Uncle John's Fully Loaded 25th Anniversary Bathroom Reader (Uncle John's Bathroom Reader)
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• SHARKS. A cookie cutter shark’s belly glows, except in one spot at its neck. From below, that spot looks like a fish. When predators come up for a bite, the cookie cutter takes a bite out of them!
Motor mouths: Americans use about 6 billion minutes of cell phone talk time every day.
• PLANKTON. Certain plankton produce bioluminescence, and huge concentrations of them—primarily dinoflagellates, single-celled organisms that are considered algae—can make the seashore glow a vivid blue at night.
• SEA WORMS. Several species shoot out liquid-filled, green bioluminescent capsules to distract predators, and Acanthephyra shrimp can squirt glowing blue vomit into the eyes of predators.
• MUSHROOMS. There are more than 70 varieties of bioluminescent mushrooms. Scientists aren’t sure why they shine, but the glow may attract bugs, which help spread the mushrooms’ spores.
• FUNGUS. Foxfire, blue-green light created by a fungus that lives on rotting wood in the forest, can be very bright—so bright that in 1775 it was used to illuminate the inside of world’s first submarine, the Turtle.
• TREE BARK. Quinine, which beams brightly under ultraviolet light and even strong sunlight, was discovered in the bark of the South American cinchona tree. Small quantities of synthetic quinine are present in tonic water, which glows under ultraviolet light. Quinine is used to treat malaria.
• MAMMALS. It was long believed that no mammals produced their own glow…until the discovery of iridescent golden moles in the early 20th century. Another mammal that emits a glow? Humans. People emit a faint shimmering aura, particularly from the face. The glow, a very weak biophoton discharge, is brightest in the late afternoon.
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WORDS UNCHAINED
Some of the words from West-African languages that came to America aboard slave ships: yam, banana, banjo, elephant, gorilla, cola, okra, sorcery, tater, turnip, and goober.
Oklahoma’s official state vegetable: the watermelon (even though it’s a fruit).
CIVIL WAR BLOODLINES
Two out of every three living Americans have at least one ancestor who lived through the Civil War. A select few have very famous ancestors.
FOREBEAR: Ulysses S. Grant
DESCENDANT: Ulysses G. Dietz, his great-great-grandson
STORY: Grant, Civil War general and president of the United States, was a Republican. But Dietz is a Democrat and, according to USA Today, when the military draft was abolished in 1973, he “jumped for joy.” (His call-up number was 4.) In 1994 Dietz decided that his famous ancestor deserved better than the years of neglect and vandalism the National Parks Service had allowed at Grant’s Tomb in New York City and threatened to have his great-great-grandfather’s body moved to Illinois. The Park Service invested $1.8 million to restore the damage, so Grant’s remains remained in New York.
FOREBEAR: Harriet Tubman
DESCENDANT: Pauline Johnson, her great-grandniece
STORY: After her parents’ passed away, Johnson found a black dress with white lace sleeves and collar in a closet in their house in Auburn, New York, which had a label with a name written on it: Harriet Tubman. Johnson was 25-years-old at the time, and her parents had never told her of any family connection to the legendary conductor of the Underground Railroad who helped many slaves escape to freedom. But Johnson’s aunt knew all about it and gave a stunned Pauline the news that she is related to Tubman.
FOREBEAR: Julia Ward Howe
DESCENDANT: John Shaw, Jr., her great-great-grandson
STORY: In 1861 Howe watched as Union soldiers prepared for war. The sight stirred her so much that she started writing a poem: “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” When “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” was published in 1861, Howe became an instant celebrity. In 1878 her daughter, Laura E. Richards, moved to a yellow house in Gardiner, Maine, where she wrote 90 books, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Yellow House Papers, a collection related to her family’s history. After his great aunt died in 1989, Shaw bought the original Yellow House from the estate and moved there with his wife and two children. Less than a year later, a thief invaded the home and abducted his wife and children. The children were recovered safely, but Shaw’s wife was murdered. Despite the tragedy, Shaw decided to stay on in the Yellow House. “Peg and I were in awe of the people who lived here before. Our goal was to honor these people and be worthy of staying in that house. I still plan to do that,” said Shaw.
