Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader (85 page)

(b)
James K. Polk

(c)
John Quincy Adams

(d)
Zachary Taylor

4.
No president and only one vice president,_________, has been sworn in outside the United States.

(a)
Alben Barclay

(b)
Thomas Jefferson

(c)
William Rufus De Vane King

(d)
Harry S. Truman

5.
After his presidency, William H. Taft (1857-1930) became

(a)
the owner of a health farm in Ludlow, Vermont

(b)
chief justice of the Supreme Court

(c)
commissioner of major league baseball

(d)
president of the International Red Cross

6.
No president has been

(a)
An alcoholic

(b)
An only child

(c)
A driven man

(d)
Close to his father

1960s music trivia: The Byrds say they wrote “Eight Miles High” about an airplane ride.

7.
President Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906 for

(a)
putting down his “big stick” diplomacy

(b)
warning Czar Nicholas that his Baltic fleet would be ambushed by the Japanese in Tsushima Strait

(c)
mediating the Russo-Japanese War, in a treaty conclave in Portsmouth, New Hampshire

(d)
keeping U.S. marines out of the French-German war over the future of Morocco

8.
The first president to accept in person the nomination of his party’s convention rather than follow tradition and acknowledge it weeks later was

(a)
Thomas Jefferson

(b)
Zachary Taylor

(c)
Grover Cleveland (the third time)

(d)
Franklin D. Roosevelt

9.
The first president to visit a foreign country was _________ and he visited_________.

(a)
Grover Cleveland, Canada

(b)
Theodore Roosevelt, Panama

(c)
Zachary Taylor, Mexico

(d)
Thomas Jefferson, France

10.
_________ presidents were professional soldiers.

(a)
Two

(b)
Six

(c)
Nine

(d)
Twelve

11.
_________ was defeated for the legislature, failed in business, suffered a nervous breakdown, was defeated for nomination for Congress, lost renomination to Congress, was rejected for land office, was defeated for the Senate, was defeated for nomination for vice president, was defeated for the Senate, then became president.

(a)
Abraham Lincoln

(b)
William McKinley

(c)
James Madison

(d)
Jimmy Carter

Did you see it? A 1966 movie was called
Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter
.

A story for people who read comics in the bathroom.

T
he modern comic book was born at the Eastern Color Printing Company in Waterbury, Connecticut.

In the late 1920s, Eastern printed the Sunday comic sections for a number of East Coast newspapers. Eastern’s sales manager, Harry Wildenberg, was looking for ways to increase the company’s profits and keep the printing presses busy. He came up with a clever idea: bind some of the comics into a “tabloid-sized book,” and sell them as a premium.

He convinced the Gulf Oil Company to give it a shot. They bought the books, gave them to customers...and were pleased with the results. Eastern had a new product to sell.

Meanwhile, Wildenberg was trying to make the package more practical. He noticed that if he shrank the comic strips to half-size, he could fit two complete strips on each tabloid-sized page. He played with the idea, and figured out how to produce a 64-page book of comics on Eastern’s presses.

A NEW PRODUCT

This new creation was a big hit with companies whose products were geared to kids. Procter & Gamble, Kinney Shoes, Canada Dry, and other businesses gave away anywhere from 100,000 to 250,000 copies at a time.

Then it occurred to people at Eastern that if the product was so popular as a premium, maybe it could be sold directly to kids. So in 1934, they printed 200,000 copies of a “comic book” called
Famous Funnies
, put a price on them (10¢), and got them onto newsstands around the country.

Famous Funnies
was an instant hit. Eastern sold 180,000 copies—90% of the first print run. And by the 12th issue, they were making as much as $30,000 a month from it.

The comic book was established as a profitable part of American pop culture.

Three most profitable sections in a supermarket: meat, fresh produce, pet food.

Think you’re in a bad relationship? Take a look at these folks
.

In Loving, New Mexico, a woman divorced her husband because he made her salute him and address him as “Major” whenever he walked by.

