Ripley's Believe It or Not by Ripley’s Believe It or Not! for June 20, 2020

Never occurred to me that almonds and peaches are related (I knew there was such thing as cashew nuts and cashew fruits).

Wonder where they were Haydn that skull for 145 years.

Ah yes, Joseph Haydn’s tomb; the place where, after a lifetime of composing, he decomposed.

Mighty small bullets. I’ve taken them with a .22 pistol.

It seems there was some skulduggery involved with Haydn.

Was somebody playing Haydn Seek with the skull?

Most anything hard will deflect a bullet if it’s curved.

Almonds and peaches. It pits one against the other.

Amaretto is often flavoured with peach or apricot stones instead of almonds.

…it was then discovered that Beethoven’s head was missing, and then everyone thought about that leftover extra head.

The Almond (Allman) Brothers and Eat a Peach, it all makes sense now.

ABOUT PEACHES AND ALLMANS

I think it’s a given that the last person you should ask about the meaning of some obscure reference in a song or a poem is the writer of the song or poem. Artists in general hate to be asked to “explain” their work. A frequent and honest response is, “The work speaks for itself.”

Some will even give an obviously absurd answer to show disdain for similar questions. When Robert Frost was asked why he chose to read his poem “Mending Wall” at a performance in West Germany, within sight of the Berlin Wall, he said it was just a poem he liked to read aloud to any audience anywhere. A sample line: “Something there is that doesn’t like a wall, that wants it down.”

Maybe band members dislike explaining album titles as well?

An interviewer once asked Duane Allman: “How are you helping the revolution?” His answer, “There ain’t no revolution, only evolution, but every time I’m in Georgia I ‘eat a peach’ for peace.” Whether he later chose that line as an album title for any reason beyond a jokey one… who knows?

I’ve always preferred to think he was referencing a line from T.S. Eliot. It was spoken by the ineffective, unassertive, fatally hesitant J. Alfred Prufrock who couldn’t make up his mind to take action… any action at all. “Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers and walk upon the beach.”

I like to think that Allman (obviously not shy or unassertive) was saying, “Show some guts, man! Eat the damn peach!”

Kevlarmadillo?

How did they know that the returned head was that of Haydn? No DNA tests in 1954,

How did they know it was Haydn’s real head and not the head of some other doofus?

Both almonds and the center of a peach pit is a source of cyanide. If fact cyanide gas has the smell of almonds. BION.

Bet he’s a bit confused in the afterlife…

two heads R better than one

So they were playing Haydn seek with his skull?

Aw nuts.

Take care and gesundheit.

Wonder if the original owner of the other skull is angry that they never got it back.

I’d never seen a real live armadillo, but I’d seen plenty of dead ones, roadkill in northern Florida.