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Archives for 2014

Happy New Year!

December 31, 2014 by

From all of us to all of you ....
From all of us to all of you ….
Since we have people from all over the world who seem to drop by here from time to time, I’m not taking any chances. And we don’t want you to take any chances. If you’re going to drink, don’t drive. Not even around the parking lot. You see, while we have never met we have grown close in a way only the internet allows and we’d miss you ever so much, as Shirley Temple used to say, were you to end up dead or something like that.

Also you should keep in mind that, outside of some very weird TV shows and movies, dead people don’t get laid. That alone should give you a reason to live. If that doesn’t work, then stick around long enough to buy me a drink. I may as well get something out of you freeloading around here.

Happy New Year!

in brown: phonetical transcription

AFRIKAANS gelukkige nuwejaar / voorspoedige nuwejaar
AKPOSSO ilufio ètussé
ALBANIAN Gëzuar vitin e ri
ALSATIAN e glëckliches nëies / güets nëies johr
ARABIC عام سعيد (aam saiid) / sana saiida
ARMENIAN shnorhavor nor tari
ATIKAMEKW amokitanone
AZERI yeni iliniz mübarək
BAMBARA aw ni san’kura / bonne année
BASAA mbuee
BASQUE urte berri on
BELARUSIAN З новым годам (Z novym hodam)
BENGALI subho nababarsho
BERBER asgwas amegas / aseggas ighudan
BETI mbembe mbu
BHOJPURI nauka sal mubarak hoe
BOBO bonne année
BOSNIAN sretna nova godina
BRETON bloavezh mat / bloavez mad
BULGARIAN честита нова година (chestita nova godina)
BURMESE hnit thit ku mingalar pa
CANTONESE sun lin fi lok / kung hé fat tsoi
CATALAN bon any nou
CHINESE (MANDARIN) 新年快乐 (xin nian kuai le) / 新年好 (xin nian hao)
CORNISH bledhen nowedh da
CORSICAN pace è salute
CROATIAN sretna nova godina
CZECH šťastný nový rok
DANISH godt nytår
DARI sale naw tabrik
DUALA mbu mwa bwam
DUTCH gelukkig nieuwjaar
ENGLISH happy new year
ESPERANTO feliĉan novan jaron
ESTONIAN head uut aastat
EWE eƒé bé dzogbenyui nami
EWONDO mbembe mbu
FANG bamba mbou
FAROESE gott nýggjár
FILIPINO manigong bagong taon
FINNISH onnellista uutta vuotta
FLEMISH gelukkig nieuwjaar
FON coudo we yoyo
FRENCH bonne année
FRISIAN lokkich neijier
FRIULAN bon an
FULA dioul mo wouri
GALICIAN feliz ano novo
GEORGIAN გილოცავთ ახალ წელს (gilocavt akhal tsels)
GERMAN Frohes neues Jahr / prosit Neujahr
GREEK Καλή Χρονιά (kali chronia / kali xronia) / Ευτυχισμένος ο Καινούριος Χρόνος (eutichismenos o kainourgios chronos)
GUJARATI sal mubarak / nootan varshabhinandan
GUARANÍ rogüerohory año nuévo-re
HAITIAN CREOLE bònn ané
HAOUSSA barka da sabuwar shekara
HAWAIIAN hauoli makahiki hou
HEBREW שנה טובה (shana tova)
HERERO ombura ombe ombua
HINDI nav varsh ki subhkamna
HMONG nyob zoo xyoo tshiab
HUNGARIAN boldog új évet
ICELANDIC gleðilegt nýtt ár
IGBO obi anuri nke afor ohuru
INDONESIAN selamat tahun baru
INUKTITUT (NUNAVIMMIUTITUT) ᐅᑭᐅᒥ ᓄᑖᒥ ᖁᕕᐊᓱᒋᑦ (ukiumi nutaami quviasugit) – to 1 person
ᐅᑭᐅᒥ ᓄᑖᒥ ᖁᕕᐊᓱᒋᑦᓯ (ukiumi nutaami quviasugitsi) – to several persons
IRISH GAELIC ath bhliain faoi mhaise
ITALIAN felice anno nuovo / buon anno
JAVANESE sugeng warsa enggal
JAPANESE あけまして おめでとう ございます (akemashite omedetô gozaimasu)
KABYLIAN aseggas ameggaz
KANNADA ಹೊಸ ವರ್ಷದ ಹಾರ್ಧಿಕ ಶುಭಾಶಯಗಳು (hosa varshada hardika shubhashayagalu)
KASHMIRI nav reh mubarakh
KAZAKH zhana zhiliniz kutti bolsin
KHMER sur sdei chhnam thmei
KIEMBU ngethi cya mwaka mweru
KINYARWANDA umwaka mwiza
KIRUNDI umwaka mwiza
KYRGYZ ЖАӉЫ ЖЫЛЫӉЫЗДАР МЕНЕН (zhany zhylynyzdar menen)
KOREAN 새해 복 많이 받으세요 (seh heh bok mani bat uh seyo)
KURDE sala we ya nû pîroz be
KWANGALI mvhura zompe zongwa
LAO sabai di pi mai
LATIN felix sit annus novus
LATVIAN laimīgu Jauno gadu
LIGURIAN bón ànno nêuvo
LINGALA bonana / mbúla ya sika elámu na tombelí yɔ̌
LITHUANIAN laimingų Naujųjų Metų
LOW SAXON gelükkig nyjaar
LUGANDA omwaka omulungi
LUXEMBOURGEOIS e gudd neit Joër
MACEDONIAN Среќна Нова Година (srekna nova godina)
MALAGASY arahaba tratry ny taona
MALAY selamat tahun baru
MALAYALAM nava varsha ashamshagal
MALTESE is-sena t-tajba
MANGAREVAN kia porotu te ano ou
MAORI kia hari te tau hou
MARATHI navin varshaachya hardik shubbheccha
MARQUISIAN kaoha nui tenei ehua hou
MOHAWK ose:rase
MONGOLIAN Шинэ жилийн баярын мэнд хvргэе (shine jiliin bayariin mend hurgeye)
MORÉ wênd na kô-d yuum-songo
NDEBELE umyaka omucha omuhle
NEPALI naya barsha ko subhakamana
NGOMBALE ngeu’ shwi pong mbeo paghe
NORMAN boune anna / jostouse anna
NORWEGIAN godt nyttår
OCCITAN bon annada
ORIYA subha nababarsa / naba barsara hardika abhinandan
OURDOU naya sar Mubarak
PALAUAN ungil beches er rak
PAPIAMENTU bon anja / felis anja nobo
PASHTO nawe kaalmo mobarak sha
PERSIAN سال نو مبارک (sâle no mobârak)
POLISH szczęśliwego nowego roku
PORTUGUESE feliz ano novo
PUNJABI ਨਵੇਂ ਸਾਲ ਦੀਆਂ ਵਧਾਈਆਂ (nave saal deeyan vadhaiyaan)
ROMANCHE bun di bun onn
ROMANI baxtalo nevo bersh
ROMANIAN un an nou fericit / la mulţi ani
RUSSIAN С Новым Годом (S novim godom)
SAMOAN ia manuia le tausaga fou
SAMI buorre ådåjahke
SANGO nzoni fini ngou
SARDINIAN bonu annu nou
SCOTTISH GAELIC bliadhna mhath ur
SERBIAN Срећна Нова година (Srećna Nova godina)
SHIMAORE mwaha mwema
SHONA goredzva rakanaka
SINDHI nain saal joon wadhayoon
SINHALESE ශුභ අළුත් අවුරුද්දක් වේවා (shubha aluth awuruddak weiwa)
SIOUX LAKOTA omaka t’etcha kin washte kte ni / omaka tetcha oi’yokipi
SLOVAK šťastný nový rok
SLOVENIAN srečno novo leto
SOBOTA dobir leto
SOMALI sanad wanagsan
SPANISH feliz año nuevo
SRANAN wan bun nyun yari
SWAHILI mwaka mzuri / heri ya mwaka mpya
SWEDISH gott nytt år
SWISS-GERMAN es guets Nöis
TAGALOG manigong bagong taon
TAHITIAN ia orana i te matahiti api
TAMAZIGHT assugas amegaz
TAMIL இனிய புத்தாண்டு நல்வாழ்த்துக்கள் (iniya puthandu nal Vazhthukkal)
TATAR yaña yıl belän
TELUGU నూతన సంవత్శర శుభాకాంక్షలు (nuthana samvathsara subhakankshalu)
THAI สวัสดีปีใหม่ (sawatdii pimaï)
TIBETAN tashi delek / losar tashi delek
TIGRE sanat farah wa khare
TSHILUBA tshidimu tshilenga
TSWANA itumelele ngwaga o mosha
TULU posa varshada shubashaya
TURKISH yeni yılınız kutlu olsun
TWENTS gluk in’n tuk
UDMURT Vyľ Aren
UKRAINIAN Щасливого Нового Року / З Новим роком (z novym rokom)
URDU naya sal mubarak
UZBEK yangi yilingiz qutlug’ bo’lsin
VIETNAMESE Chúc Mừng Nǎm Mới / Cung Chúc Tân Niên / Cung Chúc Tân Xuân
WALOON ene boune anéye, ene boune sintéye
WALOON (“betchfessîs” spelling) bone annéye / bone annéye èt bone santéye
WELSH blwyddyn newydd dda
WEST INDIAN CREOLE bon lanné
WOLOF dewenati
XHOSA nyak’omtsha
YIDDISH אַ גוט יאָר (a gut yohr / a guit your / a guit youai)
YORUBA eku odun / eku odun tun tun / eku iyedun
ZERMA barka’n da djiri tagio
ZULU unyaka omusha omuhle