One Tarittville, Connecticut, man filed for divorce after his wife left him a note on the refrigerator. It read, “I won’t be home when you return from work. Have gone to the bridge club. There’ll be a recipe for your dinner at 7 o’clock on Channel 2.”

In Lynch Heights, Delaware, a woman filed for divorce because her husband “regularly put itching powder in her underwear when she wasn’t looking.”

In Honolulu, Hawaii, a man filed for divorce from his wife, because she “served pea soup for breakfast and dinner...and packed his lunch with pea sandwiches.”

In Hazard, Kentucky, a man divorced his wife because she “beat him whenever he removed onions from his hamburger without first asking for permission.”

In Frackville, Pennsylvania, a woman filed for divorce because her husband insisted on “shooting tin cans off of her head with a slingshot.”

One Winthrop, Maine, man divorced his wife because she “wore earplugs whenever his mother came to visit.”

A Smelterville, Idaho, man won divorce from his wife on similar grounds. “His wife dressed up as a ghost and tried to scare his elderly mother out of the house.”

In Canon City, Colorado, a woman divorced her husband because he made her “duck under the dashboard whenever they drove past his girlfriend’s house.”

No escape: In Bennettsville, South Carolina, a deaf man filed for divorce from his wife because “she was always nagging him in sign language.”

The Last Straw:
In Hardwick, Georgia, a woman actually divorced her husband because he “stayed home too much and was much too affectionate.”

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had a weakness for cologne.

Everyone’s amused by tales of outrageous blunders—probably because it’s comforting to know that someone’s screwing up even worse than we are. So here’s an ego-building page from BRI. Go ahead and feel superior for a few minutes.

S
TAMP OF DISAPPROVAL

In January 1994, the Postal Service unveiled a new set of commemorative stamps called
Legends of the West.
One of them honored rodeo star Bill Pickett, “the nation’s foremost black cowboy.” The portrait on the stamp was copied from a photo that Pickett’s biographer had pulled from a folder marked “B. Pickett” years earlier. However, the face on the stamp wasn’t Bill Pickett’s. It was that of Bill’s brother, Ben. The Postal Service had to recall the 100 million stamps they’d sent out. The cost: $1 million.

HE’S GOT A GUN!

In June 1993, a security officer patrolling the parking lot at Rochester General Hospital noticed a mustachioed figure sitting in the back seat of a car, with a rifle propped between his knees. The guard yelled to the man, got no response, then called the police. First, they sealed the back entrance to the hospital. Then, sharpshooters surrounded the car and tried to negotiate with the armed man. Then they realized the figure was a mannequin.

A BAD REVIEW

“In 1987 the
San Francisco Chronicle
published a review of the San Francisco ballet’s performance of Bizet
pas de Deux.
The review, headlined ‘S.F. Ballet Misses a Step at Stern Grove,’ slammed the performance. It nicknamed the principal dancer, Ludmila Lupokhova ‘Lumpy,’ and referred to her ‘potato-drenched Russian training.’ However, it turned out that the program had been changed at the last minute to
Ballet d’Isoline
, performed by five male dancers; Lupokhova had not even appeared.

Critic Heuwell Tircuit blamed poor health. He said he had been so sick during the performance that he hadn’t noticed the change in program and dancers.

1994 news report: Taco Bell had 3 restaurants in downtown Mexico City.

His editors said his story was “hardly credible” and fired him.

—From
If No News, Send Rumors

A DATE TO REMEMBER

On November 7, 1918, Admiral Henry B. Wilson, director of U.S. naval operations in France, received a telegram from Paris informing him that World War I was finally over. Wilson leaked the information to Roy Howard, president of the United Press wire service, and the news quickly crossed the Atlantic. It made headlines in afternoon papers all over the U.S., bringing business to a halt, causing joyous celebrations, and prompting a mammoth tickertape parade through the streets of New York City.

