On a Sucker

Marvin Stone is one of those clever American inventors of the 1800s who came up with something so simple and so commonplace that we can’t imagine that anyone had to come up with it at all. Marvin was born in 1842 in Ohio, and his father was also an inventor. The boy grew up working with his father in the workshop, learning how to approach a problem from a mechanical engineering perspective. He began Oberlin College but his studies were interrupted by the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861.

Marvin served in the United States Army with distinction during the war, fighting in such battles as Lookout Mountain in Tennessee (where he was injured) and also served in an administrative position in Washington, D.C. After the war, Marvin was restless, first thinking about pursuing a theology career and also working for a time as a newspaper reporter. But the years growing up at his father’s side in the workshop called to him, and he returned to his roots as an inventor.

He soon made a contract with the Duke Tobacco Company in D.C. He is credited with inventing one of the first machines that rolled cigarettes. The Civil War had seen the decline of pipe smoking and the beginning of soldiers and the public turning to rolling cigarettes. Marvin’s invention made that process consistent and mechanized. Duke paid Marvin’s firm to make the rollers which they took and sold to the public. Soon, he built a factory to handle the demand for the cigarette roller. It made Marvin a comfortable living. He married a woman named Jennie Platt and settled down in the Washington area.

Marvin was generous with his new wealth. He built lodgings for the single female employees of his factory, for example, gave his workers with healthcare, and provided them with access to libraries and education in their off hours at a time when such a thing was unheard of. In addition, after seeing the deplorable living conditions of some minority residents of Washington, Marvin spearheaded efforts to build better housing for those residents at his own expense. For his efforts, his fellow manufacturing tycoons made fun of Marvin. He was one of those soft touches, they said, a real sucker. But Marvin knew that it was the right thing to do.

One hot summer afternoon, Jennie and Marvin were enjoying some drinks on their front porch. The drinks were mint juleps, if you must know. And while the drinks were refreshing on the stifling Washington day, while sipping them, Marvin had an epiphany. He began to do some research on his idea. What Marvin found was that his idea wasn’t new, and that disappointed him. Turns out, both the ancient Sumerians and Egyptians as well as the first civilizations of South America had come up with the idea. However, not all of his research was negative. It seemed that no new technology had been developed since the olden days, and that told Marvin that he could make a new version of what those old civilizations had first developed.

Soon, Marvin developed a prototype. It was 8 1/2 inches (22cm) long, made of paper and coated with wax. And it worked. Marvin patented the product in 1888. Cheap to mass produce, Marvin soon re-tooled a part of his factory to begin to produce the new product. Within a few months, Marvin began making more money from the sale of his new invention than he did from the cigarette rollers. Sadly, Marvin didn’t live to see how popular his creation became, how universal his invention was to be to the modern world of the 20th Century. He died after a long illness in 1899, leaving Jennie with a sizeable inheritance. And he left you and me a legacy that we enjoy today, when you go to a fast food place and get a drink or stop at a Buc-ee’s for a soda. Yes, we should think of that sucker, Marvin Stone, every time we take a sip of our drinks through his most important invention.

The straw.

On a Beautiful Village

Clovelly. The name of this English village itself contains the word “lovely,” and that’s a perfect description for this quaint fishing settlement on the north coast of the lower left (west) leg of England, almost directly north of Plymouth. If you’ve ever seen a puzzle box that features those brightly painted small fishing boats resting in a quiet little harbor with neatly kept character English houses lining the seafront behind them, well, then, you’ve probably seen Clovelly. There are several interesting things about the village that makes it unique in England and, in many ways, the world.

Take, for instance, that the village is built on a steep hill that ends at the waterfront. The streets of the town are still made of cobblestones–many of them the original ones. Slightly fewer than 500 souls live in the village’s 80 houses today. The population of Clovelly love the village. Most say they wouldn’t live anywhere else even if given the chance. Not that everything is easy in the village, because it’s not. For example, to take, well, anything up or down the hill, the villager can’t rely on cars because cars aren’t allowed in Clovelly. No, to take groceries, mail, supplies, or even a refrigerator up the hill from the harbor, the village has relied on sledges–almost every house has at least one–and these sledges are often pulled by donkeys. Now, this isn’t a description of life a few hundred years ago, but it is the reality of life for the Clovellites today. So, no cars are allowed. And, by the way, visitors to the village must pay the equivalent of $10 to enter. You’d think that would keep tourists away, but you’d be wrong. Clovelly is one of the most popular villages to visit in England, and it’s been labelled the prettiest village in Devon. Social media type have even given Clovelly the title of England’s Most Instagrammable Village.

