Tag: Funny

Doodling around with the origins of ‘Yankee’

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The label does have a range of applications, from residents of the six-state New England region or Connecticut in particular to a Manhattan professional baseball team to anyone north of Dixie (often prefaced with “damn”) to anyone from the USA who lands in a foreign country.

Along with the shortened “Yank.” Or its many uses as an adjective.

The word’s origins, though, are contested.

  1. The earliest recorded use is credited to British General James Wolfe in 1758 when he complained about the Americans under his command. The British continued to use it in a derogatory fashion. The pompous fools.
  2. A largely dismissed theory had it arising in a French word for English-speaker that the Wyandot rendered into Y’an-gee.
  3. Another had it being adopted when New Englanders defeated a Native tribe who had identified themselves as Yankoos – meaning invincible. Problem there is the tribe must have been invisible all along.
  4. More likely is a derogatory Dutch-language origin in the early 1600s through New Amsterdam, beginning with the name Jan, for John, pronounced Yan. One theory has Jan being applied to any Dutch-speaking English colonist, a kind of winking acknowledgement that they could converse. How about having it originate among those Dutch-speaking Englishmen? I haven’t seen that suggestion before.
  5. Or it may have been imported from the Old World as Jan Kaas, “John Cheese,” a generic nickname the Flemish had for Dutch in the north.
  6. Or Jan might have been combined with another popular Dutch name, Kees, into Yankee, as English-speakers turned it against the New Netherlanders.
  7. And then those New Netherlanders soon slapped the word on English colonists in nearby Connecticut.
  8. By 1681 there may have even been a Dutch pirate, Captain Yanky or Yanke. The Dutch settlers, now subsumed into the English colony of New York, may have seen the Brits as pirates. Sounds awfully late in the timeline for me. I think it was definitely widespread slang before that.
  9. By the time of the Revolutionary War, the song “Yankee Doodle” was well established. Whatever its original intentions of mocking the Americans as simpletons, New Englanders took it as a badge of honor, macaroni and all.
  10. Somehow, after the Revolution, it became a synonym for Protestants descended from New England Puritans and their values. Take “Yankee ingenuity” as a prime example.

None of these quite convince me, but I feel Scottish, Swedish, and even Persian roots are even less likely.

Pumpkins are no longer just a Halloween and Thanksgiving thing

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

At least in New England, pumpkins have become a ubiquitous autumn flavoring, from bread and doughnuts to muffins and classic cheesecakes and pies. I still balk at beer.

Here are some more facts to chew on:

  1. They’re actually fruits, though I’m glad they don’t grow on trees. And, yes, they’re technically also vegetables, something they share in common with watermelons.
  2. Each pumpkin contains about 500 seeds. For the record, many birds love those. Roasted, for humans, they’re low in calories and rich in iron.
  3. Some varieties can grow 50 pounds a day.
  4. Every part of a pumpkin is edible, including the blossoms – well, they share that with other squashes.
  5. As pie, pumpkin is America’s favorite Thanksgiving dessert.
  6. For the record, small sugar squashes are superior in taste to pumpkins for making those pies or also soups.
  7. The orange color comes from the same chemical that gives carrots and sweet potatoes their distinctive look. It’s good for Vitamin A, which in turn aids eye and skin health and supports your immune system.
  8. The first Jack o’ Lanterns weren’t carved from pumpkins but rather turnips. The practice arises in an Irish tradition regarding someone who tried to get the Devil to cover his bar tab and failed. Irish emigrants to America found the pumpkin superior to a turnip for those carvings.
  9. Illinois produces more than twice as many pumpkins as its nearest rival in the USA.
  10. The heaviest pumpkin grown in America was by Steve Geddes of New Hampshire in 2018 – a 2,528-pound monster.

 

Now for Machias

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

The governmental seat for sprawling Washington County is the town of Machias, or “bad little falls” in the river where it meets an arm of the Atlantic. Well, others have suggested the Passamaquoddy term would be more accurately rendered as “nasty” or something I suspect is much worse. From what I’ve seen, going over the cataract at the tidal line in a canoe or any other kind of boat would have been fatal. Not that I want to tempt anyone to prove me wrong, like those who have actually gone over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

That said, let’s look at some more facts about the town and its neighboring East Machias, Machiasport, and related neighborhoods.

