Flying Tuesday July 7; 2009.

The state flag of Missouri is flying in Vernon street today, July 7. What extraordinary event could possibly be celebrated? Maybe the greatest thing since sliced bread?

The Flag of the State of Missouri was designed and stitched in Jackson, Missouri, by Marie, the wife of former State Senator R.B. Oliver. Her design was adopted in 1913.

Sliced Bread !

Otto Frederick Rohwedder of Davenport, Iowa invented the first loaf-at-a-time bread-slicing machine.

A prototype he built in 1912 was destroyed in a fire, and it was not until 1928 that Rohwedder had a fully working machine ready. The first commercial use of the machine was by the Chillicothe Baking Company of Chillicothe, Missouri, which produced their first slices on July 7, 1928. Their product, "Kleen Maid Sliced Bread", proved a success.

During 1943, U. S. officials imposed a short-lived ban on sliced bread as a wartime conservation measure.

On January 26, 1943, a letter appeared in the New York Times from a distraught housewife:

...............“I should like to let you know how important sliced bread is to the morale and saneness of a household. My husband and four children are all in a rush during and after breakfast. Without ready-sliced bread I must do the slicing for toast—two pieces for each one—that's ten. For their lunches I must cut by hand at least twenty slices, for two sandwiches apiece. Afterward I make my own toast. Twenty-two slices of bread to be cut in a hurry!”

Don’t you just feel so sorry for US housewives?

Nice!!............. But then I suppose it is preferable to slicing it oneself ?