Uncommon History

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I know how you all just LIVE for my threads that deal with historical trivia, so I though I'd share the fruits of my latest research. Since the FRL has a long association with duct tape, I was excited to find a footnote in an ancient treatise dealing with the invention of water, written on a scrap of a dusty old papyrus scroll which had been stored away and gone unnoticed for millennia in my wife's frilly unmentionables drawer.

I have notified the Old Fossil Professor over at BIT (Bayou Institute of Technology), and he has authenticated what he termed the “find of the known age”. I don’t really know how he knew my age, but I think it means I might get a few samoleans for the thing.

Anyhow, it seems that duct tape was really invented in Greece around 3:16 in the afternoon, on August 9, 400 B.C. (give or take). An early Greek man was trying to stretch his paycheck (I don’t yet know what he was early for, but it’s well documented how little a Grecian urns), and used tree sap to stick a torn scrap of toga over a hole in his roof.

The man’s name was Socrates Ductophilese, and he became quite famous locally around the nearby village of Pompeii, where people routinely hired him to fix their roofs with his cloth and sap material, called “Duct” tape (probably because they couldn’t pronounce “Ductophilese”). Well, after that unfortunate incident with the the volcano, where all the roofs gave way after just a few tons of airborne lava, Socrates sought the council of his nieghbor, Persephiles Primophtolous, (who was, by the way, the father of the modern lawsuit and the auther of the first tome on jury selection, the "Legalus Beagleous"), and decided it would be wise to just drop his last name altogether, move to Athens, and kinda keep quiet about his roof repair invention.

However, the whole experience of Duct tape got him to thinking, and pretty soon he was coming up with all kinds of ideas, no doubt trying to hit a winner and make a few quick dracmas again. He invented a red cloth for wearing on one’s feet under your sandals, but couldn’t come up with a catchy name for them, so he gave up on that and eventually invented philosophy, and as we serious researchers like to say, the rest is history.

One last note - I’m not altogether sure the historically accepted account of Socrates is correct. I just found out that he had a brother-in-law, Philopolous Sophytaceous, who, like all brothers-in-law, did nothing but sit around and drink fermented grape juice and brag about all his great ideas, while looking at frescoes of the olympics and topless “godesses” from the local temple of Hooterphealious. Could there have been a historical boo-boo as to the real inventor of philosophy?

Thank you all for this opportunity to make you just a little bit smarter, and enlighten your dull lives with the adventure of historical research. History guards it’s secrets well, but rest assured, I will persevere in my quest for the ultimate truth. Or at least something I can get a grant for.

-- Perfessor Lon (lgal@exp.net), November 02, 2003

Answers

What were you doing rummaging in your wife's unmentionables drawer? Princesses! Check your drawers at once!

-- helen (checking@my.drawers.as.we.speak), November 02, 2003.

Well, that Lon just keeps on multiplying! Now he's triplets :-D

My drawers are just fine, thank-you Helen :-)

-- Tricia teh Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.ent), November 02, 2003.


Too good Lon. Wont Rob be pleased to know that he has Socrates to thank for his red socks.

-- Carol (c@enlightened.com), November 04, 2003.

I thought it was spelled Sockrates!

-- (robbieredsox@pour.spellar), November 04, 2003.

It's stuck on the tip of my tongue ....

-- Robert & Jean Cook (Cooks@home.ga), November 05, 2003.


History does, indeed, seem to guard her secrets well.

Lon, if I were you, I wouldn't take anything for grant-ed. But you might well be just the guy to fill the currently vacant Evil seat at Bayou Tech.

-- J (jsnider@hal-pc.org), November 05, 2003.


Lon tried to take something for granite, but the doctor told it would just be a weight off his mind and would only serve to get his rocks off.

Told him he should just take three blocks call him in the morning.

-- Robert & Jean Cook (Cooks@home.ga), November 05, 2003.


What drawers?

-- Princess Gayla (privacy@please.com), November 07, 2003.

