Tommy Contest Page 5
of the River Region
July 17, 2018 Published by PTK Corp.
The Neatest Little Paper Ever Read® To place an Ad, call: (334) 202-7285 TIDBITS® DRINKS
TEA by Janet Spencer Next to water, tea is the most-consumed beverage in the world. Worldwide, tea consumption equals all other beverages (aside from water), including coffee, chocolate, soft drinks, and alcohol, combined. Come along with Tidbits as we drink a cup of tea! A POPULAR DRINK • An average of 3 billion cups of tea are drunk every day around the world, with green tea being the most popular type of tea. In the U.S., 1.2 million pounds of tea leaves are used daily. • There are over 3,000 different varieties of tea, but all of it, whether black, green, white, or oolong comes from the same plant, Camellia sinesis, an evergreen shrub or small tree. The word “camellia” comes from the name of botanist Georg Kamel for whom the plant is named, and “sinesis” comes from the Latin word for China. Different types of tea come from different leaves that are plucked from the plant, as well as the different ways the leaves are treated after being harvested. • Herbal teas that come from plants other than Camellia sinesis such as chamomile or peppermint are not true teas, but are instead more accurately called “infusions.” Flavored teas, on the other hand, are made of real tea with various added essences, including herbal ones. • The story goes that tea was discovered nearly 5,000 years ago when a camellia blossom accidentally fell into a pot of boiling water belonging to Chinese emperor Shen Nung. Whether or not the story is true, it’s a fact that China now cultivates some of the world’s biggest tea plantations. • The earliest known physical evidence of tea was discovered in 2016 in the mausoleum of Emperor Jing of Han in China, proving that tea from the genus Camellia was drunk by Han Dynasty emperors as early as the 2nd century B.C. • China had a monopoly on tea for centuries, and export of the plants or seeds was forbidden by the Chinese government. In 1848, the British-owned East India Trading Company hired Scottish botanist Robert Fortune to travel to (Continued next page)
Vol 7 Issue 29 paul@riverregiontidbits.com
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Tidbits® of the River Region (Front page continued)
1. Is the book of Libitaria in the Old or New Testament or neither? 2. In Galatians 5:1, “Stand fast therefore in the ... wherewith Christ hath made us free”? Light, Liberty, Redemption, Resurrection 3. From John 8:32, “And ye shall know the ..., and ‘it’ shall make you free”? Word, Truth, Love, Forgiveness 4. In which book’s 6:7 does it say, “For he that is dead is freed from sin”? Isaiah, Daniel, Mark, Romans 5. How many times is the word “independence” mentioned in the Bible (KJV)? 0, 2, 11, 17 6. In Acts 22:28, who said, “But I was free born”? Paul, Bernice, Nicodemus, Phoebe Visit Wilson Casey’s new Trivia Fan Site at www.patreon. com/triviaguy. (c) 2018 King Features Synd., Inc.
By Chris Richcreek 1. Who was the last World Series winner before the Chicago Cubs in 2016 to reach the playoffs in the next season? 2. When was the last time before 2017 that the University of Miami, Fla., failed to make the NCAA postseason in baseball? 3. Name the only NFL defensive player to win the Pro Football Writers of America’s regular-season MVP Award. 4. St. Mary’s men’s basketball team has retired the numbers of three players who went on to NBA careers. Name two of them. 5. Through the 2017-18 season, how many consecutive seasons had the Pittsburgh Penguins reached the NHL playoffs? 6. Entering 2018, who was the last NASCAR Cup driver to win four races in a row? 7. When was the last time before 2017 that the U.S. won the Fed Cup in women’s tennis? (c) 2018 King Features Syndicate, Inc.
