Authors: Bathroom Readers’ Institute

Uncle John’s Briefs (46 page)

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“I watched the Indy 500 and I was thinking—if they left earlier, they wouldn’t have to go so fast.”

—Steven Wright

The White House owns more than 13,000 knives, forks and spoons.

MY BODY LIES
OVER THE OCEAN

When someone passes away and their remains are buried or cremated, it’s said
they are being “laid to rest.” But for some, the journey is just beginning
.

D
ANIEL BOONE
Claim to Fame:
18th-century explorer and American frontiersman
Final Resting Place:
Near Charette, Missouri…or maybe Frankfort, Kentucky
Details:
If you owned a cemetery and wanted to attract new customers, how would you do it? One trick: a celebrity endorsement. Living celebrity pitchmen are best, but dead celebrities aren’t bad either, because they can’t complain.

That’s how Daniel Boone ended up in Frankfort. When he died in the backwoods of Missouri in September 1820, he was buried in a small graveyard on a farm near Charette, in accordance with his wishes. But in 1845, the Capital Cemetery Company of Frankfort, Kentucky, started looking around for a famous American to bury in its new cemetery in the state capital. Boone was the perfect candidate: He was one of the founders of Kentucky and though he eventually left the state over a land dispute and swore he’d never return, he was still considered a hero.

Boone was also admired in Missouri, so the owners of Capital Cemetery had to act quickly and move the body before anyone could object. They enlisted the support of some of Boone’s distant relatives, and then went to the farm and talked the new owner into letting them dig up the body. But the graves were poorly marked, so no one knew for sure which one was Boone’s. That didn’t matter: they made their best guess, dug up the remains of two bodies—assumed to be Boone and his wife—and spirited them off to Frankfort for reburial.

To this day no one knows for sure whether Boone and his wife are buried in Missouri or Kentucky, and it’s doubtful we ever will. After so many years in the ground, there’s probably not enough left for a DNA test.

In France, it’s illegal to name a pig Napoleon.

LOST IN TRANSLATION

A few years ago, a British company called Today Translations commissioned
a worldwide poll of 1,000 professional interpreters to find the world’s most
difficult-to-translate words. Here’s their list of the 10 English words
that are the hardest to translate into other languages
.

A
ND THE WINNERS ARE:10. Kitsch.
“An item, usually of poor quality, that appeals to common or lowbrow tastes.” (Need examples? Stop by Uncle John’s house.)

9. Chuffed.
A British word. A variation on the adjective
chuff
(“puffed with fat”), it means “proud, satisfied, or pleased.”

8. Bumf.
More Brit-speak. A shortened version of
bumfodder
, it once meant “toilet paper,” but now refers to paperwork in general.

7. Whimsy.
“A quaint or fanciful quality.”

6. Spam.
The luncheon meat, not the junk e-mail.

5. Googly.
A term from the sport of cricket that means “an off-breaking ball with an apparent leg-break action on the part of the bowler.” To explain the meaning of googly, you first have to explain the game of cricket—that’s what makes this word so difficult to translate. “I am from Lithuania,” says translator Jurga Zilinskiene. “We simply do not have googlies in Lithuania.”

4. Poppycock.
“
Nonsense; empty writing or talk.” From the Dutch word
pappekak
, which translates literally as “soft dung.”

3. Serendipity.
Finding something valuable, useful, or pleasant that you weren’t searching for; a happy accident.

2. Gobbledygook.
Wordy, unintelligible nonsense.

…and the most difficult-to-translate word in English is:

1. Plenipotentiary.
“A special ambassador or envoy, invested with full powers to negotiate or transact business.”

A group of hummingbirds is called a
hover
; a group of sparrows is a
quarrel
.

THE SAD TALE
OF CENTRALIA

On Valentine’s Day, 1981, eleven-year-old Todd Domboski was walking through
a field in Centralia, Pennsylvania, when a 150-foot-deep hole suddenly opened
beneath his feet. Noxious fumes crept out as the boy fell in. He only survived
by clinging to some newly exposed tree roots until his cousin ran over
and pulled him to safety. What was happening here…and why?

C
OAL COUNTRY
Eastern Pennsylvania is anthracite coal country. Back at the turn of the 20th century, miners were digging nearly 300 million tons of coal per year from the region, leaving behind a vast subterranean network of abandoned mine shafts. In May 1962, while incinerating garbage in an old strip mine pit outside of Centralia, one of the many exposed coal seams ignited. The fire followed the seam down into the maze of abandoned mines and began to spread. And it kept spreading—and burning—for years.

