Hood was the purest liar I ever knew. He lied for profit as many do but he also lied for joy, which is less common—it may even be he lied for beauty, by some deeply buried rationale.
(source lost)
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All of our theology must eventually become biography. The constant challenge in this life we call Christian is the translation of all we believe to be true into our day-to-day life-style.
from Classic Christianity, by Bob George
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When Negro League players got together they always played the “Cool Papa Bell was so fast …” game. The game would start with someone saying something improbable like “Cool Papa Bell was so fast, he once scored from first base on a bunt.” The next player would top him. “Cool Papa Bell was so fast, he once hit a line drive over a pitcher’s head and got hit with the ball as he slid into second base.” And finally someone (usually Buck [O’Neil]) would say: “Cool Papa Bell was so fast, he could turn out the lights, get undressed, and be under the covers before the room got dark.”
from The Soul of Baseball, by Joe Posnanski
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“Hey, Buck [O’Neil], I said in the car that night.
“What’s that?”
“What were you reading that was so interesting? a novel?”
“No, no, nothing like that,” Buck said.
“Newspaper?”
“No, See. Well, I was reading the Bible.”
“The Bible?” I said it louder than I intended. Buck had talked about running into all those interesting parts that kept him from sleep. I figured by now nothing in the Bible would jolt Buck out of sleep. He shrugged.
“Yeah, I was reading the Bible,” he said. “I figured I needed some help.”
“What kind of help?”
“Well,” he said, “I figured I needed some help after some of the thoughts I was having earlier about being in Gary [Indiana]. I thought I could probably use a little spiritual help.”
from The Soul of Baseball, by Joe Posnanski
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The Interstate Highway System is one of the most remarkable engineering feats ever conceived. Its origins date back to 1919 [three years after my father was born], when a young army officer named Dwight D. Eisenhower, missing his family in California, agreed to join a cross-country convoy of military vehicles heading for the West Coast. Part of the company’s mission was to find out if these trucks and staff cars—which had just won a grueling trench war in Europe, mind you—were even capable of surviving the trip. In 1919, driving from sea to shining sea wasn’t the leisurely five-day tour we know today. Paved roads largely disappeared outside major American cities, so the convoy had to contend with mud, dust, ruts, unstable bridges, and even quicksand. Their “successful” entry into San Francisco came sixty-two days after starting out (an average speed of six miles per hour!), and the convoy lost nine vehicles and twenty-one men (to injuries—no deaths were reported, thankfully) in the 230 accidents they suffered along the way. Eisenhower never forgot the ordeal, especially when compared to the expansive and well-maintained autobahn network he saw in Germany during the Second World War. In 1956, as president, he signed the Interstate Highway System into law, authorizing 41,000 miles of super-highways with a combined land area the size of the state of Delaware and using enough cement to build eighty Hoover Dams.
from Maphead, by Ken Jennings.
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You are at home. We shall now have tea and speak of absurdities.
from Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing
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Almost everyone in western Europe is a direct descendent of Charlemagne, and almost everyone in the U.K. a direct descendent of William the Conqueror. These [are] facts based on overwhelming statistical likelihood: someone of English ancestry living today will have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, etc. Spin this back ten centuries and their number of ancestors hits about eight billion, many times the total number of humans alive on earth at that time, let alone in England and Normandy. So, a person living now must be descended from a person living then by many many different routes, not just one. That makes the chance of any given person with any English ancestry at all not descending from William by at least one of those routes so vanishingly small as to be, in practical terms, impossible.
from Unruly, by David Mitchell
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Seen online — “I have an inferiority complex, but it’s not a very good one.”
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Father Gorey is touching me with oil and praying in Latin. I know it’s Extreme Unction and that means I’m going to die and I don’t care. They wake me again to receive Communion. I don’t want it. I’m afraid I might get sick. I keep the wafer on my tongue and fall asleep and when I wake up again it’s gone.
It’s dark and Dr. Campbell is sitting by my bed. He’s holding my wrist and looking at his watch. He has read hair and glasses and he always smiles when he talks to me. He sits now and hums and looks out the window. His eyes close and he snores a little. He tilts over on the chair and farts and smiles to himself and I know now I’m going to get better because a doctor would never far in the presence of a dying boy.
from Angela’s Ashes, by Frank McCourt
Interesting facts to know and tell
“E pluribus unum” is the official motto of the United States. It means “out of many, one,” referring to the union of states that make one country. It was borrowed from the poem Moretum, by the Roman poet Virgil, which is a recipe for pesto (salad). In the poem, it refers to the bright color of the pesto created by mashing the ingredients together.
