Q:  Is there any other kind of shrift than a short shrift?  A:  The short answer is yes.  The word “shrift” is very old, dating back to Anglo-Saxon days.  It was spelled scrift in Old English and meant a penance imposed by a priest after confession.  So someone would take shrift or do shrift or give shrift.  The noun “shrift” is derived from an even older word, the verb “shrive,” meaning to hear confession, impose penance, or give absolution.  The verb, spelled scrifan in Old English, dates back to around 776, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.  Although the original meaning of “shrift” is considered archaic today, the OED has published references from as recently as the late 19th century for the word used in the sense of penance or confession.  An 1880 translation of Goethe’s Faust, for example, mentions going “to shrift with nothing to disclose.”  As for “short shrift,” the expression originally referred to the brief period of time that a prisoner was allowed for confession before being executed.  The phrase first appears in Shakespeare’s Richard III (1594), when Lord Hastings is sentenced to be beheaded and told:  “Make a short Shrift, as he longs to see your Head.”  By the 19th century, the phrase “short shrift” was being used in the sense of making short work of something or giving it little consideration.  https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2008/08/the-long-and-the-short-of-shrift.html  Example of shrift with long preceding it:  “These days, I rarely give long shrift to the felicitous misprint.”  https://www.geni.com/people/Alan-Coren/6000000002178786129

You may be aware that the noble sabal palmetto is Florida’s state tree, but did you know you can eat it?  And we’re not just talking about a survival tactic.  From Wakulla and Apalachicola in the north to LaBelle and Immokalee in the south, Floridians all over the state have made a tradition out of preparing the hearts of these trees as a tasty dish called swamp cabbage.  As incoming settlers learned about swamp cabbage and began experimenting with it, it became a favorite side dish, especially in sparsely populated areas where the sabal (or cabbage) palmetto was more prevalent.  In modern times, swamp cabbage can still be found on the menus of restaurants serving traditional Southern cooking.  It is typically prepared by slicing up the heart of a section of palmetto trunk, called a “boot,” and then stewing it with spices and salt pork or some other seasoning meat.  The finished product is grayish-green in color, and pairs well with fried fish, pork, or other traditional Florida entrees.  Swamp cabbage can also be enjoyed raw, and often appears in salads by the more refined name of “heart of palm.”  Many Florida communities consider swamp cabbage something worth celebrating.  Each year at the Florida Forest Festival in Perry, locals celebrate their forestry heritage with a parade, fireworks, live music, and the world’s largest free fish fry.  Often, the menu has included swamp cabbage.  Down south in Hendry County, residents of LaBelle hold a festival each year devoted to nothing but swamp cabbage, even choosing a Swamp Cabbage Queen to reign over the festivities.  http://www.floridamemory.com/blog/2014/08/01/mmmmm-swamp-cabbage/

"With a hostile witness, many lawyers begin with soft violins before they start pounding the kettle drums."  "Our upbringing may not determine where we finish the race, but it surely draws the starting line."  "If not for the know-how of Mr. Willis Carrier--a native of Buffalo!--South Florida would be unlivable."  Lassiter, #8 in the Jake Lassiter series of novels by Paul Levine

The author of 20 novels, Paul Levine won the John D. MacDonald fiction award and was nominated for the Edgar, Macavity, International Thriller, Shamus and James Thurber prizes.  A former trial lawyer, he wrote 21 episodes of the CBS military drama “JAG” and co-created the Supreme Court drama “First Monday” starring James Garner and Joe Mantegna.  The international bestseller To Speak for the Dead was his first novel.  He is also the author of the Solomon vs. Lord series and several stand-alone thrillers.  A graduate of  Penn State and the University of Miami Law School, Paul Levine divides his time between Miami, Florida and Santa Barbara, California.  http://www.bookreporter.com/authors/paul-levine

Rivers only flow downhill.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River  Water flows downhill due to gravity, obviously.  Rivers always flow downhill, but "downhill" in the past may have been dramatically different than today.  For example, some of the gaps in the Blue Ridge were probably carved by rivers that used to flow from western Virginia across the mounains to the Atlantic Ocean.  Millions of years ago, when the Shenandoah Valley was much higher in elevation, those ancient rivers carved out valleys where I-66, Route 50, and Route 7 now cross over the Blue Ridge.  Later, the Shenandoah River "pirated" their  waters.  It eroded through limestone bedrock and carved a deep challen in the Shenandoah Valley faster than the other rivers etched away at the harder rock in the Blue Ridge.  Waters that once flowed eastward across the Blue Rdge changed direction, leaving "wind gaps" in the mountains.  Similarly, the Potomac River once flowed over the current location of Tysons Corner before shifting to the north and carving the modern channel.  http://www.virginiaplaces.org/watersheds/riverrun.html

When the Mississippi River meets the Ohio River at Cairo, Illinois it is halfway on its journey to the sea.  It is here that the brown muddy water of the Mississippi begins to mingle with the clearer water of the Ohio.  http://greatriverroad.com/meetohioindex.htm  The Ohio River Basin comprises a large geographic area of the United States east of the Mississippi River--204,000 square miles and containing nearly 25 million people.  Through the heart of this vast area, the 981 mile-long Ohio River carries the largest volume of water of any of the Mississippi River tributaries.  The Ohio is formed by the juncture of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.   http://www.lrd.usace.army.mil/Missions/Civil-Works/Navigation/Ohio-River/History/

Q.  What do the words wreak, wreck, wrote and wrought have in common?  A.  All the words start with a silent w.  If you hear the words pronounced, this is a good answer.  A.  They all begin with wr.  If you look at the words in print, this is a good answer.

Melvil Dewey, the father of modern librarianship, was one strange guy--but his classification system is still used in most of the world by Sarah Prescott  http://www.napavalley.edu/Library/Documents/Melvil%20Dewey.pdf  Melvil Dewey got Columbia University to let him open a library school and it was mostly for women, whom Columbia did not accept to the main college at that time.  Thank you, Muse reader!

Carol Bolt is a multi-disciplinary artist with a history of incorporating words, drawings and interactive elements into her two-dimensional and sculptural work.  She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Delaware and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Washington.  Carol first produced the original Book of Answers as an Artist’s Edition of 130 in February of 1998 which was then published commercially in October of 1999. It has since been published in more than twenty international editions.  http://thebookofanswers.com/the-original-book-of-answers/  "The Book of Answers" is a registered trademark of Carol Bolt.

The Book of Answers:  The New York Public Library Telephone Reference Service's Most Unusual and Entertaining Questions by Barbara Berliner with Melinda Corey and George Ochoa was published in 1990.  The book is the product of over 6 million questions asked of the New York Public Library Telephone Reference Service over more than two decades.  A few answers:  * At the three-day festivities in Plymouth Rock celebrating survival through the winter, the menu included venison, duck, goose, seafood, bread, leeks, greens, wild plums, dried berries, and wine.  * Pittsburgh was named for William Pitt, but William Pitt never set foot in Pennsylvania.  * Macaroni in the song Yankee Doodle refers to the Macaroni Club, a mid-18th century English social club.  The line was originally intended to discredit American revolutionaries. 

"'Edmonton is Canada's answer to Omaha.  Solid, unassuming, and surrounded by a whole lot of nothing."   Bones are Forever, #15 in the Temperance Brennan series of novels by Kathy Reichs   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1779  October 4, 2017  On this date in 1582, Pope Gregory XIII implemented the Gregorian calendar.  In Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain, October 4 of this year is followed directly by October 15.  On this date in 2004,  SpaceShipOne won the Ansari X Prize for private spaceflight, by being the first private craft to fly into space.