Part 1: Yesterday
The Q in Q-tips stands for quality.
They were originally called Baby Gays.
Kool-Aid was originally marketed as “Fruit Smack.”
Chesty, Tubby, Burpy, Deafy, Hickey, Wheezy, and Awful
were also names considered for Disney’s Seven Dwarfs.
Lighters were invented before matches.
The sum of all the numbers on a roulette wheel is 666.
Vending machines kill 4 times as many people as sharks.
Hydrox cookies are an not an Oreo knock-off,
they were invented in 1908, four years before the Oreo.
The string on boxes of animal crackers was
so the container could be hung from a Christmas tree.
In the early stage version of The Wizard of Oz,
Dorothy’s dog Toto was replaced by a cow named Imogene.
The truth is that cats do not have nine lives,
but the turritopsis nutricula a species of jellyfish
has been deemed to be “immortal” by scientists.
I know politicians all talk out of their ass
but I did not know turtles breathe out of their butts.
These are all things I was able to learn yesterday.
Another Day of Wonder
Part 2: Today
Yesterday is history.
Today, I woke up to another day on the planet.
Which means I was given another gift
and a chance to live and discover.
Johnny Cash’s “A Boy Named Sue” was penned by
beloved children’s author Shel Silverstein.
Editor Bennett Cerf challenged Dr. Seuss to write a book using
no more than 50 different words.
The result is “Green Eggs and Ham.”
Ben & Jerry learned how to make ice cream by taking
a $5 correspondence course offered by Penn State.
Dr. Ruth was trained as a sniper by the Israeli military.
Roger Ebert and Oprah Winfrey went on a couple dates in the mid-1980s.
It was Roger who convinced her to syndicate her talk show.
In 1939, Hitler’s nephew wrote an article called “Why I Hate My Uncle.”
He came to the U.S., served in the Navy, and settled on Long Island.
Charlie Chaplin came in third in a contest
for “Charlie Chaplin look-alikes.”
Fredric Baur invented the Pringles can.
When he died in 2008, his ashes were buried in one.
Researchers have found that sitting looking forward
makes it easier to recall negative memories,
while sitting upright and looking upward
makes it easier to recall positive, empowering memories.
I say we should sit upright and look upward
and also look forward to learning something new
on as many of the fresh gifts of tomorrows
as we are lucky enough to be given.
Song: “Knowledge is Power”
“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.”― Henry Ford
