Susan Beckett

In October of 1871, the great evangelist D.L. Moody made, by his own admission, a horrible mistake. He had been preaching in the city of Chicago. Moody drew huge crowds of people to his meetings and on this particular Sunday evening, he drew his largest audience yet.

Back in the day before social media took over, my family used to get a daily newspaper. As a kid, my favorite part of the paper was Dear Abby and the comics. Peanuts was one of my ‘daily feeds’ with its clever cast of characters plus the little pearls of wisdom thrown in. One memorable cartoon had Charlie Brown and a friend discussing the problems of life.

Way back in 1174, the Italian architect Bonnano Pisano began work on his most famous project: an eight-story bell tower for the city of Pisa. But he had just one “little” problem: his builders quickly discovered that the soil was much softer than they had anticipated and before long, the entire structure had begun to tilt - and tilt - and tilt. The tower took 176 years to build and has stood for over 840 years, but it leaned 18 feet away from where it should be.

“I told you so!” We’ve all said it at one time or another. According to Gore Vidal, the four most beautiful words in our language are “I told you so.” But if you check in with A. Waldman, “There’s nothing quite as annoying as the phrase, ‘I told you so.’”

News flash! Camels don't store water in their humps! (The humps are actually full of fat.) It's a myth that wolves howl at the moon! (They howl because it's night and that's when they're active). Eating food within 5 seconds of dropping it on the floor is not safe after all.