Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader (22 page)

5.
In 1980 a repairman working on a Titan II missile in Arkansas dropped a wrench—which bounced off the floor, punctured the missile, and set off an explosion that blew the top off the silo and threw the warhead 600 feet into the air.

6.
Did June 3, 1980, seem tense to you? It did to the Strategic Air Command in Omaha, Nebraska. Their computers detected a Soviet submarine missile attack in progress. Within minutes, more than 100 B-52s were in the air, but the SAC soon called off the counterattack—the computers had made a mistake. The culprit: a 46¢ computer chip. Three days later the same mistake happened again.

According to the FBI, most burglaries occur in winter.

Every year, Americans set aside special days to honor our fathers, our mothers, our grandparents, and even our mothers-in-law. Where did these holidays come from? Here’s a little background.

M
OTHER’S DAY
(Second Sunday in May)

ORIGIN:
The result of a one-woman crusade launched in 1908 by Anna Jarvis, a West Virginia schoolteacher whose mother had died three years earlier. On May 10, 1908, she persuaded pastors in nearby Grafton, West Virginia, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to hold Mother’s Day services in their churches. (They handed out carnations, Anna’s mother’s favorite flower.) From there she launched a letter-writing campaign to U.S. governors, congressmen, clergy, media, etc. She wasn’t immediately successful, but by 1914 Congress endorsed the idea. On May 9, 1914, President Wilson issued a proclamation establishing the holiday.

THE INSIDE SCOOP:
Jarvis—who had no children—came to hate the holiday she had created. She railed against its commercialism, and especially loathed flowers and greeting cards. “Any mother would rather have a line of the worst scribble from her son or daughter,” she complained, “than any fancy greeting card.” She became a recluse who never left her house, posting “Warning—Stay Away” signs on her front lawn. She refused to give interviews, but a reporter posing as a deliveryman managed to speak with her. “She told me with terrible bitterness that she was sorry she had ever started Mother’s Day,” he revealed.

FATHER’S DAY
(Third Sunday in June)

ORIGIN:
Anna Jarvis’s “success” inspired a number of other Americans to begin work for a Father’s Day. First among them was Sonora Smart Dodd, a Spokane, Washington, housewife whose father had raised six children alone after her mother died in childbirth. She proposed making Father’s Day the
first
Sunday in June (the month of her father’s birthday), but local religious leaders vetoed the date; they needed more time to prepare sermons on fatherhood. So they settled on the third Sunday. The holiday was first celebrated in Spokane on June 19, 1910.

Dwight Eisenhower hated cats so much he ordered that any found on his property be shot.

It took the all-male U.S. Congress longer to acknowledge Father’s Day than it took them to recognize Mother’s Day. The reason: They feared voters would think it was too self-serving. Although President Wilson personally observed the holiday, he refused to issue a proclamation making it official. In 1924 Calvin Coolidge encouraged state governments to enact their own Father’s Days, but he too declined to make it a federal holiday. Finally in 1972, Father’s Day was proclaimed a federal holiday by President Nixon.

THE INSIDE SCOOP:
Although she turned down many offers to endorse products, Dodd had nothing against giving gifts on Father’s Day. “After all,” she said, “why should the greatest giver of gifts not be on the receiving end at least once a year?” When the day’s commercialism was decried in the 1950s, Dodd defended it again: “I’m convinced that giving gifts is a sacred part of the holiday, as the giver is spiritually enriched in the tribute paid his father.” Dodd died in 1978, but she’d probably be happy to know that 15% of the 7 million electric shavers sold in the U.S. every year are bought for Father’s Day, and Americans annually spend some $20 million on Father’s Day ties.

GRANDPARENT’S DAY
(First Sunday after Labor Day)

ORIGIN:
Most historians give credit to Marian McQuade, a grandma from West Virginia. But others say it’s Michael Goldgar, a grandpa from Georgia. Both made several trips to Washington to lobby for a holiday that celebrated the wisdom of grandparents. Whichever it was, it worked. President Carter signed it into law in 1978. September was chosen because it represents the autumn years of life.

