Another option for that end-of-year donation

As 2012 draws to a close, many of us will be con­sid­er­ing our end-of-the year dona­tions to var­i­ous orga­ni­za­tions and agen­cies. If you have never thought about donat­ing to the Delaware County Dis­trict Library, per­haps this year is the per­fect time to do so.

The library has a “Buy-A-Book” pro­gram that will add a new book to the shelves for the small dona­tion of $25. You can des­ig­nate if you’d like the library to pur­chase a book for chil­dren, teens or adults, and you can make your dona­tion in honor or in mem­ory of some­one spe­cial in your life.

Of course, larger dona­tions are always wel­come. A dona­tion of $500 will buy a shelf of books, and a $1,000 gift will buy an entire bookcase.

The library will put a book plate in every book (or DVD or audio book) you pur­chase with the name of the per­son to be hon­ored or memo­ri­al­ized, as well as acknowl­edg­ing you as the donor. To make your gift-giving even more con­ve­nient, the library accepts most major credit cards. If you pre­fer to send a check, please make it payable to “Delaware County Dis­trict Library.”

Mak­ing a dona­tion to the library is an invest­ment in the future, and your gift will have a long-lasting impact as the book you pur­chased is checked out again and again by Delaware residents.

If you’d like more infor­ma­tion on donat­ing to the library, click on “Sup­port Us” at delawarelibrary.org or call me at 740–363-7277.

Thank you in advance for your patronage! 

How many paint­ings did Bob Ross cre­ate in his life time?

Accord­ing to Cur­rent Biog­ra­phy, Bob Ross said he made more than 30,000 paint­ings in his life­time. As he says: “One of the ques­tions that I hear over and over and over is, ‘What do we do with all these paint­ings we do on tele­vi­sion?’ Most of these paint­ings are donated to PBS sta­tions across the coun­try. They auc­tion them off, and they make a happy buck with them. So if you’d like to have one, get in touch with your PBS sta­tion … we give them to sta­tions all over the coun­try to help them out with their fundrais­ers.” Before becom­ing a TV star, Ross was an Air Force Master-Sergeant in Alaska. There, he painted and sold gold pans. Later on, Ross taught lessons year-round, and he reg­u­larly gave free paint­ings to his stu­dents. Some­times Ross kept his paint­ings, even­tu­ally donat­ing them to char­ity. A cou­ple of his pieces even found their way onto the black mar­ket. Dur­ing the sec­ond sea­son of “Joy of Paint­ing,” a bur­glar stole 13 ref­er­ence paint­ings from Ross’ van.

How does the Navy name its ships?

In 1819, the United States Con­gress placed the Sec­re­tary of the Navy in charge of nam­ing ships —a power he or she still enjoys. Gen­er­ally, names are com­piled by the Naval His­tor­i­cal Cen­ter based on the sug­ges­tions of the pub­lic, sailors, and retirees, and from naval his­tory. The Chief of Naval Oper­a­tions for­mally signs and rec­om­mends the list to the Sec­re­tary. Ships named for indi­vid­u­als are chris­tened by “the eldest liv­ing female descen­dent” of that indi­vid­ual. Com­mis­sioned ships are pre­fixed with USS, which stands for United States Ship. Though the con­ven­tion had been in use since the late eigh­teenth cen­tury, it was not stan­dard­ized or for­mal­ized until 1907, by Teddy Roo­sevelt. The Oxford Com­pan­ion to Mil­i­tary His­tory was the source of this information.

Why does a dog kick his back feet when scratched in a spe­cial spot?

Not much is known about this reac­tion except that it is called the “scratch reflex,” as noted in the Merck/Merial Man­ual for Pet Health. If you run your hand over a spot of your dog’s skin that is irri­tated, or scratch too hard or too lightly, you are actu­ally being counter-productive and cre­at­ing an itch­ing sen­sa­tion. Nerves run­ning through the chest and abdomen reg­is­ter your friendly touch as irri­ta­tion, and the dog’s leg reflex­ively leaps into action, often hap­haz­ardly, to try and scratch the itch. The scratch reflex is a use­ful diag­nos­tic tool. Vet­eri­nar­i­ans use it to test for spinal or nerve prob­lems the same way they tap on human knees. If a dog does not kick at all in response to a thor­ough belly scratch, the vet has rea­son to look fur­ther into pos­si­ble nerve damage.

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@delawarelibrary.org. No mat­ter how you con­tact us, we’re always glad you asked!

Posted by Mary Santos on Dec 14 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.