The French King Bridge, which carries Route 2 across the Connecticut River just north of Amherst, was named for the nearby French King Rock. Per legend, the rock was named by a French officer, leading a group of Indians on an exploring expedition, in honor of Louis XIV.
Super Bowl XIV was the first Super Bowl lovation that matched one of the teams’ home area. It was played in Pasadena CA, and the Los Angeles Rams was one of the teams.
All Super Bowls to date with a “home” team and result:
Super Bowl XIV in Pasadena CA: Los Angeles Rams (lost)
Super Bowl XIX in Palo Alto CA: San Francisco 49ers (won)
And no others!
The Rams, originally from Cleveland, have returned to Los Angeles after a sojourn in St. Louis, in which “The Greatest Show on Turf” won Super Bowl XXXIV for the franchise’s only SB title.
For the 20 years from Super Bowl XIV to XXXIV, the only Ram to throw a touchdown pass in a Super Bowl was Lawrence McCutcheon - a running back.
Brief history of the Rams. Year listed is the first of sequential years in that city:
1936: Cleveland OH (as the Cleveland Rams of the American Football League, then NFL in 1937)
1946: Los Angeles CA (as the Los Angeles Rams)
1980: Anaheim CA (as the Los Angeles Rams)
1995: St. Louis MO (as the St. Louis Rams)
2016: Los Angeles CA (as the Los Angeles Rams)
Again, thank you for this, Sampiro. I knew of the song but never knew it was Cat Stevens who wrote and performed it. I found this rendition and enjoyed it. It’s a studio cut. If you have a favorite other tendition of Stevens doing the song, please share.
Still in play:
The Los Angeles Dons were the first professional football team to play in Los Angeles… The Dons played in the Coliseum in the All-America Football Conference, two weeks before the debut of the Los Angeles Rams in 1946. Bob Hope and Bing Crosby were part owners of the Dons, who played for four seasons.
John of Austria (1547 – 1578), in English traditionally known as Don John of Austria, in Spanish as Don Juan de Austria, was an illegitimate son of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. He became a military leader in the service of his half-brother, King Philip II of Spain and is best known for his naval victory at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 against the Ottoman Empire. Lepanto remains his great triumph.
G. K. Chesterton in 1911 published a poem, Lepanto, in which he dubbed Don John “the last knight of Europe”.
The Don is the official mascot for USF, the University of San Francisco. USF Dons, Los Angeles Dons… what is a Don?
Don is an honorific title, a title of respect, like in Don Corleone or in Don Juan. It is similar to Sir, or Dame for Doña.
Bill Russell and K.C. Jones both went on to Hall of Fame careers with the Boston Celtics, as both players and coaches, after playing together both with the USF Dons and the 1956 US Olympic gold medal basketball team.
In his 14-year NBA playing career, all with the Boston Celtics, Bill Russell was a 12-time NBA All Star, an 11-time NBA Champion, and a 5-time NBA MVP.
Quite a dominating career.
Correction: Russell’s career was 13 years, not 14.
When Abraham took his son Isaac to sacrifice him on the Foundation Stone but was stopped at the last moment, God accepted a ram as a sacrifice instead.
In Anita Diamant’s novel The Red Tent Isaac as a blind old man still suffers from PTSD over the event, though the young concubine who tends him with his wife Rebekah’s full blessings helps him somewhat.
Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac, stopped short by God, is in the book of Genesis in the Torah, or Pentateuch. These first five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) are often called the Five Books of Moses. Although the books themselves do not call them such, the next Bible book, Joshua, does make reference to the Book of the Law of Moses (Joshua 8:31).
In the Demille/Heston remake of The Ten Commandments Joshua was played by John Derek, a not particularly gifted actor who is now remembered mostly for his last three wives: Ursula Andress, Linda Evans, and Bo (Collins) Derek. Bo Derek was 30 years his junior and is now in a long term relationship with Northern Exposure and Big Fat Greek Wedding actor John Corbett who is 5 years her junior.
John Corbett hails from Wheeling WV, and so too does actress Joyce DeWitt (Three’s Company) and baseball Hall of Fame second baseman Bill Mazeroski.
During the Civil War, the Lincoln Administration recognized a convention of pro-Union Virginians meeting in Wheeling as the legitimate state government, smoothing the way for the creation of West Virginia. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled the creation of the new state lawful in 1871.
The Greenbrier Resort is a luxury hotel in the mountains of White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia. By far it’s greatest fame in recent years has come from the revelation of once top secret information: beginning in 1956 it was the location of the bunkers for both houses of Congress and emergency Congressional chambers in the event of missile launches during the early decades of the Cold War. (Even senior members of management of the resort did not know about this and had been told the excavation and construction was a mining operation.)
Today you can rent the Congressional Bunker for a conference.
ULSD, Ultra-Low Sulfur Diesel, has substantially lowered sulfur content. As of 2006, almost all of the petroleum-based diesel fuel available in Europe and North America is of a ULSD type. There is not a single standard set of specifications and as the government mandated standard becomes progressively more strict so does the definition.
The new Diesel Jeep Grand Cherokees require ULSD with at most 15 PPM sulfur, and they can get over 30 MPG highway. The best I have gotten in mine is 34MPG, and the farthest I’ve gone on a single tank of diesel fuel is 830 miles.
This I find truly remarkable in a rig that will scramble over boulders and up & down steep hills in 4-Lo, and that will also cruise the freeways in comfort at 90+ MPH, albeit at lower MPGs (about 21MPG at that speed).
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