Feb. 15, Monday: Presidents Day. Galileo born, 1564. Susan B. Anthony born, 1820. Moon at descending node.Feb. 16, Tuesday: New Moon. Shrove Tuesday. Annular eclipse of the Sun.
Feb. 17, Wednesday: Ash Wednesday. Jazz pianist, Thelonious Monk died, 1982.
Feb. 18, Thursday: Louis Comfort Tiffany born, 1848. John Travolta born, 1954.
Feb. 19, Friday: Copernicus born, 1473. Kansas, statewide prohibition, 1881.
Feb. 20, Saturday: John Glenn became first American to orbit Earth, 1962.
Feb. 21, Sunday: First Sunday in Lent. First telephone directory, Connecticut, 1878.
Ask the Old Farmer's Almanac: What can you tell me about the folklore of yawning? Is it good luck or bad? -- J.T. Birmingham, Ala.
Answer: Oh, you must mean infectious pandiculation. Sounds serious, doesn't it? Yet we all have it, starting from the first moments after birth. It's yawning and it is, indeed, infectious. Caused by sluggish blood, insufficient sleep, or just a visual signal to the brain, in response to someone else's wide-mouthed oxygen intake, yawning carries superstitions of devilry, disappointment, ill-omen or danger. Hindus snap their fingers thrice after a yawn and call on their god for protection. Covering a yawn with one's hand was once a method of preventing the devil from entering or a caution against losing one's breath entirely.
As for good luck or bad, the connotations of ill-omen probably stem primarily from the belief that to show a yawn was to make oneself vulnerable to spirits entering the wide-open chasm of the mouth. A covered mouth was the easy remedy to that. More current connotations of exhibiting one's boredom (say, during a long sermon or speech) might carry negative consequences, especially if your boss is the speaker, or your date is telling his or her life story, but otherwise, yawns are merely a means of increasing one's oxygen intake. If you've been able to read this answer without yawning once, you're unusually immune from the powers of suggestion. Ordinarily, a yawn's contagion can be spread just by talking about them!
Ask the Old Farmer's Almanac: Was Tiffany a jeweler as well as a glass-worker? -- A.S., Douglas, Ga.
Answer: You confuse him with his father, but yes, both jeweler and glassworker were named Tiffany. The son, Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1923) was the glassworker, famous for his "favrile" glass work with its iridescent colors. His father, Charles Lewis Tiffany (1812-1902), was the jeweler who founded Tiffany and Co. in New York City. The elder Tiffany, born in Killingly, Conn., was highly regarded in his field and introduced the English standard of sterling silver to American jewelers who followed his promising lead.
His son, Louis Comfort Tiffany, born in New York City, studied painting and began his art career painting oils and water colors, traveling in Europe and in Morocco. One of his paintings, "Snake Charmer in Tangiers" is shown by the Metropolitan Museum. Later he established his own company, Tiffany Studios, in New York City, which was essentially an interior decorating business. As the art nouveau style became more popular, Tiffany Studios began to specialize in the famous stained glass lamps and vases that we have come to recognize today as Tiffany glassware. The national theater in Mexico City sports a huge glass cutain that was designed by Louis C. Tiffany in his heyday.
Both father and son spent their later years studying and encouraging the fine arts by helping to sponsor other artists. The younger Tiffany set up the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation to help art students gain grants for their travel and study.
Ask the Old Farmer's Almanac: We had such a mild winter through the end of 1998, are we going to pay for it at winter's end in 1999? -- N.K., Caribou, Maine
Answer: In Caribou, the answer to that might always be yes, given that Caribou tends to get more than its fair share of snow anyway. But, yes, March in New England is predicted to be a snowier month than normal and it may even make up for the general lack of snow, overall, by 1998's close.
New England's temperatures for the winter are predicted to be colder than last winter's but mainly because last winter was relatively mild. This year will be about average, but March is anticipated to "roar like a lion" in chilly air as well as dumping snowstorms. New Englanders always begin to worry when their winter is mild, just as they get nervous if their luck is too good, so you'll hear every bit of weatherlore caution from "If there's spring in winter, and winter in spring, The year won't be good for anything," to "A warm and open winter portends a hot and dry summer."
Sailors called unseasonably mild weather in winter a "fox," not to be trusted, and other Yankees knew these days as "weather-breeders." Some called them "borrowed days," to be repaid at a later time, with interest!
"A mild winter makes a full graveyard," warn the most pessimistic. There's always an optimist, however: "When winter begins late, it ends early." And then there's the nay-sayer, who insists that it's the winter that begins early that also ends early. Time will tell who's right this year.
Send your questions to: Ask the Almanac, The Old Farmer's Almanac, Main St., Dublin, NH 03444. Every day the editors of The Old Farmer's Almanac answer a question on the Internet. All questions are archived there as well. On the World Wide Web, the address is www.almanac.com. (C) 1999 Yankee Publishing Inc., Dist. by United Feature Syndicate Inc.