Stories Short and Strange
17 short stories for general audiences ranging from the unusual to the unbelievable to the just plain strange.
The Case of the Floating Feet
On August 20, 2007, a 12-year-old girl spotted a blue-and-white running shoe on a beach of British Columbia’s Jedediah Island. Inside was a sock, and inside the sock was a foot. No other body parts, just one foot. Over the next 12 years, a total of 15 feet were found ashore in the area around
There Used To Be A Woman In Your Beer
Song of the Witches — from Shakespeare’s Macbeth Double, double toil and trouble;Fire burn and caldron bubble.Fillet of a fenny snake,In the caldron boil and bake;Eye of newt and toe of frog,Wool of bat and tongue of dog,Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting,Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing,For a charm of powerful trouble,Like a hell-broth boil and
Happy Birthday Uncle Sam
March 13 is the birthday of everyone’s favorite uncle, Uncle Sam. This moniker had been used to refer to the USA since around 1810, but it wasn’t until 1852 that he was given a human form when Frank Henry Bellew first depicted him in a cartoon in the New York Lantern. Of course, it’s not
Remembering Harriet Tubman
No one knows for sure when Harriet Tubman was born; it was probably around 1820. But we do know two facts for sure — she had a remarkable life, and she died on March 10, 1913. In remembrance, The Writer’s Almanac published the following tribute on March 10, 2021 — A woman known as “Moses” died on
How to Regrow a Body
If you don’t like your body, how would you like to regenerate a new one? It can be done, at least in slugs. Researchers have discovered two species of Japanese sea slugs that can shed their bodies and regrow new ones within three weeks. I can understand why some humans would want to regrow their
What is the Slave Narrative Collection?
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” — George Santayana During the Great Depression, the Federal Government instituted a number of programs to provide employment and boost the economy. Perhaps best remembered were the public-works projects like building roads, dams, and bridges that created desperately-needed blue-collar jobs. However, white-collar workers needed jobs, too.
What You Don’t Want To Know About Plastic
Are you tired of hearing about the evils of plastic? I hope not, because there is some new research (and it’s not very good news). When large plastic items like food containers break down, they tend to form microplastics: Small pieces less than five millimeters long. These pieces are so minute they end up everywhere. Consequently,
Ghosts of Fukushima
Do you believe in ghosts? Recall the nuclear disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi power plant in 2011 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster). Particularly hard-hit was the city of Ishinomaki, with 3,097 deaths and 2,770 residents missing. In 2016, Yuka Kudo, a graduate student in sociology at Tohoku Gakuin University, traveled to Ishinomaki and began asking taxi drivers, “Did you
Who’s Afraid of Tomatoes?
Tomatoes are an important part of our modern diet. From catsup to soup to sauce to salsa, they pop up in many places. A New World discovery, tomatoes originally grew as wild plants in the Andes Mountains. They were eaten by the Aztecs as early as 700 AD. Today they are grown in thousands of
Happy Birthday: Wilhelm Grimm
Wilhelm Grimm, a writer and story collector who, along with his brother Jacob, were known as the “Brothers Grimm” was born in Hanau, Germany on February 25, 1786. According to The Writer’s Almanac: “…The brothers complemented each other: Jacob was quiet, a better scholar than his brother, and preferred to be alone; Wilhelm was an