by Bill McLain
In 1935 an estimated 1.5 million people rode freight trains as hoboes across the country.
After the Civil War many soldiers had no home to return to so they wandered through the countryside in search of work, often as migrant farmhands. Because they often carried their own tools, including hoes, they were given the name “hoe boys,” which was later shortened to “hobo.”
As the country expanded westward, so did the hoboes. They were a big part of the workforce the railroads needed to lay track.
During the Great Depression in the 1930s, men once again took to the road to find work. Willing to work in remote areas accessible only by freight train, they were the core workforce that built the great dams and other structures in this country.
Hoboes still exist today, although most people wouldn’t recognize them as such. These are men who treasure personal freedom, love the land, and seek new adventures. You might find them building a pipeline through virgin land or working in an oil field or a lumber camp.
Our country owes a lot not to tramps or bums but to the hoboes of the past.
More questions? Try these websites.
BROADCAST MUSIC INC.
http://www.bmi.com/
You can search for any song by title, writer, or publisher and find relevant information. Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI) is a nonprofit organization. There are over 3 million songs in this database.
LEARN TO PLAT THE PIANO
http://www.artdsm.com/music.html
This website teaches you to play the piano. It has 34 lessons divided into starter, intermediate, and advanced studies. To begin the course, scroll down the page and click on Lessons. When the next page appears, scroll to the bottom for a list of the lessons.
LYRICS
http://www.garlic.com/-kpranger/lyrics.htm
If you’re looking for the lyrics to a particular song, you might find them here. This site contains links to other sites that contain song lyrics.
Odds and Ends
What is the world’s fastest roller coaster? (Ready for takeoff?)
If you like drag racing or taking off in a jet fighter, you’ll love the “Superman, the Escape” roller coaster at Magic Mountain in Valencia, California. The first roller coaster to break the 100 mph barrier, it is currently the world’s fastest roller coaster.
This high-speed ride launches 15-passenger cars from a standstill to 100 mph in 7 seconds with a force of 4.5 Gs as it heads skyward.
At the top, which is 42 stories high, riders experience 6.5 seconds of weightlessness and free-fall backward for the return trip.
The fastest inverted roller coaster is the “Raptor” at the Cedar Point amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio. This gut-wrenching ride features a “cobra roll” that flips passengers over, spirals them upside down into a 180-degree roll, and then repeats these twisting movements in the reverse order, all at speeds of almost 60 mph.
Cedar Point also has one of the fastest and steepest stand-up roller coasters. Riders speed over part of a lagoon and, among other thrills, experience four upside-down inversions at 60 mph while standing up.
FACTOIDS
The Cedar Point amusement park has more roller coasters than any other amusement park. The park’s 12 roller coasters are in The Guinness Book of Records and the park is known as the roller coaster capital of the world.
Before the advent of the roller coaster, people paid to drive their cars over an undulating track.
Many weddings are performed on roller coasters, and one minister specializes in such weddings.
Modern roller coasters take two to three years to design and cost $8 million on up.
There is a market for used roller coasters. It is cheaper to take one apart, move it, and reassemble it than to build a new one.
The longest roller coaster in the United States is the 1.4-mile “Beast” at Kings Island, Ohio.
The oldest operating roller coaster in the United States is the “Zippin Pippin” at Libertyland amusement park in Memphis, Tennessee. It was built in 1915.
DID YOU KNOW?
The origin of the roller coaster dates back to the 1700s when Russians created “ice slides” at country fairs. The slide was a steep drop made entirely of ice with a series of small bumps at the end. Riders sat on a straw patch on top of a block of ice and hung on to a rope tied to the ice block.
A French businessman who liked the idea decided to build an ice slide in France. Unfortunately, the ice melted and he ended up with a “slush slide.” He then tried an all-weather version by using a waxed wooden slope and a wooden sled with rollers on the bottom.
Because it took skill to use these sleds, there were many accidents. As a result, a crude track was built to ensure that the rider would descend in a straight line.
The beginnings of the American roller coaster come from the Mauch Chunk Railway, originally devised as a transportation system for coal mines. The mine was at the top of a mountain and the Mauch Chunk port was 18 miles away, all downhill. The miners simply loaded the coal cars and then pushed them off the top of the mountain. Gravity did the rest and the cars eventually ended up at the port.
Used for coal mining during the day, the Mauch Chunk Railway became a pleasure ride at night. People paid one dollar to ride a car down the main track. This “ride” exceeded today’s roller coasters, being an 18-mile ride at a speed of 100 mph. The railway operated from 1870 until the 1930s with an exemplary safety record.
Roller-coaster designs continued to evolve. Today’s innovations include corkscrews, loop-the-loops, suspended cars, inverted cars, and stand-up coasters.
What is the difference between green and blue mailboxes? (Really a relay.)
Blue mailboxes are for customers to deposit mail. Green mailboxes are used only by U.S. Postal Service employees and are called “relay boxes.” (If you ever try to put a letter in a “green” box, you’ll quickly discover there’s no opening.)
