by Don Voorhees
SUPERSIZE IT
The 180,000-square-foot Longaberger Basket Company Building in Newark, Ohio, is a giant replica of an actual Longaberger basket.
The parking garage of the Kansas City Public Library in Missouri has a facade that is a replica of a giant bookshelf, featuring the bindings of giant books relevant to the city.
TAKE IT TO THE BANK, OR NOT
Ten million American households have no checking or savings account. Mississippi, which has the highest poverty rate in the United States, also has the highest percentage of “unbanked” people—15 percent. New Hampshire, which has the lowest poverty rate, has the lowest number of “unbanked” people—1.9 percent.
WILL THAT BE CASH OR CREDIT?
As of late 2012, an average American family’s share of the national debt was $137,000.
The first American one-dollar bill, issued in 1862, featured a portrait of Salmon P. Chase, the secretary of the treasury. George Washington and Christopher Columbus replaced Chase in 1869. The front (obverse) side design used today was introduced in 1963.
It would take 1.8 trillion pennies to fill the Empire State Building.
I CAN’T DRIVE 85
Texas Highway 130, which links Austin to San Antonio, raised its speed limit to 85 miles per hour in 2012, making it the fastest stretch of road in the United States. In October 2012, a motorist on the road was pulled over for driving 225 miles per hour.
FLAG FALLACY
Contrary to popular misconception, an American flag that touches the ground is not required to be burned.
MICKEY D’S
McDonald’s original menu featured barbeque sandwiches as the top seller. Hamburgers, chili tamales, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were also available.
Americans consume some 5.5 million cows’ worth of beef each year at McDonald’s.
McDonald’s feeds 68 million people a day, or about 1 percent of the world population.
Jay Leno, Shania Twain, Pink, Rachel McAdams, and Sharon Stone all worked at McDonald’s before making it big.
The Big Mac special sauce consists of the following: soybean oil, pickle relish [diced pickles, high fructose corn syrup, sugar, vinegar, corn syrup, salt, calcium chloride, xanthan gum, potassium sorbate (a preservative), spice extractives, polysorbate 80], distilled vinegar, water, egg yolks, high fructose corn syrup, onion powder, mustard seed, salt, spices, propylene glycol alginate, sodium benzoate (a preservative), mustard bran, sugar, garlic powder, vegetable protein (hydrolyzed corn, soy, and wheat), caramel color, extractives of paprika, soy lecithin, turmeric (a colorant), calcium disodium EDTA (to protect flavor).
Over the years, the Big Mac sauce recipe went through changes. By the late 2000s, company executives had decided to go back to the original formula. The only problem was, they’d lost it. Eventually, by consulting with their old ingredient suppliers, they were able to recreate it.
CLIP JOINT
New York hairstylist Ted Gibson gets $950 per haircut, making his the most expensive haircut in the world.
GRAND OLD TIME
The oldest amusement park in the United States is Lake Compounce Family Theme Park in Bristol, Connecticut, which opened in 1846. Other ancient parks include Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio (1870); Idlewild Park in Ligonier, Pennsylvania (1878); Sea Breeze Amusement Park in Rochester, New York (1879); and Dorney Park in Allentown, Pennsylvania (1884).
The White Horse Tavern, in Newport, Rhode Island, is the country’s oldest restaurant. The building has housed an eatery since 1673, the White House Tavern since 1730.
Other old eateries include Fraunces Tavern, in New York City, opened in 1762; the Griswold Inn, in Essex, Connection opened in 1776; the Union Oyster House, in Boston, opened in 1826; and Antoine’s Restaurant, in New Orleans, opened in 1840.
BLACKOUT
There has never been a black Republican congresswoman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.
As of early 2013, there is only one black member of the U.S. Senate, Timothy Scott; he was appointed by South Carolina governor Nikki Haley to fill the seat vacated by Senator Jim DeMint’s resignation.
