Rusty Saber: Post office gets Rusty stamp of approval

Bits and pieces from the Rusty Saber bits and pieces warehouse.

How did buffalo wings became a popular snack? Another question: Where did the name come from? They are also called hot wings, which makes more sense than buffalo wings. Even I know that buffaloes don't have wings, and I've eaten enough buffalo wings to know they taste nothing like buffalo meat. Next to necks, they are the boniest part of the chicken. So, whence cometh buffalo wings?

I doubt not that many readers consider chicken wings to be a gourmet delicacy. As sure as Col. Sanders has a white beard, someone will write to say: "The wing is the best part of the chicken, you nincompoop!" That critic notwithstanding, a chicken wing is a more wing than chicken. In truth, they are mostly bone. I don't usually salivate at the thought of bony chicken wings, but I'll ecstatically gnaw on red-hot buffalo wings all day long.

Actually, it's the sauce I like, not the wings. Be they buffalo or the more appropriately named hot wings, who first dipped chicken bones in tangy barbecue sauce and was clever enough to convince us that it's chic dining? Whoever it was should be put to work on finding a way to make us think it's trendy to eat chicken necks.

Whenever a startling advance in technology brings about extraordinary changes in our lives, you'd think it would be such big news that TV networks would do in-depth features on it. I can't believe "60 Minutes" hasn't interviewed those responsible, and Time, Newsweek and U.S. News and World Report haven't done cover stories. Goodness, SBJ hasn't yet done a feature on it.

I call this breakthrough "pre-licked stamps." The official name is probably self-adhesive or peel-off stamps. I prefer "pre-licked." After a lifetime of licking foul-tasting stamp glue, I now can peel and stick stamps with no aftertaste!

I've long thought the post office should sell flavored stamps strawberry, cherry, watermelon, and the like. But this is even better. No more gummy tongue or wet wash cloth rubbed on stamps, leaving gummy fingers.

To me, the epitome of luxury would be having someone around the house with tongue stuck out waiting to lick my stamps. Yes, pre-licked stamps are great! But this sensational advancement to life in the fast lane has come upon us without fanfare. Although you have kept it quiet, U.S. Postal Service, the Rusty Saber says without sticky tongue thanks a whole lot!

Once I was just an old codger. Now that I'm a retired old codger, I have time to read murder mysteries. In these books, just like in real police work, fingerprints are often used to prove suspects' guilt or innocence. Everybody seems to agree: Like snowflakes, no two fingerprints are alike.

How do they know? Has every snowflake and every finger in the world been studied so it can be stated with assurance that no duplicates exist? I doubt that snowflakes have undergone much scrutiny; you'd have to be quick to slap billions of those little icies under a microscope before they melt.

A fingerprint expert would probably say that enough fingerprints have been examined by people who apparently know what they are doing to deduce that it's highly likely that no two are alike. If a fingerprint lemon ever turns up a weirdo with somebody else's fingerprints police and mystery writers will have to go back to the drawing board.

I recently ran across something I remembered, but I'd forgotten that I remembered it. If you're like me old as dirt with a memory for useless information you, too, may remember this: Cheerios, a favorite cereal of today's kids, began life in 1941 under the name Cheerioats.

I'll give you a gold star if you know what radio program was sponsored by Cheerioats before its name was changed. Give up? "The Lone Ranger."

Unless you're a true trivia buff, you probably don't remember that Quaker Oats sued General Mills, objecting to the use of "oats." In 1945, General Mills dropped the "at" and Cheerios, an American cereal icon, was born. I just thought you might like to know that piece of trivia.

(Joe McAdoo is former chairman of the communication department at Drury University and a Springfield public relations consultant.)