SOMEONE SAVED MY LIFE TONIGHT—ELTON JOHN. “She was six feet tall and going out with a midget in Sheffield,” Elton John told Rolling Stone about a woman he’d met in 1968. “He used to beat her up! I felt so sorry for her...I fell desperately in love.” When they moved in together, “It was just like six months in hell....I tried to commit suicide. It was a very Woody Allen-type suicide. I turned on the gas and left all the windows open.” Still, Elton planned to marry her. The night before the ceremony, his friend and manager, John Baldry, came over and convinced him to call it off. Some time later, Elton and Bernie Taupin wrote “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” about Baldry’s eleventh-hour wedding intervention.
For the Record: Elton didn’t like the record. “I thought it was the worst vocal of all time.” But it hit #4 on the charts and was nominated for a Grammy.
Sammy Davis, Jr., was originally known professionally as “Silent Sam, the Dancing Midget.”
THAT WAS NO LADY...
When Dolley Madison passed away, a critic noted that “the first lady of the nation” had died. Since then, we’ve referred to all presidents’ wives as “First Ladies.” Here are 10 facts about them.
1. Following doctor’s orders, Eleanor Roosevelt ate three chocolate-covered garlic balls every day of her adult life. Her physician assured her it would improve her memory.
2. Lady Bird Johnson was such a fan of TV’s “Gunsmoke” that she sometimes left official functions early to watch the show.
3. William McKinley’s wife, Ida, suffered from seizures. (She was believed to be an epileptic.) She and her husband took the problem in stride: whenever she suffered a seizure during a state dinner, President McKinley would drape a handkerchief over her face. When the fit had passed, Ida would remove the handkerchief herself and continue as if nothing had happened.
4. Louisa Adams (John Quincy Adams’s wife) had a unique hobby: she spun silk from silkworms living in the mulberry trees on the White House lawn.
5. Martha Washington was such a poor speller (she spelled the word “cat” with two t’s) that George often wrote her letters for her.
6. Dolley Madison was addicted to snuff.
7. Edith Wilson (Woodrow Wilson’s wife) was a direct descendant of Pocahontas.
8. Elizabeth Monroe, wife of James Monroe, liked to have the White House staff address her as “Your Majesty.”
9. Zachary Taylor’s wife hated public life so much that she rarely attended White House functions. Many people never even realized the president had a wife until he died in office in 1850...and she attended the funeral.
10. Harry Truman met his future wife, Bess, when both were only five years old. One thing he liked about her: she was the only girl in Independence, Missouri, who could whistle through her teeth.
Bad year: Nobody won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1972.
A TOY IS BORN
You’ve bought them. You’ve played with them. Now the BRI will satisfy your curiousity about where they came from and who created them.
WIFFLE BALLS
In 1953, David Mullany noticed that his son and a friend were playing stickball in the small backyard of their Fairfield, Connecticut, home...but they were using one of Mullany’s plastic golf balls instead of a rubber ball. It seemed like a good idea; that way the ball couldn’t be hit or thrown too far.
Intrigued, Mullany began experimenting with the golf balls. He cut holes in some with a razor blade and discovered that, with the right configuration, players using a lightweight plastic ball could even throw curves and sliders. In 1955, he began manufacturing his new creation, marketing it as a Wiffle Ball—a name he adapted from the baseball term “to whiff,” or strike out.
SUPERBALLS
In the early 1960s, a chemist named Norman Stingley was experimenting with high-resiliency synthetics when he discovered a compound he dubbed “Zectron.” He was intrigued: When the material was fashioned into a ball, he found it retained almost 100% of its bounce—which meant it had six times the bounce of regular rubber balls. And a Zectron ball kept bouncing about 10 times longer than a tennis ball.
Stingley presented the discovery to his employer, the Bettis Rubber Company, but the firm had no use for it. So, in 1965, Stingley took his Zectron ball to Wham-O, the toy company that had created Hula Hoops and Frisbees. It was a profitable trip. Wham-O snapped up Stingley’s invention, named it “Superball,” and sold 7 million of them in the next six months.
Scientific Curiosity. Stingley wasn’t the only “scientist” interested in Superballs. During the Superball craze, aficionados in Australia made a giant Superball and dropped it from a skyscraper to see if it would bounce all the way back up.
About a quarter of the oxygen in your bloodstream is used by your brain.
Unfortunately, the experiment went awry: when the ball hit the ground, it split in half and one part went crashing down the street, bouncing off cars and buildings until it crashed through the front window of a store.
PIGGY BANKS
“For almost 300 years,” writes Charles Panati in Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things, “the predominant child’s bank has been a pig with a slot in its back.” Yet, he points out, pigs have no symbolic connection to saving money. So why did people pick a pig?
According to Panati, “The answer is: by coincidence. During the Middle Ages, mined metal was scarce, expensive, and thus rarely used in the manufacture of household utensils. More abundant and economical throughout Western Europe was a type of dense, orange clay known as pygg. It was used in making dishes, cups, pots, and jars, and the earthenware items were referred to as pygg.