Happy New Year, Love Pesky (NSFW)

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.
Visit us on Rebel Mouse for even more fun!
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The History of St. Nick & Other Stuff

December 25, 2014 by

Merry Christmas
One for da ladies. And, just for the holidays, we can pretend that they’re all straight. We can also pretend I’m the third one from the left.
It’s very weird getting asked if I can “reprint” something that only exists digitally. But, what the foschnizzle, it’s Christmas so here you go.

****************************

I received a lovely email yesterday from a regular reader. She said some very nice things about me and life in general and then got to the point. The point was that, as informative as this week’s articles have been about the holidays, I was “depressing the (expletive deleted) out of (her).” I guess I can see that. The history of Christmas is one of political compromise, violence and drunken debauchery. Not exactly the first thoughts that spring to mind when you think about ways to celebrate the birth of the Son of God. More likely a way to celebrate a frat party in honor of Biff’s trust fund. But it is what it is. Denying history doesn’t make it suddenly disappear, despite what you may hear from some recent political pundits. Nevertheless, she’s right. There are many aspects of the holiday that are cause for smiles. Honest ones too, not just the rueful ones I usually inspire.

We’ll start with some useless trivia.

Where did the Candy Cane come from? In a small Indiana town, there was a candymaker who wanted to spread the name of Jesus around the world. He invented the Christmas Candy Cane, incorporating symbols for the birth, ministry, and death of Jesus Christ. He began with a stick of pure white, hard candy to symbolize the Virgin Birth. The candymaker formed the stick into a “J” to represent the name of Jesus. It can also represent the staff of the “Good Shepherd.” He thought the candy was too plain so he stained it with a red stripe to symbolize the blood shed by Christ on the cross.

Christmas Games – Weird Ones
Shoe the Wild Mare
Shoeing the Wild Mare is a traditional Christmas game that goes back to at least the early 17th century.

Get a narrow(a few inches wide), strong wooden beam and suspend it from the roof with two even length ropes. The beam is the ‘mare’ of the title and should be level yet high enough above the floor so that a player’s feet are off-ground. A player ‘the farrier’ then sits on the ‘mare’ in the centre, a leg either side. This player has a hammer and has to give the underside of the beam “four time eight blows” at a designated spot. If he falls off, it is someone else’s turn.

Much hilarity, and the odd broken shoulder ensues. (Odd broken shoulders????)

Snapdragons
Apparently this is the best game ever to play on Christmas Eve. Make sure you have the fire department on speed dial though.

