232 Quiz Answer

 Don't forget, before the American Revolution we Americans were British.  And that includes the British colonel mentioned in this post, whose name was (drum roll) George Washington!

(Also for Three Word Wednesday and ABC Wednesday; "E" is for "epic")

Who was this British soldier?

Speaking of history – (which nobody was) – I’ve always been interested in the conflict known as the French and Indian War, because it seemed to me that it wasn’t covered much in school.

Way back decades before the American Revolution, a large portion of the American continent belonged to the British but a much larger portion belonged to the French.

In fact, the French possessed two to three times as much American land as the British.

So there was – what else? – a war.

The French, who had Indians on their side, built a great fort in what they regarded as the center of the American continent: Fort Duquesne.

They thought of it as the center because it was where three major rivers got together.  Fort Duquesne was built right smack on what is now, in a more mercenary age, downtown Pittsburgh.

The British fought the French and Indian War successfully.  It was a large part of the reason why the French decided to cash in their chips and check out.  They left their vast territory east of the Mississippi, and their even vaster territory west, to the British.  The French influence was pretty well eradicated in those areas.

The end result of that war was the beginning of modern America.

The French and Indian War started as a sort of local war story, but it turned into an epic; numbers of countries in Europe were involved in the squeamish fight, a massive international conflict that came to be known as the Seven Years’ War.

But to get back to our French and our Indians, here’s what always interested me about that struggle. One of the most important people involved was a young red-coated British lieutenant-colonel, who led his British red-coat troops when fighting in that war.

 

Here’s a picture of that British colonel, proudly wearing the red-coat uniform in which he had served his monarch, King George.  He certainly played an important part in the formation of modern America.

What was his name?

(The answer will be posted Friday)

 

 

Berowne's 231

Also for Three Word Wednesday and ABC Wednesday: "D" is for "deep fat fryer" :-)
This week's prompt reminds me of the past.  But then, everything reminds me of the past.  So here’s another episode in the series titled “Berowne’s Mediocre Adventures.”

Come back with me, if you will, to the early days of television.  I was making a poor but meager living as a radio announcer, but I wanted to get on this New Thing – tv – because that was where the big money was.

People were making fifty to a hundred dollars a week, or so I heard.

However, there seemed to be some sort of conspiracy – I’d have called it a vicious cabal but I wasn’t sure what that was – to keep me from the visual medium.  But the big day finally arrived.

Seems a new television station had recently opened in Philadelphia,WFIL-TV, and a sponsor sent me down there to do commercials.

The show I worked on was an example of how to produce tv programs when you don’t have money to produce tv programs.

They just invited in kids, high-school types, to come to the tv studio and dance, with an emcee playing music, while a camera panned around among the happy teeners.

The show was quite successful, at least to the standards of the day.

One day when I showed up the atmosphere at the studio was funereal; they had lost their emcee.  He had been charged with doing something emcees weren’t supposed to do so he had to be let go.  The new host was a bit strange, in my opinion, because he looked so young.  It was as though the producers has just brought up one of the kids from among the dancers and put him in charge.

But no, young as he was he had a background as a professional announcer and soon took over the show, which was named “Bandstand,” and made it his.  His name was Dick Clark, as some of you have already surmised, and Dick had been blessed with the DNA or genes or whatever it was that would permit him to look pretty much like a teenager for the rest of his life.

It was on that same station that I had my first great problem as a video announcer.  A problem indeed; I was persona au gratin, told to leave and not come back.  This came about because the station was very new; some things worked, some didn’t.

What I was guilty of was “laughing on the air.”

As an announcer you could laugh as an expression of joviality and good humor, but you couldn’t laugh at the tv station itself.  Yet, because it was so new, things happened there that were funny.

One day I was doing a commercial for a deep-fat fryer.  The device, filled with oil of some kind, rested on a table and I stood behind it extolling its virtues: “You’ll bless the day you brought it into your home and kitchen.”

I poured in a plateful of chopped-up potatoes and plugged it in.  What happened next was weird.  The sound system in the studio continued working, but the device had blown out all the lights.  We, the whole building, were in total darkness.   

The camera guy and the floor manager began to laugh.  It became too much for them; they fled the studio and started to roll around in the dark outside corridor, laughing hysterically.

I decided to try to soldier on.  I got to the bit where I was speaking about the fryer’s amazing low price and the easy-payment plan that was available, well aware of the surreal situation that the item I was so persuasively selling couldn’t be seen by anyone, not even me, so I soon couldn’t continue.  The noise from outside started me laughing too.  I went out and joined the studio staff in the corridor.

