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The Black Bones of Set. How did the fossilized remains of Prehistoric Hippopotamus’ end up in an Egyptian tomb?3,300 Years Ago Ancient Egyptians Collected and Revered Ancient Fossils Now Known as the ‘Black Bones of Set’Imagine excavating for months if not years, removing tons of sand and debris under a baking sun, finally uncovering a sealed Egyptian tomb. On the other side of the sealed door lay treasures, food, ritual items and staff necessary to assist the Pharoah in the afterlife. Now imagine the initial confusion, disappointment, frustration etc experienced by archaeologists when the contents of the tomb revealed not the anticipated gold and jewel encrusted, but bundles of blackened fossils millions of years old.Some of the first people ever to stumble upon prehistoric fossils lived in Egypt 3,300 years ago. Their story likely started with a sandstorm. Strong winds rose up, blew the desert sands away, exposing a secret hidden underneath: the hard, pitch-black bones of what looked like a gigantic monster.One can only imagine what must have gone through the minds of the ancients who found them. They didn’t write a word about it – or, if they did, it’s been long lost to the decay of time. All we know is what they left behind: a tomb filled with prehistoric fossils, some of them as much as two million years old, hidden until 1922 AD.[1]Egyptian fossils in an unwrapped linen bundle. (Iron from the sky project )It’s a fascinating mystery that has only recently begun to unravel due to almost 100 years of archaeological research. When archaeologists , Guy Brunton and Flinders Petrie, found the bundles they didn’t even fully understand what they’d discovered. All they knew, at first, was that they’d found bundles wrapped in linen, with no indication of the contents inside.“F.P. (Flinders) thought them among the most important things we have ever found” wrote Hilder Petrie in April 1953, of her husband’s opinion, quite a statement considering archaeologist Flinders Petrie excavated in Egypt over four decades until 1924. But what were the important excavation materials Hilder Petrie was referring to…..?[2]The original discoverers, ancient Egyptians, after all, hadn’t put these bones on display in a museum or palace treasury. Instead, they’d taken them to a rock-cut tomb near a town called Qau el-Kebir. There, the massive, prehistoric bones were given a dignified burial fit for royalty. After wrapping the fossils in fine linens, they were placed in the tomb, accompanied with ivory tools to help guide them through the afterlife.[3]Linen bundle still wrapped (supported by modern string) found in a rock cut tomb at Qau el-Kebir, c.1922-24. (3,300 Years Ago Ancient Egyptians Collected and Revered Ancient Fossils Now Known as the ‘Black Bones of Set’)At Qua el-Kebir, Middle Egypt, in 1923 Guy Brunton was working with Petrie, during excavations within a stepped burial shaft he found an estimated “2-3 tonnes” of fossilised, mainly dark, shiny heavy bones and carved ivory.[4] The following year Petrie excavated a nearby cemetery finding a smaller deposit of fossils and yet more inside some of the rock cut tombs of the high status regional governors[5] , at Qau many fossils were scattered as fragments through the tombs, others were still wrapped in their ancient linen bundles.[6]Prof Petrie at Qau in 1924 with the fossils under covers in the foreground. (Iron from the sky)Whatever it was they thought they’d found, they believed it was something worthy of their respect. The tombs of Qau el-Kebir weren’t just makeshift graves thrown together for the occasion; they were the ancient resting places of powerful Egyptian lords. The tombs where the bones and bundles were found date to the early Dynastic Period (c. 2800 BC)[7] , but the ivory objects were of a type which was not made until the New Kingdom (c. 1300BC), 1500 years later.[8] It was a place for the revered ancient dead; a place fit for the bones of a creature that, 2 million years ago, had terrorized the land that would become Egypt.Qaw el-KebirThe large southern cemetery at Qaw is thought to have been the necropolis of the provincial capital of Tjebu, although the Dynasty XII rulers are buried in rock-cut tombs slightly set apart from the main cemeteries on terraces in the cliffs to the north.[9] The most important and most architecturally interesting of these are the tombs of the provincial governors, Wahka I (hereditary prince and mayor), Ibu, Sobekhotep and Wahka II (Mayor during the reign of Amenemhet III).[10]The tomb structures followed the basic plan of a pyramid temple and consisted of a chapel with associated valley temple, causeway and mortuary temple. The mortuary temple contains a limestone pylon with a columned court behind. Several porticoed terraces, connected by steep stairs, open onto a series of underground chambers, containing the sarcophagi of the nomarchs and their families. The antechambers of the tomb-chapels were originally decorated with limestone reliefs, now gone, but some of the statue chambers are still painted. Steep ramps rise from the base of the cliffs to the tombs along which the sarcophagi would have been dragged.[11]Currently, the locations where the Egyptians found them remains a mystery. In 1926, shortly after they were uncovered, a geologist named K. S. Sandford surveyed every spot with 500 miles of Qau trying to locate them without success.[12]God of Chaos, Set. (DeviantArt)Their final resting place, Qau el-Kebir, was no ordinary town. It was the center of a cult dedicated to the god Set/Nemty, god of darkness, storms, and confusion.[13] He was the lord of the black land; a monstrous, evil force who was often drawn looking like a monster with a hippopotamus’s head. With the recovery of a stela at Qau depicting Seth as a hippopotamus, Brunton and Petrie theorised that the mainly hippopotamus fossil bones were highly likely to be offerings to Seth.