Very popular from the 16th to the 19th centuries, Snapdragons (or Flapdragons) has explicably declined in popularity.

Gather everyone around the dining room table, place a large flat dish in the centre. In the dish scatter a good handful of raisins then pour on top a layer of brandy or cognac. Set fire to the brandy and dim the lights. Players take it in turns to pluck a raisin out of the burning liquid and eat it quickly down. For a more competitive edge to the game use larger dried fruit such as apricots, one of which has a lucky sixpence stuffed inside.

Equipment needed: plate, matches, raisins, brandy, address of nearest accident and emergency department

I have actually played Snapdragons. It was how I learned to use saliva to quickly douse my tongue. Oddly enough, and this will be a blog for another day, that knowledge has proved useful.

Here’s some other useless trivia for you. In case Christmas isn’t violent enough for you there’s another game, called “Hot Cockles” which can make your week. One person gets blindfolded and then players give a blow to the blindfolded player, who had to guess the name of the person who gave the blow.

Whee!

Okay, let’s move on to some fun facts about Christmas trees.

Which actually had nothing to do with Christmas for centuries.

  • The use of evergreen trees to celebrate the winter season occurred before the birth of Christ.
  • The first decorated Christmas was in Riga, Latvia in 1510.
  • The first printed reference to Christmas trees appeared in Germany in 1531.
  • Nineteenth century Americans cut their trees in nearby forests.
  • Christmas trees have been sold commercially in the United states since about 1850. Until fairly recently, all Christmas trees came from the forest. (ED: Not from a parking lot?)
  • The first Christmas tree retail lot in the United States was started in 1851 in New York by Mark Carr.
  • In 1900, large stores started to erect big illuminated Christmas trees.
  • In 1856 Franklin Pierce, the 14th President of the United States, was the first President to place a Christmas tree in the White House.
  • President Coolidge started the National Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony on the White House lawn in 1923.
  • Teddy Roosevelt banned the Christmas tree from the White House for environmental reasons.
  • In 1984, the National Christmas was lit on December 13th with temperatures in the 70’s, making it one of the warmest tree lightings in history.
  • Between 1887-1933 a fishing schooner called the “Christmas Ship” would tie up at the Clark Street bridge and sell spruce trees from Michigan to Chicagoans.

My grandmother used to talk about that ship. She said it was so laden with pine trees that you could smell it from blocks away.

Also, just so you know, all of Santa’s reindeer are chicks.

Anyway, here are ten meaningless facts that you’ll use to impress your friends at holiday parties.

ONE
What percentage of mall Santa applicants were discovered to have criminal backgrounds by Pre-employ.com?
7%

Approximate amount generated by photographs with Santa in shopping malls in the USA in dollars:
$2,255,750,000

TWO
How many houses must Santa visit on Christmas?
842,000,000

How fast must he travel to visit all those homes?
4,796,250 Mph

THREE
Percentage of Americans who believe Santa in the off-season drives a sports car:
4%

drives an SUV:
25%

FOUR
How many presents would you receive if you were to get every present in “The 12 Days of Christmas”?
364

How much would all those gifts cost? (according to PNC Financial Services)
$18348.87

FIVE
Percentage of Americans who finish off their Christmas Shopping on Christmas Eve:
20

SIX
Percentage of pet owners who have their dog or cat pose and photographed with Santa Claus:
27

SEVEN
Percentage of Americans who re-gift:
28

EIGHT
Which type of Christmas tree is displayed more during the holiday season, artificial or real?
Artificial trees are the most popular with 40,694,463 on display in comparison to real trees at 34,335,809

NINE
How many Barbie dolls are sold every minute around the world?
180

TEN
How much trash is generated annually from the gift wrap and shopping bags:
4,000,000 Tons

So, burning question of the day, why does Santa wear red? Well, it’s a Catholic thing. You see, Santa is based, in part, on the life of St. Nicholas and he was the bishop of Smyrna, a spot in modern day Turkey. Bishops wore, and still wear, red capes. Then red was the way Norman Rockwell saw it, and red was the color Coca-Cola wanted when it pretty much created the modern image of Santa in 1931. So, Santa wears red.

Got it?

Cool.

Also, he is, depending on where you’re at at the moment, the patron saint of banking, pawnbroking, pirating, butchery, sailing, thievery, orphans, royalty, and New York City, thus making him the most popular, non-biblical, saint in history. Saint Valentine is a distant second.

Some other stuff that will make our reader feel a little better about the holiday. Contrary to popular belief, suicide rates during the Christmas holiday are low. The highest rates are during the spring.

One reason may be that Christmas has better music. It is estimated that the single “White Christmas” by Irving Berlin is the best selling single of all time, with over 100 million sales worldwide and that 50 million of those sales were of the Bing Crosby version.

Bing’s daughter starred in Star Trek and had sex with an android in one episode.

That has nothing to do with the topic at hand, I just thought I’d share.

I will end this blog with a dinner prayer by cartoonist Berke Breathed.

“Dear Lord, I’ve been asked, nay commanded, to thank thee for the Christmas turkey before us — a turkey which was no doubt a lively, intelligent bird — a social being capable of actual affection, nuzzling its young with almost human-like compassion. Anyway, it’s dead and we’re gonna eat it. Please give our respects to its family.”


Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.
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Plan Accordingly

December 13, 2014 by

Yes, this exists.
Yes, this exists.

If you’re like me, and I’m guessing you are since you’re reading this, you like to wake up in the morning and Google “naked cosplay” or “nude justice league” and so on. And because the internet is a thing you will be entertained for hours. In fact, if you simply add the word “sexy” to any search you will be entertained. Don’t believe me? Try “sexy baseball.” The point is that we all have our fantasies. And that’s fine. Just because your mom read 50 Shades of Grey doesn’t mean she wants to wrap herself in latex, get chained to a bed and be spanked. Trust me on that. But a rich fantasy life denotes a healthy mind. That would be a good thing for those of you who are new to the human race. A mind that explores and embraces new ideas is a mind that will never grow old or bored. And Hollywood has noticed that. While they’ll never make the Supergirl/Powergirl lesbian porno fans have been clamoring for, they have gone “all in” on the fantasy fulfillment end. Specifically, the growing need for movie audiences to escape into universes larger and more interesting than their own has been duly noted and is the driving force in cinema these days.