The sun travels at 230 miles per second, fast enough to go from NY to L.A. in 11 seconds.
FOREBEAR: Frederick Douglass
DESCENDANT: Kenneth Morris, his great-great-great-grandson
STORY: As a kid, Morris was terrified of the old man with “the wild white hair” glaring down from a painting on the wall of his home. “He looked mean,” Morris remembers. Today that old man—Frederick Douglass—is the model by which Morris lives his life. Douglass escaped slavery and became the leader of the movement to abolish slavery. After learning that slavery (including forced labor and sex slavery) affects more people today than it did in 1861, Morris started the Fredrick Douglass Family Foundation, an abolitionist organization for the 21st century. Human trafficking rakes in more than $32 billion per year. “It’s the world’s second most profitable illegal industry,” said Morris. The average price of a human slave today: $90. Since 2007 the FDFF has educated more than 50,000 students about modern slavery. “Knowledge,” Frederick Douglass said, “makes a man unfit to be a slave.”
FOREBEAR: Jefferson Davis
DESCENDANT: Bertram Hayes-Davis, his great-great-grandson
STORY: The Dallas geologist owes his hyphenated surname to an act of the Mississippi Legislature. Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America, had six children, but only his daughter Margaret gave him grandchildren, and all had the last name Hayes. So in 1890, to preserve Davis’s historic last name, the state legislature gave them a new last name: Hayes-Davis. Now, every June, the 600-member Davis family gets together at the home of the Confederate leader, Rosemont Plantation outside Woodville, Mississippi. The oldest member gets to cut the birthday cake…with Jefferson Davis’s sword.
All NFL game balls are made by hand in Ada, Ohio.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE NEGRO LEAGUE
All about baseball’s other big league.
BACKGROUND
Baseball’s first governing body—the National Association of Base Ball Players—was formed in 1857. The group immediately wrote a rule barring black players. When the National League formed in 1871, it didn’t have an official rule banning black players—but it did have a “gentlemen’s agreement” to keep non-white players out. So blacks formed their own baseball associations.
• The first official league for black players, the Negro National League, formed in 1920. The rival Eastern Colored League was established three years later. In 1924 the champions of each league played each other in a “Colored World Series.” In the best-of-nine series, the NNL’s Kansas City Monarchs defeated the ECL’s Hilldale Athletic Club (based in Darby, PA) five games to four.
• A season in the Negro Leagues consisted of about 60 to 80 games played against other league teams. Beyond that, players played in 100 or so other games—against black teams, white teams, semi-pro teams, traveling teams, minor-league teams, small-town teams, college teams, and even Major League teams or ad hoc teams with pro or ex-pro players on the roster. Of the 436 games they played against Major League teams or teams with Major Leaguers between 1920 and 1950, Negro League squads won the majority, 268 to 168.
• Despite the wins, the leagues were poorly funded and poorly managed. Teams dropped in and out of leagues every year, particularly during the Depression. More popular teams, like the Kansas City Monarchs or the Homestead Grays, went some seasons without playing any officially sanctioned league games. Reason: It was more financially attractive to go “barnstorming,” playing exhibition games on the road.
Einstein invented a r
efrigerator that required no electricity and had no moving parts (1926).
• There were seven primary black baseball leagues. The Negro National League started in 1920, shuttered in 1931, returned in 1933, then closed up again in 1948. The Negro Southern League existed in between incarnations of the NNL. The Eastern Colored League lasted from 1923 to 1928. The American Negro League, made of some former ECL teams, formed in 1929 and lasted for only one season. The East-West League made it halfway through the 1932 season. The Negro American League was the last existing league, playing from 1937 to 1960.
• The Negro Leagues played night games before the big leagues did. In 1930 the Kansas City Monarchs took portable floodlights with them to road games. Five years later, MLB ballparks started installing lights.
