Baldo by Hector D. Cantú and Carlos Castellanos for December 09, 2009

Wow Tia, you are old!

As smart as Gracie is, I’m sure she knows when Columbus discovered America. Maybe she was just quizzing Tia.

Wow - this is like a reverse old-age joke!

Of course we all know that Columbus didn’t “discover” America … it was inhabited long before he stumbled upon its shores.

Imagine someone coming onto your property for the very first time, planting a flag in your lawn, and claiming they’d discovered the land and were claiming it for their country …

gracie’s checking for alzheimers

In Fourteen Hundred and Ninety-two, Columbus Sailed the ocean blue.

In Fourteen Hundred and Ninety-three, Columbus sailed the deep blue sea.

Because I hafta be a smart-aleck know-it-all. It’s a curse. sigh

and he did it with his own country’s money

“Leif Erikson was in what is now Canada 500 years before Columbus.”

Maybe so, but that was just Canada, wasn’t it? We’re talking about AMERICA!!!

(U!S!A! U!S!A! U!S!A!)

Columbus didn’t land in the USA fritz, I believe that honor goes to Amerigo Vaspucci. (spelling, and please correct me if I’m wrong.)

Columbus landed on the 4th of July, 1620, in Washington, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA! Then he went west to build COLUMBUS, Ohio, reached the Pacific Ocean via the COLUMBIA RIVER (which he dug), and circumnavigated the globe! He never made it to the Indian mainland, but he conquered Sri Lanka and ruled that island from his throne in COLOMBO, which is where he also started wearing a trenchcoat and solving mysteries in his spare time. It wasn’t until his return voyage to Spain that he began his romance with Kathryn Janeway who, as captain of the Niña (later rechristened the Voyager), also performed their marriage ceremony. Later, as Mrs. Columbo, Kathryn solved mysteries in her own right.

Columbus did NOT discover the America that was for US. He just discovered the land that was called West Indies, I think but I could be wrong that he called that lands after he arrived and discovered. He called the lands “West Indies” that was for Cuba, PR, Virgin Islands and so on…

Joe-Allen, are you trying to explain the joke to us or to yourself? Either way, we don’t need it. You’ve done that several times lately.

Actually, Amerigo Vespucci never even got to SEE America, not the United States anyway.

He sailed to Hispaniola, and later to South America.

They named the continent after him because he was the first to draw an accurate map of the coast line.

The actual continental mass upon which the USA rests was originally settled by the Native Americans (of course) and the oldest known European settlements on the continent were of Spanish origin, including Florida, and most of the south, even beyond the Mississippi River. This area was first explored by Hernando de Soto in the 1530s/1540s.

http://www.google.com/search?q=hernando+de+soto&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=kbB&tbs=tl:1&tbo=u&ei=0S8gS7u3Cs-vtgfqjY2lCg&sa=X&oi=timeline_result&ct=title&resnum=14&ved=0CDgQ5wIwDQ

Being a librarian (and a Floridian) has its benefits.

“Joe-Allen, are you trying to explain the joke to us or to yourself? Either way, we don’t need it. You’ve done that several times lately.”

I don’t bother reading the comics anymore; I just read JA”J”D’s explanations of them. It’s like Cliff’s Notes!

1492! America is for American… not only for USC! viva la RAZA!