Uncle John’s Fast-Acting Long-Lasting Bathroom Reader

by Michael Brunsfeld

  —Jack Tatum

  “The pads don’t keep you from getting hurt. They just keep you from getting killed.”

  —Chad Bratzke

  “You’re kind of numb after 50 shots to the head.”

  —Jim Harbaugh

  “Football is a game of clichés, and I believe in every one of them.”

  —Vince Lombardi

  A working ballerina goes through an average of three pairs of ballet slippers a week.

  13 NAMES FOR A 12-INCH SANDWICH

  They’re all basically the same: a long roll filled with layers of meat, cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, and condiments. But what you call them depends on who you ask and where they’re from.

  HOAGIE

  Ingredients: Italian ham, prosciutto, salami, provolone cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and onions on a long roll, with oregano-vinegar dressing

  Origin: During World War I, Italian immigrants who worked in the shipyards at Philadelphia’s Hog Island would eat these long sandwiches for lunch. A common meal in Italy, native Philadelphians took to them, first calling the sandwich a “hoggie” in reference to Hog Island, then later “hoagie.” It became the official sandwich of Philadelphia in 1992, beating out the cheesesteak.

  ZEP

  Ingredients: Salami, provolone, tomatoes, onions, oregano, and oil Origin: The name is short for “zeppelin” (because it’s zeppelin-shaped). True zeps are found only within the city limits of Norristown, Pennsylvania, a small town 20 miles outside of Philadelphia. This sandwich also started with Italian immigrants.

  HERO

  Ingredients: Pork and other meats, provolone, usually with roasted peppers, vinegar, olive oil, and lettuce served on crusty Italian bread

  Origin: It was also introduced to locals by Italian immigrants, but “hero” was the New York City name coined sometime late in the 19th century. According to legend, New Yorkers named it a “hero” because “it took a true hero to finish one in a single sitting.”

  GRINDER

  Ingredients: Similar to a hoagie or a hero, but usually toasted

  By English law, the phrase “time immemorial” means history before the reign of Richard I.

  Origin: Italian immigrants set up sandwich shops near the East Coast shipyards during World War II. Their main customers were “rivet grinders,” the men who ground rivets on warships, and the term passed along to the sandwiches. Today, this term is especially popular in Michigan and the upper Midwest.

  SUBMARINE (OR SUB)

  Ingredients: Boiled ham, hard salami, cheeses, lettuce, tomatoes, onion, maybe some garlic and oregano on Italian bread

  Origin: This New Jersey sandwich was named by Dominic Conti, an Italian grocery store owner from the city of Paterson. In 1927 Conti went to see the Holland I, a submarine on display in Jersey’s Westside Park. The sub reminded Conti of the biggest sandwich he sold in his store, so he borrowed the name.

  ITALIAN

  Ingredients: The same as a submarine

  Origin: The only difference between this and the New York sandwiches is geography; it’s found mainly in the Midwest and upper New England.

  ROCKET, TORPEDO, and BOMBER

  Ingredients: Similar to a hoagie or a submarine

  Origin: These are other working-class names for working-class sandwiches. Like the grinder, they were named for the immigrant workers who built the rockets, torpedoes, and bombers during World War II. Also, many WWII-era bombers were erected using a new technique called “Sandwich Construction.”

  CUBAN

  Ingredients: Roast pork, ham, cheese, and a pickle on Cuban bread, grilled in a press until the contents are warmed by their own steam

  Origin: In the Ybor City area of Tampa, Florida, this sandwich can be traced back to the 1880s, when many Cubans immigrated there to work in the cigar factories. A real Cuban sandwich is almost impossible to find outside of Tampa or Miami. Why? Because Cuban bread contains lard, it must be made fresh daily, which makes it difficult to distribute.

  In St. Louis, Missouri, a woman must be fully clothed to be rescued by firemen.

  WEDGE

  Ingredients: Various meats, very thinly sliced, stacked, folded, and cut in half with the halves served at a 90-degree angle

  Origin: Not only the name of a sandwich, it’s also the name of a delimaster’s illusionary trick of manipulating thinly sliced meats to make portion sizes look larger than they really are. This sleight-of-hand has been handed down through generations of deliworkers, primarily in Westchester County, north of New York City.

