Uncle John’s Unsinkable Bathroom Reader (59 page)

Location:
Omaha, Nebraska

Details:
Outside of Omaha is Boys Town, the 900-acre orphanage immortalized in the 1938 Spencer Tracy movie of the same name. Boys Town has a stamp museum, which is where visitors can find the Ball. It measures only 32" in diameter, but weighs a whopping 600 pounds, and consists of approximately 4.65 million postage
stamps. The Boys Town Stamp Collecting Club started the project in 1953 by sticking stamps on a golf ball. Just two years later, the ball reached its current size. Visitors may touch the ball, as long as they don’t remove—or add—any stamps. (No word on why the residents of Boys Town ever started the stamp ball in the first place.)

Location:
Rugby, North Dakota

Details:
Rugby’s town museum, Pioneer Village, has a display showcasing Cliff Thompson, who was 8 feet, 7 inches tall and was born in Rugby (population 2,900) in 1904. Thompson had a teaching degree, but never taught because his height precluded normal work. So he toured the freak-show circuit as “Count Olaf.” The Pioneer Village display includes a lifesize replica of Thompson and an outline of his size-22 foot.

Location:
Edison, New Jersey

Details:
A 13-foot, eight-ton incandescent light bulb tops the Thomas Edison Memorial Tower and Menlo Park Museum. The giant bulb was installed in 1937, made up of 153 individual pieces of glass, each two inches thick. And it actually still works. The concrete tower (and the big bulb) stand on the exact spot where Edison developed his original (much,
much
smaller) light bulb in 1879.

Location:
Yarmouth, Maine

Details:
David DeLorme, Chairman and CEO of DeLorme, a mapping-software company, commissioned the globe for his company headquarters in 1996. At 41 feet across and three stories tall, “Eartha” is the largest reproduction of the Earth ever constructed. Visitors to DeLorme can view the globe, called “Eartha,” at three different levels: North Pole, South Pole, and the equator. Eartha actually spins on its axis at a 23.5 degree angle, like the real Earth, and is covered in 792 computer-generated map panels. It makes one complete revolution (equaling a day) in 18 minutes.

Random trivia about President Richard M. Nixon (1913–94)
.

• Nixon is the only person in American history to be elected to two terms as vice president and two as president.

• Nixon claimed to have never had a headache.

• At age three, Nixon fell out of a horse-drawn carriage and was run over by a wheel, leaving him with a permanent scar on his forehead.

• During the 1960 U.S. presidential campaign, 43-year-old John F. Kennedy got a lot of attention because he was so young. But Nixon wasn’t much older—he was 47.

• Nixon’s favorite lunch: cottage cheese with ketchup.

• Nixon’s two favorite songs: “Mr. Bojangles” and “The Impossible Dream.”

• At Duke University Law School, Nixon had two nicknames: “Gloomy Gus,” because he was considered a sourpuss, and “Iron Butt,” because he studied so hard.

• His Secret Service code-name: Searchlight.

• Nixon left the Navy and successfully ran for Congress in 1946, won a Senate seat in 1950, and was selected to be Dwight Eisenhower’s running mate in 1952. That means he was elected vice president of the United States just six years after leaving the Navy.

• Nixon’s mother named him after 12th century English king Richard I (the “Lionheart”).

• Most requested document at the National Archives: the 1972 photo of Elvis Presley’s Oval Office visit with Nixon.

• When he went in for his annual presidential physical, Nixon would wear his hospital gown backward, with the opening in front, then walk down the hallway to startle nurses.

• Nixon’s favorite TV show was
Gilligan’s Island
.

• Two of his accomplishments as president: he abolished the draft and he created the Environmental Protection Agency.

• Nixon appeared on the cover of
Time
magazine a record 56 times.

Sometimes it seems like life can’t get any worse…and then it gets worse
.

M
ULTIPLE CHOICE
Bad:
In May 2008, Justin Hill, 42, of Rock Island, Tennessee, was making a left turn into his driveway when a car he hadn’t seen suddenly smashed into his. His wife heard the crash and ran outside.

Worse:
She left the kitchen stove on, and the resulting fire burned down their home. To top it off, Hill was treated and released from a local hospital that night…after police gave him a ticket for failing to yield to oncoming traffic.

Bad:
In July 2006, Ryan Van Brunt, 16, was hit by a car near her home in West Orange, New Jersey. She spent the next ten days in a coma.

Worse:
After she woke up, her family informed her that she had to go to court…because one of the cops who responded to the accident had given her a ticket for jaywalking. (When she was finally able to go to court—six months later—the prosecutor apologized and the charge was dismissed.)

Bad:
Antonio Moreno of Madrid, Spain, got a telephone call at work one day in December 2007. It was his wife. She told him that the gas bill had come in the mail, and it was a big bill—prices had been skyrocketing at the time.

Worse:
The bill wasn’t the only problem: It was addressed to “Antonio Gilipollas Caraculo.” Translation: Antonio D***head A**face. When Moreno notified the gas company, a customer service representative apologized and later said it had been a prank by a contractor who would be dealt with. Moreno took the insult in stride, saying the publicity created by the story had at least resulted in old friends he hadn’t heard from in years calling…several times a day…asking to speak to “Mr. A**face.”

For some reason, “answering the call of nature” has worked its way into nearly every Tom Hanks movie
.

•
The Money Pit
(1986)
: Beleaguered homeowner Walter Fielding (Hanks) notices a cherub statue in his yard is having trouble “peeing.” “Prostate trouble?” he asks. Later, Walter pees on a small tree in his garden and it falls down.

