When the crows call to each other, are they holding a "CAWcus"?

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  Research can take all the fun out of perfectly good folk tales. Louis Armstrong, jazz incarnate, claimed Independence Day, 1900 to be his birthday.Some eager beaver of a scholar, seventeen years after "Satchmo" died, found his christening certificate in the archives of the New Orleans Church of the Sacred Heart on Canal Street. Christening date: August 24, 1901. Birthdate recorded as August 4.

    Rezzy likes to think that Satchmo's own date of July 4, 1900 was right and that some know-it-all functionary misunderstood. Or that Satchmo used the date he had always believed was his birthday!

   "Subway" and "McDonald's" and all the other sandwich specialists should probably be rooting for a lottery in Oklahoma. After all, the Fourth Earl of Sandwich (alive and well during our Revolution) is the one whose cook invented the sandwich.

    Why the lottery link? Because tradition has it that the Earl was quite capable of spending twenty-four hours at a stretch gambling. Hence: the sandwich. It let him keep one hand free for throwing the dice or holding his cards.

      Ah! - There's wisdom to be had everywhere! A needlework catalog advertises a small sampler to be worked and framed. It says: "Lord, put your arm around my shoulder --- and your hand over my mouth." Know anyone you want to give it to?

    "THOSE WERE THE DAYS"

    A small town newspaper that a resident gets each week has been reminiscing over nicknames that readers remember. Not just the shortened form of proper names like Joe or Dave. Memorable ones like: TANK, TONGUE-OUT, DUTCHIE, BOOGER, TIGE, CHUBBY, SKUN, TUG, SHINE, SKIPPY, SKIPPER, BUFUS, DOVE, SPINDLE, GILLY, PUNG, SOUR, CHICKEN, GOAT, BOBO, TEAKEY, FATTY, SCOOPER, GEEZE, TINALING, TERMITE, SKUNK, DUCKY and that's only half of them. The writer, who is about the age most of us are, must have known every kid in town.