I may have been laughing on the outside but on the inside I was wondering just how this muddy situation was going to be for my future, how it would look on my resume: “Performed highly effectively as tv announcer, in one instance so effectively as to blast the whole station into total darkness.”  Who would hire such an individual?

Well, as things turned out so many people laughed on the air at that new tv station it got me off the hook.  I was liberated.  It was decided that the incident had not been my fault and I was allowed to continue working there.  I didn’t try to fry any more potatoes, however.  

230 Quiz Answer

Puck flies around the earth in 40 minutes; the astronaut takes more than twice that, about 90.

(Also for Three Word Wednesday and ABC Wednesday: "c" is for "conniver")

The prompt this week reminded me that nations and clans of all kinds have a tendency to create long stories of their history, legends of their glistening, glorious past.

These sagas usually tell the story of an early leader, a hero of supernatural power.  Sometimes such a legend will include a sidekick of the ruler, a character known as the “trickster,” an imp or sprite who enjoys fooling around.

 

In Shakespeare’s day, this sprite was Puck, well known in British folklore.  When a farmwife came down in the morning and learned that the milk had soured long before it should have, it was natural for her to think that some sort of creature, some mischievous elf – Puck, in other words – had been responsible.

In “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Puck plays an important part.  The best description of him would be: he's a conniver, always conniving, scheming, manipulating.  Officially he’s jester to the king, but he enjoys his remarkable powers for farce by screwing things up for people.

In the play there are several couples of young lovers; Puck gets a charge out of scrambling the arrangement so that the guys and the gals are no longer sure just who loves whom.  

Of course, one of Puck’s most famous achievements has to do with what he does to Nick Bottom, the weaver.  For Bottom it isn’t a fun job anyway - weaving stuff can be awful tedious – but it’s worse when a weird elfish prankster gives him the head of a jassack.

But he turns out to be lucky; the fact that this change somehow makes beautiful women fall madly in love with him makes up for it a bit.

 

Puck, as you might expect, brags a lot.  He claims he can fly around the world in a certain number of minutes.

Well, the folks over at NASA thought about this.  They had had astronauts circling the globe for years.  They knew, to a minute or so, just how long it took.  They wondered, would their guy win such a race, or would Puck?

So here’s your chance to win the huge cash award.  (Assuming I can find somebody to put up some cash – which doesn’t look likely.)

The question is, who would win, who would circumnavigate the globe faster?  Puck or the astronaut?

(The answer will be posted Friday)

 

:

        

Berowne's 229

(also for three word wednesday and abc wednesday; "b" is for berowne's adventures)
No quiz this week.  Folks have been generous and liberal enough to show interest in my occasional personal history notes, so here’s another chapter in...
Berowne’s Mediocre Adventures!

Ah, those were the days.

Air travel was different, to say the least, in the days of pre-jet flight.

If you ever traveled in a 4-engine piston airliner in that era, you know all about its vibration and noise during a 12-hour flight.  You know about the jolly bouncing around you got in your seat because a prop plane couldn’t fly above the weather.

And perhaps you know that those magnificent piston engines had a small problem folks didn’t like to talk about too much.  They caught fire on takeoff.

Not every time, you understand, just once in a while.

Like when I was on board.

One summer day I was heading out to California and I was excited to be making the very first non-stop flight from La Guardia to Los Angeles.  (Previously, you had to make a stop in Chicago.)

There was no such thing as jet flight for passengers.

I had purchased an expensive home movie camera for the occasion.  It was magnificent, complete with a three-lens turret.  I was very proud of that li’l apparatus.

The takeoff seemed uneventful, except that of a sudden the plane appeared to be coming to a stop.  One of the engines was on fire.  The cockpit door opened and the pilot came into our area.  In an elaborately calm voice, he said: “We’re going to get everyone off this airplane about now.”

The fact that he was making such an effort to be calm somehow made it more alarming.  (Though I suppose it wouldn’t have been better if he had shouted something profane to the passengers, and added “We’re on fire!”)

He pointed at me and said, “You – go down the rope.”

Here I should pause to explain the emergency system for that particular aircraft.  Today evacuation slides are impressive, beautifully made and highly effective.  Well, in those days for that airline company such a slide seemed to be a sort of afterthought.

It consisted of just a large-area canvas like a tarpaulin that you tossed out and it hung there like a wet dishrag.  A heroic volunteer among the passengers had to go down a rope hand over hand and then stretch the canvas out so it could be a slide.

Since I was seated closest to him, the pilot volunteered me to go down the rope.  I wanted to point out that I was holding in my right hand an expensive movie camera, so hand over hand would be sort of out of the question, but what with the plane on fire I figured this was no time to be quarrelsome or for lengthy discussion.

