Friday Funnies

Storks are commonly seen nesting in large numbers in Portugal — who knew?

We do now as it seems that the country has become home to a large population of white storks (Ciconia ciconia). Their numbers have increased greatly following legal protection granted in the 1980s. In 2024, estimates were that some 20,000 pairs of white storks nest in Portugal annually, nearly doubling in 10 years. 

No, they're not delivering babies despite a slight population growth in the country.

How and when did that story start?

There's a number of versions, here's a couple. 

Internet source

One popular myth dates back to Greek mythology and the story of a vengeful goddess, Hera, who became jealous of a beautiful queen, Gerana. who was having an affair with her husband. After Hera transformed her into a crane, the heartbroken Gerana unwilling to part with her child, picked up the baby wrapped in a blanket and flew away with it in her beak. Over time and legend, the crane transformed into a stork.

According to another one from medieval times, storks migrating from Africa to northern Europe in springtime, often coincided with the time babies were born. Storks built large nests on rooftops and became associated with families. This connection led to folklore that the storks delivered newborns which provided a simple, magical, answer to children who asked how babies arrived in their homes.

Myths and folklore aside, multiple stork nests like the one below were commonplace along routes that our tour bus traveled in Portugal. 

A nesting of white storks in Portugal

While storks were originally a migratory bird, many now forgo the long journey south and instead, winter-over in Portugal. They survive on a diet of landfill waste and also prey on fish, small mammals and insects. Certainly, the weather is better too.

An even large nesting of white storks in Portugal

The above photo shows impressive multiple nests especially on tall structures like power towers. Although White Storks have no voice box, their mating display is a noisy bill-clattering (beak clacking) that's been compared to distant machine gun fire. A group of storks (or muster) can make quite a racket which, thankfully, we never heard. 

Just 🤔 wondering — Were you ever told the stork delivering babies story?

Enjoy Your Weekend, Everyone

We start our holiday 🦃  road trip on Sunday

Catching Up at Home

Where HAS the time gone?

An all too common sentiment by many, including ourselves, as year-end fast approaches.

It's been a while since my last post about exploring the Zippo Lighter Museum in Bradford, PA. This was definitely one of the most unique and interesting places we've visited. Even better as it was completely unplanned after seeing a sign on the highway and detouring.

So often unexpected happenings are the best.

While not unexpected, travel is happening again An upcoming 🦃 holiday road trip will be to visit family and friends in our native NJ and PA. 

So what's been taking up so much time in the past couple of weeks?

Home cooking because as much as we did enjoy some a lot of  wonderful foods (and wine) on our Portugal adventure, we enjoy home dining. Since our apt kitchen is galley-style and best suited for a single chef, we've been trading weeks. Some of my recent meal plans have included soups and comfort food since this is the perfect time of year for both.

Above is a mini peasant bread from a recipe by Alexandra Stafford called My Mother’s Peasant Bread: The Best Easiest Bread You Will Ever Make which was included in her first book, Bread Toast Crumbs, a favorite in our collection. If you have Pyrex bowls and a few hours this bread can be done right before dinner. The recipe calls for making two mini-breads, but I halved it to bake a single. This is a no-knead bread, plus there's no preheating for the baking bowls.

Since soup is a wonderful accompaniment to fresh bread, the homemade soups were a tomato-based vegetable soup and a first-time broccoli-avocado soup with no dairy added.

Chicken pot pie just scream comfort food (you mean yours doesn't?). It also was a great way to use the excess chicken breasts bought on a supermarket sale. I had always leftovers from a store-bought rotisserie chick, but poaching and shredding chicken breasts was so easy and a definite a game-changer. I didn't include a link as there are plenty of online sites to explain the process. This pie also made good use of a single frozen pie crust and fresh vegetables of onions, celery and zucchini, a defrosted cup of peas and carrots was also included. Leftovers were the best part of this meal served with a side salad.

