Uncle John’s Supremely Satisfying Bathroom Reader® (28 page)

Reykjavik, Iceland, one of the coldest cities on Earth, is heated almost entirely by hot springs.

What did children do before there were TVs and computers? These old children’s games are taken from the 1920s book,
Games for the Playground, Home School and Gymnasium,
by Jessie
H.
Bancroft.

Number of Players:
5 to 30

How It’s Played:
A thimble, cork, ring, or other small object is used for hiding. All of the players leave the room save one, who places the object in plain sight but where it is unlikely to be seen, as on the top of a picture frame, in a corner on the floor, etc. It may be placed behind any other object, as long as it can be seen without moving any object.

Once the object has been placed, the players are called back to the room, and all begin to look for it. When one spies it, he does not disclose this fact, but quietly takes a seat, and says, “Huckle, buckle, bean stalk!” which indicates that he knows where the object is. The game keeps on until all of the players have located the object, or until the leader calls the hunt closed. The first one to find the object hides it for the next game.

Number of Players:
5 or more

How It’s Played:
The first player says, “The minister’s cat is an avaricious cat,” using an adjective which begins with “a” to describe the cat. The next player makes a remark about the cat, using the same initial letter for the adjective; for instance, that it is an “aggressive” cat. This is continued, each player using a different adjective beginning with the letter “a,” until the game has gone entirely around the circle. The first player then makes a similar remark about the cat, using an adjective beginning with “b.” This goes around, and so on through the alphabet. Any player who fails, must drop out. The player who lasts longest, wins.

Number of Players: 10 to 30

How It’s Played:
The players are divided into two parties. One party goes outside the room; those remaining choose a verb, which is to be guessed by the other party. The outside party is told a word which rhymes with the chosen verb. They consult among themselves, decide on a verb which they think may be the right one, enter the room, and without speaking, act out the verb they have guessed. The inside party must decide from this pantomime if the correct verb has been guessed. If correct, they clap their hands. If not, they shake their heads. No speaking is allowed on either side. If the outside party is wrong in their guess, they retire and try again, repeating this play until they hit on the right word, when the two sides change places.

American Indians rarely go bald.

Number of Players:
10 to 20

How It’s Played:
One player is blindfolded and stands in the center of a circle with a stick or cane in his hand. The other players dance around him in a circle until he taps three times on the floor with his cane, when they must stand still. The blind man then points his cane at a player, who must take the opposite end of the cane in his hand. The blind man then commands him to make a noise like some animal, such as a cat, dog, cow, sheep, lion, donkey, duck, parrot. From this the blind man tries to guess the name of the player. If the guess is correct, they change places. If wrong, the game is repeated with the same blind man.

The players should try to disguise their voices as much as possible when imitating the animals, and much sport may be had through the imitation. Players may also disguise their height, to deceive the blind man, by bending their knees to seem shorter or rising on toes to seems taller.

Number of Players:
6 to 20

How It’s Played:
Blindfold several couples. Give a peeled banana to each person. Have the couples clasp left hands, and at the signal to start they begin trying to feed one another. It may get messy, so it is well to provide bibs for the players by cutting a hole in a sheet of newspaper and dropping it over the head. Whichever team finishes their bananas first is the winner.

Career note: No only child has ever been elected U.S. president.

Recently, we stumbled on
Bizarre Books,
a collection of weird-but-true book titles compiled by Russell Ash and Brian Lake. Hard to believe, but these titles were chosen and published in all seriousness. How would you like to spend your time reading…

Warfare in the Enemy’s Rear,
by O. Heilbrunn (1963)

Selected Themes and Icons from Spanish Literature: Of Beards, Shoes, Cucumbers, and Leprosy,
by John R. Burt (1982)

What to Say When You Talk to Yourself,
by Shad
Helmstetter (1982)

What Do Bunnies Do All Day?,
by Judy Mastrangelo (1988)

The Romance of Proctology,
by Charles Elton Blanchard (1938)

How
to Become a Schizophrenic,
by John Modrow (1992)

Teach Yourself Alcoholism,
by Meier Glatt (1975)

Nasology; or, Hints Towards a Classification of
Noses,
by Eden Warwick (1848)

Not
Worth Reading,
by
Sir George Compton Archibald Arthur (1914)

Snoring as a Fine Art, and Twelve Other Essays,
by
Albert Jay Nock (1958)

How I Know That
the Dead Are
Alive,
Fanny Ruthven Paget (1917)

Hepatopancreatoduodenectomy,
by F. Hanyu (1996)

Jaws
and Teeth of Ancient Hawaiians,
by H. G. Chappel (1927)

Who’s Who in Barbed Wire,
by Anon. (1970)

Your Answer
to Invasion—Ju-Jitsu,
by James Hipkiss (1941)

Rhythmical Essays on the Beard Question,
by W.
Carter (1868)

How
to Abandon Ship,
by
Phillip Richards and John J. Banigan (1942)

We would know:
Adoxography
is defined as “good writing about a trivial subject.”

