STRANGE BUT TRUE - Jan. 14, 2010

* It was American cartoonist, humorist and journalist Kin Hubbard who made the following sage observation: “There’s no secret about success. Did you ever know a successful man who didn’t tell you about it?”

* Next time you’re in Iowa, you might want to stop by the rural town of Riverside, which touts itself as the future birthplace of Captain James T. Kirk. Yep, the future birthplace. It seems that “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry asserted that the character of James Tiberius Kirk was born in Iowa, but he didn’t specify exactly where. In 1985, the Riverside City Council voted to declare their town the future birthplace of the character, later writing to Roddenberry and receiving his approval. In honor of its newfound claim to fame, the city began hosting an annual Trek Fest, complete with a Spockapalooza battle of the bands.

* If you enjoy cooking, you might have heard of some of the following cookbooks: “Kill It and Grill It,” “The Joy of Pickling,” “Full of Beans,” “The Stinking Cookbook” and “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Meat!” Then again, maybe not.

* The term “bric-a-brac,” usually used to refer to a collection of tawdry trinkets, comes from the French, where its original meaning was “at random.”

* Most parents of small children know that trampolines can be dangerous, and they are. Every year, nearly 100,000 people receive emergency-room treatment for injuries sustained while using trampolines. Those injuries are hardly ever fatal, though. Pools, on the other hand, are far more deadly; more than 1,000 people in the United States die in swimming pools annually.

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Thought for the Day: If living conditions don’t stop improving in this country, we’re going to run out of humble beginnings for our great men. — Russell P. Askue

(c) 2010 King Features Synd., Inc.