A Gathering of Kestertons

   I just indicated in my last post, which was my first one in a while, that I have had trouble producing one every day. If I had any readers and they showed up daily they would be disappointed that the blog remained unchanged and soon would stop coming.  I thought that, perhaps what I could do to attract an audience of loyal, returning readers is grab short, catchy, bizarre, humorous, happy, or sad items and post them while I worked on creating something original.  When I did so, I would group them under the clever title of,  "A Gathering of Kestertons" so readers would know what to expect and anticipate that the content would be more enjoyable and interesting than something manufactured by the usual author of Mulcahy's Miscellany.

Michael Kesterton and "Social Studies"

   "Gathering" is the collective noun I chose and you know all about them because you have read "A Murder of Crows." "Kesterton" you may not immediately recognize, but if I mention the Globe and Mail column, "Social Studies: A Daily Miscellany of Information", you may recall that he was the compiler of it. It was the first page of the paper that most of us turned to during the period from 1990 to 2013. Short facts, figures and tidbits were offered along with a "Thought du jour." Surely a similar approach by me would lead to a consistent increase in the imaginary Ipsos blogging ratings. 

   After writing all of that, I have decided against proceeding with this project and the first "Gathering of Kestertons", will be the last.  Although Mr. Kesterton is deceased, I now realize it is  inappropriate of me to associate his name with MM, since he would gain little and such an association could actually sully his reputation. As well, it is unfair because Mr. Kesterton would have had to do far more work for most of the period during which he gathered material. Work involving things like reference books, trips to the library and reading extensively, none of which one needs now to do. The Internet has made gathering much easier and the market is already crowded with publications offering listicles and trivia stolen from other publications. Plus, it is so easy I would be inclined to slack off and offer only the material of others and never do any heavy lifting myself.  But, before I go, I might as well say a little more about Mr. Kesterton and his "Social Studies," and provide a few of his examples and, perhaps a some of the ones I would have offered had I proceeded with "A Gathering of Kestertons."

   Mr. Kesterton passed away late in 2018 and Elizabeth Renzetti of the G&M notes that: 
"Mr. Kesterton, who died on Dec. 5 at the age of 72, was the shy, quick-witted writer behind one of The Globe and Mail’s most popular features. By the time Social Studies ended on Canada Day, 2013, Mr. Kesterton had compiled more than three kilometres of arcana, world history, scientific breakthroughs, anniversaries and odd news, such as the time Sophia Loren apprehended a handbag thief."

   The first "Social Studies" I have found is from July 4, 1990 and the items in it are topical ones even for our times. Under the subject of "Waste", figures are given for how much of it is being sent by us to countries in the Third World and how much more Toronto wants to have taken by truck into the third world hinterlands elsewhere in the province. Texans back then were thinking just like Texans now. Under the title "Texas Chainsaw Reasoning" a regulatory official did not think it terribly important to control the sale of the toxic chemical chlordane: "Sure, it's going to kill a lot of people. But they may be dying of something else anyway." Many interesting facts are provided and the tabloids can always be counted upon for attention-grabbing headlines: "Dog Lands Plane After Pilot Has Heart Attack" and "Strange Cult Worships Studebakers.'

   The last "Social Studies" is found on July 1, 2013 and among the facts included are some about the column. It began on June 12, 1990 and "Social Studies" was only to be a temporary title. The difference between "Geeks" and "Nerds" is explained and the last "Thought du jour" was thought by Sir Wilfred Laurier and it still has some relevance for our time - "Canada is free and freedom is nationality."

   I have offered snippets, quotes of the day, headlines of the week, factlets and even the odd apercu, when I didn't have much myself to say and I will likely keep doing so, but I won't gather them under the name of the late Mr. Kesterton.  Here are a few for now.

Funny Quotes: 

P.J. O'Rourke just died and left us some humorous ones: On leaving Maoism behind:
“But I couldn’t stay a Maoist forever,” he wrote. “I got too fat to wear bell-bottoms. And I realized that communism meant giving my golf clubs to a family in Zaire.”
About the difference between "Democrats' and "Republicans" - “The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer and remove the crab grass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work and then get elected and prove it.”

Funny Names:

There were many in the old Wild West and Bret Harte says nicknames were the beginning of a "rude heraldry." Here are some: Antelope Jack; Albuquerque Alice; Hog-Eyed Nellie; Gunny Sack Bill; Pie Biter Baker; Cemetery Sam; Peckerwood Pete; Catacorners Ketchum, Wild Bill Hickok, Buffalo Bill Cody. Bartholomew Masterson, thought it wise to change his name to "Bat." He was born in Quebec and if you read the Wikipedia entry for him you will see that he was a very interesting character. For more nicknames: "Trailing the Alias," Waldo Koop, The American West, Jan./Feb. 1977.

Sad Place Names: 

Point No Point, Washington; Dismal, North Carolina; Cape Disappointment, Washington; Little Hope, Texas; Boring, Maryland; Misery Bay, Michigan; Tombstone, Arizona; Dead Horse Bay, New York; Murder Island, Nova Scotia. "14 of the Most Depressing Place Names in North America," Bess Lovejoy, Mental Floss, May 11, 2015.

On Somnambulism:

This story was reported by CP back in July, 1979: (Barrie)- "A man wearing only a pyjama top was found walking along a highway early Wednesday about five kilometres from the motel where he was staying. Provincial police, who picked up the man after a call from a person who found him, said he was sleep-walking. The man was in good shape except for sore feet, police said. They did not identify the man, but said he was from the London-Windsor area." 

On Statues:

Many are now being torn down and in this Reuters story from 1989 we can learn how to profit from such destruction:
"Budapest: Right Hand Man: A museum here had paid 500 (pounds) for the right hand of Stalin which was part of the huge Stalin monument toppled in the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. It was sold by the widow of a rector who had it in his Budapest garden as a decoration.
  The Stalin statue, which was 28 metres high, was torn down during the night of 23 October 1965. The fragments were collected as souvenirs. The museum intends to show the right hand in an exhibition next year on the epoch of Hungarian Stalinism."

The Price for a Tongass Tree:

A 180 foot tall Sitka spruce is standing (for now) in the Tongass National Forest where it has been standing for a long time. Here is what it is likely to be worth:
"Even when the top and branches are lopped off, a tree this size would yield at least 6,000 board feet of lumber, said industry consultant Catherine Mater, who assessed the spruce’s potential market value for The Washington Post. It would fetch around $17,500 on the open market."

Another Murder of Crows:     

Mentioned above and written about before, the murder of crows in Burnaby has a rival murder far to the south in Sunnyvale, California. See for proof: "A California City Overrun With Crows Turns to Lasers and a Boombox to Scare Them Away: City employees will spend an hour every night shining green lasers and playing corvid distress calls to humanely harass the birds into leaving, Margaret Osborne, Smithsonian Magazine, Jan. 20, 2022. And: "A California City Is Overrun by Crows. Could a Laser Be the Answer? In a move befitting its Silicon Valley setting, the city of Sunnyvale, Calif., will aim a laser at 1,000 birds that have overwhelmed the downtown area during the pandemic," Alyssa Lukpat, NYT, Jan. 17, 2022