The remains, long since forgotten, were still there in 1950 when Dr. Maghee’s office building was torn down and the site cleared for new construction. It was then that workmen found the whiskey barrel containing a human skeleton—a human skeleton with the top of its skull sawed off.
Luckily for the medical examiners called in to investigate, someone remembered that many years earlier a young woman named Lillian Heath had been presented the top of the skull of an outlaw named Big Nose George as a gift. She had gone on to become the first female doctor in the state; now in her eighties, she was still very much alive. She still had the top of the skull, too. Over the years she had used it as a pen holder and a doorstop; her husband had used it as an ashtray. When the skull top was brought to where the barrel had been found, it fit the rest of the skull perfectly. A DNA test later confirmed the match.
REST IN PIECES
Today, the lower portion of Big Nose George’s skull is on display in the Carbon County Museum alongside “his” shoes, his death mask, and other related artifacts. But if you want to see the top of the skull, you have to go to Iowa—Dr. Heath held on to it for another decade or so, then donated it to the Union Pacific Museum in the city of Council Bluffs.
That leaves the coin purse and the doctor’s bag, also made from Big Nose George’s hide. They haven’t been seen in ages. Who knows? Maybe they’re still out there somewhere, waiting to be discovered, perhaps on a future episode of Antiques Roadshow. How about you—do you have an old, pale-leather coin purse or doctor’s bag collecting dust in your attic?
They may tell a stranger tale than you realize.
Study result: People who smile in their high school yearbook photos live happier lives.
WORD ORIGINS
Ever wonder where everyday words come from? Here are some more interesting stories.
ADULTERY
Meaning:
The act of having sexual relations with someone other than a spouse
Origin: “You may be surprised to hear that there’s no ‘adult’ in ‘adultery.’ That’s because the word goes back to the Latin term adulterare, ‘to pollute, corrupt, or defile.’ (This in turn comes from alterare, ‘to alter.’) Having extramarital relations was seen as defiling—or adulterating—the marriage vows, and the verb eventually turned into the noun ‘adultery.’ ‘Adult’ traces back to the Latin adultus, a form of the verb adolescere, ‘to grow up,’ which was the source of the word ‘adolescent.’” (From The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Weird Word Origins, by Paul McFedries)
AVATAR
Meaning: An electronic image that represents a computer user
Origin: “From the Sanskrit avatra, meaning ‘descent,’ ‘avatar’ first appeared in English in 1784 to mean an incarnation or human appearance of a deity, particularly Vishnu. It entered the computer world via Randall Farmer and Chip Morningstar, who created the 1986 video game Habitat. Said Farmer: ‘Chip came up with the word because back then, pre-Internet, you had to call a number on the telephone and then put the handset into the cradle of a modem. The avatar was the incarnation of a deity, the player, in the online world. We liked the idea of the puppet master controlling his puppet, but instead of using strings, he was using a telephone line.’” (From The New York Times Magazine “On Language,” by Aaron Britt)
EUNUCH
Meaning: A castrated male; an ineffectual person
Origin: “‘From the Greek eunoukhos, ‘a castrated person employed to take charge of the women and act as chamberlain.’ The Greek word is derived from eune, ‘bed,’ and ekhein, ‘to keep.’ For obvious reasons, a eunuch was ideally suited to guard the bedchamber of women.” (From Word Mysteries & Histories, by the editors of the American Heritage dictionaries)
Like cats, pigs also get hair balls…but they can’t cough them up.
PUPPY
Meaning: A young dog
Origin: “Etymologically, a puppy is a ‘toy’ dog. The word was borrowed from Old French popee, meaning ‘doll,’ hence ‘toy,’ which went back via Vulgar Latin to puppa (source of English ‘puppet’). The shift from ‘toy dog’ to ‘young dog’ happened at the end of the 16th century. (The Middle English word for ‘puppy,’ incidentally, was whelp.)” (From Arcade Dictionary of Word Origins, by John Ayto)
PLATONIC
Meaning: The description of a close relationship between two people—usually a man and a woman—that does not involve sex
Origin: “Named after Plato, the great Athenian philosopher (420–348 B.C.), to whom we owe almost all our knowledge of Socrates. In his Symposium, Plato lauds not the sexless love of a man for a woman but rather Socrates’ love of young men, which was entirely without sexual implications.” (From Batty, Bloomers and Boycott, by Rosie Boycott)
UNCANNY
Meaning: Weird, mysterious, strangely coincidental
Origin: “The word is Scottish in origin, and in the 16th century meant ‘malicious.’ In the 17th century, a meaning of ‘careless’ developed, this in turn coming to mean ‘not safe to deal with’ a century later. The last sense implies that the person who is uncanny is believed to have supernatural powers. The modern meaning evolved in the 19th century, and was particularly common from about 1850 on. All but the earliest sense above are still current.” (From Dunces, Gourmands and Petticoats, by Adrian Room)
What do 90% of all world cultures have in common? Kissing.
