Uncle John's Great Big Bathroom Reader (45 page)

“Rock ‘n’ roll is a bit like Las Vegas; guys dressed up in their sisters’ clothes pretending to be rebellious and angry, but not really angry about anything.”

—Sting

“I may be a living legend, but that sure don’t help when I’ve got to change a flat tire.”

—Roy Orbison

“Somebody said to me, ‘But The Beatles were antimaterialistic.’ That’s a huge myth. John and I literally used to sit down and say, ‘Now, let’s write a swimming pool.’”

—Paul McCartney

“People got my face up on their walls. You turn on TV, that’s my head. That’s sick, man. I used to have a...McDonald’s costume on. I used to make hamburgers.”

—Mark White (Spin Doctors)

“If you want to torture me, you’d tie me down and force me to watch our first five videos.”

—Jon Bon Jovi

“Mick Jagger would be astounded if he realized to many people he’s not a sex symbol, but a mother image.”

—David Bowie

“In rock ‘n’ roll, you’re built up to be torn down. Like architecture in America, you build it up and let it stand for ten years, then call it shabby and rip it down and put something else up.”

—Joni Mitchell

“Art is the last thing I’m worried about when I write a song. If you want to call it art, yeah, okay, you can call it what you like. As far as I’m concerned, ‘Art’ is just short for ‘Arthur.’”

—Keith Richards

“To have a huge hit record with only three chords is one of the best tricks a writer can do.”

—Burton Cummings (the Guess Who)

Here’s a look at a few more lucky people who found some real valuable stuff.

G
RANDMA’S GARBAGE

The Find:
An old painting.

Where It Was Found:
At grandma’s house.
The Story:
In 1964, a Connecticut woman happened to be visiting her grandparents’ house on a day when they were throwing out some old junk. She saw an old painting she liked, and her grandparents let her have it. She hung it over her bed, where it stayed for the next 25 years.

In 1989, the woman took the painting into an art appraiser to see if it was worth anything. The appraiser offered her $1,000 for it. She refused. A little while later, he called and offered her $100,000. Now she was suspicious, and contacted an auction house. It turned out to be a rare work by the 19th-century artist Martin Johnson Heade. The painting sold at auction a few months later for $1.1 million.

STEPPING OUT

The Find:
An animated cartoon film made in 1922.

Where It Was
Found: In a film rental library in London, England.

The Story:
In the mid-1970s, film collector David Wyatt paid two pounds (about $3) for a 7-minute-long, black-and-white silent cartoon titled “Grandma Steps Out.”

Twenty years later, Wyatt showed the film to Russell Merritt, a film scholar working on a book called
Walt in Wonderland: The Silent Films of Walt Disney.
Merritt recognized “Grandma Steps Out” as the only known copy of “Little Red Riding Hood,” Disney’s first film—and one of the American Film Institute’s ten “most-wanted” lost films. Disney drew the film when he was a 21-year-old commercial artist in Kansas City. Six years later he finished “Steamboat Willie,” his first Mickey Mouse cartoon.

Wyatt’s copy may have been a bootleg—which explains the new
title—but it’s still the only copy of a film that, for decades, was assumed to be lost forever. Estimated value: priceless. “Its value historically is inestimable,” says Scott MacQueen, at Walt Disney studios. “Not only is this the very first Disney cartoon, but there are also very few examples of work in Disney’s own hand. It represents the beginning of the dynasty.”

PICTURE PERFECT

The Find:
A daguerreotype photograph of a young man, taken in 1847.

Where It Was Found:
At an antique photograph auction in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The Story:
In 1996, Paul and Maria Pasquariello saw an original daguerreotype at the auction. It was identified as a picture of George Lippard, an obscure 19th century novelist and historian, but they knew they’d seen the picture somewhere before. They were almost positive the picture was actually of the famous abolitionist John Brown.

But the Pasquariellos couldn’t be sure—because this picture was of a young, cleanshaven man, and most pictures of Brown were taken when he was older and had grown an enormous beard.

That night they poured through history books until they finally found the same picture—a portrait of Brown described as coming from “a long lost daguerreotype.”

The next day the Pasquariellos bought the daguerreotype for $12,075. Sotheby’s later auctioned it to the Smithsonian Institute’s National Portrait Gallery for $129,000, the highest price ever paid by the gallery for a photograph.

WHAT A DOLL

The Find:
An old doll.

Where It Was Found:
On a garbage heap in Bochum, Germany.

The Story:
Five-year-old Nicole Ohlsen found the doll in some trash. Her mother was about to throw it away when she discovered a cache of diamonds inside. Estimated value: $72,000. The mother took the diamonds to the police, who told her no one had reported them missing—and let her keep them.

What happens when we start messing around with nature, trying to make living conditions better? Sometimes it works...and sometimes nature gets even. Here are a few instances when people intentionally introduced animal or plants into a new environment...and regretted it.

I
mport:
Kudzu, a fast-growing Japanese vine.

Background:
Originally brought into the Southern U.S. in 1876 for use as shade. People noticed livestock ate the vine and that kudzu helped restore nitrogen to the soil. It seemed like a perfect plant to cultivate. So in the 1930s, the U.S. government helped farmers plant kudzu all over the South.

Nature’s Revenge:
By the 1950s, it was out of control, blanketing farmers’ fields, buildings, utility poles and—often fatally—trees. Today, utility companies spend millions of dollars annually spraying herbicides on poles and towers to keep them kudzu-free. And instead of helping plant kudzu, the government now gives advice on how to get rid of it.

