A man goes down on a horse? True Army, that must be. Like the Navy’s yo, ho, blow the man down. There’s some inter-service fun-poking, from a retired Marine.
In play:
The WWI poem from May 1915, In Flanders Fields, was written by John McCrae.
*In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.*
The entryway to the National WWI Museum in Kansas City has a glass bridge where visitors must first walk over a field of poppies (silk, I believe) before entering the museum. A copy of this poem is there also.
McCrae was a medical doctor who taught at McGill University in Montreal. He composed “In Flanders Fields” in the back of an ambulance the day after he conducted the burial service for a close friend and fellow soldier.
The poem was printed on the reverse of the $10 note in the recently retired series, Canadian Journeys.
Ernest Hemingway served as a Red Cross ambulance driver in Italy in WW1. On his first day in Milan, he was sent to the scene of a munitions factory explosion, where rescuers retrieved the shredded remains of female workers. He described the incident in his non-fiction book Death in the Afternoon: “I remember that after we searched quite thoroughly for the complete dead we collected fragments”. Even though still only 18 years old, he was awarded the Italian Silver Medal of Bravery for receiving wounds from mortar fire while evacuating Italian casualties from the front lines.
Diatto was an Italian manufacturing company founded in 1835, which built two and four cylinder cars from 1905 to 1929, when they ceased production. Their products included race cars with supercharged eight-cylinder engines. Diatto also supplied frames to Bugatti which used them for their own race cars. Some Diatto racers were prepared and raced by Alfieri Maserati who left Diatto in 1926 to establish the Maserati marque with his brothers.
Diatto cars were known for their innovative engineering and as early as the 1920s they were equipped with four-wheel brakes and four-speed gearboxes.
Fiat’s first car was manufactured in 1899, the 4HP. It is also known as the 3½ CV. Total production from 1899 to 1900 was 26 cars. 8 of those 26 were built in the first year. Today at least four are known to exist. Two are in the Turin auto museum, one is in the UK’s National Motor Museum, and one is in the Ford Museum in Michigan.
The Fiat’s notoriety for frequent breakdowns led to a popular backronym: "Fix It Again, Tony!"
Other car acronyms include:
BMW = Big Money Waste
BUICK = Big Ugly Indestructible Compact Killer
CADILLAC = Crazy And Demented Idiots Like Large American Cars
CHEVROLET = Can Hear Every Valve Rattle On Long Extended Trips
DODGE = Drips Oil, Drops Grease Everywhere
FORD = First On Recall Day (or Found On Road Dead)
GMC = Generally Mediocre Cars
HONDA = Had One, Never Did Again
HYUNDAI = Hang Your UNDerwear Anywhere Inside
JEEP = Just Enough Engine Power
LOTUS = Lots Of Trouble, Usually Serious
MAZDA = Made After Zero Design Analysis
MERCEDES = Many Expensive Repairs Can Eventually Discourage Extra Sales
MINIVAN = Manhood Is Nonexistent, I’m Vasectomized And Neutered
NISSAN: Needs Imminent Salvage So Abandon Now
OLDSMOBILE = Old Ladies Driving Slowly Make Others Behind Infuriatingly Late Everyday
PONTIAC = Poor Old Nut Thinks It’s A Cadillac
PORSCHE = Proof Of Rich Spoiled Children Having Everything
SAAB = Sad Attempt At Beauty
SUBARU = Screwed Up Beyond All Repair Usually
TOYOTA = Too Often Yankees Overprice This Auto
VOLVO = Very Odd Looking Vehicular Object
VW = Virtually Worthless
I’m not sure if Bullit was just commenting or meant to be in-play. I’m using buddha’s to respond to.
Also, FORD = Fix Or Repair Daily
In Play:
The Mazda Wankel engines (a type of rotary combustion engine) comprise a family of car engines derived from experiments in the early 1960s by Felix Wankel, a German engineer. Over the years, displacement has been increased and turbocharging has been added.
Wankel engines can be classified by their geometric size in terms of radius (rotor center to tip distance, also the median stator radius) and depth (rotor thickness), and offset (crank throw, eccentricity, also 1/4 the difference between stator’s major and minor axes). These metrics function similarly to the bore and stroke measurements of a piston engine.
Mazda rotary engines have a reputation for being relatively small and powerful with the expense of poor fuel efficiency. They started to become popular with kit car builders, hot rodders and in light aircraft because of their light weight, compact size, and tuning potential stemming from their inherently high power-to-weight ratio - as is true to all Wankel-type engine.
