The small village of Dennison, Ohio lies halfway between Columbus, OH and Pittsburgh, PA, exactly 100 miles to the east and west of these major cities.  This was not a coincidence, but specifically chosen because a steam engine only went 100 miles before it had to take on coal, water and change crews.  Thus, Dennison is a true railroad town in every sense--it was founded in 1864 as a water stop for the railroad.  Dennison, Ohio became one of the most complete railroad shops and yards in the country at the turn-of-the 20th Century, boasting 40 acres of railroad shops, 21 passenger trains a day, 21 freight trains a day and 3,000 railroad employees.  Dennison was on the most direct route from New York City to St. Louis.  The Village became a freight and passenger terminal and the headquarters for the Panhandle Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad.  What began in 1855 as the Steubenville and Indiana Railroad, was transformed into the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and St. Louis Railway in 1868.  Eventually consolidated into the Pennsylvania Railroad, the nation’s standard railroad, at the turn-of the century, the Dennison yards experienced a golden era until hit hard by a strike in 1921.  Despite resurgence during wartime, the yards never recovered.  As shops closed, the yards experienced a steady decline.  The development of affordable cars and highways had a devastating impact on the train industry.  In 1968, Penn Central controlled the line and saw the last passenger train stop at the Depot in the 1970s.  The yards were phased out, and Conrail was at the helm in 1976.  In the early 1980s, the line was downgraded and freight was rerouted to other Conrail lines.  In a landmark decision, the FCC stopped Conrail from tearing all the tracks out.  The State of Ohio purchased the tracks, and in 1992, the Ohio Central Railroad Systems became operators of the line, renaming it the Columbus & Ohio River Railroad.  Since that time, tourist train excursions have operated on the line, and attention has focused on rebuilding the freight business.  The Dennison Depot, built in 1873 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, stands as a proud symbol of Dennison’s vast railroad heritage.  Purchased by the Village of Dennison from Conrail in 1984, the Depot was originally restored by a strong grassroots volunteer group and local vocational school students.  It reopened in 1989 in memory of the many railroad employees, servicemen and women, and travelers who passed through its doors.  Although Dennison was the site of a WWI Red Cross Canteen, it is perhaps most famous for its role during WWII.  These yards were located on a railway which provided a key link to the Strategic Corridor for National Defense going east-west.  This trunk line played a vital role in the disbursement of troops during WWII, making the strong welded rail heavily traveled and the likely location for a serviceman’s Canteen.  The Dennison Depot Servicemen’s Canteen operated from March 19, 1942 to April 8, 1946.  A million and a half G.I.s were served free food, coffee and smiles by 3,987 volunteers from eight counties at the Dennison Depot Salvation Army Servicemen’s Canteen.  The Canteen operated around the clock, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, providing a great boost to the home front effort and earning the town the nickname “Dreamsville, USA”.   In 1989, the Dennison Railroad Depot Museum opened to the public.  http://dennisondepot.org/new_website/about-2/

Glenn Miller - Dreamsville, Ohio  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt2EQvRcrQw 

3:04      

The Polar Express is a children's book written and illustrated by Chris Van Allsburg, originally published in 1985.  As the story goes a young boy is lying in bed on Christmas Eve awaiting Santa's arrival when he hears the sound of a train outside his home, The Polar Express.  He is invited by the conductor to come aboard the train, which is filled with children and heading to the North Pole to meet Santa and the elves.  During the journey the kids are treated to hot chocolate and cookies, which is what has inspired their serving aboard Polar Express tourist trains today.  The story concludes with the young boy being picked by Santa to receive the first gift of Christmas and he chooses a simple, silver bell from Santa's sleigh.  Interestingly, though, once he returns home and awakes on Christmas morning he notices that the bell is still in his possession.  Find locations that offer official Polar Express trains at http://www.american-rails.com/polar-express-train-rides.html