You clicked every link didn’t you? That’s okay. That’s what they’re there for.

Anyway, when I said Hollywood went all in I meant it. Culled from numerous sources is the list below. It is every superhero movie I could find that is in development or slated to be so at a definitive time with one exception that is duly noted. There are quite a few more in the advanced rumor stage but I couldn’t get anything on them so I’m just going with this for now.

2015
Feb. 13, 2015: “Kingsman: The Secret Service” (Fox)
May 1, 2015: “Avengers: Age of Ultron” (Marvel Studios)
July 17, 2015: “Ant-Man” (Marvel Studios)
Aug. 7, 2015: “The Fantastic Four” (Fox)
2015 undated: “Popeye” (Sony)

2016
Feb. 12, 2016: “Deadpool” (Fox)
March 25, 2016: “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” (Warner Bros.)
May 6, 2016: “Captain America: Civil War” (Marvel Studios)
May 27, 2016: “X-Men: Apocalypse” (Fox)
June 3, 2016: “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2” (Paramount)
Aug. 5, 2016: “Suicide Squad” (Warner Bros.)
Nov. 4, 2016: “Doctor Strange” (Marvel Studios)
Nov. 6, 2016: “The Peanuts Movie” (Fox)
Nov. 11, 2016: “Sinister Six” (Sony)

2017
March 3, 2017: Untitled “The Wolverine” sequel (Fox)
May 5, 2017: “Guardians of the Galaxy 2” (Marvel Studios)
June 23, 2017: “Wonder Woman” (Warner Bros.)
July 14, 2017: “The Fantastic Four 2” (Fox)
July 28, 2017: “Thor: Ragnarok” (Marvel Studios)
Nov. 3, 2017: “Black Panther” (Marvel Studios)
Nov. 17, 2017: “Justice League Part One” (Warner Bros.)
2017 undated: “The LEGO Batman Movie” (Warner Bros.)
2017 undated: Untitled female Spider-Man spin-off (Sony)
2017 undated: Venom: Carnage Spider-Man spin-off (Sony) (this one may be defunct)

2018
March 23, 2018: “The Flash” (Warner Bros.)
May 4, 2018: “Avengers: Infinity War Part 1” (Marvel Studios)
July 6, 2018: “Captain Marvel” (Marvel Studios)
July 27, 2018: “Aquaman” (Warner Bros.)
Nov. 2, 2018: “Inhumans” (Marvel Studios)
2018 undated: “Amazing Spider-Man 3” (Sony)

2019
April 5, 2019: “Shazam” (Warner Bros.)
May 3, 2019: “Avengers: Infinity War Part 2” (Marvel Studios)
June 14, 2019: “Justice League Part Two” (Warner Bros.)

2020
April 3, 2020: “Cyborg” (Warner Bros.)
June 19, 2020: “Green Lantern” (Warner Bros.)

Add in the fact that both DC & Marvel have invested heavily into TV shows so that they can showcase lesser known characters and develop them as real people, as it were, and you have all the fantasies you can shake your stick at. So go ahead and fantasize. Even try a few things out in real life.

Just don’t jump off a building thinking you can fly and everything will work out fine.

The Constellations “Afterparty” uncensored music video from Video Rahim on Vimeo.

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.
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Happy Thanksgiving!

November 27, 2014 by

You heard me, I said ‘eat me.’
I keep getting requests to repeat my Thanksgiving blogs. Here are the two most popular in chronological order. Happy Bird Day!

From November 23, 2012

Thanksgiving is red headed step child of holidays. It is a holiday that, in principal, celebrates all that is good and holy about humanity. In reality it is a celebration of a day that, within a century, led to the subjugation and murder of millions of people. As you can clearly see one does not blend well with the other. There is some good news though. Despite what you read on Facebook, the original Pilgrim Separatists, or whack job religious fundamentalists (depending on your point of view), did not kill the first Native Americans they met. In fact when Squanto, the liaison between the Wampanoag Indians and the Pilgrims, died he was eulogized by William Bradford, the Pilgirms’ governor, with these words, “Here Squanto fell ill of Indian fever, bleeding much at the nose, which the Indians take as a symptom of death, and within a few days he died. He begged the Governor to pray for him, that he might go to the Englishman’s God in heaven, and bequeathed several of his things to his English friends, as remembrances. His death was a great loss.” Of course part of his conversion was probably due to the fact that the Wampanoag considered him a traitor, many historians believe he was poisoned by his own people, and even went so far as to assign him a second (a/k/a assistant) for his dealings with the Pilgrims. That was, pretty much, unheard of for Indians.

While historians, those pesky people with a stick in their butt, point out that there were Thanksgiving celebrations prior to the one in Plymouth, they completely miss the point. It doesn’t matter if some Spanish soldiers survived in Florida for a while. What matters is that the Pilgrims stuck around and became an integral part of the developing nation. In fact their wildly conservative, separatist, views still underpin much of our nation’s beliefs, for good or ill.

So we look to the winter of 1621 as the beginning of Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving at Plymouth
In September 1620, a small ship called the Mayflower left Plymouth, England, carrying 102 passengers—an assortment of religious separatists seeking a new home where they could freely practice their faith and other individuals lured by the promise of prosperity and land ownership in the New World. After a treacherous and uncomfortable crossing that lasted 66 days, they dropped anchor near the tip of Cape Cod, far north of their intended destination at the mouth of the Hudson River. One month later, the Mayflower crossed Massachusetts Bay, where the Pilgrims, as they are now commonly known, began the work of establishing a village at Plymouth.

