I
have long been bewildered by the world, its order, its disorder, its
beauty and its power and am even more so now, in these pandemic days
that is. I have seen deeds, read words and heard songs of love that
serve to perspectivize the pandemic and life itself; many are
creative and inspiring. The source of inspiration seems at first to
be the words and deeds themselves but it may rather be the thought
that there are people who are capable of such writing and songs and
deeds – and that some are my friends. Always knew they were gifted.
But
I’m a pretty simple guy. My recent night time reading was Volume 1
of Charlie Brown’s
‘Cyclopedia...Featuring Your Body” (1980).
It
took maybe 4 nights to get through its 54
pages. The section on “What is a Virus” was notable but there was
no mention of the current beast of
course.
Many
of the other sections
could form a good Trivia game for all of us as we look for stuff to
do and think about. How about these gnarly questions...
-
What is a Funny Bone?
-
Why do you shiver on a cold day?
-
What actually are “Goose Bumps”
-
Why do you drop a hot potato?
-
Why are some people ticklish and others not?
-
What is an Adam’s Apple?
-
What is the process of sneezing?
And
here’s a few facts I gleaned from
Charlie. (I
trust him and did not fact check any).
-
Hair grows faster in summer and averages about 3/4 inches / month
-
The longest sneezing fit (in 1980) was 155 days!
-
People have about 100,000 hairs on their heads. (Those were the days my friend).
-
We have 206 bones, 1/2 of which are in hands and feet.
-
H2O is =~ 60% of body weight.
-
We breath about 11,000 litres of air in and out a day.
-
Our skin weighs twice as much as our brain.
So,
thanks again to Charles and Charlie, Snoopy,
Woodstock and all the others...you are all continuing
lights in the middle of a dark tunnel.
Keep
on keeping on eh!
