Oddly Enough

ODD Man Out

ODD Thomas

ODD Project, "The Second Hand Stopped"

Our Daily Dead

Technorati tags: Odd Man Out, James Mason, Dean Koontz, Odd Thomas, Odd Project, Our Daily Dead

Barbed

Joseph Farwell Glidden (1813-1906) started out life in New Hampshire, and became a school teacher. But once married he and his bride eventually found their way out west where Joseph become an Illinois farmer. Wonderful yes?

This was no ordinary Glidden however. Not even the paint Glidden.

Joseph Glidden invented a little thing that let settlers on the vast expanse of the plains fence their livestock in thus preventing the roaming far and wide of said stock.

In 1874 Joseph Glidden patented barbed wire. He would go on to become one of the richest men in the US.

Technorati tags: Joseph Glidden, barbed wire

A Happy Death

"In a minute, in a second," he thought. The ascent stopped. And stone amoung stones, he returned in the joy of his heart to the truth of the motionless worlds.

~~ "A Happy Death", Albert Camus

Technorati tags: Albert Camus, A Happy Death

The Peeler and the Goat

The Peeler and the Goat

Oh, the Penshaw peeler went one night
On duty and patrolling
He spied a goat upon the road
And took him for a-strolling

Bayonet fixed, he sallied forth
And he caught him by the wizzen
There swore out a mighty oath
He's send him off to prison

Have mercy, sir, the goat replied
And let me tell my story
I am no rogue, no ribbon man
No cockey, Whig, or Tory

I'm innocent of any crime,
Of petty or high treason
For my tribe is active at this time
It is the mating season.

"Do not complain," the peeler said
But give your tongue a bridle
You're absent from your dwelling place,
Disorderly, and idle

Your hoary locks will not prevail
Nor your sublime oration
For the penal laws will you transport
On your own information

No penal laws have I transgressed
By deed or combination
It's true I have no place of rest,
No home, or habitation

But Penshaw is my dwelling place
Where I was bread and borne-o
I'm of an honest working race
That's all the trade I've learned-o

I wager, sir, that you are drunk
On whiskey, rum, and brandy
Or you wouldn't have such gallant spunk
To be so bold and manly

You readily would let me pass
If I had money handy
I'd take you to the parting glass
Its then I'd be the dandy
~~ "The Peeler and the Goat"

By way of Infospigot we found this excellent last child in the woods post over at the National Parks Travel blog.

Technorati tags: peeler, Penshaw, Infospigot, National Parks Traveler

Longitude

"Dirty weather," Admiral Sir Clowdisley Shovell called the fog that had dogged him twelve days at sea. Returning home victorious from Gibraltar after skirmishes with the French Mediterranean forces, Sir Clowdisley could not beat the heavy autumn overcast. Fearing the ships might founder on coastal rocks, the admiral summoned all his navigators to put their heads together.

The consensus opinion placed the English fleet safely west of Ile d'Ouessant, an island outpost of the Brittany penninsula. But as the sailors continued north they discoverd to their horror that they had misguaged their longitude near the Scilly Isles. These tiny islands, about twenty miles from the southwest tip of England, point to Land's End like a path of stepping stones. And on that foggy night of October 22, 1707, the Scillies became unmarked tombstones for two thousand of Sir Clowdisley's troops.

The flagship, The Association struck first. She sank within minutes, drowning all hands. Before the rest of the vessels could react to the obvious danger, two more ships, the Eagle and the Romney, pricked themselves on the rocks and went down like stones. In all, four of the five warships were lost.

Only two men washed ashore alive. One of them was Sir Clowdisley himself, who may have watched the fifty-seven years of his life flash before his eyes as waves carried him home.

~~"Longitude" by Dava Sobel

Poor Admiral Clowdisley. Supposedly a woman combing the beach where he washed ashore fell in love with an emerald ring the Admiral wore. She killed him for the ring.

And all because in those days sailors could not find their longitude.

Technorati tags: longitude, Dava Sobel

Odds and Ends

We note that a couple of very distinguished gentlemen passed away recently. Our Daily Dead tells us that Frederick Busch and Owen Chamberlain are recently passed.

Mr. Busch was the essence of a writer. In fact his obit states he was a "...writer's writer...". Lofty praise for someone once quoted as saying that his goal was to be “a really honest, minor writer of the 20th century.”

Mr. Chamberlain could be said to have held the universe in his hands. Three things stand out in his obit: first, his work on the first atomic bomb (and his $5 bet that the first test device would not explode), second, his apology to the Japanese people regarding the bomb, and third, of course, his discovery of the antiproton. Adding a stone or two to the edifice called science.

Another favorite blogger 8763 Wonderland has picked up on a Four Things theme currently wandering about the LA bloggersphere. We would have both Chavez Ravine and Wildwood Canyon Park in our Rather Be list certainly - the latter being central to the David Quammen coyote story "To Live and Die in L.A." found in his Wild Thoughts From Wild Places book.

Technorati tags: Our Daily Dead, Owen Chamberlain, Atomic Bomb, Frederick Busch, 8763 Wonderland, David Quammen, coyote

Hinges of History

"On the last cold day of December in the dying year we count as 406, the river Rhine froze solid, providing the natural bridge that hundreds of thousands of hungry men, women and children had been waiting for. They were the barbari- to the Romans an undistinguished, matted mass of Others, not terrifying, just troublemakers, annoyances, things one would rather not have to deal with - non-Romans. To themselves they were, presumably, something more, but as the illiterate leave few records, we can only surmise their opinion of themselves."

~~ "How The Irish Saved Civilization", by Thomas Cahill

Technorati tags: Irish, Thomas Cahill