China, learn the secrets of tea manufacture, and smuggle back cuttings and seeds. Fortune disguised himself as a rich merchant and succeeded in his quest. His cuttings and seeds were planted in the British-owned territory of Darjeeling, India, where they flourished. Within his lifetime, Fortune saw India surpass China as the top exporter of tea. • Camellia sinensis grows in tropical climates with plenty of rain and acidic soils. It takes between three and five years before a newly planted tea shrub is ready for plucking. The higher the altitude, the longer it takes to reach maturity and the better the tea tastes. Once mature, the bush will yield tea for fifty years or more. The plant can grow to be the size of a small tree, reaching heights of 50 feet (15 m) or more, but is generally kept trimmed to the size of a shrub in order to make harvesting easier. The more it is pruned, the more new shoots appear, and it is the leaves and buds at the ends of the shoots that make the best tea. Tea is grown in over 50 countries worldwide. • Only the top one or two inches of the mature plant are picked. These buds and leaves are called “flushes.” A plant will grow a new flush every seven to 15 days during the growing season. The smallest leaves are the most valuable. • Once the tea leaves are picked, they are either left out in the sun to oxidize or not. When a slice of an apple turns brown, or a banana turns black, or a grape turns into a raisin, this is the effect of the enzyme action of oxidation. Tea leaves also oxidize and turn black when left out in heat and sunlight. Black tea is made from leaves that have oxidized. Green tea is made from leaves that have not been oxidized. Oxidation makes the tea taste stronger, and it also increases the shelf life of the tea. • The way the leaves are handled after harvest results in different types and flavors of tea. The leaves may be wilted, dried, crushed, rolled, twisted, fried, or roasted. But no matter how they are treated or what they taste like, teas contain few nutrients in any significant amount. TEA HISTORY • Before the tea bag, there was the “tea egg” and the “tea ball” – perforated metal containers filled with loose leaves and dropped into boiling water. • In 1907, American tea merchant Thomas Sullivan began distributing samples of his tea in small bags of Chinese silk with a drawstring, thinking that customers would throw away the bag and place the tea leaves in a metal tea ball to brew the tea. Instead, consumers skipped the tea ball altogether and simply placed the tea bag directly into the tea pot. Sullivan knew he was on to something, and the tea bag was invented. Today, 96% of all cups of tea drunk daily are brewed using tea bags. • Thomas Twining of England opened Britain’s first tea room in London in 1706, and it still operates today. The firm’s logo, created in 1787, is the world’s oldest in continuous use. Twining was soon selling more dried tea than brewed tea, and today Twinings sells over 50 kinds of tea world-wide. • In 1822, brothers Joseph and Edward Tetley sold salt from a pack horse in Yorkshire, England. They started to sell tea and were so successful they set up as “Joseph Tetley & Co.” tea merchants in 1837, relocating to London in 1856. Today Tetley is the largest tea company in the United Kingdom and Canada, and the second largest in the U.S. • As a young man in Scotland, Thomas Lipton helped his parents run their grocery store. Later he opened his own store, which was so successful that he kept opening more. He engaged in innovative marketing techniques including staging parades and hiring brass bands. By 1888 he owned over 300 stores. • Around that time, the price of tea began to fall, and middle-class customers could now afford it. Spotting an opportunity, Thomas opened a tea trading office and established wholesale distribution channels that allowed working-class people to be able to easily afford tea. He bought his tea in such large amounts that he was able to undercut prices. • This was so successful that he began to invest in tea plantations. In Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) coffee plantation owners had recently suffered a coffee blight that ruined their crop, so Thomas convinced them to plant tea instead. In a time when most tea was sold by the pound, Thomas pioneered selling it in individual single-serving bags. Today Lipton is the top selling tea in the world. • Oolong tea comes from tea leaves that are long, dark, and curly like the neck of a dragon. The word “oolong” comes from the Chinese phrase meaning “black dragon tea.”
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by Samantha Weaver * It was pop art icon Andy Warhol who made the following sage observation: “It’s the movies that have really been running things in America since they were invented. They show you what to do, how to do it, when to do it, how to feel about it, and how to look when you feel about it.” * Those who study such things say that by the year 2020, more data will be created in a single hour than had been created in the entire world over the 30,000 years leading up to the 21stÊcentury. * A woman in Tennessee was once arrested for biking while intoxicated -- she was on a stationary bike at the gym at the time. * When the Coca-Cola Company first started marketing its product in China, the advertisements used Chinese symbols to spell out the brand’s name phonetically. It was only after the ads had been published that the marketers learned that those symbols spelled out the phrase “bite the wax tadpole.” Ê * Earthquakes occur at a rate of about one every minute around the world. About eight of those each year are considered to be major, registering above 7.0 on the Richter Scale. Ê * Velcro came to market in 1957, after a Swiss inventor named George De Mestral spent nearly 10 years developing the idea. His inspiration came to him in 1948 on a hike, when he had difficulty removing tenacious little burrs from his clothes. He reasoned that if he could create synthetic burrs, they could be used as fasteners. * When Great Britain’s current Queen Elizabeth -- then Princess Elizabeth -- wed Prince Philip, their wedding cake weighed a whopping 500 pounds. *** Thought for the Day: “I always find it more difficult to say the things I mean than the things I don’t.” -- W. Somerset Maugham (c) 2018 King Features Synd., Inc.