That does it, I'm telling! You can expect a visit from Miss Gertrude Gillbeaux and some of the Ladies from the Committee Regarding Abberant Behavior and Yucky Stuff!

There's nothin' in this den of iniqity anymore but talk of drawers and briefs, briefs and drawers. Well, I can tell you they ain't called unmentionables for nuthin'! First thing you know, everbody will be over here, talking about such things and worse, no doubt. Kritter prolly will be tellin' about her panty-of-the-day set. Then snider will haveta chime in about his drawers-of-the-month. Does anybody think we want to hear about that?

Or, or Robby tellin' about his new "banana sack" - fire engine red, too, I betya! "Course, then Helen will chime in about her feed sack bloomers, with lace even. I mean, we'll be overrun with such scandalous talk around here. I just know Robt Cook will tell us all of his have signs on 'em - "Warning, Nuclear Powerplant" or some such. Carol prolly wears some that says "See the Wonder Down Under". fer cryin' out loud, and Trish, well it's common knowledge around the bait house and men's social club that hers are irridescent green flannel, and one button is missing from the trapdoor! I mean somethin' like that is what causes riots and murders and kids with earrings playing video games.

I'm tellin' you, we gotta nip this right now, before it's too late. I'm sure Miss Gillgeaux will investigate and have a thing or two to report. Just remember, Gayla started it!

-- Rev. Elwood Frump (indignant@the.bayou), November 08, 2003.


What's wrong with a thong?

Or a ring in yer thing?

Can't we all get along?

Is it so bad to cling?

Can a thong cling too long?

-- Country Western and Pop Rock/Alternative Celtic Singing Sensation (humming@along.in.the.barn), November 08, 2003.



A thong is butt floss

Love to see a man wear one

Specially the Rev.



-- Princess Gayla (privacy@please.com), November 08, 2003.


Our Princess Gayla is ... isn't ... quite ... right ... Princess? You ok?

-- helen (Gayla@Gayla.Gayla??), November 09, 2003.

Too... much... time... away... from... husband...

Getting house ready to sell...

Going insane!!!

-- Princess Gayla (thanks@for.noticing), November 09, 2003.


Gayla! Darling! If you're still in-state, do you wanna try to get together before you finish moving?

-- helen (hey@are.you.STILL.here?), November 09, 2003.

Goin' insane are ya?

Well, you've come to the right place. Ain't nothin but us Really Sane Folk 'round here at the FR of L. Like me, for example. Maybe ya just need to have Hubby back soon. I know, I'll try and make him zealous.

Hey Gayla, wanna dance?

(Hmmm. No music...where's DiEtEr when ya need him!)

-- (sonofdust@not.insane), November 09, 2003.



Princess Helen, you've got mail!

Ahhh Rob... yes, I'd love to dance! I don't think it will make my husband zealous but you never know. LOL!

By the way, have any of YOU men ever worn thong underwear? I bet you wouldn't wear it for very long! Especially YOU, Rev. ;-)

-- Princess Gayla (want@to.stay in one place), November 09, 2003.


LOL. No, I never even knew that they made thong undees, only thong bathing suits.

I ain't much on fashion...think I'll just stick with my nice, really bright, red socks.

-- (sonofdust@red.socks), November 09, 2003.


The man had aged into a dignified grey and wrinkled, like a fine old woolen jacket. His untrimmed eyebrows danced when he talked, his voice lifting or lowering with rhythm to accompany their unknowing choreography. A faded brown fedora, a relic of a dashing and distant youth sat slightly askew on a salt-and-pepper wave that crashed from from ear to ear across the back of his otherwise hairless dome.

An older pair of oxblood brogans showed the scuffs and scars of years of service along dusty back lanes and the impromptu stages of canvas-shrouded country revivals. Their soles, like his own, had been renewed on several occasions, and yet still wore thin in the service to which they were called.

The sea-green suit he wore over a pale yellow shirt had been a gift of a grateful and emotionally overwhelmed tailor, one steamy southern night alongside an ancient bayou which reflected the light of a newly bloated August moon. The preacher’s words had rang with particular magic that night, filling the listeners with dread and hope, guilt and Hellfire and repentance. As his voice boomed out the message of the Good Samaritan, he cried with anguish, “And who among you sinners would take the robe from your own back to cover a stranger? WHO?”

