Today is Sunday, June 3 and there are only 161 days until my birthday, oh and it will also be Veteran’s Day.  Today we remember the birthdays of Jefferson Davis, Allen Ginsberg and Chuck Barris.  On this day in 1539 Hernando De Soto claimed Florida for Spain, in 1924 the Gila Wilderness Area was established by the Forest Service and in 1976 the US was presented with the oldest known copy of the Magna Carta.  In Kentucky and Louisiana it is Confederate Memorial Day, in Massachusetts it is Teachers’ Day and in the US it is National Chocolate Macaroon Day and National Egg Day.

Here is your information for the month of June.  The month was named after the Roman goddess Juno and is the sixth month of the year in the Gregorian and Julian calendars.  Juno was known as the patron of marriage and was responsible for the wellbeing of women.  There is no other month on the calendar that begins on the same day of the week as June.

The birthstone for June is the pearl.  The flower for June is the rose.  June also happens to be a month of delicacies that include National Candy Month, National Dairy Month, National Seafood Month and National Iced Tea Month.  That should fill your trivia needs for the month of June.

This past week we were driving to South Carolina and I noticed a couple of things during our ride.  One thing was that truck drivers are not like they were when I started driving.  Way back then, truck drivers were noted for being courteous, law-abiding individuals.  They have gotten over that.  Now they are speeding, crazy drivers who try to drive over you and have no regard for rules of the road.  I recognize that they are governed by regulations that control how long they can be on the road before they have to stop and rest.  I also understand that they work for companies that require them to get their freight to its destination as quickly as possible.  I just think that there should be some way to do it without peeling the paint off my car as they drive by.

I also noticed another interesting thing.  As I was driving along a car passed me.  First let me point out that the car was a state government car, indicated by the license plates.  The next thing I noticed was a sticker on the back of the car that stated, “For safety reasons, this vehicle does not go over 65 MPH.”  I found this to be rather amusing because the posted speed limit was 65, I was cruising along at around 70 and this car just passed me.  Perhaps they should have let the driver know that his car did not go over 65.  I would think that if you are going to make that kind of claim, you should have some way of preventing the car from going faster.  But then, I tend to be picky about that kind of stuff.

I know that I get a little crazy when it comes to TV commercials and maybe I would be better off if I didn’t watch them at all.  I never look at them because I am actually interested in what they are selling.  If I pay attention to them, it is because I like to see what kind of foolishness they include in them.  One commercial that gets me opens with a box sitting in a bathroom reading.  As the commercial opens, the box realizes that we have joined him in the room.  Here is where it gets just a bit bizarre (as if a reading box in a bathroom isn’t bizarre).  As the box begins to talk to us, he removes his glasses.

The first time I saw the commercial, I thought that I was mistaken, the box really wasn’t wearing glasses.  I made a point of watching more closely the next time the commercial came on.  Yes he does remove his glasses.  As he talks, you can see them sitting on the counter next to him.  Now, I have an issue with talking boxes in the first place.  This commercial and an insurance commercial both have them.  That, in itself, is ridiculous.  But now we have a box that wears glasses, but not all the time.  Again, I know I tend to be hypercritical, but I think talking, glasses-wearing boxes are just a little too much.

What happened to good old fashioned commercials like the one where the tuna keeps trying to get caught and eaten.  Those were the good old days when you could be entertained by a suicidal fish.  That was the way to sell a product!  Nowadays we have to settle for talking boxes and an owl in a bathrobe being measured for a custom-made suit.  You want to make a unique, one-of-a-kind commercial?  Do one that tells me what the benefits of your product are, without trying to be funny or using animated drawings to show me how it works.  Very simple! Tell what your product is, what it does and why it will be beneficial to me.  Who knows, you could set the next trend in advertising.

This week our fact tells us that Pennsylvania state law prohibits singing in the bathtub.  There does not seem to be any prohibition if you are in a shower, just in a bathtub.  What possible danger could there be?  Depending on how badly you sing, it could be annoying to family or neighbors, that I understand, but you would have to be awfully bad to have forced the state to pass a law prohibiting it.  When I was younger, there was a man in my church who could have caused that law in New Jersey.  I wonder if he was originally from Pennsylvania?