Did you get my message?

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(row one left) Curiosity leads many people to throw notes in bottles into the sea to see where they might land. To others it’s a last desperate attempt to communicate with someone somewhere; (row one right two images) The old beer bottle that skipper Konrad Fischer plucked from is nets in 2014 contained a postcard dated 17 May 1913; (row two left two images) message in a bottle that reads “From Titanic. Goodbye all. Jeremiah Burke of Glanmire, Cork” washes ashore in Dunkettle, Ireland in 1913; (row two right two images) 1999. A bottle is discovered in the River Thames sent from World War I private Thomas Hughes, who wrote a message for his wife and tossed it into the English Channel as he left to fight in France in 1914. He was killed in battle two days later. The bottle is delivered to his 86-year-old daughter in New Zealand; (row four middle) Keep your messages on this 16GB Drift Bottles USB 2.0 Flash Memory Stick in drift bottles style. Get it HERE; (row four right) Social networking in its oldest form. Harold Hackett has sent out over 4,800 messages in a bottle and has received over 3,100 responses; (bottom right) In 1979 Event – “Message In A Bottle” by Police peaks at #1 in UK; (bottom left) In 2012, a note written by Sidonie Fery, who died at 18 in 2010, washes up in the Hurricane Sandy debris. The message, written when Fery was 10, reads: “Be excellent to yourself, dude.”

 

Ever start a conversation like that? Ever think about how many times in a week we are sending and leaving messages. Email, cellphone, Facebook, Intragram, Twitter, and more. Some days it seems like that’s all I do, or all we talk about in the national news. If I’m not reading and sending emails, I’m on the phone responding to voice messages, calling my awesome customers to talk about their latest PIA (Pain In The @#$) Jobs. I was wondering about how things “used to be” a long time ago before technology (I grew up in an era when yellow sticky notes used to be the way we “left a message”) and It got me to thinking about casting off a message and hoping for a return, long before telegraphs, mail and technology. So for my trivia buffs, here’s some info I think you’ll dig. Special thanks to nymag, national geographic and ezineartilcles.com.

And to get you in the mood, HERE is one of my favorite tunes you can listen to while reading – ENJOY!

  1. The earliest known message in a bottle was sent by the Greek philosopher Theophrastus, one of Aristotle’s pupils, in 310 B.C., as a way of testing his hypothesis that the Atlantic Ocean flows into the Mediterranean Sea.
  2. In the 1500s, Queen Elizabeth appointed a royal “Uncorker of Ocean Bottles” and makes the unauthorized opening of an “ocean bottle” a capital crime.
  3. In 1846, The United States Coast & Geodetic Survey begins releasing messages in bottles into the ocean en masse to gather data on ocean currents.
  4. Ensconced in a plain glass bottle, a scrap of paper drifted in the North Sea for 98 years. But when a Scottish skipper pulled it from his nets near the Shetland Islands, he didn’t find a lovelorn note or marooned sailor’s SOS. “Please state where and when this card was found, and then put it in the nearest Post Office,” read the message. “You will be informed in reply where and when it was set adrift. Our object is to find out the direction of the deep currents of the North Sea.”  Sorry, romantics.
  5. A message in a bottle that reads “From Titanic. Goodbye all. Burke of Glanmire, Cork” washes ashore in Dunkettle, Ireland in 1913.
  6. In 1915, as the ocean liner Lusitania is sinking—after being torpedoed by a German U-boat—one passenger has time to pen this message: “Still on deck with a few people. The last boats have left. We are sinking fast … The end is near. Maybe this note will—”
  7. The message in a bottle found by Andrew Leaper is certified as the oldest ever recovered—belonged to a century-old science experiment. To study local ocean currents, Capt. C. Hunter Brown of the Glasgow School of Navigation set bottle number 646B adrift, along with 1,889 others, on June 10, 1914.
  8. A passenger aboard the steamship “SS Arawatta wrote a message which was placed in a bottle and thrown overboard between Cairns and Brisbane in 1910.  It was found June 6th, 1983 – 73 years later almost to the day – on Moreton Island off the Queensland Coast.
  9. The 73 year record was broken in 1996 when a fisherman found a bottle in the North Sea which had been in the water 82 years and which made the offer of a small reward if returned.  The fisherman collected £1 from the British Government.
  10. And in the 18th century, a treasure-hunting seaman from Japan named Chunosuke Matsuyama, shipwrecked on a South Pacific island with 43 shipmates, carved a message into coconut wood, put it in a bottle, and set it adrift. It was found in 1935—supposedly in the same village where Matsuyama was born.
  11. In 1979 Event – “Message In A Bottle” by Police peaks at #1 in UK.  And in 1973, Jim Croce, vocalist of the hit song “Time in a Bottle”, dies in a plane crash at age 30.
  12. Amateur fisherman Harold Hackett of Prince Edward Island, Canada, sends the first of over 4,800 messages in bottles. He’s since received more than 3,100 responses.
  13. In 1999, a bottle is discovered in the River Thames sent from World War I private Thomas Hughes, who wrote a message for his wife and tossed it into the English Channel as he left to fight in France in 1914. He was killed in battle two days later. The bottle is delivered to his 86-year-old daughter in New Zealand.
  14. In 2005, after being abandoned at sea off the coast of Costa Rica, 88 South American refugees are rescued when a fishing vessel receives their plea for help in a bottle tied to one of the boat’s fishing lines.
  15. In 2009, in a land-based discovery, workers near Auschwitz find a message in a bottle written by prisoners of the Nazi camp dated September 9, 1944, and bearing the names, camp numbers, and hometowns of seven men.
  16. In 2011, after the Italian bulk carrier Montecristo is hijacked by Somali pirates, the crew is rescued when NATO warships receive a message stating that it is safe to board the ship.
  17. In 2012, a note written by Sidonie Fery, who died at 18 in 2010, washes up in the Hurricane Sandy debris. The message, written when Fery was 10, reads: “Be excellent to yourself, dude.”
  18. There have been some amazing paths followed by sea bottle messages.  Three that were dropped into the Beaufort Sea (map), above northern Alaska and northwestern Canada, became frozen in sea ice.  Five years later, melting Arctic ice had flushed the bottles all the way to northern Europe. Another bottle circled Antarctica one and a half times before it wound up on the Australian island of Tasmania. Some have made it from Mexico to the Philippines. And others have demonstrated that oil spills and debris from development in Canada’s Labrador Sea and Baffin Bay could end up on Irish, French, Scottish, and Norwegian beaches.
  19. Today drift bottles are still used by oceanographers studying global currents. In 2000 Eddy Carmack, a climate researcher at Canada’s Institute of Ocean Science, started the Drift Bottle Project, initially to study currents around northern North America.  In the past 12 years, he and his colleagues have launched some 6,400 bottled messages from ships around the world. Of those, 264—about 4 percent—have been found and reported.
  20. Bloomberg reports that June 1 is the 20th anniversary of text messages – with well over 8 trillion messages sent yearly.  Wonder how many of those are responded to?

