The term “pay it forward” was popularized by Robert A. Heinlein in his book Between Planets, published in 1951 (though it was already in occasional use as a quotation):
Author Robert Heinlein’s experience in the U.S. Navy strongly influenced his character and writing. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland with the class of 1929 and served as an officer in the Navy until 1934, when he was diagnosed with TB and discharged. During his long hospitalization, he developed a design for a waterbed.
Hugh Hefner reportedly had a waterbed covered in Tasmanian possum hair.
The thylacine, commonly known as the Tasmanian tiger, was the largest known carnivorous marsupial of modern times. It is now considered extinct, although unconfirmed sightings do take place.
Charlie Chaplin’s 1936 comedy hit Modern Times was inspired, in part, by a conversation he had with Mahatma Gandhi about modern technology’s impact upon workers.
In his sermon at the recent wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, The Most Rev. Michael Curry, Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church, commented upon how fire made possible the Industrial Revolution that Chaplin and Gandhi worried dehumanized us:
Though the Pointer Sister’s cover of Bruce Springsteen’s composition “Fire” is the best known and most successful version, the first released recording of “Fire” was by neo-rockabilly singer Robert Gordon.
Bruce Springsteen was raised Roman Catholic, and he attended the St. Rose of Lima Catholic school in Freehold Borough NJ. St. Rose of Lima, Peru (1586-1617) was the first person born in the Americas to be canonized as a saint. The Roman Catholic Church says that many miracles followed her death: there were stories that she had cured a leper, and that, at the time of her death, the city of Lima smelled like roses; roses also started falling from the sky. Many places in the New World are named Santa Rosa after her.
Santa Rosa, California was founded in 1833 and named after Saint Rose of Lima.
Over 90% of the crew of HMS Mary Rose drowned when the warship unexpectedly capsized and sank during the Battle of the Solent on July 19, 1545. Many of them were trapped under anti-boarding netting over the upper decks. The ship’s wreck was raised in October 1982 and is still undergoing conservation and study in Portsmouth, England. It is open to visitors.
The Swedish warship Vasa was built in the 1620s. On its maiden voyage in 1628 she capsized and sank after sailing less than one mile at Stockholm harbor. Vasa was top-heavy and unstable, and poorly designed.
Comment: the Vasa Museum in Stockholm is fascinating. Vasa was raised and salvaged in 1961.
The reigning Swedish king, Carl XVI Gustaf, took the Silver Throne on September 15, 1973 on the death of his grandfather, King Gustaf VI Adolf.
Gustavus Vasa McLeod, a former CIA chemist, was the first man to fly an open-cockpit biplane (a Stearman) to the North Pole, and the first African-American to fly there at all. He and his daughter Hera competed in the 6th season of the US production of “The Amazing Race”. McLeod was named for a former British slave who was instrumental in abolition in the UK, and was himself named for a Swedish king.
The McLeod rake is a two-sided blade on a long, wooden-handle. It is a standard tool used during wildfire suppression and trail restoration. The combination tool was created in 1905 by Malcolm McLeod, a US Forest Service ranger at the Sierra National Forest. It has a large sharpened hoe-like blade on one side and a tined rake blade on the other. The McLeod was designed to rake fire lines with the teeth and cut branches and sod with the sharpened hoe edge.
WILDFIRE is the codename of the secret laboratory and research facility in Michael Crichton’s 1969 technothriller The Andromeda Strain, about a biological organism collected by an American atmospheric probe which kills off all but two people in a small Arizona town.
The Michael Martin Murphey song “Wildfire”, about a dead horse, drew the mockery of both Dave Barry and David Letterman, Barry for the line about the horse dying in a “killing frost”, Letterman for the line “leave sodbustin’ behind”.
On the December 20, 2000 episode of The Late Show with David Letterman, Letterman jokingly referred to the soft drink Dr Pepper as “liquid manure.” After the company complained, CBS agreed to never rerun that episode.
In 1972, Dr Pepper sued the Coca-Cola company for trademark infringement based on a soft drink marketed by Coca-Cola called “Peppo”. Coca-Cola renamed their beverage Dr. Pibb, which was also determined to violate the trademark. The soft drink was later renamed Mr Pibb.
Coca-Cola used coca leaf extract from 1885 to about 1903.
Boliviana negra, also known as supercoca or la millionaria, is a relatively new form of coca that is resistant to a herbicide called glyphosate. Glyphosate is a key ingredient in the multibillion-dollar aerial coca eradication campaign undertaken by the government of Colombia with U.S. financial and military backing known as Plan Colombia.
“I’m A Pepper, he’s a Pepper, she’s a Pepper, wouldn’t you like to be a Pepper,too?” was written by Barry Manilow, along with You deserve a break today, Like a good neighbor, I am stuck on Band-Aid brand, and other commercial jigle.
Adler Berriman "Barry" Seal was an American airline pilot who became a major drug smuggler for the Medellín Cartel of Colombia. When Seal was convicted of smuggling charges, he became an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration and testified in several major drug trials. He was murdered in 1986 by contract killers hired by Pablo Escobar, head of the Medellín Cartel.
Not in play: Annie, Mr. Manilow has much to answer for…