[14] Without question, the bones were deliberately redeposited there. Whatever the Egyptians believed they’d found, they thought they belonged to the god of Chaos, and they were willing to do anything to bring them to him.Hymn 570I will never swallow the Eye of Horus so that men may say: `He is dead because of it.' I will never swallow a limb of Osiris so that men may say: `He is dead because of it.' I live by grace of my father Atum; protect me, O! Nekhbet. You have protected me, O! Nekhbet, dwelling in the Prince-Mansion which is in On, you have commended me to Him who is in his service that I may be served. He who is in his service has commended me to Him who is in his litter that I may be served. The king is immortal. I escape my day of death just as Seth escaped his day of death.I escape my half-months of death just as Seth escaped his half-months of death.I escape my months of death just as Seth escaped his months of death.I escape my year of death just as Seth escaped his year of death.Do not break up the ground, O! you arms of mine which lift up the sky as Shu; my bones are iron and my limbs are the Imperishable Stars. I am a star which illumines the sky, I mount up to the god that I maybe protected, for the sky will not be devoid of me and this earth will not be devoid of me for ever. I live beside you, you gods of the Lower Sky, the Imperishable Stars, who traverse the land of Libya, who lean on your drm-staffs; I lean with you on a was-staff and a drm-staff, for I am your fourth. The king is one with the sun-god. Hear it, O! Ra, this word which I say to you; your nature is in me, O! Ra, and your nature is nourished in me, O! Ra.[15]Pyramid texts (early Egyptian theological texts) make reference to gods having bones of iron, it is possible that these heavily mineralized dark fossils could have been interpreted by ancient Egyptians as being bones of iron, leading some to call these fossils the ‘bones of Seth’.[16] They also have a very similar appearance to weathered iron meteorites. The fossils are described in the official excavation report which promised a special publication on the fossils to follow but no follow on studies of these fossils were ever published.After more than 3,000 years buried in a tomb, Gun Brunton and Flinders Petrie excavated the fossils, only to lock them up once again- this time in crates, not desert sands. They sent their discovery off to a museum, where they were left in unopened crates for decades. Brunton planned on writing a book about them, but he never did. And for nearly 80 years, they just sat in those crates; an incredible discovery forgotten.[17]In 2007, the bundles were uncrated and taken off the shelf for analysis. In part, technology had advanced to the stage that the linen bundles could be analyzed without destroying their wrappinga. X-ray scanning machines could finally indicate what was contained inside.[18]The bundle was sat onto a turntable with an x-ray source at one side and an x-ray detector at the opposite side of the bundle. The source would switch on causing x-rays to pass through the bundle, the highest density components of the bundle would absorb more x-rays than lower density components, producing contrast on the images recorded by the x-ray detector.[19] The turntable is then rotated by a small angle and the process repeated again until it has recorded images through 360oInside the x-ray CT scanner at the Imaging and Analysis Centre, NHM, London. (Iron from the sky)This method produces thousands of x-ray projection images which were recorded along with the corresponding position of the bundle, from this data a computer algorithm can be used to produce a series of virtual slice images through the bundle.[20]An external view of the virtual model linen bundle created by x-ray CT scanning ((Iron from the sky)By 2014, the contents of the bundle were known and the bones inside revealed. Bone fragments from countless extinct animals were inside: giant wildebeests, crocodiles, boars, horses, buffalos, and even human beings.[21] To the researchers surprise, bones of massive, prehistoric hippopotamuses constitued the bulk of the fossils – the animal of the god Set. And every fossil had been polished over millions of years by river sands until they shimmered with the color of the chaos god: pitch black.Nobody knows for sure what the Egyptians thought they’d found – but there are theories. It’s very likely that, 3,300 years ago, the people who found those bones believed that they had stumbled upon the remains of a god. Not just any god, but Set, the god of chaos, the desert, storms, and darkness. Set, sometimes known as Seth, but also as Sutekh or Seteh was an ancient Egyptian deity referred to by Egyptologists as a ‘Set animal’.[22] Set was one of the most ancient gods of the ancient Egyptian pantheon, and is believed to have been worshipped as early as the Pre-Dynastic period, primarilyin Upper Egypt at Nubt (known today as Kom Ombo).Carved ivory comb Amratian period (4000 to 3500 BC (http://ancientegyptian.soup.io/since/280009828?mode=ownSet was a beast resembling no known creature, although it could be seen as a composite of an aardvark, donkey, jackal or fennec fox. [23] The animal has a curved snout long rectangular ears, a thin forked tail and canine torso, with sprouted fur tufts in an inverted arrow shape; sometimes, Set is depicted as a human with the distinctive head. Red and black were colours especially associated with Seth[24] , and he was also connected to the Hippopotamus, a savage and unpredictable danger to people using the Nile. Some early Egyptologists proposed that it was a stylised representation of the giraffe, owing to the large flat-topped "horns" which correspond to a giraffe's ossicones.[25] The earliest representation of Set may be found on a carved ivory comb from the Amratian period (4000 to 3500 BC). [26]Wall relief of fight between Seth and Horus where Horus, helped by Isis, kill Seth (hippopotamus), temple of Edfu, Egypt. (Rémih/ CC BY SA 3.0 )Originally, he was believed to be a benevolent god who lived in the Underworld and was responsible for helping the dead reach heaven, though he was later regarded as an evil god in perpetual conflict with Horus.