• US Dollars are not made out of paper, they are made out of cotton.
• The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp (marijuana) paper.
• The dot over the letter I is called a "tittle."
• A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top.
• 40% of McDonald's profits come from the sales of Happy Meals.
• 315 entries in Webster's 1996 Dictionary were misspelled.
• Orcas (killer whales) kill sharks by torpedoing up into the shark's stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode.
• Most lipstick contains fish scales (eeww).
• Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn't wear pants.
• Ketchup was sold in the 1830s as medicine.
• Upper and lower case letters are named 'upper' and 'lower' because in the time when all original print had to be set in individual letters, the upper case' letters were stored in the case on top of the case that stored the smaller, 'lower case' letters.
• Leonardo DaVinci could write with one hand and draw with the other at the same time. (Hence, multitasking was invented.)
• Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of wood.
• There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos.
• The name Wendy was made up for the book Peter Pan; there was never a recorded Wendy before!
• There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with: orange, purple, and silver!
• Leonardo Da Vinci invented scissors. Also, it took him 10 years to paint Mona Lisa's lips.
• A tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion will make it instantly go mad and sting itself to death.
• The mask used by Michael Myers in the original "Halloween" was a Captain Kirk's mask painted white.
• If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19 , you also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar (good to know).
• By raising your legs slowly and lying on your back, you can't sink in quicksand (and you thought this list was completely useless).
• The first product Motorola started to develop was a record player for automobiles. At that time, the most known player on the market was the Victrola, so they called themselves Motorola.
• Celery has negative calories! It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with. It's the same with apples!
• Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying!
• The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.
• Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the Book most often stolen from Public Libraries.

Submitted by Bob, Rockville, Md.
 

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1. The one sport in which neither the spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest ends.
2. North American landmark constantly moving backward.
3. Only two vegetables that can live to produce on their own for several growing seasons.
4. The fruit with its seeds on the outside.
5. How did the pear get inside the brandy bottle?
6. Three English words beginning with dw.
7. Name the fourteen punctuation marks in English grammar
8. The only vegetable or fruit never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form but fresh.
9. Six or more things you can wear on your feet beginning with "S."

Submitted by Former Emmitsburg Mayor Ed
 

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...., you are a lot smarter than I am. And no, it isn't 6 letters in each word; you need a little more moxey than that. (And it is not at least 2 identical consonants in each word, either, which was my guess)

Submitted by Dewey, Pensacola, FL
 

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OK, mosquitoes... prepare to be repelled !!!!!

Use Bounce Fabric Softener Sheets. Best thing ever used in Louisiana.  Just wipe on & go. Great for Babies

Bob, a fisherman, takes one vitamin B-1 tablet a day April through October . He said it works. He was right. Hasn't had a mosquito bite in 33 years. Try it. Every one he has talked into trying it works on them. Vitamin B-1( Thiamine Hydrochloride 100 mg.)

If you eat bananas, the mosquitoes like you, - something about the banana oil as your body processes it. Stop eating bananas for the summer and the mosquitoes will be much less interested.

This is going to floor you, but one of the best insect repellents someone found (who is in the woods every day), is Vick's Vapor Rub.

Plant marigolds around the yard, the flowers give off a smell that bugs do not like, so plant some in that garden also to help ward off bugs without using insecticides.

"Tough guy" Marines who spend a great deal of time "camping out" say that the very best mosquito repellant you can use is Avon Skin-So-Soft bath oil mixed about half and half with alcohol.

One of the best natural insect repellants that I've discovered is made from the clear real vanilla. This is the pure Vanilla that is sold in Mexico. It works great for mosquitoes and ticks, don't know about other insects.

When all else fails--get a frog!

Fight West Nile... Pass this along to all your friends in 'skeeter land!!!

Also submitted by Jay, Long Island, Ny.
 

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Submitted by Paul, Oklahoma City, OK
 

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More totally useless facts to bore co-workers with ... take 2

• American car horns honk in the key of F.
• The name Wendy was made up for the book "Peter Pan."
• Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.
• Every time you lick a stamp, you consume 1/10 of a calorie.
• The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.
• Studies show that if a cat falls off the seventh floor of a building it has about thirty percent less chance of surviving than a cat that falls off the twentieth floor. It supposedly takes about eight floors for the cat to realize what is occurring, relax and correct itself.
• Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks otherwise it will digest itself.
• The citrus soda 7-UP was created in 1929; '7' was selected after the original 7-ounce containers and 'UP' for the direction of the bubbles.
• 101 Dalmatians, Peter Pan, Lady and the Tramp, and Mulan are the only Disney cartoons where both parents are present and don't die throughout the movie. .
• 'Stewardesses' is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.
• To escape the grip of a crocodile's jaws, push your thumbs into its eyeballs - it will let you go instantly.
• Reindeer like to eat bananas.
• No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver and purple.
• The word "samba" means "to rub navels together."
• Mel Blanc (the voice of Bugs Bunny) was allergic to carrots.
• The electric chair was invented by a dentist.
• The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin during World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
• More people are killed annually by donkeys than airplane crashes.
• A 'jiffy' is a unit of time for 1/100th of a second.

