Did you know … a popular singer’s appearance on a television series not seen by many viewers?

In this column’s home newspapers, Christmas comes one week from today.

I hope you are ready.

If you aren’t, you still have time to get that last-minute shopping (or last-minute letter to Santa Claus) taken care of.

If you are, then sit back and coast.  Make sure the tree is up and decorated, the stockings are hung by the chimney with care (now where have I heard that before?), and that your holiday repast is planned and underway.

Since I won’t see you here again before the holiday, let me be the first among others to wish you a very Merry Christmas!  Now, your gift from me … trivia.  Enjoy!

Did you know …

… a scientific term exists for the “pins and needles” feeling you get when your foot goes to sleep?  It’s called temporary paresthesia and is the result of pressure on a nerve.  (Yes, I had the nerve to say that.)

… you may know someone who practices hippology?  No, that person doesn’t study hippos.  They study horses.  (I leave it to you to figure out why the study of horses is called hippology.)

… the CIA used a classic novel to try and undermine communism?  During the 1950s, the Central Intelligence Agency launched balloons bearing copies of the novel Animal Farm from West Germany, sending them into the nations behind the Iron Curtain.  The plan was for the novel by George Orwell (1903-1950), a thinly-veiled parody of communism, to be read by people in Communist nations and get them to question the party line.  (Maybe if they’d not sent the books in English, it might’ve worked.)

… pinball was once banned in New York City?  The game involving metal balls, flippers, bumpers and other noise-making gizmos was made illegal by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia (1882-1947) in 1942.  LaGuardia said the game robbed school children of their nickels and dimes and led to other forms of gambling.  The mayor led police raids through the city, seizing and destroying the offending machines.  The ban remained in place until 1976.  (Notice they waited until the game cost quarters instead of nickels and dimes.)

… a popular singer’s guest-star appearance on a television series was not seen by many viewers?  During the brief run of the 1961 dramatic series Bus Stop, singer Fabian (born Fabian Forte, 1943) was advertised as the guest star on one episode.  Teenyboppers anxiously awaited his appearance, but in many markets the episode was not shown.  Why?  Because in the episode, titled “A Lion Walks Among Us,” the singer played a psychotic killer, and many affiliates chose not to run the show due to its violent content.  For his part, Fabian has always said he considered his performance in that episode the best acting work he had done, and the show – though not seen everywhere – did a lot to bring respect to his acting career.  (Odd things happen at the bus stop.)

… the cornea of the eye is the only part of the human body that has no blood supply?  It does not need a blood supply, as it draws the oxygen it needs directly from the air.  (It does that very well, too.)

… during the War of 1812, American sailors were more experienced than American soldiers?  Many of the sailors in the fledgling Navy had already seen a great deal of service at sea against pirates in North Africa, while the soldiers had little experience and training at anything military.  Veterans of the previous war, the Revolutionary War, had been out of service for almost thirty years when the conflict broke out.  (Anchors aweigh!)

… Dalmatian dogs are born pure white?  They don’t develop their spots until they are three to four days old.  (And then they get 101 of them.)

… the biggest part of the budget of the movie Pulp Fiction was salary?  The budget for the 1994 hit movie was $8 million.  Of that, $5 million was specifically for the salaries of stars John Travolta (born 1954), Uma Thurman (born 1970), and Samuel L. Jackson (born 1948), along with other members of the cast and crew.  That left director Quentin Tarantino (born 1963) very little money with which to actually shoot the movie, but he made that budget work wonders – Pulp Fiction won the Academy Award™ for Best Original Screenplay and was up for six other Oscars.  (Richly deserved awards, too.)

… a human’s senses are a lot stronger than you might think?  On a clear, dark night, the unaided human eye can detect a candle flame at a distance of 32 miles.  The tick of a watch can be heard in very quiet conditions from 20 feet away.  One gram of salt can be tasted in 500 liters of water.  A drop of perfume can be detected in a three-room apartment.  And you can detect the drop of a bee’s wing on your cheek from half an inch above.  (Humans are amazing, aren’t they?)

… during World War II, two NFL teams combined rosters?  In 1943, many NFL players had been drafted into the military and were serving overseas.  To remain competitive with the decimated rosters they still had, the Philadelphia Eagles and Pittsburgh Steelers combined their teams to form the Steagles.  The following year, the Steelers combined rosters with the Chicago (now Arizona) Cardinals to become a team known as Card-Pitt.  By the 1945 season, however, the war was over and most of the drafted players had returned to their original teams, and the combined teams were disbanded.  (Pittsburgh had trouble fielding a team.)

Now … you know!