Thursday is Pecan Day, the anniversary of George Washington's 1775 planting of pecan trees (some of which still survive) at Mount Vernon. Native to southern North America, the pecan is sometimes called "America's own nut." First cultivated by Native Americans, the pecan has been transplanted to other continents, but has failed to achieve wide use or popularity outside of the US.

Friday is Make Up Your Own Holiday Day, so you may name it for whatever you wish: how about Roswell Public Library Day!

WHAT'S HAPPENING?

Beautiful, fun, talkative parrots will be the subject of Wednesday's 10:00 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. storytimes. Crafts will include Pom Pom Parrots and Pirate Parrots. Saturday morning's 10:00 storytime celebrates rockets and space with stories and balloon rocket and space mobile crafts.

BOOK TALK

The library's Loretta Clark provides this week's book information. April, which is National Humor Month, is just around the corner. It has been said that a laugh a day keeps the doctor away. Your Roswell Public Library has materials that stress the importance of humor, as well as tickle your funny bone.

In both print and talking book, "Relax--You May Have Only A Few Minutes Left: Using the Power of Humor to Overcome Stress In Your Life and Work" features relaxation techniques and stress management through wit and humor. In addition, the library has a video recording of "Humor Your Stress." In both of these, Loretta LaRoche uses humor to help people get a handle on stress by putting their lives back into perspective.

For humor from the past, listen to the CD of "Old-Time Radio: Comedy & Laughter," which includes skits from Jack Benny, Burns and Allen, Abbott and Costello, Milton Berle, The Great Gildersleeve, and Our Miss Brooks.

Books to bring a chuckle to adults are "Great Political Wit: Laughing (Almost) All the Way To the White House," by Bob Dole, and "Dave Barry Turns 50." For parents and children, Georgia Adams has collected "A Year Full of Stories: 366 Days of Story and Rhyme."

Libraries are books and more than books. Libraries offer not only materials for knowledge and information, but also for fun. Stop by your Roswell Public Library and check out a laugh!

DID YOU KNOW?

If you like to know how popular phrases came into use, you'll be interested in the origin of these phrases. In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts. In old England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them to mind their own pints and quarts and settle down. It's where we get the phrase, "Mind your P's and Q's."

Also in England many years ago, pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim or handle of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service. "Wet your whistle" is the phrase inspired by this practice.

It was accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer, and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the "honey month" or what we know today as the honeymoon.

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK: For the next few weeks, we'll be using quotes that the people quoted probably wish they had thought about more. This one comes from Winston Bennett, University of Kentucky basketball forward: "I've never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body."