Friday, March 24, 2006
The Ice Worm is Alive and Well!
Robert Service popularized the ice-worm in his Ballad of the Ice-Worm Cocktail. Service described Percy Brown as a dandy who had come to Dawson Town. Within a week of his arrival he was claiming to be a sourdough—a title that irked the old-timers to no end. They set a trap for Mr. Brown the next time he entered the Malamute Saloon. They whooped and hollered and told him that to be a true sourdough, he must first down an Ice-Worm Cocktail. Service told us exactly what Brown saw in a jar filled with ice worms. "Their bellies were a bilious blue, their eyes a bulbous red;
Their backs were grey, and gross were they, and hideous of head.
And when with gusto and a fork the barman speared one out,
It must have gone four inches from its tail-tip to its snout."
Brown who was now feeling more than a little squeamish avowed that no one would dare imbibe such a drink. The bartender fixed four cocktails, and three of them were quickly consumed by three regulars including Sheriff Black and Deacon White. Then every eye was turned to Brown to see what he would do. With a hesitant hand he finally forced the ice-worm cocktail down his throat. An opportunity soon presented itself and he made his break never to return to the Malamute Saloon. The ice worm that he had downed was nothing other than “ a stick of stained spaghetti with two red ink spots for eyes.”
About a hundred years later a repairman came to service the icemaker on our refrigerator. He coated the surface with some petroleum jelly. When the first batch of ice appeared, there in the midst of all those cubes were what appeared to be greasy ice worms. At least that is what my wife called them.
There really are ice worms. However, they are not four feet in length—not even four inches. The largest of the species is black and grows to a mere four-tenths of an inch. Research shows that they can move through a glacier like knife through butter. Raise the temperature above 32 degrees and they dissolve into goo. Now they are being studied for medicinal purposes. Pop them into a jigger of booze and down them like a pill. On the other hand, why mess up a good jigger of booze.
Worms and alcohol do mix quite well. Everyone has tasted or heard of the worm in the bottle of Tequila. Only thing it is not so. The worm is actually found in a bottle of mescal and technically speaking mescal is not Tequila although Tequila is mescal. The worm in the bottle is actually a butterfly caterpillar—which may be either red or gold. The red is considered superior in taste. The worm was probably first placed in the bottle to mask the chemical taste of poorly produced mescal. In recent times the worm in the bottle has become a marketing gimmick. It is free of pesticides and has been pickled in alcohol for a least a year. On the other hand one should probably not believe everything one reads—especially after three or four shots of mescal or Tequila or whatever.
The lowly earthworm may not compare in reputation to the ice-worm or the Tequila caterpillar, but it does have its moments. Twenty or so years ago a now defunct marketing group known as the “Earthworm Growers Association,” at least that is the name that I remember, came up with a novel way to sell more earthworms. Clean them by putting them in a cup of cornmeal and then use them as a key ingredient in certain recipes—Applesauce Surprise Cake comes to mind. When Grant Teaff was football coach at Baylor University he used earthworms to motivate his team at halftime. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a handful of the squeamish things and popped them into his mouth. I don’t remember the speech—only the act itself. He did get his team motivated. Of course, he let the earthworms eat their way through a cup of corn meal to purge them of any impurities and then ran them under some water. To commemorate this unforgettable moment in sports history some Baylor fans have proposed the creation of a bronze statue of Teaff with a worm in his hand reaching toward his mouth. What I need right now is a good stiff drink of—uh—better make that coffee.
.
Robert Service popularized the ice-worm in his Ballad of the Ice-Worm Cocktail. Service described Percy Brown as a dandy who had come to Dawson Town. Within a week of his arrival he was claiming to be a sourdough—a title that irked the old-timers to no end. They set a trap for Mr. Brown the next time he entered the Malamute Saloon. They whooped and hollered and told him that to be a true sourdough, he must first down an Ice-Worm Cocktail. Service told us exactly what Brown saw in a jar filled with ice worms. "Their bellies were a bilious blue, their eyes a bulbous red;
Their backs were grey, and gross were they, and hideous of head.
And when with gusto and a fork the barman speared one out,
It must have gone four inches from its tail-tip to its snout."