Shortly after taking England in 1066, William the Conqueror “relieved” the Saxon lord who owned the village of his title, and William gave the village to his wife as a gift. Since then, only three families have owned the land that William originally took. That was in the day when the local lord owned all the land and only allowed the workers or peasants to live and work on it. Today, the most recent family (for the past few hundred years) who have lived in the lord’s house have been the Hamlyn Family. But it was the Cary Family who, in the 1600s, spent considerable money at that time to create a breakwater just off the coast to make a harbor. And harbor protected and sustained a fishing fleet that the village has maintained and used consistently make its livelihood from the sea. While fishing is still a mainstay of the population in Clovelly, now, of course, the main trade is tourism.

And then, there’s the houses and shops of the village itself. The Hamlyns will gladly pay for the residents to repair their habitations, but there’s a catch to the family footing the repair bill. The house must be kept to original specifications and, if possible, as close to the original materials as possible. That means the only exterior materials must be either stone (the newer dwellings) or cob (the older houses). Obviously, modern conveniences are in Clovelly, but people can’t make radical changes to the buildings. That’s because, in part, that the entire village is listed as a historic site. The result is that the whole place, according to one source, is like stepping into a time machine. You can walk down (or up) the main street and easily imagine you’re back in the 1700s rather than the 2000s.

And the Hamlyns prefer it that way. In fact, they insist. You see, the reason the Hamlyns insist on paying for repairs to the houses in the village is because they own the village. And the houses. And the surrounding land. All of it. Every inch. Clovelly is, today, the most picturesque of the last dozen privately owned villages in England.

And the happy people of Clovelly are fine with that.

On Meeting an Enemy

Staff Sergeant Erwin Meier of the German Luftwaffe was a highly decorated pilot during World War 2. Unlike most air forces of today, the Germans allowed non-commissioned officer to be pilots, and Meier was one of the best the Germans had. Flying his Messerschmitt Bf-109 machine, Meier had recorded double digit kills on the difficult Eastern Front of the war by 1942. For his service and skill, the pilot was awarded medals and other air awards. And that’s why, when he was shot down by a Russian pilot, he was somewhat surprised.

The time was September, 1942, and the decisive Battle of Stalingrad had finally begun to turn to the Soviets’ way. However, the end of the struggle was still undecided, and establishing air superiority was still important to both sides. While the Germans had their faster and more maneuverable Messerschmitts, the Russians were able to counter with their own fast and nimble Yaks. However, unlike the German crates, the speed of the Yaks was because they were made of wood and that made them much more vulnerable to enemy fire.

It was a clear day when a squad of four Yaks spotted some German bombers and their fighter escorts headed for the Russian lines around Stalingrad, and the Russians closed in for an attack. Meier saw the Russians at distance, and he peeled away from his group and looped back around to come in on the Russians from behind. Now, the pursuer became the pursued. Meier’s tactic was so bold and smart that he managed to gain an advantageous position on the rear of the Russian squad leader, a man named Major Danilov. As he was squeezing off some machine gun rounds into the now-splintering tail of the Russian’s plane, Meier felt a violent jolt. Somehow, a Russian pilot had managed to come in on his tail, and his Messerschmitt was being pelted with rounds. Several Russian rounds found his engine, and the German ace realized that his plane was doomed. He veered off from his attack on the Russian major and tried to keep his craft steady while he unlatched and then pushed back the glass covering over his head. He checked his horizon and then bailed out of the doomed aircraft, deploying his parachute after he was sure he had cleared the plane.