Send me a message if you enjoyed this week’s post, and I’ll be sure to respond.

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“Snickets”

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Who doesn’t love the occasional donut? There are some real artists out there making them at 4:00 in the morning. About the right time for me to swing by for a warm one on my way into the office. (bottom) The lovely Snicket. This one’s from Fragapane Bakery.

 

If you are like me, then you will understand how some days are just “made for a doughnut.” Too often (says my lovely wife), I’ll jump in the car and ride up to my neighborhood doughnut shop to get my favorite treat. Like Norm on the TV series Cheers, it’s a great feeling when you walk in and they already know your name and what you’re ordering. Give me a snicket and they let me to pick out that very, very, special one! After that, I’m good for pretty much whatever comes my way that day. Think “PIA” Jobs! Preparing for my post this week, I realized that today is national Doughnut Day, and this weekend is often celebrated as National Doughnut Weekend. Here’s some trivia to help you be the smartest connoisseur at the breakfast counter. Enjoy, and thanks Wikipedia and madehow.com.

  • National Doughnut Day started in 1938 as a fund raiser for Chicago’s The Salvation Army. Their goal was to help those in need during the Great Depression, and to honor The Salvation Army “Lassies” of World War I, who served doughnuts to soldiers.
  • The holiday celebrates the doughnut (a.k.a. donut) – an edible, torus-shaped piece of dough which is deep-fried and sweetened.
  • The doughnut supposedly came to us from the eighteenth century Dutch of New Amsterdam and were referred to as olykoeks, meaning oily cakes. In the nineteenth century, Elizabeth Gregory fried flavored dough with walnuts for her son Hanson Gregory, hence the name doughnut. By the late nineteenth century, the doughnut had a hole.
  • Soon after the US entrance into World War I in 1917, The Salvation Army sent a fact-finding mission to France. The mission concluded that the needs of US enlisted men could be met by canteens/social centers termed “huts” that could serve baked goods, provide writing supplies and stamps, and provide a clothes-mending service. Typically, six staff members per hut would include four female volunteers who could “mother” the boys. These huts were established by The Salvation Army in the United States near army training centers.
  • About 250 Salvation Army volunteers went to France. Because of the difficulties of providing freshly baked goods from huts established in abandoned buildings near to the front lines, the two Salvation Army volunteers (Ensign Margaret Sheldon and Adjutant Helen Purviance) came up with the idea of providing doughnuts. These are reported to have been an “instant hit”, and “soon many soldiers were visiting The Salvation Army huts”. Margaret Sheldon wrote of one busy day: “Today I made 22 pies, 300 doughnuts, 700 cups of coffee.”
  • Soon, the women who did this work became known by the servicemen as “Doughnut Girls” and the soldiers earned the nickname “doughboys”.
  • In the Second World War, Red Cross Volunteers also distributed doughnuts, and it became routine to refer to the Red Cross girls as Doughnut Dollies as well.
  • There are three other doughnut holidays, the origins of which are obscure. International Jelly-Filled Doughnut Day is June 8, National Cream-Filled Doughnut Day is Sept. 14, and Buy a Doughnut Day occurs on October 30.
  • The birthday of the United States Marine Corps was once referred to as National Donut Day, in a successful ruse by American prisoners of war at Son Tay prison camp to trick the North Vietnamese into giving out donuts in honor of the occasion.
  • More than 10 billion donuts are made every year in the U.S.
  • Per capita, Canadians eat the most doughnuts compared to all world countries.
  • Doughnuts vary depending on whether you use yeast or chemically leavened ingredients. Homemade doughnuts generally include far few ingredients than mass- produced or those made from mixes. Chemically-raised doughnuts are made with ingredients such as flour, baking powder, salt, liquid, and varying amounts of eggs, milk, sugar, shortening and other flavorings using baking powder in the batter to leaven the dough. Yeast-leavened doughnuts are made with ingredients that include flour, shortening, milk, sugar, salt, water, yeast, eggs or egg whites, and flavorings.
  • And I’m sure you’re wondering, after snickets, my top three doughnuts are peanut, blueberry glazed and Boston cream.

(email me your top 3 doughnut choices, and I’ll send you a collector KHT coffee mug)

 

Doughnut Dollies 1918 France.

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FLY YOUR FLAG IN MEMORIAL

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(row two first image) American War Cemetery (World War II), Florence, Tuscany, Italy — Photo by Bertl123; (row three first image) Belleau, Northern France – MAY 24, 2015: memorial day at American cemetery — Photo by njaj; (row four first image) Arlington Cemetery on Memorial Day on May 27, 2013, in Washington, D.C, USA — Photo by dinhhang. The rest of the images need no caption.

