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Pat Shingleton: "The Popsicle and Odditi4es..."

6 years 8 months 1 week ago Thursday, July 20 2017 Jul 20, 2017 July 20, 2017 4:15 AM July 20, 2017 in Pat Shingleton Column
By: Pat Shingleton:

When Frank Epperson was 11, he took a wooden stir stick, placed it in soda pop and placed it outside one wintry New York evening. Frank enjoyed the frozen treat the next day.  In 1923, Frank used a Birch tongue depressor to hold the frozen delight and applied for a patent for his "frozen ice on a stick;" calling it the "Epsicle Ice Pop."  Frank's children encouraged him to change the name to "Popsicle" and later sold his idea to the Joe Lowe Company. Good Humor Ice Cream now holds the proprietory rights and during the Great Depression two Popsicles were joined together and named “Twin Popsicles.” In addition, popsicle sticks have been used for a variety of arts and crafts projects. Also, the National Severe Storms Forecast Center analyzes tornadoes and over the last 152 years, have documented some oddities.  In 1842, Elias Loomis shot a chicken out of a gun to simulate tornadic wind speeds that de-feather chickens. In 1920, an Illinois tornado lifted a freight car, carrying 1500 pounds of cargo, 40 feet into the air, dropping the load into the side of a train station.  A tornado hit the passenger train Empire Builder at a right angle on May 27, 1931 and lifted five coach cars, each weighing 70 tons, from the track.  Weather historian, Snowden Flora reported in 1919 that a Minnesota tornado, "split open a tree, jammed in an automobile and clamped the tree shut."  In May of 1953, an airplane, safely flying upside down, went from 12,000 feet to 16,500 to 2,500 and back to 4,000 feet in 25 seconds with the "help" of a tornado.

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