•
Joe Versus the Volcano
(1990)
: Joe pees off of the luggage raft.

•
A League Of Their Own
(1992)
: Washed-up baseball star Jimmy Dugan pees for nearly a minute in the girls’ locker room. “Boy, that was some good peein’,” comments Mae (Madonna).

•
Forrest Gump
(1994)
: When Forrest meets John F. Kennedy, he informs the president, “I gotta pee.”

•
Apollo 13
(1995)
: Astronaut Jim Lovell urinates into a collection tube. “It’s too bad we can’t show this on TV,” he says.

•
Saving Private Ryan
(1998)
: Captain John Miller and Sergeant Horvath (Tom Sizemore) talk about an old war buddy named Vecchio, who would “pee a ‘V’ on everyone’s jacket, for Vecchio, for Victory.”

•
The Green Mile
(1999)
: Warden Paul Edgecomb suffers from a painful urinary tract infection that has him “pissing razor blades.”

•
Cast Away
(2000)
: Marooned Fed-Ex executive Chuck Noland is peeing on the beach at night when he sees the faint light of a passing ship.

•
Road to Perdition
(2002)
: Mob hit man Michael Sullivan is asked if coffee makes him sweat. His reply: “It also makes me piss.”

•
The Terminal
(2004)
: Stranded immigrant Viktor Navorski must hold his pee for hours while waiting for a pay phone call at New York’s JFK Airport.

Ironically, one of the few movies that Tom Hanks
doesn’t
pee in, or even mention it, is…1984’s
Splash
.

With more than 21 million built from 1938 to 2003, the original VW Beetle was the longest-running, most-produced car in automotive history. Here’s what they call it in other countries
:

Poland:
Garbus
(“Hunchback”)

Indonesia:
Kodok
(“Frog”)

Finland:
Skalbagge
(“Beetle”) or
Kuplavolkkari
(“Bubble Volkswagen”)

Japan:
Kabuto-mushi
(“Drone Beetle”)

Romania:
Buburuza
(“Ladybug”) or
Broasca
(“Little Frog”)

Estonia:
Pornikas
(“Beetle”)

Norway:
Boble
(“Bubble”)

Swahili:
Mgongo wa Chura
(“Frog Back”) or
Mwendo wa Kobe
(“Tortoise Speed”)

Dominican Republic:
Cepillo
(“Brush”)

Philippines:
Kotseng kuba
(“Hunchback Car”)

Mexico:
Vochito
(a friendly shortening of Volkswagen) or
Pulguita
(“Little Flea”)

Italy:
Maggiolino
(“Junebug”)

Turkey:
Kaplumbaga
(“Turtle”)

Pakistan:
Foxy

Greece:
Scaraveos
(“Scarab”)

Bolivia:
Peta
(“Turtle”)

Nigeria:
Catch Fire

Thailand:
Rod Tao
(“Turtle Car”)

Israel:
Hipushit
(“Beetle”)

China:
Jia Ke Chong
(“Beetle”)

Bulgaria:
Kostenurka
(“Turtle”) or
Brambar
(“Bug”)

Iran:
Folex
(“Frog”)

Iraq:
Agroga
(“Froggy”)

Guatemala:
Cucaracha
(“Cockroach”)

Nepal:
Bhyagute Car
(“Frog Car”)

Russia:
Zhuk
(“Bug”)

Belgium:
Coccinele
(“Ladybug”)

Spain:
Escarabat
(“Beetle”)

Denmark:
Boblen
(“Bubble”)

Imagine a diet of rock-hard, weevil-infested crackers, oversalted beef, dried peas, slimy water, and watered-down rum. Now imagine that you’re expected to climb riggings, swab decks, haul anchors, and fight wars on that diet
.

S
ETTING SAIL
Today we think of the world as a global community—anyone can get almost anywhere within a matter of hours. But until the end of the 16th century, travelers, traders, and explorers could go only as far as their oar-powered ships could take them. These ships did have sails, but their main power source was muscle, not wind. The Battle of Lepanto in 1571 is considered the last great naval battle fought between oar-powered ships (the 200 galleys of the Christian crusaders defeated the 273 galleys of the Turkish fleet). After that, sailing technology advanced rapidly and the “Age of Sail” began. It lasted almost 300 years.

During this period, the European fleets explored, conquered, and colonized the world from North and South America to the Caribbean, to Africa, and around the Cape of Good Hope to Australia and the South Pacific. They opened up trade with India and the Far East and expanded commerce between European nations. The huge sailing ships moved faster, carried more cargo, and armed themselves more heavily than any ships that preceded them. They also stayed at sea longer—voyages could last for months on end. So what did sailors eat? From the start to the end of the Age of Sail, shipboard food changed very little for ordinary sailors of Western navies and merchant fleets. Distinguishing characteristics: poor quality (and it deteriorated even more during the voyage), insufficient quantities…and the same thing, day after day.

Storage space on board was very limited and had to accommodate cargo, guns, equipment, and enough food and water to last as long as the voyage took—and no one could predict how long that might be. To save space (and money), shipowners and naval procurement
officials often skimped on provisions. On top of that, the ships were damp, so dry stores of food, such as dried peas, became infested with weevils and other bugs. Beer soured; butter got rancid. Salted meat and fish survived, but they were
too
salty and there wasn’t enough fresh water aboard to spare any for soaking the salt out. Fresh fruit and vegetables? Once a ship left port they were virtually unheard of.