Quirky Things

One meaning of the word “quirk” is a peculiarity.
“Peculiarity” is the quality of being peculiar.
“Peculiar” means out of the ordinary; odd; strange.

Now that we have that settled. I’d like to share with you a few quirky things....

Francis P. Quirk

He was my 6th grade government-school teacher. The year was 1970. School was different back then.

I remember the day my classmates Mike Burke and Jeff Sims got in an argument over something and wanted to fight. Upon seeing this, Mr. Quirk told them to sit down. Then he had the rest of us rearrange our desks to make a cleared out area . He called the two boys up to the front of the class. They were standing there side by side. Mr. Quirk took a seat and and told them that if they wanted to fight, this was their opportunity. Have at it.

They were on the spot and it didn’t look much like they wanted to fight any more. But Mr. Quirk spoke some words of encouragement. He told them that if they really wanted to fight, they really should fight. So they did.

They started throwing punches. Mike punched Jeff in the face. Jeff punched him back. There was a flurry of blows. Jeff grabbed Mike’s shirt and pounded him and the shirt ripped and Mike started crying. Both had had enough. Mr. Quirk stopped the fight. It all happened pretty fast.

I don’t remember anyone ever wanting to fight in Mr. Quirk’s class again after that.


Chickens Saved George Washington’s Life ( well, sort of)

I came home from work yesterday and my son, James, informed me of a quirky event in American history that I had never heard of before....

A man named Thomas Hickey poisoned General George Washington’s peas at a dinner he was eating at the tavern of Samuel Fraunces in New York City. The tavernkeeper’s daughter Phoebe knew the peas were poisoned and agreed to serve them to G.W. But as she served him, she whispered a warning.

Washington threw the peas out a nearby window. Some chickens came along and ate them. The chickens died. Washington’s life was saved. He went on to win the Revolutionary War, preside over the constitutional convention, and become our nation’s first president.

That information comes from a Reader’s Digest book titled, “Strange Stories, Amazing Facts of America’s Past.”

Chickens Love Rat Poison

Speaking of chickens, one of my coworkers recently told me that he once had a neighbor with chickens. The fowls free ranged over into his yard and he didn’t much like it. So he put some rat poison pellets out for them to eat. The chickens ate the pellets right down and came back the next day for more.

This went on for awhile and my coworker said he was amazed that the birds didn’t die. He told his father about it one day. His father wondered about the eggs the chickens were laying, and the neighbors were eating. After considering that, he stopped feeding the chickens.

A New Way To Butcher Pigs

The same coworker mentioned above told me the same neighbor with the happily rat-poisoned chickens raised a pig one year. When it came time to butcher the fattened porker, he fired up his chainsaw and used it to cut into the live pig’s neck and bleed it out. As he told me this he made the motions of starting a chainsaw, and chainsaw sound effects too.

When I questioned the veracity of the tale, he assured me that it was true. And he added that if I knew his neighbor, I wouldn’t doubt the story.

That’s wild and quirky.

Eatin' Coon

I was speaking with a friend of mine, who happens to be a part-time, certified-organic farmer, about trapping critters the other day. He said his uncle once told him that no animal will eat a raccoon. Not even a crow or turkey vulture. Is this a quirky fable or is it true?

Quirky Word Question

Here’s a question for the more erudite among us....

I have been informed that there is one word in the english language that contains all the vowels (a,e,i,o, and u). Do you know what it is?

Quirky Cosmic Coincidence

I was driving my new (to me) $600 Nissan Sentra home from work yesterday, listening to the immensely popular blogger, Amy Scott, being interviewed by Rick Saenz on a Plain Talk CD.

At one point in the interview, Amy is speaking about something and she says the words, “fall like dominoes.” Well, at the exact moment she uttered the word “dominoes” I was looking at the word “Dominoes” on a pizza joint I was driving by.

How’s that for quirky?

Whizbang Plucker At The North Pole

It’s true. Tomorrow, I am sending a box of parts to build a Whizbang Chicken Plucker to the North Pole.

That’s a quirky place to pluck a chicken.

(Well, it's actually going to North Pole, Alaska)

My Take on Santa Claus

North Pole? Hmmm..... makes me think of You-Know-Who.

We are getting close to Christmas, and that means I’ll have to go through the torture of looking at pictures of Santa Claus and of men who dress up like him. We got a catalog in the mail the other day that was selling Santa Claus toilet seat covers. They are so cute!!! (I’m being facetious) (By the way, that’s a hint).

I don’t like Santa Claus because he takes the focus off celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. This portly fictional character serves no purpose but to rob God of His glory.

Because of this, we do not do the Santa thing in our family, and we never have. I told my boys right from the start that he is a fraud and a thief. I told them that if you rearrange the letters in Santa, you get Satan.

In the midst of our modern, materialistic, and predominantly godless, modern culture, this way of thinking qualifies me as quirky.

The Quirky Mars Program

The United States has spent billions and billions of taxpayer dollars in the effort to send an unmanned spacecraft to the planet of Mars. Now they want to spend many more billions (probably trillions) to send men to Mars.

Several months ago I listened to a radio interview with the head of the NASA Mars program.

The interviewer asked a wonderful question: “Why are we spending all of this money and effort to go to Mars?”

The answer.... “So we can better understand our origins.”

I think it would have been a whole lot cheaper and easier to just read the book of Genesis and take a close look at the natural world around us.

That’s enough quirky stuff!

~~~~~~

P.S. If you read this Mr. Quirk, drop me an e-mail. It’s been 36 years. I’d love to hear from you. hckimball@bci.net