Dear Kid,

Happy Friday!

Once upon a time (I do love a story that begins that way), there was no such thing as Casual Friday.

Finally, one day, Mrs. Joe Neanderthal decided that she was tired or wearing formal saber-tooth tiger skins and declared a day off. Unfortunately, Joe Neanderthal took that to mean a day free of clothes and almost froze his whatsis off.

Eventually, people moved from from mammoth fur to power ties and three inch heels. Business attire had arrived.

Meanwhile, in 1966, the Hawaiian shirt industry was trying to sell more brightly decorated shirts (do not try to imagine Mrs. Joe Neanderthal in a Hawaiian shirt), and Aloha Friday was invented. It was a made-up reason for people to wear Hawaiian shirts on Friday (and therefore purchase more Hawaiian shirts).

The trend caught on.

Fast forward to the recession of the early 1990s. The idea of Aloha Fridays migrated to the western states and then continued to march east. Simultaneously, companies were looking for ways to give perks to employees that didn’t cost anything and voila! Casual Fridays.

All of which was fine until people tried to figure out what to wear, and people started showing up at work wearing all kinds of, um, interesting (and by “interesting” I mean way too casual) outfits.

Levi’s had at that point purchased a going-nowhere brand called Dockers which made golf course type khaki pants. In a brilliant marketing move, the Dockers people printed a little brochure showing men what to wear to work on a business casual day. They sent this brochure to HR people who could then show inept dressers how to dress in a more ept way.

These days, almost every day is business casual in the majority of businesses. Yet we still talk about Casual Friday. Let me know if you figure that out. In the meantime, have a great Friday.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

We were talking about the Ohio River at lunch yesterday.

NMore specifically, we were on a boat (the big kind where there’s neither wind nor destination) cruising on the Ohio River and I was sharing (and by “sharing” I mean inflicting upon people) information about the river.

Person 1: So you’re the resident expert on the Ohio River?
Person 2: Yep.
Person 3: She is.
Person 4: Uh-huh.
Me: Pretty much.
Person 1: It’s made of water.

Don’t you love intellectual conversations?

Person 3: Do you know the name of the island in the Ohio River?
Person 1: …
Person 2: …
Me: There are islands in the Ohio River?

Turns out there are 39 islands in the Ohio River (did you know that? I didn’t.). Some are private; some are federally owned and part of the Ohio River Island National Refuge. Dad knew that part.

The Ohio River Islands National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1990 to protect, conserve, and restore habitat for wildlife native to the river’s floodplain. The refuge consists of twenty-two islands and four mainland tracts scattered along 362 miles of the upper Ohio River. Most of the refuge’s 3440 acres of land and underwater habitat are located in West Virginia; however, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky each have two refuge islands.

Then we had cheesecake and the conversation moved on to sheep.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

You’ve heard of the Ohio River. But do you know about it?

Well, of course you do, but I’m going to tell you about it anyway.

The Ohio River springs into existence in Pittsburgh where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers collide. The Ohio is 981 miles long, ending in Cairo, Illinois, after passing through (or being the border of) six states.

I’ll wait while you try to remember what they are.

Its largest tributary is the Tennessee River, but there are plenty of other tributaries along the way.

The Ohio River is the source of drinking water for more than 3 million people. Most of them prefer that it passes through a water treatment facility before being poured into their drinking cups.

There are currently 20 dams on the Ohio River watched over and managed by the Army Corps of Engineers. The first locks on the river (the Louisville and Portland Canal) were built between 1825 and 1830 at the only major natural navigational barrier on the river, the Falls of the Ohio near Louisville. The Falls (it sounds so grand, doesn’t it?) were a series of rapids where the river dropped 26 feet in about 2 miles.

Approximately 164 species of fish have been found in the Ohio River (not all of them at the same time). In the early 19^th century, many pirates were also found on the river (they weren’t nearly as nice as the fish).

80 species of mussels once lived in the Ohio River. Currently only 50 species occur and 5 of those are in danger of extinction.

There are fish consumption advisories in place for the entire length of the river. Basically, don’t fish in the river if you’re looking for lunch.

Love, Mom

The Ohio River flows through or borders six states: Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.

Want to know more about the Ohio River? Read more here.

Dear Kid,

It’s December (you probably knew that, but it’s possible you weren’t paying attention). There’s a lot of focus on The Holiday Season at this time of year, but there are other reasons that December is interesting. Being the kind of mom I am, I decided to ferret some of those Lesser Known Factoids for you.

A group of ferrets is called a “business.” I don’t know why, but I promise I’m not giving you the business by telling you that.

December is the twelfth last month of the year (which you know). But “deci” means “ten”, so what’s up with that nonsense? Turns out that December was the 10^th month of the year when the Romans started naming things. Apparently January and February didn’t count as months back then (which you would have known if you’d been alive then. But you weren’t.).

The song “Jingle Bells” was written in 1857 and was meant to be a song for Thanksgiving rather than Christmas. (Imho, it should have stayed with Turkey Day because there aren’t many good Thanksgiving songs.)

December is best known for the holiday season (by which of course I mean National Fruitcake Month, National Eggnog Month, National Tie Month, and National Pear Month). No one cares about National Tie Month. Not all that many people care about National Fruitcake Month either.

