I Didn't Know That!

This morning one of the TV programs gave us the name of the first American Woman to win a Nobel Prize.  It made me wonder how much of this stuff we should really know?   As a child, I used a set of reference books that were purchased prior to WWII.  At least one of the papers I turned in in school was rejected as having a hand drawn map of a country that no longer existed after to the Soviet take over of Europe.  Silly me.   I spent hours reading those books and now I wonder where does wrong data and facts diverge?

When I first started to use the computer, things were hard to find on the net because you had to type WWW.info.somewhere to locate it.  Now you have to sort through the ads on Google or Dog Pile to get to the get to the facts.  Is it any wonder why our children don't know the answer to a lot of the questions?  They can now spend the rest of the day reading about some small trivial item that they probably didn't need to know.  Probably the worst thing out there is Wikipedia where people can make up and present stuff as if it were facts.  It is a worse site than the myriad of fan based news.  It is like E News wrapped in a cloak of respectability. 

In the good old days, I depended on the Newspapers to give me a lot of the information I used to make decisions and form ideals.   Now days the shortened articles provide less and less facts and never in any organized order.  According to the "rules" I learned in school, the first sentence, or at least the first paragraph in an article would tell you who, what, when, where and if possible why.  It is not doubt that the newspapers are going Online for a reason and one day the delivery of a paper won't be available.  At that time the news will be so centralized that local items won't be available. 

Has Facebook replaced the old hometown news in many ways?   I can remember when my grandmother would peruse the Eldorado times about what was happening with her friends.   She would never resort to listening on the party lines (or at least when we were there)  All the guests, tea parties and church socials were covered in detail.  Now people self promote and throw in selfies to show off where they are or were they have been.

This Christmas Cactus Thinks it is still December

When Barbara arranged where the flowers were this fall, she put a Christmas Cactus in the window in our dinning room.  The thing bloomed about Christmas and was beautiful.  This week it started to bloom all over again and it is nice to have a touch of spring in the house. 

The other day, the 55-56-57 Chevy Facebook pages had a project Friday run of articles.  People on the bulletin board were encouraged to post pictures of what they had in their shop besides a Tri-5 Chevy.   There were all sorts of things and finally I had to post my picture.  I told all those silly city folks that those of us that lived in the country have real things in their sheds like tractors and mowers.

Mowers, tractors and an old Chevy under the car cover

One of the trees in the orchard had some kind of Fire Blight and I was asked to get out the chain saw and cut it down.  A nearby tree also had it so I really cut down two trees.  I took the tractor out and hauled the pieces to the burn pile.  I need to get a new solenoid for the starter.  It will work if I take a hammer and tap it but otherwise the starter will just click.  Yes, I know that if you live in the country you too have maintenance to do to keep your equipment running.

About a month and a half ago, I went through a horrible crud that stuffed my head with snot and then tried to fill my lungs with fluid. M y immune system fought a valiant fight and I finally kicked it.  Now I am running a fever and stuffed up again.  I don't know if it is more of the same or a new round of sickliness.  If it is still here come Monday, I will give up and go see my Doctor.

OK, I have managed to mangle another hour here in the basement.   We will lose another hour to daylight savings tonight.  After a trip to Oklahoma this week, I am reminded of the wise old Chief's observation, "Only the white man would cut one inch off the bottom of a blanket and sew it to the top to make the blanket longer." 

MUD