[27]An ancient legend relates how Horus triumphed over Seth who had assumed the form of a red hippopotamus; and at the time of the first Dynasty the priests of Horus at Edfu went into the middle of the Holy Lake on a raft and dismembered a cake cooked in the form of a hippopotamus.''According to one view, Set became associated with the Hyksos invaders who conquered the Nile Delta and therefore, by the time of the Second Intermediate period, Set had become regarded as a malevolent deity.[28]The ancient Egyptians had an ambivalent relationship with hippopotami. Although the animals were endowed with positive qualities, they were also feared as dangerous. Hippos are indeed unpredictable and powerful animals that—when feeling threatened—will become extremely aggressive; today hippopotami kill more people in Africa than any other large animal.[29] A hippopotamus can outrun a human over a short distance, and they often upend boats and maul passengers. Ancient Egyptians were attacked by hippos, but evidence that people also survived can be found in an ancient Egyptian medical recipe for wounds inflicted by the bites of a hippo.[30] Hippopotami are herbivores and usually graze during the night, when they can decimate a farmer’s field with their enormous appetite. This was already an issue in ancient Egypt; an inscription on a papyrus refers to such a devastated harvest: “the worm took half and the hippopotamus ate the rest.”[31]“Ti Watching a Hippotamus Hunt” is a painted relief found in the tomb of a government official, c. 2450 – 2325 BCE.(Relief Sculpture and Painting)Experts have only discovered remnants of cult worship (as there was of other animals) of the hippopotamuses that floated in the Nile, though there are Egyptian reliefs showing the creature being hunted.[32] These may be true records of methods employed to control the numbers of a galumphing vegetarian capable of causing generous havoc to crops. Equally, they may represent what Kenneth Clark's book Animals and Men calls the ''memory of a ritual practice.''[33]Previously, the ancient Egyptians had come to a similar conclusion before. Early Roman and Greek historians wrote that when the Egyptians found fossils from the coiled shells of nummulites near the pyramids of Giza[34], it was taken as proof that Set had once ruled over their land. The small fossils were taken to a temple in Tienna and presented as an offering to the gods.[35]Nummulitid foraminiferans from the Eocene near Al Ain, United Arab Emirates. (Wooster’s Fossils of the Week: Nummulitid foraminiferans (Eocene of the United Arab Emirates))They may have felt the same way about the gigantic fossils they put to rest in Qau el-Kebir. The bones had been fossilized - they were incredibly hard – and their religion had long taught that the gods had bones made of iron.Perhaps they thought what they had found was something more than an animal or a man. Perhaps, as paleontologist Kenneth Oakley has suggested, they recognized the fossilized remains of humans and giant hippopotamuses and assumed they’d all come from the same place: the remains of the half-human, half-bestial god of chaos, Set.[36]The “iron” bones of SethThat, at least, is one theory – but to this day, nobody knows for sure what the ancient Egyptian fossils meant to the people who uncovered those prehistoric bones. All we have to work off of are a few archaeological finds – and so far, they’ve left us with more questions than answers.We still don’t know where the bones were found. We still don’t know why they were buried, or why nothing was written about such an incredible find. And we still don’t know for sure what it meant to them. Contrast that to what is known. The tomb contained more than three tons of fossilized remains. They appear to have been transported across the desert, for their reburial within the Qau el-Kebi tomb complexes. It would have been a massive undertaking, requiring teams of people and an incredible amount of effort and supplies to move the fossils.Footnotes[1] http://Petrie, Flinders, Antaeopolis the Tombs of Qau (Egypt), London, Quaritch 1930.[2] Iron from the sky[3] http://Petrie, Flinders, Antaeopolis the Tombs of Qau (Egypt), London, Quaritch 1930.[4] http://Brunton, Guy 1927-1930. Qau and Badari, 3 vols. British School of Archaeology in Egypt and Egyptian Research Account [44, 45, 50] (29th year). London: British School of Archaeology in Egypt; Bernard Quaritch.[5] http://Petrie, W. M. Flinders 1924. The British School in Egypt: excavations at Qau. Ancient Egypt 1924, 16-17.[6] Mysterious ancient linen bundles[7] http://Petrie, W. M. Flinders 1924. The British School in Egypt: excavations at Qau. Ancient Egypt 1924, 16-17.[8] Mystery bones identified[9] Background information to Qau el-Kebir[10] Ancient Egyptian Tombs[11] Ancient Egyptian Tombs[12] The First Fossil Hunters[13] Gods and goddesses in ancient Egypt[14] Exploring Religion in Ancient Egypt[15] Hymn 355[16] Iron from the sky[17] The First Fossil Hunters[18] Imaging and analysis | Natural History Museum[19] Science in the Study of Ancient Egypt[20] Researchers develop pioneering X-ray technique to analyze ancient artifacts[21] http://Since prehistoric times ancient Egyptians considered some animals to be sacred as symbols and expressions of divinity; the fossil bones at Qau maybe a function of this practice. This area of Egypt was a recognised cult centre of the god Seth who was frequently depicted as a hippopotamus. It is possible that the fossils were a form of local offerings to Seth perhaps functioning in a similar fashion to the use of animal mummies.[22] Set from Ancient Egypt[23] Mysterious Creatures[24] Ancient Egypt: the Mythology[25] Set (Seth) - Egyptian God of War, Chaos and Storms | Mythology.net[26] http://(http://ancientegyptian.soup.io/since/280009828?mode=own) [27] Horus vs. Seth: Homosexuality, Hippos and Familial Violence — The Not So Innocents Abroad[28] Were The Worshipers of the Egyptian God Set Following a God or a Demon?[29] How many hippos are too many? Proposed cull raises questions[30] Ancient Egypt and Us[31] https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/papy/hd_papy.htm[32] Relief Sculpture and Painting[33] Animals and Men[34] https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/science/fieldnotes/casazza_0711.php[35] 3,300 Years Ago Ancient Egyptians Collected and Revered Ancient Fossils Now Known as the ‘Black Bones of Set’[36] The First Fossil Hunters