Brown who was now feeling more than a little squeamish avowed that no one would dare imbibe such a drink. The bartender fixed four cocktails, and three of them were quickly consumed by three regulars including Sheriff Black and Deacon White. Then every eye was turned to Brown to see what he would do. With a hesitant hand he finally forced the ice-worm cocktail down his throat. An opportunity soon presented itself and he made his break never to return to the Malamute Saloon. The ice worm that he had downed was nothing other than “ a stick of stained spaghetti with two red ink spots for eyes.”
About a hundred years later a repairman came to service the icemaker on our refrigerator. He coated the surface with some petroleum jelly. When the first batch of ice appeared, there in the midst of all those cubes were what appeared to be greasy ice worms. At least that is what my wife called them.
There really are ice worms. However, they are not four feet in length—not even four inches. The largest of the species is black and grows to a mere four-tenths of an inch. Research shows that they can move through a glacier like knife through butter. Raise the temperature above 32 degrees and they dissolve into goo. Now they are being studied for medicinal purposes. Pop them into a jigger of booze and down them like a pill. On the other hand, why mess up a good jigger of booze.
Worms and alcohol do mix quite well. Everyone has tasted or heard of the worm in the bottle of Tequila. Only thing it is not so. The worm is actually found in a bottle of mescal and technically speaking mescal is not Tequila although Tequila is mescal. The worm in the bottle is actually a butterfly caterpillar—which may be either red or gold. The red is considered superior in taste. The worm was probably first placed in the bottle to mask the chemical taste of poorly produced mescal. In recent times the worm in the bottle has become a marketing gimmick. It is free of pesticides and has been pickled in alcohol for a least a year. On the other hand one should probably not believe everything one reads—especially after three or four shots of mescal or Tequila or whatever.
The lowly earthworm may not compare in reputation to the ice-worm or the Tequila caterpillar, but it does have its moments. Twenty or so years ago a now defunct marketing group known as the “Earthworm Growers Association,” at least that is the name that I remember, came up with a novel way to sell more earthworms. Clean them by putting them in a cup of cornmeal and then use them as a key ingredient in certain recipes—Applesauce Surprise Cake comes to mind. When Grant Teaff was football coach at Baylor University he used earthworms to motivate his team at halftime. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a handful of the squeamish things and popped them into his mouth. I don’t remember the speech—only the act itself. He did get his team motivated. Of course, he let the earthworms eat their way through a cup of corn meal to purge them of any impurities and then ran them under some water. To commemorate this unforgettable moment in sports history some Baylor fans have proposed the creation of a bronze statue of Teaff with a worm in his hand reaching toward his mouth. What I need right now is a good stiff drink of—uh—better make that coffee.
.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Curses! Foiled Again and Again!
Everyone thinks that Friday the thirteen is bound to be a bad day. However, Friday does not own a monopoly on those kinds of days. I seem to be jinxed by weddings—any day of the week. I was driving to my daughter’s wedding just south of Houston when I was rear ended by a car on the 610 loop. Fortunately, there was no significant damage and the father of the bride did make it on time. However, everything did not turn out quite ok. All the unattached females lined up in eager anticipation of the bouquet toss. When Kathy threw the bridal bouquet, it hit a ceiling fan and fell to the floor in several pieces. We then had the tossing of the partial bouquet. In any event, there were enough pieces that anyone one wanted one could have had one. Another accident happened when I was driving my stepdaughter to her wedding. She was a bit nervous because she thought we were running a bit late. I waited patiently for a red light to turn and then proceeded through the intersection. Wham! A young teenager in a borrowed Cadillac who was confused by the signal turned smack dab into the side of my car. The police detained us momentary while Natasha fretted in the back seat. We explained that she did not need to worry since it was unlikely that they would start the wedding without her. While on the way to my own wedding in Seattle back in 1968, I suffered a blowout just outside Moses Lake, Washington. You might not want to invite me to your wedding.
Back in the fall of 1966 I invited a family friend who was living in La Porte, Texas, up to watch the Arkansas-Rice football game at Rice Stadium. She was thrilled because she had had little opportunity to see her favorite team play. She was even more thrilled when Arkansas won. It was always a good bet that Rice would lose. When it came time to drive her home, the freeway was covered by fog. As we approached her exit, she said, “Turn right here!” Only she did not mean right here. She meant right there. Right here was a cloverleaf. Right there was a nice smooth 30-degree exit road. Both exits were separated by no more than 60 feet. So we exited at the wrong place at a comfortable 30-mph. Comfortable that is if you are not on the hairpin cloverleaf. Since I was not expecting a cloverleaf, I continued at a nice 30-degree angle on an imaginary road. I discovered that I was not the only one to have made that mistake. The grassy field on which we suddenly found ourselves was covered with 30 to 40 cars—all of which had exited prematurely. There was no danger of wrecking the car unless I happened to hit another of the errant vehicles. I swerved to the right and to the left and finally came to a resting-place out of harm’s way. I did experience a bump or two, but that was all. I dropped Jane off and headed back to Houston. About 15 to 20 miles from her apartment an engine light came on. I pulled into a service station to check it out. The transmission had a hole in it. One of those bumps had been a slab of concrete.
