THINGS I WOULDN'T KNOW IF I WAS NOT A READER

Things I wouldn’t Know if I were not a reader.

1. Elfshot, small stones believed by medieval people to be arrowheads shot from fairies. These are believed to protect humans.

2. Tattoos are often used as protective devises.

3. A Crayola will burn for thirty minutes. They make great cheap candles.

4, Tarragon, the spice, is used in magic spells for courage as tarragon means little dragon.

5. The Greeks believed in two kinds of fate. Ananke -just because you are there.Hurricane katrina, ten years ago wiped out whole towns. Everyone was affected. Heimarmene, stuff that happens because of the choices you made. Cynics were a cult who spent their time figure out the two kinds of fate.

6. Dandelions are for courage, also to keep from being evicted. Collect dandelions and place them around the apartment or home.

7. Ben Franklin published “Pamela,” the first novel published in the colonies that would become the U.S. Written by Samuel Richardson, it was originally published in England and reprinted by Franklin in 1744.

8. The Hall of Fame for Great Americans is at Bronx Community College in New York. Inductees have a bust made by a famous sculptor.Edgar Allan Poe’s sculptor was Daniel Chester French, who also sculpted the Lincoln Memorial This was America’s first Hall of Fame. The only non American appears to be General Lafayette,who was granted honorary U.S. citizenship. 9. When Teddy Roosevelt was police commissioner in New York, he took steps to preserve Edgar Allan Poe’s home in New York. The house Poe rented is still there on a land called Poe Park.

10. Gerardus Mercator, a cartographer born in 1512 coined the word “Atlas” after a mythical Titan whom he idolized? Mercator used the word “Atlas” for his collection of world maps.

11. Who gets heart and kidney transplants? One prison inmate received a heart transplant which will probably end up costing taxpayers a million dollars. A death row inmate gets dialysis and has been recommended for a kidney transplant.

12. There are 193 nation members of the United Nations.

A question for the research minded. Could General Lafayette who was, of course, born in France, have become president of the U.S.?