Geography!
Guess what there’s probably more of in the world than anything else? No, not beer. Not poison ivy either. The answer is geography. Geography is everywhere, all around this big ol’ world of ours. In fact, you could say the world is made of geography. The next time you look at a map of the world, take a moment to appreciate how much geography there is. You can’t find any place on the map that doesn’t have some.
The word “geography” comes from the Latin: “geo,” which is a kind of car, and the word “graphos,” which those Latin folks used to call the lead in a pencil because it’s made of graphite. Thus, it would be reasonable to conclude that geography is the act of making pencil sketches of cars.
Well, it’s not. If you think it is, you’re dumber than you look. Everybody knows that geography was invented by the publishers of “National Geographic” magazine and it refers to traveling around the world climbing mountains, navigating rivers, setting boundaries, taking pretty pictures, and generally being nosy about everybody and everything all over the place.
In fact, the reason these busybodies invented geography was so they’d have an excuse to run around poking their noses into everybody’s business under the guise of scientific curiosity. Like it or not, by now geography is pretty well established and most people have come to accept it but don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it. So, for you edification and entertainment, I’m going to randomly hop around and tell you a bunch of stuff about geography that you probably didn’t know and aren’t interested in anyway.
The highest mountain in Kentucky is Black Mountain, which rises a majestic 4,145 feet. Where it is, I don’t know. Keep your eye on the horizon as you travel and sooner or later you’ll see it poking its head up above the surrounding countryside.
The oceans of the world are moving around all the time – I’m not just making waves here – they also have these things called tides. Tides are everywhere and are influenced by the moon. It’s a good thing there’s a never-ending supply of tides, because my wife uses the stuff all the time doing the laundry. Tide is indispensable in our house. First, she washes the laundry in Tide, then she takes out-tide to dry.
Our own Mississippi River is the third longest river in the world. It travels all the way from its source to its end without stopping even once! Continents are cool. They are so named because when our ancestors looked at the first crudely drawn maps, they thought all the landmasses looked like Lincoln Continentals. Unfortunately, this name was already spoken for, so they settled for the name, “continent.”
Oceana is the only continent that doesn’t have any land. Even I think that’s weird. I was especially pleased to learn that the surname, “Buck,” occurs about once in every 1,000 names, and is very evenly spread across the United States. Names such as “Schwartz,” “Kowalski” and “Hassenpeffer” are not nearly as evenly distributed.
Name six animals who live in the Arctic…three bears and three seals. Continental drift occurs when you forget to set the parking brake. The inhabitants of the Philippine Islands are called Philistines, whilst Malays inhabit Malaria.
A watershed is a shed in the middle of the ocean where ships can go to hide from big storms.
The climate in Bombay is so bad all the residents live somewhere else. The Eskimos are knows as “God’s frozen people.”
Imports are located very far inland.
Persian cats were first bred in Persia, which accounts for the term, “purr.” Inhabitants of Moscow are called “Mosquitoes.”
There is an organization known as the Chilean Volcano Society! Good grief! Some people really know how to waste time, don’t they?
See ya around,
BUCK