Pizza is one of our favorites and we have made it often with varying success. Recently, we tried a new recipe from fellow blogger Rain for this Thin Crust Pizza Dough. It was one of the best recipes tried. The recipe makes two 9-inch pizzas, but only a single one was made. The remaining dough was frozen and used for a second pizza night.

Much time was given to sorting through and organizing photos from the Portugal trip to create a photo book. Assembling it with photos and accompanying text took the better part of a week working several hours a day. Brochures collected along the trip and the tour itinerary served as guidelines to recall everywhere we went. And, the Internet was a huge resource to provide historical background. 

As for previous trip books, this one was created online using Snapfish which always has great deals, that can be combined. One was to add extra book pages beyond the 20 included at a 55% discount. I took advantage of that one increasing the book size to 50 pages. There was also a 75% discount on holiday photo cards, so for the first time I ordered family-themed ones to supplement my holiday card sending.

Other local events that took consumed the past couple of weeks included the annual Veterans Day parade in downtown Nashua. We attended, but no photos were taken this year.

The Nashua Public Library held a Mystery Masquerade (costumes optional) which was a great fun (and free) event. We are fortunate in that the public library here offers many free events such as children's story times, book groups, recent and classic film screenings, game night, guest speakers and special events. It's a lot different than the library I went to years ago.

Jim Brickman

Getting into the holiday spirit early, we attended a concert at the Nashua Arts Center that featured pianist and composer Jim Brickman on tour with The Gift of Christmas. While we have been long-time fans, it was news to us that Brickman has been called America's Romantic Piano Icon. He is considered the best-selling solo pianist with 22 number one albums, 33 Top 20 radio hits and 2 Grammy nominations. 

Coincidentally, he shares a distinction with fellow performer Barry Manilow, as both started their early careers by writing advertising jingles.

The show was simply done with Brickman performing solo as the scheduled female vocalist had suddenly been taken ill.

Since we are traditional and do not decorate until after the Thanksgiving holiday, this show was a gentle lead-in for what's to come.

Apologies to fellow bloggers for not keeping up with recent posts, many of which have been read; however commenting has been sporadic. 

Guaranteed for Life

Today, most products are either disposable or come with a limited warranty, unless of course an extended warranty is bought at additional cost.

But, did you know that there's a U.S. made product that comes with the promise It works or we fix it free™ ?

Like ourselves, it might have surprised you to learn that the product is a metal lighter called Zippo® made in Bradford, PA, where a museum is dedicated to it. The guarantee has come with the lighter since its invention in the early 1930s.

Zippo Manufacturing Company has been in the same PA location since 1932. Several years ago, the company manufactured its 600,000,000 lighter. Bradford is home to the Zippo/Case Museum, the only place in the world to find a complete selection of Zippo and Case knife products. (W.R. Case & Sons Cutlery Company is an American manufacturer of hand-crafted knives based in Bradford since 1905. The company was acquired by Zippo Manufacturing Company in 1993.) 

The U.S. flag behind us is composed entirely of 3,393 Zippo lighters

Our visit to the Zippo Museum was unexpected as we were driving to Warren, PA, to meet-up with a fellow blogger. After seeing a highway billboard, we backtracked to locate the museum, which was still open.

In over 90 years, no one has ever spent money on the mechanical repair of a Zippo pocket lighter regardless of its age or condition. Even though there are fewer folks smoking today, this lighter has become part of the American culture. It's remained a global icon for durability and reliability over decades, especially in war time.. 

Loyal owners have credited a Zippo® lighter with saving them from danger or even saving their lives in the darkest situations. Lighters have been mangled, swallowed by fish, drowned for years and then found again. The fact that a Zippo lighter works for years or it's fixed free of charge has generated letters from owners sharing their experiences.

