What Would Jimmy Do?

I went to lunch with my neighbor last week and he insisted on picking up the check, because he could claim it as a business expense. He asked the waiter to split the check and include the drinks on a separate check. He said he had to keep the bean counters happy. Well, of course that got me to thinking about bean counters — I’ve heard the term all my life and it usually makes me think of some grumpy, briefcase-toting accountant. But why did these guys come to be called bean counters?

I guess beans have never been held in high regard by most people. I’ve heard the phrase “he doesn’t know beans” used to describe someone that’s clueless about something. And I remember my dad always used the phrase “it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans” when he thought something was meaningless or worthless. I guess if your job was to count beans, you’d be stuck in a pretty boring, joyless job — maybe that’s why the label is associated with accountants….

Anyhow, I figured the subject was worth some extensive research. One theory I found suggested that the derogatory nickname originated in the 1920s, when the marketing and sales-analysis firm the Nielsen Company (now known for the television ratings system) was just a fledgling operation. Supposedly the founder, A.C. Nielsen, was so diligent in his analysis that his employees counted the beans one by one at grocery stores they were auditing. That seems like a reasonable explanation, but it’s probably not true. The argument against it is that the preferred unit of a crop economy is the bushel — not individual grains, seed, ears, etc.

From what I could determine, the term “bean counter” first appeared in a Forbes article, in reference to a particularly careful account. It expanded to mean any accountant and then took on a negative implication, suggesting that accountants overlook value for numbers. 

Today, the term is used to describe any soulless individual that cares more about the bottom line than quality. Actually, this subject doesn’t amount to a hill of beans….
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We’ve been to lots of places in the world and we have currencies from all or most of those places. We even have some “coin dolls” from Indonesia that are made from old Indonesian money.

When I was in China, an “old” Chinese worker told me about Cowry shells. I had never heard of them before — they are marine snails that have brightly colored and patterned shells. But my friend told me that they were the medium of exchange used in China abound 1200 B.C. The shells were so widely traded that their appearance or “pictograph” became the symbol for money in their early written language. In fact, the early metallic money in China was cowries made of bronze or copper. 

But apparently cows represent the oldest of all forms of money. The words “capital,” “chattels,” (an item of personal property,) and “cattle” have a common root, and the word “pecuniary” (meaning “financial”) comes from pecus, the Latin word for cattle. But — cattle weren’t the only livestock used as legal tender. Until well into the 20th century, the Kirghiz (indigenous people of central Asia — found primarily in Kyrgyzstan) used horses for large exchanges, sheep for lesser trades, and lambskins for barters that required only small change.

Throughout history, salt and pepper have been used as money, mostly because of their value as seasonings and preservatives and for their importance in religious ceremonies. In ancient Rome, salt was used as money (Sal, the Latin word for salt, is the root of the English word “salary.”) If you’re interested, search this blogs archives for “salt” for more information. Roman workers were paid with salt, hence the expression “worth one’s salt.” And — in England in the Middle Ages, rent could be paid in peppercorns.

I think the largest pieces of money are 12-foot limestone coins from the Micronesian island of Yap. A coin’s value was determined by its size. Displaying a large one outside your home was a sign of status and prestige. Because of the coins’ size and immobility, islanders would often trade only promises of ownership instead of the actual coins. Several thousand coins still exist around the island, though the U.S. dollar is now the official currency. 

So these currencies sound strange to us, but just think about it — our grandkids will find it hard to believe we used coins and paper money to pay for things. Their idea of money is a rectangular plastic thing…..
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Got a text with picture from Suzanne and Mike (niece and nephew) — they apparently found a part of a pirate ship down around Lake Erie. I’ve always wished I had been a pirate and often blog about them. So I Figured why not another pirate blog today…. how about we talk about walking the plank?

One of the earliest definitions of the phrase “walking the plank” appeared in the 1788 book A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. The book explains it as “a mode of destroying devoted persons or officers in a mutiny on ship-board.” The victim was bound and blindfolded and forced to walk on a board that was balanced on the ship’s side until they fell into the water. This deed, “as the mutineers suppose,” might avoid them being charged for murder. Actually, no record exists of charges being brought against anyone who forced their victims to walk the plank — so maybe them old scalawags were right.

But from what I’ve read, plank-walking was an extremely rare occurrence — if it ever really happened at all. A lot of “experts” scoff at the notion, saying that the practice existed only in fiction. But some non-fiction stories have been written about the practice. In 1821, a Jamaican newspaper reported that pirates from a schooner had boarded the English ship Blessing. When the pirates were not able to get any money from the Blessing’s captain, the head pirate made him walk the plank. The buccaneers then shot the ousted captain three times as he struggled to stay above water. They they musket-whipped the captain’s son and pitched him overboard, and set the entire ship on fire. 

