Everyone needs to meet a Ken
When you talk to someone in the queue for an ice-cream, remember that that person might just be a good person to know!
This is Ken McNaughton, whom I met in the ice-cream queue in Ellicott City. He’s a superstar!
My new chum, the dapper Ken 🙂
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2374356/
I think me and Ken need to hook up for some extra work! 🙂
First National Anthem
Today I had to stand for my first USA National Anthem.
I didn’t know it was coming. I was at a 5k race and before it started there was a silence for those affected by the Boston Marathon and then everyone stood, hand on heart, and the National Anthem played. All in all, it was quite a moving experience.
What really intrigued me was that during it there is a line that goes:
‘Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!’
and at the start of this line (I think it was this line – correct me if this is wrong…) many men sang the ‘Oh!’ very loud and long. Upon enquiry I was informed that this is always sung at Orioles’ games (baseball, dear UK chums) because they are known as the ‘Os’.
Every day I am learning something new!
What’s the time, Mr Wolf?
FYI, this childhood game that was nearly banned from the playgrounds in the same vein as British Bulldog, is played in much the same way in the USA I have found out after running myself ragged with a group of children today.
Except here in the USA they call it “What’s the time, Mr Fox?’.
I declare it is wolf, not fox!
Why fox, not wolf, I wonder!
A child’s perspective
A friend of mine is returning the UK after three years in the USA, with her four year old and two year old in tow (and her husband!).
When asked what the five year old was looking forward to most about going to the UK (she has an American accent and pretty much all she knows is the USA), she replied thus: “Radiators. So I can hang my clothes on them to dry and make them warm.”
How sweet!
Oooh, a lovely radiator 🙂
And how odd – I had been thinking just the other day about how useful a radiator is. They just don’t exist here in America-land!
ukdesperatehousewifeusa 
Hi Claire, Jane and I miss radiators. In fact we miss central heating full stop (or should that be period?). I guess some things never made it out to the colonies…
I know – it’s a funny thing to miss! Your cats would love them too!
Funny you should say that, we just bought a new convection heater yesterday and the cats spent all day curled up next to it. Weather here can change really quickly at this time of year, one day it’s 26 and sunny, next it’s tipping it down and 13. Speaking of which, how you getting on with Americans using Farenheit? It’s not an easy conversion from what I recall.
Yes, I keep having to check what that really means!! Thank goodness for Google converters!
There are radiators in some places in the US; in my hometown 90% of the buildings are from before 1900 so radiators are considered “an update”. We had them at my school as well; but we also had cloakrooms and wooden desks with inkwells so we needed a LOT of updates. We put our mittens on them and they dried, but they smelled funny. Not “ha-ha LOL” funny, just…funny.
Oh I need to see some USA radiators! Everything in my neck of the woods is so new it’s all new-fangled heating 🙂
Where I grew up, near Boston, every house has radiators. I found the heating system in housing here in Maryland so strange when I first got here.
I love (and miss) radiators.
🙂
I grew up in a house with radiators so yes they do exist. You just have to visit a house that is old enough. I grew up in a house built in the 1930s.
So what was Ken doing in Ellicott City?
He was hanging out! 🙂
I do like a radiator, but they do also clutter the wall so!!
“radiators don’t exist in America”?? Most older homes (pre-1930’s or so) have them in the chillier parts of the country. Some folks ripped them out in order to add forced air heating and central air conditioning venting throughout the house. I doubt the cookie-cutter newer construction in subdivisions would ever have them.
Oh, no, no, no…no the radiators. They get things so HOT! And yes, do make things smell so funny…and not in a HA HA sort of way. Then there is the fire worry…and the burn worry. The smell possibility…and getting things too close to it worry…no no…central heat and central air are much much better. Warm clothes? Use the dryer, my dear.
I’m sure the novelty for her will wear off!!!
Regarding the Star Spangled Banner, if you have not done so already you might consider a trip to Fort McHenry in Baltimore where it was penned.
That whole drawn out “Ooo” thing they do around here for the ‘O’ in “O say does that star spangled banner yet wave” is something particular to this area. As someone not from this area, I personally find it annoying and disrespectful but maybe that’s just me. 🙂
On a side note, when I was stationed with the USAF in England, every day at 5pm the national anthems of both of our countries would be played over the base loudspeakers and everyone would stop (including if you were driving) and pay respects to both nations’ flags/anthems.
I understand how that would make you feel.
Love the 5pm anecdote! 🙂
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