I saw dill pickle cucumbers at one of the vegetable and fruit stands on the weekend. We mostly pickle vegetables - and really, cucumbers for dill and sweet pickles in North America. But there is a long list of fruits and vegetables that are pickled in every country. I decided, though, that most people don't have my fascination for pickles, chutneys, relishes and salsas.
What did I decide we are all interested in? The recent story of the lobster diver in Cape Cod having a Jonah experience - that is compelling. I find out that a Jonah experience is considered only possible with a sperm whale as it is the only whale that can possibly swallow a human. The Cape Cod story involved a humpback whale, which cannot swallow a human. The only other story of this sort was that of James Bartley (1870-1909) being swallowed by a whale near the Falklands - and was in its stomach for 3 days. However, while this story has been much repeated, it was never proven. Moreover, the wife of the ship's captain who travelled on the ship at that time said it was false.
Our recent story was verified by Michael Packard's partner:
"A commercial lobster diver says he escaped relatively unscathed after nearly being swallowed by a humpback whale, in a biblical-sounding encounter that whale experts describe as rare but plausible.
Michael Packard, 56, said in local interviews and on social media that he was diving off the coast of Provincetown, Mass., on Friday morning when the whale suddenly scooped him up.
"I was in his closed mouth for about 30 to 40 seconds before he rose to the surface and spit me out," Packard later wrote on Facebook. "I am very bruised up but have no broken bones."
More about the story HERE. And if whales don't swallow people, and people don't survive being swallowed by whales, what is the Biblical story of Jonah, really? Check out the Wikipedia entry - everyone weighed in on Jonah and the symbolism of his 'giant fish' adventure.
A Daylily flower is particularly beautiful because of its little slippers. They are bluish-brown so I"ve given them some colour treatment to make them such a shiny blue colour.
I must relay this story to you - just in case you haven't seen it. It has been covered by a number of media outlets. It started for me when I saw a small, humorous article in the Globe and Mail. It covered the 50th Anniversary of the Blow Up the Dead Whale story. The Globe's 'punch line' was that the town in Oregon where this strange event occurred on November 12 1970 has named a park Dead Whale Park in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the 'blow-up' event.
So I was really intrigued when Day 6 on CBC said they were interviewing the reporter who covered the story for U.S. news in the first place. His story was on preserved on tape and has gone viral every so often. It has to do with his alliterative language during the live coverage. He says there isn't a day goes by without someone referencing this story and his report. His son particularly likes to replay the lines to him.
Paul Linnman was on-site in November 1970 to report on the explosion of a dead beached whale in Oregon. State highway officials decided that the only way to get rid of the decomposing marine mammal was with a half tonne of dynamite. It would 'dissipate' somehow.
"As soon as we got out of the car and were still a good distance from the whale, and behind sand dunes, the smell hit us. I mean, this thing had been rotting for a few days and the smell is beyond description," he told CBC Radio's Day 6.
"We realized things weren't necessarily going well when we started hearing chunks of blubber hitting the ground around us, which you can also hear in the video," he said. (A car was destroyed - owned by Paul's friend. His friendsaid the car dealer he got it from had a sign out front inviting people to get - 'A Whale of a Deal'- Paul went and checked at the time and could confirm this)
In his alliterative voice-over of the clip, Linnman quipped that “land-lubber newsmen” became “land-blubber newsmen … for the blast blasted blubber beyond all believable bounds.”
His closing line: “It might be concluded that should a whale ever wash ashore in Lane County again, those in charge will not only remember what to do, they’ll certainly remember what not to do."
The original newscast video is in the CBC story HERE. Or HERE from the New York Post.
The sculpture on the lake shore in Kingston - with the Skylum sky - was a Betterphoto Finalist for September. I'd just noticed it the other day.
