_A mile on the ocean is further than a mile on land.

Holy mackerel would include the tuna, albacore and the bonito. Not the holy part, per se, but the mackerel.

If the volcano is submerged it's an atoll.

A lobster's body has 19 parts. That's more than the puzzle I just completed.

When 10 segments or so accumulate on the end of a rattler's tail, they begin to fall off. Because of this, that is not the best way to accurately guess their age. Some have noted it is a good way, much like the rings of a tree or my uncle's stomach.

Let's get this straight. Henry Ford did not invent the automobile.

Somehow, seven elephants and bears survived the Titanic ordeal. Didn't see that in the movie.

It was burnt bread that was placed in a Roman's drink. Thus became the toast.

The first woman on an airplane was probably earlier than you think. If you said 1908, you win the luggage. But, why so early in the progression of flight? She, or a woman named Hart Berg, took a two-minute flight with Wilber Wright.

Chicken pox has nothing to do with chickens and yet, the book of Genesis mentions chickens but not the egg. Hmmm.

Smut is a fungi. To some, I'm sure it is. I do not mind it, however.

IN CLOSING: "An F in English? Bobby, you speak English." From Hank Hill to his son, Bobby, on "King of the Hill."

_Helen Keller was not born deaf, dumb and blind. A fever caused that.

If it's chirping, it's a male cricket. If it's belching and rolling around naked, it's my uncle.

As best as I can see, two presidents, who held their top spots at the same time, were also born in the same state. Now, follow me on this. President Abraham Lincoln was president of the United States and President Jefferson Davis was president of the Confederate States of America. Both were born in Kentucky. That's an item not seen or heard all the time.

For the last time, Leap Years do not occur every four years.

Do not blame humans for the extinction of the dodo. Most likely culprits were pigs and monkeys. They loved the eggs.

For most of the life of the Earth, the poles were ice free. Just think about that for a second and now read the headlines and read the panic.

Tears do not flow in space.

As for bones, they are not white. We see them that way because they are cleaned up a bit.

Alexander Graham Bell could play music by ear but it looked stupid and really hurt.

He may have been a genius but he never learned how to drive. He was Albert Einstein. Maybe he was on to something.

_Abner Doubleday, who did not "invent" baseball, did fight at the battle of Gettysburg. And George Bailey fought the battle of Bedford Falls. Come on, you get that one. Think Mary, Clarence and Zuzu's petals.

There have been more vice presidents than presidents. Yet, some presidents had no vice president for a term here and there.

Simply put, the word husband once meant the head of household. Not much else.

After the White House burned during the term of James Madison, he never returned to it. He was out of office when it was refurbished.
Many early colonists were afraid of forests.

During the Middle Ages, only the wealthy wore gloves. The rest - - mittens. I prefer sock puppets.

"It was a gift, for crying out loud." That's my quote for Vincent Van Gogh after he cut off part of his ear to give to his love, Rachel. Remember, it was part of his ear, not the whole darn thing.

The original draft of the Emancipation Proclamation was destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire. Real "great" huh? When they refer to destroyed I'm assuming burned but water could do some serious damage as well. It's your turn to do some research.

Pigs can become drunks and drunks can become pigs.

When someone screams, "Holy Toledo," I look at them in disgust for two reasons. One being it's loud and the second is pondering: "Who the heck uses that phrase anymore?" This item has veered so much, I have no idea where I'm at now. Check with me later.

"Holy Toledo" referred to Toledo, Spain. There now, that was easy.

_- A buckskin sold for a dollar, thus a buck was born.

- In 1778, Daniel Boone was arrested because some thought him a British Spy. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, he deliberately exposed himself (no, not that way) to smallpox.

- Truth is, Buffalo Bill was a popular nickname in the Old West. Please, make sure you track down the right when when writing about him.

- By most accounts, Thomas Edison was a slob. A good one, too.

- Those large termites known as soldiers cannot feed themselves. Now I feel sorry for them.

- Magnets, attached to cats, thrown off their navigational skills, so stop it right now.

- I can burn one calorie a minute while I sleep. So I sleep for 250 hours when I can.

- A Eurasian beaver rarely builds a dam or gives one, either. Now, have you ever seen a Eurasian beaver? Let's move on.

- Ben Franklin was in Europe when the Tea Party took place.

- Nostradamus and his writings indicate Napoleon as the first anti-christ. The second would be Napoleon Dynamite for thinking his hijinks would last.

- When Sir Walter Raleigh lit up a bit of tobacco in front of the queen, he came into quite a drenching. They di think he was on fire.