The Sopwith Camel was powered by a rotary engine, which meant it could turn to the right faster than any other plane. Turning to the left, on the other hand, was so slow that experienced pilots found that it was quicker just to turn to the right over 200 degrees.
Millets are a group of highly variable small-seeded grasses, widely grown around the world as cereal crops or grains for fodder and human food. Millets are important crops in the semiarid tropics of Asia and Africa (especially in India, Nigeria, and Niger), with 97% of millet production in developing countries. The crop is favored due to its productivity and short growing season under dry, high-temperature conditions.
The most widely grown millet is pearl millet, which is an important crop in India and parts of Africa. Finger millet, proso millet, and foxtail millet are also important crop species. In the developed world, millets are less important. For example, in the United States, only proso millet is significant, and it is mostly grown for bird seed.
The United States Forest Service manages twenty National Grasslands totaling 3.8 million acres of public land. They are essentially equivalent to National Forests except the lands are mostly prairies. The 1930s Dust Bowl led to 1933’s creation of the Soil Conservation Service, which led to the creation of the National Grasslands.
On August 13, 1942, Disney’s fifth full-length animated motion picture Bambi premiered in New York City. Soon after, Walt Disney allowed his characters to appear in fire prevention public service campaigns used by the U.S. Forest Service. However, Bambi was only loaned to the government for a year, so a new symbol was needed. A bear was chosen. His name was inspired by “Smokey” Joe Martin, a New York City Fire Department hero who suffered burns and blindness during a bold 1922 rescue. Smokey’s debut poster was released on August 9, 1944, which is considered his anniversary date.
Boston Red Sox lefty pitcher Smoky Joe Wood won the final game of the 1912 World Series at Fenway Park when New York Giants outfielder Fred Snodgrass muffed an easy fly ball. After several years trying to recover his fastball after an injury, he moved to the Cleveland Indians, where he played the outfield and hit creditably alongside former Boston teammate Tris Speaker. Many years later, after retiring as Yale’s baseball coach, he witnessed what some call the greatest college matchup ever, the 1981 pitcher’s duel between Yale University and Saint John’s University, featuring future major leaguers (and teammates) Ron Darling and Frank Viola. Darling threw 11 no-hit innings for Yale, matched by Viola’s 11 shutout innings for St. John’s. Darling lost the no-hitter and the game in the 12th.
Early in 2004, two writers and Red Sox fans, Stewart O’Nan and Stephen King, decided to chronicle the upcoming season, one of the most hotly anticipated in baseball history. They would sit together at Fenway. They would exchange emails. They would write about the games. And, as it happened, they would witness the greatest comeback ever in sports, and the first Red Sox World Series championship in eighty-six years. And co-author a book on the season
Before 2004, there were three major league teams that had last won the World Series before the Armistice. Since the Red Sox win in 2004 (and 2007 and 2013), and the Chicago White Sox win in 2005, that leaves only the Chicago Cubs, who last won it in 1906 and last played in it in 1945.
1903, 1912, 1915, 1916, 1918, 2004, 2007 and 2013: The Boston Red Sox have won eight championships. Their longest drought was 86 years, from 1918 to 2004.
1905, 1921, 1922, 1933, 1954, 2010, 2012 and 2014: The San Francisco Giants have won eight championships. Their longest drought was 56 years, from 1954 to 2010.
High-kicking pitcher Juan Marichal, who played mostly for the Giants but finished his career with the Red Sox, was the first Dominican and second Latino (after Roberto Clemente of Puerto Rico) to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
The village of Cooperstown, NY, in Otsego County, is located on the south shore of Otsego Lake and east of New York’s Finger Lakes region. Cooperstown is the home of the BBHOF, The town sprung from a land purchase by the father of writer James Fennimore Cooper, William Cooper. People hailing from Cooperstown include Abner Doubleday and Samuel F. B. Morse.
One exhibit of note in the BBHOF is a glass case where each World Series winning team’s championship ring is displayed. Over the years it is easy to see how the rings have grown bigger and gaudier.
Abner Doubleday, often given (incorrect) credit for inventing baseball, was a graduate of West Point Military Academy and served with the Federal forces during the Civil War. He is given credit for aiming and firing the first cannon shot from Fort Sumter in April, 1861, after Confederate forces had opened fire earlier.
He served as a Division Commander (brevet Major General) in several major battles with the Army of the Potomac and led his Union Corps during the first day of the battle of Gettysburg. He soon after left the Army of the Potomac for a desk job in Washington due to differences with the Amry commander George Gordon Meade.
There’s some inter-service fun-poking, from a retired Marine.