“Frugal people then as now saved cash in the kitchen pots and jars. A ‘pygg jar’ was not yet shaped like a pig. But the name persisted as the clay was forgotten. By the 18th century in England, pygg jar had become pig jar, or pig bank. Potters, not usually etymologists, simply cast the bank in the shape of its common, everyday name.”
TROLL DOLLS
In the early 1950s, a Danish woodcarver named Thomas Dam made a wooden doll as a birthday gift for his teenage daughter.
The doll, Dam’s interpretation of “the mythical Scandinavian elves visible only to children and childlike grown-ups,” was so popular with local kids that a Danish toy store owner insisted he make more of them. Eventually, to keep up with European demand, Dam began mass-producing them out of plastic.
In the early 1960s, they were exported to the United States as Dammit Dolls...and quickly became a teenage fad, adapted to everything from key chains to sentimental “message” dolls. But since Dam had no legal protection for the design, dozens of manufacturers jumped on the troll-wagon with knockoffs called Wish Niks, Dam Things, Norfins, etc.
The original Dammit Dolls are now collectors’ items.
Some toothpastes contain antifreeze.
OL’ BLOOD ’N’ GUTS
General George Patton was famous for his one-liners as he was for his military victories in World War II.
“In war, just as in loving, you’ve got to keep on shoving.”
“To be a successful soldier you must know history....What you must know is how man reacts. Weapons change but man who uses them changes not at all. To win battles you do not beat weapons—you beat the soul of the enemy man.”
“Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of the men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the victory.”
“The most vital quality a soldier can possess is self-confidence, utter, complete, and bumptious.”
“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.”
“A pint of sweat will save a gallon of blood.”
“Untutored courage is useless in the face of educated bullets.”
“Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash.”
“A piece of spaghetti or a military unit can only be led from the front end.”
“Use steamroller strategy; that is, make
up your mind on the course and direction of action, and stick to it. But in tactics, do not steamroller. Attack weakness. Hold them by the nose and kick them in the pants.”
“There’s one thing you men can say when it’s all over and you’re home once more. You can thank God that twenty years from now when you’re sitting by the fireside with your grandson on your knee, and he asks you what you did in the war, you won’t have to shift him to the other knee, cough and say, ‘I shoveled crap in Louisiana.’”
Q: How long is the world’s longest human foot? A: 27 inches.
THE MYTH-ADVENTURES OF
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS
Who was Christopher Columbus and what did he really do? Much of what we were taught in school is untrue, according to The Myth-Adventures of Christopher Columbus, by Jack Mingo. Here are some examples.
THE MYTH: Columbus was born in Genoa, Italy.
BACKGROUND: The only documentary proof is a will written in 1498, purportedly by Columbus, that begins with “I, being born in Genoa...”
THE TRUTH: According to his son Fernando, Columbus never revealed where he was born; he preferred to call himself “a man of the sea.” And historians doubt whether the 1498 will is genuine. Meanwhile, dozens of places claim to be Columbus’s birthplace, including:
• Corsica. The town of Calvi claims both his birth and his remains; Columbus has a tombstone there.
• France. In 1687, French lawyer Jean Colomb claimed Chris was his ancestor.
• England. A book published in 1682 in London states that Columbus was “born in England, but lived in Genoa.”
• Spain, Armenia, Poland, and even Norway. Norwegians say his real name was Christopher Bonde.
THE MYTH: Christopher Columbus was named...Christopher Columbus.
BACKGROUND: This name first appeared in 1553, long after his death, in a book by Petrus Martyr.
THE TRUTH: He was never called Columbus in his lifetime. In fact, when Columbus was alive he was known by at least five other names:
• Cristoforo Colombo. Most historians believe he was born Cristoforo Colombo (although one Genoese source referred to him as Christofferus de Columbo).
• Christovam Colom. When he settled in Portugal and became a successful merchant-seaman, he was known as Christobal (or Christovam) Colom (or Colombo).
Anglophiles’ delight: About 1 in 8 Americans are of English descent.
• Cristobal Colon. He adopted this name after he moved to Spain (also, occasionally, Christoual or Colamo). This was his name during his voyages and what he’s still called in Spanish countries.
• Christophorus Colonus. This is the name preferred by his son Fernando, who wrote a biography of his dad. Other Latin forms of the name: Christoforus Colom, Cristoferi Colom.
• Xpoual de Colon. This is what he was called in his agreement with the King and Queen of Spain before his first voyage across the Atlantic After 1493, he signed his name Xpo FERENS, using only his first name, in the fashion of royalty. Later he began to sign his name like this:
.s.
.S.A.S.
X MY
:Xpo FERENS/
Nobody in the past 500 years has been able to explain what this signature means.
THE MYTH: Columbus’s boats were officially named the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria.
BACKGROUND: Blame historians for spreading the story. For example, in Three Ships at Dawn, Augustus Heavy wrote: “Pinta, meaning ‘Lovely Lady,’ was called that because she floated so gracefully; Nina, meaning ‘Baby,’ was named that because it was so small; and the devoutly religious sailors called the last ship the Santa Maria in honor of Saint Mary.”