  PO’ BOY

  Ingredients: It can feature crawfish, shrimp, fried oysters, catfish, crab, deli meats, or meatballs on a baguette. Served “dressed” with lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise, or “undressed,” meaning plain

  Origin: The po’boy was invented in the Cajun section of New Orleans in 1929. Two brothers, Clovis and Benjamin Martin, took pity on striking transit workers (Benjamin was a former streetcar conductor) and gave these “po’boys” sandwiches made of leftovers from their restaurant. Shellfish was abundant and cheap at the time, and became the main ingredient. Today, any long sandwich served in New Orleans is considered a po’boy, even one with deli meats. However, outside of New Orleans, it usually refers only to sandwiches containing seafood.

  DAGWOOD

  Ingredients: Anything and everything readily available that can fit between two slices of bread. A true Dagwood is built to such a humongous size that it is nearly impossible to take a bite

  Origin: The only food that Dagwood Bumstead, husband of Blondie in the popular comic strip, knew how to prepare was a mountainous pile of dissimilar leftovers precariously arranged between two slices of bread. The sandwich became synonymous with the character and took his name.

  * * *

  “It requires a certain kind of mind to see beauty in a hamburger bun.”

  —Ray Kroc, chairman of McDonald’s

  Although 90% of people in the U.S. say adultery is wrong, the adultery rate is about 70%.

  AUNT SHARI’S AMAZING POWERS

  Our Aunt Shari loves magic tricks and these classics are some of her favorites. Can you guess how they work? (Answers are on page 514.)

  PEEK-A-BOO

  “I have X-ray vision,” Aunt Shari told me. “It’s not like Superman’s—I can’t see through walls, or steel, or anything like that—but I can see through paper.”

  “I don’t believe you,” I said.

  “Okay,” she said. “You call out the names of five of your friends. I’ll write each one down on a piece of paper, then fold it up and put it in a bag. Then you reach in and grab one, and I’ll tell you what name is written on it before you even take it out of the bag.”

  “You’re on!” I said. Aunt Shari got a paper bag, some paper, and a pencil. I called out the names of five of my friends—Steve, Mike, Lara, Dave, and Marilyn—and she wrote each name down on a separate piece of paper, folded it up, and put it in the bag. Then she handed me the bag. I reached in, grabbed one, and said, “Okay.”

  Aunt Shari stared long and hard at the bag, then she looked up at me and said, “The name on the paper is…‘Steve.’”

  I pulled out the paper and unfolded it. “It says ‘Steve!’” I said.

  “You see? X-ray vision!” she said as she took back the bag.

  How’d she do that?

  PSYCHIC TATTOO

  “Hey, would you like a psychic tattoo?” Aunt Shari asked me.

  “Sure, why not?” I said.

  So Aunt Shari got a felt-tip pen and a drinking glass, which she filled with water. Then she went into her cupboard and came back with a sugar cube, on which she wrote a big letter “U” (for Uncle John) with the felt-tip pen. She dropped the sugar cube into the glass of water, then took my hand in hers and placed it over the glass. “The sugar cube will dissolve, but by the time it does,” she told me, “my psychic powers will have transferred the ‘U’ from the cube to your palm.”

  We are not alone: Males of many species act li
ke infants to woo their mates.

  Aunt Shari held my hand over the glass until the cube melted into a little pile of sugar at the bottom. The “U” looked like it had melted away too…but when Aunt Shari let go of my hand and I looked at my palm, there it was! The “U” was now on my palm.

  How’d she do that?

  FULL OF HOT AIR

  “I also have telekinetic powers,” Aunt Shari told me. “I can use my mind to move objects, start cars, fight forest fires, inflate balloons, you know, that kind of thing. Here, I’ll show you.”

  She went to her cabinet and got out a balloon and a soda bottle that was covered in aluminum foil all the way up to the lip of the bottle. She put them on the kitchen table.

  “I can inflate this balloon using only my brain,” she said, stretching the opening of the balloon over the lip of the bottle and letting it snap into place, sealing it over the bottle.