This answer may contain sensitive images. Click on an image to unblur it.Yes, I witnessed child abuse for my entire childhood. I know about it very well first hand.I was raised in a small town, Bloomsbury, New Jersey. My father was a partner of a general store named Sheets & Gardner along with Don Sheets. With my father being so well known in town, he was also highly respected.We lived in a row home on Willow Avenue and at the time I had five siblings. From the day I was born, my father did not like me at all for some reason and that I will never know. For my entire childhood, I was often physically and mentally abused. When I was younger, I was mostly just mentally abused. What my father would do is, take away everything he could that I enjoyed doing. One popular punishment my father would give me was, when I would be accused of something, I could not leave our property for a month and my father never backed off of a punishment for as much as a day even if it was proven that I didn't do what I was accused of.I loved to fish and there was a river directly behind our house. I don't remember how young I was but I must have been very young at the time. My mother would allow me to go fishing providing I wore a life jacket, and there was at least one adult there fishing. I also had to stay where my mother could see me at all times.I would go along the bank of the river looking for old fishing line a fisherman would leave there plus hooks and sinkers. Once I would find a roll of very tangled line, I would sit there and untangle it and then tie it to the end of a stick. I would then add a hook and sinker. At times when I couldn't find a sinker, I would search for a small stone that I could tie on my line. I must say, I did catch fish with my homemade setup.One day as I was there fishing, an older gentleman appeared and was fishing on the dock just over from me. All the sudden he said, "Jesus Christ! Your old man owns a Sporting Goods Store and you don't even have a fishing pole? I will go to my car and get one for you." I was in my glory. I finally actually had my very own fishing pole.When I returned to the house that day, I immediately placed my new fishing pole in the right-hand corner of the shed so I knew exactly where it was and I could easily grab it when I wanted to go fishing. I was ecstatic and that night at the dinner table I bragged about now having my own fishing pole.The next day as always, when I walked in the front door from school, I went right out the back door to go fishing. I opened the door to the shed and reached for my fishing pole but it was gone. I instantly started crying and when I went in the house telling everyone that my fishing pole was gone, my father said, "See that! You never take care of anything and that is exactly why I never gave you a fishing pole." I knew my father took my fishing pole but there was no way I could accuse him because I would have paid dearly for that.After I was able to be down at the river by myself and I had another fishing pole I would take my blankets and pillow down to the river and fish until very late in the night and then sleep there. Providing it wasn't raining, I would do this every night. When sleeping down by the river there was one rule. I had to stay right there all night and not go walking around town.It was still early in the summer and one morning when I walked into my house after sleeping down by the river my father said, "You are done sleeping out for the entire summer!" As a rule I would never question my father as to why on anything but this time I did and his answer was, "When I went to the post office this morning, someone told me they saw you running around town late last night." I then said, "Who saw me running around town?" My father replied with, "Well, no one really saw you running around town but I think you were so you can't sleep out for the rest of the summer!"My father and his partner delivered Sunday papers around town every week and if for some reason one of them weren't available on any given Sunday I was required to help. One Saturday Night my father told me that I was needed to help delivering Sunday Papers the next morning. I already had plans to camp out in a friends back yard so I asked my father if I could still camp out providing I take an alarm clock with me. My father insisted that I would oversleep and if I was to be late, I would be punished. I assured him I would not oversleep and would be on time so I went and camped out.My alarm didn't go off and I was 20 minutes late at arriving at the store. I was bitched out for the entire morning about how I am not responsible and how it is important that I be punctual, especially when me being late had an effect on another person. As usual, my punishment was a month in the yard. After I was finally free again and I went to visit my buddy that I had camped out with, his father said, "When you slept in the yard that night, early in the morning I saw a car pull up outside. Your father slowly walked right up to you and picked up your alarm clock!" That did not surprise me one bit.In the town we lived, every year all the kids would go "Tick Tacking" just before Halloween. Mainly we would just soap the windows of the houses and throw corn on the porches. My father had a brand new pickup truck and one morning as I was sitting