Hey, Patriots!

Oh, say!—can you see that today is National Anthem Day? I think it’s safe to say that The Star-Spangled Banner is one song that every American knows word for word. Originally a poem, written in 1814 by a lawyer named Francis Scott Key at 35, his words have been sung from the mouths of every American generation since.

Francis never considered himself much of a poet, yet his words have lived on now for 200 years! Titled, “Defense of Fort McHenry,” his poem was about an assault of British ships on Fort McHenry that he’d seen during a battle in the War of 1812.

The words of his poem were set to the tune of “The Anacreon in Heaven” a popular British song written by John Stafford Smith in the 1760’s for the Anacreontic Society, a club of amateur musicians. It didn’t take long after the marriage of words and music that the piece was renamed and popularized.

Another thing that few people know about the National Anthem is that it’s actually got four verses—the poem had four stanzas anyway. I think it’s safe to say at this point that they aren’t really part of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” though people used to sing every verse. The first verse is the only one that anyone ever sings.

While it gained popularity quickly, it wasn’t recognized for official use as our national anthem until 1916 when President Woodrow Wilson brought it to the attention of men in Congress. Even then, it wasn’t officially made our country’s anthem until March 3 of 1931!

Before that, “Hail, Columbia” usually filled the role of America’s ‘anthem.’ Now “Hail, Columbia is the song we use to honor the Vice President. Also in the competition for national anthem was “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee.”

Oh yeah, and “The Star-Spangled Banner”—especially with all four verses—isn’t the easiest song to sing. See if you can sing all four verses without any trouble!

Hey, Loose-Toothers!

Do you have some pesky molar, canine, or incisor that just won’t fall out already? Sick of your tooth wiggling around in your mouth and hangin’ on by just a thread? Well, today would be a great day to lose that unchained chomper as it’s National Tooth Fairy Day! She’s a fairly generous fairy—especially on a day like today that’s made to honor her…it’s sort of like her birthday.

The Tooth Fairy has a rather short line of genealogy. Daughter of Father Time and Mother Nature, she has only one other sibling, (her baby brother, Cupid) and she’s second cousin to the Easter Bunny, once removed on her mother’s side.

Anyway, as I was saying, the decision to finally lose that annoying baby tooth, believe it or not, is up to you. There’s a number of ways to finally get those loose baby teeth out of your mouth by force if they won’t leave on their own!

One way is eating apple after apple after apple. Taking big crispy bites of this firm fruit might just be enough to push that stubborn tooth right out of place. Taffy can work well for this purpose as well. In fact, eating food in general is always a nice, easy way to give a loose tooth the push out the door that it may need.

I, myself, nearly ate my own tooth once after losing it as I ate a buttered roll. The tooth was well camouflaged against the butter, but thankfully I spotted it before my next bite. My brother was less fortunate when he swallowed his whole along with a burger he was eating.

Another great method for losing a loose tooth is to wrap floss around the tooth and make a criss-cross motion (almost like a scissors) to cut that dangler. If that doesn’t do it, there’s always the string tied to the doorknob trick, but that method can be a little…intimidating (not to mention nerve-racking).

Good luck with your loose teeth! Make sure to put them under your pillow tonight so the Tooth Fairy will compensate you handsomely. If you didn’t just loose your tooth, but actually LOST your tooth, don’t fret. The Tooth Fairy knows. She always knows. After all, my brother still got his payment after consuming is tooth burger!

Hey, Bear Buffs!

It’s National Polar Bear Day! These incredible creatures never cease to amaze. But just what is it that’s so FASCINATING about these albino bears? Well, that’s one thing right there—polar bears aren’t really albino—their fur’s actually colorless! But I’m getting ahead of myself. Just let me explain how cool polar bears are and you’ll see that there’s SO MUCH more to them than just soda advertisements.

First of all, polar bears are believed to have evolved from grizzlies around 150,000 years ago. Polar bears have since well adapted to their Arctic environment. Their white appearance gives them great camouflage. Their paws grow wider than a grizzly’s so to distribute their weight as they cross ice and snow. And they grow fur on the bottom of their paw to give better grip on ice and extra warmth.

Returning to the first point made, polar bears do not have white fur. Their fur is actually transparent, clear, see-through. It has no color at all. It only appears white because of the way that it reflects sunlight. And underneath all that fur, it turns out a polar bear’s skin is actually black. Black skin helps keep this giant mammal warm as it absorbs the sun’s heat.

