Uncle John’s Unsinkable Bathroom Reader

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  • In 1916 Ray H. Muscott of Waters, Michigan, was issued a patent for a rear-tracked, front-ski vehicle that was used by mail carriers in the Midwest. But like the Aerosan, Muscott’s vehicle worked only on dry snow. Quebec, like much of the rest of Canada, has wet, deep snow, and no one could come up with a vehicle that could get through it.

  A praying mantis can catch and eat a hummingbird.

  GOING INTO BUSINESS

  And that’s all Bombardier could think about while he was at seminary. So at 17, he convinced his father to let him drop out and become an apprentice at a garage in Valcourt. After a couple of years of learning everything he could about mechanics, in 1926 he made another request to his father: a loan so he could open his own shop. Seeing his son’s potential, dad agreed. Young Bombardier quickly earned a reputation around town as a genius who could fix anything from cars to power tools to agricultural pumps. If he needed a tool that didn’t exist, he’d build it himself. He even dammed the creek next to the shop and built a turbine to power it. Bombardier was a pretty good businessman, too: He was able to pay his father back in just three years.

  As he entered adulthood, the softspoken, bespectacled inventor steadily grew his business. He married Yvonne Labrecque and the two started a family. At night and on Sundays, Bombardier would retreat to his workshop to tinker with snowmobile designs. He tried making a lighter engine so the vehicle wouldn’t sink, but it kept overheating. And despite ridicule from both friends and competitors, Bombardier kept redesigning the track, engine, and sleigh, emptying his bank account in the winter only to refill it the following spring and summer.

  And that’s the way it went for the next eight years…until tragedy struck. In the winter of 1934, Bombardier’s two-year-old son’s appendix burst. The boy would die if he didn’t get to the hospital, which was 30 miles away. But with the roads snowed in and no working prototype of his snowmobile in the garage, there was nothing that Joseph and Yvonne could do, and their son did die.

  Clinophobia is the fear of beds; reclinophobia is the fear of Barcaloungers. (We made up the 2nd one.)

  BACK ON TRACK

  Devastated by the loss, Bombardier knew he could help prevent other families from suffering the same fate. So he went back into his workshop and redoubled his efforts. And less than a year later, he’d done it: He’d devised a sprocket-and-track system that finally worked. It consisted of a rubber-and-cotton track that wrapped around toothed wheels in the back, and steerable skis in the front—just like a modern snowmobile, only much bigger and louder, and far less streamlined. After receiving a patent, Bombardier expanded his garage into a year-round production plant, creating much-needed jobs in the little town of Valcourt. Under the banner L’Auto-Neige Bombardier Limitée (Snowmobile Bombardier Limited), the inventor was ready for the big time.

  His first step: advertise. Driving his seven-passenger model—the B7—Bombardier easily made his way through the deep snows of the Quebec winter, always making sure he parked in front of newspaper offices. Sure enough, word of a working snow machine got out and initial sales enabled him to build a new production facility in 1940, when he introduced the 12-passenger B12. Unlike its predecessors, the wheels were solid instead of spoked, which stopped snow from accumulating and slowing down the vehicle. These early snowmobiles were used to deliver freight, take kids to school, and provide emergency services, giving people security and freedom in the winter months like they’d never had before.

  BOMBS AWAY

  When Canada entered World War II, the government decreed that only people who absolutely needed a snowmobile could buy one. Instead of panicking, Bombardier went into his workshop and within a few weeks built the prototype for the B11, designed especially for military use. Bombardier’s armored transport vehicles proved indispensable in the snowy battlefields during World War II, solidifying his reputation as both a genius inventor and a savvy industrialist. But he was still more than a decade away from the invention that would have the greatest impact on society: the personal snow-mobile.

  Because of the technological limitations of the times, smaller engines couldn’t power their way through deep snow without overheating. But by the mid-1950s, engine technology had caught up and Bombardier was able to combine a smaller engine with a continuous track system designed by his eldest son, Germain. In 1958 the company unveiled the two-person Ski-Dog—so named because Bombardier envisioned it taking the place of the sled dogs that wintertime hunters had relied on for centuries. But a printer’s error christened the new snowmobile with an unexpected new name: “Ski-Doo.”

