Today's Feature

"The Ransom of Red Chief."

News release.

Stone’s Throw Dinner Theatre of Carthage will be presenting "The Ransom of Red Chief" written by O. Henry, adapted by Anne Coulte Martens. Produced by special arrangement with the Dramatic Publishing Company of Woodstock, Illinois. Financial assistance for this production has been provided by Missouri Arts Council, and Schmidt & Associates, PC of Carthage.

Performances will be July 28,29,30 and August 5,6 and 7. Reservations are required and may be made by calling Stone’s Throw Theatre at 417-358-9665 or Betty Bell at 417-358-7268 or by e-mailing bbell123@ipa.net. The box office will be open beginning July 25 from 10:00 a.m. to 12 noon.

On Thursday, Friday and Saturday the theatre doors open at 6:00 p.m. with dinner being served at 6:30 p.m. and the performance at 7:30 p.m. Sundays the doors open at 12:30 p.m. with dinner at 1:00 p.m. and the performance starting at 2:00 p.m. Admission is $19.50 for adults, $18.50 for seniors over 55 and groups of 10 or more. Youth under 16 are $16.00 and children under 5 are free.

These days I mostly get curious when I’m tryin’ ta figure out if I missed a turn somewhere. Sometimes I even get tired enough to stop and ask someone where I am. Ever’ now and then I run into other folks who are curious too. They’re wonderin’ where I am also. I’d guess you’re prob’ly startin’ ta wonder a little yourself.

I figure that bein’ curious is about the closest thing to pure fun that they’ve come up with yet. Don’t ya know that guy at the fillin’ station gets a kick outa wonderin’ how I got lost.

This is some fact, but mostly,

Just Jake Talkin’.

A Brief History of Paint

Q: Can you settle a bet? How long ago was house paint invented? My friend says it wasn’t created until the mid-1800s. I’m fairly certain people were painting their houses long before then, but he won’t budge. Do you have an answer for us? — Martin J., Columbia, Md.

A: Your friend may be thinking of the date that pre-mixed paints became widely available commercially. This happened in 1880, when after several years of experimentation, the Sherwin-Williams Company developed a formula that suspended finely ground paint particles in linseed oil.

Why was this important? Before this suspension (initially called "oil-bound distemper," rather than paint) was created, prepping the paint for houses, furniture, art — you name it — was a time-consuming and often expensive process. A limited range of colors was available, created from certain minerals, glass and natural dyes, and getting each color to adhere to a surface was often an art in itself.

You’re also right in thinking that house painting has existed much longer than 1880. Excluding cave painting, civilizations in ancient Egypt and China were known to decorate walls with colors made from iron oxides (umbers, ochres and black) and soil pigments (yellow, orange and red).

The Egyptians created the first known synthetic pigment — blue — 5,000 years ago by grinding down blue glass. The Romans created purple dye by crushing mollusk shells (4 million shells created just one pound of dye, meaning the color was rare and expensive). The Aztecs prized the red color extracted from the cochineal beetle far above gold.

Until 1880, creating paint for various uses was a painstaking art. Painters had to know the properties of each color, as well as the properties of the surface to which they would be applied. For example, the color India Yellow — created by mixing cow’s urine with mud and extracting the resulting pigment — had to be covered with a varnish after painting to keep it from fading.

Farmhouse kitchens and barn interiors in the U.S. were typically coated with a mixture of calcium hydroxide and chalk, commonly called whitewash. While not as durable as paint, whitewash helped protect the walls from weather. The calcium hydroxide also killed bacteria lingering on the walls, an added health benefit.