It was at that precise moment, the haberdasher, who had prepared himself for the redemption to come by imbibing liberally of the clear liquid courage from a quart sized Mason fruit jar which was now discarded on the floorboard of his Studebaker Lark, leapt to his feet and shouted, “ME! Me, Preacher, I would!”

To prove his convictions, if not his clarity of judgment, the tailor proceeded to stagger forward toward the makeshift podium, disrobing as he came, to a chorus of Hallelujahs by some of more enthusiastic female congregation members. By the time he reached the preacher, he was weaping and holding the green suit in his stretched-out arms like an only child sacrifice of an older Testament. He laid the folded garment at the preacher’s feet, and stepped back, now adorned only in calf-high nylon socks, supported by elastic knee-garters, and a pair of fortuitously generous-sized boxer shorts which were emblazoned with a huge red salami, and the wording,

................“NEVER LET YOUR MEAT LOAF............

..............Butcher Boys Bar, New Orleans”............

Straightening up to his full height, the now unburdened and unfettered tailor faced the speechless preacher, gave a smart salute, turned on his heel and passed out cold, falling directly into the lap of the widow Boudreaux and sending them both over into a heap as her collapsible chair collapsed.

It was two days later that the much more sober and contrite tailor came again to see the preacher. He knocked on the door of the little Scotty trailer where the preacher lived during the traveling revival season, and nervously turned his hat in his hands. When the preacher opened the door, he expected an apology, or at least a request for the errant suit, but the tailor only smiled, and said, “Just wanted you to know the suit is yours to keep, Preacher, and if you want me to alter it, just come by anytime. I guess I made kinda a fool outa myself the other night, but ..”; he turned slightly and smiled at the Studebaker, where the widow Boudreaux sat, wearing a new yellow bonnet and an enormous sheepdog grin, “it were WORTH IT!”

Anyway, this particular day the green suit shown slightly iridescent in the morning light, partly because of the quality of the weave, and partly because of the years of wear which had passed since that night the stewed tailor had given it up as an offering to his work. The cuffs had become noticeably frayed and barely covered the French cuffs of the yellow shirt, letting the large faux gold cufflinks glitter in the low country sun. As he walked slowly along in the pecan shade of the lane, the preacher stopped suddenly and looked carefully over each shoulder. Assured that there was no one in sight at that moment, he leaned heavily upon the ivory-tipped ebony cane in his left hand, and with a slightly strained look on his face, dug intently at the seat of his trousers and mumbled softly to himself.

“Dang fancy city drawers, anyhow. Butt floss she call’t ’em; don’t know why I evra let ‘er talk me into to ’em, I don’t. I do swear I’m gonna take ‘em off, if I can only get ‘em out again!”



-- just another day (on@the.bayou), November 10, 2003.


ROTFL!

I LOVE it!!!

Thank you ((((((((((Lon))))))))))

-- Princess Gayla (laughter@does.a heart good), November 10, 2003.


Lon, I love the facinating beings who occupy your mind - your evil twin, the Perfessor, the Rev, Miss Gertrude Gillbeaux. What a mix! :-)

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), November 10, 2003.

We should worry the other thongs occupying various parts and pieces of his body ...

-- Tight Fit (needsadjustment@undies.thong), November 10, 2003.

hooooooooooooooooooooo hooooooooooooo haaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwww

hiccup! gasp! chortle!

-- the mule (brays@helplessly.in.the.barn), November 10, 2003.


LOL...the stewed tailor! What a word picture!!!

For that, you deserve a reward!! What's your fancy?? Cyberfudge???

-- Aunt Bee (Aunt__Bee@hotmail.com), November 11, 2003.


Bee,

Kit and I just spent 3 days on the road, out to San Antonio and up into the Texas hill country. Last night we stayed at a little town called San Saba. We had already gotten a room and we had an hour to kill before dark, so we walked over to a little old town park. It was about 2 acres of black soil bottom land along the San Saba River, and was a very old pecan grove.