MOTHER-IN-LAW’S DAY
(Fourth Sunday in October)

ORIGIN:
In 1981 the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution establishing Mother-in-Law’s Day. But the Senate never passed a similar resolution, and the bill hasn’t been signed into law. Some 800,000 Americans mail Mother-in-Law’s Day cards annually.

“One word sums up probably the responsibility of any vice president. And that one word is ‘to be prepared.’”

—
Dan Quayle

Julius Caesar was epileptic.

Some people call John Wayne an American hero, others call him a Neanderthal right-winger. Neither side really knows much about him. Here are some facts about the Duke.

A
s a boy
, Wayne learned to handle a gun by shooting rattlesnakes while his father plowed the land. But, according to one biographer, the experience gave Wayne nightmares of “slithering, disembodied snake heads coming at him. [He] often awoke in a cold sweat in the middle of the night—but he kept these fears to himself.”

After finishing high school,
Wayne tried to get into the U.S. Naval Academy...but was turned down. In later years, referring to the Academy’s rejection, Wayne claimed “I’d probably be a retired admiral by now.” (However, during World War II, he received an exemption for being the father of four children.)

Wayne created his tough-guy image
only because he didn’t think he could act. Later in his career he explained to The
New York Times:
“When I started, I knew I was no actor and I went to work on this Wayne thing. It was as deliberate a projection as you’ll ever see. I figured I needed a gimmick, so I dreamed up the drawl, the squint, and a way of moving meant to suggest that I wasn’t looking for trouble but would just as soon throw a bottle at your head as not. I practiced in front of a mirror.”

After attending Governor Ronald Reagan’s inauguration
in 1971, the Duke spotted a group of Vietnam War protesters waving Vietcong flags. Enraged, he charged into the crowd screaming, “You dirty no-good bastards,” and punching wildly. Police intervened, and the scuffle quickly ended; however, the next day, one of the protesters filed a complaint with the local police, claiming Wayne had disturbed the peace. Police refused to prosecute.

Wayne died in 1979.
His funeral was held at 5 a.m., and his body was buried in an unmarked grave to prevent fans from mobbing the burial site. Four fresh “decoy” graves were also dug to prevent anyone from positively identifying the real one.

Calling Mr. Sartre: 27% of U.S. male college students believe life is “a meaningless existential hell.”

A slice of the history of the most popular “ethnic” food in America.

O
RIGIN.
The ancient Greeks invented pizza. The most accomplished bakers of the ancient world, they made a variety of breads topped with spices, herbs, and vegetables. Their first pizza was designed as a kind of “edible plate,” with the thick crust around the edge serving as a handle.

How did pizza become Italian? The Greeks occupied part of Italy for 6 centuries; one of their legacies is the popularity of pizza there.

TOMATOES

• Early pizzas featured cheese, herbs, vegetables, and fish or meat—but no tomatoes. Tomatoes, a New World food, didn’t reach Italy until the mid-1500s—and weren’t popular until the late 19th century because people believed they were poisonous.

• In 1889 pizza maker Raffaele Esposito added tomatoes to pizza for the first time. The reason: He wanted to make a pizza for Italian Queen Margherita in the colors of the Italian flag—red, white, and green—and needed something red to go with white mozzarella cheese and green basil.

PIZZA IN THE UNITED STATES

• The first American pizzeria was opened in New York in 1905. By the early 1920s, family-run pizzerias were popping up all over the American Northeast...but it was still considered an exotic food.

• American G.I.s returning from Italy after World War II made pizza popular throughout the United States. But it wasn’t until the 1960s that it became a fad...and a movie may have been responsible. In the controversial 1961 film
Splendor in the Grass
, Warren Beatty asks a waitress, “Hey, what is pizza?” The waitress takes him “out back,” introducing him to pizza and a bit more.

• Today Americans eat more than 30 million slices of pizza per day—or 350 slices a second—and spend as much as $25 billion a year on pizza.

• Pepperoni is the most popular pizza topping nationwide; anchovies are the least favorite.

