KCNET NEWSLETTER
 FUN PAGE
 11/13/05

TRIVIA:
QUOTES:
CHUCKLES/BELLY LAUGHS & GROANERS

TRIVIA: Presidential Trivia this week (Zachary Taylor & Herbert Clark Hoover)

Zachary Taylor

* When Taylor was inaugurated in March 1849, he would not take the Oath of Office on a Sunday.  The offices of President and Vice President were vacant at the time, so someone had to be the president, but who?  David Rice Atchison, the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, was sworn in as president.  He did not do much, when asked, he said, "I went to bed.  There had been two or three busy nights finishing up the work of the Senate, and I slept most of that Sunday."

* Taylor was a second cousin of James Madison, a fourth cousin once removed of Robert E.  Lee, and a fourth cousin three times removed of Franklin D.  Roosevelt.

* Taylor's body was recently exhumed because some thought that his death was caused by murder instead of natural causes.

* Taylor spent July 4, 1850, eating cherries and milk at a ceremony at the Washington Monument.  He got sick from the heat and died five days later, the second president to die in office.

* Taylor, the 12th president of the U.S. didn't vote until he was 62 years old and didn't even vote in his own election because he was a soldier & moved so often he couldn't establish legal residency until he retired.

* Taylor refused all postage due correspondences.  Because of this, he didn't receive notification of his nomination for president until several days after.

* Taylor kept his old warhorse named Whitney on the White House lawn.  People would pluck hairs from it for souvenirs.

* Taylor chewed tobacco and was famous for never missing a spittoon when he spat.

* Taylor never held a political office before he was president.

* Taylor's daughter, Sarah Knox Taylor, married Jefferson Davis.  Taylor commented on the ordeal, "I’ll be damned if another daughter of mine will marry into the army!"

* Taylor rode his horse sidesaddle whenever he went into battle.

* Abraham Lincoln gave the eulogy at his funeral.

* He was named after his grandfather.
 

Herbert Clark Hoover

* Hoover was the first president to have an asteroid named for him.

* His Secretary of State, Henry L. Stimson won a Nobel Peace prize.

* The Hoovers spoke in Chinese when they didn't want to be heard.

* Hoover had never held an elected office prior to becoming president.

* The Hoovers held many parties at the White House.  As many as 4,000 invitations would be loaded on a truck and hand delivered around Washington.

* Herbert Hoover was an eighth cousin once removed of Richard Nixon.

* Hoover worked in Australia at the turn of the 20th century as a mining engineer.

* Hoover was the first president born west of the Mississippi River.

* Hoover approved "The Star-Spangled Banner" as the national anthem.

* Hoover was the first president to donate his salary to charity.

* During their first three years in the White House, the Hoovers dined alone only three times, each time on their wedding anniversary.

* He was the youngest member of Stanford University's first graduating class.

* One of the most honored presidents, Hoover received 84 honorary degrees, 78 medals and awards, and the keys to dozens of cities.

* During Prohibition Hoover would visit the Belgian Embassy in Washington D.C. for drinks.  It was considered foreign soil, so drinking was legal there.

* From his youth he was known as Bert to friends.

* He was the first President to serve in a Cabinet position other than Secretary of State or War.
 

 

QUOTES:

Our judgment ripens; our imagination decays.  We cannot at once enjoy the flowers of the Spring of life and the fruits of its Autumn.
--Thomas Babington Macaulay

Spring comes with flowers, autumn with the moon, summer with the breeze, winter with snow.  When idle concerns don't fill your thoughts, that's your best season.
-- Wu-Men

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depth of some divine despair, Rise in the heart and gather in the eyes, In looking on the happy autumn fields, And thinking of the days that are no more.
--Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The smile that flickers on baby's lips when he sleeps- does anybody know where it was borne?  Yes, there is a rumor that a young pale beam of a crescent moon touched the edge of a vanishing autumn cloud, and there the smile was first born .  .  .  .
--Rabindranath Tagore

There is a harmony In autumn, and a lustre in its sky, Which through the summer is not heard or seen, As if it could not be, as if it had not been!
--Percy Bysshe Shelley

Union of the weakest develops strength Not wisdom.  Can all men, together, avenge One of the leaves that have fallen in autumn?
But the wise man avenges by building his city in snow.
--Wallance Stevens

Unless a tree has borne blossoms in spring, you will vainly look for fruit on it in autumn.
--Chalres Hare

Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all.
--Stanley Horowitz

It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life.
--P.  D.  James

Youth is like spring, an over- praised season more remarkable for biting winds than genial breezes.  Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.
--Samuel Butler

 

CHUCKLES & BELLY LAUGHS:

                             Another Dave Barry writing.