- In the Middle Ages, baths were taken by doctor's request. I request the same thing daily to my Uncle Willie. I just wished he would listen.

- Chopin hated the number seven. Not the movie, just the number.

- Fiddler back in the day, whatever that means, were fit because of tall that fiddling. Therefore, they were "fit as a fiddle."

- In London, the word bug refers to bedbugs - - all the others are insects. Is this still true?

- The pineapple was not originally native to Hawaii. As for those tiny bubbles, we are still checking.

- A male swan could be called a cob, sans the corn on the ...this item got away from me somehow.

- Oh, you may have heard that the flounder has both eyes on the same side of its head, but so does the halibut. Furthermore, you may have heard that the halibut has both eyes on the same side of its head, but so does the flounder. Huh?

- The first person to go over Niagara Falls was a woman, that is well documented. But, she could not swim. She did survive, unlike my Aunt Wilma, who could swim, ate her vegetables, and ate fish. She did all the right things, but Niagara got her. She slipped taking a photo of someone going over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

- As for mammals, true flight goes to the bat. The others, they glide. Let's hear it for the bats.

- Dr. David Livingston, I presume, was embalmed with sand. Oh, his heart was buried under a tree.

- Folks in Maine celebrated Thanksgiving before the Pilgrims and they had turkey. The Pilgrims did not. The ones who talk and hear about did not, that is.

- Barbers did indeed exist in Biblical times. It strikes me odd to say Biblical times. What? Forget that, now?

- Apple seeds are not the only thing Johnny Appleseed went around planting and throwing about.

- There is a legend out there that doesn't get much coverage, especially in February. That would be, groundhogs are actually afraid of their shadows.

- Kangaroos keep growing throughout their entire lives.

- Sometimes, when it rains, a camel will run and never come back.

- A parasite wasp is about the size of the period at the end of this sentence. No, make it this one. OK, try this one. Enough.

- The skin of the hippo weighs half a ton. No wonder why it sinks to the bottom and feeds. Baby hippos will swim before they walk. Someone who knows such things has told me the longest hippo fight on record was 8 hours.

- Short-term memory is at its best from 9-10 a.m. What? I didn't catch that. Ask me again later.

- The rhino charges many things for a reason we may not understand. They have bad eyesight. On second thought, we do understand, I'm guessing.

- Nothing is ever at rest. Nothing, ever.

- The force of gravity pulls all of us toward the center of the Earth. Let's journey, shall we? Nice stretch to get to "Journey to the Center of the Earth" in this item.

- If we did not produces saliva, we would not taste anything.

ANY DAY IN THE USA

ARKANSAS: Apparently two local governments have jurisdiction over a wastewater treatment plant in Texarkana. Each side is split on how to deal with the waste issue. Well, tell them their name is Texarkana and work it out. Wait, is that Texas or Arkansas?

OKLAHOMA: A Tulsa man shot himself in the leg. Check that, we did not know how he was shot when this story went to press. But he was shot in the leg. Oh, and he attempted to drive himself to the hospital. He stopped at a fast food joint for hello instead. This all started while he was feeding the ducks. Any moral here?

INDIANA: Identical twin sisters in Bloomington gave birth birth on the same day. Most at the hospital have said they do not know of any instance of this happening before because nobody really cared.

DELAWARE: Higher education in action in Lewes with give the students of the University of Delaware the assignment of naming the school's ice cream flavor. Student loans in action.

IOWA: A recent power outage in Mason City was blamed on birds. Our question is: could the smart grid prevent that?

MICHIGAN: Apparently the police in Detroit have to remind residents that it is illegal to "pump gasoline into containers and carry flammable liquid from Oct. 27 through Oct. 31." How many will wait that one out? And, it is OK to do it at all, huh?

GEORGIA: In Atlanta, 62 teachers were fired, then rehired, then fired again. They were rehired to work in jobs that simply were not really jobs, just titles. Welcome to the United States Government.

NEVADA: You will see yellow pill boxes in Henderson as a way of getting rid of those nasty prescriptions noone wants. make that, people want, so they have to put them into yellow lock box. Now, enter Illinois were purple paint will surely keep away unwanted intruders. That is the aim and resident await a swatch of purple all over. Well, not from Bears fans, that is.

TENNESSEE: In Greensville, they haven't seen a species known as Chucky Madtom (a catfish) in years. The result: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has suggested they designate 20 miles along a river as "critical habitat." Critical? I would say "possibly extinct" and dead, expired, "cease to exists." And with Monty Python in mind: "It would be pushing up daisies in you hadn't nailed it to the perch."

