Thursday, July 31, 2014

Our Remarkable Friends, the Dragonflies


Dear George,
One of my favorite places these days is the Oakleaf Trail at Miami Whitewater Forest.  There’s a path at the south edge of the trail that leads down to a bench at the edge of the pond, and it’s a peaceful place to contemplate nature and think about life’s quirkiness.  Fish nip at the water’s surface; frogs jump off the bank as people approach; ducks swim and feed; you might see a turtle if you’re lucky; and dragonflies flit here and there.   Watching the dragonflies takes me back to childhood on the Menominee River where they would hover around our rowboat and sometimes land and rest momentarily on our shoulders or arms.  It always made us nervous, but they never bit.  Dragonflies are certainly among the most majestic insects we encounter.  I realized how little I really know about them, so I asked Google a bunch of questions.  Here’s are some of the highlights.



Griffenflies (artist’s rendition)

How long have dragonflies inhabited the earth?  Longer than we can imagine.  Griffenflies, the giant precursors of today’s dragonflies, existed over 300 million years ago in the Carboniferous period.  With three-foot wingspans, they were the largest insects in history.  (1, 5) [note: #’s in parentheses refer to references at end]
  
How many different species of dragonflies are there?  There are about 5,900 different species of dragonflies in the world today, including 450 species in the U.S. and 114 in the state of Michigan alone.    Dragonflies inhabit all the world’s continents except Antartica. (4, 7, 12)

Where should you look for dragonflies?  They usually live around water because their larvae, known as “nymphs” or “naiads”, are aquatic. (12)

How big do dragonflies get?  Dragonflies range in size from one inch to six inches or more.  There are dragonflies in Costa Rica that have wingspans of 7.5 inches.  (6, 7)

What do dragonflies eat?  Dragonflies eat mosquitoes, as well as ants, bees, wasps, flies, and even an occasional butterfly.  A single dragonfly can eat several hundred mosquitoes a day.  For this reason alone, dragonflies are among humans’ best friends.  (11, 12)  




Dragonfly eyes

Can dragonflies see well?  Dragonflies have extraordinary vision.  Each of their compound eyes has up to 30,000 lenses, and they can see in many directions at once.  Their eyes make up almost their entire head.  They also can see a wider spectrum of colors than people can.  (1, 11) 

How fast do dragonflies fly?  Dragonflies are remarkable fliers.  They can move each of their four wings independently, and they can fly in any of six directions: up, down, forward, backward, and side to side.  Large dragonflies are among the fastest insects in the world.  They cruise at about 10 m.p.h., though they can reach speeds above 30 m.p.h.  One biologist reports measuring a dragonfly in the field flying at 60 m.p.h.  Scientists at Harvard have photographed dragonflies taking flight, catching their prey, and returning to a perch, all within one to 1.5 seconds.  Dragonfly flight is so extraordinary that engineers have envisioned designing flying robots patterned after them.  (11, 12)



Dragonflies in the wheel formation   

How do dragonflies mate?  First the male searches for an appropriate partner.  Since there are so many species, he has to identify a female of his own species from her flight style, coloring, patterns, and size.  While they’re both in flight, the male grabs the female around her thorax with his legs and clasps her by the neck.  As they’re flying in tandem, she bends her abdomen forward, and he connects his private parts to hers. This is known as the wheel formation because the couple forms a closed, heart-shaped circle.  Some pairs consummate mating in flight, while others retire to a nearby perch.  After mating, many males then guard their partners by chasing off and/or fighting with approaching males.  (2)

Do dragonflies lay eggs?  Females lay eggs in or near water, often on plants.  A single female may lay hundreds or even thousands of eggs at one time.  The eggs usually hatch in two to three weeks.  (3)




A dragonfly naiad

Do dragonflies fly as soon as they’re born?  No, definitely not.  In their initial larval stage, dragonfly naiads live underwater for two to three years.  This is the great majority of the dragonfly’s life span.  Naiads breathe through gills in their rectum and can propel themselves by expelling water from their rear ends.  They have extendable jaws that enable them to catch mosquito larvae and even tadpoles and minnows.  They shed their skins up to ten or fifteen times during their larval period.  (5, 12)

How long do adult dragonflies live?  After they’ve shed their final larval skin and emerged from the naiad stage, dragonflies can live for five to six months.  (12)

