In 1934, Charles B. Darrow of Germantown, Pennsylvania, presented a game called MONOPOLY to the executives of Parker Brothers.  Mr. Darrow, like many other Americans, was unemployed at the time and often played this game to amuse himself and pass the time.  It was the game’s exciting promise of fame and fortune that initially prompted Darrow to produce this game on his own.  With help from a friend who was a printer, Darrow sold 5,000 sets of the MONOPOLY game to a Philadelphia department store.  As the demand for the game grew, Darrow could not keep up with the orders and arranged for Parker Brothers to take over the game.  Since 1935, when Parker Brothers acquired the rights to the game, it has become the leading proprietary game not only in the United States but throughout the Western World. 

http://www.hasbro.com/common/instruct/monins.pdf

World of Monopoly  See Darrow/Parker Bros. versions in the U.S. from 1934-2007 at:  http://www.worldofmonopoly.com/history/usa-darrowpblist.php  See spinoffs, commercial promotions, films and variants at:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_(game)

Q:  Does Confederate currency have value? 
A: The notes were never a federal obligation, but collectors like them. -- U.S. Treasury Department. 
Q:  "Pooped" seems an odd word for being tired. 
A: The poop is on the stern of a sailing ship, and to be pooped is to be swamped by a high, following sea.  That's tiring. -- Various sources. 
Q:  How many Indian tribes are there?  What are the largest? 
A:  The United States recognizes 566 tribes and 324 reservations.  The largest tribes are Cherokees, 819,105 members; Navajos, 332,129; Choctaws, 195,764; Mexican-American Indians, 175,494; Chippewas, 170,742; Sioux, 170,110; Apaches, 111,810; and Blackfeet, 105,304.  There are 5.1 million "American Indians and Alaska Natives, including those of more than one race."  They are about 1.6 percent of the population. -- U.S. Census Bureau.  http://www.thecourier.com/Opinion/columns/2012/Nov/JU/ar_JU_112612.asp?d=112612,2012,Nov,26&c=c_13

"The Appalachian Prison Book Project (APBP) is a tax-exempt 501c3 nonprofit organization that sends free books to women and men who are imprisoned in the Appalachian region.  We serve West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee.  Many prisons lack adequate libraries, and books can be a real life line to people doing time.  Studies have repeatedly shown that recidivism rates go down when prisoners have access to educational programs.  We consider our book project part of that larger social mission.  Founded by Katy Ryan and members of her graduate prison literature course in the fall of 2004, APBP is a concrete way to make a positive difference in many people’s lives.  The group is composed of undergraduates, graduate students, interns from the Center for Civic Engagement, faculty, staff, and community members who work together to respond to individual requests for books."  http://aprisonbookproject.wordpress.com/

Chiclets is the original candy coated chewing gum created by the Adams Company.  Do you remember the little 2-piece box.  It is still available.  http://www.oldtimecandy.com/chiclets.htm

Thomas Adams first tried to change chicle into synthetic rubber products, before making a chewing gum.  Thomas Adams attempted to make toys, masks, rain boots, and bicycle tires out of the chicle from Mexican sapodilla trees, but every experiment failed.  One day in 1869, he popped a piece of surplus stock into his mouth and liked the taste.  Chewing away, he had the idea to add flavoring to the chicle.  Shortly after, he opened the world's first chewing gum factory.  In February 1871, Adams New York Gum went on sale in drug stores for a penny apiece.  http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bladams.htm

Tarkington, [Newton] Booth (1869-1946), novelist and playwright, spent his first two years of college at Purdue, his last two at Princeton.  He was a founder of the Triangle Club, and editor of the Nassau Literary Magazine, a contributor of humorous drawings and literary wit to The Tiger, and the most popular man in his class.  Bliss Perry said he was ``the only Princeton man who had ever been known to play poker (with his left hand), write a story for the Nassau Lit (with his right hand), and lead the singing in a crowded room, performing these three acts simultaneously.''  These pleasurable activities Tarkington carried on at some expense to his studies, and when his class graduated in 1893 he lacked sufficient credits for a degree.  His later achievements, however, won him an honorary A.M. in 1899 and an honorary Litt.D. in 1918.  Tarkington's singing of Kipling's ballad, ``The Hanging of Danny Deever'' was a highlight of student life in his time.  Sooner or later, when the seniors gathered on the steps of Nassau Hall for their singing, the call would go up ``Tark! Tark! Danny Deever!'' and although he would always protest and suggest another song -- and sometimes even try to slink away -- his classmates would call for him until he had performed.  In later years at class reunions the cry continued, and as one of his classmates related in the Alumni Weekly, Tarkington continued to respond reluctantly:

``The same old Tark -- just watch him shy
Like hunted thing, and hide, if let,
Away behind his cigarette
When `Danny Deever!' is the cry.
Keep up the call and, by and by
We'll make him sing, and find he's yet
The same old Tark.''

Tarkington wrote a series of cheerful, realistic novels about life in the Middle West, beginning with The Gentleman from Indiana (1899) and including two Pulitzer Prize winners, The Magnificent Ambersons (1918) and Alice Adams (1921).  He also, as Dean West said in presenting him for his second honorary degree, ``rediscovered the American boy and wrote the idyll of his life'' in Penrod (1914) and its sequels.  He dramatized several of his novels, wrote other plays, short stories, essays, and The World Does Move (1928), a book of reminiscences.  

http://etcweb.princeton.edu/CampusWWW/Companion/tarkington_booth.html

'Waxing poetic' has nothing to do with bees, candles, or polishing cars.  The verb 'to wax' is 'to grow'; the opposite of 'to wane', which is 'to decrease'.  Grow and decrease have largely superseded the archaic terms wax and wane in almost all modern usages, apart from the waxing and waning of the moon.  The other remaining contemporary uses of 'wax' with the meaning of 'grow', survive in various expressions like 'wax poetic' and 'wax lyrical'.  These are often explained as deriving from the imagery of the waxing of the moon.  In fact, the word is extremely ancient and was used to mean grow in many contexts prior to it being used to describe the monthly increase in size of the visible moon.  Read much more at:  http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/wax-poetic.html

Sold, for $21,005  That was the final bid Nov. 19, 2012 for a Salvador Dali etching anonymously donated at the Federal Way Goodwill donation station sponsored by Tacoma Goodwill.  The etching, titled “Reflection,” is No. 126 of 150 and part of Dali’s “Cycle of Life Suite.”  Bidding began Nov. 6 with a reserve of $999 at www.shopgoodwill.com.  Following a scramble of news reports in national media – from CNN to Fox, from Huffington Post to MSNBC – the bids, and interest, steadily rose.  http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/11/19/2373825/dali-etching-fetches-for-tacoma.html 

NOTE that three other treasures have been discovered at Goodwill stores in the past few months in Wisconsin, North Carolina and New York.