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My family ate dinner together at the dining room table every single night growing up, even when my sister and I were in high school. The table was always set before the food was put down, with a folded paper napkin, a fork and a knife. The napkins were paper because, well, that's what we used. In the house, at the patio table during barbeques, at the annual Italian Picnic at Manning Park, napkins were paper. I don't remember the first time I encountered a cloth napkin, but I'm sure I was confused as to why anyone would use that and then throw them away.
Cloth napkins are the norm in our house now, with several different kinds just to mix it up. I still linger in the supermarket and look at the multitude of paper napkins and their various designs, wondering which my mother would pick out to grace her table. While the only constant is in the universe is change, a good paper napkin can take me back 50 or so years, hanging on a cart in a grocery store that no longer exists, watcing her survey the choices and picking the one that was just right.
This week, a look at the origins of the napkin.
TTFN, Fred.
Quote of the week: "The path to our destination is not always a straight one. We go down the wrong road, we get lost, we turn back. Maybe it doesn't matter which road we embark on. Maybe what matters is that we embark." - Barbara Hall, Northern Exposure, Rosebud, 1993
Pumpkin pie is a dessert pie with a spiced, pumpkin-based custard filling. The pumpkin is a symbol of harvest time, and pumpkin pie is often eaten during the fall and early winter. In the United States and Canada, it is featured on Thanksgiving.
This week, a look at pumpkin pie and a 19th century culture war.
TTFN, Fred.
Quote of the week: "Talking
perceptions, people. Do we really see each other for what we really are, or do
we just see what we want to see, the image distorted by our own personal
lenses? I lost someone today and the funny thing is, I don't even know who she
was." - Jeff Melvoin, Northern
Exposure, Lovers and Madmen, 1994
How Pumpkin Pie Sparked a 19th-Century Culture War by fredwine on Scribd
Once I learned to read there was no stopping me. I became a compulsive reader, spending my boyhood, adolescence and college years with my nose in hundreds of books.
Paperback books were easy to carry. I learned to read while walking, not wanting to waste the time between the bus and home.
I have since moved to an e-reader, which can leave a mark on my forehead when I fall asleep reading at night, but that's the price of having a library in your hands.
This week, a look at paperback books and hoiw they came to be.
TTFN, Fred.
Quote of the week: "The idea of an election is much more interesting to me than the election itself...The act of voting is in itself the defining moment." - Jeff Melvoin, Northern Exposure, Democracy in America, 1992
A bed is a piece of furniture which is used as a place to sleep or relax. While that may be a factual definition, it leaves out so much of what truly emcompasses a bed. It is a place of both rest and frenzied activity, of quiet and noise, of playfulness and seriousness. After a long day it is a comfortable respite from the frenzy of life; in the morning it is a launch pad for what lies ahead of us.
This week, a look at how the bed changed the way we sleep.
TTFN, Fred.
Quote of the week: "In Kyudo philosophy, you don't aim – you become one with the target. Then, in fact, there's nothing to aim at." - Martin Sage and Sybil Adelman, Northern Exposure, The Bumpy Road to Love, 1991
The Urban Distionary defines "dagnabbit" as an "Oldcootism used during great consternation or surprise. Used by 1890’s prospectors, cantankerous old farmers, and young people playing old people on TV in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s." Hard to argue with that.
This week, a look at how "dagnabbit" may have come to be.
TTFN, Fred.
Quote of the week: "If you're here for four more years or four more weeks, you're here right now. I think when you're somewhere, you ought to be there. It's not about how long you stay in a place, it's about what you do while you're there, and when you go, is that place any better for your having been there?" - Karen Hall and Jerry Stahl, Northern Exposure, Soapy Sanderson, 1990
A car seat belt is designed to arrest as much momentum as possible in the case of a sudden stop (i.e. a front end collision). This is also the purpose served by the airbag. Without a seat belt, your car would stop and you would keep moving forward: into the steering column or through the front windshield. In other words, the car seat belt assumes that if there is a difference between your momentum and the car's momentum, it will be that you are moving forward relative to the car.
An airplane accident is not usually a sudden front end collision. If it happens in the air, such as engine or control surface failure, the airplane's attitude could change drastically and the difference between your momentum and the plane's could be in any direction. The lap belt is designed to keep you in your seat in the event of loss of conventional downward gravitational acceleration and nothing more.
This week, a look at in-flight seat belts.
TTFN, Fred.
Quote of the week: "I used to think of all the billions of people in the world, and of all those people, how was I going to meet the right ones? The right ones to be my friends, the right one to be my husband. Now I just believe you meet the people you're supposed to meet." - Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, The Quest, 1995
The practice of channeling – a person's body being taken over by a spirit for the purpose of communication – has been around for millennia. There are countless stories of shamen, witch doctors, prophets and others who claim to hear voices or receive some supernatural knowledge from the spirit world. Channelers, also sometimes known as psychic mediums, often use what are called "spirit guides," friendly spirits who give them knowledge and help them on their spiritual journeys.
This week, a look at when women channeled the dead to be heard.
TTFN, Fred.
Quote of the week: "I used to think of all the billions of people in the world, and of all those people, how was I going to meet the right ones? The right ones to be my friends, the right one to be my husband. Now I just believe you meet the people you're supposed to meet." - Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, The Quest, 1995