You’re more likely to get stung by a bee on a windy day than in any other weather.

The Beatles were personalities, as entertaining in interviews as they were on record. To prove it, here are excerpts from Beatle press conferences held in the mid-1960s, when the group had become popular. At the time, rock bands were still considered vacuous non-artists. It’s interesting to see how the Beatles helped change that.

R
eporter:
Ringo, why do you think you get more fan mail than anyone else in the group?

Ringo:
I don’t know. I suppose it’s because more people write me.

Reporter:
Do you date much?

Ringo:
What are you doing tonight?

Reporter:
How do you like this welcome [in the U.S.]?

Ringo:
So this is America. They all seem out of their minds.

Reporter:
What do you do when you’re cooped up in a hotel room between shows?

George:
We ice skate.

Reporter:
How did you find America?

Ringo:
We went to Greenland and made a left turn.

Reporter:
Why do teenagers stand up and scream piercingly and painfully when you appear?

Paul:
None of us know. But we’ve heard that teenagers go to our shows just to scream. A lot of them don’t even want to listen because they have our records. We kind of like the screaming teenagers. If they want to pay their money and sit out there and shout, that’s their business. We aren’t going to be like little dictators and say, “You’ve got to shut up.” The commotion doesn’t bother us anymore. It’s come to be like working in a bell factory. You don’t hear the bells after a while.

Reporter:
Would you like to walk down the street without being recognized?

John:
We used to do that with no money in our pockets. There’s no point in it.

Not tonight, Dear: An estimated 1 in 5 American adults—some 38 million—don’t like sex.

Reporter:
Are you scared when crowds scream at you?

John:
More so in Dallas than in other places perhaps.

Reporter:
Is it true you can’t sing?

John (pointing to George):
Not me. Him.

Reporter:
Why don’t you smile George?

George:
I’ll hurt my lips.

Reporter:
What’s your reaction to a Seattle psychiatrist’s opinion that you are a menace?

George:
Psychiatrists are a menace.

Reporter:
Do you plan to record any anti-war songs?

John:
All our songs are anti-war.

Reporter:
Does all the adulation from teenage girls affect you?

John:
When I feel my head start to swell, I look at Ringo and know perfectly well we’re not supermen.

Reporter:
Do you resent fans ripping up your sheets for souvenirs?

Ringo:
No I don’t mind. So long as I’m not in them while the ripping is going on.

Reporter:
Do you follow politics?

John:
I get spasms of being intellectual. I read a bit about politics but I don’t think I’d vote for anyone. No message from any of those phony politicians is coming through to me.

Reporter:
What’s the most unusual request you’ve had?

John:
I wouldn’t like to say.

Reporter:
What do you plan to do next?

John:
We’re not going to fizzle out in half a day. But afterwards I’m not going to change into a tap dancing musical. I’ll just develop what I’m doing at the moment, although whatever I say now I’ll change my mind next week. I mean, we all know that bit about: “It won’t be the same when you’re twenty-five.” I couldn’t care less. This isn’t show business. It’s something else. This is different from anything that anybody imagines. You don’t go on from this. You do this and then you finish.

Reporter:
Do you like topless bathing suits?

Ringo:
We’ve been wearing them for years.

Ronald Reagan is the only U.S. president to have performed in Las Vegas.

Reporter:
Girls rushed toward my car because it had press identification and they thought I met you. How do you explain this phenomenon?

John:
You’re lovely to look at.

Reporter:
How do you add up success?

John, Paul, George, Ringo:
Money.

Reporter:
What will you do when Beatlemania subsides?

John:
Count the money.

Reporter:
What do you think of the Bomb?

Paul:
It’s disturbing that people should go around blowing us up, but if an atom bomb should explode I’d say, “Oh well, no point in saying anything else, is there.” People are so crackers. I know the bomb is ethically wrong but I won’t go around crying. I suppose I could do something like wearing those “ban the bomb” things, but it’s something like religion that I don’t think about. It doesn’t fit in with my life.