  “But psychic brain waves alone aren’t enough to inflate a balloon, because they scatter off in every direction,” Aunt Shari explained. “That’s what the foil is for—it catches the brain waves like an antenna and focuses them into the balloon. I’ll hold the balloon upright, so the captured brain waves will go straight up into the balloon. Ready?” she asked. She closed her eyes in concentration, then lifted the droopy part of the balloon and held it straight up over the bottle. And sure enough, it began to inflate.

  How’d she do that?

  MATH PSYCHIC

  “Now I’m going to have you solve a math problem using numbers you choose. I’ll use my psychic powers to guess the answer in advance, before you even pick your numbers,” Aunt Shari told me. She closed her eyes and thought for a moment. Then she wrote a number down on a piece of paper (without showing me), put the paper in an envelope, licked the flap, and sealed it shut.

  Then, handing me a pencil and another piece of paper, she said, “Pick a three-digit number, one in which each digit is different. Don’t tell me what it is. Write it down.” I picked 489 and wrote it on the piece of paper.

  Figure this one out: What word is synonymous with both “solve” and “shape?” A: Figure.

  “Now reverse the digits and subtract the smaller number from the larger one. If the answer is only two digits long, add a zero in front. In other words, if the answer is 24, write down 024.”

  Since 489 reversed is 984, I subtracted 489 from 984 and got 495. I wrote it down.

  “Now take your answer, reverse it, and add those two numbers together.”

  I reversed 495 to get 594, and added them together to get 1,089.

  Aunt Shari handed me the envelope. “Open it,” she said. I did—the number written on the paper was 1,089.

  “Wow!” I told her. “Do it again!”

  “Naaah,” she replied. “My psychic powers are pooped.”

  How’d she do it?

  KEEP THE CHANGE

  “That was pretty cool, but how do I know you’re really a psychic?”

  Aunt Shari gave me one of her looks and then said, “I guess I have enough psychic powers left to do one more trick.” Reaching into her change jar, she pulled out three coins—a penny, a nickel, and a quarter—and laid them out on the kitchen table.

  “I’m going to turn around, and when I do, I want you to pick one of the coins and touch it. Press down on it and keep your finger there while I read your mind. Concentrate! It’ll take me a little while, but I’ll be able to tell you which coin you picked.”

  Once her back was facing me, Aunt Shari said, “Okay.” I picked the quarter and pressed my finger down on it, concentrating hard. Less than a minute later she said, “Okay, take your finger off.” I did and she turned around to face me.

  “I must be more tired than I thought,” Aunt Shari said, “either that or you weren’t really concentrating. Anyway, I didn’t get much of a reading. The coins are going to have to whisper the answer in my ear.” She picked up the penny and held it to her ear for a moment; then she did the same thing with the nickel and the quarter. “You chose the quarter,” she said.

  How’d she do that?

  To find out how Aunt Shari did these tricks, turn to page 514.

  According to surveys, washing dishes is the most disliked household chore.

  FOUNDING FATHERS

  More stories about some famous names you probably know…and their origins, which you probably don’t.

  RINGLING BROTHERS

  When a circus came to their hometown of McGregor, Iowa, in 1870, the Ringlings, like a lot of kids, were inspired to put on a show: their pet goat (named Billy Rainbow) performed tricks in a tent the boys made themselves. Most kids probably would have stopped after a performance or two, but the seven Ringling brothers—Alf, Gus, Al, Charles, Henry, Otto, and John—never did. Their first professional circus, put on in Baraboo, Wisconsin, on May 19, 1884, was tiny in comparison to the shows being put on by P. T. Barnum and James Bailey. But the brothers kept at it, doing much of the work themselves and plowing all of their profits back into the business. By 1907 they were big enough to buy the Barnum & Bailey Circus outright. They ran it as a separate business until 1919, when they merged the two circuses as the “Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Combined Shows, the Greatest Show on Earth.”

  CHARLES MERRILL AND EDMUND C. LYNCH

  In 1907 Merrill, a recent college graduate working on Wall Street, happened to meet Lynch, a soda fountain equipment salesman, at the 23rd Street YMCA in New York City. They became friends and when Merrill formed his own brokerage firm, Charles E. Merrill & Co., in 1914, he asked Lynch to join him. After a few months of convincing, Lynch finally agreed. But it wasn’t until 1915 that the firm changed its name to Merrill, Lynch & Company. By 1941 it was the largest brokerage firm in the United States.

