[Vhfcn-l] Monday musings

[Gary Thewlis]

Day late - sorry.

 

Love thy neighbor as yourself, but choose your neighborhood.

Louise Beal

 

Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised.

Marilyn Manson

 

What some call health, if purchased by perpetual anxiety about diet, isn't
much better than tedious disease.

George Dennison Prentice

 

There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason
in madness.

Friedrich Nietzsche 

 

Food is an important part of a balanced diet.

Fran Lebowitz

 

Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we
didn't.

Erica Jong

 

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On the wagon

 

There are several stories about the origin of this phrase. Perhaps the most
common one says it derives from prisoners who were on their way to jail on
the back of a wagon. They were allowed one last drink in the local pub
before the enforced temperance inside. A variation refers to condemned
prisoners on the way from Newgate Prison to be hanged at Tyburn being
allowed to stop at a hostelry to have a last drink before being put back on
the wagon for the final part of their journey to execution. Hardly so. A
young American was a little nearer when he wrote that, 'My teacher says it
was during the temperance movement when men would parade around town on a
wagon to show they've conquered their demons'.

 

Since the Salvation Army is very keen on temperance, it isn't surprising
that the phrase has several times been attributed to them. An American Sally
Army Web site says firmly that: "Former National Commander Evangeline Booth
- founder William Booth's daughter - drove a hay wagon through the streets
of New York to encourage alcoholics on board for a ride back to The
Salvation Army. Hence, alcoholics in recovery were said to be 'on the
wagon'". The source seems impeccable, but the Sally Army is, alas,
perpetrating another version of the same folk etymology.

 

However, the saying is indeed originally American and it is associated with
wagons, of a sort. The original form, which dates from the early years of
the twentieth century, was to be on the water-wagon, implying that the
speaker was drinking water rather than alcohol and so was an abstainer, at
least for the time being. The image of the horse-drawn water-wagon would
have been an obvious one at the time - it was used to spray unpaved American
streets in the dry summer months to dampen down dust thrown up by the
traffic. A direct link with the temperance movement - very active at the
time - would seem probable, though none has been established for sure.

 

Chip on one's shoulder

 

This phrase is American, first recorded in the Long Island Telegraph for 20
May 1830: "When two churlish boys were determined to fight, a chip would be
placed on the shoulder of one, and the other demanded to knock it off at his
peril". The same idea is mentioned in the issue of The Onondaga Standard of
Syracuse, New York, for 8 December the same year: "'He waylay me,' said I,
'the mean sneaking fellow - I am only afraid that he will sue me for
damages. Oh! if I only could get him to knock a chip off my shoulder, and so
get round the law, I would give him one of the soundest thrashings he ever
had.'"

 

It seems to have been a challenge in the same spirit as a medieval knight
throwing down his gauntlet. If your opponent picked up the glove, or knocked
the chip of wood off your shoulder, the challenge was accepted and the fight
was on. Later it came to suggest somebody who shows a belligerent attitude,
acting as though he were spoiling for a fight; the chip was figurative, but
the idea was the same.

 

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John F. Kennedy was the only president to win a Pulitzer Prize, for his
biography "Profiles in Courage".

 

George Washington might have had a set of false teeth - but he made sure
each of his six horses had their teeth brushed every day.

 

Ronald Reagan was the first actor elected president. He acted in 53 films
before becoming president.

 

Andrew Johnson was impeached for removing Secretary of War Edwin Stanton
during the turbulent Reconstruction Period but was acquitted by one vote in
the Senate. 

 

Ronald Reagan was twice named Time magazine's "Man of the Year."

 

While Rutherford B. Hayes was still in the Union Army, Cincinnati
Republicans ran him for the House of Representatives. He accepted the
nomination, but would not campaign, explaining, "an officer fit for duty who
at this crisis would abandon his post to electioneer... ought to be
scalped." 

 

William Henry Harrison was the only  president who studied to become a
doctor.