at the kitchen table eating my cereal, my father came in the front door, walked up to me and with a flat hand across my face, flipped me backwards off of my chair. He said, "You have a lot of balls writing your name on the door of my new truck in soap!"I insisted that I didn't write my name on my father's truck in soap but he insisted I did. I was told to clean the soap off of the door of his truck and I was grounded for 30 days. Every morning there was a group of us that would stand out in the schoolyard waiting for the bell to ring telling us to go inside. That morning I mentioned what happened with my father's truck. Bob DeWire who is my brother-in-law today said, "Dale, I am really sorry. I wrote your name on the door of your father's truck and I will go down to his store right after school and tell him I did it."That evening when my father came in from work he said, "Bob DeWire came into the store today and told me that it was him who wrote on the door of my truck but still, don't think that is getting you out of this because it was your name so you are still grounded for a month!"Every year we went to my grandparent's house for Thanksgiving. My grandmother had a very large kitchen table, big enough that it seated 6 adults and 8 kids. There was always a rule in my house that when eating, you eat everything on your plate. On one particular Thanksgiving, I put too much food on my plate and when I said that I couldn't eat it all, my Father said, "You will eat everything on your plate." All of the women went out to the kitchen to clean up and there I sat.My father sat on one side of me and my uncle on the other side. As I was eating, my uncle said something to me and when I looked at my plate after that, there was a pile of food on my plate that I didn't put there. When I stated that I didn't put that on my plate, both my father and my uncle insisted that I put that food on my plate. Soon my father got my attention and when I looked at my plate again, there was another item on my plate. Again after I said I didn't put that item on my plate, both my father and my uncle insisted that I put it on my plate.Items kept being added to my plate as I sat there eating. Soon I looked at my plate and there was a pile of Chow-Chow on my plate. My father ate Chow-Chow often and I couldn't stand the smell of that stuff so I knew I couldn't eat it so I made it known that I could not eat that. Since I protested, they were now demanding that I eat the Chow-Chow. I put one fork full of Chow-Chow in my mouth and I instantly vomited all over the kitchen table. The women out in the kitchen heard me vomit and they came running in the dining room.I can't believe I had the nerve to do it but I told my grandmother everything that had happened. When it came to my father and my uncle, my grandmother totally ruled and man did she tear into them. She went up one side and down the other of them and made them both apologize to me. I think back about that and I bet it killed my father inside to have to apologize to me but he did.My father had a new home built and I was about 10 years of age at the time. As time went by I became more and more afraid of my father. Due to this, every time his car pulled in the driveway, I would go in the large walk-in closet in my bedroom and sit in the dark. I felt safe there. Over a long period of time, in total, I spent hundreds of hours in that closet.Being in that closet, I had a lot of time to think and even at that age, I was thinking at a more mature level than would be normal for one so young. One thing I thought about often was that one day when I have kids, I want them to come running to the door to greet me rather than hiding in a closet. I also told myself that I would never hit my kids for any reason.I am getting ahead of myself here but I want to tell of the results from my days of thinking in my closet as a young child. I raised three boys and I never as much as patted any of them on the butt and I will tell two stories of how I corrected my children.I had a coin collection on the top shelf of my bedroom closet that my grandmother had made for me. One morning I woke up and I instantly noticed that my coin books were out of place so I quickly went downstairs. I knew that the only one that could reach those coin books was my oldest son but I didn't want to come right out and accuse him so I said, "I want everyone of you to empty your pockets onto the kitchen table." My oldest son laid a pile of silver quarters on the table. I said, "You go to school so you aren't late but I want you to come straight home after school so you and I can have a talk." When my son came in from school that day, I had him sit straight across the table from me. I looked at him and said, "Do you have any idea how hurt I am? I have always considered you my best friend and I never dreamed that you would steal from me. Do you know how bad it hurts when your best friend steals from you?" By this time he was crying from feeling bad that he hurt me. I said, "You can earn my trust back but it is going to take a while. Going forward can I expect that you will never steal from me again?" As he was sobbing, he told me that he was sorry and would never steal from me again and I knew right then, he would never steal from me again. I gave him a hug and told him that I love him.My boys would sit on the living room floor right in front of the television every night. Their bedtime was 9:00 and one night when my wife told them it was bedtime, they just sat there. My wife again told them it was bedtime and got no response. I sat in my recliner and I didn't say a word. Finally at 9:36 I said, "I want all three of you to turn around and look at me right now!" After they were all looking at me, I said, "You all know your bedtime is 9:00 and your mother has been telling you to go to bed since 9:00. Here we are 36 minutes later and you still weren't listening so you are going to spend one hour on your bed for every minute you didn't listen. You