POT-TASTROPHES
Here’s hoping that your next visit to the throne room doesn’t land you in the emergency room like these folks. Here are some actual notes taken from real-life E.R. case files.
“Patient strained abdomen when lightning came through bathroom ceiling while patient was on toilet, causing patient to fall to floor.”
“Fell in bathroom while sleepwalking.”
“Cut hand: Patient in a public restroom urinating when his cell phone started to ring. He reached for it and struck right hand on a glass ashtray.”
“Patient was fixing toilet and son slammed lid on patient’s hand. Bruised right hand.”
“Patient was at KFC, leaned over while sitting on toilet, toilet broke. Patient fell on floor, cutting left knee.”
“Patient painting toenails sitting on toilet, fell, hitting head on floor.”
“20-year-old male punched a porcelain toilet in the street. Laceration right hand.”
“Spider bite to buttock. Patient saw spider on toilet.”
“51-year-old male fell asleep on the toilet and fell off, hitting tile wall and trash can.”
“Patient sat on the toilet for about 30 minutes and legs became numb. Could not move.”
“Patient using restroom at Lowes, flushed toilet with foot, lost balance and fell. Dislocated kneecap.”
“Right shoulder fracture. Using Port-a-Potti, wind blew it over.”
“Patient caught web of hand (between thumb and forefinger) in toilet handle. Abscess right hand.”
“Toilet in house flooded, ankle deep. Now ill. Gastroenteritis.”
“Patient drank half a gallon of rum and took Xanax last evening; today while sitting on the toilet felt dizzy and fell off, bumping head.”
“Patient sat on the end of a plunger left in toilet.”
There are 40,000 toilet-related injuries annually in the U.S.
THE SUPER BOWL
CAN KILL YOU
Do you think you have to play in the Super Bowl to be injured by all the action on game day? Think again. You may not be as safe as you think.
DYING TO WATCH THE GAME
In 2008 the New England Journal of Medicine published a German study of cardiac emergencies on the days Germany played in the 2006 World Cup soccer championships. The results were surprising: The number of cardiac emergencies among German men more than tripled, and the number among German women nearly doubled. The researchers attributed it to the excitement and stress of game day, and speculated that lack of sleep, overeating, overconsumption of alcohol, and excessive smoking, all common on game days, were contribut
ing factors. Could the Super Bowl have a similar effect on American sports fans? Dr. Gerhard Steinbeck, one of the study’s authors, thought so. “I know a little bit about the Super Bowl,” he told reporters. “It’s reasonable to think that something quite similar might happen.”
L.A. STORIES
In 2009 researchers at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine decided to find out. They studied a different, more gruesome statistic, that of death rates for Los Angeles county on Super Bowl Sunday during the two most recent years that Los Angeles sent a team to the big game: 1980, when the L.A. Rams lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers 31–19; and 1984, when the L.A. Raiders defeated the Washington Redskins 38–9. The researchers studied the death statistics for game day, and for two weeks after each game. They compared these figures to similar periods in 1980–83 and 1984–88, when Los Angeles didn’t have a team in the Super Bowl, and to periods after the end of football season, when there were no games at all.
Their findings for 1980: “The Super Bowl-related days during L.A.’s losing game were associated with higher daily death rates in L.A. County for all deaths, circulatory deaths, deaths from ischemic heart disease, and deaths from acute myocardial infarctions (heart attacks).”
To scare off competitors, 16th-century spice traders spread rumors that cinnamon grew in glens infested with poisonous snakes.
