In naval architecture, a poop deck is a deck that forms the roof of a cabin built in the rear, or “aft”, part of the superstructure of a ship. The name originates from the French word for stern, la poupe, from Latin puppis.
In a famous excerpt from a letter to his wife John Adams lamented his lack of time to study the liberal arts by saying “I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Painting and Poetry Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine.”
That letter is quoted in Catherine Drinker Bowen’s 1966 study of the Constitutional Convention, Miracle at Philadelphia, which was republished in 1987 for the bicentennial of the Convention, with a foreword by Warren Burger, the recently-retired Chief Justice of the United States.
Miracle Mart was the pioneering chain of discount department stores in Canada, when it first became legal to open retail outlets at nights and on Sundays. Miracle Mart was formed by Steinberg’s supermarkets in Ontario and Quebec in 1960, but were poorly managed from the start, and barely lasted two decades against competitors like Woolco and KMart.
The film The Third Miracle starring Ed Harris is an excellent under-rated movie. A Slovakian-American woman, Helen, is nominated for sainthood, a dignity for which three miracles must be attested. A statue of the Virgin Mary is observed to weep blood, a girl with terminal lupus is cured and bombs transform into birds during World War II. but the film leaves it open what, if any, is Helen’s “third miracle.” Perhaps it is the restoration of the faith of Ed Harris’ character.
In Field of Dreams (1989), Ed Harris was the voice that said,
**
If you build it, he will come.
Go the distance.
Ease his pain.
**
The aerial shot at the end of Field of Dreams showing cars lined up coming to the field required a complete blackout of the nearby town. About 1500 locals were enlisted to do the driving. The number of cars, however, brought the traffic almost to a standstill. Drivers were instructed to flash their brights on and off to create the illusion of movement.
With “The Voice” of Field of Dreams being Ed Harris, the lead actress in the movie was his wife, Amy Madigan. And the scenes at Fenway Park in Boston included extras (this was 1989, remember) Ben Affleck and Matt Damon who, of course, were in Good Will Hunting (1997).
It was not scripted that way, but the Field of Dreams characterization of Joe Jackson was a mirror image. Jackson threw right handed but batted left handed, which is fairly common. But Ray Liotta is a very rare lefty who bats right, something found in only about one ballplayer in 200 (Ricky Henderson was an example). Liotta tried to learn to bat left, but could never look convincing. But about 10% of professional ball players can learn to bat equally well from both sides.
Bernard Malamud’s 1952 debut novel The Natural is the story of Roy Hobbs, a baseball prodigy whose career is sidetracked when he is shot by a woman whose motivation remains mysterious. Whether she is acting alone or is part of a plot can be debated. Most of the story concerns itself with his attempts to return to baseball later in life, when he plays for the fictional New York Knights with his legendary bat “Wonderboy”. Based upon the bizarre shooting incident and subsequent comeback of Philadelphia Phillies player Eddie Waitkus, the novel was made into a 1984 movie starring Robert Redford.
Ruth Ann Steinhagen, a 19-year-old typist at the time she shot Eddie Waitkus in June 1949, had developed an obsession with him after seeing him play as first baseman with the Chicago Cubs. While she never actually met him during that time, at home she created a “shrine” to Waitkus with hundreds of photographs and newspaper clippings, often spreading them out and looking at them for hours, according to her mother. She would even set an empty place across from her at dinner for Waitkus. Her shooting of the ballplayer in a hotel room is considered one of the earliest stalking crimes. She died in December 2012.
First baseman Eddie Waitkus played for the Chicago Cubs in 1941, his rookie year, and was nicknamed “the natural” because of his natural skills and talent. He served in the US Army in WWII, in the Philippines, and was awarded the Bronze Star four times. After the war he played for the Cubs in 1946-1948 before playing with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1949.
He was shot by a stalker in June, 1949 in Chicago. That stalker’s name was Ruth Ann Steinhagen. She shot him in a Chicago hotel with a .22 caliber rifle.
Added: ninja’d, but the play still works.
After shooting Waitkus, Steinhagen immediately called the hotel desk to report the shooting and was found cradling his head in her lap.Waitkus nearly died several times on the operating table before the bullet was successfully removed. Steinhagen never stood trial but instead was confined to a mental institution.
The history of bullets predates the history of firearms. Bullets were used in slingshots for over 1,000 years before firearms were invented in 13th century China.
Roy Rogers’ dog in his TV show was named Bullet. He was a German Shepherd.
A Roy Rogers cocktail, a non-alcoholic “mocktail,” consists of coke, grenadine, and a maraschino cherry.
When you little sister wants a Roy Rogers, she orders a Shirley Temple, in which ginger ale is substituted for the coke. They both sit at tables with their backs to the wall, so nobody ambushes them from behind.
When Shirley Temple was 10 years old she attended a barbecue at Hyde Park NY hosted by the Eleanor Roosevelt. At one point Shirley Temple, fooling around with a sling shot, nailed Eleanor Roosevelt on her derrière.
In the movie “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom”, the plane belonging to “Lao Che Air Freight” that Indy, Short Round, and Willie use to escape from Shanghai is a Ford Trimotor 5-AT-B, first built in 1929. The Trimotors were Ford’s first (and only) attempt at making airliners. Since the first mass-produced Ford car (the Model T) was known as the “Tin Lizzie”, many pilots affectionately nicknamed the Trimotor the “Tin Goose”.
The Spruce Goose was a large plane made of wood by Hughes aircraft for WWII tansport, but the war ended before the model could fully materialize. It was intended to save on war-critical metals. There was one successful flight, in 1947. The plane was made mostly of birch. In the early days of flight, quite a few planes were made largely of wood. Even Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis had fabric-covered wooden wings, but the fuselage was made of tubular metal.