There are other cities that have their own fuzzy-faced celebrities. New York City’s groundhog is called Pothole Pete. Even Canada has its own groundhog, an albino named Wiarton Willie. But when it comes to predicting the end of winter, Punxsutawney Phil is still considered top hog.
Don’t tell your dog: There are more than 500 million domestic cats worldwide.
COOKING WITH UNCLE JOHN
Instead of swallowing bicycle chains and skateboard parts like Mr. Eat-It-All (see page 53), try this tasty recipe.
EDIBLE GLASS
You will need:
9-by-13-inch baking sheet
Nonstick frying pan
Large wooden spoon
Help from a grown-up
Ingredients:
1 tablespoon butter
1 cup sugar
Food coloring for making “stained glass” (optional)
1. Butter the baking sheet and put it in the refrigerator
2. Put the sugar in the frying pan. Ask a grown-up to help while you cook the sugar on low heat. Stir slowly with the wooden spoon. As the sugar begins to melt, it will start to turn light brown and stick together. Continue stirring until it melts into a thick brown liquid.
3. Add a few drops of food coloring, if you like.
4. Pour the melted sugar onto the cold baking sheet. Let it cool. The melted sugar will harden into a sheet of edible “glass.” Yum! Sure beats nails, doesn’t it?
Czap! Czar Nicholas II considered building an electric fence around Russia.
DUNE RIDERS
The snow has melted. The skate park is too crowded. What’s a kid to do? Grab a board and head for the desert!
SANDBOARDING
There’s a new sport in town: Sandboarding. It’s a lot like snowboarding, only you don’t have to wait for cold weather. And you can bomb the hill, carve, catch air, and do tricks, just like on snow.
According to historians, the ancient Egyptians went “boarding” on the sand dunes of northern Africa using large pieces of pottery. Americans and Brazilians have been doing it since the 1950s, using everything from pieces of cardboard to old car hoods.
THE BOARD
A modern sandboard looks a lot like a snowboard: it’s long and narrow with foot straps on the top and a little rocker on the plank. But there is a difference. The bottom of the sandboard is flat for maximum surface contact, and the sides scoop upward slightly to prevent digging into the sand. The biggest difference, however, is in the board’s composition: snowboards are usually made from polyethylene—a sandboard is made from an extra-slick material, such as Formica.
Don’t have a sandboard? Don’t worry—you can use an old snowboard. It might ride a bit slower, so if you want to speed it up, wax the bottom with sandboard wax. Other waxes will slow you down, ruin the board, and damage the environment (sand waxes are Teflon- or soy-based).
It took Jack Smith 26 days to cross the United States in 1984. He did it on a skateboard.
WHERE CAN YOU BOARD?
• Go to an ocean beach or a desert. Check out the shores of lakes. Just about any dune will do as long as it’s dry sand—wet sand makes the board stick.
• Look for clean dunes with sandy bottoms. You don’t want to end your run in the rocks! Make sure there are no pieces of glass, cans, sticks, driftwood, or buried fire pits in the dunes.
• Beginners need dunes that are not too steep. Many dunes are 500 feet tall or more, and a sandboarder coming down can reach speeds over 40 miles per hour. So make sure you get the hang of it before you start trying to catch the big air.
DOES IT HURT WHEN YOU FALL?
Think about it—a face-plant ending with a mouthful of sand? Ouch! That’s why you want those newbie dunes when you’re starting out. Wear sunscreen, a helmet, and durable clothing—no reason to get a sand rash.
Ready to ride? Have fun, and remember: there’s no shame in riding sitting down. Now, go find a dune, step on your board, buckle up the bindings—and don’t stop until you get to the bottom.
Want to find a sandboarding park? Surf over to the Resource Guide on page 285.
Volleyball was invented in 1895.
I SAW THE POTATO
More advertising blunders from doing business abroad.
KENTUCKY FRIED CHICKEN. When KFC’s slogan “Finger-lickin’ good” was translated into Chinese, it came out as “Eat your fingers off.”
SCHWEPPES TONIC WATER. In Italy, a campaign for Schweppes Tonic Water translated the name into Schweppes Toilet Water.