Do dragonflies migrate?  A number of dragonfly species migrate in response to cold weather.  Biologists have documented dragonflies called global skimmers making an 11,000 trip between India and Africa.  Migrating dragonflies can live longer than those who stay put.  (1)

Can dragonflies hurt human beings?  Adult dragonflies are harmless and don’t sting or bite people.  Naiads, on the other hand, can deliver painful stings to people (though the stings are harmless).  (6)




Birds eat dragonflies

Who are dragonflies’ predators?    It’s perilous to be a dragonfly -- they have a lot of enemies who like to eat them.  These include fish, birds, lizards, frogs, spiders, water bugs, and even larger dragonflies. (12)  Young, newly emerged dragonflies are particularly vulnerable, and it’s estimated that about 90% are eaten by birds and other predators.  (1)

Do people eat dragonflies?  Dragonflies are a food source in some parts of the world.  In Indonesia they are caught on poles and fried in oil as a delicacy.  (12)  

Where did dragonflies get their name?  Nobody knows for sure.  However, an author named Eden Sarot (1958) speculated that it came from an ancient Romanian folktale in which the Devil turned a beautiful horse into a giant insect.  Sarot's hunch is that, because "drac" is the Romanian word for dragon as well as Devil, "Devil's fly" eventually became transformed in the English language into "Dragon fly."  (13)





Red Dragonfly and Locust (Metropolitan Museum of Art) (8)

How are dragonflies viewed in various cultures?  In Japan dragonflies are symbols of courage, strength, and happiness.  In Europe they have been seen more often as sinister.  The Norwegian name for dragonflies means “eye-poker”; the Portugese name, “eye-snatcher”.  A folk belief in the southern U.S. is that dragonflies are “snake doctors” who follow snakes around and stitch them back together when they get injured.  (12)

All in all, dragonflies are astonishing.  Given all these facts, I don’t think I’ll ever view them quite the same.  Now I’m eager to get back to the pond at Miami Whitewater and see how many varieties I can spot.
Love,
Dave

SOURCES:  (1) www.about.com, “10 Fascinating Facts About Dragonflies”; (2) www.about.com, “How dragonflies mate”;  (3) www.answers.yahoo.com, “How many offsrpoimg do dragonflies produce at one time?”; (4) www.biokids.umich.edu, “Anisoptera”; 5) www.bugfacts.net, “Dragonfly”; (6) www.dragonflies.org, “The study of dragonflies”; (7) www.dragonfly-site.com, “Facts and myths about dragonflies”; (8) www.haikuproject.wordpress.com, “Dragonfly dreams”; (9) www.listverse.com, “10 surprisingly brutal facts about dragonflies”; (10) www.orkin.com, “Dragonflies”;  (11) www.smithsonianmag.com, “14 fun facts about dragonflies”; (12) www.wikipedia.org, “Dragonfly”; (13)  www.wiki.answers.com, "How did dragonflies get their name"; (14) www.wiki.answers.com, “Can humans eat dragon flies?”;  (15) www.wildernessclassroom.com, “Green Darner Dragonfly”


G-mail Comments
-Phyllis S-S (8-20):  Dear Dave,,  This  was wonderful information. I used to adore watching dragonflies when I went fishing with my father.  Enjoyed the bibliography.  Phyllis
-Linda C (8-1): Thanks for all the interesting info. They are fascinating and always remind me of a fairy word…  Wish we could all get together sometime. Love Linda
-Gayle C-L (7-31):  David,  That was a cool read!.... Amazing, 5900 species. Here I thought there was only one!  Thank you for that!... Hope you get to see many of the varieties!  Love    G :)



Sunday, July 27, 2014

Favorite Bookmarks




Dear George,
We didn’t buy a home computer until 2004.  We were one of the last – maybe the last --of our friends and acquaintances to do so.  Because I used a computer at work all day, I decided I shouldn’t repeat that activity at home too.  That was silly. Fortunately Katja went out and bought an Apple.  Now I spend more time at the computer than anyplace else except sleeping.  I can’t imagine what I used to do in my spare time.  And I can’t imagine how I even survived without a computer’s assistance.  Like practically everybody else, I use it to keep in touch with acquaintances, check the weather, pick movies or TV shows to watch, find out travel directions, store and manipulate photos, get airline tickets and make motel reservations, check campsite availability at state parks, practice line dancing, watch Patti Page and Groucho Marx, buy stuff, and retrieve information about any topic in the universe.

