Ephemeris of Miscellany

Carolyn MacCullough, Once a Witch- "I was born on the night of Samhain, when the barrier between the worlds is whisper-thin and when magic, old magic, sings its heady and sweet song to anyone who cares to hear it." ... ... If you live at 139, 141, 145 or 147 E. Chestnut St., I have some bad Halloween news for you- research suggests you live on top of an Indian Burial Ground! And not just any burial ground... the burial ground of the last of the Conestoga, which were the last of the Susquehannock.  I've been studying my genealogy for three years now and just last night I might have found the most interesting thing. The final chief of the Conestoga, Chief Old Sheehays, murdered by the Paxton Boys in December 1763, could POSSIBLY be my direct ancestor.  I was researching the Smith family line, my paternal grandmother's last name. The chain goes from Grant to Albert to George to James to John Smith born in 1782, then to another John Smith born in 1755. I couldn't find...

Joseph Campbell left us, in a sense, on this day in 1987. "Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer." ... Scrabble is one way I monitor any possible cognitive decline. Once I see my numbers start slipping, trouble. I just had a rack with A, A, C, I, S, T and a blank. To get a bingo, I had to find an eight-letter word, with my seven letters tying into either and E or an R at the end. There's only one and I found it! I think I'll be OK for at least a few more years. Care to guess what it is? October 30, 2023 Answer in the addendum. ... Babe Ruth's father owned a bar and his mother cheated on him with one of the bartenders. His father got a lawyer and had the bartender sign this affidavit: "I the undersigned fucked Mrs Geo. H, Ruth March 12 1906 on her dinging room floor whitch She ask me to do." Brutal! October 30, 2021 ... Reflect on the fact that just this week Tr...

Ah, the Golden Mean... the most magnificent bastard in all of mathematics. October 29, 2012 ... "Might makes right" is nice when you're mighty, but not as nice when you're only right. Let's accept as a fact that Trump slowed down the mail by appointing his big-donor Postmaster General (with no mail experience) to tear out the high-volume sorting machines, and that he did it with the intent to have legally cast ballots not make it in on time.  Since then, mail has gotten slower and slower, as one might expect. Only about half of the First Class mail in the cities of swing states is arriving on time. We can debate his intent if you want but it's true.  (Want the quick version of why it's true? There is a 0% chance that he would have done it if he would have hurt Republicans instead of Democrats, and he's currently fighting in court to not fire the machines back up, and to toss ballots postmarked before Election Day but received after Election Day.) This ...

Elsa Lanchester joined us on this day in 1902. ... Amish aphorism of the day- "Lack of communication creates imagination." ... Thoughts on Eastern Philosophy: https://fb.watch/nZ4C9FTBb2/ ... Legend has it that if you walk the perimeter of Hans Graf Graveyard seven times in the light of the full moon, you will not be alive in the morning.  Well there's a full moon tonight, and Emma, Gretel and I walked it 7 times. Zuzu might be the only one left in the morning, she only walked it six. Hans Graf Graveyard (also known as Shock Graveyard) is in the little village of Rowenna, near Marietta. Legend also has it that... get this... a few of Hans Graf's descendants who are buried there were murdered, accused of being werewolves! Supposedly Hans put a curse on the graveyard to protect them in death. A different story says that Hans Graf himself was a werewolf... a white werewolf... and he comes back to hunt down and kill those who walk the perimeter. We didn't see any were...

On this day in 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Russian naval officer Vasily Arkhipov refused a direct order to fire a nuclear torpedo at a US warship, very likely avoiding a wide scale thermonuclear war.  I've had his name written on a Post-It note on my desk for years as reminder that resistance to authority brings with it the possibility of saving the world, and that we need to strive to analyze every decision we are about to make in every moment divorced from dogma. For all we know, we owe our lives to him. ... Baseball is a sport that keeps you humble. The Braves got too cocky and the Phillies beat them. Then the Phillies got too cocky and the Diamondbacks beat them. Now the Diamondbacks are cocky, which gives me somebody to root for in the World Series. I'd love to see the Rangers win, but of course Texas in general isn't usually a model of humility. October 27, 2023 ... Amish aphorism of the day- "What got you here, will not get you there." ... Cunk O...