Uncle John’s Briefs (24 page)

Contest:
Noodling

Played in:
The American South and Southwest

How it’s played:
It’s not exactly a sport. A 200-year-old tradition along the Mississippi River, it’s catfish fishing without a pole, without a net, without even bait. Noodlers stick their arms (called “noodles”) into stagnant river water where catfish are usually found, often behind or inside of large logs. When they find a catfish, they splash in the water to get the fish’s attention, then plunge their arms directly into the throat of the fish, which may weigh as much as 50 pounds. The fish—who are often guarding eggs—respond to the attack by clamping down on the angler’s arm. It’s so dangerous—hazards can include drowning or being bitten by snapping turtles and water snakes—that it’s illegal in 11 states. It’s popular (and legal) in Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Kansas, and Missouri.

Hair is 88% proteins.

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT?

Uncle John actually fell in love at first sight. So smooth and shiny. Those perfect proportions. That beautiful white…porcelain. You thought we were talking about Mrs. Uncle John? Oh, yeah. Her too
.

H
ERE’S LOOKING AT YOU

You’re looking around a crowded room, and your eyes meet the eyes of another. Pow! A shock runs through your whole body! Are you in love? Maybe. Read on to find out. That jolt isn’t imaginary. Scientists say that part of your brain actually perks up when you exchange looks with a person you consider attractive.

And just how did they discover that? British researchers used a special helmet to scan the brains of 16 volunteers (8 men and 8 women). Wearing an fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) helmet, each volunteer looked at 160 photos of 40 complete strangers.

In some photos, the strangers were looking directly at the camera—which made them appear to be looking directly at the volunteer. In others, the stranger’s eyes were turned away.

As the photos went flashing by—one every 3.5 seconds—the helmets recorded which part of the volunteer’s brain was active. After the brain scan was finished, the volunteers went back to the pictures and rated each one for attractiveness. The results of the experiment were published in 2001 in
Nature
magazine.

REAL SPARKS

Every time a volunteer saw an attractive person looking right at them, the volunteer’s ventral striatum lit up—that part of the brain is linked to the anticipation of a reward. But when the stranger in the photo was looking away, the magic didn’t happen; there was much less brain activity, no matter how attractive the person in the photo. The researchers attributed that to disappointment—the volunteer had failed to make eye contact with an attractive face.

The brain response happened fast—in just nanoseconds. Researchers think this means that it’s automatic, that we’re all wired for that kind of reaction.

The first recorded ruler of Japan was a woman…the Empress Himiko (3rd century A.D.).

EYES OF THE BEHOLDER

Does this mean that everybody responds to certain kinds of looks? The leading researcher, Dr. Knut Kampe of the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience in London, commented that we all might naturally respond to people who look strong and healthy. That could be connected with survival. But Kampe said that each of the volunteers defined attractiveness in different ways, and conventional beauty wasn’t the only important thing. Some looked for cheerfulness, others for a face that seemed to show empathy. Some even looked for motherliness.

IS IT LOVE?

So does it mean that love at first sight is real? Can we expect to instantly recognize our perfect mate? Probably not. Consider the following:

• Seeing a certain someone can get your brain buzzing—but so can seeing food when you’re hungry. The ventral striatum that responded to the photos is the same area that lights up in hungry lab animals who think they’re about to get fed. Gamblers and drug addicts have the same kind of reaction to the objects of their desire. That part of your brain gets excited when it expects
any
kind of reward.

• The brain’s quick response helps explain why we make snap judgments about people we meet. But first impressions can be wrong.

• The same brain area lit up for any attractive face—no matter whether it was the opposite sex or the same sex as the volunteer. Researchers think that’s because attractiveness often gets associated with social status. So maybe your brain assumes that hanging out with attractive people could improve your position. (In the case of monkeys, bonding with an animal higher up in the pecking order brings increased social status.)

So if you’re expecting a future with someone based on the jolt you got when your eyes met—slow down. You’ll have to engage some other part of your brain to find out whether the two of you actually get along.

A SHOWER OF STATS

According to surveys, 57% of Americans shower daily, 17% sing in the shower, 4% shower with the lights off, and 3% clean their pets by showering with them.

Q: Which three ships were boarded during the Boston Tea Party? A: The
Dartmouth
, the
Eleanor
, and the
Beaver
.

MYTH AMERICA

A few things you probably didn’t know about the founding fathers who wrote the U.S. Constitution
.

T
HE MYTH

The men who attended the Constitutional Convention in 1787 were a sober, well-behaved group. They showed up on time, stuck it out ’til the end, and were all business when it came to the important task at hand.

THE TRUTH

Not quite. According to historical documents found by researchers at the National Constitution Center in 1992:

• Nineteen of the 74 people chosen to attend the convention never even showed up. (At least one of them had a good excuse, though—William Blount of New York refused to make the horseback ride to Philadelphia because of hemorrhoids.)

• Of the 55 who
did
show up, only 39 signed the document. Twelve people left early, and 4 others refused to sign. “A lot of them ran out of money and had to leave because they were doing a lot of price gouging here,” observes researcher Terry Brent. Besides, he adds, the hot weather and high humidity must have been murder on the delegates, who wore wool breeches and coats. “They must have felt like dying. Independence Hall must have smelled like a cattle barn.”

