--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)

__________________
-Toast-
"It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit - but none to be offended by them." -- Johnny Hart ("BC", cartoonist, 2000)
"Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog: Nobody really enjoys it and the frog generally dies as a result." -- E. B. White

--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.

__________________
-Toast-
"It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit - but none to be offended by them." -- Johnny Hart ("BC", cartoonist, 2000)
"Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog: Nobody really enjoys it and the frog generally dies as a result." -- E. B. White

--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.

__________________
-Toast-
"It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit - but none to be offended by them." -- Johnny Hart ("BC", cartoonist, 2000)
"Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog: Nobody really enjoys it and the frog generally dies as a result." -- E. B. White

--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."

__________________
-Toast-
"It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit - but none to be offended by them." -- Johnny Hart ("BC", cartoonist, 2000)
"Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog: Nobody really enjoys it and the frog generally dies as a result." -- E. B. White

--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.

__________________
-Toast-
"It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit - but none to be offended by them." -- Johnny Hart ("BC", cartoonist, 2000)
"Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog: Nobody really enjoys it and the frog generally dies as a result." -- E. B. White

--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.

__________________
-Toast-
"It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit - but none to be offended by them." -- Johnny Hart ("BC", cartoonist, 2000)
"Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog: Nobody really enjoys it and the frog generally dies as a result." -- E. B. White

--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.

__________________
-Toast-
"It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit - but none to be offended by them." -- Johnny Hart ("BC", cartoonist, 2000)
"Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog: Nobody really enjoys it and the frog generally dies as a result." -- E. B. White

--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.

__________________
-Toast-
"It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit - but none to be offended by them." -- Johnny Hart ("BC", cartoonist, 2000)
"Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog: Nobody really enjoys it and the frog generally dies as a result." -- E. B. White

--6128--

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

__________________
-Toast-
"It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit - but none to be offended by them." -- Johnny Hart ("BC", cartoonist, 2000)
"Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog: Nobody really enjoys it and the frog generally dies as a result." -- E. B. White

--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.

__________________
-Toast-
"It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit - but none to be offended by them." -- Johnny Hart ("BC", cartoonist, 2000)
"Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog: Nobody really enjoys it and the frog generally dies as a result." -- E. B. White

__________________

__________________

--6132--

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

__________________
-Toast-
"It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit - but none to be offended by them." -- Johnny Hart ("BC", cartoonist, 2000)
"Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog: Nobody really enjoys it and the frog generally dies as a result." -- E. B. White

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

--6133--

__________________
-Toast-
"It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit - but none to be offended by them." -- Johnny Hart ("BC", cartoonist, 2000)
"Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog: Nobody really enjoys it and the frog generally dies as a result." -- E. B. White

__________________