All that country is pecan country, but the new trees are all hybrid varieties, and planted row after row, nice and neat. Of course, they're about through with the harvest by now, all the leaves and nuts sucked up and sorted. But in this little park, the old trees had been forgotten. There was no one there but for me and Kit, and the evening was nice like only a Texas Hill Country autumn can be. I put Kit in a swing, and started moseying around the trees. Before long I had a small grocery bag filled with fresh pecans. Some of the trees were a newer variety, with long paper-shelled nuts, but many were the old native type with pecans the size of my little finger tip. The trees themselves were gnarly and crooked and one was even about six feet in diameter and hollow, which is very rare for pecan trees. They looked like a group of elderly friends, just standing a chatting in the twilight.

When I was a kid, we had one of these old native trees, and it was my father's pride and joy. The nuts were very prolific, and very hard shelled, but they were oil-rich and had the most wonderful flavor. The nut meat was never pithy, no matter if it was a wet or dry year, and the husks just dried and came off real easy, dropping handfulls of nuts at a time.

Anyhow, Kit swung, and I walked and nibbled and bent and scooped, and nibbled some more. In a couple of hours more, I believe I could have filled a tow sack, like I did as a kid to earn Christmas money. Anyway I guess all this is leading up to my request. Cyber Pecan Pie, if you please. Cooked so the nuts on top get crunchy, firm filling, with just a little syrup escaping, still warm and with a nice scoop of vanilla ice cream on top. Oh man, my diabeticly fevered brain is about to short circuit just thinking about it!

-- Lon (lgal@exp.net), November 13, 2003.


Lon, you're right about the little "native" pecans having more oil, etc. For that reason, they're sought by candy and fruitcake makers and, apparently, fruitcakes. I recall taking a new way back to the road from a squirrel hunting trip to the pecan bottoms along salt creek out of Newcastle, Texas as a teen. I walked up the little dry creek bed that in rainy weather fed the tank in the bottoms and found a gnarly little native tree along the way. Stuffed the marble-sized pecans in every pocket. I always have to gain some mechanical advantage to crack them, though. My dad, who had gnarly fingers, could crack the shells by squeezing them against his calloused index knuckle or by putting a couple in the palm of his hand. I have two trees in the back yard now. One's a hybrid that yields elongated thin- shelled nuts. The other has almost round nuts, though not quite so small as a native tree. The hybrid produces decent pecans about one year out of three. The tough round pecans are are consistently good, year to year. The squirrels (where do they come from in suburbia? Probably the bane of some neighbor's attic!)and crows know where we are because of the trees. The neighbor behind me has a wonderfully prolific tree with large pecans, but he doesn't take care of the tree or the place. A wind storm came through and broke the middle of it like a giant had stomped it a couple of years ago, and it was left broken and untrimmed for months. A next door neighbor planted a pecan about 3 years ago, and it's coming along well. I planted the two in my back yard as buggy whips back in '85 or so and they're both more than a foot through the middle now. They get plenty of water here, and pecans love water. I think of them as Republican trees. They are conservative, budding out late so they are never caught by late frosts (though rare in this area, they don't take chances). They are hard-headed and hang in there in the fall a little longer than the other trees before giving in to winter (such as it is around here).

You mentioned Christmas money. My grandmother had a huge old pecan in her back yard. It's now gone, but when I was a kid, my cousin and I picked up its pecans for money each fall. I think we made about the same amount per pound that you could today, which may address why some agricultural pursuits (though unfortunately not pecans)are prone to governmental subsidies, but that's another subject. We used to "thrash" the pods that hadn't detached yet with a very long cane pole. I have looked but can't seem to locate a good long bamboo pole anymore. Did long bamboo poles become scarce along with native pecans and aromatic roses and other worthwhile things from our past? I'll post a poem about this for the group's perusal.

-- J (jsnider@hal-pc.org), November 14, 2003.


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