I took the rope in my left hand and went whoosh! down to the tarmac in about one second.  I checked my hand; the skin was shredded and it was bleeding.  I carefully put down my camera out of harm’s way and stretched out the canvas.  It worked fine; folks began zipping down.  Everyone got off with no problems.

I went to a clinic there and they bandaged my hand up good, even gave me a sling, which I thought was overdoing it a little.  Everyone waiting in the La Guardia airport knew that a flight had caught fire on takeoff and they were all buzzing about it.  They turned to stare at me as I, heavily bandaged, strolled in. 

I felt that maybe I should just gather everyone around and say, “I’m not a poor victim of the airplane fire.  I’ve just been sliding down a rope!” 

228 Quiz Answer

Shakespeare wrote:

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes…

A fathom is six feet.  Five times six equals 30 feet.
(Also for Three Word Wednesday and ABC Wednesday: "A" is for "Accident")

 

It was a tough way to travel, to sail from Europe to America four or five hundred years ago.

 

Not only did hurricanes spring up from the Caribbean with winds that could tear a sailing ship apart, but the trip was fraught with perilous islands along the way that were every bit as dangerous.

One of the islands that you had to get past to get to the American mainland was called by the sailors of the day “The Isle of Devils” because it was surrounded by menacing rocks.

It was in July, 1609, that a vessel named the Sea Venture was sailing to bring supplies to Jamestown, Virginia, and had a famous nocturnal accident: in the middle of the night it was caught up in a storm that battered the ship and caused it to run on the rocks of the Isle of Devils.

What the survivors were to learn was that the place wasn’t devilish at all.  In fact, the island they had smacked into we know today was Bermuda, and as many vacationers in later centuries discovered, it was an honorable and pleasant place to spend the winter - if you could afford it.

At any rate, when the news of the accident and the storm got back to England, Will Shakespeare sat down and wrote a play titled “The Tempest.”

It’s a very interesting work: the experts didn’t know what to call it – comedy, drama, history, tragicomedy.  They seem to have settled upon “romance” as its specific genre.  The reason for the confusion is that there a number of sub-plots in the play, peopled by actors who range from ordinary folks to fantastic characters of heavy-duty weirdness.

However, to get around to our weekly quiz, there’s a sequence where a man’s father has drowned and his body has begun to decompose as it lies in the water.

Shakespeare handles this rather ghoulish topic as you might expect – it’s ghoulish enough for anyone, but he can’t help but write of it in poetic style.

“Of his bones are coral made,

Those are pearls that were his eyes.

Nothing of him that can fade

But has suffered a sea change

Into something rich and strange.”

Now here’s the question.  The poor drowned guy is lying in how many feet of water?  (Do the math.)

(The answer will be posted Friday.)  

 

 

227 Quiz Answer

"Send in the Clowns" is a song written by Stephen Sondheim for the 1973 musical A Little Night Music, an adaptation of Ingmar Bergman's film Smiles of a Summer Night.

Also for Three Word Wednesday and ABC Wednesday: "Z" is for "Zero."

(I wrote the following, thinking it might suggest to you a well-known song.  Name the song.)

Dear Brenda:

It’s a joke.  A really funny joke.

Know what it reminds me of?  At the circus that eerie moment when they send in the little car to the center ring and twelve guys get out; everybody laughs.

To put it in more guarded and different terms, when I think of the hours I spent knocking on doors, opening doors, mostly getting nowhere.

Because all that time I never realized that the only door I wanted was yours.

But I finally made it.

Big dramatic entrance.  I had rehearsed; I knew my lines.  I was ready.

But that was when the whole thing turned into pure farce.  Your door finally opened - and there was no one there.  It added up to a big zero.

Isn’t it rich?  Imagine the little car riding into the center ring – and no one gets out.

But maybe I’m wrong thinking it’s a joke; in a way it’s more translucent, more of a tear-jerker, a story of sadness.  How was it possible that I was so wrong, to think you were going to want what I wanted?

How could we have been so different?

I was constantly tearing around; you were on solid ground.

You were firm, unyielding.

So what’s in the future, the future for the two of us?

When that little car drives into the center ring again…

Will anyone get out?

 

(The answer will be posted on Friday.)

 

Berowne's 226 Quiz

Sorry, folks, my 'pewter had a breakdown so I had to release the answer early.  It's "The Glass Menagerie."

(Also for Three Word Wednesday and ABC Wednesday: "Y" is for "Yvonne")

I wrote the following scenelet, thinking it might suggest a well-known play.  Which play?