• The Negro Leagues began using shin guards and batting helmets before their Major League counterparts. And they originated the screwball pitch.
• Because the league had very little money, records and statistics from that era are wildly inaccurate. It’s been widely reported, for example, that Negro League star Josh Gibson hit more than 800 home runs over his career, more than anyone has ever hit in the Majors. But historians estimate that because of the shorter season, Gibson probably hit somewhere between 200 and 300. (He is, however, the only player—in any league—ever to have hit a ball entirely out of Yankee Stadium.)
• Country-music star Charley Pride played for the Negro America League’s Memphis Red Sox in 1952. Today, he’s a part owner of the Texas Rangers.
• Baseball historians have begun to piece together statistics from old newspaper box scores and first-person accounts. That’s led to the increased status of Joe Williams as possibly the best pitcher in Negro League history, ahead of his more famous counterpart Satchel Paige. Some of Williams’s stats: In 1914 he went 41–3 in all games (and 12–2 in league play…with 100 strikeouts). In 1917 he struck out 20 batters in a no-hitter. And in 1930, at age 45, he struck out 27 batters in a 12-inning game, allowing just one hit. Williams retired in 1932 and died in 1946, a year before Jackie Robinson would suit up for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
A British study found that eating different cheeses before bed influenced dreams. The most bizarre dreams were caused by eating blue cheese.
• When Major League Baseball began drafting black players in 1947, that didn’t immediately kill off the Negro Leagues or the all-black travelling baseball teams. The Negro National League folded in 1948 partly because they lost too many players to MLB, also because the Homestead Greys (who folded a year later anyway) withdrew from the league to solely barnstorm. The last independent Negro League team was the Indianapolis Clowns, which ceased operations in 1966.
• In 1971 the Baseball Hall of Fame’s directors voted to admit Negro Leaguers into the Hall of Fame, ignoring a proposal to have a separate wing for those players. A special committee was formed to induct the first round of players. Enshrined that year were Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, James “Cool Papa” Bell, Oscar Charleston, Martin Dihigo, John Henry Lloyd, Buck Leonard, Monte Irvin, and Judy Johnson. (Only Irvin and Paige played in the Major Leagues.)
• Hall of Famer Dave Winfield has been especially vocal about recognition for the Negro Leagues. In 2008 Major League Baseball accepted his idea of holding a special honorary draft, in which each of the 30 MLB teams would “select” one player from the Negro League era. The New York Yankees picked Emilio Navarro, who was still alive at 102 years old. Technically, that makes him the oldest pro baseball player in history.
• Because of the on-the-road nature of the league and the poor record-keeping that resulted, the Negro Leagues have spawned a lot of baseball lore. One example: Cool Papa Bell was said to be such a fast base-runner that he once hit a line drive down the middle of the field and was hit by his own ball as he rounded second base. Another one: Josh Gibson was said to hit the ball farther and harder than any other baseball player ever. One time, he hit a home run out of the park in Pittsburgh. A day later, during a game in Philadelphia, a ball dropped out of the sky and an outfielder caught it. The umpire yelled to Gibson, “You’re out! Yesterday! In Pittsburgh!”
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“I failed to make the chess team because of my height.”
—Woody Allen
POP-PANTS
The rise and fall of the star-spangled girdle.
HOT PANTS
In August 1965, a girdle maker called the Treo Company cashed in on the Pop Art craze with a line of women’s undergarments called “Pop-Pants.” Available in panty-girdles ($7) and panty-briefs ($6), Pop-Pants came in four designs:
• “Big Zip,” with a large zipper down the front
• “Crying Eye,” with giant teary eyes on the front and winking eyes on the back
• “Hamburger ’n Soda Pop” (self-explanatory)
• “Stars ’n Stripes,” with red and white stripes on the legs and a few big blue stars on the hips
They all sold well, but not everyone was keen on the American-flag-inspired underwear.