Back in 1964 I drove my Chevy to Texarkana with a group of college friends to see LBJ. Three of them were females who had to check back into their dorm by 11pm. If you consider seeing ten or fifteen secret service men or military men standing on the rooftops of building with rifles in hand ready to shoot, then things went well. At the conclusion of his speech, three or four of our group swarmed ahead for a chance to shake the hand of the President. About an hour later we made it back to our car and headed to Magnolia. About 15 miles out of Texarkana the car started running hot. Since that section of the road is a lonely stretch with no service stations, we stopped and scooped up some water and hit the road again. Ten miles down the road we stopped and scooped water again. Another ten miles and it was stop and scoop time yet again. The girls began to fret something awful about the horrible punishment that would await them if they were late. After another stop or two we pulled up in front of Bussey Hall with three minutes to spare. They dashed inside and the guys breathed a sigh of relief. So what does a little stress matter? Just remember the next time you get in a car with me, there could be a little bit of stress—if everything goes well.
Everyone thinks that Friday the thirteen is bound to be a bad day. However, Friday does not own a monopoly on those kinds of days. I seem to be jinxed by weddings—any day of the week. I was driving to my daughter’s wedding just south of Houston when I was rear ended by a car on the 610 loop. Fortunately, there was no significant damage and the father of the bride did make it on time. However, everything did not turn out quite ok. All the unattached females lined up in eager anticipation of the bouquet toss. When Kathy threw the bridal bouquet, it hit a ceiling fan and fell to the floor in several pieces. We then had the tossing of the partial bouquet. In any event, there were enough pieces that anyone one wanted one could have had one. Another accident happened when I was driving my stepdaughter to her wedding. She was a bit nervous because she thought we were running a bit late. I waited patiently for a red light to turn and then proceeded through the intersection. Wham! A young teenager in a borrowed Cadillac who was confused by the signal turned smack dab into the side of my car. The police detained us momentary while Natasha fretted in the back seat. We explained that she did not need to worry since it was unlikely that they would start the wedding without her. While on the way to my own wedding in Seattle back in 1968, I suffered a blowout just outside Moses Lake, Washington. You might not want to invite me to your wedding.
Back in the fall of 1966 I invited a family friend who was living in La Porte, Texas, up to watch the Arkansas-Rice football game at Rice Stadium. She was thrilled because she had had little opportunity to see her favorite team play. She was even more thrilled when Arkansas won. It was always a good bet that Rice would lose. When it came time to drive her home, the freeway was covered by fog. As we approached her exit, she said, “Turn right here!” Only she did not mean right here. She meant right there. Right here was a cloverleaf. Right there was a nice smooth 30-degree exit road. Both exits were separated by no more than 60 feet. So we exited at the wrong place at a comfortable 30-mph. Comfortable that is if you are not on the hairpin cloverleaf. Since I was not expecting a cloverleaf, I continued at a nice 30-degree angle on an imaginary road. I discovered that I was not the only one to have made that mistake. The grassy field on which we suddenly found ourselves was covered with 30 to 40 cars—all of which had exited prematurely. There was no danger of wrecking the car unless I happened to hit another of the errant vehicles. I swerved to the right and to the left and finally came to a resting-place out of harm’s way. I did experience a bump or two, but that was all. I dropped Jane off and headed back to Houston. About 15 to 20 miles from her apartment an engine light came on. I pulled into a service station to check it out. The transmission had a hole in it. One of those bumps had been a slab of concrete.
