Library presents author visit Aug. 15

You are cor­dially invited to an author visit at 7 p.m. Wednes­day, Aug. 15, at the Delaware County Dis­trict Library, 84 E. Win­ter St. The library is delighted to present Delaware County res­i­dent Bev­er­lee Jobrack, who will dis­cuss her book, Tyranny of the Text­book: An Insider Exposes How Edu­ca­tional Mate­ri­als Under­mine Reforms, an engag­ing and fas­ci­nat­ing behind-the-scenes look at how K-12 text­books are devel­oped, writ­ten and selected.

Jobrack, now retired, worked for more than 25 years in the edu­ca­tional pub­lish­ing busi­ness. Her book reveals how the sys­tem works against attempts to improve stu­dent achieve­ment and are selected because of design and super­fi­cial fea­tures, not because they are based on the lat­est research on how chil­dren learn and how well they pro­mote stu­dent achieve­ment. Per­haps more impor­tantly, she clearly spells out how the sys­tem can change so that reforms and stan­dards have a shot at finally being effective.

This edu­ca­tional, infor­ma­tive and eye-opening pro­gram should be attended by every teacher and par­ent who cares about the text­books that their chil­dren are using. I hope you plan to attend. For more infor­ma­tion, pick up flier at the library or log on to our web­site at delawarelibrary.org and click on “Adults.”

When was the first but­ter cow on dis­play at the Ohio State Fair and who cre­ated it?

Accord­ing to an arti­cle in the July 24, 2012, Colum­bus Dis­patch, the but­ter cow made its first appear­ance at the fair in 1903 and took up res­i­dence in the Dairy Build­ing when it was built in the 1920s. The idea of but­ter cre­ations comes from the early 1900s, when Ohio State Uni­ver­sity and the Dairy Proces­sors of Ohio spon­sored butter-sculpting con­tests at the fair. I could not find any infor­ma­tion as to the cre­ator of the first but­ter cow. By the way, after the fair ended this year, the but­ter sculp­tures were melted down, and the but­ter was used to power util­ity vehi­cles at Mount Ver­non Nazarene University.

What is black and blue steak?

Larousse Gas­tronomique offers this def­i­n­i­tion: Red meat like beef grilled to the point of being almost charred on the out­side, and “blue,” which is a term for very rare, on the inside. It is also called “Pitts­burgh style.” The inter­nal tem­per­a­ture on a black and blue steak should be around 110–125 degrees. Accord­ing to local lore, Pitts­burgh steel­work­ers would often bring hunks of meat for lunch, rather than sand­wiches. When lunchtime came, they would slap the piece of steak against a slab of hot metal in the mill to sear a black­ened exte­rior around a red, rare core — a cook­ing style now known as “Pitts­burgh Rare.” Even the area bars got into the act, serv­ing up Pitts­burgh Rare steak, fol­lowed by a “boiler maker,” or shot of whiskey and a bot­tle of beer.

Who wrote “Happy Birthday?”

The birth­day sta­ple orig­i­nated as another song, “Good Morn­ing to All,” writ­ten and com­posed by sis­ters Patty and Mil­dred Hill in 1893. Patty was an early child­hood edu­ca­tor who worked as a kinder­garten teacher and prin­ci­pal in Ken­tucky. Her older sis­ter, Mil­dred, was an accom­plished pianist, organ­ist and com­poser. And they col­lab­o­rated on a num­ber of songs for chil­dren, specif­i­cally ones tai­lored to the lim­ited musi­cal abil­i­ties of Patty’s young stu­dents. It’s not clear how the lyrics changed from “good morn­ing” to “happy birth­day.” Sup­pos­edly, the chil­dren in Patty’s school so enjoyed the song that they began singing it spon­ta­neously and chang­ing the lyrics to suit their needs, and a birth­day ver­sion nat­u­rally fol­lowed. Nei­ther Patty nor Mil­dred ever mar­ried or had chil­dren, so they estab­lished the Hill Foun­da­tion to receive income from roy­al­ties. By the 1990s, the song was gen­er­at­ing more than $1 mil­lion per year. In the last few years, it has pulled in more than $2 mil­lion a year in roy­al­ties, and will con­tinue to do so until the year 2030. See Music and Musi­cians in Early Amer­ica for more information.

If you have a ques­tion that you would like to see answered in this col­umn, mail it to Mary Jane San­tos, Delaware County Dis­trict Library, 84 E. Win­ter St., Delaware, OH 43015, or call 740–362-3861. You can also email your ques­tions by vis­it­ing delawarelibrary.org or directly to Mary Jane at mjsantos@delaware library.org. No mat­ter how you con­tact us, we’re always glad you asked!

Posted by Mary Santos on Aug 10 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.