A little boy walked up to homeplate in an empty baseball field, with his bat and ball in hand.
As he threw the ball up in the air, he proclaimed, "I am the best ball player ever!" He swung with all his might, but missed.
He did the same thing and missed again.
He picked up the ball, tossed it up one more time, said "I am the best ball player in the world!" Then he swung and missed again.
"Wow!" he said. "What a pitcher!"
Pencil sharpenerIn 1897, a U.S. patent was issued for a pencil sharpener to its black American inventor, John Lee Love of Fall River, Mass. Love's invention was the very simple, portable pencil sharpener that many artists use: the pencil is put into the opening of the sharpener and rotated by hand, and the shavings stay inside the sharpener (No. 594,114). By rotating the outer case, internal gears turn a pencil sharpener blade around the inserted pencil. Two years earlier, Love had previously received a patent two years earlier for his invention of a "plasterers' hawk," which is a flat board, about 18-in square, with a handle underneath, used to carry a small amount of plaster material being worked onto a wall face (9 Jul 1895). This kind of device is still used today. |
