The Minneapolis Star’s editorial page folks challenged readers to this offbeat Asimov-style quiz in 1950. Resist the urge to peek at the answers and give it a shot. Be sure to annoy 20 of your Facebook Friends by sending them a link to the quiz. Ben scored a 9 (”very superior”); can you beat Ben’s score?

Test Your Horse Sense

Score: One point for each correct answer in first five questions. No. 6 counts five points. Total score: 0-2 poor, 3-6 average; 7-8 superior; 9-10 very superior.

Hint: This is a Guernsey. Count its legs. (Photo courtesy mnhs.org)

1. Which species has only two feet? Muscovy, Clydesdale, Persian, Guernsey.

2. When an athletic team is badly beaten, which term applies? Painting, Varnishing, Shellacking, Gluing.

3. The sports term “lure” suggests Strike, Punt, Bunt, Pass.

4. Cypress trees suggest which type of terrain? Desert, Plateau, Swamp, Prairie.

5. The area under the dome of the U.S. capital building is called Foyer, Narthex, Lobby, Rotunda.

6. Match these five characters from literature or fiction with appropriate items on the right.

ANSWERS

1. Muscovy (duck). 2. Shellacking. 3. Strike (fish). 4. Swamp. 5. Rotunda. 6. Robin Hood – Bow; Red Riding Hood – Wolf; Dutchman – Ship; Hansel and Gretel – Gingerbread; Aladdin – Lamp.

This letter to the editor appeared in the Minneapolis Star. Newspapers rarely publish melancholy musings like this anymore, unless you count Garrison Keillor’s work.

A Lawyer at 94

To the editor: I am the oldest lawyer in Hennepin County in age and practice. I am the last of three generations covering a period of 190 years. Grandfather born in 1776, father in 1808, both in Pennsylvania, and I in 1871 at Long Lake. For me there is nothing to do except to sit and think and to try to compose.

I am alone in a desolate home. I am alone with a vacant chair; from the roof-ridge down to the base nothing alive is there. Time has no meaning. Days fade. Nights pass away. I sleep, I dream and I hope to awake nevermore.

I recognize a Creator by the work he has done. My death will not be a transition from this to another sphere, but will come at the close of a final day, when all that I am will be ended and I will cease to be.

For me at 94 I deem it better to sit and try to compose than to worry about a future of which no one knows.

Long Lake.                – W. L. Hursh.

Heidi Klum’s got nichts on Alphonse Berg, a noted Parisian designer who visited the Twin Cities in 1925 to demonstrate how to make “a frock of bewildering beauty” from just about any material in under two minutes. The Minneapolis Daily Star, sponsor of the event, offered this preview:

Scorns Gown Cloth, ‘Dresses’ Model in Daily Star

Minneapolis Daily Star

The material for a gown doesn’t matter much, so long as the “lines” are right, according to M. Alphonse Berg, the Parisian designer and dressmaker. To prove his point, Monsieur Berg “dressed” one of his models in a copy of The Daily Star. Berg and his models will give a demonstration in lightning dressmaking for feminine readers of The Daily Star at the Hennepin-Orpheum at 10 a.m. Friday. There will be no admission charge.

At this demonstration, Monsieur Alphonse Berg will show The Daily Star’s readers that it is possible to make an entire gown and put it on in less than two minutes.

With a mouthful of pins and about six yards of material, he builds a frock of bewildering beauty, hands the model a parasol or a hat and she is off to the races, or somewhere, for she walks out of view wearing a gown that would pass muster with anything that is ordinarily labeled “Exclusive Design” or “Copyrighted.”