By adamg on Sat., 1/11/2014 - 3:05 pm
Around 3 p.m., Shaita reported:
Caution: A huge possum was just sitting in the middle of the right lane of Mass Ave in front of the Mary Baker Eddy library.
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Mary
By bulgingbuick
Sat, 01/11/2014 - 3:37pm
call in the report?
Possum
By Lee (not verified)
Sat, 01/11/2014 - 4:24pm
My dog has recently become obsessed with a possum family that lives a couple blocks from there, northampton and tremont. Clearly possums are trending.
Disappointing anticlimax
By Bob Leponge
Sat, 01/11/2014 - 5:55pm
So I heard this from the Cambridge city electrician's department:
The story of the phone being installed at Mary Baker Eddy's tomb in Mt. Auburn cemetery isn't nearly as supernatural as it sounds.
The church people figured that she was pretty famous, and the grave was pretty ornate, and they didn't want people chipping pieces off of it as souvenirs. So they hired a watchman to keep an eye on it for a year or so until the interest died down. The watchman, said, reasonably enough, "That's pretty damn creepy, spending my nights in a graveyard all by myself, " so they gave him a phone (portable two-way radios were pretty large, fussy, and esoteric pieces of gear at the time.)
The phone was for the living, not for the deceased. But when the Bell system techs showed up to installed it, the fact that "they were installing a phone at Mary Baker Eddy's grave" got legs of its own.
Then why were her
By bulgingbuick
Sat, 01/11/2014 - 6:52pm
last words "can you here me now"?
It probably wasn't a possum
By Neal
Sat, 01/11/2014 - 4:30pm
It probably was an opossum. Unless a possum escaped form the zoo, as possums are native to Australia and derive their name from the North American animal. Opossum comes from an algonquin word meaning "white beast". I wonder how many Australians know that the Algonquin language has made its way into their vernacular.
Cool story
By anon (not verified)
Sat, 01/11/2014 - 4:49pm
Possum is a widely used vernacular variant of Opossum.
People still say that?
By Neal
Sat, 01/11/2014 - 5:20pm
I thought they retired that overused phrase when they retired "you go girl!". Oh well, it's not like anons have much credibility here anyhow.
Anyhow, I was pointing out that possums aren't native to North America. Opossums are. They're not the same animal.
Little known fact
By Bob Leponge
Sat, 01/11/2014 - 5:50pm
St. Patrick is widely credited with having driven the O'Possums out of Ireland.
Then what the Hell
By bulgingbuick
Sat, 01/11/2014 - 6:50pm
was Granny Clampett cooking?
Use An Opostrophe
By Elmer
Sun, 01/12/2014 - 11:54am
If you skip the leading "O" in opossum, you can replace it with a 'postrophe.