That was for the year that the Rams lost the Super Bowl. What about 1984, when the Raiders won it? “By contrast,” the study’s authors write, “the Super Bowl-related days during the winning 1984 game were associated with a lower rate of all-cause death.” In other words, when an L.A. team won the Super Bowl, the death rate in L.A. County not only didn’t rise, it dropped.
AVOIDING MYTH-UNDERSTANDINGS
It would be easy to conclude from these findings that when a team loses the Super Bowl, fans die, and when it wins, fans gain a new lease on life, even if only for a couple of weeks. But there’s another possibility: The critical factor in determining whether fans live or die may not be whether a team wins or loses, but rather how exciting or stressful the game is to watch.
The 1980 Super Bowl was one of the most dramatic in history, with the lead changing from one team to the other seven times, a record for the Super Bowl. The Rams were leading 19–17 at the end of the third quarter, but the Steelers scored two touchdowns in the fourth quarter to win the game. It was a stressful game to watch, no matter which side fans were on.
THE BORING BOWL
The 1984 Super Bowl, by comparison, was a blowout: The Raiders scored their first touchdown just five minutes into the game and built on their lead from there. An impressive win, but one with very little drama. (And besides, the Raiders only moved to Los Angeles in 1982, so the Southern California fans’ emotional ties to the team weren’t very strong to begin with.) The decline in death rates in L.A. County in 1984, therefore, may be attributable not so much to the victory, but rather to the lack of drama, plus the fact that so many people were safe at home watching the game on TV, instead of out and about where they’d be more likely to get into some kind of trouble. “In conclusion,” the study’s authors wrote, “the emotional stress of loss, and/or the intensity of a game played by a sports team in a highly publicized rivalry such as the Super Bowl, can trigger total and cardiovascular deaths.”
PILING ON
These and other studies have found that people with a prior history of heart disease, or coronary risk factors like high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, or a history of smoking, are at greatest risk for experiencing cardiac problems during the Super Bowl. When you’re under stress during the game, your body can release adrenaline and other hormones into your bloodstream. These, along with small proteins released by an overstimulated nervous system, can cause atherosclerotic plaques in diseased arteries to rupture, causing irregular heartbeats, heart attacks, and even death. The danger increases when at-risk fans gorge themselves on sugary and fatty foods, the staples of many a Super Bowl party, and wash it all down with too much beer.
SUPER BOWL BATHROOM DEFICIT DISORDER
But what if you don’t have a history of heart problems or coronary risk factors? Can you watch the game without fear of ending up in the emergency room? Maybe not. There’s another illness specifically associated with the biggest game of the year, and it has to do with the fact that Super Bowl commercials have become as popular as the game itself.
During ordinary football games, fans take advantage of the commercial breaks to go to the bathroom. During the Super Bowl, however, a lot of people want to see the commercials. They put off pit stops until their bladders become so full that the muscles they use to relieve themselves aren’t strong enough to generate a urine stream. “Most of the time the commercials are the best part of the Super Bowl,” says Dr. Jeff Kalina, associate director of emergency medicine at the Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas. “We have seen people who have to come in and have a catheter put in to relieve themselves.” The lesson here: Go to the bathroom.
“I stand up and a button falls off. I pick up my briefcase and the handle falls off. I’m afraid to go to the bathroom.”
—Rodney Dangerfield
One duty of Prince Charles’s valet: squeezing toothpaste onto his toothbrush.
THE ONLY TIME…
Some things are so unique that they’ve only happened once.
…a book was arrested: Just before its scheduled publication in 1961, Russian author Vasily Grossman’s government-critical book Forever Flowing was seized and actually arrested by the Soviet government. (It wasn’t published until 1989, in censored form.)
…a band held the #1 spot on both the singles and albums charts in both the United States and England: In August 1964, the Beatles held the top spot on the American and British singles charts with “A Hard Day’s Night.” The band also topped the album charts in both countries with A Hard Day’s Night.
…an NFL team lost a game to a CFL team: U.S. and Canadian pro teams played seven exhibition games between 1950 and 1961. All of them were won by the NFL except for the last one; the Hamilton (Ontario) Tiger-Cats outscored the Buffalo Bills 38–21.