As he gently fell to earth under the canopy of white silk, Meier cursed himself for being so careless. How could he not have seen the pilot that snuck up on him from behind? That guy must be a good pilot, Meier thought. And, when he reached the safety of the ground, a squad of Russian soldiers were there to quickly take him captive. Meier thought he knew the names of the best Russian pilots he was facing daily in the skies above Stalingrad; he had studied their tactics and their tendencies, and, in his mind as he was being questioned and moved to a POW camp, Meier ran through the list of who he thought might have been the one who shot him down using such a good maneuver.

“Would it be possible to meet the pilot who shot me down?” he asked his questioners through the interpreter. Sure, came the answer back. The Russians were happy to oblige him because they realized that a meeting between their own pilot and the German hero would make for good publicity and would boost morale in the Soviet press, good news for a people hungry for any victory in the war, no matter what the size of it. So, Meier was taken to the makeshift airfield where Major Danilov’s squadron was based. And he was introduced to Lieutenant Litvyak, a 21 year old blond Russian who looked like someone you’d meet in a school yard rather than in a deadly air duel. But Meier thought the Russians were kidding him, trying to embarrass him. Surely, this kid couldn’t’ve been the expert pilot who got the drop on him and shot him down so expertly. Still incredulous, Meier asked Litvyak to describe how the short battle unfolded. The Russian described the encounter to a tee. Meier became convinced that this, this, this child had bested him in combat. The Russians, of course, were gleeful. For his part, Major Danilov acknowledged that Lt. Litvyak had saved his life, that he was probably doomed if Meier had been able to finish him off. What made it worse in Meier’s mind was that the young Russian pilot had only been on the front for less than a week and already been credited with three “kills” including Meier. The brave and skilled Lt. Litvyak would soon be promoted to command a squadron of Russian planes and be credited with dozens of sorties and several more kills before being shot down and killed in August of the next year.

But that was long after the Soviet propaganda machine made a big deal out of the fact that the German ace Erwin Meier had been bested in combat by a girl.

On a Voice Actor

Oswald Laurence isn’t a name you’ve heard, but his voice is possibly one you’re at least familiar with. One source says he was born in Germany in 1929 and died in London 78 years later. His chosen profession was acting, but, other than a handful of credits on British TV in the 1950s and 60s and some London theater work, Oswald didn’t have much success in that realm. So, mid-life, Oswald turned to the travel industry and became a tour guide for a cruise company.

It was while working for the travel company in Morocco that he met the love of his life, Dr. Margaret McCollom, a general practitioner on vacation there. And the two became inseparable. For 15 years, the couple lived together in a north London suburb until Oswald died in 2007. Margaret missed her love terribly; she had never met another person who loved life as much as Oswald did, even if he didn’t have great success as an actor.

And, in an attempt to be closer to her departed loved one, Margaret began visiting the Embankment Tube stop not too far from their home. Now, for those who don’t know, the Tube is London’s subway system. The different subway lines and their stops, such as the one at Embankment, saw tens of thousands of riders every day. Now, you might think it strange that Margaret would seek out a Tube stop to try to feel close to the man she missed terribly, but hear me out.

You see, back in 1969, the London transport system, the group that manages the subway system, had hired Oswald to make a recorded announcement. The announcement was a warning to people getting on and off the subway trains, a warning to be aware of the gap between the train doors and the station platform. Thus, Oswald’s recorded message said, in perfect British English, “Mind the gap.” And Margaret would sit at the Embankment tube station in 2007, almost 40 years after Oswald recorded the message, and hear hear beloved husband’s voice again and again as the train doors opened and closed. It made her feel less lonely, and it brought Oswald back to her, even for a few minutes.

But then, one day in November of that year, Margaret went to the station, and she didn’t hear Oswald’s voice. It was a new voice, a woman’s voice, now issuing the warning to the travelers. Margaret was crushed. She quickly contacted the Transport for London administrators and asked what had happened to Oswald’s voice. They told her that the system had been upgraded to a newer digital system, and that Oswald’s old analog recording was discarded. Well, as you can imagine, not being able to hear Oswald’s voice, that opened all the old wounds of his death for his widow. She no longer could sit at Embankment and hear her beloved Oswald.

