Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  REVLON / Charles, Joseph & Martin Revson

  Background: According to Everybody’s Business, “The cosmetics giant was founded in 1932 by Charles Revson, his older brother Joseph, and Charles Lachman. A younger brother, Martin, joined the firm later. But it was Charles who led the company’s drive to the top.”

  Rivalry: “Joseph left the company in 1955 because he didn’t agree with Charles that Revlon should go public. He sold all his stock to the company for $2.5 million. (If he’d waited four years, the stock would have been worth $35 million.) Martin left in 1959 after bitter fights with his older brother. He sued the company, charging that his brother Charles ‘engaged in a practice of mistreating executives and abusing them personally.’ The brothers didn’t speak to each other for 13 years. ‘What brother?’ Charles once said. ‘I don’t have a brother.’”

  KELLOGG’S / John & William Kellogg

  Background: In 1876, 25-year-old Dr. John Harvey Kellogg became head of the Battle Creek Sanitarium. His first official act was to hire his younger brother, William, as “chief clerk.” To make the institution’s vegetarian food more palatable, the brothers invented a number of foods—including Corn Flakes. Then they set up a company on the side, manufacturing and distributing their cereal around the country.

  Rivalry: John, a world-famous doctor by 1900, insisted that Kellogg’s cereals be “health foods.” So he forbade the use of white sugar. William just wanted something that would sell...and when he added sugar to the flakes while John was out of the country, the partnership fell apart. “Will set out on his own...in 1906,” writes William Poundstone in Bigger Secrets. “By 1909 the brothers weren’t on speaking terms. Both spent much of the next decade suing each other. These legal actions resulted in the ruling that only Will’s company could market cereal under the Kellogg’s name, and in lifelong mutual enmity for the two brothers.” When John Harvey died in 1942, the two hadn’t spoken in 33 years.

  Quickie: Robert, James, and Edward Mead Johnson started Johnson & Johnson in an old wallpaper factory. Edward left and started Mead Johnson, which now competes with Johnson & Johnson.

  We love our freedom: Americans buy 12 million cordless phones every year.

  Q & A:

  ASK THE EXPERTS

  More random questions and answers from America’s trivia experts.

  CRACKING THE CODE

  Q: How did phone companies assign area codes?

  A: It seems strange that 212 is for New York City, and 213 is for Los Angeles, across the country. But in 1948, assigning area codes had nothing to do with geography; it had to do with how fast people could dial them (not punch them on a touchtone phone, but dial them on a rotary phone). The faster numbers—1, 2, and 3—were called “low dial-pull” numbers. They were given to large cities for one simple reason: it saved the phone company money.

  “Millions of people called those cities every day. The faster each caller was able to dial his number, the less time the phone company’s switching machines would be tied up making the connection...[and] the fewer machines the phone company had to buy.

  “Today, the only concern when assigning new area codes is to make them as different as possible from neighboring codes, so people won’t confuse the numbers.” (From Know It All!, by Ed Zotti)

  BUG OFF!

  Q: How do flies walk upside down?

  A: A fly has six legs. On each leg there are two little claws that look sort of like a lobster’s claws. “Underneath the claws [are] a pair of small weblike fuzzy pads called pulvilli. These are functional suction pads which the fly presses to the surface to squeeze out the air and create enough suction to hold itself up. Thus, with its claws and suction pads, the little pest can walk majestically upside down.” (From How Do Flies Walk Upside Down?, by Martin M. Goldwyn)

  STUMPED

  Q: Can you tell a tree’s age by counting the rings on a stump?

  A: Not necessarily. “In temperate climates, a single ring of light and dark wood is usually added each year—but sometimes more than one ring is produced in a growing season, or sometimes no ring at all. If a tree loses most of its leaves from a severe insect attack or drought, it begins producing dense wood and thus completes a ring. Then if a new crop of leaves grows again that same season, another ring will be formed. In a very dry year the tree might not grow at all, and no ring would be added that year.” (From Do Elephants Swim?, compiled by Robert M. Jones)

  Not yet, Mom: 23% of men between 35 and 39 live with their parents.