Throughout that first brutal winter, most of the colonists remained on board the ship, where they suffered from exposure, scurvy and outbreaks of contagious disease. Only half of the Mayflower’s original passengers and crew lived to see their first New England spring. In March, the remaining settlers moved ashore, where they received an astonishing visit from an Abenaki Indian who greeted them in English. Several days later, he returned with another Native American, Squanto, a member of the Pawtuxet tribe who had been kidnapped by an English sea captain and sold into slavery before escaping to London and returning to his homeland on an exploratory expedition. Squanto taught the Pilgrims, weakened by malnutrition and illness, how to cultivate corn, extract sap from maple trees, catch fish in the rivers and avoid poisonous plants. He also helped the settlers forge an alliance with the Wampanoag, a local tribe, which would endure for more than 50 years and tragically remains one of the sole examples of harmony between European colonists and Native Americans.

In November 1621, after the Pilgrims’ first corn harvest proved successful, Governor William Bradford organized a celebratory feast and invited a group of the fledgling colony’s Native American allies, including the Wampanoag chief Massasoit. Now remembered as American’s “first Thanksgiving”—although the Pilgrims themselves may not have used the term at the time—the festival lasted for three days. While no record exists of the historic banquet’s exact menu, the Pilgrim chronicler Edward Winslow wrote in his journal that Governor Bradford sent four men on a “fowling” mission in preparation for the event, and that the Wampanoag guests arrived bearing five deer. Historians have suggested that many of the dishes were likely prepared using traditional Native American spices and cooking methods. Because the Pilgrims had no oven and the Mayflower’s sugar supply had dwindled by the fall of 1621, the meal did not feature pies, cakes or other desserts, which have become a hallmark of contemporary celebrations.

I should note that wild dogs were plentiful back then. They are what Lewis and Clark would subsist on many years later.

So, obviously, the original Thanksgiving feast was different than the one you are going to see today.

Oh well, as long as we’re here, let’s take a look at how Thanksgiving changed over those early years.

The Pilgrims set ground at Plymouth Rock on December 11, 1620. Their first winter was devastating. At the beginning of the following fall, they had lost 46 of the original 102 who sailed on the Mayflower. But the harvest of 1621 was a bountiful one. And the remaining colonists decided to celebrate with a feast – including 91 natives who had helped the Pilgrims survive their first year. It is believed that the Pilgrims would not have made it through the year without the help of the natives. The feast was more of a traditional English harvest festival than a true “thanksgiving” observance. It lasted three days.

Governor William Bradford sent “four men fowling” after wild ducks and geese. It is not certain that wild turkey was part of their feast. However, it is certain that they had venison. The term “turkey” was used by the Pilgrims to mean any sort of wild fowl.

Another modern staple at almost every Thanksgiving table is pumpkin pie. But it is unlikely that the first feast included that treat. The supply of flour had been long diminished, so there was no bread or pastries of any kind. However, they did eat boiled pumpkin, and they produced a type of fried bread from their corn crop. There was also no milk, cider, potatoes, or butter. There was no domestic cattle for dairy products, and the newly-discovered potato was still considered by many Europeans to be poisonous. But the feast did include fish, berries, watercress, lobster, dried fruit, clams, venison, and plums.

This “thanksgiving” feast was not repeated the following year. Many years passed before the event was repeated. It wasn’t until June of 1676 that another Day of thanksgiving was proclaimed. On June 20 of that year the governing council of Charlestown, Massachusetts, held a meeting to determine how best to express thanks for the good fortune that had seen their community securely established. By unanimous vote they instructed Edward Rawson, the clerk, to proclaim June 29 as a day of thanksgiving. It is notable that this thanksgiving celebration probably did not include Native Americans, as the celebration was meant partly to be in recognition of the colonists’ recent victory over the “heathen natives,” (see the proclamation). By then, it had become apparent to the settlers that the natives were a hindrance to their quest for more land, so the good will they shared at the first feast had long been lost. A hundred years later, in October of 1777 all 13 colonies joined in a thanksgiving celebration. It also commemorated the patriotic victory over the British at Saratoga. But it was a one-time affair.

Yeah, a mere 55 years after that first harvest the Indians had gone from “Saviors and Protectors” to “Heathen Savages” and were fair game for being murdered by the nice people who claimed that killing savages, and anything else they could think of, was “(an) acceptable Service unto God by Jesus Christ.”

Their words, not mine.

In any case fast forward to 1863. The nation was embroiled in a very uncivil war and President Lincoln was looking for anything positive he could share with a torn country. He, like the four previous presidents, had received a letter from Sarah Josepha Hale, a writer who appeared in Boston Ladies’ Magazine, asking him to nationalize the holiday. Unlike the previous four, he did. He declared the last Thursday of November to be Thanksgiving. That went along fine until Franklin D. Roosevelt noted that some Novembers had five Thursdays, and no one did any Christmas shopping until after the holiday, so he declared that the fourth Thursday of November would be Thanksgiving, with hilarious results.

Some people claimed that the true holiday was the Republican one (Lincoln’s) and others held firm to the new proclamation and others still, Hi Texas!, claimed them both as national holidays. Finally in 1941, realizing that the country had more pressing issues, Congress declared the fourth Thursday as the national holiday and then told everyone to shut the f*** up.

Simply put, every Thanksgiving – excluding the one where Squanto and Bradford gutted some deer – has been marred by controversy and/or violence.

Which, given the historical precedents, makes perfect sense.

*********

From November 22, 2013

I have often called Thanksgiving the red headed step child of holidays. Now I have made red headed step children mad. So’ I’ll apologize to them – sorry, I tend to be a callous oaf – and just note that this holiday kind of gets shoved in the middle of other stuff. Most people go from the sexy cool of Halloween to the fiscal gluttony of Christmas without pausing. It’s gotten so bad that Sarah Palin was forced to announce she was against the War on Christmas in October. So you can see how Thanksgiving could get trampled. And now, with more and more stores caving in to pubic pressure to be open on the holiday so people can shop on Gray Thursday, my new name for the day before Black Friday, the holiday is taking another hit. I’ve already noted that there are, historically, several days that have earned the title “Black Friday” and none of them have anything to do with shopping. Since this year the Thanksgiving radio show will be today I figured I should take a moment to remind people how screwed up this day really is. For example, kiddie pageants all over the country celebrate out faithful Indian companion, Squanto. As I have noted before, that presents a problem.

