September 2011


HOME & GARDEN


This Time Of Year Way Back When S


LOOKING FOR GOOD IN THE PAST by Jim Sheets o you are at the


Giant’s game and the stadium public address announcer asks you to rise and join in the singing of “The De- fense of Fort McHen- ry.” The fi rst thing you would do is ask the person you went with, “What are they talking about?” September 13th, 1814 near


Baltimore and aboard a Brit- ish Ship, Francis Scott Key witnessed the bombardment of Fort McHenry and was in- spired to write the words to a poem fi rst called, “The De- fense of Fort McHenry.” That poem later became our Star- Spangled Banner. Why was Key aboard a British ship? Francis Scott Key was an American attorney who was sent by President Madison to help negotiate a prisoner of war exchange. Key sailed under the fl ag of truce toward the British Flagship Tonnant


where he met with British offi cers to discuss American prisoner


release.


Key was successful in getting the Brit- ish to release the prisoners, but while on the Tonnant he overheard the plan to attack the Fort. Brit- ish offi cers held Key


and his newly released prison- ers aboard the ship until they were done bombarding Fort McHenry. The bombs, “burst- ing in air,” went on through the day and into the night. The next day at “the dawn’s early light,” Key was delighted to see “by the rockets red glare, that the fl ag was still there.” The large American fl ag that fl ew over Fort Henry remained throughout the attack. That Star-Spangled Banner did still waive. In 1916, President Wood-


row Wilson put out an execu- tive order to make the The Star-Spangled Banner our Na- tional Anthem. The next time


you are at an event in which you sing the National Anthem, think about that September night when Francis Scott Key was aboard an enemy ship watching and hoping that all those bombs did not deter the American fl ag from fl ying high.


Trivia:


What war was “The Defense of Fort McHenry” written in?


JIM'S QUOTE OF THE MONTH:


“A throne is only a bench covered with velvet” Napoleon Bonaparte


Trivia answer:


“The Defense of Fort McHen- ry was written during the War of 1812.


REMEMBER:


Respect our past for it has shaped our future.


Jim has a history degree


from Sac State University. He is a real estate agent and lives in Sonoma Coun- ty. History questions? jims1127@hotmail.com


people whose notions of time are vaguer than yours.


A good holiday is one spent among


~John B. Priestly


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ater, Time Money


Weird Facts & Trivia - 4 A year on Earth isn’t 365 days.


It’s actually 365.2564 days. It’s this extra .2564 days that creates the need for leap years. That’s why we tack on an extra day in February every year divisible by 4 – 2004, 2008, etc – unless it’s divisible by 100 (1900, 2100, etc)… unless it’s divisible by 400 (1600, 2000, etc).


Time is a dressmaker specializing in alterations. ~Faith Baldwin Through October 30, 2011


Tours at Luther Burbank Home & Gardens


Recreation, Historic: Drop in for docent-led tours Tuesday - Sunday (closed Mondays). Visit home of Luther Burbank, world-renowned horticultur- ist. See beautiful gardens, learn about Burbank's life and work, tour historic home and famous greenhouse. See Museum & Gift Shop, new exhibit at this historic site. 204 Santa Rosa Avenue, Santa Rosa CA 95404. Fee: Garden Admission Free/Docent Tours $7. Time: 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. 707-524-5445


Pg 10 JOKE # 5


An enthusiastic door-to-door vacuum salesman goes to the first house in his new territory. He knocks. A lady opens the door, and before she has a chance to say anything, he runs inside and dumps piles of dirt all over the carpet.


He says, “Lady, if this vacuum cleaner doesn’t do wonders cleaning this up, I’ll eat every chunk of it.” She turns to him with a smirk and says, “You want ketchup on that?”


The salesman says, “Why do you ask?” She says, “We just moved in and we haven’t got the electricity turned on yet.”.


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