In Daisy Miller, Henry James wrote about Daisy’s brother who was unimpressed with Europe and said that his father was in “a better place.” The narrator thought he meant his father was dead, but the boy said he was in Schenectady.
Double note: Henry and William James’s father lived in Albany, NY. James Street in the downtown is named after him.
Schenectady NY is part of the Tri-City Area of Albany, Schenectady, and Troy. The name “Schenectady” is derived from the Mohawk word skahnéhtati, or Sche-negh-ta-da, meaning “beyond the pines” and describes the local area. The Mohawk settlement there in the 1600s was called skahnéhtati.
Albany is named after the Duke of Albany, the future James II.
Troy is named after the legendary city of Troy, made famous in Homer’s Iliad.
Comment: my hometown is the nearby Latham NY, but I live near San Francisco now, and have been here for several decades.
Troy weight is a method of weighing primarily used in the precious metals industry. It originated in 15th-century England, and may take its name from the town of Troyes, France. The troy weight units are the grain, the pennyweight, the troy ounce, and the troy pound.
Avoirdupois is a system of measuring weight based on the fact that sixteen ounces are in a pound. The metric system is based on grams, and the avoirdupois system is based on pounds.
Avoirdupois, abbreviated avdp., was first commonly used in the 13th century AD and was standardized in 1959. The word is from Anglo-Norman French aveir de peis (later avoir du pois), literally, “goods of weight”.
Most of the planet uses Celsius to notate temperature. The US uses Fahrenheit (for the most part). The two systems intersect at -40 degrees.
The world record for low temperature was measured at Vostok Station, Antarctica, on 21 July 1983. There, it was -128.6°F (-89.2°C) at an elevation of 11,220ft.
1983 marked the second full year of the Reagan Presidency. Ronald Reagan, a Republican, had the middle name Wilson, which was the last name of an earlier Democratic President.
Clerow “Flip” Wilson Jr. was an American comedian and actor. Wilson rose to popularity in the late 1960s and early 1970s; his TV variety show, “The Flip Wilson Show,” was the first successful variety show to be hosted by a Black – it was among the top-rated shows on American network television, and Wilson won two Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award for it.
One of the best-known sports equipment manufacturers, Wilson Sporting Goods was originally formed in 1913 as a subsidiary of a meatpacking company. Wilson worked with Knute Rockne to introduce the double-lined leather football, the first valve football, and the first waist-line football pants with pads. Its football was adopted as the official ball of the NFL in 1941, and has remained thus ever since.
“Wilson the Volleyball” was the biggest takeaway from Cast Away. Wilson, the sporting goods company, decided to strike while the iron was hot, selling volleyballs with a bloody handprint face on the side just like in the movie. It was available for many years through the Wilson Sporting Goods website, though it seems to be out of stock now.
For its NFL footballs, Wilson Sporting Goods gets its pebbled grain cowhide from a Chicago company, the Horween Leather Company. Horween has been supplying Wilson since 1941, and it is one of the oldest continuously running tanneries in the US. Isadore Horween founded the company in 1905. He learned the leather business in his native Ukraine, where he lived just outside of Kiev.
So, since 1941 the NFL’s footballs have shared a Ukrainian heritage.
The process of tanning can be traced back to the inhabitants of Mehrgarh in Pakistan between 7000 and 3300 BCE. By the Middle Ages, the process included soaking in urine, then pounding dung (usually from dogs, or in rare occasions, humans) into the hide to soften, or “bate” it.
Holy shit.
Disregard
Chromium(III) sulfate, ([Cr(H2O)6]2(SO4)3), is the most efficient and effective tanning agent.
Chromium is present in the environment in different forms. Its most common stable valence states are Cr0, which is chromium as an elemental metal, and trivalent chromium or Cr3, and hexavalent chromium or Cr6.
Cr0 and Cr6 are generally produced by industrial processes such as the chrome plating of steel. Cr3 occurs naturally in the environment and is considered in the United States to be an essential nutrient. Cr3 is found in vegetables, meats, fruits, grains, and yeast, and it is essential for insulin, sugar, and lipid metabolism.
Cr6 has been clearly established to be toxic to humans and a carcinogen. Cr3 is significantly less toxic (about 1,000 times less toxic than Cr6).
Cr6 is commonly known as “the Erin Brockovich chemical”. In 1993 she was instrumental in building a case against Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) involving groundwater contamination in Hinkley, California. PG&E had been using Cr6 to prevent rust at its natural gas pumping station, but the waste Cr6 had seeped into the local groundwater and caused cancer in Hinkley’s residents.
The case was settled in 1996 for $333 million and was the largest settlement ever paid in a direct-action lawsuit in United States history to that date. The law firm she clerked for received $133.6 million, and Brockovich received $2.5 million as part of her fee.
In the 2000 movie named for her, Erin Brockovich was played by Julia Roberts. Julia Roberts won the 2001 best actress Oscar for her portrayal of the relentless and determined Brockovich.
Erin Brockovich —
Hinkley CA, near Barstow in Southern California’s Mojave Desert, is about 100 miles NE of Los Angeles —
The Greatest American Hero was a comedy-drama, which aired on ABC from 1981 until 1983; the show centered on Ralph Hinkley (played by William Katt), a substitute high school teacher who was given a suit by a group of aliens, which granted him superhuman abilities.
Shortly after the show premiered, John Hinkley attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan; due to the sudden infamy of the surname of the show’s lead character, for several episodes, already-filmed dialogue was redubbed to refer to him as “Hanley,” and for the rest of the show’s first season, the character was referred to as “Mr. H.” or “Ralph,” avoiding mention of his surname.
(Aside:)
Isn’t it much more likely Watson’s wife had a brother named John, and wanted to distinguish them? Because Doyle was incapable of error…
In one episode of The Dick Van Dyke show, the Petries had a pet turtle, and the episode closed with a shot of the turtle’s shell with a painting of Rob, Laura and Ritchie on it. The final line was spoken by Rob: “as long as this turtle lives, we’ll be immortal.”
The original closing line was “We look just like the Kennedys.” The episode was filmed shortly before the assasination. The new line was dubbed in before the episode aired.
Or because he was based on ACD’s friend James Watson and oops slip of the typing fingers.
In play: In Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, the main character Peter’s younger brother eats his pet turtle Dribble. The parents make up for it by getting Peter a dog. He names it Turtle.
Turtle soup has long been a delicacy in Southeast Asia and China, where soft-shelled turtles are preferred over hard-shelled. In England, turtle soup rose to popularity in the 1750s but overfishing lead to its decline by the 1880s. The green sea turtle of the West Indies was nearly wiped out because of demand.
In the US, the common snapping turtle has been a primary source for turtle soup. The diamond backed terrapin of the Chesapeake Bay was a species exploited in a turtle soup “fishery”. Canneries processed and exported tons of product until the turtle populations collapsed. Similarly in the San Francisco Bay, the Pacific pond turtle was used in replacement until it, too, was almost wiped out.