Trivia

A professional sailor reports, “The divorce rate for American seamen in the U.S. Merchant Marine is a catastrophic 80 percent. I doubt that any other line of work is so devastating to families.”

Stamp collecting is turning into a huge hobby in China, correspondents report.

Item No. 7229B in our Love and War man’s file on “The Wedding Kiss” is a lusty line by William Shakespeare: “He took the bride about the neck, and kiss’d her lips with such a clamorous smack that at the parting, all the church did echo.” Some kiss.

It takes 66 seconds for a grandfather clock to strike 12.

Q. Average shoe size of soldiers in the Revolutionary War was 6C. In World War II, 8D. A dozen years ago, 9-1/2D. That’s what the historians say. But I say shoe sizes were measured differently back then…?

A. Could be, but most experts now say such findings come not from the records but from the antique shoes themselves. The foot size of the succeeding generations has been growing steadily.

It was the writer Bob Loeffelbein who said: “If you crossed a rabbit with a lollypop, what would you get? Probably a sucker born every minute.”