Can you find a true scale model of the Solar System in Australia?

Well, here we go again.

Time for me to celebrate yet another trip around the Sun … on Thursday, it’s my 66th birthday.

As I always say in these situations, quoting my wonderful sister:  “If I’d have known I was going to live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself.”

I am fully aware that – barring an unlikely genetic abnormality – I do not have 66 more birthdays ahead of me.  That makes what I do all the sweeter … since I plan to spend a lot of them right here, in the column, with you.

Happy birthday to me, if such be the will of the gods.  And to you, some great trivia!

My treat.

Did you know …

… a surgeon’s refusal to treat a patient came back to haunt him?  At the turn of the 20th Century, Dr. Roswell Park (1852-1914) was one of the most prominent medical men in the city of Buffalo, New York.  On September 5, 1901, Dr. Park was notified that he was needed for emergency surgery immediately for a man who had been shot.  Park, who was in the middle of another operation, said he could not abandon his patient, “not even for the President of the United States.”  Another surgeon then performed the emergency operation … on President William McKinley (1843-1901), who died eight days later of blood poisoning from gangrene which had started on the edges of the gunshot wound he’d suffered.  Dr. Park later said he would regret for the rest of his life the comment he made when asked to attend the President.  (Ooopsie!)

… most fans of a 1980s hit song totally misinterpreted it?  In 1986, the rock group Beastie Boys released a song called “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party),” and the song almost immediately became the anthem of fraternities nationwide.  But the song was written as a parody of party and frat culture, poking fun at it instead of celebrating it.  To this day, the members of the band are upset that people took the song at face value.  (The advice, however, is sound.)

… a classic criminal was also a musician?  During his time incarcerated at Alcatraz, mobster Al Capone (1899-1947) gave regular Sunday concerts with the inmate band.  Called the Rock Islanders, Capone was featured on the banjo.  (The Rock Islanders?  Man, even I am not that corny.)

… you may have seen something ackwards?  It’s an old English dialect word that describes a creature lying on its back that can’t get up.  (In other words, me in bed on a Monday morning.)

… a scale model of the Solar System exists in Australia?  In Melbourne, centered at St. Kilda Skatepark, is a model of the Solar System made to a scale of one to one billion.  In other words, the farthest planet from the Sun, Neptune – which is actually 4.5 billion kilometers away – is represented by a model 4.5 kilometers away.  In this scale model, the Sun is a ball about 1.6 meters across … Earth is a tiny ball about 1.3 centimeters in diameter … and the largest planet, Jupiter, is a ball about the size of a human hand. Additional trivia note:  the nearest star to the Sun, Proxima Centauri, is also in the model, but is within walking distance of the Sun.  This is not, however, incorrect.  Proxima Centauri is about 40 trillion kilometers from the Sun in reality; in the model scale, it would be 40,000 km from the Sun.  That’s also about the distance around the entire Earth, so the Proxima representation is correct – but to be true to the scale, you’d have to walk all the way around the Earth to get back to it.  (Pluto is in the model too, 5.3 kilometers from the Sun model … and 23 millimeters in size.  Poor Pluto, getting picked on all the time.)

… chocolate was once used as a medicine?  The ancient Olmec, Maya and Aztec cultures of Central and South America used chocolate not only as a medicine but also as a medium in which other medicines were taken.  (Sing with me … “Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down …”)

… during World War II, you could not buy sliced bread in a U.S. grocery store?  On January 18, 1943, a directive came down from the government ordering stores to stop selling sliced bread for the duration of the war.  You could buy whole loaves of bread, but you’d have to slice it yourself.  Nobody ever explained how that was supposed to help the war effort, however.

… six teams in the National Football League do not have cheerleaders?  The six are the Buffalo Bills, the Chicago Bears, the Cleveland Browns, the Green Bay Packers, the New York Giants, and the Pittsburgh Steelers.  The six franchises don’t employ cheerleaders because all of them play their home games in open-air stadiums and during the football season, it’s pretty cold.  So the traditional skimpy outfits worn by cheerleaders would not be a very good idea.  (Darn it.)

… an island in the Thousand Islands chain in New York is most appropriately named?  Just Room Enough Island is thought to be the smallest inhabited island in the world, with about 3,300 square feet of land area.  The island has a house, a tree, some shrubs, and a small beach – and nothing else, because there isn’t room for anything else.  The island is located in the St. Lawrence River near the U.S. border with Canada.  It is privately owned.  (So stay off the lawn – such as it is.)

… a river in Cambodia changes direction each year?  The Tonle Sap River flows north for about six months, then flows south for the rest of the year.  The change in direction is caused by the annual rains brought by the monsoon winds.  (I guess “Tonle Sap” means “Can’t make up its mind.”)

Now … you know!