  LOVE MATCH

  Q: Why is zero called Love in tennis?

  A: It has nothing to do with affairs of the heart. “Love is really a distortion of the French word oeuf, which means egg, as in goose egg.” (From The Book of Totally Useless Information, by Don Voorhees)

  ILLOGICAL

  Q: Where did the people who created “Star Trek” come up with the name of Spock’s home planet, Vulcan?

  A: Believe it or not, astronomers were sure there actually was a planet called Vulcan somewhere between the planet Mercury and the sun. “Its existence—first proposed by French astronomer Urbain Jean Joseph Leverrier in 1845—was hypothesized to explain a discrepancy in Mercury’s orbit. Vulcan was even reported to have been observed once, but the observation was never confirmed. Einstein’s general theory of relativity explained Mercury’s odd orbit, and the existence of Vulcan was discredited.” (From The Book of Answers, by Barbara Berliner)

  DARK SECRETS

  Q: What is espresso?

  A: “Espresso is Italian for ‘quick,’ and it refers to a particular way of brewing coffee. Various espresso machines have been devised, but the basic idea always is to heat water under pressure above the boiling point and then force it rapidly through the ground coffee. The hotter the water, the more flavor is extracted from the coffee. The shorter the brewing time, the less bitter the coffee.” Espresso also refers to dark-roasted types of coffee that make the best espresso brew. (From Why Do Men Have Nipples, by Katherine Dunn)

  Crowd control: Purse-snatching is punishable by death in Haiti.

  AUNT LENNA’S

  PUZZLES

  More conversations with my puzzle-loving auntie. Answers are on page 663.

  My Aunt Lenna is quite talkative. One day she took a cab and chattered on at the driver incessantly. Finally, the man apologetically explained that his hearing aid was off, and without it he wasn’t able to make out a word she said. She stopped talking for the rest of the trip, but when she got to her destination, she realized she’d been tricked.

  How did she realize this?

  Aunt Lenna was chuckling.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked her.

  “Just a silly little puzzle,” she said.

  “Tell me.”

  “Okay. See if you can write the number one hundred using six 9’s.”

  “You mean, 9-9-9-9-9-9?”

  “That’s not how you do it, but those are the numbers.”

  How can I do it?

  “Such a pity,” said Aunt Lenna.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Oh, my friend’s wife passed away. It was quite sudden. He kissed her before he left for work, shut the apartment door, walked to the elevator and pressed the ground-floor button. He immediately knew his wife had died. Very sad.”

  “Wait a minute,” I stopped her. “How did he know she was dead? Is he psychic?”

  Aunt Lenna shook her head.

  “Well, then what happened?”

  What did happen?

  Forest Fact: A beaver can chop down as many as 216 trees per year.

  Physics isn’t my strong suit, so I was stumped when Aunt Lenna asked me this question: “Suppose there are three men on one side of a river, and someone fires a gun on the other side. One man sees the smoke from the gun; another hears the gunfire; and the third sees the bullet hit the water by his feet. Which of them knows the gun was fired first?”

  Do you know the answer?

  Aunt Lenna went for a walk by the wat
er, and came back quite upset.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  “Oh, it was terrible! There was a woman standing on the pier.

  There were tears in her eyes. She was very angry, and she seemed indignant over some injury that had been inflicted upon her.

  “I heard her cry, ‘You monster of cruelty! I’ve stayed with you too long. You’ve hurt the very foundations of my being! I’ve endured your tortures day after day. The first time we met, your ease and polish attracted me to you... and when you became my own, my friends were quite envious. But now...take a look at what I’ve suffered for your sake! You keep me from advancing myself! My standing in society has been ruined by you! If we’d never met, I might have walked in peace...but now...now we part forever!’

  “And I declare, nephew, she threw something in the water. I rushed over and ...”

  “Aunt Lenna! Did you call the police?!”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “But I don’t understand. Who...or what did she throw off the pier?”

  Do you know?

  “I went to a family reunion the other day,” Aunt Lenna told me. There were 2 grandfathers, 2 grandmothers, 3 mothers, 3 fathers, 3 daughters, 3 sons, 2 mothers-in-law, 2 fathers-in-law, 1 son-in-law, 1 daughter-in-law, 2 brothers, and 2 sisters. Can you guess how many people there were?”

