The Moonduster Chronicles
The Official Newsletter of Operation Just Cause

Operation Just Cause...                                                                    ...for as long as it takes


Readers' Trivia Answers
April 1, 2000

Questions:

  1. What is the name of the last surviving soldier of the Revolutionary War?

  2. What is meant by the expression 'three sheets to the wind?'

Answers:

1.   The last surviving veteran of the American Revolutionary War was Daniel F. Bakeman, born in 1760, died on April 5, 1869. A photo of his gravesite can be found here:

Grave of Daniel F. Bakeman

2.   The sheets referred to are the control ropes attached to the sails on a ship. When three of these sheets are untied and allowed to run free the now uncontrolled sails flap in the wind. As a result, the ship staggers and lurches just like a drunk person.

Here are the answers sent in for last week's trivia questions:

Timothy Guy

1 - "There are no more surviving soldiers from the Revolutionary War. They are all dead."

2 - Three Sheets to the Wind means 'drunk'. Three sheets to (or in) the wind is a nautical expression. If three sheets - which are the ropes holding the sails rather than the sails themselves - are loose and blowing about then the boat will lurch about like a drunken sailor. I don't know where it originated but I expect it was from the British Navy. Dickens uses it in Dombey and Son.

1) They are all dead unless they are like John Wayne, in suspended animation and waiting to come back for the VA Benefits that were promised to them.

2) Sh**-faced

Vistit Chris' webpage for his Dad, Captain Richard Rich, USN


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