Scott is only the seventh black senator ever and the first from the South since 1881.
MOW TOWN
There are forty thousand square miles of lawn in America.
THE OTHER GARDEN STATE
Mormons believe that the Garden of Eden was/is in Missouri. They also believe the second coming of Christ will occur in Missouri.
Mormon founder Joseph Smith Jr. got his start as a treasure hunter. He used magical “seeing stones” stuck inside a stovepipe hat to find buried treasure and lost items. It was one of these stones that he claimed to have used to find golden plates sent from God that he spent years translating. They are the basis of the Mormon religion.
L’CHAIM
There are 6.6 million Jews living in America. New York has the highest number, with 8.4 percent, followed by New Jersey; Washington, DC; Massachusetts; and Maryland.
BABY, I HATE YOUR NAME
The most hated baby names of 2012 in America, according to a survey of online message board postings, are as follows:
• For girls, Nevaeh (which is “heaven” spelled backwards), Destiny, Madison, Mackenzie, Addison, Gertrude, Kaitlyn, Makayla, Bertha, and Hope were the top ten.
• For boys, the winners/losers were Jayden, Brayden, Aiden, Kaden, Hunter, Hayden, Bentley, Tristan, Michael, and Jackson.
According to the same survey, the most liked baby names of 2012 were as follows:
• The top ten girl names for 2012 were Sophia, Emma, Olivia, Isabella, Ava, Lily, Zoe, Chloe, Mia, and Madison. Sophia has been number one for three straight years.
• The top ten boy names were Aiden, Jackson, Ethan, Liam, Mason, Noah, Lucas, Jacob, Jayden, and Jack. Aiden, which was also the third most hated boys name, has been number one for eight straight years.
FARE-LY OLD
Johnnie “Spider” Footman, a ninety-two-year-old New York City cabbie, has been on the job since FDR was president and was still working as of 2012.
COIN-OPS
In California (and Japan) eggs are sold in vending machines.
In Pennsylvania wine is sold in vending machines, but first you must swipe your driver’s license, have your picture taken by the machine, and then blow into a Breathalyzer.
There’s a Maine lobster vending game where for three dollars one gets fifteen seconds to grab with a mechanical claw a live lobster from a tank in the machine.
REGIONAL REMARKS
In Wisconsin a drinking fountain is called a “bubbler.”
In Nebraska a lottery ticket is called a “pickle.”
An edible mushroom in Kentucky and Tennessee is called a “dry-land fish.”
A tadpole is known as a “pinkwink” on Cape Cod.
A “devil strip” in northeastern Ohio is the strip of grass between the street and sidewalk.
A heavy rain is known as a “fence-lifter” in the Ozarks, a “toad-strangler” in the Gulf States, and a “turd-floater” in Texas.
NEW YORK STATE OF MIND
New York is the most expensive American city in which to park a car. Monthly car park rates in midtown averaged $541 and downtown averaged $533, in 2012. Over the lifetime of an average car, that’s roughly $71,000. Boston, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Seattle round out the top five.
New York state residents pay the highest state and local taxes as a percentage of income, followed by New Jersey and Connecticut. Alaska, South Dakota, and Tennessee pay the lowest.
Riders board New York City subways 8.1 million times every weekday. The next closest system in ridership is the Washington, DC, Metro with 1 million boardings a day, followed by Chicago with 738,000, Boston with 539,000, and San Francisco with 393,000.
THE PLANE TRUTH
At the time of this writing, no p
assenger has died in a commercial plane crash in the United States since 2009. It has been more than ten years since the last fatal crash of a large jetliner in the United States.
Before 9/11, there were only thirty-three federal air marshals. Now there are thousands (the exact number is classified).
In 2011, the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) found 1,306 firearms in carry-on luggage.
AMERICAN WOMAN
Women buy 91 percent of romance novels. The average age of a print version romance novel reader is forty-nine.
Twenty-three percent of American gun owners are women.