Back in 1964 I drove my Chevy to Texarkana with a group of college friends to see LBJ. Three of them were females who had to check back into their dorm by 11pm. If you consider seeing ten or fifteen secret service men or military men standing on the rooftops of building with rifles in hand ready to shoot, then things went well. At the conclusion of his speech, three or four of our group swarmed ahead for a chance to shake the hand of the President. About an hour later we made it back to our car and headed to Magnolia. About 15 miles out of Texarkana the car started running hot. Since that section of the road is a lonely stretch with no service stations, we stopped and scooped up some water and hit the road again. Ten miles down the road we stopped and scooped water again. Another ten miles and it was stop and scoop time yet again. The girls began to fret something awful about the horrible punishment that would await them if they were late. After another stop or two we pulled up in front of Bussey Hall with three minutes to spare. They dashed inside and the guys breathed a sigh of relief. So what does a little stress matter? Just remember the next time you get in a car with me, there could be a little bit of stress—if everything goes well.
Monday, March 20, 2006
Mathematicians Can Be a Pain!
Math can be a big headache. Way back in the seventeenth century a teacher in a small town in Brunswick (now part of Germany) had become exasperated with his elementary class. Hoping for a few minutes of peace and quiet he told the class to add all the numbers between one and an, hundred. He turned and headed back to his desk. Almost immediately Carl Friedrich Gauss walked up and handed him the answer—5050. The teacher was momentarily flabbergasted. He then thought about the silver lining on the cloud. He had a mathematical genius on his hand. And indeed he did. Gauss is generally recognized as one of the greatest mathematicians of all time. The teacher was consoled.
My own personal problems with math began during my undergraduate days. I had zipped right through College Algebra with an "A." Since I had no real interest in the subject and since I had satisfied my general education math requirement, I should have been done with math completely. However, there was a certain young lady in whom I was interested who was a math major. So, in order to get to know her better I signed up for a course in Honors Trig. I should mention that this course was an overload for me. At that time there was an early drop date for all courses. And sometime after the drop date had passed, the young lady had lost all interest in me. There I was stuck in a class that I did not need—surrounded by nothing but math majors.
When I moved on to graduate school to pursue a degree in history, I rented a room on University Avenue from Mrs. Sweeny for $30 a month. Dwight Love, a math person, had been living there for a year and was completing his requirements for a Masters Degree in Math. About two weeks after I moved in he was given a math problem to solve for his thesis. That night right before supper I heard a loud shout “Eureka!” I went to investigate. Dwight told me that he had already solved the problem. Knowing that it would eventually take me months and months to write my own thesis, I thought that I must be in the wrong field. At noon the next day I saw Dwight hard at work with a puzzled look on his face. I asked him if something were wrong. He informed me that he had found a glitch in his proof and that the problem was not solved. The next day soon after supper I heard a vigorous “Eureka!” I went in and congratulated Dwight. The next day at noon he had that familiar puzzled look on his face. There was another glitch. The next four or five months alternated between glitches and “Eureka’s!” He finally got it right. To celebrate he wanted to go out and eat at a brand new restaurant—Shoney’s Big Boys. There was a long waiting line, so Dwight gave them our name and we waited. After fifteen or twenty minutes a loud voice crackled over the loudspeaker, “We now have a table for the Love party of two!” Every eye in the establishment immediately started searching for the Love party. Dwight hopped up and I stayed seated. He said, “Are you coming?” I said “Not right now. I will see you in about five minutes!”
Several years later my father-in-law was visiting us in Magnolia. He was not your typical father-in-law. He was a West Point graduate (number one in his class) and a retired army colonel. He had a Masters degree in Nuclear Physics from the University of Chicago where he had studied under Edward Teller. The military did not trust the scientists who were working on the atomic bomb at Alamogordo, New Mexico. He and several other bright army minds were sent there to keep a watchful eye on all those scientists. I should note that he was also not particularly fond of historians. My mother-in-law had cautioned me to steer clear of certain subjects in our conversations. Thinking math was a suitable subject for conversation, I asked him if he knew on which day(s) of the week Leap Year was most likely to fall. He looked at me kind of funny and informed me that the probability had to be the same for each day of the week. He brushed aside my protests as coming from an uninformed historian. Realizing that I had inadvertently treaded on dangerous ground, I dropped the subject. The next morning he apologized. He had stayed up all night doing the math and had found that I was correct. From that day forth he had a new respect for at least one historian. How had I arrived at my conclusion? I looked at a perpetual calendar and noticed that there was a disparity in the number of calendars associated with leap years. Five minutes of investigation led to an interesting conclusion: the 29th of February is most likely to fall on a Sunday, Tuesday or a Friday. Useful information to know. You never know when you might be able to use it in a conversation with your father-in-law. Today I happened to glance at an online Math Forum sponsored by a Dr. Math. There was a lively debate on how often a leap year would fall on a Sunday or any other day of the week. Endless hours had been spent calculating the probability using elaborate formulas. Arguments and proofs were flying back and forth. Time out for all you mathematicians. No math is actually needed—just five minutes and a perpetual calendar should do just fine.
