The Quadrangle is the common name for a cluster of museums and cultural institutions in Metro Center, Springfield, Massachusetts, on Chestnut Street between State and Edwards Streets.  On the corner of Chestnut and State Streets, Merrick Park is distinguished by sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens "The Puritan," a statue depicting one of Springfield's settlers, Deacon Samuel Chapin. Springfield Central Library (constructed in 1913, was paid for by Andrew Carnegie. ) and Christ Church Cathedral are adjacent to the park.  Find descriptions of five museums at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrangle_(Springfield,_Massachusetts)  You will be able to park free in one location for all museums, and one ticket gives admission to all museums.  The newest museum, The Amazing World of Dr. Seuss Museum, opened in June 2017.  See also https://springfieldmuseums.org/

A. Roy Knabenshue (1876-1960) of Toledo, Ohio had a great curiosity about aerial navigation and made balloon flights in his early teens.  In 1900 Thomas Scott Baldwin, an early balloonist and parachutist, began experimenting with motor powered balloons.  These experiments resulted in the construction of the first successful dirigible in America, the California Arrow, powered by an engine that Glenn H. Curtiss built.  It made its first successful flight on August 3rd, 1904 at Oakland, California.  Later that year Knabenshue flew the California Arrow at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition of St. Louis, competing against all domestic and European dirigibles, and won the Grand Prize for his performance.  In January 1905, Knabenshue raced the California Arrow against an automobile between Los Angeles and Pasadena, California and won handily.  Knabenshue returned to Toledo and began to build dirigibles of his own design.  In July 1905 Knabenshue flew his airship Number One from the Lucas County Fairgrounds to the roof of a building in downtown Toledo and returned.  Knabenshue made many successful airship flights in 1905 at state fairs and also engaged in promoting public exhibitions.  In August 1905 he flew his 69 foot long Toledo II airship at Central Park in New York City, stopping all business and street traffic.  Knabenshue’s third dirigible was completed and flown in exhibitions at Hartford, Connecticut, Providence, Rhode Island, Worcester, Massachusetts and London, Ontario in 1907.  In late 1907 Knabenshue began to build a three-man airship designed to carry passengers as well as for exhibition work.  In May 1908 Roy made an ascent at Toledo in this airship with two others aboard.  In January 1910 Knabenshue participated in the First International Air Meet at Dominques Field, Los Angeles, racing his dirigible against others.  In 1913 he built the first passenger dirigible in America calling it White City.  Read more and see pictures at http://www.nationalaviation.org/our-enshrinees/knabenshue-roy/

as scarce as hen's teeth  There isn't much information on the roots of this phrase, but scholars have been able to dig up a few tidbits.  Meaning 'very rare,' this phrase is thought to be an Americanism dating back to the colonial period (c. early 1600s.)  While researchers believe it has been in use since then, its first recording doesn't appear until 1862.  The imagery behind this phrase relates to something we probably don't think about too often: birds don't have teeth.  There are some birds with serrated beaks leftover from their prehistoric ancestors, but none have teeth like mammals or some reptiles.  http://word-ancestry.livejournal.com/115685.html  If you thought hen's teeth were the rarest thing in nature, think again:  researchers from Britain and the US have succeeded in growing teeth in a chicken.  Far from being rarer than students who turn up at 9a.m. lectures or lecturers who like giving them, a hen with teeth does occur naturally, scientists based at the universities of Manchester and Wisconsin have found.  And by studying that mutant chicken--which is too weak to hatch, explaining its rarity--the team has been able to stimulate "natural" tooth growth in chickens.  The mutant chicken harks back to toothier days:  the ancestors of today's birds lost their teeth about 80 million years ago, but not the ability to grow them.  Katherine Demopoulus  https://www.theguardian.com/education/2006/feb/23/research.highereducation

PARAPHRASES from The Mackinac Incident, a thriller by Len McDougall  Michigan's infamous horseflies in the Upper Peninsula—said to require killing with a knife or a gun—are more voracious than those in the Amazon rain forest.  *  not the sedate Yooper town it was supposed to be  *  The five-mile span of the Mackinack Bridge, connecting Michigan's Upper and Lower Peninsulas, is the busiest stretch of Interstate 75 in the U.S.--especially on Labor Day  *  In the UP, there could be snow every month except July.  *  There are  more firearms than residents in the UP. 