Babies and restaurants are the Chernobyl of parenting BY DAVE BARRY If you're a new parent, there will come a time when either you or your spouse will say these words: ''Let's take the baby to a restaurant!'' Now, to a normal, sane person, this statement is absurd. It's like saying: ''Let's take a moose to the opera!'' But neither you nor your spouse will see anything inappropriate about the idea of taking your baby to a restaurant. This is because, as new parents, you are experiencing a magical period of wonder, joy and possibility that has made you really stupid. You are not alone: All new parents undergo a sharp drop in intelligence. It's nature's way of enabling them to form an emotional bond with a tiny human who relates with other humans exclusively by spitting up on them. Even very smart parents are affected, as we see from these two quotations: Albert Einstein Shortly Before The Birth Of His Son: ''To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms -- this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness.'' Albert Einstein Shortly After The Birth Of His Son: ''Daddy's gonna EAT THESE WIDDLE TOES!'' After a month or so of bonding with their baby, the typical parents have the combined IQ of a charcoal briquette. This is when they decide it's OK to take the baby to a restaurant. I know what I'm talking about: My wife and I have a baby daughter, and we have repeatedly taken her to restaurants, even though by now experience should have taught us that it would be far more pleasant and relaxing for us to stay home and play tic-tac-toe on our foreheads with a soldering iron. But we cannot help ourselves, and neither can you, if you're a new parent. That's why today I'm presenting these Helpful Tips For Dining Out With A Baby: 1. THE INSTANT YOU GET TO THE RESTAURANT, ASK FOR THE CHECK. You want to be able to pay and get out of there as quickly as possible when your baby screams, or decides -- as babies instinctively do, in restaurants -- to grunt out an impossibly large output, such that you experience a dreaded condition known to diaper scientists as Projectile Huggies Leakage (PHL). So it's best to pay your bill as you enter the restaurant, adding a little extra (say, $800) to compensate for the fact that after you're finished, your table may have to be burned. Some parents never actually enter the restaurant: They simply drive up to the front door, hurl money out the car window, then speed off, their baby wailing like an ambulance siren in the night. 2. REQUEST A TABLE IN A LOCATION THAT WILL NOT DISTURB OTHER DINERS. For example, if you want to eat at an elegant restaurant in New York City, you should try to get a table on the roof. Or, better still, at a Bob's Big Boy in Cleveland. 3. SELECT AN APPROPRIATE CUISINE. Of the wide variety of cuisines available today -- Italian, French, Chinese, Tiny Portions Of Meat With Some Kind Of Inedible Decorative Stuff Dribbled On The Plate In A Pattern As If It Were An Art Project Instead Of A Meal -- I would say that the best kind of cuisine, for the parent of a small baby, is a cuisine that you can eat with one hand. You, of course, need the other hand to keep putting things into your baby's mouth, so your baby can spit them out (a baby is not happy unless it is emitting something from somewhere). In fact, you may need both hands for this activity, so you might want to order an entree that you can eat with no hands, sporadically lunging your face down to your plate and snorking up food Labrador-retriever style. You will not have time to taste anything. Restaurant employees know this, and sometimes, for fun, they serve prank entrees to new parents, to see if they'll notice. A Boston restaurant recently got a new father, distracted by a small baby, to eat a whisk broom covered with melted cheese. At least he ate something. Sometimes I spend the entire meal carrying my daughter around the restaurant, crossing paths with other nomadic parents carrying THEIR children around, each of us leaving a trail of drool. Our big night out! It may not sound like fun to you, but we parents of newborns are able to enjoy it because of our philosophy of life, which can be summed up by the immortal words penned by William Shakespeare shortly after the birth of his first child: ''Woogum woogum WOOGUM WOOGUM WOOGUM!'' ~  This classic Dave Barry column was originally published on July 30, 2000. ~

 
 

Gary Clark found this one. Counseling After just a few years of marriage, filled with constant arguments, young man and his wife decided the only way to save their marriage was to try counseling. They had been at each other's throat for some time and felt that this was their last straw. When they arrived at the counselor’s office, the counselor jumped right in and opened the floor for discussion. "What seems to be the problem?" Immediately, the husband held his long face down without anything to say. On the other hand, the wife began talking 100 miles an hour describing all the wrongs within their marriage. After 5 then 10 then 15 minutes of listening to the wife, the counselor went over to her, picked her up by her shoulders, kissed her passionately for several minutes, and sat her back down. Afterwards, the wife sat there speechless.  He looked over at the husband who was staring in disbelief at what had happened. The counselor spoke to the husband, "Your wife NEEDS that at least twice a week!" The husband scratched his head and replied, "I can have her here on Tuesdays and Thursdays."