Also unlike grizzly bears—or any other bear, for that matter—polar bears do not hibernate for the winter. They don’t hibernate at all unless they are pregnant in which case they go into a mild hibernation where their heart rate slows down and their body temperature is strictly regulated. Pregnant polar bear’s hibernation is easily interrupted.

Lastly, I think everybody knows that polar bears can swim, but do you realize how good they are at it? In fact, polar bears are able to swim for longer than an entire week without stopping at all!

So, as I said to begin with, polar bears are fascinating creatures, aren’t they? Happy Polar Bear Day!

Hey, Sleepyheads!

Sleeping outside is always an amazing experience at summer camp. Of course, you won’t enjoy a night under the stars very much if there isn’t anything underneath you. You need the right camping gear with you! Sleeping bags are a fairly important item to a camper who finds him or herself roughin’ it!

But people certainly had to sleep on the ground before sleeping bags were invented, right? Well, sure. It’s just nobody said that they had to be comfortable when they did it.

That’s not to say that they didn’t find ways to provide warmth and even comfort—quite the contrary! What people used to do is roll up wool blankets with themselves inside. I’m sure it was extremely comfortable, it just wasn’t very convenient. Not as much as a sleeping bag.

There was no zipper to allow an easy in and out. There wasn’t any insulation fill. And there certainly weren’t any temperature ratings! A more modern concept for the sleeping bag didn’t come around until the 1850’s when patrolling officers of France would keep watch in the mountains.

They carried large bags with them that had been made of sheepskin lined with wool. They would roll the wool up inside the bags and keep the wool buckled in place. Then, a decade later, another man, an explorer named Francis Fox Tuckett designed a “sleeping bag” out of a blanket that had a waterproof, rubber bottom.

Not much more than oversized bags of warm material, neither of these bags offered the convenience of modern day sleeping bags. Sleeping bags would have to wait until 1913 for the zipper to be invented, but before that, in 1876, a man named Pryce-Jones introduced what is considered the first sleeping bag, called the Euklisia Rug.

It still didn’t really look like a sleeping bag. And it didn’t roll up. It was really just a folded up blanket. It had a pocket at the top for an inflatable rubber pillow that was sewn in. When you laid down on the Euklisia Rug, you would fold the rest of the blanket over, wrapping yourself and fasten it shut with clasps.

So the next time you wrap up nice and warm in your sleeping bag from Everything Summer Camp, give a little thanks to Pryce-Jones …or maybe those French officers in the mountains…

Hey, Snack Fans!

Grabbing an after school snack or something to nosh on while you watch a good movie is sometimes the most enjoyable part of a day! As simple as a snack can be, they’re also just as satisfying. But there’s one snack that trumps them all. It’s crunchy, triangular, and goes great with salsa!

I’m talking about Tortilla Chips! Why? Um…because it’s National Tortilla Chip Day. Duh-doy! ‘So?’ you might be thinking as you read this post. ‘What’s so great about tortilla chips?’ to which I would respond, ‘WHAT’S SO GREAT ABOUT TORTILLA CHIPS??!!!!’

To a tortilla chip maniac like myself, the answer should be obvious, but if you need me to, I’ll try and break it down for you just why it is that tortilla chips are so great. Let’s see…where to begin, where to begin?

First of all, I’ll tell you how tortilla chips are made. You take a corn tortilla like you’d use to wrap a burrito and you cut it into wedges. Then you fry it (some tortilla chips are circles which are simply circle cutouts of a tortilla and then fried).

Now for a little history: Tortilla chips were first made sometime in the 1950’s, invented by a woman named Rebecca Webb Carranza. Along with her husband, Rebecca owned a tortilla factory in Los Angeles. They were one of the first people to automate tortilla production.

The Carranza’s automated production would turn out the occasional imperfect tortillas which they would throw away. But one day Rebecca got the idea to cut the “bad” tortillas up and fry them. She’d sell a bag of these “chips” for a dime (which was the equivalent to today’s dollar—maybe more).

It wasn’t long before tortilla chips caught on by the entire nation. Since they go great with so many different appetizers and dips they’ve become quite a popular chip. Celebrate National Tortilla Chip Day and enjoy a bag yourself. Maybe you can even make your own!