Tag: Quantity on a farm crossword clue

Bill’s time: 11m 39s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 First U.S. prez to be born outside the original 13 Colonies : ABE

Abraham Lincoln was born in a one-room log cabin in Hardin County, Kentucky making him the first president born in the West. His formal education was limited to a year and a half of schooling. Fortunately for us, Lincoln was an avid reader and educated himself over the years. Even though he was from a rural area, he avoided hunting and fishing because he did not like to kill animals even for food.

4 Airport transports : VANS

The vehicle we call a “van” takes its name from “caravan”, and so “van” is a shortened version of the older term. Back in the 1600s, a caravan was a covered cart. We still use the word “caravan” in Ireland to describe what we call a “mobile home” or “recreational vehicle” here in the US.

8 The film “Airplane!,” e.g. : FARCE

A farce is a comedy play that features an exaggerated and improbable storyline, with lots of physical humor. I love a good farce …

The 1980 movie “Airplane!” has to be one of the zaniest comedies ever made. The lead roles were Ted Striker (played by Robert Hays) and Elaine Dickinson (played by Julie Hagerty). But it was Leslie Nielsen who stole the show, playing Dr. Barry Rumack. That’s my own humble opinion of course …

16 Result of a leadoff walk : ONE ON

In baseball, after a leadoff walk there is one man on base.

23 Groundbreaking medical procedure first accomplished in 1967 : HEART TRANSPLANT

These days, an artificial heart is mainly used as a temporary treatment while the patient is waiting on a heart transplant. The first use of such a device on a human was in 1952 in Michigan, when the patient was dependent on the machine for 50 minutes when a surgeon opened up the left atrium to repair the mitral valve.

27 Region bordering India and China in Risk : SIAM

Risk is a fabulous board game that was introduced in France in 1957. It was invented by a very successful French director of short films called Albert Lamorisse. Lamorisse called his new game “La Conquête du Monde”, which translates into English as “The Conquest of the World”. A game of Risk is a must during the holidays in our house …

29 Nestlé Purina PetCare brand : ALPO

Alpo is a brand of dog food introduced by Allen Products in 1936, with “Alpo” being an abbreviation for “Allen Products”. Lorne Greene used to push Alpo dog food in television spots, as did Ed McMahon and Garfield the Cat, would you believe?

31 Only about 10% of Americans have one : OUTIE

The navel is essentially the scar left behind when the umbilical cord is removed from a newborn baby. One interesting use of the umbilicus (navel, belly button) is to differentiate between identical twins, especially when they are very young.

34 Shakers in the woods : ASPENS

The “quaking” aspen tree is so called because the structure of the leaves causes them to move easily in the wind, to “tremble, quake”.

40 Govt. agency for retirees : SSA

The Social Security Administration (SSA) was set up as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. The first person to receive a monthly retirement benefit was Ida May Fuller of Vermont who received her first check for the sum of $22.54 after having contributed for three years through payroll taxes. The New Deal turned out to be a good deal for Ms. Fuller, as she lived to be 100 years of age and received a total benefit of almost $23,000, whereas her three years of contributions added up to just $24.75.

45 Score endings : CODAS

In music, a coda is primarily a passage that brings a movement to a conclusion. “Coda” is Italian for “tail”.

46 El ___ : PASO

Although there have been human settlements in the El Paso area for thousands of years, the first European settlement was founded in 1659 by the Spanish. That first community was on the south bank of the Rio Grande, and was called El Paso del Norte (the North Pass). Most of the urban development under Spanish rule took place on the south side of the river, with El Paso del Norte acting as the center of governance for the Spanish for the territory of New Mexico. The Rio Grande was chosen as the border between Mexico and the US in 1848, so most of the city of El Paso del Norte became part of the Mexican state of Chihuahua (and is now called Ciudad Juárez ). The area north of the river developed as a US military post, eventually becoming the modern city of El Paso, Texas.

51 “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” police captain : HOLT

“Brooklyn Nine-Nine” is a sitcom set in the 99th precinct of the NYPD in Brooklyn. Star of the show is “Saturday Night Live” alum Andy Samberg, who plays Detective Jake Peralta.

61 Supermodel Carangi : GIA

Gia Carangi was a fashion model, one often described as the world’s first supermodel. Carangi was from Philadelphia, and had her first modelling jobs appearing in newspaper ads. She started to abuse heroin in 1980, at 20 years of age. She contracted AIDS, and died at 26 years old. Carangi was one of the first famous women to succumb to the disease, in 1986. HBO made a biopic about Carangi’s life called “Gia” in 1998. Angelina Jolie played the title role.

63 Throat lozenge additive : ANISE

Back in the 14th century, the term “lozenge” described a “diamond shape”. The original lozenges were tablets held in the mouth to dissolve. They had this diamond shape, hence the name.

64 This is “plagiarism or revolution,” per Gauguin : ART

Paul Gauguin was a French artist in the Post-Impressionist period. Gauguin was a great friend of Vincent van Gogh, and indeed was staying with him in Arles when van Gogh famously cut off his own ear. Equally famously, Gauguin “fled” to Tahiti in 1891 to escape the conventions of European life. He painted some of his most celebrated works on the island. After ten years living in Tahiti, Gauguin relocated to the Marquesas Islands, where he passed away in 1903.

