I'd like to make a toast to Greg Burch --
A person who has made profound contributions toward enhancing
the legal, historical and aesthetic minds of extropians. I admire
you because you are an artistic gardener, an explorer of environments,
a knowledgeable history buff, a masterful lawyer, a loyal friend,
a person of enormous feelings and compassion, and last, but not
least, a tall drink of water.
Long life to you!
Natasha
P.S. "Toasts and the custom of toasting have been around for
thousands of years. Some even claim that toasting is only a day
or two younger than drinking itself. In fact, one toasting historian
(yes, there really are toasting historians) says a primitive
form of toasting dates back thousands of years to nomadic tribes
who splattered a few drops of drink on sacrificial altars to
appease the hunting gods.
The word “toast,” as applied to drink, has its roots in the 1600s
when it was common to toss in a piece of bread or crouton into
one’s beverage as flavoring... mmmm. According to historian Paul
Dickson, the first application of the word occurred in Bath,
England in 1709. As the story goes, a “noted beauty” of that
fair city was seen bathing in public, when an admirer—so taken
by her loveliness—filled a cup with the bathwater and drank it
in her honor! Soon after, another admirer (admittedly half-cocked)
declared his admiration for the lady, but his revulsion for the
bath water. So, instead, he offered to eat the toast in her honor.
And thus, the term stuck.
For the Politically Correct:
It should be noted that almost as long as people have been toasting
one another, there have been those who believed the custom was
nothing more than an excuse for debauchery. In fact, Charles
the Great, Maximilian, Charles V, and even Louis XIV all enacted
harsh penalties against the practice of toasting. The custom
was even made illegal in colonial Massachusetts. (It was repealed
eleven years later due to the law being largely ignored.)
So frown upon it if you will... but the time-honored practice
of toasting appears to be here to stay."
Tom Donaghue
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