Bag of Randomness for Tuesday, January 23, 2024

  • Yesterday’s Ripley’s Believe It or Not stated that Chopin, who is Polish but died in France, was buried in that country with a small urn of Polish soil that he kept. That reminded me of one of my history lessons in junior high. Someone, but I can’t remember who had his heart removed and buried in another country.  It involved the U.S. Sounds like something Lafayette would have done, but I couldn’t find a record of it. However, this was the first time I heard of the practice but it made an impression on me. I did a little research and found heart burial was not uncommon, as it was easier and less smelly than transporting an entire body (usually a soldier). Interestingly, Chopin did this, which made me think Ripley’s led with the wrong story. Even though I couldn’t find the person I was looking for, I ran across articles from Atlas Obscura and Mental Floss about famous people who had it done. This little nugget about Thomas Hardy stood out, “A persistent, but unproven, story has it that a cat ate part of the heart when the doctor who was removing it got distracted; a gruesome addendum says the animal was killed and buried alongside the organ.“
  • I think my next dog will be named Lafayette, and I hope I don’t have to make that decision for a very long time.
  • Random memory: Those commercials in which luggage was tested by a gorilla.
  • I knew 49’ers head coach Kyle Shanahan played football at the University of Texas and Lions head coach Dan Campell played at aTm. But I wasn’t sure if their time overlapped. I bring this up because their teams will be playing each other in the NFC Championship. Shanahan’s time was from 1999–2002 1995–1998.
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