That’s when something resembling a Christmas miracle happened. Hearing about her situation, a tech with the subway system managed to make a CD recording of Oswald’s voice. And, when an administrator higher up in the company also got wind of Margaret’s story, he resolved to see what he could do.

Just before Christmas of that year, Margaret had to travel by tube. She went to Embankment and waited for the train. As the doors opened, and she prepared to enter the subway car, Oswald’s voice once again boomed, “Mind the gap.” Margaret couldn’t believe her ears. She was overjoyed. It turns out that the Transport for London’s administrators had made the choice to bring back Oswald’s voice to the Embankment tube stop especially for Margaret. It was a wonderful Christmas gift, and Margaret could once again hear the tones of her beloved Oswald as he made the announcement over and over by digital recording.

Merry Christmas, one and all, and may there be peace on Earth.

On The Gift of the Magi

O. Henry was an American short story writer who created stories that usually had surprise endings. One of his most famous stories is called the Gift of the Magi. In the story, a man who has a pocket watch that he values sells it at Christmas in order to buy his wife some expensive combs for her long, lovely hair. Unbeknownst to him, his wife cut her hair and sold it to buy her loving husband an expensive chain for the watch he no longer had. With that in mind, here is a Christmas story that is not only true–and I know it because I am a witness to it–but it also filled me with good cheer and all the feels associated with gift giving and gratitude and the good things about the holiday season.

As you are reading this, I’m pet sitting for an elderly couple in a village in Surrey, southwest of London, England. There are four dogs here. Now, you’re probably familiar with the concept of guide dogs. If you’re not, you have probably seen people with sight issues who often have a dog with them. These guide dogs are especially trained assistance to people with seeing issues. The dogs have to undergo weeks of intensive training after displaying the types of characteristics and traits that are needed for the important tasks associated with assisting blind people.

The people who live here told me that about seven years ago they were able to get a beautiful Labrador puppy. He had a shiny black coat and intelligent eyes. He was an exceptional specimen. They named him Jasper. When he was about a year old, they had Jasper evaluated to see if he had the requisite characteristics for entering the guide dog program. The couple was told that Jasper was the perfect candidate for the guide dog program. So, wanting to keep him, but also recognizing that he could bring valuable help to someone with sight issues, they decided to turn him over to the guide dog program.

Jasper completed the initial school for training near the top of his class. He went on to what they call “big boy school“ and performed exceptionally well there also. Shortly after graduating, Jasper was assigned a young woman who came to depend on him for much of her daily tasks and mobility issues. At that point, happy that they had helped someone else with their gift, the people lost track of Jasper.

A couple that gave up the dog stayed in touch with the program and supported it financially over the next several years. About six months ago, they got a message from one of the administrators at the guide dog program asking them if they would be interested in adopting a dog, a dog that had recently been retired from the program. You see, guide dogs only stay with their assigned person for about seven years during their peak work and ability period. The administrator explained to the couple that they had a dog that had to be rehomed because the person with sight issues had developed health problems that required institutionalization. The dog was no longer needed, and, after having them with the person for about 5 1/2 years, and, having only about another year and a half left of useful working life, the dog was retiring early. Did the couple want to adopt the dog? After talking about it for a bit, the couple decided that yes, they would be interested in adopting the dog. In a small way, they felt like it was fitting that they would be able to provide a home for this dog in retirement after having given up a dog a few years before. So, they eagerly went to the foster home to meet their new dog and bring him to his new home.

When they got there, they couldn’t believe their eyes.

The dog that they were adopting turned out to be Jasper, the dog they had given up 5 1/2 years before.

The Magi continue to bring gifts, don’t they?

Happy Christmas, one and all.

On Some Market Testing

Repton School in Derbyshire, England, is one of those old British boarding public schools we read about and see featured in films. For most of its history, Repton was a boys’ school and became co-ed only in the 1970s. Founded almost 500 years ago by a rich benefactor, the school has seen many famous men come through its doors and go on to matriculate at Oxford, Cambridge, and other prestigious universities. It has the requisite ivy, stone buildings, and carefully manicured lawns. And, since so many young people were gathered in one place, a major British candy company decided to use Repton as a testing ground for some of its products in the 1920s and ’30s.