• And how did the Founding Fathers unwind during this pivotal moment in our nation’s history? By getting drunk as skunks. One document that survived is the booze bill for a celebration party thrown two days before the Constitution was signed on September 17, 1787. According to the bill, the 55 people at the party drank 54 bottles of Madeira, 60 bottles of claret, 8 bottles of whiskey, 22 bottles of port, 8 bottles of cider, 12 bottles of beer, and 7 large bowls of alcoholic punch. “These were really huge punch bowls that ducks could swim in,” Brent reports. “The partiers were also serenaded by 16 musicians. They had to be royally drunk—they signed the Constitution on the 17th. On the 16th, they were probably lying somewhere in the streets of Philadelphia.”

WERE YOU RAISED
IN A BARN?

Tell the truth—how are your manners? Maybe you need some help from these old etiquette books. You may not believe it, but these are all real
.

“Although asparagus may be taken in the fingers, don’t take a long drooping stalk, hold it up in the air, and catch the end of it in your mouth like a fish.”

—Etiquette
(1922)

“Do not move back and forth on your chair. Whoever does that gives the impression of constantly farting or trying to fart.”

—On Civility in Children
(1530)

“If a dish is distasteful to you, decline it, but make no remarks about it. It is sickening and disgusting to explain at a table how one article makes you sick, or why some other dish has become distasteful to you. I have seen a well-dressed tempting dish go from a table untouched, because one of the company told a most disgusting anecdote about finding vermin served in a similar dish.”

—Martine’s Handbook of Etiquette
(1866)

“It is not the correct thing to put the spoon or fork so far into the mouth that the bystanders are doubtful of its return to the light.”

—The Correct Thing in Good Society
(1902)

“No decent person laughs at a funeral.”

—The Bazar Book of Decorum
(1870)

“When you have blown your nose, you should not open your handkerchief and inspect it, as though pearls or rubies had dropped out of your skull. Such behavior is nauseating and is more likely to lose us the affection of those who love us than to win us the favor of others.”

—The Book of Manners
(1958)

“Never put your cold, clammy hands on a person, saying, ‘Did you ever know anyone to have such cold hands as mine?’”

—Manners for Millions
(1932)

The word “arena” is from the Latin word for “sand.”

“It is unmannerly to fall asleep, as many people do, whilst the company is engaged in conversation. Their conduct shows that they have little respect for their friends and care nothing either for them or their talk. Besides, they are generally obliged to doze in an uncomfortable position, and this nearly always causes them to make unpleasant noises and gestures in their sleep. Often enough they begin to sweat and dribble at the mouth.”

—The Book of Manners
(1958)

“Peevish temper, cross and frowning faces, and uncomely looks have sometimes been cured in France by sending the child into an octagonal boudoir lined with looking glasses, where, whichever way it turned, it would see the reflection of its own unpleasant features, and be constrained, out of self-respect, to assume a more amiable disposition.”

—Good Behavior
(1876)

“If you ask the waiter for anything, you will be careful to speak to him gently in the tone of request, and not of command. To speak to a waiter in a driving

manner will create, among wellbred people, the suspicion that you were sometime a servant yourself, and are putting on airs at the thought of your promotion.”

—The Perfect Gentleman
(1860)

“It is bad manners, when you see something to nauseate you by the roadside, as sometimes happens, to turn to your companions and point it out to them. Still less should you offer any evil smelling object for others to sniff, as some people do, insisting upon holding it up to their noses and asking them to smell how horrible it is.”

—The Book of Manners
(1958)

“When not practicable for individuals to occupy separate beds, the persons should be of about the same age, and in good health. Numerous cases have occurred where healthy, robust children have ‘dwindled away’ and died within a few months, from sleeping with old people.”

—The People’s Common Sense Medical Adviser
(1876)

“Applause is out of order at any religious service.”

—Your Best Foot Forward
(1955)

Song played by the
Titanic
band while the ship sank: “Nearer My God to Thee.”

WHO WANTS TO
MARRY A MILLIONAIRE?

Trying to cash in on the success of
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?,
the “we’ll-try-anything” Fox Network came up with this concept for a reality show, easily one of TV’s darkest hours. (Two hours, actually.)

T
HE CONCEPT

Quite possibly the most degrading and humiliating moment in network television history—for contestants and viewers—
Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire
was exactly what the show’s title suggested: a chance to marry a millionaire live on TV. Fifty eligible females vied to win the hand of a mystery millionaire, who had supposedly been chosen from a pool of more than 100 millionaire bachelors—all of whom presumably would have been willing to marry a “nobody,” only moments after meeting them for the first time, on national TV.

WHO WANTS TO MARRY A STRANGER?

The mysterious future husband would remain hidden behind a screen, quizzing his potential mates-for-life as they strutted across the stage in swimsuits, wedding gowns, and other attire. Then, after nearly two hours of edge-of-your-seat suspense, he would step out, reveal his true identity, and marry his chosen bride on the spot. The show was kind of like a high-stakes “till-death-us-do-part”
Dating Game
…only with better prizes: The bride got a $35,000 engagement ring, a Caribbean cruise honeymoon, and an Isuzu Trooper. Estimated value: $100,000. The husband didn’t get quite as much, but it didn’t matter—after all, he was a multi-millionaire.