New stuff to know

 

Hayter article for July 7, 2024

Learning stuff that doesn’t even hurt

 

            During the last couple of days, I have taken time to learn a bunch of stuff. I did it after reading articles about high school students not knowing how to write.

 

            I thought “Shame on them and a pox on their teachers.” The first article I read was written by a lady who made it a point to express her dismay at the realization that students don’t even know what a gerund is. That stopped me cold.

 

            I’m not the brightest bulb in the drawer, but who is? They’re in a drawer! Some of you may remember that I used to be smart. Fairly smart. I managed to get a Bachelor’s degree in Forestry, and then a Master’s in History and Political Science. And I did all of that without knowing what a gerund was.

 

During my college days, I had to write billions of research papers that Kay typed for me. I’m sure each one had gerunds in it. Not a single professor took the time to compliment me on my gerunds. I just looked up what a gerund is, and I don’t give a rat's rear knowing the name for turning a noun into a verb. I tell you that to tell you this, let’s get past gerunds! And move along to important stuff. I’ve got a whole list right here.

 

First off, I learned about beer drinkers. Do you know what country consumes more beer than any other? The country has been beer drinking champion for the past 25 years. Anybody? The winning country is the Czech Republic. On average, it’s citizens drink 38 gallons of beer in a year… 38 gallons of beer. Take one down, pass it around--I’m sorry. I get caught up in music.

 

You may remember that the Czech Republic used to be part of Czechoslovakia. But there was a rift and they broke away from the Slovakians.  By the way, no European country is even close to beating the Czechs in beer consumption… or jail capacity for drunks.

 

Next: Which was invented first -- alcohol or the wheel? Turns out, geologists found evidence of alcohol consumption in China as far back as 9000 years ago. They discovered it from caked-on booze inside some pottery. The earliest examples of the wheel go back a mere 5700 years. That’s too soon. Of course,  round flat rocks from 10,000 years back were discovered, but they were used to play with… according to one imaginative geologist. 

 

Speaking of tea, it’s a recent beverage for the Brits. In 1968 only three percent of the British drank tea, because it was too expensive. In 1952, Lipton invented the flow-thru teabag. The world went crazy. The Brits? No big deal. Researchers with not enough to do, have discovered that today 96 percent of the British drink tea. They prefer raising the water temperature to 185 degrees. At 186 degrees it’s ruined. And if the cream goes into the tea, it will be too mild. You always add the tea to the cream. If any British visited my house, they’d toss my metal tumbler across the room.  

 

Let’s leave tea and jump into coffee. The appeal for coffee is inherited. It does my heart good that scientists took the time to research that. I was the first child of Elsie and Faris who liked coffee. My oldest brother Larry drinks it but only to keep him awake.  He doesn’t like the stuff, perhaps because HE DRINKS IT BLACK! 

 

In 1885 Dr Pepper was first marketed in a town called Waco. Like Coca-Cola, Dr. Pepper has a complicated secret formula. One important thing about the formula is that it contains absolutely no prune juice. That was a rumor for a good while. Nobody knows how Dr Pepper got its name or why “Dr” has no period after it. For a while people referred to it as Pepper Cola. But they stopped after it was learned that there was no “cola” in it. There’s a lot of confusion in the name, you ask me.

 

My favorite Dr Pepper is called “Dr. B” from HEB. I like it because it’s cheaper than the original Dr P, it’s more favorable, and it has a period after the Dr.

 

We’re going to end with Santa Claus. At the beginning this guy didn’t look a thing like today's Santa Clause. He was a short guy in a red jacket. He couldn’t Ho, Ho, Ho if you put a gun to his head. But, in 1931, Coca-Cola wanted a better-looking Santa to advertise their Cola. There were no copyrighting issues on the old ones, and there were many. So Coke hired an artist named Haddon Sundblom who is responsible for the appearance of today’s Santa.

 

He looks like a real Santa. He’s jovial and polite. He has a terrible laugh, but he was born with that. Santa looks so much better that they now hire him to appear in stores, so small kids can sit on his lap and cry. Santa was once in the Foley’s Christmas Parade in Houston. The first and only time Dad took us there, the crowd along the street was packed, so Daddy put me on his shoulders. It was the day Dad learned that I was afraid of heights. I cried like a baby. Actually, I screamed. Daddy lost a lot of respect for me that day, and never took us back to the parade.  

 

Okay, all of this you just read is only a small part of the fascinating stuff I ran across. As my daddy would say, “It’s now time to get back to my rat killing.” -- First, I’m going to grab an HEB Dr. B. – Next time.

 

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