Margaret Fuller once said: “If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it.”
So pull out your candles, everybody. It is time for some fast facts.
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How things unwind.
• If you stretch a standard Slinky out flat, it measures 87 feet long.
I had a Slinky when I was a kid. I’m pretty sure I tried this. I’m pretty sure I ruined my Slinky. I may have even hurt myself in the process.
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Since we are talking about childhood toys.
• If you drop silly putty from high enough, it will shatter like glass when it hits the ground.
I’m sort of glad I didn’t know this when I was young. I’m glad my sister didn’t know it, either. We were constantly testing these sorts of things. Once, after watching an old war movie where they were tossing around grenades like confetti, my sister went up into the attic with the household “basket of curlers” and a roll of toilet paper. She stuffed the paper inside the curlers and lit them with matches, one by one, launching them out the attic window. The parental figures were not amused.
I’m just saying. I’m glad we didn’t know the Silly Putty thing. I’m not sure where that would have taken us. Probably onto the roof.
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And then there were the television programs of my youth. Here’s a thing.
• They never say, “Beam me up, Scotty,” on Star Trek.
I’ve never watched too much Star Trek. But I said this phrase plenty in college. One of the friends in our group was named Scott. We used to say, “Beam me up, Scotty,” when we wanted him to pour us another drink. Then when he handed it to us, we’d make the Spock hand signal and say, “Live long and prosper.” Oh, we were full of ourselves.
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Then, there are the communications of the non-Star Trek variety.
• In 2007, a Bosnian couple divorced after discovering both had an online affair with each other under fake names.
All I have to say? They deserved each other.
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Speaking of being in the same place at the same time, there is this.
• The Great Pyramid was built before the last Wooly Mammoth died.
It is true. They roamed the cold tundra of Europe, Asia, and North America from about 300,000 years ago up until about 10,000 years ago. But the last known group of woolly mammoths survived until about 1650 B.C.—that’s over a thousand years after the Pyramids at Giza were built.
Now, unless a wooly mammoth decided to go south for vacation, I’m guessing none of them ever saw the pyramids. But there everybody was, sharing the planet, one big happy, hairy family.
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And to wrap things up.
Thank goodness I’m finding this last fact in November. Our pool has been closed for almost a month now. But during the open hours?
• An average of 17% of people pee in a pool.
That is 1 out of 5, almost.
From this day forward, I swim alone.
So. Now that those waxy candles of knowledge are dripping all over the place, take your candlesticks forward, and be a beacon of knowing.
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“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”
― Socrates
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“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.”
― Albert Einstein
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“The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.”
― Robertson Davies, Tempest-Tost
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The knowledge of the dripping candle.
