#104

Interesting History

Where did "Piss Poor" come from? 

They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot and then, once a day it was taken and sold to the tannery. If you had to do this to survive you were "Piss Poor"

But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn't even afford to buy a pot, they "didn't have a pot to piss in"  and were the lowest of the low.

The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to be. Here are some facts about the 1500s:

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and they still smelled pretty good by June. However, since they were starting to smell. Brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting Married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it.. Hence the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the Bath water!"

Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying, "It's raining cats and dogs."

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying, "Dirt poor." The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance-way. Hence: a thresh hold.

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire.. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme: "Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old."

Sometimes, they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, "bring home the bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and "chew the fat."

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the upper crust.

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.

England is old and small and the local folks started to run out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift.) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, saved by the bell or was considered a dead ringer.

WHY is the USA BANKRUPT?

You think the war in Iraq is costing us too much?

Read the 14 reasons:

1. $11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year by state governments. Verify at: http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=iic_immigrationissuecenters7fd8  
   
2. $2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens. Verify at: http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.HTML
3. $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens.
   Verify at: http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.HTML
4. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English!
   Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt..0.HTML
5. $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies.
   Verify at http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.HTML
6. $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens.
   Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/+TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.HTML
7. 30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens.
   Verify at: http://transcripts.CNN.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.HTML
8. $90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for welfare and social services by the American taxpayers. Verify at: http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.HTML
9. $200 Billion dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens.
   Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSC+RI+PTS/0604/01/ldt.01.HTML
10. The illegal aliens in the  United States have a crime rate that's two and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens.  In particular, their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US . Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn/..com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/12/ldt..01.HTML
11. During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from Terrorist Countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin and marijuana, crossed into the U.S. from the Southern border. Verify at: Homeland Security Report
    
12. The National policy Institute, estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period.' Verify at: http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute/..org/PDF/deportation.PDF
    
13. In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances to their countries of origin. Verify at: http://www/..rense..com/general75/niht.htm
    
14. 'The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One million sex crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants In The United States .' Verify at: http://www.drdsk.com/articleshtml

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