There was only one website in 1991, but there were 23,500 by 1995.  As of today (July 27), it’s estimated that there are over 1,013,000,000 websites on the Internet.  This means that if you visit a thousand sites per day, it will take you 2,775 years to get to all of them (and, of course, there will be a lot more by then if the Internet and/or the world still exists).

Probably every user has a unique set of websites that they frequent which reflect their their interests and purposes.  Because some of these might be of interest to others, I thought I’d make a list of some of the websites that I have bookmarked on my computer.  I’ve put these in three groupings as follows.

(1) Hugely Popular Websites.  These are sites that get tons of usage and that many people including myself visit regularly.  I’ll just mention some of these briefly here: google, yahoo, bing, youtube, facebook, wikipedia, amazon, ebay, craigslist, groupon, expedia, travelocity, orbitz, flickr, cnn, nytimes, google maps, google news, huffingtonpost, factcheck.org.

(2)  My Favorite Bookmarks.  Right now I have about 490 websites bookmarked on my computer.  Aside from the ultra-popular sites listed above, here are my personal favorites (many of which I’ve run across in the course of doing this blog): 

  • Charity evaluations: www.charitynavigator.org.  Charity Navigator, Information regarding accountability and transparency, financial performance, revenues, expenses breakdown, and overall rating.  Remarkably helpful.
  • City statistics:  www.city-data.com.  Detailed information for U.S. cities and small towns, e.g, income, education, race, employment, weather, air polution, water systems, cell phones, sex offenders, home sales, etc.   Practically everything you might want to know about towns or cities.  (also see Sperling’s Best Places, www.bestplaces.net).
  • Gallup Poll: www.gallup.com.  Current and past Gallup Poll results on politics, economy, well-being, and world.
  • Games: www.games.aarp.org.  Card, word, sports, arcade, brain games, etc. (my favorite is Spider Solitaire). 
  • Historical events:  www.infoplease.com.  News and events, history and government, science and health, business, etc., organized by year. 
  • Medical:  www.webmd.com: health information and medical news for consumers and professionals on just about everything.
  • Menominee and Marinette news:  www.ehextra.com.  Online edition of local twin cities newspaper. 
  • Menominee county biographies:  www.linkpendium.com/genealogy/USA/MI/Menominee/sur/  Menominee County, Michigan: Surnames.  Biographical information for a hundred or so prominent Menominee County residents in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (including my grandfather, V.A. L. Sr.). 
  • Menominee county history:  www.books.google.com.  (search book title in Google).  "Centennial History of Menominee County" by E. S. Ingalls (1876), 76 pp.  Lumbering, government, finance, education, religion, business, farming, etc., in Menominee County in the 1800's. 
  • Movie reviews:  www.imdb.com.  Internet Movie Database.  Movies (current and past), TV, Celebrities, Indie News.  (Also see: Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, Movie Review Intelligence, and QuickTime Movie Trailers)
  • Nextdoor: Allows you to share useful information with people in your immediate neighborhood or community (plus sell stuff, ask questions, seek lost dogs, etc.). 
  • Quotations:  www.brainyquote.com.  Thousands of quotations, organized by authors and topics.
  • Radio stations:  www.addictedtoradio.com.  Free Internet radio and video stations.  (also Itunes radio) 
  • Reviews of local businesses:  www.yelp.com: Members’ recommendations about everything from restaurants to yoga instructors. 
  • Rhyming dictionary:  www.rhymezone.com.  Rhyming dictionary and thesaurus.  Includes Shakespeare quotes, quizzes, "Great documents", and more. 
  • State rankings:  www.census.gov/compendia/statab/rankings.html.  U.S. Census, The 2012 Statistical Abstract: State Rankings.  States ranked by age, income, race and ethnicity, health statistics, education, crime, traffic fatalities, etc. 
  • Run maps:  www.mapmyrun.com.  Map My Run.  Enables you to map a walking, running, or driving route in your location of interest, with information about mileage, bike paths, traffic, weather, etc. 
  • Travel reviews:  www.tripadvisor.com.  Information and reviews for hotels, vacation rentals, restaurants, and local destinations. 
  • Weather forecasts:  www.weather.com: Daily, hourly, weekly, monthly, etc., forecasts plus weather tips and news.  
  • Website stats:  www.alexa.com.  Alexa, The Web Information Company.  Information about popularity of web-sites including national and world ranking, who goes there, links, etc.