come in from school at 3:00 and with your bedtime being 9:00, that is six hours of your punishment each day. Due to that, you will come in from school for 6 days and go straight to bed. You will be called down to have supper and then go straight back to bed.That punishment was given to my boys when they were rather young and going forward, no matter what my wife would tell them to do, they would do it immediately. I feel my way of teaching my kids to be obedient was much better than taking physical action to correct them.My father used nothing but wood to keep the house heated and he kept a lot of wood in the basement. One day he swept up around the wood piles and told me to clean up the pile he had swept up and take it back to the woods. I forgot! Shortly after that I went to my father's store and the first thing he said to me was, "Did you sweep up that pile in the basement?" I said, "I forgot but I will go home and do it right now." My father said, "While you are at it, I want you to take everything out of the garage, sweep the garage floor, hose the garage out and put everything back in the garage neatly. (we had a large double garage) When you finish that, take everything out of the basement, clean the floor real good and put everything back in the basement in a neat order. After that I want you to mow the lawn and make sure you do all of the trim. After that weed the garden and I better not see any weeds at all after you are finished. If you don't have all of that completed by the time I get home, you are going to get a beaten like you have never had in your life"When I went home and told my mother what he said, she knew it better be completed by the time my father got home and she knew I couldn't possibly complete it by myself. She rounded up two of my sisters and one of my brothers and we all worked our asses off that day but we got it all completed before my father arrived home. Once he came home, he never mentioned anything about all he told me to do.I was now 11 years of age and my mother worked. The older kids bus came before mine so at that time before school, it was just me, one of my one older sisters, one younger sister and me at home. My father did everything right on schedule and every morning he would return from the post office as I was eating my breakfast.Often my father would come in from the post office, walk in the kitchen, give me a straight hand across the face flipping me backward off of my chair. There was a breakfast bar right behind me and I would hit the back of my head on that before landing on the floor. Every time I would hit the floor, he would say, "You know what that was for!" I never knew what it was for but I wasn't about to question it.This part is going to be long but I want to include all of the details. One night my father and Harry Stopp went out to pick up a freezer. I was in my father's store that night and Ray Crisman came in. He looked at me and said, "What's your old man doing tonight?" I said, "He and Harry Stopp went out to pick up a freezer." Ray said, "They didn't go out to pick up a freezer. Every time your Old Man goes out with Harry Stopp, they go out to get drunk!" I insisted they went to pick up a freezer but Ray insisted they went out to get drunk.I believe it is important to tell you that at the time, I was in 6th grade and very small for my age. The next morning my father came in from the post office and gave me the flat hand across the face just like he had done many times before but this time it was different. That was only the beginning.As my father was kicking me in the face, head and back he was saying, "You have a lot of balls going down to my store last night and telling everyone I went out and got drunk with Harry Stopp last night!" As I insisted that I didn't say that, the beating continued. He lifted me over his head and threw me to the floor. Once I hit the floor, he again kicked me in the face, head and back. After he lifted me over his head again and throwing me to the floor, he said, "I am going to beat you until you tell me the truth and when you do tell the truth, I am going to throw you right through that picture window!" Due to that, I couldn't even lie and say I did it to get him to stop.My father again lifted me over his head throwing me to the floor. After that he continued to kick me in the head, face and back until there was blood splattered all over the kitchen. Blood was all over the floor, front of the refrigerator, front of the kitchen hutch and front of the breakfast bar. When he finally stopped, I was instructed to get a pile of towels out of the linen closet and clean up every bit of the blood. Then I was to take the towels to the laundry room and wash them. I was also grounded for a month. I was also told that if I were to tell anyone what he did to me, I would get it twice as bad.When I went to school that morning, several of my friends told me that I looked like I got beat up really bad. I insisted that I was just really tired. When my mother came in from work, I told her what happened and she was really upset about it but she was afraid of my father so there wasn't' anything she could do. All she did was give my father the cold shoulder for quite some time.The next night when my father came home from his store, he said to me, "Ray Crisman told me that you really didn't say that but I believe you did so you are still grounded for a month.The beatings and being grounded continued and now I was 17 years of age and I had a girlfriend. Her and I determined that if I were to get her pregnant, it would get me out of the house before my father would kill me so that is what we did.After my girlfriend was pregnant, I told my mother one day when my father wasn't home. My mother said, "I don't want you anywhere near this house when I tell your father." The next day I walked in the door and there stood my father. I can remember exactly everything he said to me. "What are you going to do now that you have your girlfriend knocked