What Would Jimmy Do?

Today is Beer Can Appreciation Day. On this day in 1935, canned beer made its debut. The Krueger Brewing Company, in partnership with the American Can Company delivered 2,000 cans of Krueger’s Finest Beer and Kruger’s Cream Ale to faithful Krueger drinkers in Richmond, Virginia — 84 years ago today. Ninety-one percent of the drinkers approved of the canned beer — and the rest, as they say, is history.

Recently, we discussed (on this blog) the importance of the tin can that gets its special day every year on January 19. By the late 1800’s, cans were instrumental in the mass distribution of foodstuffs, but it wasn’t until 1909 that the first attempt to can beer was made. That first attempt was unsuccessful and it wasn’t tried again until the end of Prohibition in the United States.

In 1933, the American Can Company (after extensive research) developed a can that was pressurized and had a spacial coating to prevent the fizzy beer from chemically reacting with the tin.
After the successful experiment in Richmond, the concept of canned beer continued to be a hard sell, but Kruger’s (located in Newark, New Jersey) overcame people’s initial reservations and became the first brewer to sell canned beer in the United States. Within three months of introducing the cans, over 80 percent of beer distributors were handling Krueger’s canned beer and Krueger’s was eating into the market share of the “big three” national brewers — Anheuser-Busch, Pabst and Schlitz. The other companies jumped on board and by the end of 1935, over 200 million cans were produced and sold.

Cans had the added advantage that, unlike bottles, did not require consumers to pay a deposit. Cans also proved to be easier to stack, more durable and took less time to chill. Their popularity continued to grow throughout the 1930s. But canned beer popularity exploded during World War II when brewers shipped millions of cans of beer to soldiers overseas. Today, canned beer accounts for approximately half of the the $20 billion U.S. beer industry sales.
There is even an emerging trend of micro brewers starting to use cans.
Up until 1963, cans didn’t have a pop top — they were opened with a “Church Key.”
So let’s all raise a glass (or better yet, a can) to that great day in 1935 when beer was first sold in cans.
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Not counting January 1, I believe today (January 21) will be the first federal American holiday of 2019. January 15 is Martin Luther King Jr.’s actual birthday but because of the Uniform Monday Holiday Act passed by Congress in 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. Day will be celebrated on the nearest Monday. The day is intended to celebrate the life and achievements of the influential American civil rights leader.

The idea of a Martin Luther King Day was promoted soon after his assassination in 1968. The Congressional bill creating the holiday was not signed until 1983 by President Reagan. The holiday was observed for the first time on January 20, 1986 but was not officially observed in all 50 states until the year 2000.
Obviously there was a lot of opposition when the holiday was proposed — the two main arguments were (1) a paid holiday for federal employees would be expensive and (2) a holiday to honor the birth of a private citizen who had never held public office would be contrary to the longstanding tradition.

The traditions of this first federal holiday of the year are in jeopardy this year. The government shutdown has closed sites that are popular to visit on King’s birthday… The historic Ebenezer Baptist Church and King’s birth home are closed as well as the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park (in Atlanta.)

In Washington, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, particularly popular on MLK Day is closed, along with the other 18 museums/galleries managed by the Smithsonian Institution. In Alabama the Selma-to-Montgomery March interpretive centers and the Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site and Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site are dark.

So even if you’re not a government employee, the shutdown is beginning to disrupt everyday activities. There are a lot f people to “blame” for the situation we’re in, but maybe the White House should take heed to a statement made by Donald Trump in 2013: “A shutdown falls on the President’s lack of leadership. He can’t even control his own party and get people together in a room. A shutdown means the President is weak.”
Happy MLK Day…..
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Here’s a couple of quotes from Republican Presidents of the United States:

“I received a letter just before I left office from a man. I don’t know why he chose to write it, but I’m glad he did. He wrote that you can go t0 live in France, but you can’t become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Italy, but you can’t become a German or Italian. He went through Turkey, Greece, Japan and other countries. But he said anyone, from any corner of the world can come to live in the United States and become an American.”
~ Ronald Reagan

“It’s our right as a sovereign nation to choose immigrants that we think are the likeliest to thrive and flourish and love us.”
~ Donald Trump

I wonder if that same man would send the same letter today…..
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A lot of people know that today is Popcorn Day — however, not as many know that it’s also Tin Can Day. That’s a real shame, because tin cans have been an integral part of our lives since the early 1800’s. Some people think the tin can is perhaps one of the greatest inventions in history.
The term ‘tin can’ is a bit of a misnomer today, because a lot of what we call ‘tin’ cans are actually made of other materials. But it’s hard to argue that the humble tin can, in its own way, is historic. It revolutionized the storage of perishable foods, although early tin cans were sealed with lead, causing many cases of lead poisoning.