  The world’s southernmost city: Ushuaia, Argentina.

  JUST DOO IT

  Thanks in part to the fun name, people viewed the Ski-Doo in a way that Bombardier hadn’t—as a recreational vehicle. But he was reluctant to market it as such, thinking the whimsical name might limit sales. Still, there was no denying it: A new winter sport had been born. Costing $900 each, 8,210 Ski-Doos were sold the first year. And although sales steadily increased, Bombardier didn’t push the Ski-Doos as hard as he could have, keeping the company’s focus on its all-terrain vehicles used by miners and the forestry service, two things for which he felt there would always be a market.

  But whether he realized it or not, Bombardier had opened up a whole new world for winter sports enthusiasts. Sadly, he wouldn’t live to see the Ski-Doo’s incredible success. On February 18, 1964, he died of cancer at age 56.

  WINTER LEGACY

  Today, Bombardier is a national hero in Canada. His offspring have kept the company going. Under the name Bombardier Recreational Products, they’ve branched out with Sea-Doos for the water and a whole array of other outdoor recreational machines. Snowmobiles are still used by the military, of course, as well as by search-and-rescue teams and by indigenous hunters in Canada. But their biggest use by far is for fun, as evidenced by the 3,000 snowmobiling clubs that exist around the world. In the United States and Canada, enthusiasts spend more than $28 billion on snowmobiles and related equipment every year. And a recent focus on environmental concerns aims to make them greener, cleaner, and quieter than ever.

  If you’re ever in Quebec, it’s worth stopping by the Bombardier Museum to see his original garage, where many of his prototypes and custom-built tools still reside. And if the roads are impassable, you can always hop on a snowmobile to get there—and you’ll know exactly who to thank for it.

  Statistics show: People in all income groups spend about the same amount on Christmas gifts.

  LAYERS OF THE ONION

  Onions, leeks, scallions, garlic, shallots, and chives are essential ingredients in modern cooking. And they’re all part of the same family.

  THE ONION’S PEDIGREE

  Archeological records suggest that onions have been cultivated for more than 5,000 years. It’s believed they originated in Asia, though they may grow wild on every continent. The ancient Egyptians considered them sacred and believed that the round shape and concentric rings symbolized eternity. According to some records, the slave laborers who built the Great Pyramid of Cheops, at Giza 5,000 years ago, were fed mainly chickpeas, onions, and garlic. Ancient Greek athletes ate onions and drank onion juice to give themselves energy. Roman gladiators were rubbed down with onion juice in the belief that it would make their muscles firm. By the Middle Ages, onions were common throughout Europe and were eaten by rich and poor alike (one of the few foods that were).

  Onion superstitions are common throughout history: They had the power to absorb poison (every onion was checked before cooking; bad onions were tossed out because it was assumed they’d absorbed poison); they cured colds, headaches, earaches, laryngitis, snakebites, and dog bites; they cleared warts and prevented baldness; if hung in the home, they warded off disease. And onions were good travelers—especially on ships, since they keep for long periods in cool, dark places.

  KNOW YOUR ONIONS

  Onions are edible bulbs (most bulbs—tulips, for example—are inedible), with leafless st
alks that grow at least a couple of feet above ground. Cultivated onions are divided into two categories:

  The pole carried over the shoulders with a bucket at each end is called a banghy.

  • Short-day onions, so called because they require only 11 to 12 hours of daylight (per day) to mature, or “bulb up” in the United States. They’re usually grown in the South—if you draw a line from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., short-days are grown below it. Short-day onions are planted in the fall and harvested in spring and early summer. They tend to be thinner-skinned and milder in flavor than their counterparts, the long-day onions. Most are yellow or white, but they can be red, too. Popular short-day varieties: “sweet” onions like Grano, Granex, Vidalia (a type of Granex that can be called “Vidalia” only if it’s grown in Georgia), Texas Super Sweet, red and white Bermuda, and red Torpedo.

