Memes and Peepers

Elizabeth at Gingerbread Latte posted a nice meme where you take a random page from a book you're reading and post 2 teasers from it.
Here are mine from The Story of English by Robert Crum, William Cran and Robert MacNeil.

"In 1760, Benjamin Franklin, who was right about most things, estimated that the city was one-third English, one-third German and one-third Scots (meaning Scots-Irish). It was the last third who were to become in the words of Theodore Roosevelt "the kernel of the distinctively and intensely American stock who were the pioneers of our people in their march westward".

"It was frontiersmen who first spoke of "someone with an ax to grind", or someone who "sat on the fence"when he should, perhaps "go the whole hog".

It is a book put out a few years ago by PBS to accompany their wonderful series The History of English. It recounts the amazing story and you learn quite a lot about the language we call our own from the days of Beowulf to the present.
Oh man, we had to read Beowulf in old English in high school along with reading tons of Shakespeare and memorizing two, count 'em, two soliloquies per year.
I have to admit I loved reading the old English and then reading The Canterbury Tales in Middle- English. So much fun!
By the way digs in mounds support much of what you read in Beowulf! The stories are based on real people .
You might enjoy reading those old stories.

Well, peepers have returned and that makes it officially Spring!
"Peepers" are tiny frogs, some tinier than your thumb nail, who make a tiny peeping sound and since there are millions of them, the sound fills the evening with a lovely, sweet song.
It continues all through Spring and increases when its wet outside. Since I live by the bay and since there are so many rivulets and creeks and streams around me, I hear them very strongly.

Brag time: My daughter is now on her second year at university with straight A's and in the national honor society etc. Very proud of the little cutie.
Hope you have a lovely Thursday.