PEPSI. The Pepsi slogan “Come alive with the Pepsi Generation” was mistranslated in Taiwan to say, “Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead.”
T-SHIRTS. When the Pope came to the States for a visit, an American T-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the Spanish-speaking market that were supposed to declare, “I saw the Pope.” Instead they announced, “I saw the Potato.”
Napoleon was afraid of cats.
MONSTER GIGGLES
Uncle John likes monsters. He also likes jokes. And he thinks these monster jokes are abominable…er, horrible…er, great!
Q: What do you get if you cross the Abominable Snowman with a kangaroo?
A: A fur coat with pockets.
A police officer stopped a man walking a monster and ordered him to take it to the zoo. The next day the officer saw the same man, still with the monster.
“I told you to take that monster to the zoo,” he said.
“I did,” said the man. “Now I’m taking it to the movies.”
Q: What do you call a dog owned by Dracula?
A: A bloodhound.
Q: Where does a vampire take a bath?
A: In a bat-tub.
Q: What did the grandfather monster say to his grandson when they hadn’t seen each other for a while?
A: You gruesome!
Q: What do vampire sailors call their ships?
A: Blood vessels.
A very snobbish man was in an art gallery, when he stopped by one particular exhibit.
“I suppose this picture of a hideous monster is what you call modern art,” he sniffed.
“No, sir,” replied the assistant, “that’s what we call a mirror.”
Q: How do you keep an ugly monster in suspense?
A: I’ll tell you tomorrow.
Animal fact: Octopi have three hearts.
HOT DAWGS
If they ever let animals compete in the Olympics, watch out for these guys!
TAIL-WAGGERS
St. Bernards love snow. For centuries these big shaggy dogs have worked to rescue avalanche victims and snowbound hikers. But there’s a pair in northern Japan who’d rather hit the slopes on skis. Colt and Lucky live with the Sato family. Most mornings, the Satos take the dogs up the mountain and help them into their specially made boots, bindings, and skis. Then the two St. Bernards go wooshing down the slopes. There’s only one little problem: the dogs don’t know how to stop, so Colt and Lucky always ski on a leash.
KNUCKLE-DRAGGER
Louie the chimpanzee is a movie star. His film credits: MVP: Most Valuable Primate (he was an ice hockey player) and MVPII: Most Vertical Primate (he was a skateboarder). After all that training, learning how to snowboard for his third movie, MXP: Most Extreme Primate, was a piece of cake. Louie started out on a carpeted treadmill, but he was shredding the snow after just eight weeks of training. As his trainer says, “They call boarders knuckle-draggers, so he fits right in.” Like all little kids, Louie occasionally stops to eat the snow. (Anyone tell him to stay away from the yellow stuff?)
Weird weather: On Feb. 18, 1979, it snowed in the Sahara Desert, but only for 30 minutes.
THE BEAN CAR
No, it’s not just an excuse to make another joke about gas—this car was really made out of beans.
BACKGROUND
Henry Ford had lots of big ideas. In 1913 he came up with his biggest: using an assembly line to build cars. Cars would no longer be handmade one at a time, they’d be mass-pr
oduced hundreds at a time. Even after the assembly line was up and running, Ford kept trying to find cheaper and more efficient ways to build his cars.
Although he is known as one of history’s greatest industrialists, Ford was raised on a farm. From this upbringing, he developed a lifelong interest in putting science to work for agriculture. In 1929 he built a laboratory to research potential new uses for farm crops, especially one crop in particular: soybeans.
PLASTIC RAP
Today, about half of the items we use in our daily lives are made from plastic. But in the 1930s, plastic was the new miracle product. Combs, brushes, buttons, and jewelry were just starting to be made out of the stuff. Ford wondered if cars could be made out of plastic, too.
Most of the plastic we use today is derived from hydrocarbons, such as petroleum oil. But it can also be made from any carbon-based fiber, which means almost any plant. Knowing this, in 1932 Ford called his scientists together in Detroit, dumped a few bags of soybeans on the floor, and said, “You fellows are supposed to be a bunch of smart guys. See what you can make out of these.”