I have a pamphlet that says the notion of walking the plank originated with the pirates that plagued the Mediterranean Sea when it was dominated by the Roman Empire. (Pirates have been around for a long time!) When the pirates captured Roman ships, they would mock the sailors by telling them that they were free to walk home. Of course, at sea, there’s really no place to walk….

Probably, the reality is that unwanted men at sea were dealt with by marooning — leaving a man on a desert island to die — very popular among pirates. And sometimes, prisoners were tied up and tossed overboard to drown or be eaten by sharks. And then, of course, hanging, shooting, whipping, and torturing were all fun for pirates. I guess pirates weren’t all  that committed to justice.
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I had a visitor a few days ago from out of state. We were sitting on the patio having a drink when the visitor exclaimed, “oh look, there’s a woodchuck.” Well, actually the animal was a groundhog. We have lots of them in our area. But a lot of people do refer to groundhogs as woodchucks. Since we moved to West Virginia, I’ve heard groundhogs referred to as whistle pigs.

The word woodchuck is probably derived from the word wuchak —the local Native American word for groundhog. Probably the early settlers couldn’t be bothered to learn a language other than English (kind of like Americans today) so they just transformed the Algonquian Indian word into an English word that sounded similar.

But anyhow, I thought of the old tongue twister, “How much wood would a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?” Actually, I don’t know if woodchucks even can chuck wood — I’ve never seen one do it. But what if woodchucks could chuck wood? I don’t think this topic has received the amount of research it probably should have, and I haven’t seen any studies that have proved that woodchucks are even capable of chucking wood. I do know that they seem to enjoy gnawing through wood though.

If the woodchucks in our neighborhood are any indication, one thing they are good at is chucking dirt. They have lots of tunnels near our house that are very long and at least several feet deep.
Now — I’m not making this up — I  did find one “woodchuck expert” that determined that if the displaced dirt in a typical woodchuck burrow was replaced with wood, the average woodchuck might be able to chuck about 700 pounds of it. So there you have it — maybe. 

If I remember the rhyme, it goes, “How much wood would a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood? A woodchuck would chuck all the wood he could, if a woodchuck could chuck wood.” 
That might be none…..
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This has been a particularly dry summer around here, but mother nature attempted to make up for it the last couple of days. The remnants of Hurricane Debbie dumped bunches of (much needed) rain on us. 
I thought today would be a good day to talk about rain, and maybe even attempt to answer the age old question: running through the rain or walking through the rain —which technique keeps you the driest?

If you think about it, it makes intuitive sense that running through the rain will keep you drier than walking. If you’re running, you spend less time in the rain, after all. But there’s an argument that says it won’t do any good. 
So — every time there’s a downpour and you need to get to your car, you’re faced with this confounding question: should you walk or run?

The argument against running is that more drops hit your chest and legs when you run. If you’re walking, the theory is the drops mainly hit your head. So those that favor walking say that running exposes you to more drops, not fewer.

Of course an important question like this has been pondered by a number of scientists. In 1987, an Italian physicist determined that sprinting keeps you drier than walking, but only by about 10 percent — which might not be worth the effort and the risk of slipping. And in 1995, a British researcher concluded that the increased front-drenching of running effectively cancels out the reduced rain exposure.

Well, like any theory about such an important subject, not everyone agrees. Those findings didn’t seem right to two climatologists at the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina, who decided to put them to the test. They put on identical outfits with plastic bags underneath to keep moisture from seeping out of the clothes and to keep their own sweat from adding to the rainwater. One ran through the rain for about 330 feet. The other walked the same distance in the rain. They weighed the wet clothes, compared the weights to those when the clothes were dry, and determined that the one who  walked got 40 percent wetter than the one who ran.
So it appears that if you need to get to your car in the rain and you wan to to get less wet — run.
But lately, if I need to get to my car and it’s raining, I just wait until it stops.
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Coming home yesterday, I was behind a car from New Hampshire. Their license plate had the slogan, “Live Free or Die” on it. I got to thinking about that and did a little extensive research. “Live Free or Die” is the official motto of New Hampshire and it is on the state’s license plates. Those license plates are made at a state prison…..
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Maybe because of the Olympics, I thought of something someone I worked with years ago always said — “Pardon my French.” Of course he used it when he would swear and decided he needed to apologize. For no particular reason I got to wondering where that phrase came from. 

It probably, along with lots of other “insults,” grew out of the long-standing rivalry between England and France. They have a history of mutual contempt and each country’s everyday language contains lots of stock phrases and terms that speak ill of the other.

