--6120--

OK... since this year is the 100th for the Ford Motor Company here are some obscure facts about Ford (courtesy of the Detroit Free Press)

--6121--

THOMAS EDISON, one of Henry Ford's best friends, once said that Ford's foresight "is so long, it sags in the middle." Ford's soybean experimentation was a good example of this. By 1941, the Rouge plant was processing 1,600 bushels of soybeans a day. The homely beans supplied the base for all kinds of inventive uses. Enamel for paints and fluid for shock absorbers came from soybean oil, for example. In time, more than two bushels of soybeans went into each Ford auto. Ford's soybean program also made the first commercially acceptable soy milk, which eventually was used to make Presto Whip -- an all-vegetable whipping cream.

--6122--

ANOTHER OF HENRY FORD'S less successful, but highly visible, enterprises was Village Industries, his hands-on attempt to preserve rural America by pumping it with industry. He built small factories that made Ford products in farm towns. The idea was to employ rural folks, especially during the slow winter months. The mills usually sat on rivers and used hydroelectric power. More than 30 of them were built in Michigan, Ohio, Mississippi, New York and other states. The first opened in Northville in 1920. Heralded by the locals in their day, they never turned a profit and shut down one by one.

--6123--

WORD-OF-MOUTH advertising is one thing, but this was ridiculous: Ford autos with the new V8 engine in the early 1930s were a hit with two famous bandits. Each personally -- and publicly -- endorsed the vehicles in letters.

"Hello Old Pal," wrote famous bank robber John Dillinger to Henry Ford. "You have a wonderful car. It's a treat to drive one. Your slogan should be Drive a Ford and Watch The Other Cars Fall Behind You. I can make any other car take Ford's dust. Bye-bye."

Another letter came from Clyde Barrow of the infamous Bonnie and Clyde duet. "Dear Sir," he wrote from Tulsa, Okla., in 1934 (the spellings are his). "While I still have got breath in my lungs, I will tell you what a dandy car you make. I have drove Fords exclusively when I could get away with one. For sustained speed and freedom from trouble the Ford has got every other car skinned, and even if my business hasen't been strickly legal it don't hurt enything to tell you what a fine car you got in the V8. Yours truly, Clyde Champion Barrow."

--6124--

HENRY FORD AND GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER were men of different races but one mind: that of the inventor. Ford, known for his more enlightened views toward African Americans, developed a warm friendship with Carver, who had the same interest in peanuts as Ford did in soybeans. Ford eventually named one of his laboratories after Carver.

--6125--

EVER BOUGHT Kingsford charcoal briquettes? They're another Ford-orchestrated invention. By 1923, Henry Ford had developed several lumbering plants and sawmills in the Iron Mountain area of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The area was incorporated as the Village of Kingsford that year, after E.G. Kingsford, Iron Mountain's authorized Ford dealer -- who happened to be married to Ford's cousin, according to Ford Bryan, author of "Beyond the Model T, The Other Ventures of Henry Ford." Leftover hardwood chips were processed with starch and compressed into about 100 tons per day of charcoal briquettes. They were sold by Ford dealers all over the United States. The briquettes are still made and sold by Kingsford Product Co. of Oakland, Calif. The company is now owned by the Clorox Corp.

--6126--

FORD WITH A BRITISH accent? Not quite. But in 1931, Henry Ford bought a British estate, Boreham House in Essex, which dated to Henry VIII's time. Ford bought the property as part of his experiments to bolster British agricultural output.In 1937, the house became the Henry Ford Institute of Agricultural Engineering. Today, it's a training center affiliated with overseas Ford tractor operations.

--6127--

IN AN EFFORT to prove electric streetcars obsolete, Henry Ford built a gasoline railcar in 1920. It had some problems operating, and there were never any more built. But Ford's initial boasts forced existing rail and streetcar companies to lower their fares, which citizens had complained about for years.

--6128--

THE AUTO PIONEER'S interest in radio resulted, in 1927, in the first use of a radio beacon navigation device for aircraft.

--6129--

IN 1925, Ford Motor Co. bought 199 World War I-era ships that the company dismantled to reuse for ore and scrap metals over the next few years. The unusual purchase, author Ford Bryan said, made the company the world's largest junk collector for a time. Ford bought the ships mainly because he hated waste, but the whole process probably saved no money.

--6132--

OK... that is all for the facts, here are some quotes from Henry Ford

An idealist is a person who helps other people to be prosperous.

--6133--

"History is more or less bunk." - Henry Ford

--6136--

I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to not know what can't be done.

-Henry Ford


--6138--

If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right.
- Henry Ford

--6139--

Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.
- Henry Ford

--6141--

People can have the Model T in any colour--so long as it's black.
- Henry Ford

{fact: the reason for this is that at the time the only color paint that was available that would dry fast enough for the mass production, such as it was, was black}

--6142--

You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do.
- Henry Ford

--6144--

{an expansion on 6136}

History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history we made today.
- Henry Ford, Interview in Chicago Tribune, May 25th, 1916

--6145--

OK, no more quotes from Ford....

--6146--

Ah heck... after a discussion about the Altavista translation service (babelfish.altavista.com) with a co-worker today, I think that Douglas Adams quotes are now in order....

--6147--

Anyone who is capable of getting themselves into a position of power should on no account be allowed to do the job.
-Douglas Adams

--6148--

He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife.
- Douglas Adams

--6149--

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
- Douglas Adams

--6150--

I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.
- Douglas Adams

--6151--

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
- Douglas Adams

--6152--

In those days spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.
- Douglas Adams

--6153--

It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.
- Douglas Adams

--6154--

Life... is like a grapefruit. It's orange and squishy, and has a few pips in it, and some folks have half a one for breakfast.
- Douglas Adams

--6155--

The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't.
- Douglas Adams

--6156--

--6157--

OK... enough of this for now... having trouble tracking this an the Pixies chat at the same time....

6159

Great facts/ quotes Milk Toast!