Souvenir

https://books.google.com/books?id=IG8JoTZeTggC&pg=PA387

In May 1864, Union corporal James Denn was hit in the hand by a Confederate minie ball in the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse. Denn survived the fighting, but the ball remained lodged in his now-useless hand, and he was discharged from the service in December.

The ball remained in Denn’s hand for 38 years, during which time he would often rattle it to entertain (or appall) visiting children. In 1902 he moved into the Soldiers’ Home in Washington D.C., where surgeon Louis A. LaGarde finally removed it, arguably performing the last surgical operation of the Civil War.

“Missile was loose in a thick sac under palmar fascia,” LaGarde memorably reported. “Sac contained about 1 ounce of hemorrhagic fluid, the blood being no doubt the result of frequent traumatisms from shaking the hand violently near the ears of his friends to cause them to hear the ball rattle in the cyst. The succussion sound made by the loose ball and the fluid in the unyielding sac was very perceptible to the sense of hearing.”

| History · Oddities

Unquote

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wood-framed_house.jpg
Image: Wikimedia Commons

“It is odd that the skeleton of a house is cheerful when the skeleton of a man is mournful, since we only see it after the man is destroyed. … There is something strangely primary and poetic about the sight of the scaffolding and main lines of a human building; it is a pity there is no scaffolding round a human baby.” — G.K. Chesterton, “The Wings of Stone,” Alarms and Discursions, 1911

| Quotations

Resolution

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sherwood_Anderson_(1933).jpg

In June 1918, frustrated novelist Sherwood Anderson sent this letter to his day job at a Chicago advertising agency:

Dear Barton:

You have a man in your employ that I have thought for a long time should be fired. I refer to Sherwood Anderson. He is a fellow of a good deal of ability but for a long time I have been convinced that his heart is not in his work. There is no question but that this man Anderson has in some ways been an ornament to our organization. His hair, for one thing, being long and mussy gives an artistic carelessness to his personal appearance that somewhat impresses such men as Frank Lloyd Wright and Mr. Curtiniez of Kalamazoo when they come into the office. But Anderson is not really productive, as I have said, his heart is not in his work. I think he should be fired, and if you will not do the job, I should like permission to fire him myself. I, therefore, suggest that Anderson be asked to sever his connections with the company on August 1st. He is a nice fellow. We will let him down easy, but let’s can him.

Respectfully submitted,

Sherwood Anderson

He published Winesburg, Ohio the following year.

| Literature

Finders Keepers

https://pixabay.com/en/milky-way-galaxy-night-sky-stars-984050/

On June 15, 1936, A. Dean Lindsay of Ocilla, Ga., visited a Pittsburgh notary public and presented a claim for

[a]ll of the property known as planets, islands-of-space or other matter, henceforth to be known as ‘A.D. Lindsay’s archapellago’ [sic] located in all the region visible (by any means) upward, (or in any other direction) from the city of Ocilla, Ga, together with all planets, islands-of-space or other matter (except this world, the Moon and the planet Saturn) visible from any other planet, island-of-space or other matter.

“On a May night in 1936,” he explained later, “I was watching the full moon. It seemed so large and beautiful that I thought of it as real estate, and said to myself, ‘Nobody owns it!’ Then I decided to acquire it by original claim deed.”

He left Earth to its inhabitants but in two separate deeds claimed

All of the property in ‘A. Dean Lindsay’s archapellago’ (commonly called the sky, or heavens) known as the planet ‘Saturn’ and periodically seen from the city of Ocilla, Ga.

and

All of the property in ‘A. Dean Lindsay’s archapellago’ commonly called ‘The Moon’, a planet in the sky.

He sent the deeds and the required payment to R.K. Brown, clerk of the Superior Court in Ocilla, and accordingly on June 28 Brown recorded them in Deed Book 11, pages 28-29, at Irwin County Courthouse in Ocilla.

So that’s that. “Can you believe it?” Lindsay wrote in a letter to Ramon P. Coffman. “That I own the Moon and the Sun, the stars, the comets, meteors, asteroids — everything, everywhere beyond this world?”

Occasionally thereafter he would receive requests to purchase the moon, a constellation, or a star. He sent them all the same answer: “Henry Ford is not rich enough to buy them, so I know that you cannot.”

| Oddities

Summing Up

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In 1932, at the end of a 60-year career studying hydrodynamics, Sir Horace Lamb addressed the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

“I am an old man now,” he said, “and when I die and go to heaven there are two matters on which I hope for enlightenment. One is quantum electrodynamics, and the other is the turbulent motion of fluids. And about the former I am rather more optimistic.”

| Quotations · Science & Math

Dashed Hopes

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wireless_station_interior,_Friday_Harbor,_San_Juan_Island,_Washington,_ca_1908_(BAR_177).jpeg

Early telegraph operators rejoiced in their secret knowledge of Morse code. In 1876 Chamber’s Journal reported on a popular play called Across the Continent in which a telegraph operator named Oliver sends out frantic messages from a railway station besieged by Indians. After a responding string of dots and dashes sent from offstage, Oliver cries out, “Thank God! We are saved!” After one performance a telegrapher in the audience noted that the response had been SAY, OLIVER, LET’S TAKE A DRINK.

In 1892 a writer for Harper’s Bazaar was riding a train when a groom and his beautiful bride entered the car. Two young men began a conversation by clicking their pocket knives on the metal arm of the seat.

“Her lips were just made for kisses,” one said.

“That’s what they were.”

“Say!”

“Well?”

“When the train gets to the next tunnel, I’m going to reach over and kiss her.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Yes, I would. She’d think it was her husband, you know.”

At this the bridegroom took out his own pocket knife and ticked off on the arm of his seat: “When the train gets to the next tunnel, the chump proposes to reach over and hammer your two heads together till your teeth drop out. See!”

| Technology

Podcast Episode 122: The Bear Who Went to War

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wojtek_the_bear.jpg

During World War II a Polish transport company picked up an unusual mascot: a Syrian brown bear that grew to 500 pounds and traveled with his human friends through the Middle East and Europe. In this week’s episode of the Futility Closet podcast we’ll meet Wojtek, the “happy warrior,” and follow his adventures during and after the war.

We’ll also catch up with a Russian recluse and puzzle over a murderous daughter.

See full show notes …

| History · Oddities · Podcast