Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  How He Died: On the “Dick Cavett Show,” while discussing the health benefits of organic food.

  Postmortem: Rodale, who bragged, “I’m going to live to 100 unless I’m run down by a sugar-crazed taxi-driver,” was only 72 when he appeared on the “Dick Cavett Show” in January 1971. Partway through the interview, he dropped dead in his chair. Cause of death: a heart attack. The show was never aired.

  ATTILA THE HUN

  Claim to Fame: One of the most notorious villains in history. By 450 A.D., his 500,000-man army conquered all of Asia—from Mongolia to the edge of the Russian empires—by destroying villages and pillaging the countryside.

  Uh-oh: 23% of Americans believe the president can suspend the Bill of Rights during wartime.

  How He Died: He got a nosebleed on his wedding night.

  Postmortem: In 453 Attila married a young girl named Ildico. Despite his reputation for ferocity on the battlefield, he tended to eat and drink lightly during large banquets. But on his wedding night he really cut loose, gorging himself on food and drink. Sometime during the night he suffered a nosebleed, but was too drunk to notice. He drowned in his own blood and was found dead the next morning.

  JIM FIXX

  Claim to Fame: Author of the bestselling Complete Book of Running, which started the jogging craze of the 1970s.

  How He Died: A heart attack...while jogging.

  Postmortem: Fixx was visiting Greensboro, Vermont. He walked out of his house and began jogging. He’d only gone a short distance when he had a massive coronary. His autopsy revealed that one of his coronary arteries was 99% clogged, another was 80% obstructed, and a third was 70% blocked—and that Fixx had had three other heart attacks in the weeks prior to his death (when he’d competed in 12-mile and 5-mile races).

  HORACE WELLS

  Claim to Fame: Pioneered the use of anaesthesia in the 1840s.

  How He Died: Used anaesthetics to commit suicide.

  Postmortem: While experimenting with various gases during his anaesthesia research, Wells became addicted to chloroform. In 1848 he was arrested for splashing sulfuric acid on two women outside his home. In a letter he wrote from jail, he blamed chloroform for his problems, claiming he’d gotten high before the attack. Four days later he was found dead in his cell. He’d anaesthetized himself with chloroform, then slashed open his thigh with a razor.

  And Now for Something Completely Different

  • Elvis Presley was a big Monty Python fan; he saw Monty Python and the Holy Grail at least five times.

  • The King’s favorite board games were Monopoly and Scrabble. Neutrogena was his favorite soap.

  Memo to Uncle Walt: The original Cinderella was Egyptian and wore fur slippers.

  THE ELVIS SIDESHOW

  Hurry, hurry, step right up! See the amazing Elvis freaks!

  Richard Tweddell III. Inventor of the Elvis Vegiform, a plastic garden mold that fits over young vegetables and gets them to grow into the shape of the King. He says, “[Elvis-shaped] vegetables are more weighty, and the flavor is enhanced.”

  Nicholas “S&L-vis” D’Ambra. An Elvis impersonator with a social conscience. “S&L-vis” takes on the savings and loan scandal with songs like “Tax-break Hotel.” Sample lyrics: “The deal the bank board gave them; was too good to be true; for every dollar they put in there; there’s 15 from you.”

  “Major” Bill Smith. Believes the King is still alive and claims to have regular phone conversations with him. Smith, a 68-year-old Texan, is a religious man; he sees Elvis as a sort of mini-messiah: “Elvis is coming back in the spirit of Elijah.... Praise God, he’s coming back....This thing’s about to bust right open.” He has devoted his life to paving the way for the Second Coming of Elvis, which he considers the Lord’s work. “Like Elvis told me, ‘I’m walkin’ the line God has drawn for me.’ It’s what the Holy Spirit told me to do.”

  Peter Singh. A Sikh living in Wales, England, he croons Elvis hits, Indian-style, to customers at his pub. Favorites include “Who’s Sari Now,” “My Popadum Told Me,” and “Singh, Singh, Singh.”

  Uri Yoali. An Israeli Arab, owner of a roadside diner called The Elvis Inn, located in the Holy Land just 7,000 miles from Memphis. “It’s not just for tourists,” Yoali says, “Elvis is my life.” The diner is decorated with 728 pictures and posters of the King. It boasts a 12-foot, 500-pound, epoxy-and-plaster likeness of Presley outside its entrance. “I’ve always dreamed of seeing Elvis big,” Yoali says, “In my mind he is so large, bigger even than this.”