In fact when Squanto, the liaison between the Wampanoag Indians and the Pilgrims, died he was eulogized by William Bradford, the Pilgirms’ governor, with these words, “Here Squanto fell ill of Indian fever, bleeding much at the nose, which the Indians take as a symptom of death, and within a few days he died. He begged the Governor to pray for him, that he might go to the Englishman’s God in heaven, and bequeathed several of his things to his English friends, as remembrances. His death was a great loss.” Of course part of his conversion was probably due to the fact that the Wampanoag considered him a traitor, many historians believe he was poisoned by his own people, and even went so far as to assign him a second (a/k/a assistant) for his dealings with the Pilgrims. That was, pretty much, unheard of for Indians.

Yeah, well, given that Squanto was, for reasons unknown, shunned by his tribe, captured and made a slave, taken to Europe, escaped 6 years later to return to America, was shunned again by his people and then taken in, reluctantly by the Pilgrims who offered him the worst eulogy ever. And the eulogy was due to the fact that his own people probably poisoned him. While a more interesting story than the one you’re used to it makes for a difficult children’s show.

Also, that “assistant” thing I mentioned was unheard of for the Indians. By treaty, hammered out by years of inter-tribal wars, each tribe assigned one voice for negotiations. So if that voice said the tribe would paint themselves pink and do the Hokey Pokey the tribe would simply say where and when. Assigning a second voice was a huge insult to Squanto and he would have known that.

There’s something else to consider as well. About 100 years previous there was a colony in Roanoke Virginia. According to people who have no clue about what they’re talking about, the colony disappeared without a trace. Even worse, they left a sign that no human can decipher with the word CROATOAN on it.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Okay, say hi to the Croatoan Indians, also known as members of the Lumbee Indian family. Yes, they still exist and their web site is current. The settlers, as was common with English settlers, were woefully ignorant and arrogant. They crossed the ocean and just expected to find plenty of food and shelter. Oddly this wasn’t a good plan. While the land had been tended by the Indians who died out from the plague earlier, food still requires agriculture, a skill that eluded these city bred immigrants. So, hungry and lonely, they walked about two miles down river to the Croatoan settlement where the natives were naturists.

In other words their options were starvation and death or an island full of naked natives who were willing to share their food. They wisely chose door number 2.

Now, as I noted, English settlers were ignorant and arrogant. The Pilgrims were no different. When they arrived and found blue eyed, red skinned, natives who spoke English it never occurred to them that there might be an interesting story behind that. In fact they barely mentioned it. Because, just like in Star Trek, that’s the way things were supposed to be.

Oh, and Squanto wasn’t one of those. He learned English the old fashioned way, from his captors.

Anyway, thanks to Coolest Holiday Parties, we have a list of stupid trivia for you to win bar bets with.

The traditional cornucopia was a curved goat’s horn filled to brim with fruits and grains. According to Greek legend, Amalthea (a goat) broke one of her horns and offered it to Greek God Zeus as a sign of reverence. As a sign of gratitude, Zeus later set the goat’s image in the sky also known as constellation Capricorn. Cornucopia is the most common symbol of a harvest festival. A Horn shaped container, it is filled with abundance of the Earth’s harvest. It is also known as the ‘horn of plenty’.

It was not until 1941, that congress declared Thanksgiving as a national holiday. It was declared to be the fourth Thursday in November.

The first known thanksgiving feast or festival in North America was celebrated by Francisco Vásquez de Coronado and the people he called “Tejas” (members of the Hasinai group of Caddo-speaking Native Americans).

Here’s one of those funny Thanksgiving facts: Turkeys have heart attacks. When the Air Force was conducting test runs and breaking the sound barrier, fields of turkeys would drop dead.

Turducken, a turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken, is becoming more popular in Thanksgiving (originated in Louisiana). A turducken is a de-boned turkey stuffed with a de-boned duck, which itself is stuffed with a small de-boned chicken. The cavity of the chicken and the rest of the gaps are filled with, at the very least, a highly seasoned breadcrumb mixture (although some versions have a different stuffing for each bird).

Fossil evidence shows that turkeys roamed the Americas 10 million years ago.

91% of Americans eat turkey on Thanksgiving Day.

There are regional differences as to the “stuffing” (or “dressing”) traditionally served with the turkey. Southerners generally make theirs from cornbread, while in other parts of the country white bread is the base. One or several of the following may be added: oysters, apples, chestnuts, raisins, celery and/or other vegetables, sausage or the turkey’s giblets.

Thomas Jefferson thought the concept of Thanksgiving was “the most ridiculous idea I’ve ever heard.”

Every President since Lincoln proclaimed Thanksgiving Day. But in 1939, 1940, and 1941 Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed Thanksgiving the third Thursday in November to lengthen the holiday shopping season. This upset people.

Fifty percent of Americans put the stuffing inside the Turkey.

The North American holiday season (generally the Christmas shopping season in the U.S.) traditionally begins when Thanksgiving ends, on “Black Friday” (the day after Thanksgiving); this tradition has held forth since at least the 1930s.

On the West Coast of the US, Dungeness crab is common as an alternate main dish instead of turkey, as crab season starts in early November.

Corn is one of the popular symbols of thanksgiving. It came in many varieties and colors – red, white, yellow and blue. Some Americans considered blue and white corn sacred. The oldest corns date 7000 years back and were grown in Mexico.

Benjamin Franklin wanted the national bird to be a turkey.

Several people wanted to have an official day of thanksgiving, including George Washington, who proclaimed a National Day of Thanksgiving in 1789. Several people did not want it including President Thomas Jefferson.

Here’s one of the most unbelievable Thanksgivng facts: The Guinness Book of Records states that the greatest dressed weight recorded for a turkey is 39.09 kg (86 lbs), at the annual “heaviest turkey” competition held in London, England on December 12, 1989.

The first Thanksgiving was not a feast, but rather a time when Native Americans helped Pilgrims by bringing them food and helping them build off the land.

More than 40 million green bean casseroles are served on Thanksgiving.

Turkey is the traditional dish for the Thanksgiving feast. In the US, about 280 million turkeys are sold for the Thanksgiving celebrations. There is no official reason or declaration for the use of turkey. They just happened to be the most plentiful meat available at the time of the first Thanksgiving in 1621, starting the tradition.

