chewing gum is good for you
We can all agree that's bunk, right?

Oops! Researchers at the University of Northumbria [wherever that is] have found that the "repetitive chewing motion" of chewing gum [an activity despised by teachers principally] has "a positive effect on thinking and other cognitive functions". It can "boost memory" proclaims a headline in Friday's Investor's Business Daily.

Next thing you know, teachers will be dispensing gum to students who begin to droop off in class.

Chewing gum increases the heart rate and sends a surge of insulin to the brain. (Seems a waste of all that furtive gum stuck under schoolroom desks everywhere, wouldn't you say?)

Sometimes even teachers can flunk a bunk test.

Dear plutarch: I suspect that the big reasons teachers are instructed to ban gum chewing is related to mischief resulting from misuse of gum that has lost its flavor. Like pressing it into braids of girls' hair, putting it in seats just before victim sits down. One side of gum chewing that bothered me was tendency to swallow air enough to promote impolite eructation. I wonder what makes dogs enjoy chewing a bone so much.

A dental health URLabout gum chewing.http://www.massdental.org/public/health.cfm?doc_id=112

I wonder what makes dogs enjoy chewing a bone so much

Actually, dogs don't enjoy bones any more than they enjoy sticks, wwh, unless there's meat or juice on them. At least, that's my experience. Which leads me to the next question: "Why do dogs enjoy sticks?".

And why do we say someone studying for a test is "boning up" for it? No-one believes a dog chewing on a bone is trying to improve his table manners. (Or do they?)

I'd get rid of a dog what would prefer a stick to a bone.

Guess you've never had a Retriever, wwh. These dogs will run themselves into the ground for a thrown stick. For a bone too ... but they're not fussy.

I had a Golden Retriever once, Sailor, who would fetch a stick (of any description) out of the Lake all day long for the kids, passing up a meal call if it came to that. Sailor became such a powerful swimmer he could tow a canoe full of kids into shore by the bow rope*. (Maybe he thought the canoe was just another stick.)

Loved that dog, wwh. Even if he preferred sticks over bones.

*The nautical term for a "bow rope" is a "painter" (as I know from my sailing days). Most sailing terms make some kind of sense, but "painter" never made any sense to me.

Well, baseball players at a very young age are encouraged to chew gum during the game because it increases their concentration and reduces tension. Many others, especially pros, have chewed tobacco over the years for this same affect. And from someone who has spent many hours on the baseball diamond, I can tell you it does help! Could this be something of a placebo affect?...doubt it. 8 years olds react in a very honest manner...if the gum-chewing wasn't helping them (me), they'd come right out and tell ya. "I ain't chewin' this dumb gum, it's takin' my mind off the game!"

I ain't chewin' this dumb gum
Yeah, maybe, but 8 year olds are pretty impressionable, dontcha think, W'ON?

What kid at bat doesn't dream about blasting one outta the park, just like Samma Sosa or Barry Bonds. (Who remembers the guy who hit 70 homeruns in '98 any more?)

If hoisting their bat in copycat fashion, or chewing gum, or tapping imaginary mud off their cleats, is going to help them do it (or at least "imagine" doing it), then they will pose and chaw and tap their cleats in private in front of a mirror all day, dontcha think?

Imagining greatness is one of the glories of childhood. Too bad we have to grow up, huh?

Too bad we have to grow up, huh?

We do????

Dear plutarch: My father, what's in a name, was an avid hunter. We always had hunting dogs. Both setters and retrievers. One of my very early memories is of a Chesapeake Bay Retriever who would not let me get more than knee deep at the beach before he grabbed me by seat of bathing trunks, and dragged me way out of the water. We had Labs and Goldens. Tireless Frisby artists. I never tested their preferences between bones and sticks. But my impression was that when chewing on a stick, it was a substitute for a bone.

We had Labs and Goldens. Tireless Frisby artists.

Are you certain, dr. bill? My data indicates that the frisbee throwing orignated in the mid-1940's, at Yale, and the name "Frisbee" was trademarked in 1959. Were the frisbies you recall made of plastic, or metal?

From the book I've cited before, by Charles Panati: In the 1870s William Russell Frisbie opened a bakery [in Bridgeport, Connecticut] that carried a line of homemade pies in circular tin pans. Bridgeport historians do not know if children in Frisbie's day tossed empty tins for amusement, but sailing the pans did become a popular diversion among student at Yale University in the mid-1940's. The school's New Haven campus was not far from the Bridgeport pie factory. The campus fad might have died out had it not been for a Californian, Walter Frederick Morrison, with an interest in flying saucers, hoping to capitalize on America's UFO mania [in the 1950's].

Panati lists as his source: "An interesting book of fact and speculation of the origin and gevelopment of the Frisbee is Frisbee, Stancil Johnson, 1975, Workman Publishing."

An on-line source is http://makeashorterlink.com/?F2CB62A8; scroll down to the part near the end that will have color highlights.

Dear Keiva: I plead guilty to conflating my childhood and that of my son.

conflating family history
Memories mix easily in blood lines but, you've got to hand it to Keiva. He was pretty swift in picking that up.

Yep, he snaffled it in mid-air just like old Tim.

We can all agree that's bunk, right?

Wrong!

Imagining greatness is one of the glories of childhood. Too bad we have to grow up, huh?

You just go ahead and define 'growing up' anyway you'd like, but no need to speak for the rest of *us!

Frisbee anyone?

he snaffled it in mid-air
"Snaffled", that's an interesting word, wwh. A snaffle is a horse's bit, as I have just discovered, but when used as a verb, it means to "snap up" or "grab up" ... just as you used it. Very picturesque ... and particularly apt when applied to "Old Tim" and his fielding feats.

If Old Tim had intercepted a toss to someone else, would you say he had snarfed it?

I must confess I thought a "snaffle" was a bungled mess, but I guess that's a "snafu".

plutarch: Too bad we have to grow up, huh?
keiva: We do????
musick: You just go ahead and define 'growing up' anyway you'd like, but no need to speak for the rest of *us! Frisbee anyone?

Musick! You and I agree! [ROTFLMAO -e]