  ALLAN AND MALCOLM LOUGHEAD

  In 1912 Allan and Malcolm borrowed $4,000 and built a seaplane, called the Model G. They began giving aerial sightseeing tours of the San Francisco Bay in California. Four years later the brothers formed an aircraft manufacturing company and began making planes full-time. There was just one problem: their last name was easy to mispronounce, and the brothers were worried that customers would mistakenly refer to their airplanes as “lugheads” or “logheads.” Why take a chance? The brothers decided to spell the company’s name the same way that their last name was pronounced: Lockheed. In 1995 the company merged with Martin Marietta to form Lockheed Martin, one of the largest aerospace companies in the world today.

  Pop quiz: Are there more red stripes or white stripes on the American flag? A: Red, 7–6.

  DAVID ABERCROMBIE AND EZRA FITCH

  In 1892 hunter and outdoorsman David Abercrombie opened a store in Manhattan that manufactured and sold sporting goods. One of his regular customers was Ezra Fitch, a New York attorney who was so bored with law that he spent as much time as he could fly-fishing and hiking. Abercrombie was his outdoor gear supplier, and he enjoyed the equipment so much that he talked Abercrombie into letting him buy into the business. In 1904 Fitch became a partner in the store, but the partnership didn’t last long: Abercrombie wanted to keep the store the way it was, Fitch wanted to expand. Abercrombie resigned in 1907 and Fitch stayed on, outfitting such luminaries as Theodore Roosevelt, Amelia Earhart, and arctic explorer Robert Peary. The business went bankrupt in 1977 and was sold to another sporting goods chain; in 1988 it was purchased by the Limited, which turned it into a clothing company.

  WILLIAM FOX

  William Fox was born Wilhelm Fried to Hungarian immigrants who came to the United States in 1879, where he got his start in New York City’s garment industry. By 1904 he’d saved enough money to buy a penny arcade, which he later converted into a movie theater. From there he expanded into film production and distribution, and by 1929 his company was worth $200 million…until the stock market crashed. In just two days, Fox Studio’s stock had dropped from $119 a share to $1. Fox was forced to sell his stake in the company in the early 1930s, but the studio kept his name and in May 1935 it merged wit
h 20th Century Studios to become 20th Century Fox. (And in 1986 it added the Fox Television Network.)

  * * *

  A Bloody Terrible Joke: Why was the blood donation unsuccessful? It was all in vein.

  What is the lowest number, when spelled out, that uses every vowel? One thousand five.

  IT’S A WEIRD, WEIRD WORLD

  Proof that truth is stranger than fiction.

  DRIVING ME NUTS

  “After accepting a German man’s kind offer to tow his broken car, a stranded Polish motorist was taken on a terrifying high-speed joyride at speeds of 100 mph. The 36-year-old German tied a cable to the stranded car, and proceeded to hurl down the motorway at high speeds. The motorist, who remained inside his vehicle during the tow, flashed his lights and honked his horn at the speeding driver to stop. Police said the Pole was finally able to bring the German motorist to a halt by swerving his car back and forth. The German was taken to a psychiatric clinic.”

  —Reuters

  QUICKER PICKER-UPPER

  “Computer programmer Steve Relles, of Delmar, New York, has the poop on what to do when your job is outsourced to India. For the past year Relles has made his living scooping up dog droppings as the ‘Delmar Dog Butler.’ ‘My parents paid for me to get a degree in math and now I am a pooper scooper,’ said the 42-year-old father of two. Relles, who lost his programming job three years ago, now has over 100 clients who pay $10 each for a weekly yard-cleaning. ‘It sure beats computer programming because it’s flexible,’ Relles said. ‘And I get to be outside.’”

  —The Houston Chronicle

  BUTT I WAS JUST JOKING

  “Police arrested a man who dropped his pants in the crowded lobby of the St. Louis County Courthouse and made photocopies of his buttocks. Police found Daniel Everett holding two copies he had already made. He was making a third. ‘What did I do? What did I do?’ witnesses said Everett asked police. Everett, 38, said the copies were intended as a practical joke for his girlfriend.”