Betting on the Ponies or the Germans

It's friday the 13th. I don't know if I would call myself a superstitious person but I do try to avoid putting shoes on the table or the counter because ewww! That's just gross! I don't walk under latters, mostly because I never encounter them and I try not to cross the path of a black cat since I am a sucker for a stray animal! It has nothing at all to do with bad luck though! I do know plenty of superstitious people. When I was pregnant my bf told me I couldn't watch shows about murder because the baby could hear it and it would make her have nightmares..........I'm not sure if that can be filed in the superstitious category but either way. If you've ever watched the movie "Leap Year" you will see how superstitious the irish can be. "You can't start a journey on a sunday, it's bad luck".

I inherited a book about home remedies and superstitions of Pennsylvania Germans. Listen to this......If a person suffers from homesickness, if you have a garden, take a pinch ground from the cross path and put it into your coffee to cure the homesickness! And it also says you can cure a nosebleed by chewing newspaper! Oh! And here's one that I thought was absolutely absurd........If a person drowns and the body cannot be found all you need to do is throw a loaf of bread in the water......it will hover over the body! Please don't throw a sliced loaf in, it could cause mass confusion or swarms of fish or geese!  Bahaha! If you want to know more about the superstitions of pennsylvania germans all you have to do is find this book "Popular Home Remedies and Superstitions of the Pennsylvania Germans" by A. Monroe Aurand Jr. It's a very thin book but is full of crazy ideas. Or if you want to borrow it, contact me and I'll pass it along. Anyway............. 

I wonder how much superstitions effect the economy. I bring this up because I have a family member who works at a Horse Race Track and they open their live season on friday the 13th. In past years they have brought in tens of thousands of gamblers! That's just the amount of PEOPLE! I can only imagine how much money they spend on bets, food, beer, shoe shines and etc.  I just wonder how this will effect their profits. I tend to think that gamblers are highly superstitious folks! I've been to the track a few times. I'm not sure if I like the "sport" and I don't understand the betting process but,  I've placed one bet and won. It's easy to pick out the hard core gamblers. The beads of sweat forming on their brow as the horses shoot out of the gate, gripping their tickets like it was a free pass to heaven! And when their horse comes in short the color drains from their face or it has the opposite effect and they turn beat red with anger. If they are superstitious,  They have their lucky numbers. They only bet at certain windows. They only bet on horses of a certain color or maybe they bet on the horse in the odd number shoot. Who knows. Either way, they can be superstitious. So, I wonder if they will lose money on a day where people tend to be highly superstitious! Or maybe the Germans have a lucky charm you can carry in your pocket to keep bad luck away on friday the 13th.............Nope! Didn't see anything about that! Sorry! But I did run across something about catching a wife that I thought was silly.......If a man seeks a wife he should put sugar in his armpits (honestly! I'm not making this up) until it gets warm....it will act as an aphrodisiac if put into the womans drink! LADIES IF A MAN OFFERS YOU SWEET TEA.........do not drink it unless you want to fall in love with him or you saw him take sugar out of the sugar bowl! You just never know what a man has been reading these days! There could be more copies of this book floating around! And I'm going to leave it at that! But don't worry! We might have to try out some of these goofy superstitions.......we'll see!