The Zippo Back Story

George Blaisdell, Zipo inventor

The start the lighter's history dates to 1932 when George G. Blaisdell watched a friend struggle to use an Austrian-made lighter one-handed. He saw that while the lighter worked well in the wind due to its unique chimney design, it was difficult to use and required two hands and the thin metal surface was easily dented. The friend said he dismissed the difficulties as the lighter worked well in windy conditions.

Blaisdell, an inventor, worked in the Blaisdell Machinery Company, a family business, in Bradford, PA. In late 1932, he decided out to reconstruct the Austrian lighter into an easier to use lighter. After ordering samples and obtaining U.S. distribution rights, Blaisdell redesigned the lighter case, refined the windproof chimney and attached a hinged lid easily used with one hand. The name came about because Blaisdell liked the sound of the word zipper. After forming variations of the word settled on Zippo, which he felt had a modern sound.

First Zippo factory in Bradford, PA

The company started business over a garage on Boylston Street with 3 people, including Blaisdell who managed sales. In January 1933, the first Zippo® pocket lighter was produced. The application for the original Zippo® patent was filed in May 1934 and was granted in March 1936. While manufacturing standards have changed since then, the lighters are manufactured to the same exacting standards.

Early Zippo lighter factory

Blaisdell was determined to create an affordable lighter that was windproof and guaranteed to always work. He did both and in 1933, the first pocket lighter was marketed and sold for $1.95, backed by the now famous and unconditional lifetime guarantee. The application for the original Zippo® patent was filed in May 1934 and  was granted in March 1936. 

In the mid-1930s, the company's first major sales boost came when an Iowa insurance company ordered 200 engraved lighters as contest prizes for its sales staff. Shortly after, Kendall Refining Company, another Bradford, PA company, placed an order for 500 lighters as gifts for employees and customers and emblazoned with the oil company logo. These lighters believed to be the first company-advertised lighters produced by Zippo® have become highly-prized collectibles.

The Zippo® lighter's national advertising began in 1937 with a Christmas season ad in Esquire magazine.

By the 1940s, the lighter was so popular that Blaisdell bought a larger building on Barbour St in Bradford, PA. The factory was in the back and the office in front. Throughout the 1940s, the company acquired several more buildings and was able to build the factory across the street and use the original building for office space.

World War II Affected Production

In 1941, after the U.S. entered the war, Zippo Manufacturing Company dedicated all production to the military and ceased production of lighters for consumer markets from 1942 to 1945. When the government requisitioned all brass for wartime efforts, this led to production of the steel-case Zippo® lighter covered with black paint then baked to a crackle finish to prevent rusting. 

During WWII Zippo produced lighters exclusively for the U.S. military

Millions of U.S. military personnel carried the lighter, a significant factor that soon established the lighter as an icon worldwide. Supplying the military market resulted in full production for the PA plant which in turn, which made the company financially stable.

During the war, Blaisdell kept in contact with war correspondent Ernie Pyle, who wrote feature columns for Scripps-Howard Newspapers. Pyle lived the war next to soldiers in the trenches and sailors heading for sea battle and coined the phrase GI Joe. Blaisdell sent Pyle 50 to 100 lighters monthly to distribute among the GIs. The two men exchanged letters during the war years until Pyle was killed by a Japanese sniper in 1945.

War correspondent Ernie Pyle distributed Zippo lighters in WW II

In 1945, when the war ended, Zippo Manufacturing returned to producing and selling lighters for the consumer market. In its first 10 years, the company produced over 1 million lighters, by 1947, production had reached the 10 million mark. Today, service members buy the lighters as personal items, not as government-issued equipment, at military post exchange (PX) stores. 

The Zippo Advertising Story

One of Blaisdell's most popular advertising promotions was the Zippo Car. In 1947, he bought a Chrysler Saratoga and had it customized to promote sales The car had giant lighter doors with lids that opened and closed and a neon flame when the top was opened. The Zippo car led parades in all then 48 states. 