THE D.A.R GETS M-A-D
Within days of the “Stars ’n Stripes” Pop-Pants going on sale, a women’s patriotic organization called the Daughters of the American Revolution declared the panty girdle a “mockery” and a “shocking desecration of the American flag.” “Patriotism should be encouraged by a proper respect to the stars and stripes,” said a spokesperson.
The D.A.R. is still around today, but it isn’t nearly as influential, or as able to raise a stink, as it was in the 1960s. After the group complained, the Treo Company moved quickly to diffuse the controversy, cancelling production of the Stars ’n Stripes and recalling the 3,000 pairs it had already shipped. It also asked the D.A.R. to accept its “sincere apology,” though a spokesman admitted to a reporter that he thought the controversy was “to a degree, ridiculous,” since the girdles were “obviously not made for public wear.”
Newspapers, commentators, and humorists had fun with the story, with headlines like “D.A.R. Squeezes ‘Old Glory’ Girdles Off the Market,” “D.A.R. Protects the Foundations of Liberty,” and “D.A.R. Pressure Pops ‘Stars ’n Stripes’ Girdle.” Some in the press had suggested the idea for the star-spangled girdle had come from an ad man on Madison Avenue, who’d undoubtedly said, “Let’s run them up the flagpole and see who salutes.”
Flies have two wings—all other flying insects have four.
FOREIGN AID
When asked what the Treo Company would do with all those recalled girdles, a spokesperson told the Herald-Tribune News Service, “We may have to give them away for charity, or maybe we should take them out and burn the damned things, or ship them to some foreign country.” Then he caught himself and said, “Oh, no, that is the last thing we should do, send them to a foreign country. The D.A.R. wouldn’t like that at all.”
A Woman’s World columnist noted that burning was the well-deserved fate of any girdle, new or old, but burning the Stars ’n Stripes girdles would dignify them since it was the honorable end for a worn-out American flag. Humorist Art Buchwald suggested that if they were given away as foreign aid it would, for once, be clear to all where the gift originated. He went on to say that the Old Glory girdles could be sent to Vietnam so the American troops fighting there could tell loyal Vietnamese women from the Viet Cong, although noting that if they fell into the wrong hands it might be confusing.
GOLDEN GIRDLES
When the Treo Company recalled the Stars ’n Stripes Pop-Pants they were only able to take back the unsold stock; an unknown number of the panties had already been purchased by the public. Of these, a handful survive to this day and are highly prized by underwear collectors. (Yes, such people do exist; Uncle John knows a woman who has a complete set of Pop-Pants, including a rare pair of Stars ’n Stripes. She gave him the idea for this story.)
Who knows? If you’ve got a vintage panty-girdle or panty-briefs lying around with blue stars on the hips and red and white stripes on the legs, it might be worth a lot more than you thin
k.
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Every man has a fool up his sleeve. —English Proverb
First product on the cover of Time magazine: Coca-Cola (1950).
PARENTHOOD
Some thoughts on the hardest job in the world.
“To me, life is tough enough without having somebody kick you from the inside.”
—Rita Rudner
“People who say they sleep like a baby seldom have one.”
—Leo Burke
“When kids hit one year old, it’s like hanging with a miniature drunk. They bump into things. They laugh and cry. They urinate. They vomit.”
—Johnny Depp
“Raising kids is part joy and part guerrilla warfare.”
—Ed Asner
“When my kids become wild and unruly, I use a nice, safe playpen. Then, when they’re finished, I climb out.”
—Erma Bombeck
“The thing that impresses me most about America is the way parents obey their children.”
—Duke of Windsor
“Like all parents, my husband and I just do the best we can, hold our breath, and hope we’ve set aside enough money to pay for our kids’ therapy.”
—Michelle Pfeiffer
“The way we know our kids our growing up: the bite marks are higher.”
—Phyllis Diller
“You learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance.”
—Franklin P. Jones
“If a growing object is both fresh and spoiled at the same time, chances are it’s a child.”
—Morris Goldfischer
“Before I got married, I had six theories about bringing up children; now I’ve got six children and no theories.”