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Tidbits® of the River Region
Fray, George Jason White/Male 6’2” 145 lbs 51 yrs old Hair: Brown Eyes: Brown * On July 21, 1861, war erupts on a large scale when Confederate forces under P.T. Beauregard turn back Union Gen. Irvin McDowell’s troops in Virginia. Inexperienced soldiers on both sides slugged it out in a chaotic battle that resulted in a humiliating retreat by the Yankees.
Outstanding Warrants: Theft of Property 2nd Criminal Trespass 2nd
* On July 22, 1916, in San Francisco, a bomb hidden in a suitcase at a Preparedness Day parade on Market Street kills 10 people and wounds 40. The parade was organized by the Chamber of Commerce in support of America’s possible entry into World War I. * On July 18, 1925, seven months after being released from Landsberg jail, Adolf Hitler publishes the first volume of his personal manifesto, “Mein Kampf,” the blueprint for his plan of Nazi world domination. * On July 17, 1938, Douglas “Wrong Way” Corrigan takes off from New York, ostentatiously pointed west. Twenty-eight hours later, Corrigan landed in Dublin, Ireland, and asked, “Where am I?” He claimed that he got lost. * On July 16, 1945, the Manhattan Project comes to an explosive end as the first atom bomb is successfully tested in Alamogordo, New Mexico. In 1939, Albert Einstein had written to President Roosevelt supporting the theory that an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction had potential as a basis for a weapon of mass destruction. * On July 19, 1956, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles announces that the United States was withdrawing its offer of $70 million in financial aid to Egypt to help with the construction of the Aswan Dam on the Nile River. The Soviets rushed to Egypt’s aid. * On July 20, 1976, the seventh anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, the Viking 1 lander becomes the first spacecraft to land safely on Mars. It sent back the first close-up photographs of the rust-colored Martian surface. (c) 2018 Hearst Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Outstanding Warrants:
Williams, Cedrick DOB: 08/27/1993 Black/Male 5’4” 160 lbs Hair: Black Eyes: Brown
Wanted for: Probation Revocation Theft of Property 1st
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“Be known before you’re needed” Advertise with Tidbits (334) 202-7285 FINGERNAIL FILE
1. Who wrote and released “Right Down the Line”? Where’s he from? 2. What was the name of David Gates’ first solo album? 3. Who released “I’ll Be in Trouble”? 4. Which group released “Where Did Our Love Go”? 5. Name the song that contains this lyric: “Where’s his jacket and his old blue jeans, If this ain’t healthy it is some kinda clean.” Answers 1. Gerry Rafferty, in 1978. The song spent four weeks in the No. 1 slot in the U.S. He’s from Scotland. 2. “First,” recorded in 1973. Gates was the lead singer for Bread. The group netted only one No. 1 song, “Make It With You” in 1970. 3. The Temptations, in 1964. Songwriter Smokey Robinson was disappointed by its lack of success and turned his attention instead to “My Girl,” creating The Temptations’ first No. 1 hit. 4. The Supremes, in 1964. Before recording, the group wasn’t happy with the song, saying it lacked a hook. The song went to No. 1. 5. “Chuck E’s in Love,” by Rickie Lee Jones in 1979. Jones had a friend by the name of Chuck who suddenly disappeared. Turned out he’d moved out of state overnight to be with a girl he loved. (c) 2018 King Features Synd., Inc.