(3) Other Interesting Places.  Of course, one discovers lots of different websites while looking into this or that.  Here are some additional sites of particular interest: 

  • Art: www.google.com/culturalinstitute/project/art-project.  Collections, artists artworks. 
  • Cincinnati news: www.cincinnati.com.  News, sports, things to do, etc., from the Cincinnati Enquirer.  
  • Collections:  www.publicdomainreview.org.  Collections of images, books, film, and audio, centered on the surprising, the strange, and the beautiful.   
  • Football: nfl.com: official site of the National Football League; in-depth team pages for all teams. 
  • Googlefight:  www.googlefight.com.  Allows you to compare the number of Google results for any two keyword searches. 
  • Health: www.healthfinder.gov.  Health topics from A to Z from the US Dept. of Health and Human Services.  (Also see www.cdc.gov; www.fda.gov; www.health.nih.gov)
  • How-to info:  www.ehow.com: how-to articles from professionals and users on a wide range of topics. 
  • Humor: www.theonion.com.  A fake news source that presents satirical, laugh-out-loud stories on politics, entertainment, sports, business, etc.  (also see theChive; Cracked; Break; CollegeHumor) 
  • NYC images:  www.nycma.lunaimaging.com/luna/servlet.  NYC Municipal Archives.  Over 870,000 images (photos, maps, motion picture and audio records) related to New York City.
  • Photography:  www.masgters-of-photography.com.  Images listed by photographer. 
  • Pinboard:  www.pinterest.com: An online pinboard where people post collections of things. 
  • Politics: www.politico.com News, columns, videos, candidate blogs, etc.  (also see DailyKos, ThinkProgress; GovTrack.us; OpenSecrets.org; Salon.com, SourceWatch.org)
  • State parks (camping):  www.stateparks.com.  America's Parks.  All of America's park resources in one easy to find location. 
  • Topics of all sorts:  www.dp.la:   Digital Public Library of America: based on documents, photos, etc., from the country's libraries, museums, and archives; gives virtual exhibits on myriad topics (e.g., Boston sports temples). 
  • U.P.:  www.yoopersteez.com/blog.  Upper Peninsula Michigan history, stories, information, etc. 
  • Urban maps:  www.projects.nytimes.com/census/2010/explorer.  Mapping America: Every City, Every Block.  Local data from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey showing community and neighborhood distributions for race and ethnicity, income, housing, same-sex couples, and education.
  • White House:  www.whitehouse.gov.  Obama White House website, with news, photos, topics and issues, White House daily schedule, etc. 
  • Ted talks:  www.ted.com.  Ted: Ideas Worth Spreading.  "Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world" (technology, entertainment, science, global issues, etc.). 

O.K., now I have to go off and do a Google search.  Fortunately there are a billion plus websites left to discover.
Love,
Dave


G-mail Comments
-Donna D (7-27):  omg that's a lot of websites, david.  wow.  donna





Monday, July 21, 2014

Seventy-Seven: So Mysterious, Full of Promise


Dear George,
Last night I turned seventy-seven exactly at the stroke of midnight.  I barely noticed because I was sound asleep.  My general belief is that it’s best to be unconscious while going through major life transitions.  So far 77 has been better than usual.  A secret visitor dropped off a Graeter’s cherry coffeecake on our back porch this morning.  I can’t think of a better way to start a new year.  Birthdays, of course, aren’t as overwhelming as they were in childhood.  I think of our grandchildren who are turning 6 this September.   That’s amazing.  All these different birthday ages, e.g., 6 or 16 or 40 or 25, have so many rich meanings associated with them.  Lately I’ve been investigating the number 77 to get a better fix on my new status in life.  Here are some of the highlights that I’ve uncovered so far.




7, of course, is a lucky number.  Numerologists point out that that 77’s association of good fortune is twice as strong as is 7’s:
·       According to Joanne W’s Angel Numbers, 77 indicates that you can “expect miracles to occur in your life.”  (31) [note: numbers in parentheses refer to references at end}
·       Master Numerologist Hans D. reports that 77 “is perhaps the most intelligent and inventive of all numbers. “  (11)
·       Other numerologists conclude that 77 “is witty and spiritual” (4), fosters “detachment and expanding consciousness” (33), and is a place “where you can fly and dance in the stars while in any and all forms” (7). 
·       Numerologists also report that 7's (including 77 and 777) are incompatible with 9's.  According to one expert, "A wife, a friend, or a concubine with 9 will spoil your peace of mind and business."  Hmm, my concubine Katja's birthday is Dec. 9.  Should I be worried?  (51)