  • Long-day onions need 14 to 16 hours of daylight to bulb up, so they’re usually grown in the North during the long days of summer and harvested from August through autumn and winter. Long-days tend to be more pungent in flavor, thicker-skinned, and hardier than short-day onions, and can be stored through the winter in cool conditions. They’re the ones available year-round at the supermarket, for use when a recipe calls for yellow or white onions. Spanish onions are long-day onions.

  THE CRYING GAME

  Some raw onions are mild enough to bite into, but others will bite you right back. That strong flavor had a defensive purpose in the evolutionary survival of the onion—it kept animals from eating them. Here’s why they’re so pungent: The onion plant draws sulfur from the soil, which creates sulfur compounds in its cells. When a raw onion is bitten into (or cut), the cells are crushed and two things happen. First, a pungent odor is released; second, a volatile chemical called a lacrimator flies into the air and lands in the eyes and nose of the nearest person (or animal), where it attacks nerve endings and causes pain and tears.

  The good news: The sulfur compounds are water soluble and heat sensitive, which means that if you rinse a cut onion in water or cook it, the strong bite will diminish. The milky liquid you see when you chop an onion is the residue of the sulfur compounds, so the more you rinse away, the less you’ll cry. Of course, it’s hard to chop an onion under cold water, but you can rinse an already-chopped onion in cold water. (Chilling it before cutting helps, too.) And when you cook the onion, it calms down even more. Cooked fast in a hot pan, the onion will lose a little bit of its bite; cooked slowly over low heat, it develops a sweeter, mellower flavor. And that’s true of garlic, leeks, shallots, and scallions as well.

  Highest quality of life of any city: Vancouver, Canada, and Zurich, Switzerland. (Tied for #1.)

  ONION FACTS

  • There are more than 1,000 kinds of onions, grown in at least 175 different countries.

  • Onions aren’t rich in minerals or vitamins (except vitamin C), but they’re low in calories and have no fat, cholesterol, or sodium.

  • China and India are the leading growers of onions. China harvested 2.2 million acres of onions in 2005; India harvested 1.3 million acres.

  • In 2007 the value of the U.S. onion crop was $840 million ($334 million for short-day onions; $506 million for long-day onions). Georgia, Texas, Arizona, and California were the big producers of spring onions; Oregon, California, and Washington were the leaders in storage onions.

  • A survey by researchers at Texas A&M University showed that men eat almost 40% more onions than women do.

  • Americans eat roughly 20 pounds of onions per person per year.

  • What are pearl onions (the ones that people serve in cream sauce at Thanksgiving)? They are simply ordinary white onions harvested when they’re still small.

  GARLIC FOR EVERYONE

  In the first half of the 20th century, garlic was considered low-class in the United States. Immigrant, working-class Southern Italians received most of the scorn: Garlic was called “Italian perfume” and “Bronx vanilla” (because there was a large Southern Italian community in the Bronx in New York City). That may seem unthinkable today, when Americans of every income level, religion, background, and ethnicity eat nearly three pounds of garlic per person annually. The shift began in earnest during World War II, when the U.S. government wanted dehydrated garlic to season food for the troops and turned to some California growers to meet the need. A few years later, a California farmer in Monterey County took a chance and grew 10 acres of the plant without anticipating much success in the marketplace. Today California is America’s major garlic producer.

  Size of a standard gold bar: 7 inches × 3 inches × 1¾ inches.

  Like the onion, garlic has a history at least 5,000 years long, and a lot of it lies in garlic’s purported medicinal powers. If you were an ancient-Egyptian bald man or if you had tuberculosis, backaches, gas, and not much sex drive (it’s like Uncle John has a twin!), garlic would have been the medication of choice. Over the centuries garlic has also been used to treat arthritis and rheumatism, dysentery and dyspepsia, chicken pox and measles, malaria and typhoid, dandruff, constipation, and the common cold. Eighteenth-century doctors thought it could cure the plague. It can’t, but modern medical researchers continue to look into garlic’s potential curative powers.

  GARLIC FACTS

  • What causes garlic breath? According to experts, it’s chemicals called thiols, which are related to the chemicals in skunk spray. What gets rid of them? Browning enzymes—the same things that make apples or peaches turn brown. Browning enzymes are present in lettuce, mushrooms, basil, and blueberries. So consider finishing off your garlicky meal with a green salad or a fruit salad. That should help with your bad breath.