Mine fires in coal country are actually not all that uncommon. There are currently as many as 45 of them burning in Pennsylvania alone. Unfortunately, there’s no good way to put them out. But that doesn’t stop people from trying.

• The most effective method to extinguish such a fire is to strip mine around the entire perimeter of the blaze. That’s an expensive—and in populated areas, impractical—proposition. Essentially, it means digging an enormous trench, deep enough to get underneath the fires, which are often more than 500 feet below ground.

• An easier (but not much easier) method is to bore holes down into the old mine shafts, and then pour in tons of wet concrete to make plugs. Then more holes are drilled and flame-suppressing foam is pumped into the areas between plugs. It, too, is a very expensive project, and it doesn’t always succeed.

• The cheapest way to deal with a mine fire by far is to keep an eye on it and hope it burns itself out. (One fire near Lehigh, Pennsylvania, burned
from 1850 until the 1930s.) After a 1969 effort to dig out the Centralia fire proved both costly and unsuccessful, they admitted defeat and let the fire take its course. By 1980, the size of the underground blaze was estimated at 350 acres, and large clouds of noxious smoke were billowing out of the ground all over town. The ground temperature under a local gas station was recorded at nearly 1,000°F. Residents of the once-thriving mountain town began to wonder if Centralia was a safe place to live.

In 1920 more than half of all Hollywood movies billed the leading lady above the leading man. In 1990, only 18% gave top billing to the female star.

EXODUS
When the boy fell in the hole and almost died, the fire beneath Centralia became a national news story. The sinkhole—caused by an effect known as
subsidence
, which occurs when mine shafts collapse, possibly because the support beams are on fire—put the town’s 1,600 residents in a fix. Their homes were suddenly worthless. They couldn’t sell them and move someplace safer—no one in their right mind would buy them.

The townsfolk were given a choice: a $660-million digging project that might not work, or let the government buy their homes. They voted 345 to 200 in favor of the buyout, and an exodus soon began. By 1991, $42 million had been spent buying out more than 540 Centralia homes and businesses.

GHOST TOWN
If you were to visit Centralia today, the first thing you’d notice is that there are more streets than buildings. At first glance, it would seem that someone decided to build a town, but only got as far as paving the roads. If you looked a bit closer, however, you’d notice the remnants of house foundations. Looking still closer, you’d see smoke still seeping out of the ground.

Just after the buyout, nearly 50 die-hard Centralians continued to live in the smoldering ghost town. Since then, the number has dwindled to less than 10. Experts estimate it will take 250 years for the fire to burn itself out.

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”

—Abraham Lincoln

THAT’S ABOUT
THE SIZE OF IT

Most people never give a second thought to life’s most important questions,
such as: How tall should a bowling pin be? Fortunately for them, Uncle
John does. Here’s a look at the standard sizes of everyday objects
.

Soccer Ball:
Must measure between 27 and 28 inches in circumference and weigh 14 to 16 ounces.

Napkin (dinner):
Should be no less than 183 square inches, unfolded. (A cocktail napkin should be no larger than 100 square inches, unfolded.)

Boulder:
An “official” boulder must be at least 256 millimeters (10.07 inches) in diameter.

Pebble:
A pebble must be no smaller than 4 millimeters (0.16 inch) and no larger than 64 millimeters (2.51 inches) in diameter.

Bowling ball:
Should be 27 inches in circumference and weigh no more than 16 pounds.

Bowling pin:
Should weigh between 3 pounds, 2 ounces and 3 pounds, 10 ounces and should be exactly 1 foot, 3 inches tall.

Dart:
Cannot be more than 1 foot in length, or weigh more than 50 grams.

Dartboard:
Must be hung so that the bull’s-eye is 5 feet, 8 inches above the floor. The person throwing the dart must stand 7 feet, 9 ¼ inches from the board.

Wash cloth:
Should be a square of cloth no smaller than 12 by 12 inches and no larger than 14 by 14 inches.

Compact car:
Must weigh at least 3,000 pounds, but no more than 3,500.

Parachute:
To slow a 200-pound person to a landing speed of 20 feet per second, a parachute must be 28 feet in diameter.

Golf ball:
Must weigh no more than 1.62 ounces, with a diameter no less than 1.68 inches. (A standard tee is 2
inches long.)