Original Zippo Lighter car in the 1950s

In the 1950s, the Zippo Car traveled cross-country advertising the lighter with the lifetime guarantee. Then in the early 1970s, the car disappeared from a Pittsburgh mechanic shop after the shop had closed. To this day, its disappearance remains an unsolved mystery. The company purchased a Chrysler New Yorker in 1996 and began modifications based on archival photos of the original. The replica which debuted in Bradford, PA, is often seen at festivals, trade shows and sporting events.

1950s point of purchase counter top display

Beginning in the mid-1950s, date codes were stamped on the bottom of every Zippo® lighter. Although the original purpose was for quality control, these codes have become an invaluable tool for collectors.

A Zippo lighter found in a fish stomach made national news

In 1961, a story provided a real-life advertisement for the brand after a fisherman caught an 18-pound Northern Pike in Three Mile Bay, NY. When cleaning the fish, a Zippo® lighter was found in its stomach. Not only was it in perfect condition, but it lit on the first attempt. Zippo® used this story in advertisements to highlight the lighter's durability and reliability. 

In 1950, Zippo® was issued a second patent. Today, the design of the lighter remains basically the same with minor improvements. Starting in the mid-1950’s, date codes were stamped on the bottom of every lighter. The original purpose was for quality control, but these codes have become an invaluable tool for collectors.

The lighters have become a symbol of American culture featured in Hollywood films, Broadway and the music industry as well as advertisements. Over the years, the lighter has been featured in over 2,000 movies, stage plays and TV shows and been featured in such diverse productions as I Love Lucy, The X-Men and Hairspray – the Musical. Also, the famous Zippo® “click” sound has been sampled on songs. The lighters have been featured on album covers, tattooed on rockers’ skin, and wielded in Rolling Stone photo shoots.

In the 1960’s concert-goers began raising the lighter's flame as a salute to favorite performers, this gesture became known as the Zippo® Moment. 

Actor Bruce Willis famously used a Zippo lighter in the film, Die Hard

In 1962, Zippo produced its first non-lighter product, a steel pocket tape measure, or that had a design resembling the famous lighter. Other items have been added and deleted from the Zippo® line since then. Many of these have been geared to the promotional products division and included key chains, golf greenskeepers, pen-and-pencil sets and the ZipLight pocket flashlight.

A 1962 pocket measure carried the same repair guarantee as the lighter

During the 1970s, the company began expanding to overseas markets. In 2002, Zippo® obtained trademark registration for the shape of the lighter, a major milestone that helped to protect the brand from counterfeiters. 

Display of advertisements featuring the Zippo lighter

The 15,000-square-foot Zippo Museum opened in July 1997 and since then has hosted over 100,000 visitors annually. Collectors and tourists travel from throughout the U.S. and worldwide to tour the extensive exhibits which include:

• Zippo Rocks!, a collection of Zippo's role in music throughout the years.
• An Ally for the Allies, an exploration of Zippo's WW II contributions.
• The Greatest Supporting Actor of all Times, an illustration of each time a Zippo lighter has been in the Hollywood spotlight.
• It Works or We Fix It Free, a look inside Zippo's famous repair center.

Repair shop at Zippo Museum

Display of damaged lighters was outside museum repair shop

Company founder, George Blaisdell, who passed away in October 1978 at age 83, is remembered today for inventing the Zippo lighter, and also for his generosity. In the 1980s, the company was owned by six Blaisdell family members, including two daughters and their children. Today, grandson George B. Duke is the sole owner and Chairman of the Board of Zippo Manufacturing Company. 

Patrick is seated on a chair with a back made entirely of Zippo lighters

There's no charge to tour the museum, our 1 hour+ tour was self-guided. Stopping at this museum was an unexpected detour, but the displays were interesting and informative. They showed how a single product had integrated itself in lives through the years and still includes a lifetime guarantee. 

Friday Funnies

This display of Halloween blow-ups was spotted in a store

Today, October 31, marks the day when Halloween is celebrated here and many countries worldwide in some way. Some in the Western world, the US, Canada, Ireland and the UK, have extensive celebrations with costume parties, trick-or-treating, pranks and games.