Centre Street Congregational Church, erected in 1836.

~*~

  1. It’s pronounced “maaah-chEYE-us,” the central syllable running along the lines of a hardened SHY.
  2. Washington Academy in East Machias is not only among the oldest boarding schools in the country, but thanks to publicly-funded tuition students from neighboring towns, it’s also the largest high school in the county. It does attract an elite from abroad. Go Raiders.
  3. The state university branch campus is often ridiculed but definitely working toward an upgrade.
  4. An initial English attempt at settlement in 1633 was rebuffed by a French attack, creating a gap of more than 120 years.
  5. Machias is the birthplace of the U.S. Navy, and its inaugural victory was won, in part, with pitchforks. I’m not kidding. Look it up. I’ll even suggest it as a plot for a comic opera. Notably, Passamaquoddy Natives were instrumental on the colonists’ side.
  6. It briefly flourished as a lumber exporting center in the late 1800s.
  7. ATV riders will find a great entry to the Downeast Sunrise Trail here. The path follows an old railroad line.
  8. The flea market atop the causeway on U.S. 1 can be delightful, especially Earle’s fresh seafood truck toward weekends. I do have to wonder how the reconstruction of that crossing will affect tradition.
  9. Its emergency room and hospital are often favored over those in Calais. I won’t get into the details.
  10. We do love the general store and natural foods emporium. As for the tiny movie theater? Still on our to-do list. Best wishes.

 

There are things about aging I really don’t like

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 6 Comments

Oh, my, facing this can be painful.

  1. My mountain climbing days are past.
  2. I’m not as flexible as I was, and my sense of balance is unreliable. It’s even led to feeling queasy on heights, a realm I once fearlessly loved. And a fall late at night can be terrifying.
  3. Along with spidery thin hair.
  4. As for the bladder?
  5. Slower mental recall, along with hearing.
  6. Declining mojo.
  7. Can’t get warm in winter. Or autumn. Or early spring. I’ve always been cold-blooded, but geez Louise!
  8. Being addressed as “Sir” by polite female teens. I am, after all, emotionally still 17.
  9. The shrinking horizon of life goals and dreams. Like is that best-seller ever going to happen, really?
  10. All the damned pills in the morning.

Gee, and we haven’t even gotten to an inability to understand pop “culture” or the appearance of varicose veins.

Forget what you think you know about pirates

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

The popular image, shiver me timbers, comes straight out of Disney.

To set the record straight:

  1. They didn’t punish people by making them walk a plank blindfolded. Instead, the victims were killed immediately or keelhauled – tied to a rope and dragged behind the ship.
  2. They didn’t say “Ahoy!” or “Matey!” I’m not so sure about “Argh!”
  3. Female pirates had to disguise themselves as men to protect themselves. But, by some accounts, there were many of them.
  4. Forget the buried treasure. And their loot was often something other than gold or jewelry.
  5. In fact, maps and some books were more treasured as booty than gold.
  6. Captains were elected and could be removed. Who would have thunk?
  7. The eyepatch wasn’t to hide a missing eye but rather to allow for rapid visual adjustment between above deck and below. Anyone want to try that for verification?
  8. Conditions aboard a pirate ship were often more civilized than those on merchant vessels, where lousy rations and low pay were often common.
  9. The skull-and-crossbones Jolly Roger wasn’t the only terrifying pirate flag, by far. How about Black Bart’s one having himself holding an hourglass with the Devil? Or Captain Low’s blood-red skeleton standing at the ready?
  10. Pirates still flourish today, especially in the Indian Ocean and parts of the Pacific.

Well, Eastport’s annual pirate weekend festival’s coming up. We’re bracing for the invasion.

Clammed up pun

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

We’ve driven past the site countless times without noticing the motto on the now abandoned motel and restaurant. Oh, shucks.

Here’s the stone dam behind it, its pond long drained, built for the famed iron works in Pembroke in 1832. Here it’s seen from away from the U.S. 1 highway.