up? I raised 7 kids and you are the only one that turned out to be no good. You are a bum! You have always been a bum and you will be a bum for the rest of your life. You will never have an education! You will never have a good job. You will never own a home and your marriage won't last even a year. I hope you plan on going out and getting a full-time job right now because I am not supporting you and your family."We got married on May 28, 1972 and I got a job working at a truck stop 12 hours a day, 7 days a week.My father was the secretary of the local Rod & Gun Club and was the head of the committee for a 20 week club and the day before Labor Day, everyone that purchased tickets to the 20 week club were permitted to go to this big picnic the day before Labor Day! On Labor Day, there was always a big party at my father's house with all the leftovers from the 20 week club picinic. All of the committe members were invited to this picnic.So I was married in May and I went to the 20 week club picnic in September. My hair was a little long but not ridiculously long and my father came up to me and said, "I don't want you to come to my picnic tomorrow unless you get a haircut. You look like a bum." I went over to my mother and told her that I wouldn't be at the picnic the next day and why. My aunt Betty was sitting there and she said, "Come to my house tomorrow morning and I will cut your hair."About two hours later, I went up to the bathroom and my father happened to be in there. I said, "Dad, I will be able to come to your picnic tomorrow because Aunt Betty is going to cut my hair. He cocked his arm back and punched me right in the face and said, "I don't care if you get a haircut or not, I don't want you at my fuckin' house." I flew backward against the wall and hit the floor. Once I got my bearings, I got up and went to get my wife and we left.I had endured both physical and mental abuse from my father all of my life and I expected it to stop once I was married so I drove straight to my father's store and used the phone to call the state police and file charges against him. I don't know how but word must have got out about me calling the state police because my oldest brother and some of my father's friends showed up and were all giving me a rash of shit for calling the police on my father. The state police showed up and took my statement and I again got a rash of shit from my father's friends after the state trooper left.The night we had to appear in court, I got there early and asked to go into the judge's chamber. I told the judge that I was not there to have my father pay a fine or go to jail, I just merely wanted the judge to tell my father that the beatings must stop. There were a lot of people about my age in court that night for things such as robbery, drunk driving, assault, etc. and the judge held my father's case for last. The judge proceeded to ask my father if I had ever been arrested for any of the many things other young men were in the courtroom for that night and my father's answer to every question was "No." The judge then said, "I think it is about time you realize that you have a darn good boy here and if I ever see you in my courtroom again for laying a hand on your son, I will sentence you to the longest amount of jail time that I can by law." The judge then had me and my father shake hands. I know it killed my father to do that.After that I still went to my parent's house to visit my mother often and for a good two years as soon as I would arrive there, my father would go in his office and close the door until I would leave. After my father finally had the nerve to stay out of his office when I could go there, no matter what subject I would bring up, my father would argue with me but if I visited and someone else was there also, he would treat me just as good as he treated the other person.As the years went by and my mother passed away, I never went to my father's house again. I also didn't go to my father's funeral when he passed. I figured that if I didn't want to see him while he was alive, I didn't care to see him once he was dead either.Due to the way my father treated me all of my life, I didn't expect him to put me in his will at all. This was often discussed with some of my siblings and a few of them told me that if my father didn't treat me fairly in his will that they would all chip in some of the money they received to make it fair.When my father passed, he had just over $1,000,000 in his savings and portfolio. In his will he stated that his assets would be divided equally between his 7 children but half of Dale Gardner's share would be given to Janet Gardner. (Janet Gardner was my ex-wife that I had been divorced from for 20 years at the time of my father's death) He just had to get that last zinger in there when he left this earth. My father lived in New Jersey and I now live in Tennessee and I doubt I will ever go to New Jersey again but if I do, I will take the time to stop at the cemetery and piss on my father's grave. I feel I owe that much to him.My how things change when the money is right in front of someone. When I asked my siblings about giving up part of their inheritance to make it fair, I was told that if my father wanted me to have more than I did get, he would have given me that amount.When I was about 18 years of age when one day my mother told me that she and my father had a will drawn up and at that time he didn't want to include me in the will. She told me that she said, "We have 7 children, not 6 and we are going to include Dale in our will."After my father's death I learned that my father had a new will made up while my mother was still living and by the way the will was worded, it was easy to see that my mother had nothing to do with that new will. It was worded that if he were to pass before my mother, all of his assets would go to her. If my mother were to pass first, the will was to be just as I described above.As an adult I felt that I had no residual