Uncle John’s Briefs (8 page)

In 1898 Fletcher performed an experiment on himself. He began chewing each bite of food 30 to 70 times—even milk and soup, which he swished in his mouth—and never ate when he was upset or wasn’t hungry. After five months of “Fletcherizing” each morsel of food, he lost 60 pounds and regained his health. He also found that he could live happily on 1,600 calories a day, far less than the 3,500 to 4,500 calories recommended at the turn of the century.

THE GREAT MASTICATOR
The experience helped Fletcher find a new calling—pitching his chewing habits to the masses. His slogan: “Nature will castigate those who don’t masticate.” Fletcher’s lecture tours and bestselling books attracted tens of thousands of followers, including John D. Rockefeller and Thomas Edison. Adherents formed “Fletcher clubs,” where they met to eat slowly and chant ditties like:

I choose to chew, Because I wish to do, The sort of thing that Nature had in view, Before bad cooks invented sav’ry stew; When the only way to eat was to chew! chew! chew!

Fletcher died from bronchitis in 1919 at the age of 69, and his chewing theories soon followed him to the grave. But one thing that did survive him was his low-calorie diet: In 1903, a Yale University professor named Russell Chittenden examined Fletcher, found him to be in excellent health, and decided to try the diet himself. Soon after, his rheumatic knee stopped bothering him and his chronic headaches went away, prompting Chittenden to launch a series of studies into diet and health. These and other pivotal studies led to a ratcheting down of the recommended calorie intake from 3,500 a day to the 2,000 recommended today.

The Boston police department purchased America’s first cop car in 1903.

FAMOUS FOR
15 MINUTES

Here’s proof that Andy Warhol was right when he said that “in the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.”

T
HE STAR:
Mark Stutzman, a 34-year-old illustrator living in Mountain Lane Park, Maryland
THE HEADLINE:
Struggling Artist Takes Care of Business
WHAT HAPPENED:
Stutzman was just another artist having trouble making ends meet in 1992 when one of his clients encouraged him to enter a contest to design a stamp commemorating Elvis Presley. He’d never designed a stamp before, but he entered anyway, creating a portrait of the King in his younger days. “It’s the first thing I think of when I think of Elvis,” he says, “when he was really young and parents didn’t want their kids to listen to his music.”

Thirty artists submitted designs to the U.S. Postal Service; only Stutzman’s (a young Elvis) and another artist’s (an old, fat Elvis) were chosen as finalists. The American public would choose between the two designs by voting at their post office or mailing in a special ballot.

What happened? Millions of people cast their votes…and Stutzman’s stamp won overwhelmingly.

THE AFTERMATH:
The U.S. Postal Service ordered 300 million of the stamps and then, when those sold out in barely a month, ordered 200 million more, making it the most popular commemorative stamp in U.S. history. Estimated profits: $20 million. How much of that went to Stutzman? Zero—he got the standard design fee of $3,000… nothing more.

THE STAR:
James Carter, 76, an ex-convict and retired shipping clerk from Mississippi

THE HEADLINE:
Ex-Con Makes It Big with a Song He Can’t Remember, in a Movie He’s Never Seen

WHAT HAPPENED:
In September 1959, Carter was chopping wood with a Mississippi prison road gang. He frequently led the men in singing
while they worked, and one afternoon he happened to be recorded while singing a song called “Po’ Lazarus.” Carter served out his sentence and became a shipping clerk when he got out of prison. By 2002 he was retired.

Tommy Bolt is the only professional golfer to have been fined for passing gas (1959).

What happened to that recording of “Po’ Lazarus” is another story: It was preserved in a music archive, and in 2000 it ended up in the soundtrack of the film
O Brother, Where Art Thou
. The soundtrack was an even bigger hit than the movie: It went on to sell more than seven million copies, generating thousands of dollars in royalties for Carter…if anyone could find him, that is: After more than 40 years, nobody knew whether he was even still alive.

It took the record’s producer about a year to track Carter down in Chicago. One day two people showed up at his doorstep, told him about the movie (he’d never seen it) and the soundtrack (he’d never heard it), and handed him a check for $20,000, the first of what would likely be hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties.

THE AFTERMATH:
About a week later, Carter flew to the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, where he saw the album win five Grammies, including Album of the Year. For all that, Carter has trouble remembering the lyrics to the song that made him an instant celebrity. “I sang that song a long time back,” he says.

THE STAR:
Patrick Singleton, the only athlete representing Bermuda in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City

THE HEADLINE:
Athlete Comes Up Short(s) in Salt Lake

WHAT HAPPENED:
Did you watch the opening ceremony for the 2002 Winter Olympics? If you did, maybe you saw it: In the sea of athletes who participated in the ceremony, all properly outfitted for the bitter cold, Singleton wore shorts. Bright red shorts.
Bermuda
shorts—the one thing (other than the Bermuda Triangle) that the tiny British colony is known for.

Even before the Olympics were over, Switzerland’s Olympic Museum (where the International Olympic Committee is headquartered) contacted Singleton to see if he would be willing to donate his outfit to the museum. “I doubt we will ever see again an athlete walk into the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics wearing shorts,” a museum spokesperson told reporters. “Everyone will remember, because it was so cold!”

To magnetize a sewing needle, rub it about 20 times on a magnet.

NOVEL STARTS

Were you really just resting your eyes in high school lit class? Below are the first lines of classic works by famous authors. Go ahead, test yourself
.