 

While most of us will celebrate Memorial Day as a day off work, let’s also use it to remember our fallen and all those who have served so bravely to defend and protect our great nation. At KHT, we honor all those who serve, and have served, and put you in our heartfelt prayers for your tremendous sacrifice. Here’s a little trivia for those of you interested in being the smartest person at the family cookout. Enjoy, and special thanks to Wikipedia and history.com for the additional insights.

  • Memorial Day is an American holiday, observed on the last Monday of May, honoring the men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military.
  • Originally known as Decoration Day, it originated in the years following the Civil War and became an official federal holiday in 1971. Many Americans observe Memorial Day by visiting cemeteries or memorials, holding family gatherings and participating in parades.
  • The practice of decorating soldiers’ graves with flowers is an ancient custom. Soldiers’ graves were decorated in the U.S. before and during the American Civil War. Following President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865, there were a variety of events of commemoration.
  • The sheer number of soldiers of both sides who died in the Civil War (more than 600,000) meant that burial and memorialization took on new cultural significance. Under the leadership of women during the war, an increasingly formal practice of decorating graves had taken shape. In 1865, the federal government began creating national military cemeteries for the Union war dead. The Richmond Times-Dispatch newspaper claimed in 1906 that Warrenton, Virginia, was the location of the first Civil War soldier’s grave ever to be decorated; the date cited was June 3, 1861.
  • By the late 1860s, Americans in various towns and cities had begun holding springtime tributes to the countless fallen soldiers, decorating their graves with flowers and reciting prayers. It is unclear where exactly this tradition originated; numerous different communities may have independently initiated the memorial gatherings. Nevertheless, in 1966 the federal government declared Waterloo, NY as, the official birthplace of Memorial Day, chosen because it hosted an annual, community-wide event, during which businesses closed and residents decorated the graves of soldiers with flowers and flags.
  • Memorial Day did not become the more common name until after World War II, and was not declared the official name by Federal law until 1967. On June 28, 1968, Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which moved four holidays, including Memorial Day, from their traditional dates to a specified Monday to create a convenient three-day weekend. The change moved Memorial Day from its traditional May 30 date to the last Monday in May. The law took effect at the federal level in 1971. After some initial confusion and unwillingness to comply, all 50 states adopted Congress’ change of date within a few years.
  • In 1915, following the Second Battle of Ypres, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, a physician with the Canadian Expeditionary Force, wrote the poem, “In Flanders Fields”. Its opening lines refer to the fields of poppies that grew among the soldiers’ graves in Flanders. In 1918, inspired by the poem, YWCA worker Moina Michael attended a YWCA Overseas War Secretaries’ conference wearing a silk poppy pinned to her coat and distributed over two dozen more to others present. In 1920, the National American Legion adopted it as their official symbol of remembrance.
  • On Memorial Day, the flag of the United States is raised briskly to the top of the staff and then solemnly lowered to the half-staff position, where it remains only until noon. It is then raised to full-staff for the remainder of the day. The half-staff position remembers the more than one million men and women who gave their lives in service of their country. At noon, their memory is raised by the living, who resolve not to let their sacrifice be in vain, but to rise-up in their stead and continue the fight for liberty and justice for all.
  • In 2000, Congress passed the National Moment of Remembrance Act, asking people to stop and remember at 3:00 P.M.
  • The National Memorial Day Concert takes place on the west lawn of the United States Capitol. The concert is broadcast on PBS and NPR. Music is performed, and respect is paid to the men and women who gave their lives for their country.
  • For many Americans, the central event is attending one of the thousands of parades held on Memorial Day in large and small cities all over the country. Most of these feature marching bands and an overall military theme with the National Guard and other service personnel participating along with veterans and military vehicles from various wars.
  • One of the longest-standing traditions is the running of the Indianapolis 500, an auto race which has been held in conjunction with Memorial Day since 1911. It runs on the Sunday preceding the Memorial Day holiday. Other weekend events include NASCAR’s Coca-Cola 600, held later the same day since 1961, the PGA Memorial Tournament golf event and the final of the NCAA Division I Men’s Lacrosse Championship.
  • On Memorial Day weekend in 1988, 2,500 motorcyclists rode into Washington, D.C. for the first Rolling Thunder rally to draw attention to Vietnam War soldiers still missing in action or prisoners of war. By 2002, the ride had swelled to 300,000 bikers, many of them veterans, and today reaches one million riders. A national veterans rights group, Rolling Thunder takes its name from the B-52 carpet-bombing runs during the war in Vietnam.
  • Now, no holiday can be complete without food! Americans will eat 818 hot dogs per second on Memorial Day. That’s a few wieners short of 71 million in a day. And as for that summer statistical symmetry, Memorial Day leads up to the number one barbecue event, July 4 before coasting down into Labor Day (a close third at 55 percent).
  • The grilling gurus at the Hearth, Patio & Barbecue Association say the top choices for grilling will be burgers (85%), steak (80%), hot dogs (79%) and chicken (73%), with no sign of tofu turkey anywhere in the ratings. Hickory is the top flavor of barbecue sauce, followed by mesquite, honey, and spicy-hot.

Enjoy your family and friends and please remember to say a prayer for our fallen.

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Some Like It Hot

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(top left) Red hot chili peppers… Hey, that’d be a great name for a band! (top right group: rows one, two & three, l to r) Anaheim peppers, Banana peppers, Bell peppers, Cayenne peppers, Cherry peppers, Jalapeno peppers, Pimiento peppers and a garden full of Ornamental Peppers; (bottom group) Hey, a guy’s gotta’ eat: Peppers are GREAT on pizza and a MUST in fajitas and burritos!