Adam and Eve, the first generation

Some old-fashioned people are wary of numerologists.  For them, I would point out that the Bible offers even more convincing proof of the significance of 77:
  • Bible number scholars all agree that 77 represents Jesus (C = 3, H = 8, R = 18, I = 9, S = 19, T = 20 – these, of course, add up to 77).  (44)
  • The Bible lists 77 generations from Adam and Eve (#1) to Jesus (#77).  (44)
  • When the apostle Peter asked Jesus if he should forgive his brother 7 times, Jesus said, “no, but unto 77 times” (Matthew 18:21).  (1)
  • Computerized word counts find that "garden", "refuge", and “to feed” are each mentioned 77 times in the Bible.  (30) 


Jane Fonda at age 77

The number 77, of course, is vital to matters of birth and death: 
  • According to IMDb, the ten most popular people who were born 77 years ago are: Morgan Freeman, Jack Nicholson, Anthony Hopkins, Ridley Scott, Dustin Hoffman, Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave, Billy Dee Williams, Warren Beatty, and George Takei of Star Trek.  (20)
  • Some of the most prominent people have picked age 77 as the time to die: e.g., Jules Verne, John Philip Sousa, Galileo Galilei, Nikita Khruschev, Spiro Agnew, Howard Cosell, Benny Goodman, Ayn Rand, Henry Fonda, Cecil B. DeMille, Auguste Rodin, Jonathan Swift, Lucille Ball, Ted Kennedy, and Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor.  (34, 41)
  • The probability that a 77 year old man will depart from the world this year is .046.  For a 77 year old woman, .033.  (Those odds aren’t too bad.)  (24)


Body-Builder Ernestine Shepherd, age 77

The wayward youth think of 77 year olds sitting around in their rocking chairs, twiddling their thumbs.  Nothing can be further from the truth.  Here are a few of the pursuits that 77 year olds have engaged in recently. 
  • 77-year-old Ernestine Shepherd is one of the oldest competitive female bodybuilders in the world.  She took up bodybuilding with her sister at age 56, eats 1,700 calories a day, runs 80 miles a week, and has won two bodybuilding titles.  (47)
  • 77-year old Richard Ramsey, formerly a green beret in Vietnam, had sex-change surgery and is now the oldest transgender woman in the U.S.  (36)
  • Now 77, grandmother and aerobatic pilot Sigrid Baumann regularly takes her monoplane out to do loops, snaprolls, hammerheads, and upside down flying.  (32)
  • Despite no prior flying experience at all, 77-year-old great grandfather, John Wildey, successfully followed instructions from British air traffic controllers and landed a plane after the pilot died at the controls.  (26)
  • At age 77 Charles Manson was sentenced to a year of solitary confinement for possessing a deadly weapon (a piece of wire from a pair of eye glasses).  (13)
  • -77-year-old Tennessee golfer, Bob Robertson, who is blind in one eye from a stroke, shot three holes-in-one on the Smyrna golf course during April 2013.  (2)
  • Irate 77-year-old William Golladay assaulted a fellow Walmart customer with a grocery cart after the latter tried to purchase 22 items in an express checkout lane which had a posted maximum of 20 items.  (28)  


Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Of course, the very fabric of our lives today is determined in part by the events that occurred 77 years ago:
  • Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs opened in the Carthay Circle Theatre on Dec. 21, 1937.  (22)
  • Krispy Kreme celebrated its 77th birthday on July 11th.  They offered a dozen donuts for 77 cents if you purchased another dozen.  (9)
  • 77 years ago Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy made their radio debut on NBC.  (22)
  • The Golden Gate Bridge was completed in 1937.  (22)
  • Marijuana was made illegal in the U.S. in 1937.  (18)
  • Amelia Earhart vanished vanished in her flight across the Pacific Ocean 77 years ago this month.  (45)
  • April 17, 2014, was the 77th anniversary of Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd.  (22)