Math can be a big headache. Way back in the seventeenth century a teacher in a small town in Brunswick (now part of Germany) had become exasperated with his elementary class. Hoping for a few minutes of peace and quiet he told the class to add all the numbers between one and an, hundred. He turned and headed back to his desk. Almost immediately Carl Friedrich Gauss walked up and handed him the answer—5050. The teacher was momentarily flabbergasted. He then thought about the silver lining on the cloud. He had a mathematical genius on his hand. And indeed he did. Gauss is generally recognized as one of the greatest mathematicians of all time. The teacher was consoled.
My own personal problems with math began during my undergraduate days. I had zipped right through College Algebra with an "A." Since I had no real interest in the subject and since I had satisfied my general education math requirement, I should have been done with math completely. However, there was a certain young lady in whom I was interested who was a math major. So, in order to get to know her better I signed up for a course in Honors Trig. I should mention that this course was an overload for me. At that time there was an early drop date for all courses. And sometime after the drop date had passed, the young lady had lost all interest in me. There I was stuck in a class that I did not need—surrounded by nothing but math majors.
When I moved on to graduate school to pursue a degree in history, I rented a room on University Avenue from Mrs. Sweeny for $30 a month. Dwight Love, a math person, had been living there for a year and was completing his requirements for a Masters Degree in Math. About two weeks after I moved in he was given a math problem to solve for his thesis. That night right before supper I heard a loud shout “Eureka!” I went to investigate. Dwight told me that he had already solved the problem. Knowing that it would eventually take me months and months to write my own thesis, I thought that I must be in the wrong field. At noon the next day I saw Dwight hard at work with a puzzled look on his face. I asked him if something were wrong. He informed me that he had found a glitch in his proof and that the problem was not solved. The next day soon after supper I heard a vigorous “Eureka!” I went in and congratulated Dwight. The next day at noon he had that familiar puzzled look on his face. There was another glitch. The next four or five months alternated between glitches and “Eureka’s!” He finally got it right. To celebrate he wanted to go out and eat at a brand new restaurant—Shoney’s Big Boys. There was a long waiting line, so Dwight gave them our name and we waited. After fifteen or twenty minutes a loud voice crackled over the loudspeaker, “We now have a table for the Love party of two!” Every eye in the establishment immediately started searching for the Love party. Dwight hopped up and I stayed seated. He said, “Are you coming?” I said “Not right now. I will see you in about five minutes!”
Several years later my father-in-law was visiting us in Magnolia. He was not your typical father-in-law. He was a West Point graduate (number one in his class) and a retired army colonel. He had a Masters degree in Nuclear Physics from the University of Chicago where he had studied under Edward Teller. The military did not trust the scientists who were working on the atomic bomb at Alamogordo, New Mexico. He and several other bright army minds were sent there to keep a watchful eye on all those scientists. I should note that he was also not particularly fond of historians. My mother-in-law had cautioned me to steer clear of certain subjects in our conversations. Thinking math was a suitable subject for conversation, I asked him if he knew on which day(s) of the week Leap Year was most likely to fall. He looked at me kind of funny and informed me that the probability had to be the same for each day of the week. He brushed aside my protests as coming from an uninformed historian. Realizing that I had inadvertently treaded on dangerous ground, I dropped the subject. The next morning he apologized. He had stayed up all night doing the math and had found that I was correct. From that day forth he had a new respect for at least one historian. How had I arrived at my conclusion? I looked at a perpetual calendar and noticed that there was a disparity in the number of calendars associated with leap years. Five minutes of investigation led to an interesting conclusion: the 29th of February is most likely to fall on a Sunday, Tuesday or a Friday. Useful information to know. You never know when you might be able to use it in a conversation with your father-in-law. Today I happened to glance at an online Math Forum sponsored by a Dr. Math. There was a lively debate on how often a leap year would fall on a Sunday or any other day of the week. Endless hours had been spent calculating the probability using elaborate formulas. Arguments and proofs were flying back and forth. Time out for all you mathematicians. No math is actually needed—just five minutes and a perpetual calendar should do just fine.
