Uncle John's Great Big Bathroom Reader (7 page)

J
AMES DRUMMOND DOLE.
In 1899, his cousin, the governor of Hawaii, helped him get some land to pursue his dream of growing pineapples for export. He revolutionized the fruit industry by packing the highly perishable pineapple in cans, shoving pieces through a small slit in the top and sealing it with a bead of solder.

FRANK GERBER.
In 1928, his seven-month-old grandaughter, Sally, became seriously ill. The girl’s physician suggested she might benefit from a diet of strained fruits and vegetables, and he put his tomato-canning factory to work on it. When Sally recovered, mothers in the area began requesting samples of the food. He started marketing the product, and within six months, Gerber Strained Peas, Prunes, Carrots, and Spinach were available across the U.S.

CHARLES PILLSBURY.
Bought his first flour mill in St. Anthony Falls, Minnesota in 1865, at a time when the state imported most of its flour. Minnesota flour was hard and brittle, and considered inferior to the imported flour. Charles installed a purifier that enabled him to produce flour which made more and better bread per barrel than the softer imported winter wheat. Ten years later, his plant was turning out 10,000 barrels of flour a day.

JOHN LANDIS MASON.
In 1858, he worked with glass blowers to produce an alternative to home-canning with tin. His solution: a threaded glass container with a screw-top lid. It preserved flavor better, enabled housewives to see the contents at a glance, and was easy to clean and reuse. Over a hundred billion Mason jars have been made since then.

LEON LEONWOOD (L.L.) BEAN.
Sewed leather uppers to rubber overshoe bottoms in 1912 to keep his feet dry on deer-hunting trips. He sold a few pairs to friends and neighbors and as the word spread, orders for his boots came pouring in. He turned it into an outdoor clothing business.

Jon Winokur compiled these pearls of wisdom in his book
Friendly Advice.

“Wise men don’t need advice. Fools don’t take it.”

—Benjamin Franklin

“Always obey your superiors. If you have any.”

—Mark Twain

“Life is a sh—sandwich. But if you’ve got enough bread, you can’t taste the sh—.”

—Jonathan Winters

“Rise early. Work late. Strike oil.”

—J. Paul Getty

“To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered.”

—Voltaire

“Never take top billing. You’ll last longer that way.”

—Bing Crosby

“It is better to be beautiful than to be good, but it is better to be good than to be ugly.”

—Oscar Wilde

“It is fatal to look hungry. It makes people want to kick you.”

—George Orwell

“If you see a snake, just kill it—don’t appoint a committee on snakes.”

—H. Ross Perot

“It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.”

—Grantland Rice

“Grantland Rice can go to hell as far as I’m concerned.”

—Gene Autry

“I always advise people never to give advice.”

—P.G. Wodehouse

“Honesty is the best policy, and spinach is the best vegetable.”

—Popeye the Sailor

“To succeed with the opposite sex, tell her you’re impotent. She can’t wait to disprove it.”

—Cary Grant

These are 100% honest-to-goodness headlines. Can you figure out what they were trying to say?

Textron Inc. makes offer to screw company stockholders

SQUAD HELPS DOG BITE VICTIM

Man Minus Ear

Waives Hearing

IRAQI HEAD SEEKS ARMS

MAN SHOT, STABBED; DEATH BY NATURAL CAUSES RULED

Police begin campaign to run down jaywalkers

Once-sagging cloth diaper saved by full dumps

BILLS OVERWHELM CHARGERS

32 Ignorant Enough to Serve on North Jury

UTAH GIRL DOES WELL IN DOG SHOWS

Local High School Dropouts Cut In Half

TYPHOON RIPS THROUGH CEMETERY; HUNDREDS DEAD

Pastor Aghast At First Lady Sex Position

Padres Hit On Penguins

Death Causes Loneliness, Feelings of Isolation

SKI AREAS CLOSE DUE TO SNOW

Child’s Stool Great For Use In Garden

FIRE OFFICIALS GRILLED OVER KEROSENE HEATERS

Woman Improving After Fatal Crash

STUD TIRES OUT

Death in the Ring: Most boxers Are Not the Same Afterward

FFA proposes name change to FFA

REAGAN WINS ON BUDGET, BUT MOORE LIES AHEAD

Man Struck By Lightning Faces

Battery Charges

British Union Finds Dwarfs in Short Supply

MAN FOUND DEAD IN CEMETERY

Legislators Tax Brains to Cut Deficit

Here’s a page we’ve never tried before. It was sent to us by BRI member Tim Harrower.

Elvis Presley died at
42
.

The angle at which light reflects off water to create a rainbow is
42
degrees.

The city of Jerusalem covers an area of
42
square miles.

The Torah (the holy book of Judaism) is broken into columns, each of which always has exactly
42
lines.

Fox Mulder (
The X-Files
) lives in apartment number
42
.