Smallest motorized car ever made: Denso Micro-Car. It’s the size of a grain of rice.
Two years later, the Ford team came up with a soybean oil that they used to make a tough enamel for painting cars. They also developed a soybean paste that could be molded into car horn buttons. By 1940 two pounds of soybeans were going into every Ford car as gearshift knobs, door handles, pedals, and gears. His labs also came up with a new, improved plastic that was 10 times stronger than steel—but weighed a third less.
BEAN MACHINE
Ford wanted to start making car doors and hoods out of this amazing new material, but first he had to convince a skeptical public. He called in a group of reporters, then jumped up and down on a sheet of his new soybean plastic. It didn’t bend an inch. “If that was steel,” Ford declared, “it would have caved in.”
In 1941 Henry Ford finally built the first soybean car. It was a sensation! People marveled at the tough soybean plastic body and the clear plastic windows and windshield. The seats were upholstered in a soybean “wool.” The only metal in the car body was in its frame, which meant the car weighed less than a regular car—1,000 pounds less. Newspapers all over the country raved about it and predicted that soon every new car would be made out of plastic.
Wrong answer! The Hundred Years’ War lasted 116 years—from 1337 to 1453.
STOPPED SHORT
But it all came to screeching halt when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Suddenly the United States was at war, and Ford and the other carmakers had to convert their factories from making cars to building new steel tanks, jeeps, planes, ships, and submarines for the armed forces. No new cars were made until after World War II ended in 1945. By that time Ford had moved on to other projects, and the soybean car was forgotten.
BACK TO THE FUTURE
When Henry Ford started experimenting with soybeans back in the 1930s, he said, “Soybeans will make millions of dollars for farmers, and provide us with needed things nobody even knows about now.” It turns out that Ford was ahead of his time. Today soybeans are one of America’s biggest cash crops and the country’s most valuable export. They’re used in plastics, but you’ll also find them in inks, varnishes, paints, and glues…and new Ford cars.
In 2003 the Ford company celebrated its 100th anniversary by building a new bean car, or more accurately, a “veggie” car. The roof and carpet mats of the new Model U are made from corn; the seats and bumpers are made from soybeans; and the oil used to lubricate the engine comes from sunflower seeds. Plus there’s no dirty exhaust—instead of smoke, the hydrogen-powered engine gives off steam. And this car of the future is almost totally biodegradable!
Mr. Bean: Henry Ford once went to a convention wearing clothes made from soybeans.
MORE “LONGESTS”
Are you longing for another good read? Try this page.
• LONGEST ALPHABET: The Cambodian alphabet has 74 letters (English has 26).
• LONGEST PRO BASEBALL GAME: The Chicago White Sox and Milwaukee Brewers played a game on May 9, 1984, that lasted 8 hours, 6 minutes. The White Sox won in the 25th inning, 7–6.
• LONGEST MIGRATION: The Arctic tern flies from the Arctic to the Antarctic and back every year—a round trip of 25,000 miles.
• LONGEST-LIVING INSECT: The wood-boring beetle of Ecuador has a lifespan of 45 years.
• LONGEST DINOSAUR: From fossilized bone fragments found in 1991, scientists estimate that the seismosaurus was 150 feet long.
• LONGEST LIMOUSINE: Jay Ohrberg of California built one that measures 100 feet. It has 26 wheels and is hinged in the middle so it can turn corners.
• LONGEST WORD IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE: Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. It has 45 letters and is the name of a lung disease.
• LONGEST DANCE: Mike Ritof and Edith Boudreaux won a dance marathon contest when they danced for 5,154 hours and 48 minutes, from August 29, 1930, to April 1, 1931. Their prize: $2,000.
Q: How many days are there in a fortnight? A: 14.
• LONGEST SCHOOL YEAR: Chinese students attend school 251 days of the year (U.S. average: 180).
• LONGEST SOFA: Italian furniture maker Industrie Natuzzi made a red leather sofa in 2001 that was 115 feet, 2 inches long. It took more than 50 cow hides to cover it.