Uncle John was reading an article about the Declaration of Independence and saw a brief mention of “Robert Morris, financier of the American Revolution.” Having never heard of Morris, he did some research and discovered some fascinating forgotten history.

In the late 1770s, a bunch of North American colonists got together, called themselves the Continental Congress, and decided to rid their colonies of British rule. They planned to form an army and a navy to defeat the world’s most powerful nation. All they needed was the money to feed, clothe, and arm their men—about $20,000 a day. Oops.

The problems of financing the American Revolution were many. First, half of the colonists—and most of the ones with money—did not support the revolution. Next, the Continental Congress gave itself the right to tax its citizens but no power to collect the tax. And they couldn’t borrow money, because no one would lend it to them—they weren’t even a real country yet.

Yet behind any successful revolutionary stands a smart financier. In this case, it was Robert Morris.

In 1747 Morris, a motherless 13-year-old British boy, arrived in Maryland to join his father. Three years later, Morris was orphaned when his father was killed in a gun accident. Young Morris was packed off to Philadelphia to work with Charles Willing, a shipper and merchant. Morris worked with such dedication and brilliance that at age 20 he was made full partner in the firm.

As a merchant, Morris objected to British policies of taxation more than most colonists. When news of the massacre of the colonial militia at Lexington reached him, it solidified his position against England. In 1776 Morris served in the Continental Congress as a representative from Pennsylvania. He became a signer of the Declaration of Independence and was charged with heading Congress’s finance committee. Soon, with money borrowed, begged for, and taken from his own wallet, Morris was funding the American Revolution.

“Battle Hymn of the Republic” was written by Julia Ward Howe. She sold the rights for $5.

Coming up with $20,000 a day for more than five years to support the Revolution should have guaranteed Morris the heroic popularity that John Adams, Ben Franklin, and George Washington have today. But it didn’t. For example:

•  
History tells us…
how George Washington’s army crossed the Delaware on Christmas night, 1776, and defeated the British. But what happened next is not so well known. The term of service for most of Washington’s soldiers expired a week later, at the end of the year. And, as Morris wrote to John Hancock, “You might as well attempt to stop the winds from blowing… as stop them from going when their time is up.” Washington was desperate. He was in a position to gain control of New Jersey, but not if his army disbanded. Worse yet, within a week, the British would regroup, defeat the depleted American army, and recapture Trenton.

Washington needed $50,000 to buy information on British troop movements and to pay each of his soldiers a $10 bonus to stay for another six weeks. He turned to Morris, who in turn, asked a Quaker merchant to lend him the money. “But what is thy security for this large sum,” asked the Quaker. “My word and my honor,” replied Morris.

“Thou shalt have it,” the man said. Washington got his needed funds, the soldiers stayed, and New Jersey was soon free of the British.

•  
History tells us…
how Washington’s army suffered through the winter of 1777 in Valley Forge. But it needn’t have been so horrible. Against Morris’s advice, Congress had issued worthless paper money and demanded, by law, that it be used. Discouraged manufacturers and sellers chose instead to cease operations, which is why 12,000 soldiers at Valley Forge were without enough shoes, blankets, and food.

•  
History tells us…
how Washington’s army arrived at the Yorktown, Virginia, peninsula on October 19, 1781, just in time to capture the British army and effectively end the war. But the scenario might have easily played out differently.

Action Jackson: Andrew Jackson was involved in over 100 duels.

Weeks earlier, Washington was without the money to move his army from New Jersey to Virginia. Morris quickly raised $1.4 million for flour, corn, salted meat, rum, tobacco, and hay; boats to carry the men across the many waterways; and a cash inducement for the starving soldiers to march the hundreds of miles to Yorktown. “I advanced not only my credit,” Morris wrote, “but every shilling of my own money, and all which I could obtain from my friends, to support the important expedition against Yorktown.”

His proposed monetary policies repeatedly rejected, a frustrated Morris resigned his position in January 1783. Eventually, in 1789, his friend Alexander Hamilton, the nation’s first secretary of the treasury, was successful in securing a feasible plan to repay the huge war debt. (Almost $79 million was owed, mostly to foreign nations.)

By 1795 Morris was again fully engaged in private enterprise. Convinced that immigration would drive the nation’s development westward, Morris acquired six million acres of land to resell for a sure financial killing. But the pace of European immigration and settlement slowed, and the taxes and mortgages on the unsold land overwhelmed him. Suddenly, he was broke.

In 1798 Morris was arrested and thrown in debtors prison. After more than three years of imprisonment, 68-year-old Morris was released. He died five years later in poverty and obscurity. The patriot upon whom the heroes of popular history depended, the financier who kept the Continental army in the field out of his own wallet and with his private credit, the speculator who once owned more land than any man in America, was quietly buried in a Philadelphia churchyard.