 

Calais, the one just north of us

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The biggest municipality in sprawling Washington County is the city of Calais, pronounced CAL-us, like hardened skin, rather than the French Cal-LAY, its namesake port on the English Channel.

Set north of Eastport and having a population of slightly more than 3,000, it’s the retail hub of the county and neighboring Canada and the principal international border crossing for traffic to and from the industrial port city of Saint John, New Brunswick, and other coastal points.

With that in mind, here are a few more facts.

  1. Thanks to the border traffic, much of it as Sunbury tractor-trailer rigs, Calais has all of the permanent traffic lights in the county. Three, make that four, if I’m counting right. Yup, pay attention.
  2. It’s the eastern terminus for the Airline Highway, a section of State Route 9 that connects those trucks to Interstate 95 in Bangor and all points south and west in the U.S.
  3. Calais abuts Saint Stephen in Canada, which has both a candy museum and manufacturer and the best health fitness center in our region. The Saint Croix river separates them before continuing upstream as the international boundary.
  4. Calais has the only new auto dealership in the county, as well as the only Walmart.
  5. It’s home to the community college.
  6. The first European to explore the place was Samuel de Champlain in 1604.
  7. That year he was one of two leaders in settling on an island in the tidal stretch of the river. That effort was abandoned the following spring after a brutal winter in which more than half of the colonists perished. Had the venture succeeded, it’s possible we’d all be speaking French here. Today the site of this first French settlement in New France is commemorated at the Saint Croix international historical park.
  8. While its name honors French assistance to the American Revolution, I should also point out that the original had also sometimes been part of England.
  9. It was first settled by Daniel David Hill of York County, Maine. He was likely a descendant from an old Quaker family affiliated with Dover, New Hampshire.
  10. In summer, it’s often much hotter than Eastport. In winter, it’s typically colder.

Oh, yes, there’s even a tiny movie theater we want to check out.

 

The interior static continues

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

Ten more random notes in no particular order:

  1. The “award-winning” writer or actor or whatever is such a cliché anymore I will assume everyone’s won prizes. It’s the ones with money that count.
  2. Jail visitation makes the inmates feel safe, gives them respect.
  3. A surprise way to increase your wealth. Hit square on the calculator! Beats the interest multiplier for sure. Could this be the secret of cryptocurrency?
  4. I see she’s moved back to Allentown from Rhode Island.
  5. Cops at the coffee shop. What an iconic image.
  6. Playing cards were invented during the reign of Tudor king Henry VII (1485-1509) and his wife, Elizabeth of York. Their portraits have appeared eight times on every deck ever since.
  7. New leap for storing leeks through the winter: peat moss! Rather than hay or straw or sand.
  8. Overhead light in the car interior … not just replacing a bulb anymore …
  9. The blue haze in the forests that gives the Great Smoky Moutains their name is actually a fog released by volatile organic compounds in the region’s vegetation.
  10. Marden’s Surplus & Salvage has 14 locations in Maine. As for Remy’s?

 

Urban deer, oh dear

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Eastport – centered on Moose Island – is one of many small cities being overrun by deer. You may have met some of the culprits here at the Red Barn.

Here are some random bits as a result.

  1. In the Wampanoag language, they’re known as “the ones with wet noses,” for the way they investigate the world around them.
  2. Why do fawns have white spots? I suspect it could be a good opportunity for a storyteller to develop. Along with the question of why fawns eventually lose them.
  3. They like apples. Man, do they. Some will dance on their hind legs in reaching for the branch overhead.
  4. They can destroy a garden overnight.
  5. That said, they’ll eat just about anything. One even swallowed a spigot on our bird feeder.
  6. Speaking of which, a bit of cayenne pepper in the feeder seems to repel them. As the adage goes, better late than never, regarding some lessons.
  7. They’ll eat out of your hand if you’re patient. Not that I advise that.
  8. Bucks get bumped out of the circle as they come of age.
  9. The most we’ve counted in our small yard at one time was ten.
  10. We’ve had an albino in the north end of town. I first thought it was a goat in the night.
Here’s a shot from our dining table. Or hers, as well.