The English have pretty much always thought of the French as champions of indecency and lewdness. The English used the terms “French pox” and “French disease” for syphilis and other venereal diseases long ago. Of course the French weren’t about to take that lying down. One of their more inventive phrases was les Anglais ont débarqué, which translates to “the English have landed.” Not a big deal — until you learn that they used it to describe menstruation. The phrase probably stemmed from the bright red uniforms of the English soldiers that flooded into France to fight against Napoleon. They associated the English with an unwelcome crimson arrival.

The countries have always come up with similar terms for things, but swapped “French” and “English” as appropriate. For example, a “French letter” is an English euphemism for a condom. The French would say a capote anglaise (an “English hood”). In England, “to take French leave” means to leave without saying goodbye. In France, filer à langlais means “to flee like the English.”

I couldn’t find any similar symmetry with the phrase “Pardon my French.” Apparently when the French swear, and feel sorry about it, they usually say Excusez moi (Excuse me.)
Seems to me the French should say, “Pardon my English,” — but  — they don’t.
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Douglas Eugene “Gene” Savoy was born in Bellingham, Washington on May 11, 1927. He had no formal training as an archaeologist, but nevertheless, he spent a lot of time deep in the jungles of Peru. He discovered more than 40 lost cities in his career, including Vilcabamba, the Incas’ last refuge from the Spanish conquistadors. People magazine called him “the real Indiana Jones.”

However, like the movie-hero Indiana Jones, Savoy’s expeditions weren’t entirely driven by archaeology. He had much grander plans — including finding the legendary city of El Dorado, where rumors have it that one can delve into the “ancient roots of universal religion” — and — the fabled fountain of youth.

In 1969, Savoy captained a research ship and sailed around the world gathering information on sea routes used by ancient civilizations to prove his theory that they could have been in contact with one another. 

Savoy returned to Peru in 1984, where he discovered Gran Vitaya, the largest pre-Columbian city in South America. On one of his last trips to Gran Vitaya, he discovered a tablet that held inscriptions alluding to ships that were sent by King Solomon to the biblical land of Ophir to gather gold for the king’s temple. 
Discovery of the tablet started Savoy on what was maybe his most ambitious adventure — to find the exact location of Ophir and to find proof that the gold in Solomon’s Jerusalem temple came from South America. And — to learn the secret to immortality.
It probably doesn’t come as a surprise to you that throughout his career, scholars scoffed at his theories and were skeptical of his findings.

I hate to spoil the ending, but Savoy didn’t find the secret to immortality. He died in Reno, Nevada, where he was known as The Most Right Reverend Douglas Eugene Savoy — head of the International Community of Christ. 
Members of his church believed that staring at the sun would allow them to take in God’s energy and become immortal. (I suspect that they might not ever have good eyesight, though.) Savoy’s religion was based on a secret Savoy said was revealed to him in the jungles of Peru.
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When we first moved to Shepherdstown, we had a little trouble adjusting to the pace. For a long time we were always early when we went anywhere. We just automatically figured in the traffic delays that we were use to any place we went. But in Shepherdstown, there wasn’t a traffic problem and it took us some time to adjust to it — living in a place with no “rush hour” was completely new to us. I was thinking about that the other day and I wonder how the term rush hour came to be.

To me, “rush hour” makes no sense. Take the “rush” part — no one can rush because there are too many cars on the road. I suppose that “rush” must really refer, not to speed, but to the rush of people that flood the roads, and public transportation systems trying to get home — or somewhere.

And if you think about it, the “hour” part is even more misleading than the “rush” part. Where we used to live in Norther Virginia, I guarantee you that “hour” lasts a lot longer than 60 minutes. So the “hour” of “rush hour”  is not your traditional chronological hour. It’s some vague, unmeasured block of time. I guess you could say the same thing about the “hour” in “happy hour.” And now that I think about it, maybe that’s not such a bad thing. In fact, since we’ve moved to Shepherdstown, I’ve kind of traded rush hour for happy hour……
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You’ll have to trust me on this one. I can’t tell you where this happened for a number of reasons — I can’t tell you the reasons, either. But here’s the story…..

It was shortly after the first of the year and three of us were assigned to a project in the place I can’t reveal. An apartment had been rented for us and whoever occupied the apartment before us was apparently there for Christmas because there was a fairly large Christmas tree in the living room. It looked like it needed some water and was losing lots of needles. I assume it was decorated at one time, but there were no decorations on it when we arrived. 

The street outside our apartment had a rather big pot-hole in it when we arrived and it seemed to get bigger and deeper every day. After we’d been there about a week, one night we sat on the front porch having a few drinks and watching cars dodge the now cavernous pot-hole. Then we had a spontaneously brilliant idea — we drug the Christmas tree out of the living room and “planted” it in the pot-hole.

The next morning, having breakfast, we noticed that the tree was still there, and cars were avoiding the hole — that was now clearly marked, thanks to our ingenuity. When we came back to our apartment later that night, the tree was gone — and — the street had been repaired!
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