• LONGEST CITY NAME: This honor goes to Bangkok, the capital city of Thailand. Its full name is 165 letters long: Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amarn Ratanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilok Phob Noparatratchathani Burirom Udomratchanivetmahasathan Amornpan Avatarnsathit Sakkathattiyavisnukarmprasit. What’s it all mean? “City of Angels.”
• LONGEST SNEEZING FIT: Donna Griffiths of Pershore, England, first sneezed on January 13, 1981, and didn’t stop until September 16, 1983. That’s 978 days! She sneezed an estimated one million times in the first year alone. (Gesundheit!)
Andrew Jackson was the only U.S. president who was ever a prisoner of war. (He was 14.)
PIRATE STYLE
Aaaargh! Avast ye, matey! ‘Ere’s me pirate stuff. Now, choose yer weapons!
THE PIRATE’S ARMORY
Pirates earned their living by robbing ships. Most merchant crews would give up the minute they saw the Jolly Roger—the famous flag with a skull and crossbones—flying from the mast of the pirate ship. After all, they had no desire to die for the rich man who owned the ship and cargo. Sometimes, though, crews would resist—and the pirates would attack. These were the pirates’ weapons of choice:
Cutlass. The sword of the seas. Shorter than a saber or sword, and usually curved. Designed for hacking, not thrusting. Every pirate had one.
Dagger. A small knife essential to fighting with a cutlass. They were used to block an opponent’s sword or to give a killing thrust when the opponent’s guard was down.
Pistol. Pirates kept their pistols stuffed in their belts and used them for clubs after firing the single bullet. Pirate captains often used pistols, elaborately engraved on the handles and barrels, as bribes to get their men to form boarding parties against enemy ships. Why? Because leading a boarding party was dangerous! It took a strong incentive—like a beautiful new pistol—to get someone to do it.
Sir Bark-a-lot: In medieval Europe, some dogs wore suits of armor.
Blunderbuss. A short, blunt, shotgunlike musket that was more of a cannon than a rifle. With its deafening roar and ability to spray lead shot all over the deck, nothing beat a blunderbuss for repelling an onslaught.
Marlinespike. The favored weapon of mutineers. Because sailors and pirates were prone to rebellion, all weapons on board a ship would be stored in the armory and handed out only in emergencies. But the marline-spike was a ship’s tool, not a weapon. Similar to an ice pick in shape, it had a round wooden handle and a round blade with a sharp point and was used to separate strands of rope for making splices. It was both handy and deadly, and best of all for a mutineer, there were usually doze
ns of them on deck.
Ax. Used to cut grappling lines and repel boarders.
Gully. Simply, a big knife. The best-known gully was the boucan knife used by buccaneers to hunt wild pigs.
STANDARD PIRATE OUTFIT
Pirates weren’t particular about their clothes, as long as they were comfortable and brightly colored. Here’s what they wore:
• loose pants (often striped)
• cotton shirt
• sash (for pistols and daggers)
• loose jacket
• leather belt (to hold a cutlass)
• no shoes (Most sailors didn’t wear shoes—leather soles were too slippery in bad weather.)
• gold earrings
Julia Roberts once auditioned for a part on the soap opera All My Children. (She didn’t get it.)
ABOUT THOSE GOLD EARRINGS
Historians say that pirates believed that piercing their ears with gold and silver improved their eyesight at sea.
Can piercing your ears really improve your eyesight? According to some acupuncturists, the earlobe is an acupuncture point for several eye ailments, and there have been reports of people whose vision improved after having their ears pierced. But they don’t recommend it, because scar tissue forms where the ear is pierced and blocks any further helpful effects.
* * *
A PIRATE MYTH: Walking the plank. Few (if any) pirate ships ever used the plank. Most pirates relied on the time-honored “heave-ho” method of getting rid of pesky prisoners—they just picked them up and tossed them overboard. Aaarrrgh!
Only NFL team with no logo on their helmets: Cleveland Browns.
Uncle John's Top Secret Bathroom Reader for Kids Only! Page 17