Kennett Square, Pennsylvania sits in the heart of lush Brandywine Valley.  Beyond, surrounding farms produce roughly 60% of the country’s mushrooms, earning the area its well-earned nickname—the Mushroom Capital of the World.  Originally occupied by Lenape tribe members, the area now known as Kennett Square served an important role in the nation’s history.  British soldiers camped here during the Revolutionary War, the town served as a military encampment during the War of 1812 and many prominent Kennett Square citizens aided with the Underground Railroad.  This rich heritage earned Kennett Square a spot on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.  https://www.visitphilly.com/areas/chester-county/kennett-square/  

Kennett Square's founder is credited with introducing mushroom growing to the area.  He grew carnations, a popular local commodity around 1885, and wanted to make use of the wasted space under the elevated beds.  He imported spawn from Europe and started experimenting with mushroom cultivation.  Kennett Square is the subject and setting of the novel The Story of Kennett, written by 19th-century American author Bayard Taylor, who lived nearby at Cedarcroft.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennett_Square,_Pennsylvania

Loosely translated, pizzelle means “small, flat, and round” and that’s exactly what these cookies are.  An easy pizzelle recipe for the classic Italian cookie, lightly sweetened and flavored with vanilla or anise.  All you need are 6 ingredients and 1 pizzelle maker!  Meggan Hill  https://www.culinaryhill.com/pizzelle-italian-cookies/ 

In biology, an atavism is a modification of a biological structure whereby an ancestral genetic trait reappears after having been lost through evolutionary change in previous generations.  Atavisms can occur in several ways; one of which is when genes for previously existing phenotypic features are preserved in DNA, and these become expressed through a mutation that either knocks out the overriding genes for the new traits or makes the old traits override the new one.  A number of traits can vary as a result of shortening of the fetal development of a trait (neoteny) or by prolongation of the same.  In such a case, a shift in the time a trait is allowed to develop before it is fixed can bring forth an ancestral phenotype.  Atavisms are often seen as evidence of evolution.  In social sciences, atavism is the tendency of reversion.  For example, people in the modern era reverting to the ways of thinking and acting of a former time.  The word atavism is derived from the Latin atavus—a great-great-great-grandfather or, more generally, an ancestor.  See list of observed atavisms--including color blindness—at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atavism   

The Confederate battle flag was born of necessity after the Battle of Bull Run.  Amid the smoke and general chaos of battle, it was hard to distinguish the Confederate national flag, the “Stars and Bars," from the U. S. national flag, the "Stars and Stripes.”  Confederate Congressman William Porcher Miles suggested that the army have a distinct battle flag.  General Pierre T. Beauregard chose a variation on the cross of St. Andrew.  The battle flag features a blue cross, edged with a white band on a red field.  There are three stars on each arm of the cross and one star in the center.  The stars represented each of the states of the Confederacy, plus one.  Beauregard was betting that one of the states with pro-Confederacy leanings, Maryland, Kentucky, or Missouri, would join the Southern cause.  That never happened, but the flag remained the same for the remainder of the war.  See pictures at https://www.si.edu/object/confederate-battle-flag%3Anmah_439645   

At the outset of the Civil War, there was little coordination of what flag Confederate regiments should carry, and many carried newly created state flags.  The first Confederate national flag, the “Stars and Bars,” resembled the American flag too closely.  The second, known as the “Stainless Banner,” was later abandoned because its white background made it look too much like a flag of surrender.  By 1862, generals were allowed to pick flag designs for the regiments under their command.  Today’s most famous design was used, in a square form, by the Army of Northern Virginia, led by General Robert E. Lee.  But General William Hardee used a blue flag with a full moon in the center.  General Earl Van Dorn had a red flag with a crescent moon and 13 large stars.  At the time these symbols would have been well known, but they have since become less instantly recognizable as symbols of the Confederacy.  Sarah Laskow  See many pictures at   https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/museum-obscure-confederate-battle-flags-southern-cross-stars-bars   

50 Midwest Museums We Love by Jess Hoffert   See slideshow at https://www.midwestliving.com/travel/50-midwest-museums-we-love/   

To be ahead of the curve is to be more advanced or modern than someone or something else, to be on the forefront of a trend, to get a jump-start on a craze or idea and to act upon it before others do.  The phrase ahead of the curve may also mean to be above average in some way.  The idiom ahead of the curve is an abbreviation of the expression ahead of the power curve.  This renders a clue as to the origin of the term.  The power curve is an aviation term which means the interaction between drag and airspeed, or how the engine power of a given aircraft acts upon that aircraft’s airspeed.  The mathematics of the power curve may be plotted in a curve.  When discussing the amount of power a pilot must ask of his aircraft engine in order to maintain speed and altitude, pilots may talk about being ahead of the power curve or maintaining good speed and altitude, or being behind the power curve in which case they lose speed and altitude.  The idiom ahead of the power curve came into use in the 1920s, when more airplanes took to the skies.  The idiom was shortened in the 1960s and 1970s to the phrase ahead of the curve, and was popularized by the Nixon administration.  https://grammarist.com/idiom/ahead-of-the-curve-vs-ahead-of-the-curb/  See also https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/be-ahead-of-the-curve 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2446  October 27, 2021