  Danny Uwnawich. Owner of Melodyland, a small, three-bedroom version of Graceland in California’s San Fernando Valley. Highlight: A white wrought-iron gate. Like the gate at Graceland, it’s shaped like an open music book. According to Uwnawich, “The only people who have those gates is me and Him.”

  A strong bolt of lightning can contain as much as 100 million volts of electricity.

  COWBOY TALK

  Well, Hoss, maybe you can’t be a cowboy, but you can still talk like one. Here are a few phrases to practice. Save ’em until you can find a way to use ’em in conversation. And smile when you say them, son.

  “He’s crooked enough to sleep on a corkscrew”: He’s dishonest.

  “Raised on prunes and proverbs”: A religious person.

  “Coffin varnish”: Whiskey.

  “Fat as a well-fed needle”: Poor.

  “Deceitful beans”: Beans that give you gas. (They talk behind your back.)

  “Got a pill in his stomach that he can’t digest”: Shot dead.

  “She’s like a turkey gobbler in a hen pen”: She’s proud.

  “He’s like a breedin’ jackass in a tin barn”: He’s noisy.

  “Fryin’ size but plumb salty”: A senior citizen.

  “Quicker ’n you can spit ’n holler ‘Howdy!’”: Very fast.

  “Studying to be a half-wit”: Stupid or crazy.

  “Built like a snake on stilts”: Tall.

  “Shy on melody, but strong on noise”: A bad singer.

  “Weasel smart”: Very crafty.

  “Scarce as bird dung in a cuckoo clock”: Hard to find.

  “Dry as the dust in a mummy’s pocket”: Very dry.

  “In the lead when tongues was handed out”: Talks too much.

  “If he closed one eye he’d look like a needle”: Very skinny.

  “He lives in a house so small he can’t cuss his cat without getting fur in his mouth”: He’s a tightwad.

  “He died of throat trouble”: He was hung.

  Captain Kangaroo won five Emmy awards.

  DUBIOUS ACHIEVERS

  Here are some of the stranger people listed in the Guiness Book of World Records.

  Randy Ober, Bentonville, Arkansas

  Achievement: Spit a wad of tobacco 47 feet, 7 inches in 1982.

  Joe Ponder, Love Valley, North Carolina

  Achievement: Lifted a 606-pound pumpkin 18 inches off the ground with his teeth in 1985.

  Neil Sullivan, Birmingham, England

  Achievement: Carried a large bag of “household coal” 34 miles on May 24, 1986. It took him 12 hours and 45 minutes.

  Travis Johnson, Elsberry, Missouri

  Achievement: Held nine baseballs in his hand “without any adhesives” in 1989.

  David Beattie and Adrian Simons, London, England

  Achievement: Rode up and down escalators at the Top Shop in London for 101 hours in 1989. Estimated distance of travel: 133.19 miles.

  Pieter van Loggerenberg, Hoedspruit, South Africa

  Achievement: Played the accordion for 85 hours during a wildlife festival in 1987.

  Michel Lotito, Grenoble, France

  Achievement: Has been eating metal and glass since 1959; currently he eats more than two pounds of metal every day. Since 1966 he has eaten 10 bicycles, a supermarket food cart, 7 televisions, 6 chandeliers, a coffin, and a Cessna airplane.

  “Country” Bill White, Killeen, Texas

  Achievement: Buried alive in a coff
in, more than six feet underground, for 341 days in July 1981. Only connection to the outside world: a four-inch tube used for feeding and breathing.

  Name mentioned most frequently in the Bible: David. (Jesus is second.)

  King Taufa’ahau, Tonga

  Achievement: World’s fattest king; weighed 462 pounds in 1976.

  Alfred West

  Achievement: Split a human hair into 17 different pieces “on eight different occasions.”

  Remy Bricka, Paris, France

  Achievement: In 1988, using 13-foot-long floating “skis,” he “walked” across the Atlantic Ocean from Tenerife, Spain, to Trinidad (a distance of 3,502 miles). The trip took 60 days.

