The Daily Dose/July 31, 2020
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy
Leading Off
Notes from our human experience.
Leading Off will return.
Today At The Site
Writing worth reading. Usually.
The Diary of a Nobody: For the second consecutive Thursday, Sparrow can find no reason to leave The Shire. Today’s Diary.
But, like last week, no reason could be found to leave The Shire…After morning project work, the gym and the walk – the Fairgrounds Route – it was satisfactory to sit in the chair and read…Shopping and lunch at the Mexican joint in the next county were even put off.
Backstairs at the Monte Carlo: Gaylon helps a drunk Scandinavian.
I said the name out loud and evidently did a pretty good job of pronouncing it.
“That was almost perfect,” R. Bjornson said. “Are you Scandinavian?”
I shook my head. Dad was an American white boy from a small town in southern Illinois and my mom is no help here either; she’s Mexican.
“I had 13 years of Lutheran schooling, though.”
R Bjornson bowed in homage.
“Say no more,” he said, nodding knowingly. Had he been sober enough to wink without falling over I think he would have.
Click here for the first two months of complimentary entries.
Criminals, Courtesans and Constables: Chapter 3 – The Escape: Our hero manfully breaks out of the nick.
In less than five minutes I had gone from prisoner to prison official, from custody to freedom. I was underground again within the hour. The assistant warden and the screw were under suspicion almost immediately after evening count turned up a missing inmate, but it didn’t matter. They had left for the day soon after and visits to their residences by the warden and some coppers showed their apartments abandoned.
Chapter 3 is offered with our compliments. Click on the button to read the entire ebook for $4.99, a price that also gets you access to The Diary of a Nobody and Backstairs at the Monte Carlo.
On This Date
History’s long march to today.
In 1971 – Apollo 15 astronauts David Scott and James Irwin become the first humans to drive a vehicle on the moon, riding their lunar rover for the first of three trips. The rover’s top speed was about 6 mph and all told, the rover would be used for 3 hours and 2 minutes, traveled 17.2 miles and made it as far away as 3.1 miles from the lunar module. A lunar rover would also be used on Apollo `16 and Apollo 17.
In 1912 – Ty Cobb of the Detroit Tigers establishes a new major league record for most hits in a month in a 4-1 victory over the Washington Senators. Cobb went 1-for-4, finishing July with 67 hits. The record still stands, though it’s been tied twice, by Cobb in 1922 and by Tris Speaker in 1923, records which still stand, and research into whose record Cobb broke was inconclusive. Cobb’s batting average for the month was .528 and he finished the season leading the major leagues with a .409 average.
In 1971`- Mr Big Stuff by Jean Knight is at #1 on Billboard’s soul chart – then known as the Best Selling Soul Singles chart – for the fifth and final consecutive week. The song also peaked at #2 on the Hot 100 and was Billboard’s biggest soul song of the year. It was the first of two Top 40 soul hits for Knight and remains her only Hot 100 appearance. Born Jean Caliste in New Orleans in 1943, Knight was signed to a recording contract in the 1960s but had taken a job in a college bakery because her career wasn’t going anywhere.
Quotebook
The wisdom of the ages. Whatever.
For Confucius, true wisdom is to know the extent of what you don’t know quite as well as you know what you do know. – Gore Vidal, Creation
Answer To The Last Trivia Question
It’s not who you know, but what you know.
Uruguay (1930), Brazil (1950, 2014) and Chile (1962) are the South American countries that have hosted the men’s World Cup.
Today’s Stumper
Cheaper than Trivia Night at the bar.
How many times did Ty Cobb bat over .400 for a season in his career? – Answer next time!
