This is from the book 'The Yankee Way to Simplify Your Life' by Jay Heinrichs and the editors of Yankee magazine.(Morrow)

Boston installed streetlamps shortly before the Revolution, but left them unlit when the moon was bright.

Memers of church needed money to restore an organ in 1990, Pigeons had left a century's worth of droppings in the church bell tower. The members sold Pigeon Poop, packaged as fertilizer and sold it for a dollar a pound.

Lydia Maria Child, author of the 1829 book The Frugal Housewife, recommended using earwax for chapped lips.

John Phillips, the wealthiest man in Exeter, New Hampshire. soaked the backlog in his fireplace every night to save wood. During family prayers he would put out the candle, it's not needed when you eyes are closed, he said.

Somebody named Porter lived in a makeshift cabin and used dogs to keep him warm. His energy bill was one one 1-2 hundred dollars a year-mostly for dog food.

-- Cindy (SE. IN) (atilrthehony@hotmail.com), January 12, 2002

Answers

Ick about the ear wax thing!!!!

Porter's idea was how the term, "Three dog night" came to be, needed three dogs to keep you warm!!!

-- Annie Miller in SE OH (annie@1st.net), January 12, 2002.

The times have changed that is for sure!

-- Melissa (me@home.net), January 12, 2002.

Okay, how do you relight the candle? If you used matches, wouldn't it be cheaper not to waste the match?

Ditto on the earwax thing! Gross!

-- Christine in OK (cljford@mmcable.com), January 12, 2002.

They probably didn't use matches, probably re-lit it from the hearth (fireplace) Wonder when matches were first used? Mitch?? Can you find out for us?

-- Melissa (me@home.net), January 12, 2002.

Yankee magazine once had a tightwad contest. You were to submit a story about the biggest tightwad you knew. The winner was a lady who killed a mouse in church and then took a scrounged napkin out of her purse, wrapped the mouse in it, stuck it back in her purse, and then took it home to feed her cat! The same issue had a great story about Jim and Amy Dacyzyn.

-- vicki in NW OH (thga76@aol.com), January 12, 2002.

That church doesn't have anything on Milwaukee--they sell human excrement as fertilizer known as milorganite.

-- Ann Markson (tngreenacres@hotmail.com), January 12, 2002.