THE TRUTH: In Columbus’s time, if a ship had any kind of name at all, it was unofficial—usually something that the crew came up with. This was true of Columbus’s ships as well:
• The Pinta might have been called that in honor of the Pinto family in Palos, where the ships were readied for the voyage. But a more likely explanation: “Pinta” also meant “Painted Lady”—a prostitute.
• The Nina, smallest of the three ships, had previously been known as the Santa Clara. “Nina” means “Little Girl”—sailor slang for a woman who’s easy with sexual favors.
• And the Santa Maria? Many of the crew knew it under its longtime name of La Gallega (“Lady from Galicia”), so-called because it was built in that region of Spain. But it had picked up a newer nickname, Marigalante—“Dirty Mary.” The devout Columbus objected to the name. He demanded that the crew call the boat Santa Maria in honor of Jesus’ mother.
Sigmund Freud had a morbid fear of ferns.
THE MYTH: Queen Isabella of Spain believed so firmly in Columbus’s project that she pawned her jewels to finance it.
BACKGROUND: Two of Columbus’s biographers—his son Fernando and Bartolome dé Las Casas—told this tale decades after his death.
THE TRUTH: Isabella didn’t pawn a single pearl. The queen had a special fondness for Columbus: they were both in their mid-30s, fervently religious, enthusiastic about reforming the world, and may both have had fair complexions and red hair. Queen Isabella would listen to Columbus for hours as he laid out his maps of the world and described his plans for carrying Christianity across the ocean. Despite that, he couldn’t get her to finance his plans, because the crown’s funds were tied up in a holy war against the Islamic Moors in southern Spain.
Though Isabella had a great many virtues, religious tolerance wasn’t one of them. She went to war with the Muslims and ordered all Jews expelled from Spain. Christians found to be “insincere” were burned alive at the stake while choir boys sang to protect the queen’s ears from their screams.
With the fall of Granada, the last Islam stronghold, in January 1492, the queen was full of goodwill and generosity. Columbus saw his chance to plead his case again and received a more benevolent hearing this time. Isabella was now soundly behind his vision of taking Christianity across the waters to save thousands more souls.
But she didn’t need to pawn her jewels. As monarch of Castile, she had plenty of her own resources. She used funds from her government coffers, fattened by confiscating property from Jews, Muslims, and “infidels.” She even figured out a way to cut expenses. Shippers in the harbor town of Palos, Spain, had been caught smuggling African goods without paying royal duties. As punishment, the town was ordered to supply ships and provisions for Columbus’s journey.
The screwdriver was first used to help knights put on their armor.
THE DEATH OF
JIM MORRISON
Did Jim Morrison really leave the land of the living in 1971...or did he just slip out of the limelight? Some facts to consider from It’s a Conspiracy! by the National Insecurity Council.
The Deceased: Jim Morrison, lead singer of the Doors, one of the most popular rock bands of the 1960s.
How He Died: In the summer of 1971, Morrison and his girlfriend, Pamela Courson, went to Paris on vacation. On July 5, Courson allegedly found him dead in the bathtub. Two days later, he was buried in a quiet service attended by five close friends. The official cause of death was listed as a heart attack. He was 27.
SUSPICIOUS FACTS
• Nobody but Courson ever saw Morrison’s dead body; neither Morrison’s friends nor his family were given the opportunity to view it. After Morrison died, Courson asked Bill Siddons, the Doors’ road manager, to come to Paris. He said that when he arrived on July 6, he “was met at the flat by Pamela, a sealed coffin, and a signed death certificate.” He never saw Morrison’s body.
• When asked the name of the doctor who signed the death certificate, Siddons said he didn’t know, and Courson said she didn’t remember. Moreover, according to No One Here Gets Out Alive, a 1980 biography of Morrison, “There was no police report, no doctor present. No autopsy had been conducted.”
• When Courson filed the death certificate at the U.S. Embassy on July 7, the day of the funeral, she claimed there were no living relatives—which meant that si
nce there was no one to be notified, Morrison could be buried quickly. In fact, Jim’s family lived in Arlington, Virginia.
• Morrison’s friends kept the story of his death a secret for almost a week. Siddons told his story to the media six days after Morrison died, two days after the funeral. Beyond noting that Morrison had died of “natural causes,” Siddons had no more to add.
It’s auto-matic: according to recent polls 40% of American couples first discuss marriage in a car.
POSSIBLE CONCLUSIONS
• Morrison is really dead. His friends say they hushed up his death to protect his privacy. A statement prepared for the public said, “The initial news of his death and funeral was kept quiet...to avoid all the notoriety and circus-like atmosphere that surrounded the deaths of such other rock personalities as Janis Joplin and Jimmy Hendrix.”
• Morrison is hiding out. At the time of his death, Morrison’s life was a mess. He had been convicted on two counts of profanity and indecent exposure in Miami and faced a jail sentence if his appeal failed; he faced a possible 10-year sentence after being busted by the FBI for being drunk and disorderly on an airplane; and more than 20 paternity suits were pending against him. Facts:
Morrison was sick of his life as a rock star and had been saying so for years. He said he wanted to start over anonymously, so he could just write. With Courson’s help, he could easily have faked his own death to give himself a fresh start.
Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader Page 4