I’m on vacation, but wanted to store up some fun things that will post while I’m gone.

I saw this Birthday Meme on Tanya’s blog and thought I’d borrow it, especially since I just had a birthday.

The idea is to go to Wikipedia, type in your birth date (without the year) and from that search, you are supposed to list 2 birthdays, 3 events, and 1 holiday that are of interest.

June 24 in History

Birthdays

Craig Shergold

Do you remember this young man? He was sick with cancer and his parents requested greeting cards so that he could get in the Guinness Book of World Records. Only: they forgot to put a deadline on it, and the e-mails morphed, and through the years he has received over 350 million cards. Apparently cards are still getting sent, but the post office just recycles them. His family had to move because of the influx of mail!

Sherry Stringfield

This was the only other person on the list that was sort of interesting to me: I always wondered why she left ER and came back, you’ll have to go read the article if you want to find out. I’m not even sure I knew she’d left again. It’s been a long time since I’ve watched. After all of the original people were finally gone, I found I didn’t care a whole lot anymore.

Events

This is harder than it looks. For the events I picked, I tried to pick ones that had to do with interesting female figures in history.

1519 – Death of Lucrezia Borgia, Duchess of Ferrara (b. 1480)

I’m going to have to go back and read more about Lucrezia and the rest of the Borgia family: this is one of those names adn stories that I feel like I ought to know more about, but only really know just a teensy bit.

1916 – Mary Pickford becomes first female film star to get a million dollar contract.

1983 – Space Shuttle program: STS-7 Mission Sally Ride, first female American astronaut, returns to earth.

I don’t want to be an astronaut myself, but I live with 3 boys that would like to do this someday.

Holiday

Discovery Day in Newfoundland and Labrador (celebrating the 1497 discovery by John Cabot)

First European exploration of the region since the Vikings!

Well, that’s all I can come up with: I wish more interesting things had happened on my birthday in history, but I guess the fact that it is MY birthday really ought to be enough, right?

Consider yourself tagged if you are at all interested in playing along!

Oh my goodness, I’ve now been tagged not once but 4 times! Thanks, Carla, Vicki, Ronda, and Jan. I guess this means I really ought to do this one…

So what 7 random things can I tell you that I haven’t already blogged about? Back in December I did a weird things meme, so I guess I have to make sure I don’t duplicate any of those…and in January I did another one…..

Here goes nothing:

1. I got to meet John Glenn when the submarine U.S.S. Columbus was commissioned. My Dad was the Captain. My sister and I were walking around together at the time, and my Dad introduced me as Debra, and didn’t even introduce Debra at all.

2. It took me 3 (or 4?) tries to get my driver’s license when I was a teenager. I kept failing the driving part: I was unable to back our Astrovan into a parking space. At some point I had to retake the written exam, and I think there might have been one trip at which I was just plain turned away because the law had changed about the amount of drug/alchohol awareness training you were supposed to have gotten in Driver’s Ed.

3. I accidentally let my driver’s license expire when I was an adult. Not just a month or two: a year or more. In Iowa you have to retake both the written AND driving test if your license is that out of date. Thankfully I was not required to try to back our Venture (a minivan…) into a parking space.

As an aside: I’m not really sure why it took me so long to discover that it was expired. I suspect it has to do with a few things:

a. I don’t visit bars, or otherwise order alcoholic drinks, meaning I never got carded.

b. The only time I write checks is at home, to pay bills, and so I never had to show my license at the grocery store when paying by check.

c. This was before 9/11, and when I flew, they weren’t scrutinizing photo IDs quite as closely.

Yesterday, my DH asked me if I’d checked the expiration date on my current license: in Iowa it expires on your birthday. I’m good until 2010. I can only hope I remember to look every year on my birthday….

4. Other than attempting to do it for my driver’s test, I’ve never backed into a parking space. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve had to parallel park.

5. When I was a senior in high school, I was a candidate for Miss Ledyard Fair. Mom made my dress, and a vest that I wore. We were escorted by cadets from the Coast Guard Academy. I didn’t even make it to the final round. My one and only brush with pageants, and I survived relatively unscathed.

6. I made it to the Connecticut All-State Music Festival for 3 years as a vocalist.

7. I would not make a very good poker player. As my friend Lynn puts it, some people can say a word or two with their expression, but my face usually says a paragraph.

Phew. Made it to 7, but barely. Nearly everyone I know has already done this, or already been tagged, so if you haven’t and want to, consider yourself tagged….

TTFN-

Suzanne

p.s. Despite all of the above evidence to the contrary, I really am a pretty good driver, just don’t ask me to back into a parking space……