The Four Tops

I’ve long believed that the best way to comprehend reality is to organize things in rank-ordered lists from 1 to 100.  Amazingly, whenever you do this, something always gets ranked #77.  77 may not seem that high a rank, but, in fact, some of the best things in life are #77: 
  • Lake Tahoe (CA) is #77 in a list of the top 100 tourist attractions in America.  (16)
  • Albert Pujols, first baseman for the L.A. Angels, is the 77th highest paid athlete in the world ($40.6 million last year).  (14)
  • Eva and Adrian were the 77th most popular baby names for girls and for boys in 2013.  (6)
  • Sharon Stone is #77 on IMDb’S list of top female movie actors of all time; Kevin Kline is #77 for male actors.  (19)
  • Billboard lists The Four Tops as #77 in their list of All-Time top musical artists.  (46)
  • According to NFL.com, Clay Matthews, linebacker for the Green Bay Packers, is the 77th best player in the NFL.  (We would place Clay much higher ourselves.)  (27) 


Republican Senators, looking happy about their chances

Some people don’t like to figure out the rank order of a hundred items because it’s too mentally taxing.  A quicker approach is to divide things into two or three categories, then figure out the percentage for each, e.g., % of rainy days vs. % of sunny days.  Much more often than you’d expect, you find out that there is 77% of one thing, 23% of another. Here are some examples:
  • 77% of college students use Snapchat at least once a day.  (My question: What is Snapchat anyway?) (25)
  • 77% of adult women complained about their appearance to someone at least once in the past month.  (50) 
  • 77% of adults under age 30 support gay marriage.  (3)
  • According to a recent Gallup poll, 77% of U.S. adults identify with a Christian religion.  (15)
  • The top 1% of performers earn 77% of recorded music income.  (12)
  • The Washington Post recently estimated that Republicans have a 77% chance of gaining a majority in the U.S. Senate in November.  (49)
  • Men hold 77% of the top jobs at Facebook.  (37)
  • Antarctic glaciers are melting 77% faster than they were 40 years ago.  (17) 


Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing, April 19, 1995

While 77 is often associated with good fortune, this shouldn’t lead us to be complacent.  77 also has dark and eerie connections to acts of  terrorism: 
  • The 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City took place on Highway 77.  Timothy McVeigh rented his Ryder truck on 77 and was taken to jail along Highway 77 after his arrest.  (5)
  • United Airways Flight 175 crashed into the 77th floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2011.  (5)
  • The Pentagon, which is located at the 77th degree longitude, was hit by American Airlines Flight 77 on 9/11.  (5)
  • The July 7 2005 London subway and bus bombings (known as 7-7) killed 52 and injured over 700.  The first bomb exploded on the C77 Stock Circle train.  (43)
  • 77 adults and children were killed in the July 2011 coordinated terrorist attacks in Oslo, Norway, and at a Youth League summer camp near Oslo.  (42)



Red Grange, the Galloping Ghost

Then there is a potpourri of other facts about 77 that threaten to overwhelm one’s sensibilities.  Here is a mere sampling:
  • Halley's comet, which revolves around the sun, reappears approximately every 77 years.  (30)
  • 77 is the atomic number for Iridium -- one of the rarest and densest  elements on earth.  (48)
  • You need to walk 77 miles in order to burn off one pound of body fat.  (35)
  • Miles Davis lived on W. 77th St. in New York City.  (29)
  • In urban slang '77 refers to drinking till you pass out (derived from the great NYC blackout of 1977). (39)
  • According to Buzzfeed, there are 77 thoughts that every woman has during childbirth (e.g., “How can I bring the baby home to a dirty floor?”).  (8)
  • "77" was used as a password at the Sweden-Norway border during World War II because its difficult pronunciation in Swedish made it possible to immediately determine whether a speaker was Swedish, Norwegian, or German.  (44) 
  • Hall of Fame football legend Red Grange wore number 77 on his jersey.  (44)
  • As President Obama noted in his 2014 State of the Union address, the average full-time working woman in the U.S. earns 77 cents for every dollar a man earns.  (40)
  • Last year tennis player Andy Murray became the first British man to win Wimbledon in 77 years.  (10)
  • Charlie Chaplin, Groucho Marx, and Elvis Presley all died in ‘77.  (23)

All in all, it looks like 77 is could be the most powerful number there is. That certainly bodes well for those of us who are turning 77.  Of course, it’s not all a cup of tea.  In addition to Red Grange, piloting planes, and Snow White, 77 is connected with terrorism, Amelia Earhart’s disappearance, and a Republican takeover of the Senate.  Despite potential calamities, I myself am looking forward to 77.  We’ll take the bad with the good and just try to enjoy the whole shebang.
Love,
Dave

