Piece of Plane

Puzzler time.

This is an old one.

The year is 1918. It is World War One. The Italians are on our side, fighting alongside the British trying to keep the Austrians from coming over the border into Italy. At that time, the Austrians were fighting for the enemy. They were not on our side, at the time.

They were trying to cross the Piave River into Italy. They were building these little makeshift bridges to cross the river. The Italian Air Force discovers this. So, they sent their best pilot, Francesco Baracca, into the air, with a few other planes to knock down these bridges. And Baracca valiantly goes and does this. Every available plane was in the air bombing these bridges and machine gunning the enemy troops below. In fact, in 24 hours, five tons of bombs were dropped on the Austrians. Pretty incredible number.

And finally, of course, the Austrians were repelled. However, one of the casualties was Francesco Baracca whose plane was shot down and he was found dead in the plane. Needless to say, the Italian authorities sent his body back to his parents and they removed a piece of the canvas from the plane. It was an emblem that was emblazoned on the canvas and the authorities cut this out and removed it and returned it to his parents. And they kept it as a keepsake.

Many years later, his parents were at a road race in the city of Ravenna. And they were impressed by the guile, cunning, and skill of a young driver in that race whose car was really overmatched by all the other cars in the race, and yet, with his skill and his daring, he was able to win the race. They were so moved by his performance that they presented him with the canvas piece of Baracca's plane that had been given to them.

So this canvas piece of the plane had an emblem on it.

The puzzler is, who is this driver? And what is the emblem and how does he use it?

Good luck.

Answer the Puzzler »

Remember last week's puzzler?

Trolley Dodgers

I was flossing the other day, so I had some time to think, and I was musing about the origin of the name, The Brooklyn Dodgers. I was watching a documentary about baseball, and it got me thinking.

So I looked it up, just for fun. It turns out that the people of Brooklyn were called 'dodgers' before the team was there. The people that lived in Brooklyn then were called 'Trolley Dodgers.'

The baseball team was originally the Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers, but they shortened it to just the Brooklyn Dodgers.

There were these electric trolley cars that ran through Brooklyn, and they ran right by the Ebbets Field where they used to play, and the fans had to dodge the trolley in order to get to the field. So they were called Trolley Dodgers.

And the question is very simple. Why were these people dodging trolleys? What was it about the behavior of the trolleys that made it necessary to dodge them?

And here is the hint. The hint is, Thomas Edison.

Good luck.