  I thought for a moment. “Mm-m-m...I’d say, 10.”

  “That’s right!” Lenna said, amazed. “How did you know?”

  How did I get that number?

  Fleas jump 130 times their own height—the equivalent of a human jumping a 65-story building.

  FAMILIAR PHRASES

  More origins of common phrases.

  TO UNDERMINE

  Meaning: To weaken, usually secretly and gradually.

  Origin: “The term dates from the 14th century, when it was common practice for besiegers to tunnel under the foundations of a castle, either to enter it or to weaken the walls.” The tunnels were called “mines,” and the damaged walls were considered “undermined.” By the 15th century, any underhanded method used to defeat an enemy had become known as “undermining.” (From Fighting Words, by Christine Ammer)

  TO THROW SOMEONE TO THE WOLVES

  Meaning: Abandon someone; sacrifice someone to save yourself.

  Origin: The term comes from the Victorian age, when it was popular for printmakers to depict sleighs, drawn by horses at full gallop, being chased by packs of wolves. “Traditionally, if the wolves got too close, one of the passengers was thrown out to lighten the sleigh, in hopes that the rest of the company could escape while the animals were devouring the victim.” No one’s sure if this really happened, but it resulted in a “durable metaphor.” (From Loose Cannons and Red Herrings, by Robert Claiborne)

  TO TURN OVER A NEW LEAF

  Meaning: Get a fresh start; change your ways.

  Origin: Believe it or not, the expression has nothing to do with leaves from a plant; it refers to the “leaves” (pages) in a book—“the turning to a blank page in a [journal or] exercise book where one can start one’s work anew. Figuratively, such a fresh start gives the possibility of learning a new lesson in the book of life’s principles: a chance to begin again and mend one’s ways.” (From Getting to the Roots, by Martin Manser)

  Pigs and humans are the only animals that get sunburned.

  PRIMETIME PROVERBS

  TV comments about everyday life. From Primetime Proverbs, by Jack Mingo and John Javna.

  ON RAISING KIDS:

  Fred Sanford: “Didn’t you learn anything being my son? Who do you think I’m doing this all for?”

  Lamont Sanford: “Yourself.”

  Fred: “Yeah, you learned something.”

  —“Sanford and Son”

  Sophia: “She’s always tellin’ me what to do!”

  Rocco: “Don’t worry. My daughter treats me the same way.”

  Sophia: “Kids. Once they’re over fifty, they think they know everything.”

  —“The Golden Girls”

  ON PETS:

  “He who lies down with dogs gets up with fleas.”

  —Herman Munster,

  “The Munsters”

  Morticia Addams: “Now Pugsley darling, who could be closer than a boy and his mother?”

  Pugsley Addams: “A boy and his octopus?”

  Morticia [smiling]: “Hmmm... Perhaps.”

  —“The Addams Family”

  ON MAKEUP:

  “City women is spoiled rotten. All they think about is smearin’ themselves with beauty grease. Fancy smellin’ renderin’s. Why, if you was to hug one of ’em, she’d squirt out of yore arms like a prune pit!”

  —Granny,

  “The Beverly Hillbillies”

  “I haven’t worn makeup in years. It takes away that unnatural look that we girls like.”

  —Lily Munster,

  “The Munsters”

  ON SCIENCE:

  “The roots of physical aggression found in the male species are in the DNA molecule itself. In fact, the very letters, D-N-A, are an acronym for ‘Dames Are Not Agressors.’”

  —Cliff Claven,

  “Cheers”

  Aesop, Jr.: “There’s no fuel like an old fuel!”

  Aesop, Sr.: “Hmmm...I gas you’re right.”

  —“The Bullwinkle Show”

  Trap 40 fireflies in a jar and they’ll generate enough light for you to read by.

  FUN WITH ELVIS

  Imagine what a kick it would have been to hang out with the King at Graceland. Well, it’s too late now—but here are some of the exciting moments you missed.