MASSACHUSETTS: A sidewalk was to be paved in North Andover. But the problem was, a tree was in the way. A very old tree. Never fear as two, yes two, families got together and donated parts of their land so the sidewalk could be paved around the tree. Now, take care of that nasty budget matter.


*Inspired by the Across the USA section in the USA Today. This is compiled by Tim O'Brien for the O'Brien News Service. Tim is also an avid reader and gathers items from a wide variety of soy in the sources, while adding in his own thoughts and nuggets. No dates needed here as this can and did happen Any Day in the USA. Sure, some may have been resolved, went further and even had other implications, but, they did happen once on Any Day in the USA. Enjoy this NEW feature.

- No way was George Washington standing on that boat when it went to the other side. Standing up, what the? Wow, he could have easily taken a dive plus he would have been an easy target. Surely someone would have said, sit down George, you are rocking the boat.
- Hey, for the last time, the potato is actually a modified stem, not a root. Huh?
- Fleas do not like vitamin B. It really is that simple so let's move on. Wait, we are not done yet. They also hate the smell of cedar.
- Worms do not have ears.
- Eleanor Barry loved reading. She loved it so much she had stacks of books everywhere. One day she fell asleep while reading and one of those stacks fell on her - - and killed her. The book she was reading was "How To Properly Stack Books." No, it was not. But she did die that way.
- Twelve cockroaches can live on the glue of a postage stamp for a week. Just one more reason to shut that place down.
- Rats can tread water up to three days but I still do not know why they want to.
- Chickens have no sweat glands. Sometimes I feel like I don't either.
- We ignore the majority of the sounds we hear on a daily basis. If we didn't we would go nuts.
- As a child, Abraham Lincoln taught his pet pig to play hide and seek. As an adult, Abe did things, too.
- William Henry Harrison brought his own cow to the White House. It was his wife. Oh, come on, we do not make jokes like that anymore. OK, he did it for the milk. The cow, that is.
- Bees do not swarm before a storm.
- I have just been informed that if a pig squeals in winter, there will be a blizzard. And this is not a squeal when you try to pull its tail. Stop it.
- Why aren't we eating chicken feathers as they are 97 percent protein?
- Ben Franklin had an IQ higher than Isaac Newton. Who doesn't? Oh, they were 145 to 130, respectively. Oh, one more item. That apple most likely did not fall on his head. Nearby, sure, not on his head.
- If you were alive 65 million years ago, well, you would be very old...
- Ouch! A baby giraffe is roughly 6 feet tall when born. I use roughly for mom and ouch as well.
- Abracadabra was once thought to be the cure for a fever.
- To the moon Alice...maybe not, but Silly Putty made it to the moon.
- The largest cell is an ostrich egg, sunny side up.
- Adam named the donkey after attending a Democratic Convention. Huh? Eve went for a snack.
- There is more gold in the oceans than in all the banks in the world.

- There are flightless flies in Hawaii. And I still can't catch them.

- Fish can get seasick.

- A giraffe's tongue is blue unless you let them suck on a cherry sucker.

- Some people actually think it is lucky to spit on the newborn or run lard on it.

- There just weren't that many caves so the primitive man and the use and talk of cave life could be called a stretch.

More history is a mystery from the files of Tidbits & Trivia...

- As for "survival of the fittest," it was not Charles Darwin who used it or said it first. That would be Herbert Spencer, a philosopher.

- It is simply a myth that Marie Antoinette ever said "Let them eat cake" - - at least in public. No evidence supports this but some point to a rival for creating it.

- The day after Thanksgiving is not the busiest or most money-producing sales day of the holiday season.

- Amusement parks are not empty on Super Bowl Sunday.

- Meanwhile, it was the grandson of Betsy Ross who invented the flag story and a newspaperman who invented the O'Leary's Cow story...

- He may have given it the name Sandwich did Earl, but, by no means did he invent it. As for the Duke of Earl, he had a hit song and did not gamble with Earl of Sandwich.

- A bellweather is actually a bellwether and it is a wether with a bell. Oh, that clears that one up. It is for shepherds. And Earl was no Duke, but that is another story.

- Stepping on that rusty nail as I did as a kid will not cause tetanus.

- All coffee does nothing for a drunk person is keep them awake, perhaps, but they stay drunk as they were.

- There is no evidence that P.T. Barnum said "There's a sucker born every minute." He got us again.