Sources:  (1) www.1260-1290-day-bible-prophecy.org, “Lamech and multiples of seven”; (2) www.abcnews.go.com, “77-year-0old shoots hole-in-one…”; (3) www.abcnews.go.com, “American’s ideology and age…”; (4) www.affinitynumerology.com, "The Numerology Number 77 Essence"; (5) www.atlanteanconspiracy.com, “The numerology of lucky sevens”; (6) www.babycenter.com, “Top baby names of 2013”; (7) www.balancingmindbodysoul.wordpress.com, “The Meaning of Master Numbers”; (8) www.buzzfeed.com, "77 thoughts every woman has during childbirth"; (9) www.cnbc.com, “Celebrating an Original!”; (10) www.dailymail.co.uk, “He’s done it!”;  (11) www.decoz.com, “Numerology and the double digit numbers”; (12) www.digitalmusicnews.com, “The top 1% of artists…”;  (13) www.facebook.com, “Charles Manson placed in solitary confinement…”; (14) www.forbes.com, "The World's Highest-Paid Athletes"; (15) www.gallup.com, “In U.S., 77% identify as Christian”; (16) www.garystravels.com, “Top 100 tourist attractions in America”; (17) www.geoengineeringwatch.org, “Antarctic glaciers melting…”; (18) www.historyorb.com, “Historical events for year 1937”; (19) www.imdb.com, "Born in 1937"; (20) www.imdb.com, “Most popular people born in 1937”; (21) www.imdb.com, “Top 100 Female Actors of All time; Top 100 Greatest Male Actors of All Time”;  (22) www.infoplease.com, “News and Events of 1937”; (23) www.infoplease.com, "News and Events of 1977"; (24) www.lifepspan.findthebest.com, “What is the probability a 77 year old man will die this year?”; (25) www.mashable.com, “Study finds 77% of college students use…”; (26) www.mirror.co.uk, "Meet the 77-year-old who was forced to land a plane..."; (27) www.nfl.com, “The Top 100 Players of 2014”; (28) www.nydailynews.com, “Florida man, 77, beat Walmart customer…”; (29) www.nydailynews.com, "Preservationists honor Miles Davis..."; (30) www.ridingthebeast.com, "Properties of the number 77"; (31) www.sacredscribesangelnumbers.blogspot.com, "Angel Number 77"; (32) www.seacoastonline.com, “Aerobatic pilot is still winging it…”; (33) www.soulnumerology.com, "The Master Numbers and Their Lessons"; (34): www.star-daze.com, "Celebrities who died at age 77 years old"; (35) www.streetdirectory.com, "Walk 77 miles to burn off 1 pound"; (36) www.thebsreportwordpress.com, "77-year-old man becomes oldest transgender woman..."; (37) www.theverge.com, “Men hold 77 percent…”; (38) www.truthorfiction.com, “When in doubt about the cop trying to pull you…”; (39) www.urbandictionary.com, ""77"; (40) www.washingtonpost.com, "President Obama's persistent '77-cent'claim..."; (41) www.whatwasdone.com, “People who died at the age of 77”; (42) www.wikipedia.org, “2011 Norway attacks”; (43) www.wikipedia.org, 7 July 2005 London bombings”; (44) www.wikipedia.org, "77 (number)"; (45) www.wikipedia.org, “Amelia Earhart”; (46) www.wikipedia.org, "Billboard Hot 100 50th Anniversary Charts"; (47) www.wikipedia.org, "Ernestine Shepherd"; (48) www.wikipedia.org, "Iridium"; (49) www.washingtonpost.com, “Republicans  have a 77% chance…”; (50) www.womenshealthmag.com, “The bad habit 77 percent…”; (51)  www.lucky-name-numerology.com, "Life path numerology for name number 77" 


G-mail Comments
-Phyllis S-S (7-22):  Dave,  How amazing.  And your research is the same- what fun to read.  Thanks.  Phyllis
-Ami G (7-22): And, after all that info, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!
-Donna D (7-21): wow, david this feels like 77 years of research!
-Gayle C-L (7-21): David,  HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!  THIS LETTERS TO GEORGE IS FABULOUS!  WHERE DID YOU GET ALL THAT INFO FROM?  VERY GOOD!   A WEALTH OF KNOWLEDGE!  THIS IS YOUR DAY,, HAVE A GREAT ONE!  LOTS OF LOVE    GAYLE :))))