Today’s Tests, History and Riddles:

Know why they nail down the lid on a coffin?

To keep the doctors from administering any more tests!

Today I’m off to the lab for blood work, then to see the oncologist who will undoubtedly order more tests!

Yes they may prolong my life but who wants to live longer if you have to spend the whole extended time in a doctor’s waiting room?

Oh well, that’s my cross to bear for today. I shouldn’t bitch about it; there are people in that waiting room carrying much heaver ones then I do.

Tuesday my daughter Eve treated me to a fun lunch at the Silver Star Chinese Restaurant.

Since my Super Bowl commercial flopped, Eve helped me research (actually she did the whole thing) a more reasonable marketing plan

Eve is librarian at a local branch library where she’s instituted a Riddle Of The Day program for patrons as they check out at the circulation desk. So she and I exchanged happy riddles over Foo Young:

Q: What do you call a cow with no legs?

A: Ground beef.

Q: How do you introduce a hamburger?

A: Meet Patty.

Q: Where do you find a dog with no legs?

A: Right where you left him.

Q: How Do Crazy People Go Through The Forest?

A: They Take The Psycho Path

Q: How Do You Get Holy Water?

A: You Boil The Hell Out Of It.?

Q:? What Do You Call a Boomerang That Doesn't Come Back?

A: A Stick

Q:? What Do You Get When You Cross a Snowman With a Vampire?

A: Frostbite

And finally, for the amusement of those readers who anxiously await publication of my 16^th Century Puritan diaries:

Q:? Why Did The Pants Of The Pilgrim Fathers Always Fall Down?

A: Because They Wore Their Belt Buckles On Their Hats.

Thank you for your applause. You’re welcome. If I never make it as a writer, I’ll launch my new career as a stand-up comedian.

In the evening I enjoyed a phone conversation with historian Kevin Hooper, author of The Early History Of Clay County: A Wilderness That Could Be Tamed published by History Press. He gave me invaluable advise and suggestions about writing and publishing history books.

Later, Beauty and I watched an absorbing video on the life and times of Queen Elizabeth I. That whets my appetite to get back to work on those Puritan diaries.

One word in those diaries I have to watch for all the time is the word then.

Sometimes that word means the same as it does today, as in the sentence: “I went to Wal-Mart, then to have all my teeth pulled”.

Other times the word then means than, as in the sentence, “I have more than ten books”.

Stumbling over then used as than or then confused me until I realized that in everyday Elizabethan English, the diarists often spelled things just as they pronounced them. And if I say the sentence I’m editing out loud, the meaning in context becomes clear because as I listen to what I actually say, I find that I pronounce the word the same way the diarists did!

Unless in print, or spoken by someone who enunciates clearly, practically everyone here in the South today says, “I have more then ten books”.

Yes, we Crackers pronounce many words just as the Elizabethan Puritans did.

That fascinates me.

I’m having such fun with this project.

Maybe I can call in sick to the oncologist so I can stay home and work.