With Memorial Day weekend coming up, it’s time for me to plan and plant my veggie garden. Working with Jackie and the girls, we’ll plan our garden like most people, prep the soil, and head off to the garden center – where I then focus on my favorite area – you guessed it – my peppers. Being a guy who gets a bit excited about heat, I get fired-up (get it) every year trying to figure out the best balance of taste, sweetness, texture and kick. Couple this with my organization and processing brain, my peppers garden becomes my own little PIA (Pain In The @#$) Job. I get to apply my love of problem solving, trial and error, care and nurturing, and with good sun and the right amount of water, success later in the season. THEN… I wake up and realize that unfortunately I do not have a “green” thumb and can’t grow a thing! If I want some of my favorite peppers I have to go buy them! So, for my post this week, I thought I’d pass along some general info on pepper types, and a little info on the famous Scoville scale. Many thanks to garden.org and theguardian.com.

  • Chile, Chili, Cayenne, Jalapeno – By Any Name, It’s Hot! Names for hot peppers can get confusing. Some people call them chili peppers, cayennes or jalapenos, and others just call them hot peppers. What are they really called? Is each of these names a separate category?
  • The confusion started in Mexico. Chile is the Spanish word for pepper. To specify which type of pepper, Mexicans would add the word for the particular type of pepper after the name chile. Therefore, chile dulce would be sweet pepper, chile jalapeno would be the Jalapeno pepper, and so on. When chile found its way into this country, different meanings were given to it in various parts of the country, and it even acquired a new spelling. In the Southwest and West, chile is used to refer to the Anaheim pepper. In other parts of the South and the Southeast, and still other sections of the country, chile refers to any type of hot pepper. Some folks refer to all hot peppers as cayennes or jalapenos. And all over the country we have different chile con carnes, which are pepper based.
  • Chile and chili are not varieties of peppers, but only words used to describe that the pepper is hot. So whether you say chile or chili, cayenne or jalapeno, and whether the word describes just an Anaheim pepper or all hot peppers, watch out! That pepper is hot!
  • Seed companies break the peppers we grow down into two categories: hot and sweet. The hot types include Cayenne, Jalapeno and Anaheim. Examples of sweet peppers are Bell and Pimiento. Banana and Cherry peppers come both sweet and hot.
  • When people talk about flavor, they usually focus on taste and smell. But there’s a third major flavor sense, as well, one that’s often overlooked: the physical sensations of touch, temperature and pain. The burn of chilli peppers is the most familiar example here, but there are others. Wine mavens speak of a wine’s “mouthfeel”, a concept that includes the puckery astringency of tannins – something tea drinkers also notice – and the fullness of texture that gives body to a wine. Gum chewers and peppermint fans recognize the feeling of minty coolness they get from their confections. And everyone knows the fizzy bite of carbonated drinks.
  • None of these sensations is a matter of smell or taste. In fact, our third primary flavor sense flies so far under our radar that even flavor wonks haven’t agreed on a single name for it. Sensory scientists are apt to refer to it as “chemesthesis”, “somatosensation”, or “trigeminal sense”, each of which covers a slightly different subset of the sense, and none of which mean much at all to the rest of the world.
  • Chilli aficionados get pretty passionate about their pods, choosing just the right kind of chilli for each application from the dozens available. The difference among chilli varieties is partly a matter of smell and taste: some are sweeter, some are fruitier, some have a dusky depth to their flavour. But there are differences in the way they feel in your mouth, too.
  • One difference is obvious: heat level. Chilli experts measure a chilli’s level of burn in Scoville heat units, a scale first derived by Wilbur Scoville, a pharmacist and pharmaceutical researcher, in 1912. Working in Detroit, Scoville had the bright idea that he could measure a pepper’s hotness by diluting its extract until tasters could no longer detect the burn. The hotter the pepper was originally, the more you’d have to dilute it to wash out the burn. Pepper extract that had to be diluted just tenfold to quench the heat scores 10 Scoville heat units; a much hotter one that has to be diluted one hundred thousandfold scores 100,000 Scovilles.
  • However you measure it, chillies differ widely in their heat level. Anaheims and poblanos are quite mild, tipping the scale at about 500 and 1,000 Scovilles, respectively. Jalapeños come in around 5,000, serranos about 15,000, cayennes about 40,000, Thai bird’s eye chillies near 100,000, and the habanero on my table somewhere between 100,000 and 300,000 Scovilles. From there, intrepid souls can venture into the truly hot, topping out with the Carolina Reaper at a staggering 2.2 million Scovilles, which approaches the potency of police-grade pepper spray.
  • Paul Bosland, the director of the Chile Pepper Institute at New Mexico State University, a plant breeder by trade, has a keen professional interest in all the tiny details of how chilli heat differs from one pod to the next. Bosland says he and his colleagues distinguish four other components to chilli heat in addition to heat level. The first is how fast the heat starts. “Most people, when they bite the habanero, it maybe takes 20 to 30 seconds before they feel the heat, whereas an Asian chilli is immediate,” he says. Chillies also differ in how long the burn lasts. Some, like jalapeños and many of the Asian varieties, fade relatively quickly; others, like habaneros, may linger for hours. Where the chilli hits you also varies. “Usually, with a jalapeño, it’s the tip of your tongue and lips, with New Mexico pod types it’s in the middle of the mouth, and with a habanero it’s at the back,” says Bosland. And fourth, Bosland and his crew distinguish between “sharp” and “flat” qualities of burn. “Sharp is like pins sticking in your mouth, while flat is like a paintbrush,” he says. New Mexico chillies tend to be flat while Asian ones tend to be sharp.

Have fun planning your garden. I’ll swing by this subject later in the season, discuss our collective horticultural successes and share some great salsa and peppers recipes.
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Happy Mother’s Day!

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Here’s wishing all Moms a special day
That’s filled with every pleasure,
Your love, care and tenderness
Is what we really treasure!