• William Bean was a doctor at the University of Iowa College of Medicine. In 1941 at the age of 32, he used a small file to mark the point on his thumbnail where it emerged from the cuticle. Then, on the first day of every month for the next 35 years, he did the same thing. He regularly measured the growth of his thumbnail and took notes on the progression. In 1980 his findings were published in the Archives of Internal Medicine in an article called “Nail Growth: 35 Years of Observation.” Thanks in large part to Dr. Bean’s efforts, here’s some of the things we now know about fingernails: • The average rate of growth for a fingernail is about an 1/8th of an inch per month. • They grow faster when it’s warm and slower when it’s cold; faster on the right hand of a righthanded person than on the left; faster during the day and slower at night; faster in youth and slower in old age; faster during pregnancy and slower during illnesses. • The fastest growing nail is the one on your middle finger. The slowest growing nail is your thumb nail. • Freshly cut nails grow faster than nails that aren’t cut regularly. • Men’s nails grow faster than women’s nails. • Under the skin, the nail beds extend back nearly to the first joint. • Fingernails grow faster than toenails. Toenails are approximately twice as thick as fingernails. • Nails and hair are made of the same thing: keratin. The molecules are arranged differently. • White spots on the nails are caused by trauma to the nail, in just the same way that folding or denting a clear piece of plastic leaves a white mark. • Among mammals, only primates and humans have nails instead of claws. • Humans have an extremely sensitive sense of touch. Your finger tips are filled with extra sensitive nerves that are stimulated as you grasp something, and the fingertips and nails work together to sandwich these nerves, and heighten the sense of touch. Humans are capable of sensing an object less than the width of a human hair, and you can test this yourself by plucking a hair, placing it on a table, and running your finger over it. This allows us to have extreme dexterity in our hands, which is likely due to being descended from primates who lived in trees where grip is essential for survival. • Nail biting is called onychophagia, from the Greek words meaning literally “claw eater.” Roughly half of children between 10 and 18 bite their nails. • The cuticle seals moisture in and keeps germs out of the nail bed. • The crescent shaped whitish area of the nail bed is called the lunula, which is Latin meaning “little moon.” It’s the visible part of the root of the nail, and is usually most visible on the thumb. • The fingernail length record-holder for women is Lee Redmond of the U.S., who set the record in 2008 with nails on both hands totaling 28 feet (850 cm) in length, with the longest nail on her right thumb being 2 feet 11 inches (89 cm). • The current fingernail length record-holder for men, according to Guinness, is Shridhar Chillal from India who set the record in 1998 with a combined length of 20 feet 2.25 inches (615.32 cm) of nails on his left hand. His longest nail, on his thumb, was 4 feet 9.6 inches (146.3 cm) long.
Rhonda Givens Please call 334-202-7285 within 7 days of this issue to claim your prize!
Tommy Count ______ This week’s winner receives
2 tickets to the
Wetumpka Depot Players Register to win by sending an email to entertommycontest@gmail.com or USPS to PTK Corp., PO Box 264, Wetumpka, AL 36092 with the following information: 1) Your name (first and last), and, 2) the number of times you find Tommy in the ads in the paper. From the correct entries a winner will be selected. You must be 18 years of age to qualify. The gift certificates will range in value from $25 to $100 each week. Entries must be received by midnight each Friday evening.
Last Week’s Ads where
Tommy was hiding:
1. Business Opportunities, p.2
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TidbitsÂŽ of the River Region
“Be known before you’re needed” Advertise with Tidbits (334) 202-7285 Fabulous Food
PEZ
BIBLE TRIVIA ANSWERS:
1) Neither; 2) Liberty; 3) Truth; 4) Romans; 5) 0; 6) Paul
1. The 2011 St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series and made the playoffs in 2012. 2. It was 1972. 3. Lawrence Taylor of the New York Giants, in 1986. 4. Tom Meschery, Matthew Dellavedova and Patty Mills. 5. Twelve straight seasons (2007-2018). 6. Jimmie Johnson, in 2007. 7. It was 2000.
