The History Lesson
This week back in the ‘50s, the town of Sylacauga, Alabama was Ground Zero for an historic first. Annie Hodges was starstruck. Figuratively and literally. It was November 30th, 1954, and Ann was taking an afternoon nap. Suddenly she sprang awake, to find her radio destroyed and her hip in total pain. She thought her space heater had exploded. In fact, she’d just become the first person in recorded history to get hit by a meteorite.
It was the size of a grapefruit, and it had crashed through the roof. Ann wasn’t seriously hurt. But that didn’t make the story any less crazy. Within hours the house was swarming with hundreds of reporters and Annie was a media sensation. She appeared on TV quiz shows. Newspapers printed her life story, and her picture was in LIFE magazine. Meanwhile, the Smithsonian offered Annie $5 thousand bucks for the meteor. But her husband Hewlett turned them down. With all the publicity? He was sure he could get even more.
Except, one problem: The Hodges’ landlord. She figured since she had to fix the hole in the roof? The rock that made the hole belonged to her. The lawsuit dragged on for months. And by the time the Hodges won — the world had pretty much forgotten about the whole incident. Their meteor was worthless. Annie eventually donated the rock to a local museum. Against her husband’s wishes. They separated 8 years later. Both of them admitted their marriage just wasn’t strong enough to survive a collision with the media. I mean — “a meteor.”
The Booze
Extinction Level Event
As created for the DPD by Robert Bagwell, bartender at Bottletree in Birmingham, AL:
Ingredients:
In a shot glass add:
– 1/2 oz. Half-and-half cream
– 1/2 oz. Kahlua liqueur
– 1/2 oz. Jagermeister
– 1/2 oz. Buttershot butterscotch liqueur
Instructions:
Drop the shot, meteor-like, into a glass half-filled with Earth-esque Guinness beer. Sip. Pray humanity survives.
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