Happy Mother’s Day!

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the above are copyright © by their respective owners.

 

The 5th of May

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(top row l to r) In the early 1860’s, Napoleon, III thought it’d be a good idea to own Mexico; The battle of Puebla; President Benito Juárez said to Napoleon, III “not on my watch, dude” or something like that. (middle row) Two depictions of the revered Benito Juárez leading his people through troubled times. His birthday, March 21, is a national holiday. (bottom row l to r) Dancers at the annual Cinco de Mayo Festival in Washington, D.C.; Who doesn’t love some chips and salsa? We have a great recipe below. What can I say, I express my feelings through food. 

 

My Spanish vocabulary is limited to “taco” and “cerveza,” so I took this Cinco de Mayo as an opportunity to learn more about the significance of this holiday. A relatively minor holiday in most of Mexico, in the United States Cinco de Mayo has evolved into a celebration of Mexican culture and heritage, particularly in areas with large Mexican-American populations.  For me, it’s a chance to share a little heritage with my neighbors, enjoy some great food and beverages with my staff and friends, and officially commemorate the date of the Mexican army’s 1862 victory over France at the Battle of Puebla during the Franco-Mexican War (1861-1867). Here is a little history you can use to impress your friends while passing the salsa…(try mine below).  And thanks to history.com for the info.

  • In 1861, Benito Juárez, a lawyer and member of the indigenous Zapotec tribe, was elected president of Mexico. At the time, the country was in financial ruin after years of internal strife, and the new president was forced to default on debt payments to European governments.
  • In response, France, Britain and Spain sent naval forces to Veracruz, Mexico, demanding repayment. Britain and Spain negotiated with Mexico and withdrew their forces. France, however, ruled by Napoleon III, decided to use the opportunity to carve an empire out of Mexican territory.
  • Late in 1861, a well-armed French fleet stormed Veracruz, landing a large force of troops and driving President Juárez and his government into retreat. Certain that success would come swiftly, 6,000 French troops under General Charles Latrille de Lorencez set out to attack Puebla de Los Angeles, a small town in east-central Mexico.
  • From his new headquarters in the north, Juárez rounded up a ragtag force of 2,000 loyal men—many of them either indigenous Mexicans or of mixed ancestry—and sent them to Puebla.
  • The vastly outnumbered and poorly supplied Mexicans, led by Texas-born General Ignacio Zaragoza, fortified the town and prepared for the French assault. On May 5, 1862, Lorencez gathered his army—supported by heavy artillery—before the city of Puebla and led an assault.
  • The battle lasted from daybreak to early evening, and when the French finally retreated, they had lost nearly 500 soldiers. Fewer than 100 Mexicans had been killed in the clash.
  • Although not a major strategic win in the overall war against the French, Zaragoza’s success at Puebla on May 5 represented a great symbolic victory for the Mexican government and bolstered the resistance movement.
  • In 1867—thanks in part to military support and political pressure from the United States, which was finally in a position to aid its besieged neighbor after the end of the American Civil War—France finally withdrew.
  • The same year, Austrian Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian, who had been installed as emperor of Mexico in 1864 by Napoleon, was captured and executed by Juárez’s forces. Puebla de Los Angeles was renamed for General Zaragoza, who died of typhoid fever months after his historic triumph there.
  • Within Mexico, Cinco de Mayo is primarily observed in the state of Puebla, where Zaragoza’s unlikely victory occurred, although other parts of the country also take part in the celebration. Traditions include military parades, recreations of the Battle of Puebla and other festive events. For many Mexicans, however, May 5 is a day like any other: It is not a federal holiday, so offices, banks and stores remain open.
  • In the United States, Cinco de Mayo is widely interpreted as a celebration of Mexican culture and heritage, particularly in areas with substantial Mexican-American populations.
  • In the 1960’s, Chicano activists raised awareness of the holiday in part because they identified with the victory of indigenous Mexicans, such as Juárez.
  • Today, revelers mark the occasion with parades, parties, mariachi music, Mexican folk dancing and traditional foods such as tacos and mole poblano. Some of the largest festivals are held in Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston.

Hot + Spicy “Can’t Stop Dippin” Salsa Recipe

  • 2 10 oz. cans diced tomatoes and green chilies
  • 1 12 oz. can whole tomatoes (with Mexican flavors ok)
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 1 chopped onion
  • 1 or 2 whole jalapeno, quartered & sliced thin with seeds/membrane
  • ¼ teaspoon ground cumin
  • ¼ teaspoon kosher or sea salt
  • ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
  • ¼ teaspoon sugar
  • 1 fresh lime – squeeze out all the juice you can
  • for fun, add one can of black beans and cup of frozen corn

FOOD PROCESSOR: Combine the diced tomatoes, whole tomatoes, cilantro, onions, garlic, jalapeno, cumin, salt, sugar and lime juice in a blender or food processor. (This is a very large batch. I recommend using a 12-cup food processor, or you can process the ingredients in batches and then mix everything together in a large mixing bowl.) Pulse until you get the salsa to the consistency you’d like. I do about 10 to 15 pulses. Test seasonings with a tortilla chip and adjust as needed.

HAND METHOD: Pour whole tomatoes and juice into bowl and slice up into small bite sized pieces. Chop cilantro, garlic and onion into small pieces and add with rest of ingredients. Hand mix and set texture to your preference.
Refrigerate the salsa for at least an hour before serving. Check amount of liquid and drain as needed. Serve with medley of white and black chips.
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Let The Sunshine In

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(top row) Some original Hair production photos. Diane Keaton (far right) was in one of the early shows. (2nd row l to r) The Duluth Minnesota News Tribune sensationalized (on page one!) the 10 seconds of nudity at the end of act one with this censored photo and the headline “Does ‘Hair’ cast go all the way?” I’m thinking they sold more papers that day; Love beads; The cast at one of the performances in Germany. (3rd row left) The original show poster (3rd row middle) Four of the album covers of cast recordings (the original in the upper left) and a promotion banner created through the years. (3rd row right) Everyone gets into the act including Lulu, the hairiest of them all at bottom right.

