Flotsam, Jetsam, Hodge & Podge

It's not an advertising agency like Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn or a stockbroker like Merrill, Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, it's an apt description of this post, which, like Gaul, is divided into three parts..

Part 1. What's Wrong With These People? / The Latest From The World Of Jeopardy!

The following correct answers were not uttered by any contestant on Jeopardy! this week:

1. What is the Hesperus? (In a category called Ships in Literature, the clue mentioned a poem by Longfellow whose title included the wreck of this. One person did buzz in but guessed the Edmund Fitzgerald.)

2. What is Napoli? (the clue: a southern Italian town mentioned in the song "That's Amore!". Dean Martin must be turning over in his grave.)

3. What is vitreous? (In the category "V"ocabulary in which all answers had to start with the letter V, the clue was a fluid in an eyeball, also known as this type of humor. Someone guessed viscous.)

4. What is hope? (According to poet Emily Dickinson, this has feathers and perches in the soul.)

Part 2. Short But Not Necessarily Sweet

Besides writing poems like "The Raven" and "Annabel Lee", Edgar Allan Poe wrote dozens of short stories. If I help start you off, can you name eight of his best-known ones?

The ____ ___
The ___ and the ________
The ____-____ _____
The ____ of ___________
The ______of the ___ _____
The _______ in the ___ ______
The _________ ______
The ____ of the _____ of _____

Helpful hints: The second one is not The Owl and the Pussycat because The Owl and the Pussycat is a poem, not a short story, and furthermore it was written by Edward Lear, not Edgar Allan Poe. The fourth one is not The Snows of Kilimanjaro because, although The Snows of Kilimanjaro is certainly a short story, it was written by Ernest Hemingway, not Edgar Allan Poe.

[Editor's note. One of my grandsons spent 11 weeks in southern Kenya in the summer of 2016, and he could see Mt. Kilimanjaro just across the border in Tanzania from his house. This is a true statement, unlike Tina Fey's statement while pretending in a skit on Saturday Night Live in 2008 to be Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska, that she could see Russia from her house. --RWP]

I digress.

Okay, if you are buffaloed (British, stumped) I will make the task a little easier by supplying some of the letters.

The G___ B__
The P__ and the P_______
The T___-T___ H____
The C___ of A__________
The M_____ of the R__ D____
The M______ in the R__ M_____
The P________ L_____
The F___ of the H____ of U____

Now it's all up to you!

3. Longevity Is Not a Requirement To Achieve Greatness.

Here's proof:

Joan of Arc died at 19.
Alexander the Great died at 32.
Jesus Christ died at 33.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died at 35
Felix Mendelssohn died at 38.
Marrin Luther King, Jr. died at 39.
Frederic Chopin died at 40.
Edgar Allan Poe (did you know he wrote short stories?) died at 40.
Robert F. Kennedy died at 42.
Elvis Presley died at 42.
John F. Kennedy died at 46.
Oscar Wilde died at 46.
Julius Caesar died at 55.
Abraham Lincoln died at 56.

On the other hand, the other end of the age spectrum is not without its notables:

Anna Robertson "Grandma" Moses, a painter, died at 101.
Queen Mother Elizabeth died just shy of 102.
Olivia de Havilland, whom you may remember from such films as Gone With The Wind and Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte, died at 104.
Dr. Leila Denmark of Alpharetta, Georgia, the world's oldest practicing pediatrician when she retired at 103 from a 73-year career, died at 114.

In conclusion, and as this very post proves, it takes all kinds.

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