Uncle John's Ahh-Inspiring Bathroom Reader (84 page)

On December 6, he wrote out his last will and testament. Then, 53 days after leaving Grand Canary, he encountered the freighter
Arakaka
. But instead of asking to be rescued, Bombard
only wanted to know where he was—and his location turned out to be 600 miles away from where he thought he was. It meant he had at least another 20 days to go. Bombard was miserable, but he refused all assistance except the offer of a hot shower and fresh batteries for his radio. Then he went back to his rubber raft.

Two weeks later, he made landfall on Barbados. It was the day before Christmas. After surviving on nothing but fish, seawater, rain (and a bird), Bombard had lost 55 pounds—a little less than a pound per day, typical for castaways. He developed a slight case of anemia, he had diarrhea, weak spells, blurry vision, he'd lost of a few toenails, and had a skin rash. But overall he was in fairly good health. And he proved that a person can indeed survive on salt water (most survival experts still insist that it's better to drink nothing at all).

Maurice and Maralyn Bailey were aboard their 31-foot sloop
Auralyn
on their way to the Galapagos Islands on March 4, 1973, when their boat was struck by a wounded sperm whale. The
Auralyn
started sinking—an hour later it was gone. They left the ship in a four-foot inflatable life raft tied to a nine-foot inflatable dinghy. They had all their survival supplies with them with one exception—they forgot the fishing gear. Still, they had a 20-day supply of food and water.

Three hundred miles from the Galapagos Islands, the Baileys spent three nights rowing as hard as they could trying to reach land, but it was futile and they gave up, allowing the current to sweep them farther out to sea. On the eighth day, a ship passed nearby but failed to see them, and they wasted three of their six flares. When food ran out, they survived on sea turtles. Then, using turtle scraps as bait and safety pins as hooks, they were able to catch some fish. To pass the time, they played cards and dominoes.

On the 25th night, another ship went by without seeing either their flare or their flashlight. On the 37th day, another ship passed, and two days later another one. They set off an improvised smoke
bomb—kerosene-soaked cloth strips in a turtle shell—but weren't spotted. Another ship went by on the 45th day, but they couldn't get their “smoke bomb” to light. One of the main float tubes of their raft collapsed on the 55th day and couldn't be repaired—after that, they needed to pump it up every 20 minutes. Gradually, their health began to fail.

In June torrential rains came, providing fresh water to drink but the deteriorating canopy above their raft failed to keep them dry. By their 100th day afloat, they had to eat the birds that constantly landed on their raft. They even began catching and eating sharks. On June 30, a Korean ship appeared and saw them waving their jackets. Amazingly, after 118 days at sea, they were able to climb aboard under their own power.

In August 1985, Gary Mundell set out to sail solo from California to Hawaii aboard his boat
Petral
. Everything went well for the first few days. But then one night, he was jolted awake by a bump. Getting up to investigate, he discovered that the boat had run aground on Caroline Island, one of the most remote pieces of real estate in the Pacific. Mundell had gone to bed thinking the island was at least 15 miles away. Had he miscalculated? It didn't matter now—he was stranded on a deserted island. The island, seven miles long and one mile wide, was completely uninhabited. He couldn't get the boat free and couldn't reach anyone on the radio.

He transferred absolutely everything movable from the boat to the shore using his inflatable raft, and set up camp under a grove of coconut trees. As the days passed, Mundell found plenty of food: coconuts, crabs, and fish. He caught rainwater in his sail and filled the many discarded bottles and jugs that washed up on the beach until he had more than 60 gallons. He never had to ration water—and even filled his raft and had a bath.

After the first month passed without spotting a ship or plane, Mundell considered sailing to the nearest inhabited island 460 miles away, but decided to stay put…where at least he had food and water.

On the 50th day, he spotted a ship a few miles away. Taking no chances, he did everything he could to get the crew's attention—flares, smoke signals, and mirror flashes. The ship, the French
research vessel
Coriolis,
answered with their searchlight. Rescue! Once aboard the
Coriolis,
he discovered how he had miscalculated his location: he hadn't—Caroline Island was actually 15 miles east of its charted position.

In 1974 Ray and Ellen Jackson, experienced sailors, bought a 42-foot yacht called
Spirit
and spent the next year outfitting her with every safety feature money could buy. They left California in 1975 and cruised 8,000 miles all over the Pacific. But after Ray injured his back in Hawaii, they decided to fly home and asked Ellen's brother, Jim Ahola, to sail the boat back to California.

Ahola had considerable experience with the
Spirit
but still decided to hire more experienced help, Bruce Collins to captain and Durel Miller to crew. His girlfriend, Camilla Arthur, and her friend, Nancy Perry, asked to come along, too. On September 12, 1976, the
Spirit
left Hawaii bound for California.

On the morning of September 27, without warning, there was a huge bang and the ship keeled over. Had the boat been hit by whales? Did it strike floating debris? Had a submarine surfaced beneath them? They never found out. Although the
Spirit
righted itself, there was a hole in the bow and it quickly began to sink. Flying debris had smashed the radio—so no SOS could be sent. There were two life rafts on board, but the survival kits had been washed away. Collins, Ahola, and Arthur got into one raft and Miller and Perry took the other. Five minutes later the
Spirit
was gone. They were 750 miles from land.