  Maxine, resident Hudson Senior Center member, is dressed for Halloween

Halloween is celebrated in downtown Nashua, NH, with lamp pole scarecrows along Main Street. I took photos on a downtown walk this week, some of which are shown below.

Other countries have traditions similar to Halloween that focus on remembering the dead, but with unique cultural spins, like Mexico's Día de los Muertos. Most countries in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, don’t celebrate Halloween because of religious or cultural reasons, also Iran and Russia which have restricted/banned celebrations.

Many residents of Clocktower Place apartments, our residence building, also display Halloween decorations which ranger from shelf size to larger-than-life size displays.

Some decorations include friendly-looking ghosts, akin to Casper the Friendly Ghost.

Other decorations have a more ominous theme, including the carnivorous pumpkin below.

On Halloween, it’s traditional to commemorate the dead in some Christian traditions. On our Portugal trip, we saw early Halloween decos notably at a hotel.  On November 1, All Saints' Day, Portuguese children go door-to-door with carved pumpkin lanterns asking for a soulmass cake. This small round cake, which resembles a shortbread biscuit, has spices like allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon or ginger as well as raisins or currants. Before baking, it's topped with the mark of a cross. Unfortunately, we left too early to sample one.

This year, Clocktower Place featured a pumpkin decorating competition with some unique entries. Residents will vote on the entries and the winning pumpkin will earn the resident a month of free garage parking.

There are 28 scarecrows placed along Main Street. While many are very original and creative, there are those that lack such features, which is why not all were shown in this post.

My particulate favorite for originality is this above scarecrow by the Nashua Transit System. It consists totally of transit system signage.

Full disclosure we don't decorate for Halloween only for Autumn with recycled annual decos. These will be changed only after Thanksgiving (a tradition from our childhood).

Your turn — Do you decorate for Halloween in any way? 

Enjoy Your Weekend, Everyone

Hope you all receive only 🎃 treats not tricks👻

We'll be setting back time ⏰ on Sunday, Nov 2

Home in Nashua, NH

We landed at Logan Airport, Boston, on Tuesday afternoon

Portugal was a whirlwind adventure and now we're back in Nashua, NH, catching up on things at home including sleep. 

All of the hotels included a breakfast buffet

Tours are not for the faint of heart and can be very exhausting with full tour days.. In order to see so many places in a limited time frame, it was necessary to change hotels several times and to spend hours on a tour bus.

A very large indoor farmer's market with produce, bakery items and fresh fish

Our group was a large one with 43 travelers. Our NH contingent consisted of 13, the largest group was from St, Louis, still other folks hailed from OH, NY and CO. Within a few days, we learned the first names of most other travelers and are hoping to keep in contact with a couple..

There were many monuments and historic sites to see

Also, visits to local artisans, like this pottery studio

A lot of photos were taken both with a digital camera and cell phone, so it will be a while before I go through and merge them and select ones to include in future posts. I'll also be creating a photo book as was done for previous trips.

Daytime temperatures ranged from the mid to higher 70s

Night time dining in outdoor cafes was  popular in every city

There will still be a couple of posts about our road trip to parts of PA which happened a couple of weeks before this adventure.

Colorful flowers were in every city visited

Thanks for all your well wishes in previous comments. I brought my iPad along amnd hoped to keep up on your blog posts. However, most days were so full that little free time was left for other than sleeping in the evenings, especially when dining in most cities visited started after 7 pm and ended after 9 pm. Internet service was also not as good as here at home and we turned off cellular data to avoid any charges. That said,  WhatsApp is how we kept in contact with family and friends while traveling as we can call and text over wi-fi, free of charge.

To be continued — more about our adventures to come in future posts. Travel is exciting for sure. While catching up takes a but of time, we’re thankful to be able to explore and learn and then to share with everyone. Thanks for coming along.