of the Chicago and New York baseball teams, the White Stockings and the Giants; August 14, 1888 was also Thayer’s 25th birthday. Hopper became known as an orator of the poem, and recited it more than 10,000 times (by his count—some tabulations are as much as four times higher) before his death.

★~ Odd To Know: Susan Olsen

♥~  Olsen is best known for her role as Mike and Carol Brady’s  youngest daughter, Cindy Brady, on the 1970s television sitcom The Brady Bunch for the full run of the show, from 1969-1974.

♥~ Is spokeswoman for Migraine Awareness Month

♥~ Had surgery to correct the lisp that had endeared “Cindy Brady” to millions of TV viewers

♥~ Her son Michael was named after her TV brother, Mike Lookinland, that acted as Bobby Brady, on the show.

♥~ Younger sister of actor Christopher Olsen.

♥~ Missed the filming of A Very Brady Christmas (1988) (TV) because she was on her honeymoon in Jamaica.

♥~ Olsen launched a coffee table book in 2009 entitled, “Love to Love You Bradys: the bizarre story of The Brady Bunch Variety Hour” with co authors Ted Nichelson and Lisa Sutton. The publication is a satirical and benevolent look back the Bradys’ 1976-77 variety show that was named to TV Guide’s top five ‘Worst Shows of All-Time’ in 2002.

♥~ Olsen currently hosts a L.A. radio show called “Ober and Olsen” with Ken Ober.

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Tell the truth haven’t you been just a little curious about little Cindy Brady?  Think how impressed your friends will be when you say over coffee, “Did you know that little Cindy Brady had surgery to fix her lisp?” They will thank you for this update, I am sure of it.

Don’t forget if you eat a Creamsicle send Odd a picture–Katybeth@myoddfamily.com.

Have a groovy sort of Sunday! Odd Loves Company so leave a comment if you have a morno moment.