JULY 22, MONDAY: Rose Kennedy born, 1890. St. Mary Magdalene.
JULY 23, TUESDAY: Henry David Thoreau arrested for refusing to pay poll tax, 1846.JULY 24, WEDNESDAY: Detroit founded, 1701. Mormons reached Great Salt Lake, 1847.
JULY 25, THURSDAY: Ships "Stockholm" and "Andrea Doria" collided, 1956.
JULY 26, FRIDAY: U.S. Post Office established, 1775. George Bernard Shaw born, 1856.
JULY 27, SATURDAY: Grasshopper plague, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, 1931. Korean War armistice, 1953.
JULY 28: SUNDAY: Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis born, 1929. Rudy Vallee born, 1901.
Ask the Old Farmer's Almanac: Would you say John F. Kennedy's mother, Rose, got along with his wife, Jacqueline?
- D.T. Huron, S.D.
Answer: We'd guess they saw eye to eye on some major issues, family being one of them. Rose Kennedy said, "I looked on child rearing not only as a work of love and duty but as a profession that was fully as interesting and challenging as any honorable profession in the world and one that demanded the best that I could bring to it." Like her future daughter-in-law, Rose exhibited a wide and curious intelligence, a firmness of spirit and a natural style.
Jackie had studied at Vassar and the Sorbonne and was working for a Washington newspaper as an "Inquiring Camera Girl" when she and JFK first met. After they were married, her husband delighted in showing off her intelligence, even quizzing her about books in front of a crowd. He was more apt to give her books than flowers and he once introduced himself as "the man who accompanied Jackie Kennedy to Paris." Both parents doted on their children, Caroline and John-John (Patrick had died at only 2 days old, and Jackie had had two miscarriages, besides).
In Hillary Rodham Clinton's book "It Takes A Village, And Other Lessons Children Teach Us," she quotes Jackie Kennedy Onassis as saying, "If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do matters very much." It has a familiar echo to it, much like what Rose was saying.
JFK added his two cents' worth, when he said, "Modern cynics and skeptics . . . see no harm in paying those to whom they entrust the minds of their children a smaller wage than is paid to those to whom they entrust the care of their plumbing." Clearly, all three valued children and child-rearing.
Beyond that, you wonder whether any differences they might have had would have mattered very much.
Ask the Old Farmer's Almanac: If Henry David Thoreau was put into debtor's prison for not paying his poll tax, what did he do to get himself released?
Answer: That's the part of the story you don't usually hear. Truth is, his aunt came and paid the one-dollar tax for him the next morning, and she made him steaming mad by doing so, too! When he was told he could leave and heard what had happened, Thoreau objected so violently that the constable - his friend, by the way, who had arrested him in the first place - had to threaten him with force to get him to leave. Finally, Thoreau threw up his hands and headed back to Walden Pond, stopping first to have a shoe mended and to join a huckleberry party in town.
A more familiar story is that Ralph Waldo Emerson visited Thoreau the night he was imprisoned. When Emerson asked why he was there, Thoreau reportedly answered, "Waldo, why are you NOT here?" In fact, this exchange actually took place some time later, but it's one of those legends that sticks. The "civil disobedience" that was to inspire the generations that followed was Thor-eau's protest of America's involvement with slavery and the Mexican War.
Ask the Old Farmer's Almanac: My mother used to call me a "scallywag," and I doubt it was a compliment. Does it mean something awful? I never dared to ask her.
- F.W., Dubuque, Iowa
Answer: Scalawag is a word from the Shetland Islands and refers to small, stunted domestic animals, ponies and cattle of little value. Maybe she just meant you were the runt of the litter? Or, most likely, it was an affectionate diminutive, along the lines of "you little rascal" or "half pint" or "peanut."
Send your questions to: Ask the Almanac, The Old Farmer's Almanac, Main St., Dublin NH. Every day the editors of The Old Farmer's Almanac answer a question on the Internet. All questions are archived as well. On the World Wide Web, the address is http://www.nj.com/ofa.
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
This Week with The Old Farmer's Almanac
July 22-28, 1996
Moon Near Jupiter, July 28.
BEWARE THE CORNSCATEOUS AIR
The old almanac makers dreamed up this one, signifying a time in July of hot, humid air. The farmers considered this ideal for growing corn, but it could pose a serious health threat, expecially to old-timers suffering from asthma, pneumonia, or other respiratory problems. Those old-timers were valued come husking time. Our 1805 Old Farmer's Almanac advised, "If you make a husking, keep an old man between every two boys, else your husking will turn out a loafing. In a husking there is some fun and frolic, but on the whole it hardly pays the way; for they will not husk clean, since many gom more for the sport than to do any real work."
Sex is good, but not as good as fresh sweet corn.
- Garrison Keillor
TIP OF THE WEEK
Store corn unhusked and uncovered in the refrigerator. Eat within two days (the sooner the better).
PEPPER CORN SALAD
small head Bibb lettuce
4 cups fresh corn kernels, cooked and chilled
2 cups chopped sweed red pepper
1/2 cup chopped, pitted black olives
Vinaigrette:
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
3/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup fresh dill
salt and ground pepper to taste
Rinse lettuce and shred enough to serve six. Whisk together the vinaigrette. Combine chopped vegetables, then toss them with the vinaigrette. Add this to the bowl of lettuce, tossing again when you're ready to serve.
Makes 6 servings.
The Old Farmer's Weather Proverbs
If cornhusks are thicker than usual, the winter will be colder than usual.
Bread and cheese soften and salt forms cakes when rain threatens.
When cumulus clouds (also called cauliflower clouds) are white and fleecelike, the day will be clear.