This particular company was much loved by most children (and many adults) both then and now. It was the Cadbury company, the maker of chocolates and candies for over 200 years. They are particularly known for their milk chocolates and their cream eggs. Today, they are second only to the Mars company in terms of suppliers of chocolate to a world desperate to get diabetes by ingesting sweet things. At any rate, once upon a time, Cadbury made an agreement with the Repton School to be able to use the school’s more than willing charges to test new recipes for their varieties of chocolate products.

Now, there was more to the deal than merely giving candy to schoolboys. Cadbury also sent questionnaires to the lads before sending the samples. They would ask what the boys liked in chocolate candy, what their favorite colors were, and what their hobbies and out of school interests were. Then, after the samples were consumed, more surveys were sent that were designed to mine the boys’ opinions about packaging, looks, taste, texture, as well as many other questions about the samples the boys tried. And then Cadbury would then collect that data and tweak their products based on the boys’ responses. It was a good (and economical) method of collecting market research from their core target group.

One of those students who sampled the Cadbury and then returned his opinions about the samples was awestruck by being a part of the market testing. Sadly, his time at Repton wasn’t particularly happy for many reasons, not the least of which was that his sister and father had died a few weeks from each other when he was little. Add to that familial grief was the fact that he found Repton to be a harsh place because of what he felt was inappropriate discipline by staff and rampant bullying by older students during his time there. A young boy who had been born in Wales, this particular student nevertheless became fascinated by the idea of a candy company that had the ability to make anything they wished. He dreamed, he later said, of creating a chocolate candy so wonderful, so amazing, that Mr. Cadbury himself would honor him for his creation. For him, a boy with a rich imagination, the type of job that would allow someone to make candy for a living, to bring joy to thousands of people seemed like a dream job. However, there was one other career besides chocolatier that also equally beckoned, and, fortunately for us, he grew up to answer that call.

But author Roald Dahl would never forget the sheer joy of taking part in Cadbury’s market research, and he would grow up to turn that experience into the story you know as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

On Some Shared Traumas

There’s a school of psychology that says the people we become in life are made by the impressions left on us as children. That certainly seems to be the case of a British boy named Al. You see, Al had some trauma in his formative years that stayed with him for the rest of his life. And it’s not that we all don’t have issues as adults due to some experiences we underwent during childhood, but Al’s traumas later revealed themselves in interesting ways.

But Al’s upbringing was surprisingly middle-class. His father was a grocer when Al was born in the summer of 1899, the youngest of three. The grocery (and, later, a restaurant) business was good, and the family could afford to send young Al to private schools for most of his life. But the trauma began one day when Al’s father handed him a folded note and asked him to take the note to the local police station in East London where the family lived. The boy, only five years old at the time, had the reputation for being a good kid. And that reputation must have worried Al’s father, because, when the policeman at the desk of the station read the note, he locked Al in a cell for several minutes. Apparently, the note asked the policeman to teach young Al a lesson, because, as he was being locked up, the policeman told Al, “This is what happens to bad boys.” The experience instilled such a fear of being caught in Al, such a fear of being enclosed and imprisoned, that he never liked policemen after that. As an adult, he refused to get a driver’s license because of his fear of being arrested unjustly. Before the experience, Al said he was like a spotless lamb, but, afterward, he became suspicious and untrusting.

The next “lesson” Al learned was fear-related as well. In Catholic schools, Al became incredibly afraid of impending punishment of the nuns who were often the teachers of his classes. The fear came to Al because the nuns would usually not tell the students if they were to receive smacks across their hands with a flat piece of wood until the end of the day. Thus, the students had to sit and wait to see if the punishment would be coming until the late afternoon. The suspense, the buildup to the possible hand-hitting at day’s end, provided Al with a fear that he remembered for the rest of his life. The fear, he said later, was often greater than the punishment itself. He became able as an adult to successfully convey that ability to build up fear and suspense to others.