1.
   “Early in the spring of 1750, in the village of Juffure, four days upriver from the coast of Gambia, West Africa, a man-child was born to Omoro and Binta Kinte.”

2.
   “He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf stream and he had gone 84 days now without taking a fish.”

3.
   “When Mary Lennoz was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle, everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen.”

4.
   “Who is John Galt?”

5.
   “It was a pleasure to burn.”

6.
   “You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.”

7.
   “TOM!”

8.
   “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”

9.
   “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed into a giant insect.”

10.
“Call me Ishmael.”

11.
“Whether I turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.”

12.
“Buck did not read the newspapers or he would have known that trouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tide-water
dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego.”

Submersible: An iguana can stay under water for up to 28 minutes.

13.
“1801—I have just returned from a visit to my landlord—the solitary neighbor that I shall be troubled with.”

14.
“Well, Prince, so Genoa and Hucca are now just family estates of the Buonapartes…”

15.
“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderly again.”

16.
“In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.”

17.
“The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting.”

18.
“3 May. Bistritz. Left Munich at 8:35
P.M.
, on 1st May, arriving at Vienna early next morning; should have arrived at 6:46, but train was an hour late.”

19.
“You better not even tell nobody but God.”

20.
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

Answers: 1. Roots (Alex Haley); 2. The Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway); 3. The Secret Garden (Francis Hodgson Burnett); 4. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand); 5. Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury); 6. Frankenstein (Mary Shelley); 7. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Mark Twain); 8. 1984 (George Orwell); 9. Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka); 10. Moby Dick (Herman Melville); 11. David Copperfield (Charles Dickens); 12. The Call of the Wild (Jack London); 13. Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë); 14. War and Peace (Leo Tolstoy); 15. Rebecca (Daphne du Maurier); 16. The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald); 17. The Red Badge of Courage (Stephen Crane); 18. Dracula (Bram Stoker); 19. The Color Purple (Alice Walker); 20. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)

Hobbit birthday! According to Tolkien lore, Bilbo Baggins was born on September 22.

YOU YELL, WE SHELL!

Every branch of the armed services has its own set of official inspirational mottoes. And behind the scenes, they’ve got some unofficial ones, too. Here are some examples of both
.

M
ARINE CORPS
Official:
Semper Fidelis
(“Always Faithful”), “Hell in a Helmet,” “Whatever It Takes,”
Mors De Contactus
(“Death on Contact”)
Off the Record:
“Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children” (USMC), “You Yell, We Shell,” “Muscles Are Required, Intelligence Not Essential, SIR!” (MARINES)

ARMY

Official:
“It Will Be Done,” “This We’ll Defend,” “Duty, Honor, Country,” “Over, Under, and Through,” “Hell on Wheels,” “Heaven sent. Hell bent.”

Off the Record:
“Yes My Retarded A** Signed Up” (U.S. ARMY spelled backward)

NAVY

Official:
“Can Do,” “Honor, Courage, Commitment,” “Always ready, always there,” “Lead, follow, or get out of the way.”

Off the Record:
“We’ve been to Hell…and it snows there too,” “You didn’t see me, I wasn’t there, and I’m not here now,” “In God we trust. All others, we monitor.” (Naval Intelligence)

AIR FORCE

Official:
Uno Ab Alto
(“One over All”), “Attack to Defend,” “Fire from the Clouds,” “These things we do that others may live”

Off the Record:
“We were going by there anyway,” “Nobody goes until we pass them the hose” (Fuel troops), “Without weapons, it’s just another airline.” (Weapons troops)

COAST GUARD

Official:
Semper Paratus
(Always Ready)

Off the Record:
“Support Search and Rescue—Get Lost”

The melting point of cocoa butter is just below 98.6°F. That’s why it melts in your mouth.

WHY DON’T
WE
HAVE
A WORD FOR THAT?

Americans excel at inventing colorful expressions and slang, but it turns out other countries are pretty good at it, too
.

Kummerspeck
(Germany): “Grief bacon”—the weight you gain by overeating when you’re worried about something.

Attaccabottoni
(Italy): A “buttonholer”—someone who corners casual acquaintances or even complete strangers for the purpose of telling them their miserable life stories.

Modré Pondeli
(Czech): “Blue Monday”—When you skip coming in to work to give yourself a three-day weekend.

Razbliuto
(Russia): The feeling you have for a person you used to love, but don’t anymore.

Shitta
(Iran): Leftover dinner that’s eaten for breakfast.

Tartle
(Scotland): To momentarily forget the name of the person you’re talking to. The word helps reduce the social embarrassment of such situations: “I’m sorry, I tartled there for a moment.”

Pana po’o
(Hawaii): To scratch your head in an attempt to remember something you’ve forgotten.

Ngaobera
(Easter Island): A sore throat caused by too much screaming.

Backpfeifengesicht
(Germany): A face that’s just begging for somebody to put their fist in it.

Papierkrieg
(Germany): “Paper war”—bureaucratic paperwork whose only purpose is to block you from getting the refund, insurance payment, or other benefit that you have coming.

Rujuk
(Indonesia): To remarry your ex-wife.

Mokita
(New Guinea): The truth that everyone knows, but no one will speak about.

Gorrero
(Spain, Central America): Someone who never picks up the check.

Fucha
(Poland): Using your employer’s time and resources for your own purposes. (Uncle John had never heard of such a thing and wanted to ask around the office if anyone else had, but everyone is still out to lunch.)