Later that evening, Howard discovered the message had been a fake. The war actually ended four days later.

MISSED HIM BY THAT MUCH

“In April 1993, just after Steve Morrow scored the goal that gave the Arsenal team England’s League Cup soccer championship, his teammates tossed him into the air in ritual celebration of their victory. However, they failed to catch him when he came down and Morrow was carried off the field on a stretcher and oxygen mask over his face. It was later determined he had a broken arm.”

—From
News of the Weird

EATING CROW

“During the Reagan era, a mother of four wrote to the White House saying she couldn’t feed her family on the reduced-food-stamps program. Someone apparently thought it was a request for a recipe and forwarded it to the First Lady’s office...which sent the woman a copy of Mrs. Reagan’s crab and asparagus recipe, costing about $20 to prepare.

“The Reagan administration was in the midst of trying to declare ketchup a vegetable and lines of the hungry were forming to pick up surplus cheese,” writes
The New York Times
, and the news media had a field day with the incident. “Thereafter, when the White House was asked for a recipe, it sent out one of Ronald Reagan’s favorites: macaroni and cheese.”

—From
But Not That Subject

Mark Twain tried to convince children that Santa Claus lived on the moon. He couldn’t.

Today we know that there’s no such thing as unicorns. But back in the 1500s, they were a sort of respectable version of Bigfoot. Although only a few people had ever “seen” them, it was widely believed that they existed. So when
Topsell’s Historie of Four-footed Beastes,
the first illustrated natural history in English, was published in 1607, unicorns were included. Here are some excerpts from the original version of the book. Remember, as you read, that these descriptions were considered science, not fantasy.

A
BOUT THE HORN

• “We will now relate the true history of the horn of the unicorn. The horn grows out of the forehead between the eyelids. It is neither light nor hollow, nor yet smooth like other horns, but hard as iron, rough as a file. It is wreathed about with divers spires. It is sharper than any dart, and it is straight and not crooked, and everywhere black except at the point.”

• “The horn of the unicorn has a wonderful power of dissolving and expelling all venom or poison. If the unicorn puts his horn into water from which any venomous beast has drunk, the horn drives away poison, so that the unicorn can drink without harm. It is said that the horn being put upon the tables of kings and set among their junkets and banquets reveals any venom if there be any such therein, by a certain sweat which comes over the horn.”

• “The horn of a unicorn being beaten and boiled in wine has a wonderful effect in making the teeth white or clear. And thus much shall suffice for the medicines and virtues arising from the unicorn.”

THE WILD CREATURE

• “Unicorns are very swift. They keep for the most part in the deserts and live solitary in the tops of mountains. There is nothing more horrible than the voice or braying of the unicorn, for his voice is strained above measure.”

• “The unicorn fights with both the mouth and his heels, with the mouth biting like a lion's and with the heels kicking like a horse’s. He is a beast of an untamable nature. He fears not iron nor any iron instrument.”

Yum yum! A pound of houseflies contains more protein than a pound of beef.

• “What is most strange of all other is that he fights with his own kind (yea, even with females unto death, except when he burns in lust for procreation), but unto stranger-beasts, with whom he has no affinity in nature, he is more sociable and familiar, delighting in their company when they come willingly unto him, never rising against them, but proud of their dependence and retinue, keeps with them all quarters of league and truce.”

• “With his female, when once his flesh is tickled with lust, he grows tame, gregarious, and loving, and so continues till she is filled and great with young, and then returns to his former hostility.”

NATURAL ENEMIES

• “The unicorn is an enemy to the lion, wherefore, as soon as ever a lion sees a unicorn, he runs to a tree for succor, so that, when the unicorn makes force at him, he may not only avoid his horn but also destroy the unicorn, for, in the swiftness of his course, the unicorn runs against the tree wherein his sharp horn sticks fast.”

• “Then, when the lion sees the unicorn fastened by his horn, he falls upon him and kills him.”