Today is Sunday, April 6 and there are only 263 days until Christmas.  I have already started to get my Christmas CD’s ready.  Today we remember the birthdays of Friedrich Robert Volkmann, Merle Haggard and Johnny Dee.  On this day in 1722 Peter the Great ended the tax on men with beards, in 1866 the GAR (Grand Army of the Republic) was established and in 1954 the TV Dinner was first put on sale by Swanson & Sons.  It is Victory Day in Ethiopia, Van Riebeeck Day in South Africa and Chakri Day in Thailand.

Unfortunately, I do not have much to talk about this week.  The lovely Elaine was sick during the week and was generous enough to share it with me.  Normally, I start working on this on Thursday, getting the information together and deciding what to talk about.  It is now Saturday evening and I am just sitting down at the computer for the first time since Tuesday.

Sorry, I had to leave the room for a short time.  In any event, I really have very little to discuss this week.  I did not get out much and was too sick to pay attention to what was going on in the world.  I promise to do better next week.

This week, our fact tells us that a monkey was once tried and convicted for smoking a cigarette in South Bend, Indiana.  I am not sure what bothers me more about this – the fact that they felt it was worth the time and money to take this to court or, that the monkey was convicted without having the opportunity to testify on his own behalf.  I wonder how Judge Judy would have handled this.