But school also brought with it the passion that Al would retain his entire life–geography and travel. Specifically, the boy loved to travel by train and see the changing terrain fly by. He would keep that love of travel and especially train travel with him forever, too, even though it was not a traumatic memory for him. But, in his life’s work, he would often employ or use trains as a way to convey his other fears and traumas as they expressed themselves in what would become the artform Al became internationally know for.

In 1919, having worked a desk job in the army during World War I, Al answered an ad in the newspaper for an opening as a writer and production assistant in a new venture that had been brought to London. Soon, he became a director in the venture because of his ability to organize and to convey his vision to those around him. And that’s how you know Al, and that’s how you know the traumas of his youth, because you’ve experienced them along with him through his art.

Yes, even today, decades after his death, audiences are still indirectly traumatized by the experiences of the boy who became the acclaimed film director Alfred Hitchcock.

On a Bloodletting

To say that the field of medicine has exponentially advanced in the past decade is an understatement of epic proportions. Our knowledge of how our bodies work (and how and when they don’t) doubles every 80 days or so according to one source. That’s why it’s almost impossible to comprehend that, within the past 200 years, doctors often treated some sicknesses by bloodletting.

Bloodletting, in case you didn’t know, is the practice of removing not a small amount of blood from a sick person based on the idea that sicknesses were carried in the blood or that the removal of “bad blood” would aid a person’s recovery from an illness. Pints of blood were often removed from patients, almost always resulting in the afflicted person become more sick instead of getting better. Doctors of the day would usually employ a scalpel on a vein and then allow the blood to flow into a pan, large dish, or bowl. Sometimes, the doctors would use leeches placed all over the body of a patient, but this method was eventually discarded as being too slow to remove the “sick” blood from the affected person.

Part of the reason for the belief in bloodletting was that the human body contained four “humors:” Black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood. If one of these four got to be out of balance compared to the others, the belief was that this imbalance would result in sickness. Since there was more blood than these other “humors,” then it was thought that the offending humor was most often blood. Oh, and don’t look now, but the practice is still occurring in some cultures.

But we wish to look at the case of one elderly American man who came down with a sickness right before Christmas one year. He had been outdoors, on horseback, for several hours in snow, sleet, and freezing rain. When he returned home, he had a chill and took to his bed. When he awoke early the next day, he was feverish and shivering and complained of shortness of breath. His wife called a doctor to come to the elderly man’s bedside. Eventually, three different physicians were summoned, and they all agreed that the patient required a bloodletting.

Over the next several hours, the medical team took almost half a gallon of blood from the patient. They also gave him an enema and induced vomiting. All of this only weakened the sick old man even more. Believing that they had simply not taken enough blood from him, the doctors opened another vein and siphoned even more blood. By the morning of the second day of after coming back from the exposure, the old man succumbed to his illness…or, perhaps, he had succumbed to the extreme loss of blood because of his doctors’ treatment. It was 10 o’clock, December 14, 1799. He was buried four days later.

Of course, today, we know that the man probably would have survived the illness if his doctors had not practiced the bloodletting. This is a case of a patient probably being better off having never seen a doctor, let alone one that practiced this barbaric therapy.

But, while we may never know for sure, most modern doctors and scholars believe that it was the bloodletting that killed George Washington.

On a Colorblind Snowbird

If you’ve ever been to Florida, you know about snowbirds. They’re those denizens of the northern climes who go south–specifically to Florida–for the winter. And, in the early 1900s, one such wealthy snowbird decided to make Florida his winter home. His name was Edwin Binney, and he found that he loved the area of Florida he loved the most was around Fort Pierce on that state’s Atlantic Coast. Fort Pierce is about halfway between Melbourne and Palm Beach, and, in the time that Binney moved there, was not overly populated at all. And that’s what Binney liked.

He had made his fortune in collaboration with a relative, a man named Harold Smith. But, before that, he was born in 1866 and as a young man had worked in his father’s chemical factory in the town of Peekskill, New York. The company made all sorts of chemicals and compounds that were used in manufacturing, and the teenaged Binney began experimenting with various mixtures. Spurred by his father, a man who recognized his son’s passion, Binney came to develop the first dustless white chalk, the type used in classrooms today. After he joined forces with Smith, the two rebranded the company Binney & Smith and began producing art products and other school supplies including leaded pencils like we know today. But that wasn’t the product that really made Binney his money.