 

Wow, what a glorious day here in Cleveburgh. After my run this morning, I found myself really enjoying spring in all its glory, watching the sun come up from my office overlooking Lake Erie – birds chirping, trees and flowers blooming and the fresh budding smells of the season. And, like you may often do, I found myself singing out loud that so familiar “sunshine” tune, as I cracked open my window to feel the warmth and rays of the sun. Now, it’s important to keep in mind that I can only sing in my office when no one else is around! It’s hard to describe in words, but fresh air and sunshine just puts me in a great mood as I head off to work and tackle your fun and challenging PIA (Pain In The @%$) Jobs of the day. For this week’s post, I did some digging, too, to learn more about the famous musical that rocked our culture of the day, and personally spoke to me years later (yes, as you know I am follicly challenged). Here is some fun reading about this awesome musical HAIR, a link to the Aquarius/Sunshine soundtrack and few of the other great tunes in the show – and thanks again Wikipedia and history.com.

  • In a year marked by as much social and cultural upheaval as 1968, it was understandable that the New York Times review of this controversial musical newly arrived on Broadway describes the show in political terms. “You probably don’t have to be a supporter of Eugene McCarthy to love it,” wrote critic Clive Barnes, “but I wouldn’t give it much chance among the adherents of Governor Reagan.” The show in question was Hair,
  • The now-famous “tribal love-rock musical” that introduced the era-defining song “Aquarius” and gave theatergoers a full-frontal glimpse of the burgeoning 60s-counterculture esthetic, premiered this weekend on Broadway almost 50 years ago.
  • Hair was not a brand-new show when it opened at the Biltmore Theater. It began its run 40 blocks to the south, in the East Village, as the inaugural production of Joseph Papp’s Public Theater. Despite mediocre reviews, Hair was a big enough hit with audiences during its six-week run to win financial backing for a proposed move to Broadway, exceedingly rare for a musical at the time, and a particularly bold move for a musical with a nontraditional rock and roll score.
  • The novelty of the show didn’t stop with its music or references to sex and drugs. Hair also featured a much-talked-about scene at the end of its first act in which the cast appeared completely nude on the dimly lit stage. It turned out that these potentially shocking breaks from Broadway tradition didn’t turn off Broadway audiences at all, as Hair quickly became not just a smash-hit show, but a genuine cultural phenomenon that spawned a million-selling original cast recording and a #1 song on the pop charts for the Fifth Dimension.
  • Hair tells the story of the “tribe”, a group of politically active, long-haired hippies of the “Age of Aquarius” living a bohemian life in New York City and fighting against conscription into the Vietnam War. Claude, his good friend Berger, their roommate Sheila and their friends struggle to balance their young lives, loves, and the sexual revolution with their rebellion against the war and their conservative parents and society. Ultimately, Claude must decide whether to resist the draft as his friends have done, or to succumb to the pressures of his parents, and conservative America, to serve in Vietnam, compromising his pacifist principles and risking his life.
  • Hair was conceived by actors James Rado and Gerome Ragni. The two met in 1964 when they performed together in the Off-Broadway flop Hang Down Your Head and Die, and they began writing Hair together in late 1964. The main characters were autobiographical, with Rado’s Claude being a pensive romantic and Ragni’s Berger an extrovert. Their close relationship, including its volatility, was reflected in the musical. Rado explained, “We were great friends. It was a passionate kind of relationship that we directed into creativity, into writing, into creating this piece. We put the drama between us on stage.”
  • The inspiration for Hair as “a combination of some characters we met in the streets, people we knew and our own imaginations. We knew this group of kids in the East Village who were dropping out and dodging the draft, and there were also lots of articles in the press about how kids were being kicked out of school for growing their hair long”. 
  • Said Rado, “There was so much excitement in the streets and the parks and the hippie areas, and we thought if we could transmit this excitement to the stage it would be wonderful…. We hung out with them and went to their Be-Ins [and] let our hair grow. “Many cast members (Shelley Plimpton in particular) were recruited right off the street. It was very important historically, and if we hadn’t written it, there’d not be any examples. You could read about it and see film clips, but you’d never experience it. We thought, This is happening in the streets,’ and we wanted to bring it to the stage.”
  • The first recording of Hair was made in 1967 featuring the off-Broadway cast. The original Broadway cast recording received a Grammy Award in 1969 for Best Score from an Original Cast Show Album and sold nearly 3 million copies in the U.S.  It charted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, the last Broadway cast album to do so (as of 2016). It stayed at No. 1 for 13 weeks in 1969. The New York Times noted in 2007 that “The cast album of Hair was… a must-have for the middle classes. Its exotic orange-and-green cover art imprinted itself instantly and indelibly on the psyche…. [It] became a pop-rock classic that, like all good pop, has an appeal that transcends particular tastes for genre or period.”
  • Forty years after its initial downtown opening, Charles Isherwood, writing for the New York Times, placed Hair in its proper historical context: “For darker, knottier and more richly textured sonic experiences of the times, you turn to the Doors or Bob Dylan or Joni Mitchell or Jimi Hendrix or Janis Joplin. Or all of them. For an escapist dose of the sweet sound of youth brimming with hope that the world is going to change tomorrow, you listen to Hair and Let the Sunshine In.”  Listen to Hair and Let the Sunshine In!

Watch & Listen: “Hair” LIVE @ The 2009 Tony Awards HERE
Listen to the original cast version: The Flesh Failures (Let the Sunshine In) HERE
Listen to the 5th Dimension version: Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In HERE

 

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Do April Showers Really Bring May Flowers?