The castaways tied the two rafts together and distributed the meager supplies. They had no food, no fishing gear, and little water. Eleven hours later, the tether broke and the two rafts drifted apart. The raft carrying Miller and Perry drifted for 22 days. Miller was an experienced seaman but Perry was a complete stranger to the sea and was debilitated by seasickness. By the 12th day, she was incoherent and helpless. By the time they were rescued, she had lost 43 pounds (she only weighed 113 pounds to start with). Miller lost 55 pounds but cared for her constantly, kept a lookout, and flagged down a ship called the
Oriental Financier
on the 22nd day.

A subsequent search for the second raft covered nearly 200,000 square miles. On the sixth day of the search it was found, but with only one survivor on board, Captain Bruce Collins—Ahola and Arthur were dead. Collins reported that they ran out of fresh water on the 12th day and he had survived by drinking the foul-tasting rainwater he collected from the canopy of the raft. The others had refused to drink it, fearing it was poisonous. Ahola died on the 19th day. His death devastated his girlfriend, and she died two days later.

Camilla's mother sued the Avon life raft company for failing to provide enough survival gear to keep her daughter alive. A court awarded her $70,000, but the company appealed. It was settled out of court.

• First takeout pizza.
In 1889 King Umberto and Queen Margherita of Italy wanted to sample the Neapolitan street food but didn't want to go out. So she asked pizzeria owner Raffaele Esposito to bring the pizzas to her. He made three kinds, including one with tomato paste, fresh basil, and a new ingredient, mozzarella cheese.

• First pizzeria in the United States.
Opened by Gennaro Lombardi in 1905, on Spring Street in New York's Little Italy.

•
The first mozzarella cheese.
It was made from the milk of water buffaloes, first brought to Italy from India in the seventh century.

•
The first deep-dish pizza.
Invented in the 1940s by Chicago's Pizzeria Uno.

•
The first commercial pizza-pie mix
. Called Roman Pizza Mix, was produced in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1948 by Frank A. Fiorello.

•
The first frozen pizza.
Marketed by Celentano Brothers in 1957.

•
The first Pizza Hut.
Opened in 1958 by two brothers attending Wichita State University.

One of the most fascinating stories of lost treasure is the story of General John Cadwalader's furniture. Seriously. They're among the most valuable antiques on Earth. And who knows—you may be sitting on his couch right now.

Revolutionary War general John Cadwalader is famous for two things: defending the honor of George Washington in a duel, and having extremely odd taste in furniture.

Cadwalader fought his duel with General Tom Conway, after Conway schemed to have Washington replaced as commander in chief of the Continental Army. Cadwalader won—he shot Conway in the face and nearly killed him (Conway recovered and moved to France).

Cadwalader's unique taste in furniture dates back to before the Revolution. In 1769 he and his wife, a Maryland heiress named Elizabeth Lloyd, bought a three-story Georgian house in one of Philadelphia's most exclusive neighborhoods and then spent a fortune refurbishing it and filling it with furniture. They were determined to make their new home the most fashionable address in the city, and by all accounts they succeeded; one member of the Continental Congress who visited the home wrote that it “exceeds anything I have seen in this city or elsewhere.”

The most skilled artisans in the city spent months on end crafting hand-carved paneling, ceilings, moldings, and surrounds for the windows, fireplaces, and doorways. Some of the pieces were carved with flowers, others with ribbons, birds, allegorical figures, even dragons.

While this was going on, the Cadwaladers were also ordering furniture. Lots of furniture—the finest in the colonies—also hand-carved by Philadelphia's most skilled craftsmen. They commissioned enough furniture to fill the entire house. For their gilded
front parlor alone, they commissioned two card tables, three large sofas, and a huge easy chair that was almost as wide as a loveseat. The furniture was constructed by a master cabinetmaker named Thomas Affleck.

The Cadwaladers were fans of the then-modern Rococo style, whose distinguishing feature was bold, elaborate carved ornamentation. One detail appealed to them in particular: “hairy lion'spaw” feet. Have you ever seen an antique chair or table with legs carved to look like animals' feet? It's a common design element in antique furniture, but most people preferred eagle claws or
hairless
lion paws, not “hairy-paws.”

In fact, most people considered hairy-paws to be quite ugly—and very few 18th-century examples survive. Not in England, where hairy-paws originated and quickly fell out of favor, and not in the colonies, where they never caught on at all.

In the late 1780s, the ornate Rococo style gave way to the much simpler Neoclassical style, which drew its inspiration from the austerity of Greco-Roman architecture and art. Now the Cadwaladers' furniture wasn't just ugly, it was considered gaudy and passé. And since nobody wanted to buy Rococo furniture anymore—not even the stuff
without
hairy-paws—furniture makers stopped making it. Cadwalader's furniture was unique to begin with; suddenly it became rare.

Cadwalader's furniture has just about everything that a collector looks for in an antique. It was made of the highest-quality materials. It was fashioned by some of the best-known, most highly skilled master craftsmen of the late 18th century. Its style is both very bold and very rare—it's considered to be some of the finest examples of American Rococo furniture ever made. And it was commissioned by one of the wealthiest and most prominent families in the colonies, a family headed by a Revolutionary War hero, one who defended George Washington in a duel and who entertained the future president and numerous other founding fathers in his home in the very years that the United States of America was being born.