CHINESE NEW YEAR

The Chinese calendar and Zodiac are based on the 12 animals Budda enountered in his life journey.
Seek you sign, celebrate life and a year of good fortune!!


OX -1925, 1937, 1949, 1961, 1973, 1985, 1997, 2009 - Bright, patient and inspiring to others, you can be happy by yourself, yet make an outstanding parent. Marry a Snake or a Rooster. The Sheep will bring you trouble.


Rat -1924, 1936, 1948, 1960, 1972, 1984, 1996, 2008 - You are ambitious yet honest, prone to spend freely. Seldom make lasting friendships. Most compatible with Dragons and Monkeys. Least compatible with the horses.



Tiger - 1926, 1938, 1950, 1962, 1974, 1986, 1998, 2010 - Tiger people are aggressive, courageous, candid and sensitive. Look to the Horse and the Dog for your happiness. But beware of the Monkey.



Rabbit - 1927, 1939, 1951, 1963, 1975, 1987, 1999, 2011 - Luckiest of all signs, you are also talented and articulate. Affectionate, yet shy, you seek peace throughout your life. So marry a Sheep or a Boar. Your opposite is the Rooster



Dragon - 1928, 1940, 1952, 1964, 1976, 1988, 2000, 2012 - You are eccentric and your life is complex. You have a very passionate nature and abundant health. Marry a Monkey or Rat late in life. Avoid the Dog.



Snake - 1929, 1941, 1953, 1965, 1977, 1989, 2001, 2013 - You are wise and intense with a tendency towards physical beauty, vain and high tempered. The Boar is your enemy. The Rooster and Ox are your best signs.


Horse - 1930, 1942, 1954, 1966, 1978, 1990, 2002, 2014 - Popular and attractive to the opposite sex, you are often ostentatious and impatient. You need people. Marry a Tiger or a Dog early, but never a Rat.



Sheep - 1931, 1943, 1955, 1967, 1979, 1991, 2003, 2015 - Elegant and creative, you are timid and prefer anonymity. You are most compatible with the Boars and the Rabbits, but never the Ox.



Monkey - 1932, 1944, 1956, 1968, 1980, 1992, 2004, 2016 -You are very intelligent and are able to influence people. An enthusiastic achiever, you are easily discouraged and confused. Avoid the Tigers. Seek a Dragon or Rat.



Rooster - 1933, 1945, 1957, 1969, 1981, 1993, 2005, 2017 - A pioneer in spirit, you are devoted to work and quest after knowledge. You are selfish and eccentric. Rabbits are trouble for you. Snakes and Ox are fine.



Dog - 1934, 1946, 1958, 1970, 1982, 1994, 2006, 2018 - Loyal and honest, you work well with others. You are generous yet stubborn, and often selfish. Look to the Horse or Tiger. And watch out for Dragons.



Pig - 1935, 1947, 1959, 1971, 1983, 1995, 2007, 2019 - Nobel and chivalrous. Your friends will be life long, yet you are prone to marital strife. You should avoid other Boars. Marry a Rabbit or a Sheep.




Winnie, the Dog, wishes you a Happy New Year!

HUMOR DATED

Actor, Comedian. Well-known under the name "Charlie Weaver" for his appearances on "The Jack Paar Show" and "The Jonathan Winters Show," and remembered as the corner square on the game show "The Hollywood Squares." He was the grandfather of actress Roseanna Arquette.

Parr said Mondays were unexplainable for lower ratings, but not so when Arquette appeared.
His career spanned radio, movies, theatre and TV. At one time he had 13 daily radio shows from studios all over Chicago. His tight schedule forced him to find a creative way around downtown - a motor boat on the Chicago River.

Cliff says he developed the “Letters from Mamma” routine because “…I’m lazy and I don’t like to memorize things. So I write myself letters to read.”

One of my garage-sale finds is his 1959 book, “Charley Weaver’s Letters from Mamma”. Classic humor, funny, corny, timeless and never vulgar. Some jokes are old, maybe carved in stone, and sometimes the audience or reader beat him to the punch line; but no one ever tired of his homespun humor.

Mamma’s letters had a multitude of greetings and the latest happenings in Mount Idy and with father…..
“Dear Mickey” (Mamma always used to say, are you a man or a mouse)
“Dear Peyton” (Mamma always wanted me to have my own place)
“Dear Harry James” (Mamma said I should toot my own horn)
“Dear Rocket” (Mamma always wanted me to leave my pad and take off)
“Dear Ace” (Mamma always said I was a card.)
"Dear Gorgonzola" (Mamma always wanted me to be the big cheese.)

“Things are fine in Mount Idy.
Elsie Krack arrived back in town yesterday. You remember, son, she left town two weeks ago by rail. Leonard Box and Byron Ogg were carrying the rail."

"Ludlow Bean, the groom [at his wedding to Birdie Rodd], got pretty banged up at the wedding. Somebody hit him with some rice. It was still in the fifty-pound bag."