Binney proved to be a good addition to the town, even if he were there only a few weeks out of the year. He paid to have the city made into a deep water port by having a canal dredged linking it easier with the Atlantic. He also, during the beginnings of the Great Depression, provided financing for the local banks, thereby saving dozens of local businesses and farms from going bankrupt if the banks had failed during the economic downturn.

After a few winters in Fort Pierce, Binney decided that he didn’t want to snowbird any more. He wanted to move permanently to the Sunshine State. His wife, Alice, worried that they didn’t have the resources to live permanently away from the business. Binney assured her that they did, and the reason they did was in large part due to Alice herself. It was an art product that Alice had taken a great interest in that made them financially secure, after all.

You see, Binney had turned to Alice to help him develop the product because he was colorblind. He had a product that he knew would be successful if only he could land on the right color combination for the product. And that’s where Alice stepped in to help. The colors she chose for the product were green, blue, red, purple, orange, brown, black, and yellow. And Alice was also the one who chose to name the product. Using her education in languages, Alice chose the French word craie for chalk and combined it with another French word, oleaginou, because the product was made from oil. The company sold them for five cents a box and made a fortune. So, yes,, Binney assured Alice; they could easily afford to live in Florida permanently. And they did so, with Binney dying in 1934 and Alice living to 1960.

So, just know that even though the inventor was colorblind, it is because of his wife that, when you bought this product (and you have), you got 8 different colors and why the product is called Crayola Crayons.

On a Legendary Tribe

The ancient Greeks firmly believed that they existed, beyond a doubt. Classical Greek stories, poem, plays, and art all portray or depict them. And, yet, modern historians and archaeologists can find little trace of this legendary warrior tribe. However, because of the amount of art and literature surrounding their descriptions, we can get an idea of what the Greeks knew or believed that they knew about this group of warriors.

To begin with, the ancient texts aren’t quite sure where they originated, but while some sources point to the northern shore of the Black Sea, in the area that is now part of modern Ukraine, most of them say the tribe was from the southern, opposite coast. This area is now the northern part of Turkey. From this flat and fertile land, the tribe raided all along the Black Sea coastal areas and even ventured into the coasts of the Aegean Sea. This is where they encountered the ancient Greeks. Themiscyra, a Greek city in northern Turkey, is supposed to have originally been the capital city of the group. It was here that a supposed series of queens ruled over the people, most notably the legendary Queen Hippolyta. And, to be fair, modern archaeologists have found there some evidence of tombs that have contents and bodies that match the ancient Greek descriptions of the group.

The primary characteristic of the tribe was their war-like abilities. While we think of Greece being the home of arts and architecture, philosophy and learning, this other group was known as the “slayers of men” according to the so-called first historian, Herodotus. They were renowned for their abilities with the bow and the spear, and the idea of fear was not found among them, apparently. One of these warriors would gladly enter a fight with several enemies, and, more often than not, put them to rout. Thus, the tales of their bravery and their prowess preceded them. Their reputation was so fierce that, in battle, it was said that if the enemy found out that they were facing this particular group, they would often leave the battlefield rather than fight them. In fact, such an encounter with them is included in an obscure passage in Homer’s Iliad.

By the time of Alexander the Great, the tribe seems to have largely vanished except for the stories still told in that culture. One contemporary of Alexander supposedly wrote a story about Alexander fighting the tribe in an effort to show how mighty Alexander was, but, when the story was read the young Macedonian conqueror, he is supposed to have said, “Oh? Where was I when this battle was won?” The Roman poet, Vergil, writing over 250 years later, referred to the tribe, but, again, as only the stuff of legend.

Their name as it comes down to us today is also somewhat of a mystery. One legend said that the warriors cut off their right breast muscles so that their bows could be steadied next to their bodies. However, there is also no evidence that this was true even if the warrior tribe had existed. At any rate, that’s one source of the name that we know them by today: Those without breasts.

In Greek, the word is Amazon.