• Eduard Haas wanted to help people quit smoking, so he invented a small mint to give smokers something to suck on to help them over their cravings. The mints also appealed to smokers wanting to mask their breath. • Setting up a factory in 1927 in Austria, Eduard packed the mints in a tin box designed to look like a cigarette lighter. Because they were mint-flavored, he abbreviated the German word for peppermint, pfefferminze, and named the candy after it: PEZ. • The candy was popular, but for the next 20 years, marketing was aimed at adults, and smokers in particular. Eventually the tin box was redesigned so it would dispense the mints one at a time which allowed the mints to be shared without being touched. • The mints, which were originally round, were redesigned to be rectangular instead. This made them easier to be wrapped and kept production costs low. • After World War II, Eduard wanted to expand operations to the U.S. He formulated a marketing strategy aimed at children. By placing a cartoon head upon the dispenser and by replacing the metal with plastic, he turned the candy dispenser into a toy. • Santa Claus, Popeye, and Mickey Mouse were among the first cartoon heads used. They were followed by a robot and a space gun, which shot candies out of the muzzle. In 1962, the PEZ Corporation teamed up with Disney to produce many Disney character heads, though Mickey Mouse continued to out-sell them all. Because they are so often tucked into Christmas stockings, Santa Claus continues to be a top seller as well. To date, over 500 cartoon toppers have been created. • When he found that the strong mint flavor of PEZ was unpopular with children, he experimented with fruit flavors instead. • The raw ingredients in PEZ candy undergo 3,000 pounds of pressure to become the tiny tablets. Each package has only 12 candies. • Several real-life people have graced the tops of PEZ poppers. In 1976, Betsy Ross, Paul Revere and Daniel Boone were on Bicentennial Commemorative PEZ dispensers; several U.S. presidents have been featured, as well as the members of KISS. • At one point there was a PEZ dispenser on a necklace that dispensed candy-scented perfume instead of candy. • One of the rarest PEZ characters was called the “Make a Face” PEZ and it came with little noses and eyes that you could use to design your own dispenser, just like Mr. Potato Head. Kids started choking on the pieces and the dispenser had to be recalled. • One of the most valuable PEZ dispensers was the “political donkey” dispenser which was originally owned by John F. Kennedy. It sold for $13,000. And a set of dispensers shaped like Prince William and Kate Middleton sold at a charity auction for $13,360. • Another rare one depicts Adolf Hitler. It was a bootleg item, created by a guy who bought generic PEZ heads and hand-painted them to resemble Hitler, then sold them by mail. PEZ lawyers cracked down on the counterfeits but not before about 80 of them were sold. Of those, about 50 are thought to still exist. • Today the candy comes in over a dozen different flavors, and over three billion of the tiny square mints are sold annually. PEZ dispensers are made in China, Slovenia and Austria, then shipped to the world’s only PEZ candy factory in Orange, Connecticut, where candy and toy dispensers are paired up and packaged. The factory in Orange produces 12 million tablets of PEZ every day and uses up 50,000 pounds of sugar every four days.
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Kids and Chores The word was out from the fire marshal in California’s Santa Cruz mountains to remove dry brush, firewood and debris close to cabins and homes, to help protect them from possible wildfires. My summer neighbor, Stephanie Timmerman, and her three granddaughters heeded the call and worked together to move logs from a downed tree near their cabin porch. “When we woke up, we were going to go to play at a nearby park,” said 9-year-old Mercedes Lopez. “But we first wanted to help Grandma with the big chore, before she went home to San Francisco.” All morning long, they hoisted split wood onto a wagon, and rolled larger loads down the hill to the edge of the property. “Sharing chores is essential to family life,” said Stephanie. “The home is a little community, and there are basic things that need to be done to maintain it. I tell my grandkids that we have to cook and eat, so we need clean pots and pans and dishes and silverware to do that. Neatness and order are important, too, as we complete daily chores, including today’s task of stacking wood. Plus, we have a good time together getting a job done. Maybe you heard us laughing as we attempted to roll those big logs that take a lot of muscle,” she said to me. Indeed, I had, which made me think about chores and how they are important to building healthy families. Here are my tips as your family approaches a new spring season. Everyone can share in tasks and celebrate the satisfaction of jobs well done. Preschoolers: For the under-5’s, work and play are essentially the same. Hanging out with you, whether doing kitchen chores, cleaning the house or tackling yard work is fun. Give them tasks in small doses, and cheer them on with praise. Don’t be too picky. They’ll develop standards later. For now, let them be proud to be making a contribution. School age: As they develop skills, emphasize giving them tasks doing things they like to do. Don’t just hand off drudgery chores, especially those you don’t like. Match their passions with a chore. If your preteen likes cooking, teach him how to use a good knife, and let him do the slicing and dicing for your next ratatouille. Teens: Give them responsibility, not just tasks. Let her make the basic plans for your next vacation. Or, your young driver might take charge of care and repair of the family vehicle. *** Donna Erickson’s award-winning series “Donna’s Day” is airing on public television nationwide. To find more of her creative family recipes and activities, visit www.donnasday.com and link to the NEW Donna’s Day Facebook fan page. Her latest book is “Donna Erickson’s Fabulous Funstuff for Families.” (c) 2018 Donna Erickson Distributed by King Features Synd.
Tidbits® of the River Region