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Walking into the office early this rainy morning, I marveled at the color explosion of the trees and flowers in the neighborhood. Around here, the tree buds are just turning that awesome bright green, birds are singing everywhere, signaling the much anticipated transition from winter to spring. As heat treating professionals who obsess with temperatures and quenching all day when solving your pesky PIA (Pain in the #$%) Jobs, I was wondering where the expression “April Showers Brings May Flowers” came from, and just what triggers all of these early blooms. So here is a little science (thanks Wikipedia), a little history (thanks Library of Congress), a little poetry (thanks feelingsandflowers.com) and some fun random facts about the arrival of spring.  Enjoy.

The poem as we know it today originated in 1557, in the form of a short poem written by Thomas Tusser, found in the April section of a collection of his writings titled, “A Hundred Good Points of Husbandry.” The poem goes as follows:

“Swéete April showers,
Doo spring Maie flowers.

While this poem is clearly a direct ancestor to the version we know today, we need to go back to the Fourteenth Century, where legendary poet Geoffrey Chaucer had his own say on the month of April in his famous collection of stories titled, “The Canterbury Tales.” Chaucer’s version goes as follows:

“Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote

And bathed every veyne in swich licour,

Of which vertu engendred is the flour;”

Translation:

“When in April the sweet showers fall

That pierce March’s drought to the root and all

And bathed every vein in liquor that has power

To generate therein and sire the flower;”

  • While Chaucer speaks of April in relation to March rather than April, it could certainly be said that while Thomas Tusser may be the father of this saying, Geoffrey Chaucer is certainly the grandfather.
  • There is meaning behind the words, as well. “April showers bring May flowers” is a reminder that even the most unpleasant of things, in this case the heavy rains of April, can bring about very enjoyable things indeed – an abundance of flowers in May – a good lesson in patience.
  • The proverb is an example of the spring cycle of renewal that many parts of the Earth go through, and can be scientifically analyzed. There are actually several contributing factors to the appearance of flowers in spring, primarily driven by temperature (yeah baby, we love temperature!!). As the days grow warmer, plants find it easier to grow, as they are genetically hard-wired to begin growth as the soil thaws and the frost becomes more distant. This combined with the rain is a perfect signal to the plant that it’s time to return to life, or begin life in the case of a seed or bulb.
  • Rain is at the forefront of positive stimuli bringing about floral displays in May. Increased levels of moisture in the soil help plants to grow faster and healthier. The water helps nutrients reach the roots faster as well, but an abundance of rain can actually slow the blooms.
  •  Springtime sees the return of many animals, birds and insects. The renewed ecosystem involving things eating and being eaten provides nourishment for new plants in the form of fecal matter and decaying organic compounds. The presence of insects also helps to pollinate the plants, which in turn allows them to reproduce.
  • In the United Kingdom and Ireland, one of the major causes of the often heavy April downpours is the position of the jet stream. In early spring, the jet stream starts to move northwards, allowing large depressions to bring strong winds and rain in from the Atlantic. In one day the weather can change from springtime sunshine to winter sleet and snow. The track of these depressions can often be across Ireland and Scotland bringing bands of rain followed by heavy showers (often of hail or snow) and strong blustery winds.  The same holds true in the US, as jet stream patterns can move northward, capturing chilling temperatures, and sweeping them down into the Great Lakes region.
  • Usually, we try to dodge April showers, but the one that arrives on the morning of April 22 may be worth seeking out. Every year in late April, the Earth passes through the dusty tail of Comet Thatcher (C/1861 G1), and the encounter causes a meteor shower – the Lyrids. The best time to look, no matter where you live, is during the dark hours before dawn. (Geek alert: Comet C/1861 G1 (Thatcher) is a long-period comet with roughly a 415-year orbit discovered by A. E. Thatcher. It is responsible for the Lyrid meteor shower. Carl Wilhelm Baeker also independently found this comet. The comet passed about 0.335 AU (50,100,000 km; 31,100,000 mi) from the Earth on 1861-May-05 and last came to perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) on 1861-Jun-03.
  • Annuals, the flowers you have to replant each year, are different than perennials in that they can’t be planted each year until after the threat of frost passes. Once planted, what matters is the amount of rainfall in the months after they’re planted, not the month before. They need enough rain in the months after they’re planted to sustain their growth and health.
  • In some areas, a “false spring” may result in great harm to flowers and fruit crops. Early warm spells may trigger flowers to begin to bloom. If those warm spells are short-lived and are followed by a hard frost, flowers and fruit trees may die and not bloom again until the following year.
  • According to the 2017 Farmer’s Almanac, REGION 7: OHIO VALLEy – Spring will begin with cold rain and snow showers. April and May will be warmer than normal, with rainfall below normal in the east and above normal in the west. The end of spring will be predominantly sunny and mild, with occasional thunderstorms (pretty much what happens every year).
  • April showers also bring May rainouts – come on Tribe, let’s get rolling!

 

 

 

Masters

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(top row l to r): Golf courses are beautiful, but this one is exceptional; Nice photo of Danny Lee of New Zealand playing his second shot on the fifth hole during the second round of the 2016 Masters (second row l to r): In 1934 Horton Smith won the very first Masters; Arnold Palmer used to say “Drive for show, putt for dough.” Amen; Jack Nicklaus has the most Master’s wins at six; Gary Player rounds out the top three greatest of their era with Palmer and Nicklaus (third row l to r): Tiger Woods is tied with Arnie at four Masters wins and tied with Nick Faldo and Jack Nicklaus as having the only back to back Masters wins; The Masters flag; the Masters trophy (fourth row l to r): Don’t know who’s lining up his putt here but it sure shows the intensity of play at the Masters; I’m on the far right of this motley crew photo at our recent (23rd annual) South Carolina Golf Trip; I love Phil Mickelson and I hope he joins Tiger and Arnie this year by winning his fourth Masters, but I ran out of room for his photo.