railroad museums  http://www.gregariousrailfan.com/Museums.html

There is an opposite to hibernate:  it is aestivate (or estivate), and it means “to pass the summer, or any prolonged period of hot or dry conditions, in a state of torpor or suspended animation” (OED’s definition).  Where hibernate derives from hibernare, aestivate comes from aestivare, ‘to (spend the) summer.’  Estivate is a relatively new word—the first citation (in the form “aestivation“) is  credited to Charles Darwin in his 1839 account of his voyage on the HMS Beagle.  Its recent coinage might not be too surprising.  It also turns out that hibernate is nearly as new:  first use, in the sense we care about, was in an 1816 entomology text.  Of course, animals were known to hibernate before this word was coined, but a specific word, to label a specific biological process, hadn’t been needed before that time.  What are some animals that estivate?  There are enough to make the word useful.  Numerous reptiles and amphibians estivate, including some tortoises, salamanders, and frogs.  Some land snails do it.  A few insects and some types of crab do it.  It’s rare in mammals, with only one species of lemur and (maybe) an African hedgehog known to do it.  The most often cited example of estivation is the lungfish, several species of which burrow into the ground and create protective cocoons to wait out the dry season.  It’s something of a legend that lungfish can survive like this indefinitely, but they usually only estivate for a few months, until the next rainy season.  One reference suggests that lungfish can remain in this state for up to four years, but beyond that would be difficult:  their form of estivation requires slowly using up their own muscle mass.  https://thebettereditor.wordpress.com/2016/05/24/hibernating-for-the-summer-thats-estivating/

You can't answer a question if you don't understand it fully.  As a librarian, I've been asked to find "recent" articles or cases.  To my mind, recent means in the last few months.  When the patron is referring to something that happened 16 years earlier, I am on the wrong track.  So, sometimes follow up a question with one of your own.  (Does recent mean during this past year--or a few years ago?)  Or, re-phrase the question and ask if that is what is needed.

In geology and geomorphology, a hogback is a long narrow ridge or series of hills with a narrow crest and steep slopes of nearly equal inclination on both flanks.  Typically, this term is restricted to a ridge created by the differential erosion of outcropping, steeply dipping (greater than 30° - 40°), homoclinal, typically sedimentary strata.  One side, its backslope, of a hogback consists of the surface (bedding plane) of steeply dipping rock stratum, which is called a "dip slope."  Its other side, its escarpment or "frontslope" or "scarp slope", is an erosion face that cuts through the dipping strata that comprises the hogback.  The name for this landform refers to its resemblance in outline to the back of a hog.  It was named after a hogback, Hog's Back, of the North Downs in Surrey, England.  This term is also used for any ridge with a sharp summit and steep slopes of nearly equal inclination on both flanks. It is sometimes applied to drumlins and, in Maine, to both eskers and ridges known as "horsebacks".  Find examples of hogbacks in Europe and America at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogback_(geology)

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From:  Elizabeth Kingson  Subject:  Fractious   Many years ago, we had a feisty black kitten that my daughter named Fractious.  Thinking back, the kid couldn’t have been more than five years old at the time.  Her large vocabulary started young!

From:  Alex Freeman  Subject:  Fractious  One of many amusing propaganda-type posters in the victorianesque world shows a harassed-looking young woman holding a screaming infant with the headline, “Madam!  Quieten that fractious child!”  It amused me no end and to this day it is what runs through my head whenever I am in the vicinity of a child who cannot be quiet!

The weak can never forgive.  Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.  Mahatma Gandhi   Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.  Paul Boose 

Always forgive your enemies--nothing annoys them so much.  Oscar Wilde  http://www.positivityblog.com/index.php/2007/06/25/10-inspirational-quotes-on-forgiveness/

Pronunciation of nouns v. verbs using the same word:  AHB-ject v. ahb-JECT, object: PRAH-ject v.- pro-JECT, project

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1481  June 8, 2016  On this date in 1906, Theodore Roosevelt signed the Antiquities Act into law, authorizing the President to restrict the use of certain parcels of public land with historical or conservation value.  On this date in 1949, George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four was published.