We are touring
four states in New England and Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine
did not disappoint. Here are a few things I missed in 18 years of school but I
learned on a tour.
Paul Revere
did not gallop through Boston crying. “The British are coming.” What he actually
said was, “The regulars are coming out.” And there wasn’t any galloping. He
rode and spoke quietly with the warning. Not only did my cartoons have it
wrong, so did my history book.
While we are
learning about Paul, “One if by land, two if by sea,” should have been “One if
by land, two if they cross the Charles River.” We can blame Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow for that one. I won’t deny a fellow, long or short, to take a little
liberty when writing. But “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere” has stuck more than
the real story. But in Longfellow’s defense, “sea” sounds much more dramatic.
And it’s easier to rhyme than “Charles River.”
It takes 20-30
gallons of sap tapped from maple trees to make one gallon of maple syrup. I
suppose this is the reason we don’t see buckets hanging from trees in the
neighborhood in Oklahoma.
Lobstermen put
out strings of lobster traps a bit like Grand Lake trot lines. These are marked
with a number and color combination. Traps are baited and then pulled up every
two to three days. Although the traps can lure and capture multiple lobsters,
due to the strict size limit, keeping an average of one per trap is considered
a good run.
It takes about
seven years for a Maine Rock lobster to grow big enough to be a keeper. Seven
years it will eat the fisherman’s bait and be caught and released. Maybe close
to 100 times in and out of the trap before it is deemed dinner. One time too
many.
Seaweed is
used like hay, to mulch plants in gardens. The bonus is… no bugs.
The Von Trapp
family of Sound of Music fame fled Austria and still owns a lodge in Vermont.
They did not make a dime from Rogers & Hammerstein’s play or Hollywood’s
movie. I’ll bet these AREN’T A Few of THEIR Favorite Things.
A whale’s
heart only beats 7-9 times per minute. I’m guessing trying to get it’s heart
rate up and sustain it, in order to lose some blubber, would be a whale of a
job.
Ben &
Jerry’s Ice Cream has a graveyard for retired flavors and those that were short
lived. You can stroll among the headstones and read the epitaphs of chunks and
swirls that weren’t scooped up like Tennessee Mud and Oh Pear.
Dairy farmers
use robotic milking machines that allow the cows to decide how often they want
to be milked. A computer chip is read and data is recorded on the cow and her
production. These costly robots are an effort to deal with costly labor. The
price of raw milk is currently the same as it was in the 1940’s.
Not only does
travel enlighten, it educates. I better stay Good to Go in case I wind up on
Jeopardy. Alex, I’ll take Kenya for $400... we’re headed there next.