Submitted by Kenneth, Shropshire, England
 

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Submitted by Bill, Ardmore, Pa.
 

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Near the end of his life the great science fiction author Isaac Asimov wrote a short story about the four stanzas of our national anthem. However brief, this well-circulated piece is an eye opener from the dearly departed doctor...

I have a weakness -- I am crazy. Absolutely nuts, about our national anthem. The words are difficult and the tune is almost impossible, but frequently when I'm taking a shower I sing it with as much power and emotion as I can. It shakes me up every time.

I was once asked to speak at a luncheon. Taking my life in my hands, I announced I was going to sing our national anthem -- all four stanzas. This was greeted with loud groans. One man closed the door to the kitchen, where the noise of dishes and cutlery was loud and distracting. "Thanks, Herb," I said.

"That's all right," he said. "It was at the request of the kitchen staff."

I explained the background of the anthem and then sang all four stanzas. Let me tell you, those people had never heard it before -- or had never really listened. I got a standing ovation. But it was not me; it was the anthem.

More recently, while conducting a seminar, I told my students the story of the anthem and sang all four stanzas. Again there was a wild ovation and prolonged applause. And again, it was the anthem and not me.

So now let me tell you how it came to be written.

In 1812, the United States went to war with Great Britain, primarily over freedom of the seas. We were in the right. For two years, we held off the British, even though we were still a rather weak country. Great Britain was in a life and death struggle with Napoleon. In fact, just as the United States declared war, Napoleon marched off to invade Russia. If he won, as everyone expected, he would control Europe, and Great Britain would be isolated. It was no time for her to be involved in an American war.

At first, our seamen proved better than the British. After we won a battle on Lake Erie in 1813, the American commander, Oliver Hazard Perry, sent the message, "We have met the enemy and they are ours." However, the weight of the British navy beat down our ships eventually. New England, hard-hit by a tightening blockade, threatened secession.

Meanwhile, Napoleon was beaten in Russia and in 1814 was forced to abdicate. Great Britain now turned its attention to the United State s, launching a three-pronged attack.

The northern prong was to come down Lake Champlain toward New York and seize parts of New England.

The southern prong was to go up the Mississippi, take New Orleans and paralyze the west.

The central prong was to head for the Mid-Atlantic States and then attack Baltimore, the greatest port south of New York. If Baltimore was taken, the nation, which still hugged the Atlantic coast, could be split in two. The fate of the United State s, then, rested to a large extent on the success or failure of the central prong.

The British reached the American coast, and on August 24, 1814, took Washington, D.C. Then they moved up the Chesapeake Bay toward Baltimore. On September 12, they arrived and found 1,000 men in Fort McHenry, whose guns controlled the harbor. If the British wished to take Baltimore, they would have to take the fort.

On one of the British ships was an aged physician, William Beanes, who had been arrested in Maryland and brought along as a prisoner. Francis Scott Key, a lawyer and friend of the physician, had come to the ship to negotiate his release.

The British captain was willing, but the two Americans would have to wait. It was now the night of September 13, and the bombardment of Fort McHenry was about to start.

As twilight deepened, Key and Beanes saw the America n flag flying over Fort McHenry. Through the night, they heard bombs bursting and saw the red glare of rockets. They knew the fort was resisting and the American flag was still flying. But toward morning the bombardment ceased, and a dread silence fell. Either Fort McHenry had surrendered and the British flag flew above it, or the bombardment had failed and the American flag still flew.

As dawn began to brighten the eastern sky, Key and Beanes stared out at the fort, trying to see which flag flew over it. He and the physician must have asked each other over and over, "Can you see the flag?"

After it was all finished, Key wrote a four-stanza poem telling the events of the night. Called "The Defense of Fort McHenry," it was published in newspapers and swept the nation. Someone noted that the words fit an old English tune called, "To Anacreon in Heaven" -- a difficult melody with an uncomfortably large vocal range. For obvious reasons, Key's work became known as "The Star Spangled Banner," and in 1931 Congress declared it the official anthem of the United State s.

Now that you know the story, here are the words. Presumably, the old doctor is speaking. This is what he asks Key:

Oh! say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there.
Oh! say, does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

"Ramparts," in case you don't know, are the protective walls or other elevations that surround a fort. The first stanza asks a question. The second gives an answer:

On the shore, dimly seen thro' the mist of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep.
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream
'Tis the Star-Spangled Banner. Oh! long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

"The towering steep" is again, the ramparts. The bombardment has failed, and the British can do nothing more but sail away, their mission a failure. In the third stanza, I feel Key allows himself to gloat over the American triumph. In the aftermath of the bombardment, Key probably was in no mood to act otherwise.

During World War II, when the British were our staunchest allies, this third stanza was not sung. However, I know it, so here it is:

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footstep's pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave,
And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

The fourth stanza, a pious hope for the future, should be sung more slowly than the other three and with even deeper feeling:

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation,
Blest with victory and peace, may the Heaven - rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, for our cause is just,
And this be our motto --"In God is our trust."
And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

I hope you will look at the national anthem with new eyes. Listen to it, the next time you have a chance, with new ears. And don't let them ever take it away.

Submitted by Dick, Williamsport, Md.

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