Did people once believe intelligent life existed on Mars?

Since next Thursday is Thanksgiving, I’m going to wrap up my ongoing list of things I am thankful for at this point in my life.

I’m very thankful for being allowed to make it to 62 years of age. A lot of people who were born the same year I was didn’t make it this far, and I am thankful that I got to do so.

Another thing I’m thankful for is the fact that I can reach out to so many people through this column, my occasional opinion pieces, my radio work and my stage work. The reactions I get from you—good, bad and indifferent—are food for the soul, and I can honestly state that, like my physical body, my soul is overweight with all of it. I love you all.

And, of course, I’m thankful that this nightmare year of 2020 is almost over!

Now, let’s get to what you came here for—the trivial things of life. Happy Thanksgiving next week, everybody!

Did you know …

… the average person has about four dreams per night’s sleep? (The oddest dream I ever had started with a sign saying, “The following dream is in Technicolor.” True story.)

… barns and old schoolhouses were painted red for a reason? It’s because red was the cheapest paint color available at the time. (I can understand the barns, but the schools? They’re still red, but now it’s because of bricks.)

… deer do not have gall bladders? (They have the gall to say that!)

… the detective story was created by a 19th Century author? Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), a writer of dark and mysterious stories anyway, wrote, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” in 1841. The story, about a man who solves the murders of two women, is considered the first actual detective story, a genre which did not exist in English or American literature prior to that year. (Book ’em, Danno … story-creating one.)

… it is against the law for a woman to propose marriage to a man in Whitesville, Delaware? Violators could face a charge of disorderly conduct. (Charges escalate if he says “no,” I guess.)

… one out of every eight married couples in the United States met online? (The other seven met through a gypsy fortuneteller.)

… people used to believe that the planet Mars was inhabited by intelligent life? The idea first came about after Italian astronomer, Giovanni Schiparelli (1835-1910), reported spotting thin lines on the surface of Mars through his telescope. He called those lines canali, which means “channels” in Italian, but the term was mistranslated into English as “canals.” The existence of canals—artificially constructed waterways—had to mean the existence of intelligent life, since such things don’t build themselves. The idea persisted throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, fueling the story lines of some classic works of science fiction. The idea of intelligent life on Mars finally came to an end for two reasons: other astronomers in the 1800s were unable to see Schiparelli’s canali with better telescopes, meaning they’d been optical illusions all along; and the space probes from the United States and Soviet Union which arrived at Mars in the 1960s and 1970s and sent back photographs of a heavily cratered surface under a very thin atmosphere. Scientists say that while there was probably never intelligent life on Mars, they still can’t rule out any other kind of life—and it may yet exist there today. (As for intelligent life existing on Earth, I leave that up to you.)

… some types of seafood have very high levels of cholesterol? Sure, seafood is healthy, but one must be careful – three ounces of lobster, for instance, has 61 milligrams of cholesterol. (And that’s before you dip it in the melted butter.)

… we all grow in our sleep? Every morning, people worldwide wake up about eight millimeters taller than they were when they went to sleep. That’s because gravity isn’t pulling down on our spinal columns, and the discs between our vertebrae relax and spread out a bit. Not long after we’ve gotten out of bed, though, the gravity bites us again, and our spines compress the cartilage discs between them back into their normal spaces, and we lose that little height we gained overnight. (My problem isn’t the height I gain overnight, it’s the weight I gain overnight!)

… one of the most celebrated actresses of the 20th century wrote a children’s book? Elizabeth Taylor (1932-2011) wrote, “Nibbles and Me” in 1946, when she was 13. The book was about Taylor’s real-life adventures with a chipmunk named Nibbles.

… there is a term for the motion a rabbit makes when it jumps into the air? If the rabbit is doing it because of happiness or excitement, it’s called a binky. Sometimes, when a rabbit binkies, it turns its body completely around in delight. (Well, what did you expect it to do? Grab a carrot and say, “What’s up, doc?”)

… armadillos can walk underwater? (So can I, as long as the water isn’t over my head.)

… in the city of Holyoke, Massachusetts, it is illegal to water your lawn while it’s raining? (I don’t know why, but the fact that they had to pass a law like that makes me wonder about the city of Holyoke, Massachusetts.)

… atomic bomb tests were once pitched as tourist attractions? In the 1950s, the city of Las Vegas, Nevada, actually advised tourists when an atomic bomb test was going to take place so people could watch them. For a while, Vegas was known as “Atomic City.” (Nowadays, of course, you can still get bombed in Vegas.)

Now … you know!

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