Ba + Na2

Do you know about the banana peels and how they became a familiar joke?  Mental Floss has the story on this. In the mid-1800s bananas started being shipped from Panama to New York City. They became a popular street food.  At the time, people tossed their garbage  (I gather lots of it) into the streets, and this included bananas, so they would linger there accumulating and decaying. It was so prevalent, that Harper's Weekly in 1880 admonished anyone who tossed their banana peels on a public walkway, as this would likely result in broke limbs.  Virginia Scott Jenkins in her book   Bananas:  An American History says that in 1909 the St. Louis city council completely outlawed "throwing or casting" a banana rind on public thoroughfares because of falls and broken limbs.  Dan Keppel's book on the banana describes how the banana peel epidemic in New York City resulted in the first large-scale recycling effort in the United States:  a fleet or uniformed workers swept the streets in shifts and disposed of the waste. Vaudeville comedians took up the cause with the banana-peel pratfall. It became a fixture of physical comedy.  Harold Lloyd included the gag in his silent film The Flirt, and Buster Keaton in The High Sign.  Even Woody Allen included the gag in Sleeper. I thought today's topic might be advice for 2018, and  I gave up - this is one topic where there is way more than one can get through...well, it is advice!  I did find something that appealed to me (or if put in banana speak 'a-peeled'). Retirement is the beginning of the time when you can sit back and give advice to others, even though you never followed it in your own life. Here are two Niagara crops you may not be familiar with - roses and Gingko trees - these are in the Bakker's growing field near Lilycrest Gardens. And our third picture is a Canadian History moment - this was a poster given to us by our friend in Colorado.