Birds, Jesus and onions

"Joe's Story: The Book of a Lifetime," has a lot of good stuff in it for an inquisitive mind. All through my life I've been interested in questions that required some research. It was during the researching of one question that I found the answers to dozens of other questions which led to still other questions and answers. At one time in my preteen youth I read every word in the family dictionary and in my early teens poured over every volume of the Colliers Encyclopedia my folks just bought. My favorite printing of books was the "My Book House" collection that came free with the encyclopedias. If asked to remember what I read I couldn't begin to tell you. It didn't make me any smarter either. I do not have a photographic memory. I've read the bible cover to cover at least 5 times. I can't give you a single chapter and verse like so many others I've heard. What all that reading did was give me a thing called recall. Recall gives me a foundation to learn whatever I have to learn at the time very easily. The reason is probably that the reading of all those pages gave me a sense of wonder and purpose in this world, even for the seemingly trivial. My latest questions are these:

Do Hummingbirds really migrate South by slipping under the feathers of Geese?

Does the vortex of a flushed toilet really spin in different directions depending on which side of the equator you are on? Secondary Question- If so, which way does it spin on the equator itself?

Does all lightning go from cloud to ground or does it sometimes go from ground to cloud?

What is Gin flavored with? Secondary question-What taste is Vodka? Thirdindary question-Do onions really have a taste when you take the smell away?

Was the first real newspaper written in German of French or maybe Greek?

Was the first American newspaper printed in 1690 or 1704?

What language did Jesus speak: Greek, Aramaic or Hebrew?

Does a baseball warp when thrown by a professional pitcher?

As you can plainly see, my curiosity knows no bounds or particular signs of relativity. It helps that education is free from all sorts of medias. Tell everyone you know about Joe's Story, then we can all join the fun of learning interesting stuff can't we?

Huh! Say that again?

I heard the heart of an average person beats 4000 times an hour. I tried to count mine and fell asleep.

I heard that in the average year Americans use enough toilet paper to stretch to the sun and back. I tried to find out who did all the research, they won't tell me. Has he visited your bathroom yet?

I heard that snails can breath through their feet. I heard it from the same woman that said that turtles can breath through their butt. I picked up a snail and looked, I couldn't find any feet. You can do the checking on the turtle, OK?

I heard that in some Kenyan cultures if a man offers a woman some beer and she spits it back into his mouth, they are then engaged. I think I'll just keep wondering about that.

I heard that an astronaut can still burp while he's in outer space but he can't pass gas. I haven't figured out whether I am interested enough in that bit of trivia to find out for sure.

I heard that when all the counting was finally over, George W. Bush beat out Al Gore for the presidency by 537 votes. Now that's something to think about when you hear someone using flimsy excuses about their vote not being important isn't it?

Every year I find at least a dozen or more Praying Mantises climbing fences, trees and walls in my yard. For many years I've had several hummingbird feeders in my yard but to no avail, not one hummingbird has taken my food offerings. Duh! I just found out Praying Mantises eat hummingbirds.

I heard that the singer, Madonna is afraid of being thought of as stupid. Now why would anyone think that she is stupid? Maybe she knows more than we know.

I heard that the United States was being deforested at a rapid rate, thereby reducing our oxygen and bringing on global warming. Then I heard that every year there are over 1.6 billion trees are planted in the United States, every year! Now who am I supposed to believe. Both reports came from the government. Go figure!

I heard that if I wonder about too much stuff that is out of my control I may be paranoid. Now I'm beginning to wonder about that too. I wish you a worry free day.....................Joe