Here’s the status (you may have forgotten): we shared a vacation house last week with a friend who tested positive for COVID (she is feeling much better today) and the next day, on the 400 mile drive home, Edie and I both felt under the weather. Sunday and Monday, we both felt wiped out and assumed we had, or were on our way to getting, COVID. But our tests were all negative. Last night, I slept very little because I added a sore throat to my symptoms. This morning, I was certain that I would be positive, but again the test was negative. I have written by 24/7 concierge doctor for advice (Paxlovid or no Paxlovid, among other things), but have not yet heard back.

But because I was feeling less than perfect, my evening last night was spent atypically – while I was watching a baseball game, a show about coming cultural events in DC, and the first part of a very well done documentary on school busing in Boston (on PBS), which we will finish sometime later, I read through the latest copy of Smithsonian Magazine. When is the last time I did that? Guess what? Pretty interesting.

On the theory that you did not spend last night reading the Smithsonian, and keeping to my goal of making sure my readers are up to date, I offer the following tidbits I picked up last night. Things I did not know. Here goes:

1. Did you know that before the Statue of Liberty arrived in 1886, the symbol of the United States was a classical looking lady called Lady Columbia, or just Columbia? And that the “national anthem” before the Star Spangled Banner was adopted by Congress in 1931 was a song called “Hail, Columbia”, written in 1798? I don’t know “Hail, Columbia”, and never thought that songs which are dedicated to Columbia (such as “Columbia, Gem of the Ocean”) may have been written with a female “mascot” in mind.
2. Apparently, Uncle Sam was named for a New York businessman (not identified in the magazine) and that he didn’t really become an American emblem until after the Civil War and the Thomas Nast cartoons. Before that, we had a different emblem – a much younger and spirited fellow named Brother Jonathan who first appeared in 1813.
3. The book “The History of Little Goody Two Shoes”, first published in 1765 in England and republished again and again in England and America was the story of a young orphan who overcame poverty and loneliness to accomplish all sorts of things that women in literature, must less in child literature, rarely accomplished. No one knows for sure that who wrote the book, but many think it might have been Oliver Goldsmith of all people. “Goody” does not mean a “too good” girl, but was a normal preface, like Ms. in the 18th century, and that the book was one of the first children’s books to deal with real life, and not fantasy or magic. Interesting.
4. Graffiti is not a new phenomenon, and apparently ancient monuments (Greece, Rome, Egypt, elsewhere) are covered with graffiti that could not be read (much less translated). But now things are changing, as new forms of digital photogrammetry and laser technology allows detailed photos to be made from many angles, and models to be constructed that can be read in a way that things cannot be read with the naked eye, and can be read on a screen and not at the site. This project is underway in many places, particularly at Washington and Lee.
5. God did not create the QWERTY keyboard, but Carlos Glidden and S.W. Soule did, and it was adopted by E. Remington & Sons in 1874, and remained unchanged ever since.
6. In 1907, Glenn Curtiss (remember Curtiss-Wright Corporation) rode a motorcycle he engineered 136 miles an hour, a record that remained for land transportation until 1931. Now, however, the record belongs to Rocky Robinson, who has cycled 376 miles per hour. Yes, you read that right (his cycle has 1000 horsepower.
7. How a Scottish forensic artist, based in Thailand, can take a old skull and figure out what the person looked like (he admits to having trouble with hair and eye color). But who can tell him he’s wrong?
8. A large article on how you can find evidence of Moorish Spain in Granada and Almeria and environs beyond the Alhambra (beautiful photos). Did you know that many western movies, as well as Lawrence of Arabia, Cleopatra and Indiana Jones, were all filmed in southern Spain. I also did not know that in 1609, about 115 years after Granada was captured by Ferdinand and Isabella, the remaining Moors, who had earlier converted to Christianity, were forced out of the country, going to north Africa. The number? About 300,000 – more than the number of Jews who left Spain in 1492.
9. During the 19th century, it was agreed that some of the best coffee in the world came from a particular type of tree found in Ecuador. Those forests have been destroyed and that type of coffee no longer available. Now ways have apparently been found to recreate these trees, and bring the best coffee of the 19th century into the 21st.

There was more. Relations between Choctaw Indians and the Irish – supporting each other as a result of the Trail of Tears and the Irish famine, and continuing today. How mead is again becoming a popular drink, 9000 years after it was first used (or after we know it was used). Preservation efforts to stabilize Caribbean reef sharks. An article about the newly opened and rebuilt bird house at the National Zoo, again with photographs by well known avian photographers. And finally, an article about music written at Terezin concentration camp by inmates, much of which has been lost and is now being recovered by a musician who has devoted decades to this task.

OK, I think that is it.

Yes, I read this magazine so you did not have to. But you can subscribe if you want to. It’s a bargain.