Since 2000, 19 percent of married American women have kept their maiden names.
ALL IN A DAY’S WORK
Fifty percent of American workers buy coffee at work, spending an average of twenty dollars a week.
Sixty-six percent of workers buy lunch out, spending thirty-seven dollars a week on average. Men and younger workers spend the most.
WORKING MAN BLUES
Forty-one percent of men say navy blue is their favorite color to wear to work.
Fifty-one percent of women claim that black is their favorite color to wear to work.
CHECK IT OUT
The Library of Congress has 650 miles of shelves.
The Library of Congress houses more than 127,000 U.S. telephone directories.
There is a tunnel that connects the Library of Congress with the U.S. Capitol Building.
TRICK OR TREAT
Seventy-four percent of Americans say that they hand out candy on Halloween.
WOULD YOU LIKE FRIES WITH THAT?
In a 2012 study, Wendy’s was found to have the fastest service of the major fast-food chains. The average wait time at a Wendy’s was 129.75 seconds. This compares with Taco Bell at 149.69 seconds, McDonald’s at 188.83, Chick-fil-A at 190.06, and Burger King at 201.33.
As far as accuracy goes, Chick-fil-A was found to correctly fill an order 92.4 percent of the time, compared with Taco Bell at 91.2 percent, McDonald’s at 90.0 percent, Wendy’s at 89.9 percent, and Burger King at 83 percent.
Chick-fil-A was ranked tops in friendliness.
CHURCH CHAT
In 2012, the Catholic Church canonized its first Native American—Kateri Tekakwitha—a Mohawk woman who lived in the seventeenth century.
The largest church stained-glass window is on the north side of the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption in Covington, Kentucky. It measures twenty-four feet wide by sixty-seven feet high.
A greater percentage of Republicans attend church than do Democrats.
Pennsylvania has the largest Amish population of any state, followed by Ohio.
STREET SMART
The most common street name in the United States is Second. It’s not First because what would have been First is often named Main or something similar, like Broadway.
American Realtors say the name of a street a home is on can have an influence on the speed of its sale. Names like Crummy Road (in Clark Fork, Idaho) or Butt Road (Fort Wayne, Indiana) can make it harder to sell a house on such a street.
BREW MASTERS
New Hampshire leads the nation in annual consumption of twelve-ounce beers per person with 459, followed by North Dakota at 450, Montana at 433, South Dakota at 405, and Nevada at 389.
TATT’S THE FACT
About 23 percent of women and 19 percent of men in the United States have tattoos.
TURKEY TIME
Contrary to common belief, the day before Thanksgiving is not the busiest travel day of the year. The busiest travel days are usually Fridays in June, July, and August.
Calls to plumbers double the day after Thanksgiving.
Illinois grows one-half the country’s pumpkin crop.
Pumpkins sold for carving are no good for making pie. Smaller sugar pumpkins with a firm, sweet flesh are used in canned pumpkin pie filling.
Cranberries did not become associated with Thanksgiving until the early 1800s.
OIL CHANGE
The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that by 2020 America will be the world’s biggest producer of oil, due to improved technologies, fracking, and more efficient energy use.
The United States currently imports about 20 percent of its oil needs, but is expected to be self-sufficient by 2035.
MISSISSIPPI MUD
One home in Mississippi, valued at sixty-nine thousand dollars, had thirty-four different flood insurance claims between 1978 and 2012, totaling almost ten times the house’s worth.
AND THE WINNER IS . . .
American presidential elections are decided by the electoral college, not by popular vote. One of the main reasons this odd situation came to be was that at the 1787 Constitutional Convention, a direct election did not sit well with the Southern slaveholding state delegates, whose states had large populations but far fewer eligible voters. The convention also agreed to count each slave as three-fifths of a person for calculating the states’ allotment of seats in Congress and thus each state’s electoral college votes.
Each state is allotted a number of electors equal to its number of representatives and senators in Congress.