  • China is the world’s largest garlic grower (the Chinese produce 75% of world tonnage—an estimated 23 billion pounds annually)—followed by India, South Korea, and the United States.

  • Garlic has little nutritional value—its primary value is flavor. (And if you eat too much of it, your skin will smell garlicky.)

  TAKE A LEEK (THE REST OF THE ONION FAMILY) Shallots. Shallots are a prized ingredient in French cooking, especially in sauces, stews, and soups. They look somewhat like garlic (a bunch of small, papery-skinned bulbs clustered on a common base), but their flavor is much subtler, and they’re structured in layers, like onions. Shallots originated in Asia, were brought to Europe by the Crusaders, and were introduced to the New World by the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto in the 16th century.

  Scallions. Scallions are immature onions, picked when their tops are green and no bulb has formed underground. They’re also known as bunching onions, baby leeks, and green shallots. Whatever you call them, their basic look is this: a slender white stem (with almost no bulb at the base), transitioning into long, straight, tubular green leaves. Both the white and green parts are edible—the white part having a stronger flavor. The green part is often snipped or sliced and used as a garnish.

  It takes 300 pounds of pressure per square inch to break a macadamia nut’s shell.

  Leeks. A leek looks kind of like an oversized scallion, with a sturdy white stalk flaring out into fibrous green leaves at the top. Before cooking, the tough tops of the leaves and the scruffy tuft of roots at the base are cut off, leaving only the central part of the stalk. Then they’re generally braised and served as vegetables in their own right or used as the base for soups (vichyssoise and Scottish cock-a-leekie are two good examples). Leeks are more popular in Europe than in the U.S. and have been cultivated in the Mediterranean region for over 4,000 years. Ancient Egyptians grew them (they can be seen in tomb paintings), and they were favorite vegetables of the Greeks and Romans. The emperor Nero believed that leeks would improve his singing voice, and he ate so many of them that he was nicknamed “Porrophagus”—leek eater. It’s not known how leeks made their way north to England and Wales (possibly with Phoenician traders or with the Romans), but the Welsh have long claimed the leek as a national symbol. Legend says that in a seventh-century battle against the Saxons
, Welsh warriors wore leeks on their hats to identify themselves to each other and prevent friendly fire. Even now, Welsh people wear leeks on March 1, St. David’s Day (he’s their patron saint) and celebrate by eating leek broth and chicken-and-leek pie.

  Chives. With most members of the onion family, we use the bulbs (onions, garlic, shallots) or the stalks (leeks), or the stalks and the leaves (scallions). With chives, which don’t form large underground bulbs, the onion flavor is in the hollow leaves, which are used as flavoring in soups, salads, and vegetables. (Their lavender flowers are edible too, and can be added to salads.) The ancient Chinese thought chives could stop bleeding and were an antidote to poison. The Romans used them for telling fortunes, and in the Middle Ages, people hung bunches of chives around the house to protect themselves from illness and evil spirits. Dutch settlers in the New World planted chives in their fields for their cows to munch, in the hope that the cows would give chive-flavored milk. (It worked.)

  Life is an onion and one peels it crying.

  —French proverb

  The average person will grow 6.5 feet of nose hair in their lifetime.

  HIGH-TECH TOY FLOPS

  Even if a toy is completely original and built around cutting-edge technology, it doesn’t necessarily mean anyone will buy it.

  SPORTSTALK

  By the late 1980s, kids (and adults) were buying baseball cards not just out of love of the game, but also as an investment. In 1989 LJN Toys tried to cash in on the craze with the Sportstalk—a handheld device, about the size of a Walkman, that “played” electronic baseball cards, each of which had a tiny vinyl record embedded on the back. Through the built-in speaker came two minutes of statistics about the player (voiced by Hall of Famer Joe Torre), along with radio calls of famous plays, and players reminiscing about their biggest moments on the field. It probably failed because it cost too much—$28 for the player and $2 per card. Toys “R” Us ordered half a million Sportstalks and sold fewer than 100,000.