Len McDougall is a professional outdoorsman with five decades of often hard experience that include being abandoned by search-and-rescue authorities as dead twice in the north woods.  Len is an internationally recognized survival instructor/tracker, and author of numerous books, including The Ultimate SHTF Survival Handbook, Modern Lumberjacking, Tracking and Reading Sign, The Log Cabin:  An Adventure, Practical Outdoor Survival, Practical Outdoor Projects, The Complete Tracker, The Outdoors Almanac, The Snowshoe Handbook, The Field & Stream Wilderness Survival Handbook Made for the Outdoors, and others.  He teaches survival, snowshoeing, kayaking, dogsledding, and tracking classes, and works as a wilderness guide.  Len's interest in all things out-of-doors began early.  Having grown up with youngsters of the Odawa and Ojibwa tribes in Northern Michigan, the Elders considered him more Nish-na-bee (Indian) than Chee-mook-a-mon (white), and accepted the Scots-Irish kid as one of their own.  With that status, he received the teachings of the Grandfathers, who are obligated by culture to pass what they know to the next generation.  With no written language, the tribes had already lost much, but what remained was enough to strike young Len's heart with a passion that would subsequently consume his life.  Find list of his published works at http://www.writers.net/writers/19462

MICHIGAN UP NORTH  Whether it is spelled Mackinaw as in Mackinaw City or Mackinac as in Mackinac Island, they are pronounced the same way:  Mack-i-naw.  Why?  The area was named Michilimackinac by the Native Americans and when the French built a fort here in 1715, they recorded the name with a "c" on the end as a French word with an "aw" sound would be pronounced.  The word became shortened to Mackinac.  The fort was moved on the winter ice to the island across the straits which became known as Mackinac Island.  Edgar Conkling was the founder of the city in 1857 and he changed the name to Mackinaw to reflect how the word actually sounds.  http://www.visitmichiganupnorth.com/stories/mackinaw_city_mackinac_island_straits_michigan_pronounce

An appositive is a noun or noun phrase that renames another noun right beside it.  The appositive can be a short or long combination of words.  Look at these appositive examples, which rename insect:

The insect, a cockroach, is crawling across the kitchen table.  The insect, a large, hairy-legged cockroach that has spied my bowl of oatmeal, is crawling across the kitchen table.  Read more at http://www.chompchomp.com/terms/appositive.htm

10 space objects to see daytime by Larry Sessions   Observing space objects in the daytime has its limitations and difficulties, but, as with all skywatching, it also has its rewards.  So here is a list of 10 in increasing order of difficulty:  your top 10 space objects to see in daylight.  The sun, The moon, The planet Venus, Earth-orbiting satellites, The planet Jupiter, The planet Mars, Stars during eclipses, Daytime comets, Daytime meteors, and Daytime supernovae.

Read more at http://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/10-surprising-things-to-see-in-the-daytime-sky

By historical convention, "madding crowd" is the idiom, dating from the late 16th century.  Unlike "maddening," which describes the effect on the observer, "madding" (= frenzied) describes the crowd itself.  Thomas Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard" (1749) and Thomas Hardy's novel Far From the Madding Crowd (1874) helped establish this idiom, especially Gray's "far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife."  Brooks Clark  http://gtotd.blogspot.com/2009/01/madding-crowd-v-maddening-crowd.html

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1738  July 17, 2017  On this date in 1717, King George I of Great Britain sailed down the River Thames with a barge of 50 musicians, where George Frideric Handel's Water Music was premiered.  On this date in 1955, Disneyland was dedicated and opened by Walt Disney in Anaheim, California.