Import:
The mongoose.

Background:
The small Asian mammals famous for killing cobras were brought to Hawaii by sugar planters in 1893. Their reason: They thought the mongooses would help control the rat population.

Nature’s Revenge:
The planters overlooked one little detail: the mongoose is active in the daytime while the rat is nocturnal. “In Hawaii today,” says one source, “mongooses are considered pests nearly as bad as rats.”

Import:
The starling, an English bird.

Background:
In 1890, a philanthropist named Eugene Schieffelin decided to bring every type of bird mentioned in Shakespeare’s plays to New York City’s Central Park. He brought in hundreds of pairs of birds from England. Unfortunately, most (like skylarks and thrushes) didn’t make it. Determined to succeed with at least one species, Schieffelin shipped 40 pairs of starlings to Central Park and let them loose just before the mating season on March 6, 1890.

Nature’s Revenge:
There are now more than 50 million starlings in the U.S. alone—all descendants from Schieffelin’s flock—and they have become a major health hazard. They fly in swarms, littering roads and highways with their droppings, which carry disease-bearing bacteria that are often transmitted to animals and people. They’ve also become pests to farmers, screeching unbearably and destroying wheat and cornfields.

Import:
The gypsy moth.

Background:
In 1869, Leopold Trouvelot, a French entomologist, imported some gypsy moth caterpillars to Massachusetts. It was part of a get-rich-quick scheme: he figured that since the caterpillars thrive on oak tree leaves, which are plentiful there, he could crossbreed them with silkworm moths, and create a self-sustaining, silk-producing caterpillar. He’d make a fortune!

Unfortunately, the crossbreeding didn’t work. Then one day, a strong wind knocked over a cage filled with the gypsy moth caterpillars. They escaped through an open window and survived.

Nature’s Revenge:
At first, the moths spread slowly. But by 1950, gypsy moths could be found in every New England state and in eastern New York. They’ve since spread to Virginia and Maryland—and beyond. Populations have become established as far away as Minnesota and California, probably due to eggs unknowingly transported by cars driven from the Northeast to those regions. They’re not a major threat, but can cause severe problems: In 1981, for example, they were reported to have stripped leaves from 13 million trees.

Import:
Dog fennel.

Background:
At the turn of the 19th century, Johnny Appleseed wandered around the Ohio territory, planting apples wherever he went. It’s not widely known that he also he sowed a plant called
dog fennel
, which was believed to be a fever-reducing medicine.

Nature’s Revenge:
It’s not only
not
medicine, it’s bad medicine; farmers are sick of it. “The foul-smelling weed,” says the
People’s
Almanac, “spread from barnyard to pasture, sometimes growing as high as fifteen feet. Today, exasperated midwestern farmers still cannot rid their fields of the plant they half-humorously call ‘Johnnyweed.’”

Can you imagine being offered a nice, big helping of Burgoo? Sounds appetizing, doesn’t it?

ANADAMA BREAD

A Gloucester, Massachusetts, fisherman was married to a woman named Anna and every night, she fed him cornmeal and molasses for dinner. He got so sick of it that one evening he stormed into the kitchen, threw some yeast into the mix, and baked a sodden, lumpy loaf...muttering “Anna, damn ‘er” the whole time. His Yankee-accented phrase came out as
Anadama
, giving the bread its name.

This story first appeared in print in 1915—and though it sounds like a tall tale, it’s cited so often that most food historians believe it.

BURGOO

Politics and Burgoo go hand in hand in Kentucky. This Southern beef and fowl stew was cooked for people at political rallies. There are several versions about how it was created, but this one is the most colorful: During the Civil War, a Yankee soldier managed to kill a number of wild birds which he promptly made into a stew, using a copper kettle normally used for mixing gunpowder. He invited his buddies to join him, and-having eaten nothing but hardtack and bacon for days—they jumped at the offer. The soldier suffered from a speech impediment. When he was asked what the dish was, he tried to say “bird stew,” but it came out as “Burgoo.”

JANSSON’S TEMPTATION

In 1846, Eric Jansson fled Sweden to escape religious persecution for his radical theology. He and his followers settled in Illinois. Jansson told his followers that eating was a sin that turned their thoughts away from God, and he allowed them only a starvation diet. His downfall came when they found him consuming a rich dish of potatoes, onions, and cream, now known as Jansson’s Temptation.

BAPTIST CAKE

Many churches settle for a symbolic sprinkling of holy water during baptism, but Baptists insist on full immersion. When deep-fried doughnut-like confections were introduced in New England in the 1920s, they were named Baptist Cakes because they were “baptized” in hot oil.

HOPPIN’ JOHN

A New Orleans dish of cowpeas and rice, traditionally served on New Year’s Day to ensure good luck in the coming year. The name dates back to 1819 and is derived from a New Year’s ritual of having the children hop around the table before being served.

LIMPING SUSAN

A variation on Hoppin’ John, with red beans substituted for cowpeas.

JOHNNY CAKE

Blame the Yankee accent for Johnny Cakes, too. In Colonial America, travelers would bake a supply of cakes to take on trips, called Journey Cakes. “Journey” comes out as “johnny” when pronounced with a broad, New England accent. In 1940, the Rhode Island Legislature ruled that only cakes made from flint corn could carry the proud title of Johnny Cakes. There is a Johnny Cake Festival in Newport every October...as well as a Society for the Propagation of the Johnny Cake Tradition.