The post office leaves mail in a green box for the postal employee responsible for that route. In this way, postal employees who deliver mail on foot aren’t burdened with a heavy mailbag; they take mail from the relay boxes as needed.
It’s efficiencies like this that help make the Postal Service profitable. In fact, it has been self-supporting since 1982 and receives no government subsidies of any kind. Since 1982, the Postal Service has depended exclusively on postage and fees rather than taxpayer revenue for its operations.
Green mailboxes are only one of the many tools used by the Postal Service to maintain an efficient operation that processes 177 billion pieces of mail annually or about 580 million pieces of mail a day. The national delivery network now reaches 125 million addresses.
With successful and efficient automation programs, Postal Service employees are 500 percent more productive than those in Germany, 250 percent more productive than those in France and the United Kingdom, and 33 percent more productive than those in Japan.
FACTOIDS
The U.S. Postal Service handles 40 percent of the world’s mail volume while Japan, the second largest carrier of cards and letters, handles only 8 percent.
The Japanese pay 80 cents and the Germans pay 64 cents for first-class mail. America’s 33 cents for first-class mail is the lowest in the industrialized world.
As the nation’s largest civilian employer, with 729,000 career employees, the Postal Service employs more workers on American soil than General Motors, Ford, and the Chrysler Corporation combined.
The Postal Service maintains a fleet of over 200,000 vehicles and contracts for space on almost half of all commercial flights.
In 1639 the first public mailbox was installed in Burbank’s Tavern in Boston, Massachusetts.
The zip code (which is an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan) was created in 1963 by then postmaster general James Edward Day.
The Postal Service delivers more mail in 1 day than Federal Express does in a year, and more mail in 3 days than the United Parcel Service (UPS) does in a year.
A po
stal museum, established at the Smithsonian in 1886, houses a collection of more than 16 million mail-related items.
Why don’t beeswax candles drip? (Candle, candle, burning bright.)
Although beeswax resembles other waxes, its molecular structure is unique.
Typical paraffin candles consist of hydrocarbon molecules that react with oxygen in the candle flame and are transformed into water and carbon dioxide, which are then vaporized. Because paraffin molecules are large, not all of them are vaporized and many simply melt in the flame and drip down the side of the candle.
Beeswax molecules are small by comparison. The wax is completely vaporized by the flame, leaving no ash or wax residue. In addition to the smokeless and dripless characteristics, beeswax candles have a higher melting point, burn longer and more cleanly, and give off more light than other wax candles.
Honey bees consume 7 pounds of honey for each pound of wax they produce. The resultant wax is white, odorless, and tasteless. The so-called natural yellow color and pleasant aroma come not from the wax itself but from the pollen and honey stored in the wax honeycomb.
Beeswax was not used to make candles until around A.D. 300, when the Catholic Church mandated that for certain rituals candles had to contain at least 51 percent pure beeswax, the rest of the candle being either mineral wax or tallow. Some ritual candles today consist of 56 percent to 100 percent pure beeswax.
FACTOIDS
Beeswax candles found in Egyptian tombs are still pliable, even though they are thousands of years old. Beeswax candles salvaged from sunken ships are still in good condition even though they have been underwater for hundreds of years.
Beeswax is used in the manufacture of lipsticks, floor wax, and other products. So far, no one has been able to produce a good imitation of beeswax candles using other types of waxes. Beeswax candles remain unique to this day.
In the Middle Ages, it was customary to give a child a candle during baptism. This is the origin of putting candles on a birthday cake.
DID YOU KNOW?
The history of candles is not a well-lit path. Although many believe that candles originated over 3,000 years ago, no one knows for sure.
The Romans are given credit for developing the type of candle used today. At night these candles lit homes and places of worship as well as the way for travelers. The Romans made their candles from tallow, which was made from cattle or sheep suet.
Ancient peoples made candles from a variety of ingredients. Many used tallow, or animal fat. The Japanese used wax from an insect, the Chinese extracted oil from the tallow tree seed, and early American settlers made wax by boiling berries from the wax myrtle tree. In India wax was obtained from cinnamon, and in South America wax was obtained by scraping the leaves of the wax palm. American Indians simply stuck a spear through a candlefish and lit it.
All candles were made by dipping up until the fifteenth century when wooden molds were created by a French inventor.
However, almost all modern candle-making techniques date from the 1800s when stearic acid was first created. The braided wick was also developed at this time.
Before the braided wick, the tops of candlewicks had to be trimmed periodically. Villages with street lanterns would hire men to trim the wicks. Because of the height of the lanterns, the wick trimmers wore stilts while doing their job. The new braided wick put them out of business. The wick curled at the top, providing a better flow of oxygen to the rest of the wick. The top of the wick vaporized and the ashes fell off. There was no need to trim it.
