[Vhfcn-l] Monday musings

[Gary Thewlis]

Never fly the 'A' model of anything.

- Ed Thompson

 

Though I Fly Through the Valley of Death I Shall Fear No Evil For I am
80,000 feet and Climbing.

- sign over the entrance to the SR-71 operating location on Kadena AB
Okinawa

 

You've never been lost until you've been lost at Mach 3.

- Paul F. Crickmore,

 

If you want to grow old as a pilot, you've got to know when to push it, and
when to back off.

- Chuck Yeager

 

There is no reason to fly through a thunderstorm in peacetime.

- Sign over squadron ops desk at Davis-Monthan AFB, AZ, 1970.

 

An airplane might disappoint any pilot but it'll never surprise a good one.

- Len Morgan

 

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Marmalade

 

Spanish oranges had been stored there, and she [Mary] made a new sort of
preserve - called after herself as she told them proudly, for the cook at
her grandmother's chateau of Joinville had made it to tempt her appetite
when she was ill; "Marie est malade," he had muttered again and again as he
racked his brain to invent something new for her, and "Mariemalade" they had
called it ever since. - The Gay Galliard: the Love Story of Mary, Queen of
Scots, by Margaret Irwin, 1942.

 

Mary's French connections (she was at one time married to Francis, who was
the Dauphin, the eldest son of the then king of France, Henri II) were
enough to peg this extraordinary invention to her. This is yet another case
of the way that a good story can triumph over historical veracity.

 

As it happens, the truth is more interesting. The original food wasn't made
from oranges, but from quinces. These were cooked with honey and in the
process the unpromising bitter green fruit was transformed into a sweet pink
paste, which was stiff enough to be cut with a knife and be served in slices
as a kind of dessert. The first of these preserves were made in Portugal and
were called marmelada, from the word for quince in Portuguese, marmelo. This
is from the Latin melimelum, a sweet variety of apple, in turn from the
Greek, usually translated as summer-apple (an early-ripening type), which
seems to have been the name for a type of apple grafted on to a quince
rootstock.

 

The product kept well and was exported to Britain in wooden cases. It was at
first a luxury item (customs duty was slapped on it in the fifteenth
century, so it must have been worth taxing) but English cooks later learned
to make their own.

 

The first name for it was chardecoynes or char de quince, the Old French
term for a pulp made from quinces, but the Portuguese alternative began to
appear in the latter part of the fifteenth century; in 1524, the papers of
King Henry VIII recorded a gift, which in modern English would read,
"Presented by Hull of Exeter one box of marmalade".

 

An early English recipe called for quinces to be beaten to a pulp with a
type of apple called wardens, boiled with honey until the mixture was thick
and then spiced with a mixture of ginger, galingale and cinnamon. The shift
to oranges happened rather slowly. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,
plums, dates, cherries and other fruits were all made into preserves called
marmalades. This has continued to the present day, though in the UK, as a
result of EU regulations, products sold under the name of marmalade must be
made from citrus fruits.

 

In time, the link with quinces was lost and the historical link with them is
preserved only in the name, leaving its origin open to ingenious
storytelling.

 

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What American city bills itself as the home of the first push-button car
radio, the first canned tomato juice, the first mechanical corn picker and
the first commercially built car?

A: Kokomo, Indiana, which calls itself the "city of firsts."

 

What was the longest flight ever made by aviation pioneer Wilbur Wright?

A: 77 miles. He made the flight in 1908 (five years after Kitty Hawk) from
Camp d'Auvours, France, setting a world record and winning the Michelin
Prize of 20,000 francs.

 

What did the first vending machines in the United States dispense?

A: Chewing gum.  The machines were installed on New York City tan platforms
in 1888.

 

Largelamb, an anagram pseudonym of a famous inventor, was one of the
founders of "National Geographic" magazine. Who was he?

A: Alexander Graham Bell.

 

How was Coca-Cola originally billed when it appeared on the market in 1886?

A: As an "Esteemed Brain Tonic and Intellectual Beverage."

 

In 1937, the grocery business was revolutionized by Sylvan Goldman's simple
invention. What was it?

A: The shopping cart.

 

Who sent the next message after the historic words "What hath God wrought"
were transmitted over Samuel F. B. Morse's telegraph in 1844?

A: Dolly Madison. The words; "Message from Mrs. Madison. She sends her love
to Mrs. Wethered." Mrs. Wethered was a friend of the 76-year-old former
First Lady.