from my horrific childhood but I was wrong. Later in life I had a manager that would do everything she could to make me look bad but I was determined that she would not break me but one day I had a nervous breakdown. My wife found me a good psychiatrist and my psychiatrist determined that my manager was treating me mentally in the same manner my father treated me as a child. Being treated in that manner by my manager was unknowingly bringing back memories of my childhood and made it so I would often forget things. My psychiatrist diagnosed me with some sort of amnesia disorder from this.About 5 years ago I was under a lot of stress and one day when my wife and daughter came into the bedroom to wake me from a nap, I didn't know who either of them were or where I was. They took me to a local hospital and when I was admitted, my blood pressure was 280 over something. As soon as they were able to get my blood pressure stabilized, I was transferred to St. Thomas Hospital in Nashville Tennessee and I was in there for 5 days. It was determined that I had a very severe bout of my amnesia disorder and the doctor assured my wife that I would regain my memory but it would be little by little and over a long period.That was so frustrating for the longest time because there were often things that I knew I should know yet I didn't so I was constantly looking up various things online. It was about a year before I regained my full memory.I have had anxiety all of my life and for that I was prescribed valium for over 40 years. Though I was prescribed 3 per day, it was rare that I would take more than one in a week. A few years ago I was told that Valium could no longer be prescribed and I have learned that there is not one thing available that can be prescribed for anxiety that actually works.For those that have read this long story, I thank you.

How An 11-Year-Old Boy Invented The PopsicleA vintage ad for PopsicleThe National ArchivesThe next time you pop a Popsicle in your mouth, think about this: You're enjoying the fruits of an 11-year-old entrepreneur's labor.Back in 1905, a San Francisco Bay Area kid by the name of Frank Epperson accidentally invented the summertime treat. He had mixed some sugary soda powder with water and left it out overnight. It was a cold night, and the mixture froze. In the morning, Epperson devoured the icy concoction, licking it off the wooden stirrer. He declared it an Epsicle, a portmanteau of icicle and his name, and started selling the treat around his neighborhood.In 1923, Epperson decided to expand sales beyond his neighborhood. He started selling the treat at Neptune Beach, a nearby amusement park. Dubbed a "West Coast Coney Island," the park featured roller coasters, baseball and an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Neptune flourished in the pre-Depression days, and consumers eagerly consumed Epsicles and snow cones (which also made their debut at Neptune).Buoyed by this success, Epperson applied for a patent for his "frozen confection of attractive appearance, which can be conveniently consumed without contamination by contact with the hand and without the need for a plate, spoon, fork or other implement" in 1924. The patent illustrates the requirements for a perfect ice pop, including recommendations on the best wood for the stick: wood-bass, birch and poplar. Eventually, Epperson's children urged him to change the ice pop's name to what they called it: a Pop's 'Sicle, or Popsicle.A 1917 ad for Alameda's Neptune Beach, where Epperson sold his frozen "Epsicle" treats in the early 1920s.This origin story is charming, if somewhat apocryphal (sources differ on the details), but it didn't have a happy ending for the inventor. A broke Epperson sold the rights to his creation to the Joe Lowe Co. in the 1920s, much to his regret: "I was flat and had to liquidate all my assets," he later said. "I haven't been the same since."Article continues after sponsor messageThe Lowe Co. went on to catapult Epperson's invention to national success. During the Great Depression, the company debuted the two-stick version of the Popsicle to help consumers stretch their dollar — the duo sold for 5 cents.The patent Frank Epperson filed in 1924 for his "frozen confectionery."United States Patent and Trademark OfficeBut this delicious duo faced competition from Good Humor, which had recently debuted its own chocolate-covered ice cream on a stick, and Lowe was sued for copyright infringement. The court's compromise? Popsicle could sell water-based treats, and Good Humor could sell ice cream pops. Popsicle tested the limits of the agreement, selling a "Milk Popsicle," and the two companies tussled in court about the definitions of sherbet and ice cream over the years through a series of lawsuits.The giant food corporation Unilever scooped up the Popsicle brand in 1989, expanding the brand beyond its original fruity flavors. It also bought Good Humor, ending the feud between the two icy competitors.Over the years, Epperson's childhood invention has achieved iconic status, standing in for any frozen treat the way Kleenex means a tissue. That explains why also over the years, Unilever has worked to keep the name Popsicle its and its alone: In 2010, the company threatened legal action against artisan Brooklyn ice pop makers People's Pops for using the word "popsicle" on its blog.As for Epperson, he died in 1983 and is buried in Oakland's Mountain View Cemetery, where he's featured on a tour celebrating local food luminaries including chocolate mogul Domingo Ghirardelli and mai tai inventor Victor "Trader Vic" Bergeron.His story lives on in many forms — from the official Popsicle website, where it's illustrated in comic form, to an inspirational Christian self-help book about trusting in God's grand plan for your life. Epperson's childhood invention, born randomly on a freezing night, has also proved to be resoundingly successful and long lived: These days, some 2 billion Popsicles are sold each year.