Uncle John’s Fast-Acting Long-Lasting Bathroom Reader (7 page)

Story:
There are more than 150 sock mills in the Fort Payne area. Half the local population—6,000 people—produces 12 million pairs of socks each week. It’s estimated that one out of every four feet in America is dressed in a Fort Payne sock.

EARMUFF CAPITAL OF THE WORLD

Town:
Farmington, Maine

Story:
Chester Greenwood invented earmuffs here in 1873 (he was 15 years old). He subsequently opened a factory in Farmington, and business took off when he won a contract to supply them to World War I soldiers. Farmington celebrates Greenwood with a parade on the first Saturday of every December. Everyone and everything, including pets and police cars, wears earmuffs.

COSTUME JEWELRY CAPITAL OF THE WORLD

Town:
Providence, Rhode Island

Story:
In 1794 a Providence resident named Nehemiah Dodge developed a simple, low-cost method of gold-plating. Result: a pirate’s booty in expensive-looking jewelry that almost anyone could afford. Today there are more than 1,000 costume jewelry plants in Rhode Island, most of them in Providence.

CASKET CAPITAL OF THE WORLD

Town:
Batesville, Indiana

Story:
Since 1884, the town has been home to Batesville Casket, the country’s most prolific coffin manufacturer. (The plant churns out one casket every 53 seconds.) The town built around death has a lot of life, including an annual Raspberry Festival and a Music & Arts Festival…but no Casket Festival.

You’re in good company: Abraham Lincoln moved his lips when he read.

COW CHIP THROWING CAPITAL OF THE WORLD

Town:
Beaver, Oklahoma

Story:
The World Championship Cow Chip Throw is held here every April. The town’s registered trademark: King Cow Chip, a cartoon of a dried pile of cow poop wearing a crown.

CORN CAPITAL OF THE WORLD

Town:
Olivia, Minnesota

Story:
Olivia has more corn seed research facilities and processing plants than any other place on earth, and it celebrated that fact in 1973 by erecting a 50-foot-tall statue of a cornstalk. In 2003, the Minnesota senate passed a resolution making Olivia’s claim to the world title official. But don’t confuse Olivia with its corny rival, Constantine, Michigan, which grows 20 percent of the nation’s seed corn. In 2003 the Michigan legislature proclaimed Constantine the
“Seed
Corn Capital of the World.”

KILLER BEE CAPITAL OF THE WORLD

Town:
Hidalgo, Texas

Story:
Killer bees emerged in the 1950s when some African bees escaped from a South American lab and bred with the local bees, creating a volatile spawn that migrated north. In 1990 they crossed into the United States through Hidalgo. Did the town flee in horror? Nope. They used it to promote tourism. Hidalgo spent $20,000 to build the “World’s Largest Killer Bee,” a 10-foot-tall, full-color bee in the center of town.

SPINACH CAPITAL OF THE WORLD

Town:
Alma, Arkansas

Story:
The Allen Canning Company, based in Alma, cans 65 percent of all American canned spinach—60 million pounds a year—so in 1987, Alma proclaimed itself the Spinach Capital of the World. Their claim was challenged by Crystal Springs, Texas, which said it already
was
the Spinach Capital, and had been since 1937, when Del Monte opened a spinach canning plant there. Proof: they have a statue of Popeye in the town square. Not to be outdone, Alma built its own Popeye statue, then painted its water tower green, and labeled it the “World’s Largest Can of Spinach.”

Most common woman’s shoe size: 7½.

THE WRIGHT STUFF

Words of bizarre wisdom from one of the most original comics ever—and one of our all-time favorites—Steven Wright
.

“Do Lipton employees take coffee breaks?”

“I was stopped once for going 53 in a 35-mph zone, but I told them I had dyslexia.”

“If you saw a heat wave, would you wave back?”

“When I was crossing the border to Canada, they asked me if I had any firearms with me. I said, ‘Well, what do you need?’”

