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WIT & WISDOM - August 25, 1998 ~~~~~~~ THOUGHTS: A smooth sea never made a skillful mariner. - English Proverb [1] ~~~~~~~ SPECIAL THOUGHTS: On a very cold, snowy Sunday in February, only the pastor and one farmer arrived at the village church. The pastor said, "Well, I guess we won't have a service today." The farmer replied: "Heavens!, if even only one cow shows up at feeding time, I feed it." The pastor decided that the farmer was right and preached his sermon. It went so well, he preached about three times as long as usual. At the exit door, the farmer said, "Well, Pastor, if I only find one cow to feed, I do indeed feed her, but Pastor, I don't dump the whole load on her!" [2] ~~~~~~~ THIS & THAT: A FORD ABLE Claim: A famous gangster of the 1930's sent a fan letter to the Ford Motor Company. Status: True. Origins: America's first affordable V8-powered car was an automobile introduced in 1932 by the Ford Motor Company which quickly grew tremendously popular and received effusive praise from motorists. Of those enthusiastic drivers, none was more famous at the time than the writer of this 10 April 1934 letter to Ford: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mr. Henry Ford Detroit, Mich. Dear Sir: While I still have got breath in my lungs I will tell you what a dandy car you make. I have drove Fords exclusively when I could get away with one. For sustained speed and freedom from trouble the Ford has got every other car skinned, and even if my business hasent been strickly legal it don't hurt enything to tell you what a fine car you got in the V8. Yours truly Clyde Champion Barrow ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The high quality and speed of Ford Motor Company automobiles extolled in this gangster's letter did not enable him to survive much longer. In an eerie synchronicity, Clyde Barrow (and his partner in crime, Bonnie Parker) was killed in a firestorm of bullets from a police ambush in Louisiana just six weeks after his letter to Ford. Clyde Barrow provided a fitting ending by dying at the wheel of his purloined Ford V8. (184 bullet holes - wow, he shouldn't have had a V8 - Barbara) From: "Barbara's Tales of the Wooden Spoon" found at http://www.snopes.com/spoons/fracture/barrow.htm [3] ~~~~~~~ KEEP SMILING: I am a medical student currently doing a rotation in toxicology at the poison control center. This woman called in very upset because she caught her little daughter eating ants. I quickly reassured her that the ants are not harmful and there would be no need to bring her daughter into the hospital. She calmed down, and at the end of the conversation happened to mention that she gave her daughter some ant poison to eat in order to kill the ants. I told her that she better bring her daughter in to the ER right away. - Author Unknown [4] ~~~~~~~ TRIVIA: The largest known volcanic explosion on Earth was an estimated 1,000 times as powerful as that of Mt. Pinatubo, and 10,000 times as powerful as that of Mt. St. Helens. The gigantic blast, created a crater about 20 miles (30 km) wide and 50 miles (80 km) long. Scientists estimate that the eruption took several weeks, during which about 1,000 cubic miles (4,000 cubic kilometers) of ash were hurled into the air! Today, that ash is known as the Fish Canyon Tuff. It covers a huge section of southern Colorado surrounding the La Garita Mountains, which are all that is left of the original volcano. A technical description of the discovery (including a color map): http://vishnu.glg.nau.edu/cev/lagarita.html. [5] ~~~~~~~ CONTRIBUTORS: [1] (Judy Robinett via DailyQuote c1997 http://www.dailycast.com) [2] (Ritholtz, Bob Dillon, Pattersons, Jo Lynn Cunningham, David Aufrance ) [3] (‘Have A Nice Day' E-mail list smiles@bapp.com) [4] (Ernest Dobkins) [5] (The Learning Kingdom http://www.LearningKingdom.com/join.html) |