  Steve Urner, Tehachapi, California

  Achievement: Threw a dried, “100% organic” cow chip more than 266 feet on August 4, 1981.

  N. Ravi, Tamil Nadu, India

  Achievement: Stood on one foot for 34 hours in 1982.

  “Hercules” John Massis, Oostakker, Belgium

  Achievement: Used teeth to stop a helicopter from taking off, 1979.

  Zolilio Diaz, Spain

  Achievement: Rolled a hoop from Mieres to Madrid, Spain, and back—a distance of more than 600 miles. It took him 18 days.

  Nine employees of the Bruntsfield Bedding Centre, Scotland.

  Achievement: Pushed a wheeled hospital bed 3,233 miles between June 21 and July 26, 1979.

  Fred Jipp, New York City, New York

  Achievement: Most illegal marriages. Between 1949 and 1981, using over 50 aliases, married 104 women in 27 states and 14 foreign countries. Sentenced to 34 years in prison and fined $336,000.

  Octavio Guillen and Adriana Martinez, Mexico City, Mexico

  Achievement: Longest engagement: 67 years. They finally tied the knot in 1969. Both were age 82.

  Sisters Jill Bradbury and Chris Humpish, London, England

  Achievement: Made a bed (2 sheets, 1 undersheet, 1 blanket, 1 pillow, and a bedspread) in 19 seconds flat on October 8, 1985.

  An estimated 70% of the hats sold in the United States are baseball caps.

  THE BIRDS

  AND THE BEES

  When people talk about “the birds and the bees,” this probably isn’t what they had in mind. Here are some of the weirder ways animals reproduce.

  SQUID

  The male squid’s sperm are contained in ½-inch-long pencil-shaped “packages” called spermatophores, which are located in a pouch near his gills. When the male is ready to reproduce, he grabs some of the spermatophores with one of his tentacles and deposits them deep inside the gill chamber of a female squid. The spermatophores remain inside the female until she ovulates, when they explode into a cloud of sperm and fertilize the egg. (In some species the male’s arm breaks off inside the female and remains there until it is absorbed by her body.)

  SLOTHS

  Sloths are the only land animals besides humans that regularly mate face to face. One important difference: they do it while hanging from tree branches by their arms.

  SEA URCHINS

  Sea urchins expel their semen directly into the surrounding sea-water, doing nothing to ensure that it ever reaches an unfertilized egg. If the current is right, the semen will eventually be carried to an egg, and reproduction will take place.

  “NOSE,” OR “VAQUERO,” FROGS

  When the female is ready to reproduce, she lays 20 to 30 unfertilized eggs. Nearby male frogs surround the eggs, fertilize them, and then guard them for as long as two weeks. As soon as they can see tadpoles forming within the eggs, each frog immediately tries to “swallow” as many eggs as possible, depositing them in a large throat sac that extends from their chins to their thighs. The eggs remain there until the tadpoles metamorphosize completely into frogs, when they enter the world by crawling out of the father’s mouth.

  The gorilla’s scientific name is “Gorilla gorilla gorilla.”

  MUD TURTLES

  The female mud turtle has a pair of bladders connected to her intestines that she uses to build a nesting pit for her eggs. When she is ready to lay her fertilized eggs, she fills the bladders with water, and then partially empties them over the patch of dirt she wants to use for her nest. Then she starts digging, emptying the rest of the water in her bladders as she digs. When the bladders are empty, she returns to the water to refill them, then returns to the nest and continues digging. When she finishes, she kicks her eggs into the hole with her feet or tail, and covers the nest with fresh mud.

  EUROPEAN CUCKOOS

  Like all species of cuckoos, the European cuckoo does not build its own nest. Instead, it lays its eggs in the nests of other species of birds. Some types of cuckoos remove the original eggs from the nest, other types leave them in the nest, and the host mother raises all the young as if they were her own. But the offspring of the European cuckoo are more aggressive than most: a few hours after one is born it begins kicking uncontrollably, an involuntary response that lasts about four days. By that time, the fledgling has usually kicked everything out of the nest—including any other baby birds.

  SNAILS

  Snails practice a form of foreplay in which they shoot chalky “love darts” at each other to determine if they are members of the same species. Because snails are hermaphrodites—they have male and female sex organs—each snail will impregnate the other.