Twenty percent of cranberries eaten are eaten on Thanksgiving.

The preliminary estimate of the number of turkeys raised in the United States in 2005 is 256 million. That’s down 3 percent from 2004. The turkeys produced in 2004 weighed 7.3 billion pounds altogether and were valued at $3.1 billion.

Turkeys were one of the first animals in the Americas to be domesticated.

Columbus thought that the land he discovered was connected to India, where peacocks are found in considerable number. And he believed turkeys were a type of peacock (they’re actually a type of pheasant). So he named them “tuka”, which is “peacock” in the Tamil language of India.

The ‘wishbone’ of the turkey is used in a good luck ritual on Thanksgiving Day.

The cranberry is a symbol and a modern diet staple of thanksgiving. Originally called crane berry, it derived its name from its pink blossoms and drooping head, which reminded the Pilgrims of a crane.

The Plymouth Pilgrims dined with the Wampanoag Indians for the First Thanksgiving.

The different nicknames for Thanksgiving Day: “Turkey Day” (after the traditional Thanksgiving dinner), “T-Day” (an abbreviation of either “Thanksgiving Day” or “Turkey Day”), “Macy’s Day (this is exclusive to New York City – it is a reference to the Macy’s Day Parade), “Yanksgiving” (Canadians sometimes call the Thanksgiving in the US as “Yanksgiving” to distinguish it from the Canadian Thanksgiving holiday.)

The First Thanksgiving lasted for three days.

Contrary to popular belief, Native Americans did not eat cranberries. They did, however, find them extremely useful for dying fabric and decorating pottery.

The Native Americans wore deerskin and fur, not blankets.

A spooked turkey can run at speeds up to 20 miles per hour. They can also burst into flight approaching speeds between 50-55 mph in a matter of seconds.

Turkeys are first documented over two thousand years ago in Central America and Mexico.

In October of 1777 all 13 colonies celebrated Thanksgiving for the first time; however it was a one-time affair commemorating a victory over the British at Saratoga.

There are three places in the United States named after the holiday’s traditional main course — Turkey, Texas; Turkey Creek, La.; and Turkey, N.C. There are also nine townships around the country named “Turkey,” with three in Kansas.

Sarah Josepha Hale, a magazine editor, campaigned to make Thanksgiving a National Holiday in 1827 and succeeded.

Wild turkeys, while technically the same species as domesticated turkeys, have a very different taste from farm-raised turkeys. Almost all of the meat is “dark” (even the breasts) with a more intense turkey flavor. Older heritage breeds also differ in flavor.

Actually, Sarah Josepha Hale started campaigning for Thanksgiving in 1827 but it wasn’t designated as a holiday until Lincoln signed the Thanksgiving Proclamation in 1863.

Old Abe did love his proclamations.

How-To Cook a Turkey With Kat from EyeHandy on Vimeo.

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.
Visit us on Rebel Mouse for even more fun!
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Happy Halloween!

October 31, 2014 by

Sexy Samhain Ya'll
Sexy Samhain Ya’ll
I loved Halloween as a kid and have kept right on loving it as the years have gone by. Once, in a pinch for a last minute costume, I wore a black body suit with some white tape pieces placed in even rows and a couple of toy cars attached using Christmas ornament hangers. That’s right, I went as a parking lot. Another year, since I happened to be at a nudist colony, I went as a pull toy. That proved popular and I’ll just leave the rest to your imagination. That being said, Halloween has become many things to many people. From Trick or Treating for Unicef to Tricks and Treat there are many variations. The latter is when kids have to tell you a joke to get candy. It was implemented to stop the violence of Devil’s Night a/k/a Mischief Night, etc. It’s been very successful in Des Moines and St. Louis. Not so much so in Detroit where Devil’s Night is treated as some sort of Constitutional right.

But most people, when asked, tend to think of it as a relatively young holiday. It’s far from it. The nice folks at History.com have done a great job of piecing the whole thing together.

Straddling the line between fall and winter, plenty and paucity, life and death, Halloween is a time of celebration and superstition. It is thought to have originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off roaming ghosts. In the eighth century, Pope Gregory III designated November 1 as a time to honor all saints and martyrs; the holiday, All Saints’ Day, incorporated some of the traditions of Samhain. The evening before was known as All Hallows’ Eve and later Halloween. Over time, Halloween evolved into a secular, community-based event characterized by child-friendly activities such as trick-or-treating. In a number of countries around the world, as the days grow shorter and the nights get colder, people continue to usher in the winter season with gatherings, costumes and sweet treats.

ANCIENT ORIGINS OF HALLOWEEN
Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31 they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.

To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities. During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other’s fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.

By 43 A.D., the Roman Empire had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the four hundred years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain. The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of “bobbing” for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.

On May 13, 609 A.D., Pope Boniface IV dedicated the Pantheon in Rome in honor of all Christian martyrs, and the Catholic feast of All Martyrs Day was established in the Western church. Pope Gregory III (731–741) later expanded the festival to include all saints as well as all martyrs, and moved the observance from May 13 to November 1. By the 9th century the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands, where it gradually blended with and supplanted the older Celtic rites. In 1000 A.D., the church would make November 2 All Souls’ Day, a day to honor the dead. It is widely believed today that the church was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday. All Souls Day was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels and devils. The All Saints Day celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints’ Day) and the night before it, the traditional night of Samhain in the Celtic religion, began to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween.

HALLOWEEN COMES TO AMERICA
Celebration of Halloween was extremely limited in colonial New England because of the rigid Protestant belief systems there. Halloween was much more common in Maryland and the southern colonies. As the beliefs and customs of different European ethnic groups as well as the American Indians meshed, a distinctly American version of Halloween began to emerge. The first celebrations included “play parties,” public events held to celebrate the harvest, where neighbors would share stories of the dead, tell each other’s fortunes, dance and sing. Colonial Halloween festivities also featured the telling of ghost stories and mischief-making of all kinds. By the middle of the nineteenth century, annual autumn festivities were common, but Halloween was not yet celebrated everywhere in the country.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, America was flooded with new immigrants. These new immigrants, especially the millions of Irish fleeing Ireland’s potato famine of 1846, helped to popularize the celebration of Halloween nationally. Taking from Irish and English traditions, Americans began to dress up in costumes and go house to house asking for food or money, a practice that eventually became today’s “trick-or-treat” tradition. Young women believed that on Halloween they could divine the name or appearance of their future husband by doing tricks with yarn, apple parings or mirrors.