In theory, the electors should vote for the candidate that wins their state, but twenty-one states have no legal requirement for them to do so. In these states, electors swear a nonbinding pledge to their party to vote for the winning candidate.
There have been numerous “faithless electors” over the years, notably in 1832 when all thirty Pennsylvania electors refused to vote for Democratic vice presidential candidate Martin Van Buren, and in 1836 when twenty-three Virginia voters refused to vote for Democratic vice presidential candidate Richard Mentor Johnson.
Washington, DC, is allotted the same number of electors it would have if it were a state, but it cannot have more than the least populous state.
During the 2012 presidential election, there were several wards in Philadelphia where Mitt Romney didn’t receive one vote. In these wards, Barack Obama beat Romney 19,605 to zero.
When it comes to voter apathy, Hawaii is king. In the 2008 presidential election, Hawaii had the lowest turnout—only 48.8 percent of eligible voters did so, even though Barack Obama, who is from the state, was running. In 2012, Hawaii tied with West Virginia for lowest voter turnout—44.2 percent.
The state with the highest voter turnout in 2008 was Minnesota, at 77.8 percent. Washington State was the leader in 2012, at 81 percent.
Robert McDonald finished tied with another candidate for the final seat on the Walton City, Kentucky, City Council after the 2012 election. Both candidates finished with 669 votes. McDonald would have won outright if his wife had bothered to vote. He lost a subsequent coin toss that decided the winner.
WHERE DO YOU WANT TO EAT TONIGHT?
There are 980,000 eateries in the United States. They employ 10 percent of the American workforce.
The West Wing
MASTER AND COMMANDER
Thomas Jefferson didn’t like to have his slaves beaten, but when he thought it “necessary,” they would only be whipped on the arms and legs.
Jefferson only ever agreed to free five of his nearly 150 slaves. Not even on his deathbed would he relent.
William Henry Harrison had ten children with his wife and six with one of his African slaves, Dilsia. When he ran for president, he did not want his children with Dilsia around, so he gave them to his brother, who sold them into slavery.
Zachary Taylor was the last U.S. president to hold slaves while in office.
EXPAT EXPREZ
John Tyler is the only president who was not a U.S. citizen when he died. He passed away while living in Virginia, during the Civil War, which was part of the Confederate States of America at the time.
John Tyler was elected to the Confederate House of Representatives after serving as president.
YOU CAN�
��T WIN THEM ALL
Millard Fillmore ran for president again four years after his first term ended. He got 21.6 percent of the popular vote as a third party candidate for the Know Nothing Party. (Membership in the Know Nothings was limited to Protestant men over the age of twenty-one and of British lineage. They were opposed to the influx of Irish and German Catholics into America.)
Ulysses S. Grant tried to run for a third term as president, but didn’t receive enough votes at the 1880 Republican Convention.
In 1912, Teddy Roosevelt helped form the Progressive Party, also known as the “Bull Moose Party,” after he was denied the Republican nomination that year. The party got its name after a reporter asked about Teddy’s health and was told, “I am as fit as a bull moose.”
William Howard Taft was the only incumbent president who ran for reelection and came in third.
Richard Nixon lost his first election, that for president of his high school class.
SLACKER-IN-CHIEF
Franklin Pierce had the worst grades in his class during his sophomore year in college.
James Buchanan was expelled from college.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) was a C student while at Harvard.
Woodrow Wilson did not learn to read until after he was ten.
Harry Truman was the last president who did not have a college degree.
LEARNED LEADERS
Andrew Johnson taught himself how to read and write. His wife taught him arithmetic.
Starting at age eleven, John Quincy Adams kept a diary that reached fifty volumes by the time of his death.
Rutherford B. Hayes was the valedictorian of his college class.
George W. Bush was the only president with an MBA, which he earned at Harvard.
Theodore Roosevelt was a published ornithologist. He read several books a day in many different languages.