In spite of all our modern electrical lighting, people still love the pleasant aroma and soft light given off by candles. Americans spend over $2 billion a year on candles, and sales have increased from 10 percent to 15 percent a year during the 1990s.
Today’s customers aren’t concerned about the light given off by the candle. Research indicates that the most important factors to consider when selecting a candle are shape, color, and scent. With a typical candle maker offering one or two thousand varieties of candles, there is no shortage of variety from which to choose.
Did Thomas Crapper really invent the toilet? (Flushed with pride.)
Although Thomas Crapper, born in 1836, was a real person and did have a successful plumbing career, most authorities agree that this common myth is simply not true. He held nine patents, four for improving drains, three for water closets, one for pipe joints, and one for manhole covers.
However, the “Silent Valveless Water Waste Preventer” system that allowed a toilet to flush effectively was invented by Albert Giblin, who worked for Crapper. Some authorities believe that Giblin let Crapper use his invention, while others believe that Crapper purchased the patent rights and then marketed the new device.
Crapper had three plumbing shops, one of which operated under the Crapper name until it closed in 1966.
During World War I, U.S. solders spent some time in England before going to the battle lines. They saw the words “T. Crapper-Chelsea” painted on the toilet tanks and coined the slang word “crapper” for a toilet.
FACTOIDS
The first flushing toilet was in use almost 4,000 years ago at the Minoan Palace of Knossos on the island of Crete. Unfortunately, this useful invention was lost and, although an Englishman invented a toilet (called a water closet) in 1775, so many people made fun of it that he never made another. It was another 200 years before another toilet appeared.
During the industrial revolution people moved in great numbers to the cities. A toilet was simply a glass or metal jar that people emptied by simply tossing the contents into the street below. However, common courtesy dictated that passersby be warned with the shout “gardyloos,” “gardez l’eau,” or “watch out for the water.” When an Englishman pronounced “l’eau” it sounded more like “loo,” which even today is the English slang word for toilet.
As more and more people began living close to one another, the problem of human waste disposal became acute. The famous Roman aqueducts that carried drinking water were not built until 500 years after the first sewers of Rome were built.
DID YOU KNOW?
When we think of a toilet, we usually also think of toilet paper.
Many methods were used before toilet paper was invented. Many regions used leaves, ancient Romans used a stick with a sponge attached, and American colonists used corncobs. In the 1700s people realized that the daily newspaper was good for more than just reading, and in the late 1800s the Sears catalog ended up in many outhouses.
In 1879 the Scott brothers invented toilet paper that consisted of single squares of a very coarse paper similar to crepe paper. It was not until almost thirty years later that toilet paper appeared in rolls of soft, fluffy paper. Although Americans like such toilet paper, the English still prefer it to be very coarse.
During the 1970s the United States experienced shortages of many items, such as gasoline and raisins. Famous talk show host Johnny Carson quipped, “You know what’s disappearing from the supermarket shelves? Toilet paper. There’s an acute shortage of toilet paper in the United States.” That did it. The next day many of the 20 million viewers ran to the stores and bought all the toilet paper they could find. By noon, most stores were completely out.
Although Carson explained on his next show that it had all been a joke and apologized, people still saw empty shelves in the stores and panicked. Scott Paper Company ran a video showing all of their plants in full production. It didn’t help.
It took three weeks before the shelves were restocked. The shortage was finally over, the only shortage in American history caused by the consumer.
What is the name and breed of the RCA dog? (His master’s voice.)
His name was Nipper. He was a mongrel, part bull terrier with some fox terrier.
Nipper was born in Bristol, England, in 1884. When his owner died, he was cared for by two brothers. One brother, Francis Barrud, had a photographic studio and often took Nipper with him to work. While in the studio, Nipper liste
ned attentively to the old phonograph. Barrud thought the dog, who was then 11 years old, might be hoping to hear his dead master’s voice. The thought inspired him to paint a picture of Nipper and the phonograph. He titled the finished painting His Master’s Voice.
Thinking his painting was too dark, Francis went to the Gramophone Company in London hoping to borrow a brass horn as an object to brighten up the painting. While there, he asked the owner if he might like to buy his painting. The owner agreed, with the stipulation that Barrud would replace the Edison cylinder phonograph with his company’s gramophone.
The deal was made and the painting became a trademark. It was called Dog and Trumpet.
Emile Berliner, inventor of the disc gramophone, visited the Gramophone Company and liked the painting so much that he began using the trademark in the United States. He later founded the company that became the Victor Talking Machine Company and eventually Radio Corporation of America (RCA).
Nipper’s current successor is a dog rescued from death row at an animal research laboratory by an agency that was searching for a dog to play the RCA mascot. This modern Nipper travels first class and wants his filet mignon cut into small pieces. When he travels, his own limousine always meets him at his destination. Nipper’s salary is used to save other animals from experiments.
FACTOIDS
Nipper is not the only famous dog star.
Tiger was the dog on The Brady Bunch.
Old Yeller was so named because of his yellow color and his “yelling” bark.