"The entire population of Mount Idy--308 souls in all--was rushed to the Mount Idy Emergency Hospital on Memorial Day, due to a slight oversight on the part of Ludlow Bean. At noon, the old Civil War cannon in the town square was fired, and everybody in town rushed out to the park and dove into our new swimming pool. Ludlow Bean was the only one who didn't go to the hospital. He was also the one who forgot to fill the pool."

"We all saw Elsie Krack the other day, which made us all very happy, because when you see Elsie at this time of the year it means six weeks of good weather."

"[Leonard Box and his wife] were such a lovely couple. She was so bowlegged and he was so knock-kneed that when they walked down the street they spelled OX."

"I was going to send you that $5 I owe you but I see I have already sealed the envelope."

"We had a fire in the bathroom. Luckily, it didn't spread to the house."

"We're all proud of Ludlow [Bean]. When he first came to Mount Idy, he started out in a small way. He started as an organ grinder, with one small monkey. He worked hard and saved. Two years later he expanded--now he has a pipe organ and a gorilla. He doesn't have any trouble with people putting money in the cup now."

“Well son, I must close now and go help your father.
He was coming up the stairs with five gallons of elderberry wine and slipped and fell clear down into the basement. Fortunately, he didn’t spill a drop - he kept his mouth closed.

Father found an old Civil War cannon ball and took a hammer to it in the back yard to see if it was still good - it was.

Father is now standing out in the yard and a bolt of lightening knocked him flat on his back. He is standing there again to see if lightening ever strikes twice in the same place. He’s on his back again - that should answer the question.

He just went down to the barn to feed the pigs with Grandpa Ogg. There’s a big fist fight going on down there. Grandpa doesn’t want to be fed to the pigs.

He just shook hands with Grandpa Ogg, and I’ve got to go take him a robe.”


Winnie

Makers Meet Their Maker

I must admit this little piece of OGR history is the result of my reading the Chicago Tribune’s article Makers Meet Their Makers and how the Egg McMuffin, Pringles, Nachos and more became a part of our lives. So off to some inventors who died in ‘08.

Herb Patterson, 89, invented the Egg McMuffin as his career began in Chicago’s McDonald’s advertising department. So fond of eggs Benedict that in ‘72, in his own Santa Barbara, CA franchisee, he created his hand-held version with a toasted English muffin, grilled Canadian bacon, cheese and an egg cooked in a ring mold.
200,000 million Egg Muffins are sold each year.
Ignore the saturated fat, cholesterol and calories and up that count!

Kurt Eberling, 77 invented Spaghetti-O’s after developing the recipe for Campbell’s Soup. How to get spaghetti and meatballs in a can? Well after dinner one night, he noticed a swirl of spaghetti in the sink in a circle shape. It sparked the “O” shaped pasta product in ‘65 and the famous “Uh-no, SpaghettiO’s” jingle.
Admit it, we all grew up on this stuff and many of us are still growin.

Carmen Rocha, 77, popularized Nachos. She didn’t invent it but BOY DID SHE MAKE it popular. It was a family childhood recipe of tortilla chips topped with cheese, japeleno peppers then baked, that her family enjoyed during Sunday afternoon televised football games. This waitress began making and serving it at the famed Los Angeles El Cholco Mexican Restaurant. Before long, not only the locals but the world was asking for those Rocha’s nachos. So at this year's Super Bowl Half Time, a high-five to Carmen as we gnash on.

Betty James, 90, named the Slinky. Her husband Richard, saw a spring fall off the table and thus "sprang" the idea for a toy. He found a foreign steel manufacturer to make the spring with the right tension and put Betty in charge of naming it. Like the old hat pin and racing form routine, she opened a dictionary to a random page and chose “Slinky”. For us kids, it meant hours of enjoyment and inventiveness counting the number of stairs it could slink.

Frederic Baur, 89, the Pringles can. A chemist by day who sought a way to uniformly package chips for Proctor & Gamble. A vertical can fit the bill for the uniform shape, look and taste of the Pringles Chip and the can were born. In ‘08 when he died he wanted his ashes buried in a “Pringles” can. His son, Larry said: “My siblings and I briefly debated what flavor to use…But I said, ‘Look we need to use the original’.”

Murray Jarvik, 84, nicotine patch. In the ‘50’s, a psychopharmacologist (yeah, look it up) studying d-lysergic acid that led to the hallucinogenic drug, LSD and with his team decades later researched the effects of nicotine absorption with the skin. In 1990, they patented the patch after it proved a successful way to help smokers quit by reducing nicotine cravings. Does Jarvik sound familiar? His nephew, Dr. Robert Jarvik developed the 1st artificial heart transplanted into humans.

So if you have broken a New Year's resolution and dined on Nachos, McMuffins, Spaghetti-O’s or puffed on that cigarette, be grateful for the patch, the “Jarvik” or the Slinky to take the edge off.