There are
42
decks on the Enterprise NCC1701-D (the
Next Generation
ship).

Bill Clinton is the
42
nd U. S. president.

A Wonderbra consists of
42
individual parts.

There are
42
Oreo cookies in a 1-pound package.

“The beast was given a mouth uttering proud boasts and blasphemies, and it was given authority to act for
42
months.”

—Revelation 13:5

In
Romeo and Juliet
, Juliet sleeps for
42
hours.

The right arm of the Statue of Liberty is
42
feet long.

Jimi Hendrix and Jerry Garcia were born in 19
42
.

The number of dots on a pair of dice:
42
.

Dogs have a total of
42
teeth over their lifetimes.

In
The Catcher in the Rye
, Holden Caufield lies and says that he is
42
.

The world-record jump by a kangaroo is
42
feet.

The natural vibration frequency of white mouse DNA:
42
.

The natural vibration frequency of human DNA:
42
.

There were
42
generations from Abraham to Jesus Christ.

And most important:

According to Douglas Adams’
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
, “the meaning of life, the universe, and everything” is the number
42
.

Now it’s time to find out how much you know about a few of the hits of the ’70s. (Answers on
page 457
.)

1
.
“You Don’t Bring Me Flowers,” a duet by Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond, was a #1 song in 1976. How did this unlikely pair get together?

a) They each recorded the song separately, and a disc jockey spliced the two recordings together.

b) They ran into each other at a recording session and—as a joke—decided to record the sappiest song they knew.

c) It was the dying request of Diamond’s mother that he record a song with Streisand—her favorite singer.

2
.
Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” was the most-requested FM song of the decade...but some Christian fundamentalists cite it as an example of devil-worship in rock. Robert Plant, the group’s singer, composed the lyrics. He says...

a) Even
he
doesn’t know what they mean.

b) It’s strange that fundamentalists would criticize it, because he’s a born-again Christian.

c) He purposely put “satanic” messages on the record to shock his critics. “If they’re idiotic enough to play it backwards, they deserve it,” he said.

3
.
Cheap Trick’s “I Want You to Want Me” sold a million copies in 1979. It was an incredible turnaround for the group. Their third album had just flopped, and Epic Records had pretty much given up on them. So how did they become stars?

a) An L.A. deejay became their champion, urging listeners to write to Epic and release “I Want You to Want Me” as a single.

b) The group was asked to tour as an opening act for the Rolling Stones, which sparked new interest in their album.

c) Somehow, a quickie album that they made exclusively for the Japanese market wound up receiving air time on U.S. FM radio.

4
.
The #1 song of 1975 was “Love Will Keep Us Together,” by The Captain and Tennille who were, according to news reports, blissfully married. But few of the fans who heard the song knew it was really about...

a) Two men.

b) Two pets—a dog and a chipmunk.

c) A mother and child.

5
.
Melanie had a huge hit in 1971 with “I’ve Got a Brand New Key.” She had an innocent voice, but the lyric “I’ve got a brand new pair of roller skates, you’ve got a brand new key” sounded like sex to most people. The truth would have disappointed them—the song was really inspired by...

a) A new pair of roller skates she got for her birthday.

b) A McDonald’s hamburger.

c) A sporting goods store near her house.

6
.
The Bee Gees were the hottest group of the late ’70s, and the record that started their meteoric comeback—before
Saturday Night Fever
was released—was “Jive Talkin’,” a #1 hit in 1975. The song actually started out as...

a) “Jive Walkin’”—inspired by the British comedy troupe Monty Python and their “Department of Silly Walks.”

b) “Drive Talkin’”—inspired by a rickety wooden bridge.

c) “Hive Stalkin’”—inspired by their hobby of keeping bees.

7
.
One of the biggest-selling records of the ’70s was Terry Jacks’s “Seasons in the Sun.” He didn’t plan to release it as a single, but...

a) His paper-boy heard his demo tape and really liked it...then brought his friends to Jacks’s house to hear it.

b) The Beach Boys heard his demo tape and talked about recording it themselves. Jacks figured if they liked it, it must be good.

c) He’d recently broken up with his wife, Susan Jacks (of the Poppy Family), and needed a quick $10,000 to pay his divorce lawyer.

Politicians aren’t getting much respect these days—but then, it sounds like they don’t think they deserve much, either.

“If hypocrisy were gold, the Capitol would be Fort Knox.”

—Senator John McCain

“It is perfectly American to be wrong.”

—Newt Gingrich

“My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there’s hardly any difference.”

—Harry S. Truman

“My God! What is there in this place (Washington D.C.) that a man should ever want to get into it?”

—President James Garfield

“I think the American public wants a solemn ass as president and I think I’ll go along with them.”

—President Calvin Coolidge

“Political promises go in one year and out the other.”

—Anonymous

“The single most exciting thing you encounter in government is competence, because it’s so rare.”