“I have an existential map. It has ‘You are here’ written all over it.”

“If a person with multiple personalities threatens suicide, is it considered a hostage situation?”

“Imagine if birds were tickled by feathers. You’d see a flock of birds come by laughing hysterically.”

“I’d kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.”

“I stayed in a really old hotel last night. They sent me a wake-up letter.”

“When I was a baby, I kept a diary. Recently I was rereading it. ‘Day one: still tired from the move. Day two: everybody talks to me like I’m an idiot!’”

“I Xeroxed a mirror. Now I have two Xerox machines.”

“I’m taking Lamaze classes. I’m not having a baby, I’m just having trouble breathing.”

“I went to a 7-11 and asked for a 2 by 4 and a box of 3 by 5s. The clerk said, ‘ten-four.’”

“I was sad because I had no shoes, then I met a man with no feet. So I said, ‘Got any shoes you’re not using?’”

“It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.”

“I busted a mirror and got seven years bad luck. But my lawyer thinks he can get me five.”

“I tried to hang myself with a bungee cord. I kept almost dying.”

The wet look: Billy goats trying to attract a mate urinate on their own heads.

TOY FADS

It happens every few years: Some new toy becomes instantly popular, every kid wants it, parents push and shove to buy one, and a company makes millions of dollars. Then, just as quickly, the fad is over
.

F
AD:
Teddy Ruxpin
LASTED:
1985–1988
BACKGROUND:
Ken Forsse was a pioneer in
animatronics
at Disneyland in the 1960s and ’70s, where he designed such innovative robotic displays as the talking figure of Abraham Lincoln in the Hall of Presidents. In the early 1980s he spent $1 million (of his own money) to develop Teddy Ruxpin, a doll in the likeness of a bear that would move his mouth and eyes as he read pre-recorded stories. He got financial backers and started a company, Worlds of Wonder (WOW), specifically to make the dolls.

RISE AND FALL:
Teddy Ruxpin debuted in 1985. Despite its high price ($70) WOW couldn’t produce the dolls fast enough and sold $93 million worth of them in the first year alone. A hit TV cartoon show followed and by 1987 Worlds of Wonder had earned $330 million, making it the fastest-growing startup company—of any kind—to date. But by 1988 they were broke. Every toymaker in the business had come out with animatronic dolls by then, and just as quickly as the fad had exploded, it collapsed. By 1988, WOW was $312 million in debt; by 1989 it was out of business.

FAD:
Pogs

LASTED:
1992–1996

BACKGROUND:
Pogs has its roots in an Hawaiian game from the 1920s. Kids would take fruit juice lids—cardboard disks—and stack them up. Half were one player’s; half the other’s. One player would then toss a heavy coin at the stack, and all the disks that had turned over—landing label side up—were kept by the thrower. The game would continue until one player had all the disks. It was called “Pogs” because of what was printed on the label: P.O.G., an acronym for
“p
assion fruit,
o
range,
g
uava,” a popular juice combination.

RISE AND FALL:
The game was popular for a while, died out, and then came back in the early 1990s. When it started to spread from Hawaii to the rest of the United States and then to Canada, toy companies started making a version. Instead of a juice label, the pogs—still cardboard disks—were adorned with images such as cartoon characters and movie stars. Hundreds of kinds of pogs were available. Thanks to its simplicity and low cost, the game quickly became hugely popular, with sales of more than $1 billion. The “World Pog Federation” even held international championships. But because it was so simple, kids quickly got bored with it. By 1996 it was washed up.

The state capital of Texas has been moved 15 times.

FAD:
Chatty Cathy
LASTED:
1959–1965
BACKGROUND:
In the late 1950s, Mattel engineer Jack Ryan—previously a missile designer for the U.S. government—designed the first doll with a voicebox that worked by pulling a string. The pull-string activated a tiny record player that played one of 11 phrases at random, including “I love you,” “I’m hungry,” and “Please brush my hair.” The doll was also different in that it didn’t look like a baby—it looked like a little girl, complete with bangs, buck teeth, and freckles. Mattel owner Elliot Handler’s wife, Ruth (the inventor of the Barbie doll), named her “Chatty Cathy.”

