The Longest Day

Wirtz, Virginia - The sun rose in Wirtz today at 6:00 AM. The sun will set in Wirtz at 8:43 PM. It is the longest day of year and the first day of summer. There will be 14 hours and 43 minutes of sunshine. Plenty of light for hunting corkscrews.

Reader John Compton found a corkscrew with the handle representing The Great Trilithon at Stonehenge. John's sun will rise at 4:43 AM and set at 9:21 PM . That gives him even more time to look for corkscrews. John contemplates his Stonehenge corkscrew with "Obviously cast to commemorate the erection of the henge on Salisbury Plain, England, some 3000 years ago! Not only could the primitive Englishman lift the top stone but he also located it onto pegs cut into the top of the standing stones. Blooming clever ! But how did he cast the brass and twist the tapered worm?"

John adds "The most Ancient Order of Druids conduct their sun worshipping ceremonies in the stone circle at sunrise. The stone shown on the corkscrew is 21 feet tall." Now there's food for thought.

Stonehenge consists of several concentric circles built in three periods, beginning about 2800 BC. It was first noted in 1771 that when viewing from the center, the sun rises over the heel stone at the summer solstice. In the 1960s Gerald Hawkins claimed that it could also be used to predict eclipses. The largest stones weigh 50 tons. None of the people who built Stonehenge needed a corkscrew.

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We Missed This

A report from Denman VRA Rescue Squad, Denman, Australia.

Muswellbrook to the rescue

July 15, 2002, 5:23 AM - Requested by Muswellbrook Ambulance to attend Rosemount Estates Bottling Plant 8km west of Denman where a female employee had impaled her finger on the corkscrew of a cork removing machine. After delicately cutting the corkscrew in two, she was transported to Muswellbrook Hospital by road ambulance to undergo surgery to remove the embedded part.

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Gone Fishin'

Wirt, Virginia - Yep, we're still fishing during National Fishing Month.

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