Europe is suffering the effects of the Icelandic Volcanic ash while America parties. Not fair!

Europe wants to Party Too!

Today is 420 a.k.a. National Weed Day, Marijuana Appreciation Day, National Smoke Day and Stoners Day.

The origins of 420 are a bit cloudy or covered in smoke, if you will. Urban legend has it that back in 1971, San Rafael High School students used “420” as a code word to meet after school at 4:20 p.m. to light up a doobie and get stoned. A slightly different version says that on 4/20 in 1971, a group of college students lit up joints to protest for the legalization of marijuana.

While this holiday is fast becoming one of the more popular here in the States, Marijuana is still an illegal substance. Medical Marijuana – used by patients for cancer, AIDS, muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis and Lou Gehrig’s disease is legal in Australia, the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada and 14 states; Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.

Here are some 420 quotes:

“I like smoking a pipe of sweet hemp.” – Abraham Lincoln

“They lie about marijuana. Tell you pot-smoking makes you unmotivated. Lie! When you’re high, you can do everything you normally do, just as well. You just realize that it’s not worth the f-ing effort. There is a difference.” – Bill Hicks

“Why is marijuana against the law? It grows naturally upon our planet. Doesn’t the idea of making nature against the law seem to you a bit . . . unnatural?” – Bill Hicks

“Well, as I understand it, the main supporters are beer companies and the pharmaceutical companies. I’d like them to show me the dead bodies from marijuana. But they can’t because there aren’t any.” – Jack Herer

“You are 70% beautiful, 75% naughty, 80% sweet, 95% true, 100% lovely. In total if you sum up, you are a 420.”

“I think people need to be educated to the fact that marijuana is not a drug. Marijuana is an herb and a flower. God put it here. If He put it here and He wants it to grow, what gives the government the right to say that God is wrong?” – Willie Nelson

There were 3 men and they all died in a car crash and went to hell. When they got there the devil asked them all in turn a question.

To he first he said “what was your biggest sin on earth?” and the man replied “Oh man I just love alchol and being drunk man” so the devil showed the man to a room full of alchol of every type and description and he put the man inside and said “see you in 100 years” and locked the door.

To the second man he asked the same question and the man replied “oh man I just love to have sex with the ladies, I was really unfaithful to my wife man”. So the devil took the man and showed him to a room full of hundreds upon thousands of georgeous and beautiful naked women. The man ran inside and the devil said “see you in 100 years” and locked the door.

The third man’s answer to the question was “oh man I just LOVE weed! Im high all the time man and I can’t live without it!”. The devil showed the man to a room packed with the most amazing grade-A bud you’ve ever seen, stacked to the roof! The man went inside and the devil locked the door after saying “see you in 100 years”.

100 years later the devil came by to let the three men out. He opened the door to the first man’s room and found the man collapsed on the ground, passed out with empty bottles laying around him and puke all over him. He was a mess.

The devil opened the 2nd man’s door and the man came running out of the room and cried “IM GAY! IM GAY!”. Finally the devil came to the third man’s room and opened the door. Sitting in the middle of all the bud, in the exact same position the devil had left him in was the man. He looked up at the devil and with a single tear rolling down his cheek he asked ; “hey man, got a light?”

A hippie was walking down the street one day when a pixie pounced on him. “Today is your lucky day!” said the pixie. “I’m gonna give you two wishes. What will the first one be?” The hippie thinks for a moment and then says, “I want a never-ending joint.” So the pixie snaps his fingers and there is this king-sized joint. The hippie jacks it up and starts puffing. After five hits the joint is still the same length. Next the pixie says, “…And number two?” The hippie replies, “This is so cool man! Gimme another one!”

There is an old Hotel/Pub in Marble Arch, London which used to have gallows adjacent. Prisoners were taken to the gallows (after a fair trial of course) to be hung.The horse drawn dray, carting the prisoner was accompanied by an armed guard, who would stop the dray outside the pub and ask the prisoner if he would like ”ONE LAST DRINK”.

If he said YES it was referred to as “ONE FOR THE ROAD”

If he declined, that prisoner was “ON THE WAGON”

So there you go. More bleeding history.

They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot & then once a day it was taken & sold to the tannery. If you had to do this to survive you were “Piss Poor”. But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn’t even afford to buy a pot they “Didn’t have a pot to Piss in” & were the lowest of the low.

The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn’t just how you like it, think about how things used to be. Here are some facts about the 1500s:

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and they still smelled pretty good by June. However, since they were starting to smell brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odour. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, “Don’t throw the baby out with the Bath water!”

Houses had thatched roofs, thick straw piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying “It’s raining cats and dogs.”

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That’s how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying, “Dirt Poor.” The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance-way. Hence: a thresh hold. (Getting quite an education, aren’t you?)

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme: ”Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old”.

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, “Bring home the Bacon.” They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around talking and ”Chew the fat”.

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning & death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or ”The Upper Crust”.

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of ”Holding a Wake”.

England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift.) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, ”Saved by the Bell” or was considered a ”Dead Ringer”
And that’s the truth…Now, whoever said History was boring ! ! !

So . . . get out there and educate someone! ~~~ Share these facts with a friend like I just did! ! !