Trivia

Q. Didn’t the word “bonfire” come from the French “bon” meaning “good”?

A. That was Dr. Samuel Johnson’s erroneous notion in 1755. The Oxford English Dictionary traces bonfire back much further to the annual midsummer burning of bones - to “bone fire.”

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams played marbles. Not together. They didn’t like each other. But they played. With other dignitaries.

Am told Italy’s lottery numbers never include 13.

Q. What’s a “spooged” hairstyle?

A. A youthful do of fairly recent vintage wherein the hair sticks straight up from the top and straight out from the sides.

Could be you thought most frontier folk rode in Conestoga wagons. They didn’t. Savvy freight handlers could manage the big rigs, but they were too cumbersome for ordinary hands. Pioneers went west mostly in the shorter, more maneuverable Murphy wagons.

Same sort of embarrassment that causes some people to blush red causes others to turn pale.

Vienna’s statue to Franz Peter Schubert cost more than all the money Schubert had earned from his music during his lifetime.