67 Anti-vaping ad, e.g. : PSA

Public service announcement (PSA)

Down

1 Singer with the 1972 album “Young, Gifted and Black,” informally : ARETHA

I think that Aretha Franklin, the “Queen of Soul”, had a tough life. Franklin had her first son when she was just 13-years-old, and her second at 15. In 2008, “Rolling Stone” magazine ranked Franklin as number one on its list of the greatest singers of all time.

2 Quantity on a farm : BUSHEL

In the imperial system of weights and measures, a bushel is a unit of dry volume made up of 4 pecks. In the US system, a bushel is a dry volume of 8 gallons. We have used the term “bushel” to mean “large quantity” since the 14th century.

8 1040, e.g. : FORM

Form 1040, issued by the IRS, is the “US Individual Income Tax Return”. It was originally created just for tax returns from 1913, 1914 and 1915, but it’s a form that just keeps on giving, or should I say “taking” …?

15 Children’s author who wrote “And the only reason for being a bee that I know of is making honey” : MILNE

Alan Alexander (A.A.) Milne was an English author who is best known for his delightful “Winnie-the-Pooh” series of books. He had only one son, Christopher Robin Milne, born in 1920. The young Milne was the inspiration for the Christopher Robin character in the Winnie-the-Pooh stories. Winnie-the-Pooh was named after Christopher Robin’s real teddy bear, one he called Winnie, who in turn was named after a Canadian black bear called Winnie that the Milnes would visit in London Zoo. The original Winnie teddy bear is on display at the main branch of the New York Public Library in New York.

21 Grandson of Eve : ENOS

Enos was the son of Seth, and therefore the grandson of Adam and Eve, and nephew of Cain and Abel. According to the ancient Jewish work called the Book of Jubilees, Enos married his own sister Noam.

26 Fictional prison guarded by Dementors : AZKABAN

In the “Harry Potter” universe, Azkaban is a prison housing wizards who violate the laws of wizardry. The prison is guarded by the Dementors, soulless creatures serving under the Ministry of Magic.

28 Canyonlands National Park feature : MESA

Canyonlands is a magnificent national park in southeast Utah, not far from Moab. The canyons in the park, and the associated mesas and buttes, were formed mainly by the Colorado and Green Rivers.

31 Division of the Dept. of Labor : OSHA

The US Department of Labor (DOL) was founded as the Bureau of Labor in 1889 under the Department of the Interior. The Bureau’s status was elevated to Cabinet level by President William Howard Taft in 1913, with a bill he signed on his last day in office. The DOL has been headquartered in the Frances Perkins Building in Washington, D.C. since 1975. The building was named for Frances Perkins who served as Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945 and who was the first female cabinet secretary in US history.

36 Play a bogey-free round, maybe : SHOOT PAR

The golfing term “bogey” originated at the Great Yarmouth Golf Club in England in 1890, and was used to indicate a total round that was one-over-par (and not one-over-par on a particular hole, as it is today). The name “bogey” came from a music hall song of the time “Here Comes the Bogeyman”. In the following years it became popular for players trying to stay at par to be “playing against Colonel Bogey”. Then, during WWI, the marching tune “Colonel Bogey” was written and named after the golfing term. If you don’t recognize the name of the tune, it’s the one that’s whistled by the soldiers marching in the great movie “The Bridge on the River Kwai”.

37 TV character who said “Doing the right thing is never the wrong thing” : TED LASSO

“Ted Lasso” is a marvelous sports-comedy TV show about an American college football coach who moves to the UK to manage an English soccer team. The title character is played very admirably by Jason Sudeikis. Sudeikis first played Lasso in a series of TV commercials commissioned to promote NBC’s coverage of the British Premier League. The character became so popular that he inspired a whole TV series. Great stuff, and highly recommended …

46 Zoo Atlanta’s Lun Lun or Yang Yang : PANDA

The giant panda is a bear, and so has the digestive system of a carnivore. However, the panda lives exclusively on bamboo, even though its gut is relatively poorly adapted to extract nutrients from plants per se. The panda relies on microbes in its gut to digest cellulose, and consumes 20-30 pounds of bamboo each day to gain enough nourishment.

52 Cousin of a haddock : COD

In Britain and Ireland, the most common fish that is used in traditional “fish and chips” is Atlantic cod. Cod has been overfished all over the world, and is now considered to be an endangered species by many international bodies. Confrontations over fishing rights in the North Atlantic led to conflicts called “the Cod Wars” between Iceland and the UK in the 1950s and the 1970s, with fishing fleets being protected by naval vessels and even shots being fired.

57 Hagen in the American Theater Hall of Fame : UTA

Uta Hagen was a German-born American actress. Hagen married Jose Ferrer in 1938, but they were divorced ten years later after it was revealed that she was having a long-running affair with Paul Robeson. Her association with Robeson, a prominent civil rights activist, earned her a spot on the Hollywood Blacklist during the McCarthy Era. This forced her away from film, but towards a successful stage career in New York City.

60 U.S. org. that operates a cryptology museum in Maryland : NSA

The National Cryptologic Museum (NSM) is located just outside Fort Meade in Maryland, home to the National Security Agency (NSA) headquarters. The NSM is open to the public, and was established in 1993. The museum’s building was once the Colony Seven Motel.