 
 

Gary Clark was on a roll this week. Pastor Smith was giving a sermon about charity.  He said, "The trouble with the world today is that some people have too much and others have too little.  We must give of ourselves and our worldly goods to help the less fortunate." He said to Harrigan, "If you had ten thousand pounds, wouldn't you give half of it to the poor?" He said, "I would that, Pastor." The pastor said, "If you had two greyhounds, wouldn't you give one of them to your neighbor next door?" Harrigan said, "No." The pastor said, "And why not?" He said, "I have two greyhounds."

 

 
 
 

Gary n' Patti and a whole host of others sent this one. During a visit to the mental asylum, a visitor asked the Director what the criterion was that defined whether or not a patient should be institutionalized. "Well," said the Director, "we often fill up a bathtub, then we offer a teaspoon, a teacup and a bucket to the patient and ask him or her to empty the bathtub as quickly as possible." "Oh, I understand," said the visitor.  ''A normal person would then use the bucket because it's bigger than the spoon or the teacup.'' Ready? ''No.'' said the Director, ''A normal person would just pull the drain plug.'' Now, do you want a room with or without a view?

GROANERS:
 

Sue Clements and a few other groaner lovers sent this Blondie. Last year I replaced all the windows in my house with those expensive double-pane energy-efficient kind.  But this week I got a call from the contractor who installed them, complaining that his work had been completed a whole year ago, and I had yet to pay for them.  Boy oh boy, did we go around!!  Just because I'm blonde doesn't mean that I am automatically stupid.  I proceeded to tell him just what his fast talking sales guy had told me last year: namely, that in one year the windows would pay for themselves.  There was silence on the other end of the line, so I just hung up...  and I have not heard back.  Guess I won that stupid argument!

 
 

Getting Ready  C. Wayne Wert sent this one. A man pacing back and forth glanced at his watch and yelled upstairs to his wife, "Honey, are you ready yet? We're going to be late for the costume party." Shouting back, the woman replies, "For crying out loud, Ed, I've been telling you for the last half hour that I'll be ready in a minute!"

 
 

Cinnamon Rolls  Dr Bill Hamm sent this one to Bud Casselberry.  At breakfast one day, the young bride anxiously waited for her husband to comment on her first attempt at homemade cinnamon rolls.  After several minutes with no reaction, she asked, "If I baked these commercially, how much do you think I could get for one of them?" Without looking up from his newspaper he replied, "About 10 years."

 
 
 

This one is a oldie but goodie from Gary n' Patti. I can relate to the dad in this story.  Kinda like, "been there, done that."  As ham sandwiches go, it was perfection.  A thick slab of ham, a fresh bun, crisp lettuce and plenty of expensive, light brown gourmet mustard. The corners of my jaw aching in anticipation, I carried it to the table in our backyard, picked it up with both hands but was stopped by my wife suddenly at my side.  "Hold Johnny (our six-week-old son) while I get my sandwich," she said. I had him balanced between my left elbow and shoulder and was reaching again for the ham sandwich when I noticed a streak of mustard on my fingers.  I love mustard.  I had no napkin.  I licked it off.  It was not mustard. No man ever put a baby down faster.  It was the first and only time I have sprinted with my tongue protruding. With a washcloth in each hand, I did the sort of routine shoeshine boys do, only I did it on my tongue. Later (after she stopped crying from laughing so hard) my wife said......"Now you know why they call that mustard..."Poupon." Poupon got me in trouble 20 or so years later, but then that can be another time story.  Mike

 
 
 

Come Get Me?  Bud has this one in his latest Joke Newsletter. Jill's car was unreliable, and every time it broke down, she called John for a ride. One day John got yet another one of those calls. "What happened this time?" he asked. "My brakes went out," Jill said.  "Can you come get me?" "Where are you?" John asked. "I'm in the drugstore," Jill responded. "And where's the car?" John asked. There was a pause before Jill replied in a quiet voice, "It's in here with me."

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