In the late 1800s, there was a move in America to mold Halloween into a holiday more about community and neighborly get-togethers than about ghosts, pranks and witchcraft. At the turn of the century, Halloween parties for both children and adults became the most common way to celebrate the day. Parties focused on games, foods of the season and festive costumes. Parents were encouraged by newspapers and community leaders to take anything “frightening” or “grotesque” out of Halloween celebrations. Because of these efforts, Halloween lost most of its superstitious and religious overtones by the beginning of the twentieth century.

By the 1920s and 1930s, Halloween had become a secular, but community-centered holiday, with parades and town-wide parties as the featured entertainment. Despite the best efforts of many schools and communities, vandalism began to plague Halloween celebrations in many communities during this time. By the 1950s, town leaders had successfully limited vandalism and Halloween had evolved into a holiday directed mainly at the young. Due to the high numbers of young children during the fifties baby boom, parties moved from town civic centers into the classroom or home, where they could be more easily accommodated. Between 1920 and 1950, the centuries-old practice of trick-or-treating was also revived. Trick-or-treating was a relatively inexpensive way for an entire community to share the Halloween celebration. In theory, families could also prevent tricks being played on them by providing the neighborhood children with small treats. A new American tradition was born, and it has continued to grow. Today, Americans spend an estimated $6 billion annually on Halloween, making it the country’s second largest commercial holiday.

TODAY’S HALLOWEEN TRADITIONS
The American Halloween tradition of “trick-or-treating” probably dates back to the early All Souls’ Day parades in England. During the festivities, poor citizens would beg for food and families would give them pastries called “soul cakes” in return for their promise to pray for the family’s dead relatives. The distribution of soul cakes was encouraged by the church as a way to replace the ancient practice of leaving food and wine for roaming spirits. The practice, which was referred to as “going a-souling” was eventually taken up by children who would visit the houses in their neighborhood and be given ale, food, and money.

The tradition of dressing in costume for Halloween has both European and Celtic roots. Hundreds of years ago, winter was an uncertain and frightening time. Food supplies often ran low and, for the many people afraid of the dark, the short days of winter were full of constant worry. On Halloween, when it was believed that ghosts came back to the earthly world, people thought that they would encounter ghosts if they left their homes. To avoid being recognized by these ghosts, people would wear masks when they left their homes after dark so that the ghosts would mistake them for fellow spirits. On Halloween, to keep ghosts away from their houses, people would place bowls of food outside their homes to appease the ghosts and prevent them from attempting to enter.

HALLOWEEN SUPERSTITIONS
Halloween has always been a holiday filled with mystery, magic and superstition. It began as a Celtic end-of-summer festival during which people felt especially close to deceased relatives and friends. For these friendly spirits, they set places at the dinner table, left treats on doorsteps and along the side of the road and lit candles to help loved ones find their way back to the spirit world. Today’s Halloween ghosts are often depicted as more fearsome and malevolent, and our customs and superstitions are scarier too. We avoid crossing paths with black cats, afraid that they might bring us bad luck. This idea has its roots in the Middle Ages, when many people believed that witches avoided detection by turning themselves into cats. We try not to walk under ladders for the same reason. This superstition may have come from the ancient Egyptians, who believed that triangles were sacred; it also may have something to do with the fact that walking under a leaning ladder tends to be fairly unsafe. And around Halloween, especially, we try to avoid breaking mirrors, stepping on cracks in the road or spilling salt.

But what about the Halloween traditions and beliefs that today’s trick-or-treaters have forgotten all about? Many of these obsolete rituals focused on the future instead of the past and the living instead of the dead. In particular, many had to do with helping young women identify their future husbands and reassuring them that they would someday—with luck, by next Halloween—be married. In 18th-century Ireland, a matchmaking cook might bury a ring in her mashed potatoes on Halloween night, hoping to bring true love to the diner who found it. In Scotland, fortune-tellers recommended that an eligible young woman name a hazelnut for each of her suitors and then toss the nuts into the fireplace. The nut that burned to ashes rather than popping or exploding, the story went, represented the girl’s future husband. (In some versions of this legend, confusingly, the opposite was true: The nut that burned away symbolized a love that would not last.) Another tale had it that if a young woman ate a sugary concoction made out of walnuts, hazelnuts and nutmeg before bed on Halloween night she would dream about her future husband. Young women tossed apple-peels over their shoulders, hoping that the peels would fall on the floor in the shape of their future husbands’ initials; tried to learn about their futures by peering at egg yolks floating in a bowl of water; and stood in front of mirrors in darkened rooms, holding candles and looking over their shoulders for their husbands’ faces. Other rituals were more competitive. At some Halloween parties, the first guest to find a burr on a chestnut-hunt would be the first to marry; at others, the first successful apple-bobber would be the first down the aisle.

Of course, whether we’re asking for romantic advice or trying to avoid seven years of bad luck, each one of these Halloween superstitions relies on the good will of the very same “spirits” whose presence the early Celts felt so keenly.

Halloween around the world brings us everything from the custom of hiding knives in Germany (to keep the dead from injuring themselves), to leaving out food with all the lights turned on bright in Austria (to help the dead see and grab a snack. They really care for the dead in this part of the world), to staring into a dark mirror in the UK and parts of the US (turn off the lights, look into a mirror and see your future spouse. If you see a skull you gonna DIE!!!!), to the fortune telling Barmbrack cake in Ireland to the fortune telling apple peels in Scotland (lots of fortune telling in that area), to Dios de la Muerte in Mexico where they invite their dead ancestors home for a snack and some tequila. That holiday concludes with a family picnic on the 3rd day at a graveyard.

So whether you’re dressing up as a Sexy Ebola Nurse (God help us) or a parking lot, have a safe and Happy Halloween.

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.
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