Uncle John’s Supremely Satisfying Bathroom Reader® (70 page)

The first automated mail-sorting equipment was finally put in place in the 1950s, and in 1963 the Postal Service introduced the ZIP Code (ZIP for “Zoning Improvement Plan”) to further speed mail processing. But these improvements barely kept pace with the steadily increasing volumes of mail, especially business mail, which by 1963 made up 80% of the total. In 1966 the Chicago Post Office literally ground to a halt under tons of mail it could not process quickly enough.

Cost of mailing a letter more than 400 miles in 1816: 25¢.

A large part of the problem was that the U.S. Post Office had grown into a huge, inefficient, money-losing government agency subject to the whims and politics of Congress. In the late 1960s, a federal commission recommended reconstituting the U.S. Post Office as a nonprofit corporation wholly owned by the government but managed by an independent board of directors, and in August 1970, President Nixon signed the Postal Reorganization Act into law. On July 1, 1971, the old U.S. Post Office became the U.S. Postal Service.

This reorganization effectively removed Congressional pressure to maintain low stamp prices—and along with it, taxpayer subsidies. The price of stamps began to climb, both to cover the full costs of delivering the mail and also to finance continuing modernization and automation. In 1971 a first-class stamp cost 8¢; the price rose to 13¢ in 1975, to 20¢ in 1981, 29¢ in 1991, and 34¢ in 2001.

Besides the increase in the price of stamps, another way the U.S. Postal Service attempted to cover its costs without taxpayer support was to change stamp subjects to make them more appealing to collectors.

“That’s how Tweety Bird and Sylvester have come to displace George Washington and Abe Lincoln,” says Michael Laurence, publisher of a stamp-collecting newspaper in Ohio. “It didn’t take the Post Office long to realize that revenue from stamps retained and not used was money in the bank.”

Perhaps the best example of this was the 1993 Elvis stamp—an estimated 38.5 million of the 500 million Elvis stamps sold were never used to send a letter, the highest unused percentage of any stamp ever issued by the U.S. Postal Service.

Today, the U.S. Postal Service delivers mail to more than 134 million addresses around the country, and provides service to a larger geographical area than any other postal service on Earth. It delivers more than 200 billion pieces of mail every year, which makes up more than 46% of the world’s card and letter mail volume. Who’s number two? Japan, which handles less than 7%.

Squares: Stamp collecting is the most popular hobby in the world.

Trying to cash in on the success of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, the we’ll-try-anything Fox Network came up with this concept for a TV show, easily one of TV’s darkest hours. (Two hours, actually.)

Quite possibly the most degrading and humiliating moment in network television history—for contestants and viewers—
Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire
was exactly what the show’s title suggested: a chance to marry a millionaire live on TV. Fifty eligible females vied to win the hand of a mystery millionaire, who had supposedly been chosen from a pool of more than 100 millionaire bachelors—all of whom presumably would have been willing to marry a “nobody,” only moments after meeting them for the first time, on national TV.

The mysterious future husband would remain hidden behind a screen, quizzing his potential mates-for-life as they strutted across the stage in swimsuits, wedding gowns, and other attire. Then, after nearly two hours of edge-of-your-seat suspense, he would step out, reveal his true identity, and marry his chosen bride on the spot. The show was kind of like a high-stakes “till-death-us-do-part”
Dating
Game…only with better prizes: The bride got a $35,000 engagement ring, a free Caribbean cruise honeymoon, and an Isuzu Trooper. Estimated value: $100,000. The husband didn’t get quite as much, but it didn’t matter—after all, he was a millionaire.

Religious leaders condemned the show for undermining the institution of marriage, but Fox went ahead with it anyway…and on Valentine’s Day 2000, more than 23 million people tuned in to watch real estate developer Rick Rockwell, 42, step out from behind the screen to choose Darva Conger, 34, a Gulf War veteran and emergency room nurse, as his bride.

The Rockwell-Conger union wasn’t exactly love at first sight: many viewers found their first kiss almost too creepy to bear, and things got worse after that. They slept in separate rooms during their “honeymoon” cruise, and within a week of returning to port, Conger was in Las Vegas seeking a quickie annulment.

The George Washington Bridge, spanning the Hudson River in New York City, is almost 3 ft. longer on the hottest day of summer than on the coldest day of winter.

By then, Rockwell’s Prince Charming image was taking quite a beating. A website called
The Smoking Gun
revealed that in 1991 a judge had issued a restraining order against Rockwell after his exfiancée accused him of hitting and threatening to kill her. (Rockwell denied hitting her.)

That was just the beginning—it turned out that Rockwell wasn’t a millionaire real estate developer after all; he was a stand-up comedian and occasional motivational speaker with a lot less than the $2 million in assets he was supposed to have to qualify for the show. The
Vancouver Province
newspaper quoted real estate agents who described him as a “flake” and a “loser whose only investment property is a low-end condo that leaks.”

As for Conger, it turns out that she wasn’t what she claimed to be, either. She wasn’t a Gulf War veteran—she spent the entire war stationed at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois. “You can’t call yourself a Gulf War veteran if you’ve never been to the Gulf,” retired army colonel Daniel Smith explained to reporters.

A judge annulled the marriage on April 5, 2000; by that time, Conger and Rockwell both were well on their way to making the most—financially, at least—of their brush with fame. Conger, who donated her $35,000 engagement ring to charity, signed a deal to pose in
Playboy
for an estimated $500,000. She later launched her own website,
www.darvashouse.com
. As for Rick Rockwell, his once-sleepy comedy show suddenly sold out all over the country.