 

One of my favorite spring traditions is to watch the Masters golf tournament. For me, it’s more than just a great sporting event – it kicks off “spring” in my mind, and usually follows my traditional golf trip with 7 really, really, really determined golfing buddies! We celebrated our 23rd year by playing 139 holes over a recent 4 day period! Now, after all of our efforts there is something really special about the Masters, beyond just the competition. Great setting, typically great weather, dogwoods and azaleas in bloom, and sort of a salute to professionalism, sportsmanship and tradition. I decided that this week I’d poke around on the internet and capture some of the known and no-so known trivia about the tournament. Thanks as always to Wikipedia for the details. Enjoy.

  • The Masters Tournament, also known as The Masters or The US Masters, is one of the four major championships in professional golf, scheduled for the first full week of April, and it is the first of the majors to be played each year.
  • Unlike the other major championships, the Masters is held each year at the same location, Augusta National Golf Club, a private golf club in the city of Augusta, Georgia, USA. The Masters was started by Clifford Roberts and Bobby Jones. Jones designed Augusta National with course architect Alister MacKenzie.
  • The idea for Augusta National originated with Bobby Jones, who wanted to build a golf course after his retirement from the game. He sought advice from Clifford Roberts, who later became the chairman of the club. They came across a piece of land in Augusta, Georgia, of which Jones said: “Perfect! And to think this ground has been lying here all these years waiting for someone to come along and lay a golf course upon it.
  • The tournament has a number of traditions. Since 1949, a green jacket has been awarded to the champion, who must return it to the clubhouse one year after his victory, although it remains his personal property and is stored with other champions’ jackets in a specially designated cloakroom.
  • A golfer who wins the event multiple times uses the same green jacket awarded upon his initial win (unless he needs to be re-fitted with a new jacket).
  • The Champions Dinner, inaugurated by Ben Hogan in 1952, is held on the Tuesday before each tournament, and is open only to past champions and certain board members of the Augusta National Golf Club.
  • Beginning in 1963, legendary golfers, usually past champions, have hit an honorary tee shot on the morning of the first round to commence play. These have included Fred McLeod, Jock Hutchinson, Gene Sarazen, Sam Snead, Byron Nelson, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, and Gary Player.
  • Since 1960, a semi-social contest at the par-3 course has been played on Wednesday, the day before the first round.
  • Nicklaus has the most Masters wins, with six between 1963 and 1986. Palmer and Tiger Woods won four each, and five have won three titles at Augusta: Jimmy Demaret, Sam Snead, Gary Player, Nick Faldo, and Phil Mickelson.
  • The first “Augusta National Invitational” Tournament, as the Masters was originally known, began on March 22, 1934, and was won by Horton Smith. The present name was adopted in 1939. The first tournament was played with current holes 10 through 18 played as the first nine, and 1 through 9 as the second nine[9] then reversed permanently to its present layout for the 1935 tournament.
  • Gene Sarazen hit the “shot heard ’round the world” in 1935, holing a shot from the fairway on the par 5 15th for a double eagle (albatross). This tied Sarazen with Craig Wood, and in the ensuing 36-hole playoff Sarazen was the victor by five strokes.
  • The tournament was not played from 1943 to 1945, due to World War II. To assist the war effort, cattle and turkeys were raised on the Augusta National grounds.
  • The Big Three of Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, and Jack Nicklaus dominated the Masters from 1960 through 1978, winning the event 11 times among them during that span. After winning by one stroke in 1958, Palmer won by one stroke again in 1960 in memorable circumstances. Trailing Ken Venturi by one shot in the 1960 event, Palmer made birdies on the last two holes to prevail. Palmer would go on to win another two Masters in 1962 and 1964.
  • Jack Nicklaus emerged in the early 1960s, and served as a rival to the popular Palmer. Nicklaus won his first green jacket in 1963, defeating Tony Lema by one stroke. Two years later, he shot a then-course record of 271 (17 under par) for his second Masters win, leading Bobby Jones to say that Nicklaus played “a game with which I am not familiar.” The next year, Nicklaus won his third green jacket in a grueling 18-hole playoff against Tommy Jacobs and Gay Brewer. This made Nicklaus the first player to win consecutive Masters. He won again in 1972 by three strokes and in 1975, Nicklaus by one stroke in a close contest with Tom Weiskopf and Johnny Miller in one of the most exciting Masters to date.
  • Gary Player became the first non-American to win the Masters in 1961, beating Palmer, the defending champion. In 1974, he won again by two strokes. After not winning a tournament on the U.S. PGA tour for nearly four years, and at the age of 42, Player won his third and final Masters in 1978 by one stroke over three players.
  • Player currently shares (with Fred Couples) the record of making 23 consecutive cuts, and has played in a record 52 Masters.
  • The golf course was formerly a plant nursery and each hole is named after the tree or shrub with which it has become associated.
  • The Masters has the smallest field of the major championships with 90–100 players. Unlike other majors, there are no alternates or qualifying tournaments. It is an invitational event, with invitations largely issued on an automatic basis to players who meet published criteria. The top 50 players in the Official World Golf Ranking are all invited.
  • CBS has televised the Masters in the United States every year since 1956 when it used six cameras and covered only the final four holes. Tournament coverage of the first eight holes did not begin until 1993 because of resistance from the tournament organizers. In 2008, ESPN replaced USA and Universal as the weekday coverage provider. Westwood One has done the radio broadcast sine 1956.
  • As traditional as the green jacket, the Pimento Cheese Sandwich is another one of those beloved, (but odd) icons of the Masters.  Priced at $1.50, the sandwich, and its price, seem to be frozen in time.