Did you know your initials are a palindrome?

HOW TO VIEW THIS BLOG: Read the questions, then highlight the area between the > < to reveal the answers, then click “more” for the explanations.

1. “Friends of Bill W.” is another name for what organization?
Answer: >Alcoholics Anonymous<

2. The first Rolling Stones song to hit the British Top-20 was what Beatles song?
Answer: >I Wanna Be Your Man<

3. What admiral of the American Revolution is considered to be the father of the U.S. Navy?
Answer: >John Paul Jones<

Explanations:

1. It was William Griffith Wilson, or Bill W. as he liked to be called, since using just the first name and sometimes last initial is how you introduce yourself at AA meetings (Hello, my name is Bill, and I’m an Alcoholic). Bill was drafted into the army in 1917 and had his first drinks when several young officers went out to the local watering holes. Bill loved the Bronx Cocktail, which sounds essentially like a martini with orange juice in it, but I still want to try it sometime. I want to know the drink that took down the future founder of Alcoholics Anonymous! Bill was the one who came up with the famous 12 step program, a spiritual journey (not for atheists) of steps for addicts of all kinds: narcotics, alcohol, gambling even, I suppose. Although somehow people who have a gambling addiction using the same program as people with a narcotics addiction makes me uneasy. How about you just stop gambling? Ass. Speaking of addiction, sad to say, our friend Bill W. was a lifetime smoker. Growing up in the early 1900s and being in the army couldn’t have helped. Bill ended up dying of emphysema. I guess if one addiction doesn’t get you, another one will. Oh, I guess he was also a sex addict, because he cheated on his wife in several well-documented affairs. Oh, and he experimented with LSD. But to his defense, he did stay clean from alcohol after he started Alcoholics Anonymous. Yup, clean of alcohol, the only real vice. Right? Right?

2. This is an interesting bit of trivia. While the Beatles were doing tunes like “Taste of Honey” and “Til There Was You,” the Stones wouldn’t have considered anything so sentimental. Even so, it took a song by Paul McCartney and John Lennon to cast the Stones into the limelight. John, Paul, George, Ringo, and someone named George Martin (they don’t need two Georges), performed the original “I Wanna Be Your Man.” Mick Jagger and his pals Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Bill Wyman, and Charlie Watts performed their own rendition. It’s crazy how the Stones’ fame came from playing a cover of a Beatles song. However, some might argue that the different ways the two groups performed the same song was a tipping point for the rival that cast both of them into an eternal struggle of good vs. evil.

3. Jones is often credited with the famous utterance, “I have not yet begun to fight!” during an engagement with the British Royal Navy’s HMS Serapis in 1779. What actually happened was that one of his men asked him, “Sir, have you begun to fight?” And he responded, “No, not yet.” History pieced it together to make it sound pretty. Ok, that was totally made up, but whatever. Who uses a blog as the foremost in historical accuracy? Communists, that’s who. In actuality, I think Jones was being asked if he would surrender. Most people know around what time the Revolutionary War began: 1775 is when we set up the 13 colonies. But when did it end? Around 1783 with the signing of the Treaty of Paris. Not much happened in between except, oh I don’t know, the drafting of the Declaration of Independence! “When in the course of human events it becomes necessary…we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” Not much is said in the middle except, oh I don’t know “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Not much is said in the middle, except, oh I don’t know, “…that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are…”