YOU ONLY THINK YOU KNOW

Ghost of Mark Twain here ...

I'm here to spell poor Roland.  

Work has worn the man down to a frazzle.  

Right now, he's a'writing that there talk he's supposed to dazzle the masses with on how to write fantasy of all things.

He's giving it next month at what they call a convention, though no one gets elected to public office at it. 

Strange goings-on if you ask me.

I kept the boy company during the last convention, though only he could see me.

Why there was a gal all decked out in not much of anything at all in what she cooed was a Steampunk outfit.

The only thing Steam about it was how it would have made my glasses steam up had I been wearing any.

She was bending poor Roland's ear 

on how the Germans (those rascals could conjure up the most blamed evil stuff on earth)

invented the flamethrower, calling it the tongue-killing term Flammenwerfer in 1901.

They'd done it just in time for the 20th Century's demand for horrible, skin-melting weapons.

Roland all polite-like told her of how the Ancient Greeks in the 7th Century invented Greek Fire

and to spout it out on land created an artillery weapon 

that fired a stream of flames that could not be put out by water.

The gal must have thought Roland's head was on fire 'cause she dumped a glass of tea on the poor boy's head!

I have TOLD him over and over again that most folks prefer their ignorance over another man's knowledge!

Why take the door knob.  

I bet you think it has been around for centuries.  Not so.  They t'weren't invented until 1878. 

I should know.  I was alive in B.D. (Before Doorknobs)

ANOTHER THING

In my day, folks never went about asking, "What time is it?"

You see, there t'weren't no single time.  

More like you'd be asked, "What time do you have?"

Watches were used like egg timers.

They gave you a sense of when you had to be at your duel and how long a'fore they suspected you had ridden hard out of town.

Why, America didn't agree on a single, universal time until the strict railway schedules forced them to.

OR TAKE THOMAS EDISON, 

THAT SCOUNDREL

I bet you think he invented the lightbulb, don't you, pilgrims?

HE STOLE IT.

 Those of you who've read DEATH IN THE HOUSE OF LIFE and THE STARS BLEED AT MIDNIGHT 

know me and Nikola Tesla were friends.

There are 2 kinds of electricity:

Direct Current (DC) and Alternating Current (AC).  

DC would have folks build a power plant on every blasted block.  

AC lets the current flow over a long distance.

Old Nikola invented AC.  

Edison invented the crappy other one.  

But Edison launched a vicious smear campaign so successful 

that it t'weren't til the 1960's that AC totally replaced DC!

How?

Edison personally electrocuted a chained elephant to death in a rigged "experiment.  Don't believe it?

Search in that strange-named YouTube for "Topsy the elephant!"

But he invented the light bulb you cry.

First time he stole it was when

  he refused to buy it from its actual inventor, Henirich Gobel, saying he saw no merit in it!

Then he bought the idea at a bargain rate from the man's widow the moment the man died!!

The Second time he stole it was from his business partner, Joseph Wilson Swan.

Now, Swan had done what old Eddy couldn't ---

actually come up with a reliable, working bulb.

So that old scoundrel "partnered" with Swan who promptly was over-shadowed by old Eddy's crowing.

OR TAKE THOSE BLASTED WHITE GREEK STATUES

Imagine aliens visit our planet long after we've taken a radioactive blow torch to it.  

They walk through the ruins of a shopping center ... mall you call it.

And the outrageously high prices they ask you to pay, it should be called a Maul!

Well, those aliens would look at those naked white mannequins and think they was our form of art!

Those ancient Greek statues when blush with youth 

were painted in hot pinks, yellers, bright reds, and nearly every other color they had access to.

All areas of exposed skin was carefully colored to exactly match flesh tones.

Sort of creeps you out, don't it?  It gets even worse:

They colored in the pupils of each statue, making each hero look as if Old Wild Bill drilled them!

TAKE THE PYRAMIDS

Thinking they always looked like massive sandstone bricks is like thinking giant dinosaur bones roamed prehistoric times!

Centuries of sandstones and cheap pharaohs stealing the top layers have made them look like that.

When the warranty was new on those monstrosities, 

they were gleaming white limestone with the very tops being capped with solid gold.

They looked as if they were one giant triangle of solid limestone and polished until the sun and full moon struck strange fires from them.

Fantasy?

Why that is what you folks think

is hard facts these days!

I bet some of you out there know some strange facts your ownselves.

Fill the rest of us in, why don't you?