STRANGE BUT TRUE

• It was Canadian author Saul Bellow who made the following sage observation: “You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.”

• More books have been written about Abraham Lincoln than about any other American president — more than 15,000 to date.

• It is only to be assumed that Arabella Young, a Massachusetts woman who died in 1771, was considered to be a bit too talkative. Otherwise there would have been no need for the following epitaph: “Here lies as silent clay / Miss Arabella Young, / Who on the 21st of May / Began to hold her tongue.”

• Be glad that you did not have the misfortune to be in Bangladesh during record storms in 1985. You might have been brained by the record hailstones, some weighing more than 2 pounds each.

• You might not be surprised to learn that among his Hollywood friends, screen legend and notorious drinker Humphrey Bogart was nicknamed Whiskey Straight.

• The founders of the Arby’s chain were a pair of brothers, Forest and Leroy Raffel. They wanted to name the original restaurant Big Tex, but found that the name was already owned by someone else. They settled on Arby’s to represent the initials R.B.’s for Raffel Brothers.

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Thought for the Day: “I never blame myself when I’m not hitting. I just blame the bat, and if it keeps up, I change bats. After all, if I know it isn’t my fault that I’m not hitting, how can I get mad at myself?” — Yogi Berra

(c)12 King Features Synd., Inc.