Peter Durand of England patented the tin can in 1810. Ezra Daggett and Thomas Kensett received the U.S. tin can patent on January 19, 1825. The date chosen for Tin Can Day is in recognition of that event.
As I mentioned, the tin can came into use in the early 1800’s, but it wasn’t until 1858, about 50 years later that the can opener was invented (by Ezra Warner.) Before that significant invention, cans were hacked, chopped, and chiseled open.
So the question is — why is there no Can Opener Day?
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Where I grew up in Oklahoma, we didn’t get much snow — I never saw a white Christmas until I was much older and had moved out of the area. On the rare occasions when we did get snow, my mother always made snow ice cream. I don’t think people were so obsessed with germs back then, and she just scooped the snow off the ground.
I remember it being really good and very special because we only got it when it snowed, and that rarely happened.

I have no idea when people started making ice cream using snow, but apparently they’ve been doing it for a long, long time. The Chinese, Iraqis and Persians have tinkered with various combinations of snow, ice and sweeteners for thousands of years. In the 17th century, members of the Neapolitan aristocracy sent their servants into the Alps with large chests to collect snow, that was then soaked in wine and decorated with fruit and fennel. Native Americans sweetened snow with maple sugar. Canadians have long poured hot maple syrup onto snow to create sticky maple toffee.

As I indicated earlier, we didn’t seem to worry so much about germs when I was growing up — I recently read that the EPA says snow could pick up particles that are byproducts of the combustion fossil fuels from vehicles on its way to Earth. And some health officials are concerned because of what the snow might pick up on the ground. Their argument is that you wouldn’t drink from a water puddle on the sidewalk, so why would you eat snow from the same source?

One school of thought is that snow gets cleaner the longer it snows — that the first few inches of falling snow capture most of the pollutants in the air. I guess if it’s a major snowstorm and it keeps a lot of the vehicles off the road, there would also be lower emissions to pollute the air and snow.
So I guess the conclusion is that the deeper the snow, the better for making snow ice cream. Of course, we live less than 2 miles from the Dairy Queen…..
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When I was growing up, one of the ‘rites of passage’ that almost everyone went through was a snipe hunt. In case you didn’t experience it when growing up, or don’t know what a snipe hunt is…. it’s basically a fool’s errand, or a hopeless cause — the pursuit of something unattainable.

I’m not sure I recall all the details, but it goes something like this: the “victim” is primed with some story about a strange animal (known as a snipe.) The subject is led to a secluded spot (I remember it always being after dark) and left with a burlap bag (readily available when I grew up) to catch the snipe. He is told to hold the bag and wait until the others drive the snipe to him. It’s important to hunker down and hold the bag open until the snipe runs into it. What happens is that everyone goes home and leaves the victim alone with all the spooky noises in the woods at night.

I remember that once you’d gone on a snipe hunt, you had proven your bravery and were considered “one of the club.”
It seemed like an innocent practice when I was a kid — I don’t know if the younger generation does things like this or not…. it probably has all sorts of legal implications today.

I didn’t find out until years later that there really is such a thing as a snipe — they are small shore birds. They resemble the American woodcock but are slightly larger and have different color patterns and longer bills. But I’m pretty sure they’re hunted with guns, not burlap bags…..
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They’re predicting snow here today — somewhere between 4 and 7 inches. When we lived in Vienna, the mere mention of (possible) snow sent everyone into a panic mode. If you went to the store, most of the shelves were empty. If you wanted/needed to buy milk, or bread or toilet paper — forget it!

This morning, here in Shepherdstown, we went out to run a few errands and stopped at our only food store (Food Lion.) There were probably a few more people in the store than usual, but we were in and out in a short period of time. Claire insisted that I take a picture of the bread isle (see the photo.)