(The living-room of Fred’s house.  Time: the 1930s.)

Fred:  Alan!  Glad you could make it.  C’mon in.

Alan:  Wow.  Really freezing out there.  Glad to be where it’s nice and warm.

Fred:  Here, let me take your coat.  Oh, this is my sister Yvonne.

Alan:  Didn’t know you had a sister, Fred.  Glad to meet you, Yvonne.  How are you?

Yvonne:  Hello.

Fred:  Good, Yvonne.  You handled that well.  I suppose you want to get back to your work, right?

Yvonne:  Yes.  (She leaves)

Alan:  Nice girl.  Maybe a bit too talkative.

Fred:  Ha.  Truth is, she’s shy.  I mean, really shy.  One of the reasons I wanted to invite you over to meet the family was I hoped you might chat with her a bit so she could get more used to talking to guys.  She finds it too difficult as it is.

Alan:  Wait a minute.  Maybe there’s a bit of a misunderstanding here.  I had no idea you were asking me over to set me up with your sis.  I have a girlfriend, Fred.  You know that.

Fred:  No no, it’s not like that.  Let’s see if I can explain.  You see – truth is, I love my sister.  I’d do anything for her.  Her shyness keeps her at home so she never gets out to meet people. 

Alan:  I see.  Well, sure, I’d be glad to talk with her.  What is she interested in, mostly?

Fred:  I guess you could say it’s education.

Alan:  Well, I was interested in education, a little anyway, back in grammar school.  The interest sort of dropped off when we got to long division.

Fred:  Ha.  Her interest is different.  She might not want me to divulge this information, but she has constructed a little one-room schoolhouse, very small and even sort of insignificant, and has filled it with students and a teacher, and each one of them she made herself. 

Alan:  So she has a hobby.

Fred:  Yes.  We’re not sure if it’s good or bad, but she spends many hours at her schoolhouse.  She’s not really interested in much else.

Alan: Well, you know, Fred, working together at the shoe factory you and I are both finding out the world’s a tough, godless place.  If Yvonne can make her own little world, nicer than the one outside, maybe that’s not such a bad thing?

(The answer will be posted Friday.)

 

 

 

225 Quiz Answer

The Book of Genesis is the primary source that mentions the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.  According to the story, Divine judgment by God was passed upon the two cities, which were completely consumed by fire and brimstone.
(Also for Three Word Wednesday and ABC Wednesday: "X" is for "Exit")

I wrote the following scenelet, thinking it might suggest a familiar story from the Bible.  What story?

“I don’t want to have to tell you again. You’ve got to get your things together now so we can get out of here!  We’ve got to make our exit.”      

“This is all so strange...”

“It’s more than strange; it’s dangerous. We’ve only got another half-hour or so before the whole place blows up. Where are the girls?”

“Well, they’re trying to get their things together too. It’s awful that we have to leave; they’ve been doing so well in school and of course they have their friends here. And I've got a week's food in the pantry."

“You just don’t get it! This is risky, a life or death situation! We should have been on the road an hour ago.”

“How did you learn about this – this emergency? Nobody else seems to know about it.”

“I haven’t explained it because it would take too much time, and you probably wouldn’t believe it anyway. But did you see those two strange-looking men around here this morning?”

“They’re from out of town, aren’t they?”

“Hah, you could certainly say that.  From way out of town. They aren’t really men, you see; they’re angels.”

“Angels?!”

“Right. You know what’s been going on in this place, all the drinking and carousing and screwing around and God knows what else. Well, Yahweh sent these angels to see if there are a few righteous folks in our town.”

“Who sent them?”

“Yahweh – you know, God.”

“This is all very weird.”

“The idea was that if there were at least ten righteous men in this place it wouldn’t be destroyed. Well, these two fellows – er, angels – couldn’t find even ten, so the whole area is in jeopardy, it's going to be blown sky high.”

“How will – er, He – do the destruction?”

“Not sure. Something to do with fire and brimstone, I suppose.”

"I've never really understood just what brimstone is, actually."

"Well, let's not wait around to find out.”

 “Oh, dear. I so like this place.”

“Yeah. A real fun town.  It's cathartic; there's been too much fun, as it turns out.”

“So where are we going?”

“I have been told that we can be safe if we get well outside the city limits. Ah, here are the girls. Seriously, my dear, we've got to get started.”

“It’ll be sad to leave. In spite of its rather racy reputation, I’ve really enjoyed living here. There’s a hill on the road out. When we get to the top of that hill, I’m just going to have a good look back at our dear old town!”

(The answer will be posted on Friday.)