Not only do we celebrate the inedibility of fruitcake in December, we also celebrate Light (as in all the festivals of), lack of light (as in the shortest days of the year), and shopping. Therefore, it should be no surprise to you that December is the month when couples argue the most. No light, no cash, no idea what to do with the fruitcake = fighting.

In the UK, more people are given breathalyzer tests in December than in any other month. This also leads to arguing. But with cooler accents that we have.

Saint Nickolas (who later became the jolly old elf know as Santa Claus) was the patron saint of children, thieves, and pawnbrokers. I’ll wait while you think about that for a minute.

According to a study done in 2011, more dentists have birthdays in December than in any other month. I have no idea what that means.

The stock market tends to do well in December (a phenomena affectionately called the Santa Rally). This is not a recommended way to plan an investing strategy.

December throws the biggest party any month ends with—New Year’s Eve.

Hope December is a good month for you.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Once upon a time, Mrs. Joe Neanderthal decided to throw a Fancy Dinner Party. While she cooked a large Rump of Mammoth, she sent Joe down to the corner to buy a couple of bottles of a nice wine.

Unfortunately, Joe couldn’t count up to “a couple” and returned home with only one bottle. Mrs. J. N. immediately sent him out for more. Joe immediately decided that getting ready for a Fancy Dinner Party was not his idea of Fun and he spent the rest of the day at the pub, drinking beer with the guys. When he finally staggered home, Mrs. Joe clonked him on the head with the wine bottle to express her concern for his misspent afternoon.

After that, the history of wine bottles is a little murky owing to the bodily risks of preparing for a party involving alcohol.

Eventually (and by “eventually” I mean a really, really long time ago), glass was invented (primarily so that people could throw stones, but also to make bottles). At first glass bottles were très brittle, but then people discovered that they could make thicker bottles by super-heating the glass.

Glass bottles were blown round (because that was easiest) and were blown to exactly one lungful of the glassblower’s air. Which meant every bottle was its own size. (In England, it was illegal to sell wine by the bottle because of the inconsistencies in size. Wine had to be sold by the barrel, after which it could be decanted into bottles. It wasn’t until 1860 that the law was changed.)

Not only weren’t bottles standard, they were round. (NOTE: Round bottles roll. Generally off the table.) Since most wine makers preferred to keep their wine inside its container rather than having it decorate the floor, round bottles were not used for wine. So longer (non-standard) bottles were invented and people started aging wines.

In 1979, the US of A set the standard size for a glass wine bottle at 750 ml. It seems like it would have been longer ago than that. But it wasn’t.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Once upon a time, there was no such thing as peanut butter and jelly. This was known as the Pre-Lunch Period.

Even once peanuts were invented no one really cared or paid attention until the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893.

Initially, peanut butter was a très trendy treat and one ate it on toast triangles while one called oneself “one.” One sometimes at it with watercress just to show that one was sophisticated enough not to spit out the watercress.

Meanwhile in 1901, Julia Davis Chandler invented the recipe for peanut butter and jelly. (All hail the first Ms. Julia.)

Things really picked up for pb&j when Otto Rohwedder invented the bread slicer. Yes, he most certainly did, and he marketed it as “the greatest step forward in baking since bread was wrapped. (Later the slogan became “the greatest thing since sliced bread.”—I am not making that up.) The bread slicer meant that people (and by “people” I mean children and klutzy adults) could make sandwiches without having to handle sharp implements.

With pre-sliced bread readily available, people needed things to put in between slices.

Enter Mr. Paul Welch and his love of smooshing up grapes into jelly, which wasn’t nearly as good as strawberry jam, but Paul didn’t care about that at all.

Meanwhile, the peanut thing was happening. Fact: Peanut butter was not invented by Dr. George Washington Carver. He just popularized all things peanut. Peanut butter was probably invented by Dr. Ambrose Straub who thought peanut butter paste was a good thing for patients who had trouble swallowing (or fewer than the standard number of teeth). Dr. John Harvey Kellogg (you know him as the inventor of boxes of cereal) figured out how to manufacture peanut butter. Kellogg and Straub went to the Fair (the St. Louis World Fair) and it was a hit. A smallish hit, but a hit nonetheless.

Enter sugar added to peanut butter (yum), creamier peanut butter that didn’t stick to the roof of your mouth as much (yay), and The Great Depression (boo). Peanut butter was satisfying, high in protein, and cheap, all of which helped boost its popularity.

Then (this part should be accompanied by an amazing soundtrack), We the People entered WWII and pb&j went right along with us. Peanut butter and jelly was (were? was?) part of the rations given to soldiers—and it was better than much of the food they were served. And with that, peanut butter and jelly became the quintessential American lunch.

Nothing much happened on the pb&j front for many years. Then came the Era of Commercialization and Mistakes Were Made. Like combining peanut butter and jelly (and blech) in a single jar. And inventing a shelf stable way to make peanut butter slices (think individually wrapped American cheese slices but with peanut butter) which avoided all that spreading and bread ripping. Bad ideas all around.

These days, the peanut butter and jelly sandwich is a staple of most homes that have people living in them. There is much controversy in the world about whether creamy or chunky is the correct version (as if it’s even a question!) but that’s a different discussion for a different day.

Love, Mom

P.S. Guess what I had for dinner last night?