First off, in my ongoing effort to keep you educated regarding little known national days, let me give you information on the Gold Star Mothers. The organization was founded by Grace Darling Seibold of Washington, DC. When the US entered WWI in 1917, Grace’s son George volunteered, requesting an aviation assignment. Because the US did not have an Air Force at that time, Seibold deployed to England and was assigned to the British Royal Flying Corps. George corresponded with his family regularly, but then the mail from him stopped. Because he was under British control and authority, the US could not help the family with any information. On October 11, 1918, George’s wife in Chicago received a box marked “Effects of deceased officer 1st Lt George Seibold.”
Grace, convinced that self-contained grief was self-destructive, devoted her time and efforts to supporting mothers whose sons had lost their lives in military service. She organized a group consisting solely of those mothers, with the purpose of not only comforting each other, but giving loving care to hospitalized veterans confined in government hospitals far from home.
The organization was named after the Gold Star that families hung in their windows in honor of a deceased veteran. After years of planning, 25 mothers met in Washington, DC, on June 4, 1928, to establish the national organization, American Gold Star Mothers.
I think we can now safely close the Useless Information file for this week and move on. As many of you either know or have surmised, I am a big fan of Christmas. I love the music, the special foods that we only make when it is Christmas (a subject we will discuss another time), all the great cookies, the special movies, etc. Having said that, even I have to say that I think stores are pushing it a little too much.
We are still in September, Halloween and Thanksgiving are still ahead of us. And yet, the other day I was in a store that has all the decorations out for sale. Really? I understand that they want to get a jump on the season, but couldn’t they wait until November? At this rate, by the time I am ready to buy Christmas cards it will be too late. The Easter cards will already be out. Please slow down a little. Let’s get past at least Halloween before we rush into Christmas. We already ignore Thanksgiving, let’s not take Halloween from the kids. They wait all year for a chance to get bags of candy and start the trek toward Type 2 Diabetes. Don’t confuse them by putting out Christmas stuff. They may think they missed Halloween.
I have noticed recently that there is a disease that must be particularly virulent because there are at least three different medications out to combat psoriasis, but only moderate to severe, of course. Except for the name of the drugs, there does not seem to be a whole lot of difference between them. They all show clearing skin in a short time. Their commercials all show people who have the affliction being shunned by society until they take this most recent miracle drug. They all have a list of side affects that include suicidal thoughts, swelling, infections (be tested for TB before taking the drug), a desire to bay at the full moon, a need to swim in cold water and an almost insatiable urge to eat Swedish fish. Is the psoriasis market so big that three drugs can compete successfully? Is this the same drug, only redone to solve issues in the first two manifestations? Ask your doctor which one is right for you, but only if you actually have moderate to severe psoriasis.
I know I have mentioned this before, but I wanted to bring it up again, simply because it has occurred several times recently and I have a hard time understanding why it happens. Maybe someone can explain it to me. I am driving along the highway and suddenly, traffic comes to a halt. We slowly make our way along for a mile or so and then everything opens up. Why did we stop? A policeman had pulled a car over.
That’s all. No big accident, no stray circus animal wandering on the highway, no naked woman standing there waving. Just a cop and a car. Maybe they took my advice and watched the TV show Cops and were hoping to see some kind of chase or a shootout or something. The worst was the other day when there was only a police car. Apparently, whoever he had stopped was gone and he just hadn’t turn his flashing lights off yet, so we all had to slow down and look at him. People, you do not have to slow down to look, you have to drive. If you aren’t careful you may end up on a different TV show – “Trauma: Life in the ER”
This week our fact tells us that a cow gives nearly 200,000 glasses of milk in her lifetime. Depending on the size of the glass that could be a really impressive number. But speaking of cows, let me ask this question. When a cow laughs, does milk come out of her nose?