  AT THE POOL

  Want to go for a dip? According to David Adler in The Life and Cuisine of Elvis Presley, “Elvis enjoyed sitting around the pool eating watermelon hearts. For entertainment while he ate, he would float flashbulbs in the pool. Then he would take out a .22 and shoot at them. When they were hit, they would flash, and then sink to the bottom.”

  ON THE FOURTH OF JULY

  Every Independence Day at Graceland, Elvis had a “fireworks display.” His Memphis Mafia split into two teams, put on gloves and football helmets, and shot fireworks at one another. “They would level arsenals of rockets and Roman candles at each other and blast away at point-blank range for hours,” says Steve Dunleavy in Elvis: What Happened.

  It was all laughs: “I’ve backed into burning rockets and had my ass burned half off,” laughs Elvis aide Red West. “I’ve seen Elvis bending over a giant rocket and watched the thing go off while he is leaning over it, nearly blowing his fool head off. [My brother] Sonny carries a scar on his chest to this day where one of us tried to blow a rocket through him. Roman candles would blow up in our hands. The house caught fire twice.”

  DEMOLITION DERBY

  You never knew what might happen when the King was bored. There was a beautiful little cottage in the corner of the Graceland property. One day, Elvis decided to demolish it...so he put on a football helmet and revved up his bulldozer. The only problem: His father, Vernon Presley, was sitting on the cottage porch.

  According to Red West, “[He yelled] ‘You better move, Daddy.’ Vernon asks why and Elvis says, ‘Because I’m gonna knock the goddamn house down.’ ...Vernon gives one of those looks like ‘Oh, Lordie,’ but he doesn’t say anything...he just gets up and Elvis starts roaring away.” To make it more interesting, Elvis and Red set the house on fire while they battered it with heavy machinery.

  The bald eagle’s nest can weigh as much as a ton.

  AT THE MOVIES

  The King couldn’t just go out to the movies whenever he felt like it—he would have been mobbed. So he rented the whole theater instead. “Elvis had private midnight screenings at the Memphian Theater,” writes David Adler. “They were attended by about a hundred of his friends. Admission was free, and so was the popcorn, but you had to watch the movie on Elvis’s terms. Elvis made the projectionist repeat his favorite scenes. If the action got slow, such as dur
ing a love scene, the projectionist would have to skip to the next good part. Elvis once saw Dr. Strangelove three times straight, with a number of scenes repeated so he could figure out exactly what was going on.”

  “Elvis liked James Bond and Patton, and any movie with Peter Sellers. His favorite movie of all time was The Party.”

  WATCHING TV

  And, of course, you could always stay home and spend a quiet evening watching TV...as long as Elvis liked the programs. If not, there was a good chance he’d pull out a gun and shoot out the screen. “Honestly,” Red West says, “I can’t tell you how many television sets went to their death at the hands of Elvis....He would shoot out television sets in hotel rooms and in any one of the houses he had. He shot out a great big one at Graceland, in Memphis, the one he had in his bedroom.”

  A classic example: One afternoon in 1974, the TV was blaring while Elvis was eating his breakfast. His least favorite singer, Robert Goulet, came on. As Red related: “Very slowly, Elvis finishes what he has in his mouth, puts down his knife and fork, picks up this big mother of a .22 and—boom—blasts old Robert clean off the screen and the television set to pieces....He then puts down the .22, picks up his knife and fork and says, That will be enough of that s—,’ and then he goes on eating.”

  Elvis Trivia: On his way to meet Richard Nixon in 1970 (to pose for the famous photo), the King suddenly had a craving. He insisted that his driver pull over to buy a dozen honey-glazed donuts; then he polished them off as they drove to the White House.

  There are three colors of blood: red, blue (lobsters), and yellow (insects).

  MONEY FACTS

  A few odds and ends about almost everyone’s favorite subject.

  THE FDR DIME

  Here’s how FDR wound up on our 10¢ coin:

  • Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was crippled by polio in 1921, escaped from his disability by swimming whenever he could. One of his favorite swimming holes was Warm Springs, Georgia, a natural spring. In 1926 the future president donated enough money to start a polio foundation at the site, so that other polio sufferers could enjoy the waters too.