Oddly Enough Blog

The best of another goofy month

November was another month full of news you can use from this blog.

Traffic stats for the 10 most popular items show that readers were especially eager to learn what makes the perfect gift, how to avoid as many of those Kardashians as possible, and what superstars miss most when they’re filming away from home.

They also appreciated my new insights into goofy history, with true stuff like what Abe Lincoln did on the South Lawn, and how King James I amused himself.

And most of all, they valued having a place where they could learn what retail products have been recalled recently. It’s a very long list.

On a personal note, I was happy to see my Fabio item made the top 10 list. I just really liked that one.

Here they are, your favorites for the month…

The King’s playin’ with his crotch again

Blog Guy, you seem to read a lot of history. I guess that’s to take your mind off the goofy stuff you see every day?

Are you kidding? History books are where I GET my goofiest stuff.  I find myself laughing out loud as I picture things I read. In his biography of William Shakespeare, author Bill Bryson tells us that King James I “was graceless in motion, with a strange lurching gait, and had a disconcerting habit, indulged more or less constantly, of playing with his codpiece.”

Think about that. A King of England who was known for walking like a zombie and fiddling with his crotch pouch in public.

Then there’s John Wilkes Booth, the man who killed President Lincoln. According to “Manhunt: the 12-day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer,” when Booth was injured and on the run after the assassination, he was turned away from the home of a Southern doctor.

I’ll bet Booth got the hell away from there as fast as he could.

Nope. With the entire Union army hot on his trail, Booth took time to write a note upbraiding the doctor for his appalling manners.

No! Did Booth actually send the note?

You can’t have a term, Herm…

So, Blog Guy, as a keen observer of the political scene, what’s your take? Can Herman Cain be elected president at this point?

No, he cannot.

Because of the….

Exactly. Because of his name.

Now I’m confused. His name?

Of course. What did you think I meant? Check out the U.S. Bill of Rights, and you’ll see that nobody named Lemuel, Enoch or Herman is allowed to become president.

More jumbo gumbo, Mr. President?

Blog Guy, have you seen that amazing new book about former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, the one taken from hours of taped interviews with her just months after her husband was assassinated?

I have, indeed. It’s a must-read for anyone who likes fish soup.

Excuse me? Are we talking about the same book?

Sure. I’m not even finished with it, and already I’m struck by her vivid chowder memories of Jack Kennedy:

“He’d come home, and then it would be fish chowder….”

“I remember we had fish chowder. You could still sit outside.”

Class, get out your rulers…

Blog Guy, I’ve heard that the British Royal Family isn’t very well educated. That’s hard to believe, what with being the land of Shakespeare and everything.

Well, it turns out that when you spend all day changing into different costumes and hats and jewelry and stuff, your education can be neglected.

But to their very great credit, both Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, have returned to what we would call grade school, to start over. I applaud them.

Here there are, on their first day, in a history class. Just think of it as Hogwarts, but with tighter security.

Do we have any idea what this history teacher is saying to Camilla in the photo?

I believe he asked her who won the American Revolution and she said, “The bad guys.” It’s going to be an uphill struggle.

Abe! How’s life at your Gettysburg address?

Blog Guy, is it just me, or am I seeing lots of photos of Abraham Lincoln in the news these days?

Yes, I’ve noticed it, too. Most recently with presidential candidate Michele Bachmann greeting a Lincoln lookalike at a Republican dinner in Iowa a couple of days ago.

Bachmann? Isn’t she the one who offered a “happy birthday” message to Elvis Presley this week, even though it’s the anniversary of his death?

Yep, that’s her.

Well, anyway, Lincoln was a Republican, so I guess he’d feel right at home at a party gathering today.

Uh, yeah. Except he asserted Washington’s might over individual states, meddling with their right to secede from the Union, interfering with their slaves, stuff like that.

You’re a mean one, Mister Grinch…

Man, I hope this guy is proud of himself.

But let me back up a minute.

When I was a boy, there was a Disney movie about a plucky little terrier who went to Edinburgh with his master, who then died.  The dog kept a 14-year vigil at his master’s grave, passing away himself in 1872.

Watching this as a child required more tissues than I could even carry into the theater. The movie was called “Greyfriars Bobby, the True Story of a Dog.”

Since then, there have been other movies and books about Bobby. There is even a bronze statue of sweet Bobby in the cemetery, which I myself have visited in Edinburgh.

Now meet Jan Bondeson, a so-called historian who suddenly tells us the whole story was just a Victorian business stunt to make money.

Bondeson says the real Bobby was just a stray mutt bribed with food to stay in the graveyard, and that he really died in 1867 and was replaced by another “Bobby,” much like they did with Senator Strom Thurmond here for so many years.

How the masses found Manassas…

Blog Guy, I am really pumped about the Civil War 150th anniversary stuff coming up. Aren’t you?

You bet. I went to the Manassas reenactment over the weekend, and loved it! What I saw was First Manassas, as opposed to Second Manassas, which happened a year later.

Ah, so they number Civil War battles?

Yep, just like Rocky movies. I already have my tickets for Gettysburg III.

Anyway, it was very hot, and the troops were drinking from these round canteens. Where do you suppose the soldiers bought those?

From the general store or snack shop on their base?

You betcha those British are comin’!

Blog Guy, I’m surprised you didn’t get involved in the Sarah Palin thing a couple of days ago, when she told her goofy version of Paul Revere’s ride.

Yeah, I do have to admit that was the best video clip I’ve seen since Miss South Carolina immortalized herself a few years ago.

Exactly! This is a story that every school child learns from that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem. You know, “Listen my children and you shall hear, Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere…”

Look, Palin has clearly done her research, and has chosen to go with Longfellow’s alternate, second version of the poem.

A second version? I didn’t know that! How does it go?

It goes something like this:

Are they high-caliber lawmakers, or what?

Those signs of the onrushing Apocalypse that I like to chronicle here are coming so fast I can barely keep track of them these days.

It turns out, the Arizona Legislature has just voted to make the Colt Single Action Army Revolver the state’s official firearm.

If you wonder why a state needs an official firearm, you could ask Utah, which last month designated the Browning M1911 semiautomatic pistol as its official gun.

“Anytime you see a Western movie, the revolver in John Wayne’s hand is a Colt single action,” the sponsor of the Arizona bill told us.

I am not making up that John Wayne quote. The sponsor went on to say the Colt revolver “is a historic firearm and it fits well with the story of Arizona.”

An opponent of the bill, a Navajo, pointed out in debate that the revolver did indeed fit in with the general history of killing a lot of Native Americans in the old west.