It was a real shock.
I handed a girl at the counter of a Kona store a fifty-dollar bill, and for fun asked her who the person on the bill was. She had no idea. I gave her a twenty and she didn’t know it was Andrew Jackson — she’d never heard of him.
She was a graduate from a local high school and had no clue about the Americans on our money. I made a game of it around town, asking checkers who was on the currency. Very few knew whose pictures were on the money.
I decided to make a list of things people should know. Let us begin.
In science, the universe began with the Big Bang 15 billion years ago. The Earth is 5 billion years old. Dinosaurs lived 165 million years ago and the first humans were 2 million years ago. Beer was invented 10,000 years ago. Adam and Eve were 6,000 years ago. Maybe they drank beer in the Garden of Eden.
There are 9 planets that revolve around the sun. Pluto has been downgraded to an asteroid, but it has a moon so it can be a planet. The Earth is 8,000 miles in diameter and 24,000 miles around. It is round, trust me.
Since it is 24,000 miles around and takes 24 hours to spin around in a day, sitting in your chair you are now traveling 1,000 an hour. Better hang on.
Hawaii is not below the equator, we are 1,470 miles above the equator.
The stars are so far away it would blow your mind. The bright stars that don’t blink are planets. The one that glows red is Mars The bright one at sunset is Venus. The bigger one at sunset is Jupiter.
Find the Big Dipper, it’s the stars that look like a square box. Take the two stars on the back of the Big Dipper, follow them downward four lengths of the two stars, that’s the North Star. It’s dim but it’s the only star that doesn’t move.
Now the history lesson. The pyramids were built around 3,500 B.C. (Before Christ). The Trojan War, with Brad Pitt as Achilles, was in 1,200 B.C. At the same time south of Troy, Moses was getting the Ten Commandments from God.
Rome started in 700 B.C. The Parthenon in Greece was built in 450 B.C. Over in China, Buddha was walking around about this time. Then in year 1 or so, Jesus was born. King Arthur and his knights were 450 years after Jesus died.
In 1,000 A.D. a Viking, Leif Erikson, discovered America, which was actually Canada. When Leif Erickson was finding America, people from Tahiti discovered Hawaii. Years later in 1492, Columbus discovered America, which was actually an island by Florida.
In Europe, around 1,400 A.D. the Renaissance started. William Shakespeare wrote plays around 1500. Pilgrims on the Mayflower landed in 1620.
Jumping ahead to 1776, George Washington kicked the British out of America and started our country. In 1848 Americans stole all the western states from Mexico. The Civil War was from 1861-65. In 1893 businessmen stole Hawaii and we finally had a country called America.
There’s a lot more — 3 wars, landing on the moon, cars, Taylor Swift. Ask your teachers the rest, and make sure they tell whose pictures are on the money.
Dennis Gregory writes a bi-monthly column for West Hawaii Today and welcomes your comments at makewavess@yahoo.com.
