Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 1, 1993 TAG: 9308010215
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: B-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETTY PARHAM and GERRIE FERRIS COX NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
A: The event remains unexplained. It wasn't an eclipse, that's for sure. Scientists theorize it was either heavy clouding or volcanic ash from an eruption to the west of the United States and Canada, perhaps Alaska or Japan. It could have been Mount St. Helens in Washington, which was inactive from 1857 to 1980 but could have erupted in 1790. The area had few inhabitants, and until the invention of the telegraph, meteological records were sparce.
Q: What do the United Daughters of the Confederacy do? Do they promote understanding of the Civil War, or is it just a social organization?
A: The UDC's focus is on education, philanthropy and patriotism. Its educational role centers on the Civil War libraries it maintains at many of its 800 chapters, and numerous grants, contests and awards it sponsors aimed at helping students gain an education. The group started as a sewing circle that made clothes and blankets for the Confederate army, and later oversaw the burying of Confederate and Union dead. After the war, the group began preserving records of the Confederacy. It became the UDC in 1894 to honor the memory of the Confederacy, which it still does by keeping up graves, museums and monuments.
Q: Was the Washington Monument originally meant to be a mausoleum for George Washington?
A: The Washington Monument is a cenotaph - a memorial to a hero buried elsewhere. George and Martha are buried in a simple tomb at Mount Vernon, Va., their residence. George Washington, ever aware of his destiny, approved the site of the monument, planned originally as a statue of him on a horse, but he disapproved spending public money on it. After his death, the statue idea was discarded and architects conceived of a circular colonnade to shelter tombs for him and other Revolutionary War heroes. That, too, did not come to pass. The obelisk, which numerous committees took 100 years to design, finally received congressional funds for its completion in 1876.
Q: What exactly is a "four-alarm" fire?
A: It depends on how many calls there are from the site for more equipment by the officer in charge. The initial response is the first alarm. Each call for additional equipment constitutes another alarm. So a four-alarm fire means three additional calls.
Q: When they say a river crests at 47 feet, does it mean the river is that deep or that it's 47 feet over what it should be?
A: From years of records, hydrologists have determined what a river system's normal flow should be in a given month. Using those records and computer models, they also set a benchmark for the river to determine when the river is at flood stage. When hydrologists say a river's floodwaters have crested at 47 feet, that means 47 feet above that benchmark, or what is normal for the month. The flood crest is the highest level reached by the waters in a flood and is usually the point at which the high waters begin to recede.
Q: Who brought the charges against fired FBI Director William Sessions?
A: The president, in firing Sessions, was responding not to criminal charges but to the results of an investigation by the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility that was begun during the Bush administration.
Q: Are women allowed to run with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain?
A: Local laws forbid women to take part, and police at one time stopped any who tried. But in the past 15 years or so, no one has stopped any woman brave enough to take part.
Q: I have heard that the son of the fugitive Somali warlord is in the U.S. Marine Corps. Could this be true?
A: U.N. forces may be searching high and low for Somali warlord Gen. Mohammed Farrah Aidid, but the Pentagon was quick to locate his son Hussen Farrah, who is a Marine Reserve corporal. Corporal Farrah, 30, a U.S. citizen since January 1991, served in Somalia as an artilleryman and interpreter during the first weeks of the U.S. presence, until officials found out his family connection and quietly eased him out.
Q: Where the idea for toll roads came from? Are toll roads in the South a "Yankee" import?
A: The idea of toll roads did hatch with our Northern brethren. The first was built in the 1790s and connected Philadelphia and Lancaster, Pa. Since the Lancaster Pike successfully paid for itself - with money left over for maintenance - and investors were paid off quickly with a high rate of interest, the concept spread rapidly all over the country. This rapid growth lasted until the mid-1800s, when many toll roads went out of business because much interstate travel was taken over by the railroads. After the Depression, when governments needed money to pay for roads and services, toll roads began to increase again. And yes, there are more up North than down South, mainly because there is greater traffic and wear and tear on the roads.
Q: What is the best, least expensive way to go about locating someone you have lost track of?
A: There is a service called "Seekers of the Lost," a nonprofit organization based in Vancouver, Wash., that for $59 does what some investigators and other researchers charge 10 times that much for. For two years, with the help of a computer database containing 150 million names including mailing lists, telephone white pages and motor vehicle registrations, Steve Schultz has been helping people find missing service buddies, long-lost friends and relatives. He will run a name through the database and then give you a list of all the people in the United States with that name and their addresses on a computer printout. It takes less than a week. Call (206) 254-2731, or write Seekers of the Lost, P.O. Box 84518, Vancouver, Wash. 98684.
Q: A brochure about Yellowstone National Park warned of bad roads and a shortage of guides. It also said that millions of tourists go through the park every year and that the fee is $10 a person. Where is the money is going? What can you tell us about Yellowstone's finances?
A: The country's oldest national park is having a hard time coping with budget woes. A record 3.1 million people visited Yellowstone last year, yet the park's budget remains virtually unchanged at $17.8 million since 1988. There have been recent reports that people are streaming through the unattended gates without paying. Park officials estimate they're losing $1 million a year in uncollected admission fees because there aren't enough rangers. Instead of the 136 rangers hired for four-month stints during the busy season five years ago, the park could afford only 70 seasonal rangers for 2 1/2-month stints this year.
Q: An article said that in a movie version of "The Beverly Hillbillies," the clan will come from Arkansas. Weren't they supposed to be from Bug Tussle, Tenn.?
A: Bug Tusslians are irate that the movie has seemingly ignored historic authenticity in ignoring their town as a movie location. (Actually it ain't no town and it ain't no city; it's a little place in Macon County, Tenn..) Actually, its unclear where the clan originated, except they are said to be from an "impoversished Ozark farmstead," which means they could have been from Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas or Oklahoma. Granny mentioned Bug Tussle on several episodes, but that could mean that only she was from there. Also mentioned was a town called Sibley, where the oil compnay bought their land. There are two Sibleys in the Ozarks, but none in Arkansas. So why did the producers choose Arkansas? Simple - as a set-up for Bill Clinton jokes.
Q: How do I know I am crossing the Continental Divide when I travel out West?
A: By knowing which way the water flows. A continental divide is the line of separation where water drains to opposite sides of a continent. In our country, the divide high in the Rockies, also called the Great Divide, is where water on one side drains to the Pacific Ocean and water on the other goes to the Gulf of Mexico. It runs through Mexico, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, British Columbia and Alberta.
by CNB