About the only people involved who didn’t cash in were the folks at Fox—as soon as the network learned of Rockwell’s restraining order, it cancelled its scheduled rebroadcast of the show and later announced it was abandoning its entire lineup of upcoming “exploitative reality specials,” including
Plastic Surgery Nightmares, Busted on the Job 5,
and
The World’s Biggest Bitches.

“They’re gone,” a spokesperson told reporters. “They’re over.”

A few more stories about the final days of the famous, from our files.

Claim to Fame:
Revolutionary War general and turncoat whose name became synonymous with treason

How He Died:
In exile, suffering from asthma, dropsy, and gout.

Postmortem:
Described as “the very genius of war” by his men, General Arnold helped turn the tide of the war in favor of the Americans at the second battle of Saratoga in 1777.

But Arnold became bitter at having been passed up for a promotion and for other perceived slights, and in 1779 switched his allegiance to the British. He conspired to surrender West Point to them in exchange for £20,000, but failed when his British accomplice, Major John André, was captured.

André was hanged as a spy, but Arnold managed to escape, and he later led a raid against American soldiers in his own home state of Connecticut before fleeing to England. There, “inactive, ostracized, and ailing,” he lived with his wife and children until his death in June 1801 at the age of 60.

According to one account of Arnold’s last days, shortly before he died he asked to be dressed in his Revolutionary uniform. “Let me die in my old uniform,” he wheezed through his asthma, “God forgive me for ever putting on any other.”

Claim to Fame:
Swashbuckling Hollywood actor best known for his action-adventure films

How He Died:
From a heart attack caused by a sword fight.

Postmortem:
In 1958 he was filming
Solomon and Sheba
on location in Madrid, Spain. One scene called for Power (playing Solomon) and actor George Sanders (playing Solomon’s brother) to fight a duel on a staircase using 15-pound swords. Because Sanders was a pathetic swordfighter, Power’s scenes had to be filmed twice—close-ups with Sanders, and wide shots with a double who knew how to use a sword. It doubled his workload. After eight takes of one shot, Power was so exhausted that he walked off the set, refusing to film a ninth take. “I’ve had it,” he told the director.

In 1986, 183 Adams were christened in the state of Oregon…but not a single Eve.

He began trembling uncontrollably and had to be helped back to his trailer. His makeup man made him some tea, but Power was unable to lift his arms to drink it. When no one could find the studio’s doctor, Power was bundled into a car and driven to a nearby U.S. airbase for treatment. But he never made it—he had a heart attack in the car and was dead before he ever reached the hospital. Note:
Solomon and Sheba,
refilmed with Yul Brynner playing Solomon, was released in 1959.

Claim to Fame:
German composer

How He Died:
Possibly by lead poisoning

Postmortem:
Beethoven’s last years were filled with excruciating pain: He suffered from abdominal pains, bad digestion, headaches, diarrhea, rheumatism, fever, irritability, and depression. He never knew the cause of his myriad maladies, despite having consulted with numerous doctors. On March 26, 1827, he died as he had lived for so many years: in agony. He was 57.

Snipping a lock of hair from the recently deceased was a popular custom in the 19th century. Fortunately for us, Beethoven had a lot of fans… and a lot of hair. Admirers snipped him nearly bald, and several confirmed samples of his hair survive to this day. A few strands were recently subjected to an X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, which revealed lead concentrations of more than 100 times the level considered normal. It was enough lead to account for nearly all of Beethoven’s symptoms, including his deafness. During his lifetime no one knew that lead was toxic—it was used in paint and in pottery, and was even added to wine to remove any bitterness. Beethoven could have poisoned himself with lead in any number of ways.

“If he had a favorite pewter mug that he drank from all his life, that alone could clearly be the culprit,” says Russell Martin, author of
Beethoven’s Hair.

The speckles on a bird’s egg are as individual as a fingerprint.

We mentioned the accidental discovery of Scotchgard in an earlier Bathroom Reader, but we’ve wanted to include a longer version for years. Here’s the story.

After graduating from college in 1952, Patsy Sherman took a part-time job as a chemist with 3M. One day, while working on a new kind of synthetic rubber, an accident occurred: a bottle of a synthetic latex compound fell on the floor, splattering her assistant’s tennis shoes with a milky, saplike substance.

They tried to wipe it off with soap, water, alcohol, and other solvents, but nothing worked—everything they tried just rolled off. Then she noticed that although the compound didn’t alter the look or feel of the canvas shoe, as the shoe got dirtier, the spots where the chemical had landed remained white and clean.

Sherman found that fabric dipped in the compound prevented anything from penetrating it. The compound seemed to surround each fiber with a chemical shield that was impervious to water, oil, and dirt. It took three years to refine it, but when she was done she had invented a revolutionary new product that made fabrics stain-proof. 3M named it Scotchgard.

Eventually, dozens of Scotchgard products were developed for use on raincoats, carpets, upholstery, clothing, paper packaging, and even motion-picture film. It was one of 3M’s most profitable products ever and funded their growth into a global industry.

Update:
Scientists recently discovered that Scotchgard molecules pervade the world environment and are present in the bodies of most Americans. It’s not necessarily a dangerous contamination, but because the molecules are inert, they will never deteriorate. 3M has been unable to find a more environmentally friendly formula, so in the year 2000, they announced they were phasing out the product. That’s bad news for the La-Z-Boy company: 90% of their fabrics were once treated with Scotchgard.

The World’s Largest Office Chair is in Anniston, Alabama. It’s 33 feet tall.