The Wombat File Is Yours to Keep

Merciful gods, can it really have gone on this long? The emails practically limp in...the fatigue is palpable.

I've taken this too far, haven't I?

But there's nothing to be done for it now. Nothing to be done but to SOLDIER ON. To inspire your last remaining energies I tried to write a parody of the St. Crispin's Day speech from Henry V but it came out worse than Kenneth Branagh in Celebrity. So I'll spare you.

Final answers are due Friday (January 19) at 12:01 AM E.S.T. -- that means Thursday night, in effect. All will be revealed, celebrated, and laid to rest on Friday. In advance of the date, please send mailing addresses as the actual, physical prizes are sitting on my desk at the office.

Here are your clues for the Final Round:

1. This word (in the plural, following "The") served as the title of a novel of manners by a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, published unfinished in 1938 after the author's death. It was later adapted into a film for television by Masterpiece Theater and the BBC. Its use in the title is metaphorical. Also, for thirty years the word has been used by a U.S. professional sports team as the name of their franchise.

2. He wrote in a letter to an equally famous figure, “I, as a Socialist, have had to preach, as much as anyone, the enormous power of the environment. We can change it; we must change it; there is absolutely no other sense in life than the task of changing it. What is the use of ...writing anything, if there is not a will which finally moulds chaos itself into a race of gods.”

3. One of the devices he invented for his work used a strand of catgut twisted around a cylinder. He also was an early voice identifying one of the pernicious aspects of sugar.

4. In the first case, it was responsible for what after the American Civil War was known as "Soldier's Disease." In the second case, it was was marketed by Bayer from 1898-1910 as (among other things) a cough medicine suitable for children.

5. The year this happened, the first (the American), was 58 years old. The second was 74 years old.

6. Actors who appeared more than once on the original series include Rich Little, Bill Bixby, JoAnne Worley, Phyllis Diller, Bob Denver, John Astin, and Paul Lynde. On the (main) spin-off, a yet-to-be-famous Tom Hanks appeared, seeking revenge. In one of the two tertiary programs, the action moved from the midwest to the West Coast after five seasons.