…a disease was said to be completely eliminated: In 1980 the World Health Organization declared that smallpox had been eradicated worldwide (though laboratory samples still exist).
…a Congressman was killed on the job: In 1979 Rep. Leo Ryan (D-CA) flew to Guyana to investigate the activities of Jim Jones’s Peoples Temple cult. He visited the cult’s compound and offered to take anyone who wanted to go back to the U.S. At the airport, he was ambushed and shot by group members.
…one democracy declared war on another democracy: Great Britain declared war on Finland, a German ally, on December 6, 1941.
…the House of Representatives cancelled sessions: Severe weather has forced closure several times, but it’s only been intentionally closed once: on October 24, 1877, so members could go to nearby Pimlico racetrack to watch a championship horse race.
…the U.S. government was debt-free: For a few months in 1835, during the presidency of Andrew Jackson, the federal government’s debts were paid in full and it didn’t owe any money to anyone.
Aw, horse spit! An adult horse produces 10 gallons of saliva every day.
FLAKES ON A PLANE
You think flying commercially is a pain for us nobodies? Imagine how difficult it was for these celebrities (whose private jets must have been at the shop) when they had to tough it out in the main cabin with the rest of us.
THE SOCIALITE
The day after Christmas 2009, a Delta Airlines flight was preparing to depart from Palm Beach, Florida, to New York. Sitting in first class was 60-year-old socialite Ivana Trump, famous for once being married to billionaire Donald Trump. She was already in a bad mood when she arrived (a few days earlier she’d divorced her fourth husband, 37-year-old Rossano Rubicondi, who’d been philandering in Europe). Making matters worse, Trump was upset with her seat assignment, a baby was cr
ying, and a bunch of kids were running in the aisle. According to witnesses, Trump went ballistic on them, shouting, “Sit down you little f*ckers!” When nearby passengers told her to calm down, Trump swore at them, too. When flight attendants attempted to calm her down, she swore at them, too. She did the same thing to police as they cuffed her and removed her from the plane. No charges were filed, but the incident led to Trump losing her job as an advice columnist for the supermarket tabloid Globe.
THE DIRECTOR
Actor/director Kevin Smith made headlines in 2010 when he was kicked off a Southwest Airlines flight from Oakland to Burbank for being too fat to fit in one seat. Just before takeoff, a flight attendant told Smith, “Captain Leysath has deemed you a safety risk.” Smith refused to deplane, pointing out that he could put both armrests down (a requirement for flying Southwest). The attendant held firm, and Smith begrudgingly went to the terminal and started typing angry messages for his 1.6 million Twitter followers to read: “Southwest Air, go f*** yourself. I broke no regulation, offered no ‘safety risk’ (was I gonna roll on a fellow passenger?)” Allowed on board a later Southwest flight, Smith took a picture of himself with his cheeks puffed out and posted it with this message: “Hey SouthwestAir! Look how fat I am on your plane! Quick! Throw me off!” After dozens more angry tweets from Smith (and a few YouTube videos), the airline responded on its blog. An excerpt: “Our pilots are responsible for the safety and comfort of all customers on the aircraft and therefore, made the determination that Mr. Smith needed more than one seat to complete his flight.” So who had the last laugh? Smith: “Free Publicity! = 200 articles declaring I’m fat. Yay, me. Epic win!”
Burning wood in a fireplace can actually make it colder in the house.
THE SINGER
Choosing style over comfort for an eight-hour flight from London to New York in February 2010, eccentric pop singer Lady Gaga wore a black-and-yellow striped dress made out of tightly wound police tape and matching 10-inch-high-heeled shoes. As the hours wore on, Gaga grew uncomfortable. A flight attendant advised her to remove the shoes, but Gaga refused. “I would rather die than have my fans not see me in a pair of high heels,” she said. But when her legs started swelling up (a potentially fatal condition known as deep vein thrombosis), it took two flight attendants to remove the shoes and cut her out of the dress. Gaga changed into a black dress, furry boots, and a veil, which airport security asked her to remove (the veil, not the dress and boots) when she arrived in New York. She refused. After questioning, the cops let Gaga go.
Uncle John’s Heavy Duty Bathroom Reader@ Page 41