I guess these people in Shepherdstown don’t realize that if 4 inches of snow is predicted, you have to have a six week supply of bread…. sure hope they can all survive the storm.
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Two or three weeks ago we decorated our church — a couple of days ago, we un-decorated our church. This got me to thinking… when is the “proper” time to take down Christmas decorations? In our house, Claire thinks sometime around Easter is about right. Obviously when Christmas decorations are removed is entirely a personal preference, but there seems to be a long standing tradition (since the Victorian era) that decorations be removed on the Twelfth Night. Christmas was traditionally a 12 day celebration, beginning on December 25. So decorations should be removed on January 6 — or maybe January 5. There’s some disagreement as to the date because if you count Christmas, the Twelfth Night would be January 5, but some people say it’s January 6 because it is the 12th day after Christmas. But tradition says Twelfth Night — January 5 or 6 — and whichever date you choose, a day sooner or later is considered unlucky and if decorations are not removed on Twelfth Night, they should stay up all year according to the tradition.

Before all the commercialized glitter, tinsel and lights became popular, people decorated for Christmas using greenery, like holly and ivy. It was a popular belief then that tree-spirits lived in the greenery and during the festive season the decorative greenery provided shelter for these spirits, but once Christmas was over, they needed to be released outside — and if they weren’t, greenery would not return and vegetation wouldn’t grow, causing agricultural and food problems. Some people still take down decorations on the 6th — I guess there’s no sense taking a chance with the tree spirits.

So if you’ve already taken down your Christmas decorations, good for you. And if you choose to leave them up until Easter, good for you.
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They’re building a couple of new houses in our neighborhood and the last few days they’ve been digging the basements. When I was growing up in Oklahoma, I think the only house that I knew of that had a basement was our house — and that wasn’t really a basement, more of a very small cellar under one corner of the house.
When I came to the Washington D.C. area, a house without a basement was a rarity.

I got to thinking about this and at first, it really didn’t make much sense. During a tornado, the safest place is usually underground. We had lots and lots of tornadoes in Oklahoma and none of the houses had basements.

As you may have guessed, my extensive research mode kicked in on this one. The soil in Oklahoma is mostly red clay and that absorbs a lot of moisture. It turns our that the water table in the state is very high. The red clay soil also has a tendency to dry out in heat and that causes contraction and expansion that puts a lot of pressure on concrete-reinforced walls in basements and they tend to crack.

And then there’s the frost line — the level that it freezes down to in the winter. That line is fairly high in Oklahoma because it’s warm. Building codes require sinking the foundation down below the frost line. In a place like Cleveland, when you excavate to go down below the frost line to put a slab in, you’re already halfway there to be deep enough for a basement. In Oklahoma, you don’t have to dig down that far, so the upfront cost to put in a basement is higher.

I’m pretty sure that with today’s technology, it would be relatively easy (maybe not inexpensive) to build a good, solid, dry basement. But people that live in Oklahoma have the perception that they always leak. That, along with the added expense probably means that Okies will continue to build “safe rooms” as their preferred protection from tornadoes….
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Well, here it is January again — I know it’s the start of a new year and all that, but it’s still one of my least favorite months of the year. The holidays are over and there’s the general ‘letdown’ over that, football season is over (except for the playoffs) and the weather is cold and dreary. So again I find myself looking forward to spring.

The Anglo-Saxons called January “Wulfmonath” because it was the month hungry wolves came scavenging at people’s doors. I kind of think I like that name better than January, even though as far as I know we don’t have many wolves in the neighborhood.
January is National Soup Month — that also seems appropriate.
It’s also a fact that more couples separate or divorce in January than in any other month.

I’m tempted to just call it thirty for this blog (you faithful readers know what that means) but this early in the year, I should probably look on the positive side….
January brings a kind of “clean slate” and an opportunity to start anew.
The shortest day of the year is officially behind us — from here on out the mornings will slowly get lighter and the evenings stay light longer
My grass won’t need cutting for a while (we won’t talk about snow shoveling)
The “holiday re-runs” are ending and most of the TV shows I like will start showing new episodes again

So I guess it’s not all bad — and — you can’t start off with a clean slate every year without going through January. Last year was filled with lots of natural disasters, hates and tweets, but there was also lots of love and kindness…. maybe it would have been even better if we had focused on the good rather than the bad.
So here’s to 2019. Let’s all try our best to make it good — starting with January.
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