“The story was started by a gossipy French observer, who distorted what he had seen… We hope our readers will find that everything else that survived our fact checking to surface in this book is true. And we also hope these facts are full of wonder and surprise.” (xxiii)
Significa, originally published in 1983, is a collection of facts traversing a broad subject range including animals, history, law, literature, science, transportation, health, and more. From Queen Elizabeth II’s interest in heavy mechanics, Sybil Ludington’s midnight ride in 1777, corsets saving lives in 1840, flock of sheep on the White House lawn in 1917, astronauts passing customs, and the world’s biggest 1,400-pound camera in 1899 for the Paris Exposition, the facts and figures of this book are indeed “full of wonder and surprise.”
From “Chapter 4: Remarkable Animals” comes a story about a local postmaster and his dog. Jim Stacy took in Dorsey, a black-and-white shepherd dog, who would go on to deliver correspondence for the town of Calico, California from 1883 to 1886. When Stacy was unable to complete his route due to an illness, Dorsey was sent off with his saddlebag harness to boldly become a mail carrier of his own. Knowing the route from following Stacy for so long, Dorsey assuredly undertook the task and eventually received his own official mail route before moving to San Francisco with Stacy. Dorsey is still remembered in Calico, California today.
Stay tuned, Chelsea