August 14, 2017
Hi, welcome to Everything You Need To Know in Ten Minutes or Less, (Week 315) brought to you by the good folks who can tell you everything THEY know in ten minutes or less. (I’m betting on less.)
Well, everyone’s been talking about the solar eclipse coming up next Monday August 21st. My buddy Fishnick has been a little worry-warty about it.
“Does this mean the End Times are coming?” he asked.
“I don’t even know what the ‘End Times’ are,” I replied. “I’ve heard the word, but I don’t put a heck of a lot of stock in ’em. We’ve had solar eclipses for thousands of years.”
“Thousands of years?” he gasped, a little dramatically. He’s like that. “How did you know that?”
“Oh, I just read it somewhere. And everyone’s talking about it.”
“Yeah, but how can you tell if it’s true?” he inquired, that little vertical worry-wart crease showing up between his eyes.
“’Cause historians write stuff like that down,” I explained, trying to remain patient. “You’ve heard of Halley’s Comet, haven’t you?”
“Bill Haley, you mean? And the Comets? The rock around the clock guys?”
“No, Halley, like in valley,” I replied. “He was an English astronomer who figured out that the comet shows up about every 75 years. Turns out they did more research and traced it back to 239 BC. The last time it came by was in 1986, about 75 years, give or take a few months, after it showed up in 1910.”
“Huh,” said Fishnick, bemusedly. “They can predict these things. I’ll be darned. But, wait a sec.” The worried look had reappeared.
“What now?”
“Well, when the moon gets between the earth and the sun, won’t that like melt the moon?”
“Nah,” I reassured him. “They’re far enough apart. Plus, the moon’s still under warranty.” I looked to see if he believed that last line. He did.
“Oh, that’s good,” he said, looking relieved. ‘So they can predict this stuff, right down to the year and even the time, huh?”
“Science is amazing,” I said. “I’d rather trust a scientist than a politician any day. Look at the Apollo program. They had a goal to put a man on the moon and did it in just seven or eight years.”
“Now, wait a minute,” he said, a slightly irritated look replacing the worry-wart lines. “Everybody knows that whole deal was done on a soundstage in Hollywood.”
Have yourself a happy Eclipse Monday. And don’t worry; I don’t think it’s the End Times. We’re still under warranty, too, far as I know.
Hmm, let’s explore what you did with our trivia questions from last week….
Edith Ann was first in, assuring us that, yes, Dr. Schubert’s office was indeed above Komarek’s at 1413 Main during the ‘50s. Yeah, it was a ‘little’ before my time. At least my time of arrival here in GB, which was August of ’73.
Joe said that Komarek’s had been in several locations over the years, so they may well have had offices above the store.
Kim weighed in on the Walter Cronkite question. Yes, he did host ‘You Are There,’ in the ‘50s, which re-created historical events as if they were happening now. But no, this was an actual news and variety show, but ol’ Walter did not report the news on it; he was the host, at least for a few months. So, what show are we talking about?
John knows his gasoline. Yes, Texaco was the first national brand, meaning it was sold in all 48 (at the time) states.
Congrats to Josie: she remembered Paul Kelly. Paul was the owner and manager of the early KHOK and also did a morning show involving a LOT of trivia questions.
In other business, Joe updated us on his project compiling histories of former GB band directors and other well-known local musicians over the years. Sounds like a true labor of love. I’ll look forward to seeing it at the historical museum.
Ryan dropped in and said he enjoyed my ‘other’ bird story. (See last week’s post.) Thanks! Wished I could have enjoyed the actual event myself. One doesn’t expect a living creature to come flying out of one’s trash can.
And finally, Terry didn’t have any answers for us this time, but he did have a question as to what local personality was on C-Span 2 Thursday August 10. I plead guilty. Sally and I were at Jerry Moran’s ‘townhall’ event and I (like many others) stood up with a question. Wow, I didn’t realize that was live. I knew C-SPAN was there, but someone said it wouldn’t be aired until the next day. MSNBC, CNN and even a Dutch network were there. The Senator said he figured he was getting so much attention because almost no other Republicans were doing ‘townhalls.’
Okay, that leaves three questions still available for your sterling deductive powers: the Walter Cronkite one, the first location of Action Sports question, and also the question about the White House chief of staff who resigned, partially because of some fancy wearing apparel. Hint: this one was pre-1960.
How about two more:
What late ‘70s-early ‘80s pop supergroup had the same name as a dog in a well-known 1939 movie?
What famous TV western star of the ‘50s and ‘60s had a major role in a movie about ‘ants gone wild?’ Yeah, really.
‘Til next week, I remain your humble servant,
John
