STRANGE BUT TRUE

• It was German-American painter and lithographer Herm Albright who made the following sage observation: “A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.”

• It’s well-known that there were shortages of many items during World War II — and caffeine was one. It was such a problem, in fact, that the chemists at Coca-Cola tried to find a substitute, even experimenting with a derivative of bat guano. The idea was nixed by an executive who was afraid of the public backlash if the truth ever came out.

• Just as a group of birds is call...