  DUCKS

  According to one study, young male ducks are often disinterested in sex—even to the point of resisting the advances of females who are “in the mood.” Sometimes the ducks appear to make elaborate excuses for why they cannot have sex, such as chasing away an imaginary enemy, taking an unneeded bath, etc. But the male ducks make up for it in later life: after they select a mate.

  AFRICAN ELEPHANTS

  According to at least one study, female elephants act as midwives for one another when the hour of birth draws near. One researcher reponed observing three female elephants leaving their herd and approaching a thicket. One of the females went into the thicket, while the other two stood guard outside, driving away any elephant or other animal that tried to approach. After a while the sentries returned to the herd, followed shortly afterwards by the third elephant and her newborn.

  Australia has more sheep than any other country on Earth.

  SPIDERS

  Because the male spider has no sex organ, he has to squeeze sperm from his belly onto his web, which he then picks up with his antennae before going off in search of a female spider. Male spiders also have to be careful once they find a female; if they aren’t careful, the female will bite their head off during sex.

  PRAYING MANTISES

  As soon as the male praying mantis mounts the female, the female bites his head off. Undeterred, the male continues mating while the female eats his shoulders and upper abdomen. Unlike most other creatures, the male mantis’s brain prevents him from releasing sperm, so the female has to bite his head off.

  BEES

  Only one male bee in a hive has the right to mate with the Queen, a process that takes about two seconds. When the male bee pulls away, his penis breaks off and remains inside the Queen, while he falls to the bottom of the hive and bleeds to death.

  SNAKES

  Female snakes mate with several male snakes during each mating cycle and can store sperm in their bodies for months. According to one theory, snakes do this in order to have a “sperm contest” inside their bodies, somehow allowing only the healthiest sperm to fertilize their eggs. This increases the number of live births per season, increasing the chance that the species will survive.

  GREAT GREY SLUGS

  Grey slugs are also hermaphrodites and engage in foreplay consisting of circling one another for hours, generating lots of slime in the process. Then they mate while hanging from ropes of slime.

  Secret stash: FBI director J. Edgar Hoover kept a collection of pornography locked in his desk.

  THE DUSTBIN

  OF HISTORY

  Harold Stassen almost won the GOP nomination for pres
ident in 1948. Did something “snap” when he lost? No one knows for sure, but he kept on running...and running...and running...

  BACKGROUND. Harold Stassen was the Republican “Boy Wonder” of Minnesota politics in the 1930s. He was elected governor of the state in 1937 at the age of 31, and re-elected in 1940 and 1942. He was widely regarded—by friends and foes—as presidential timber.

  The Sure Thing. Nineteen forty-eight was the presidential election Republicans had been waiting for: FDR was dead, and Harry Truman’s approval rating had slipped below 30%. The Republican nominee—whoever he was—was a shoo-in to claim the Oval Office. And Harold Stassen was a front-runner for the nomination.

  Stassen steamrolled through the Nebraska, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania primaries. And he lost New Jersey by only 600 votes, despite the fact that Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York was the favorite son of a neighboring state. Next, he stormed West Virginia, winning 117,000 of the state’s 139,000 votes. He looked unstoppable—until he got to Oregon.

  The Loser. Stassen had agreed to debate Dewey on May 17, 1948—only days before the Oregon primary—on the single issue of whether or not the Communist Party should be banned in the U.S. Stassen debated in favor of the ban; Dewey opposed it.

  Stassen was the first candidate to speak, and he ripped into the Reds. “These Communist organizations are not really political parties. They actually are fifth columns....Governor Dewey’s position in effect means a soft policy towards Communism...we must not coddle Communism with legality.” One broadcaster later described Stassen’s delivery as being the “assured and authoritative delivery of a man comfortable with command.”

  Next came Dewey’s turn to reply. He didn’t defend Communism, but he urged restraint in dealing with it: “The people of this country are being asked to outlaw Communism. That means this: Shall we in America, in order to defeat a totalitarian regime which we detest, voluntarily adopt the methods of that system?...I am unalterably, wholeheartedly, unswervingly against any scheme to write laws outlawing people because of their religious, political, social, or economic ideas.”