RISE AND FALL:
Introduced in 1959, Chatty Cathy was immediately a hit. The doll was redesigned in 1963 and given seven more phrases; a new version released in 1964 could speak over 120 phrases. But by then, pull-string talking toys were commonplace and no longer a novelty. An attempt to bring the doll back in 1969 (voiced by Maureen McCormick, Marcia on
The Brady Bunch)
failed. Chatty Cathy was gone by 1971.

MORE TOY FADS

•
Slap bracelets
(1980s) Flexible strips of fabric- or plastic-covered metal. Kids “slapped” them on each other’s wrists.

•
Super Soakers
(1990s) Huge, pump-driven water guns that shot water farther and with more pressure than previous squirt guns.

•
Tamagotchi
(1997) Handheld plastic eggs with screens that displayed virtual “pets.” Kids had to feed them (by pressing buttons)…or they would “die.”

Uranus is about 19 times larger than Earth (and 20 times more fun to say).

IRONIC, ISN’T IT?

There’s nothing like a good dose of irony to put the problems of day-to-day life into proper perspective
.

E
YE SPY
William Foster of Tallahassee, Florida, was charged with a hit-and-run in 2004 after striking a pedestrian with his car. Foster says he doesn’t remember seeing or hitting the pedestrian, but he does remember where he was going at the time: he was driving to an optometrist appointment.

RUN FOR THE BORDER

In 2003
Men’s Fitness
magazine named Houston “America’s Fattest City.” In 2005 a local bike club tried to change the city’s image by holding a 40-mile bike rally through downtown Houston. To get people to sign up, they offered free beer and tacos at the end of the race.

LOOK WHO’S TALKING

In 2004, 76-year-old game show producer Ralph Andrews filed suit against Dick Clark for age discrimination when Clark refused to hire Andrews to work for his production company, calling him a “dinosaur.” Clark’s age at the time: 74.

DID MY NAME GIVE ME AWAY?

Acting on an anonymous tip, Detroit police pulled over a suspected drug dealer in May 2005. They found 33 pounds of cocaine in the vehicle, for which the drug dealer faces several years in prison. What’s ironic about that? Her name is Denise Coke.

WEB OF DECEPTION

A family values watchdog group called United Confederacy Against the World Wide Web distributed a petition in 2005 with the specific mission of banning the Internet from all American homes. But there’s only one way to sign the petition: by visiting the UCAWWW Web site.

Oregon’s state flag is the only one with a different design on each side.

WHAT DOES IT TAKE?

It takes the average bathroom reader about two minutes to read this page
.

•
It takes
1,000 yards of linen to wrap an average mummy.

•
It takes
50,000 words to use up the lead in one pencil.

•
It takes
600 grapes to make one bottle of wine.

•
It takes
30 to 40 gallons of maple tree sap to make one gallon of maple syrup.

•
It takes
24 to 26 hours for a hen to produce an egg.

•
It takes
72 muscles to speak one word.

•
It takes
eight weeks for the average man to grow a one-inch-long beard.

•
It takes
one acre of soybeans to produce 82,368 crayons.

•
It takes
a bushel of corn to sweeten 400 cans of soda pop.

•
It takes
25 tomatoes to make one bottle of ketchup.

•
It takes
one acre of trees one year to remove 13 tons of dust and noxious gases from the air.

•
It takes
seven years for a lobster to grow to one pound.

•
It takes
345 squirts of milk from a cow’s udder to make one gallon of milk.

•
It takes
18 hummingbirds to weigh an ounce.

•
It takes
42,000 tennis balls for a Wimbledon tournament.

•
It takes
one bale of cotton to make 1,217 T-shirts.