Uncle John's Ahh-Inspiring Bathroom Reader (38 page)

Location:
South Pacific Ocean, between Hawaii and New Zealand

Size:
76 square miles

Population:
67,000

Background:
Settled around 1000 B.C. by Polynesians. The first European to visit the islands of Samoa was Dutch sea captain Jacob Roggeveen, in 1722. The islands became a strategic stopover for whalers and South Sea spice traders.

Germany and the United States divided the islands between themselves in 1899. Germany was driven out by New Zealand during World War I. Western Samoa gained independence in 1962.

The U.S. part, American Samoa, is composed of five islands and two coral atolls, including the deep-water harbor of Pago Pago.

Although the Samoans embraced Christianity when the first missionaries showed up in the 1830s, in many ways they have maintained their traditions better than other Pacific islanders. Nearly all land is owned communally, and there is a social hierarchy that stresses one's responsibility to the extended family. However, Samoans have become heavily dependent on U.S. aid and imports. They spend about 40% of their income on imported food.

But wait, there's more. Check out page 459 for all of the uninhabited U.S. territories (just in case you ever want to get away from it all)
.

Here are a few more of our all-time favorite TV catchphrases
.

C
atchphrase:
“Ayyyyy.”

From:
Happy Days
(1974–84)

Here's the Story:
Arthur “The Fonz” Fonzarelli (Henry Winkler) was not originally intended to be the “cool” character; Potsie was. The Fonz was added as a “bad influence” to give the show more of an edge. But Winkler's hip-yet-sensitive portrayal, along with his trademark leather jacket, thumbs up, and “Ayyyyy” had such screen presence that ABC started working him into more and more storylines, making sure he got at least one “Ayyyyy” in each episode. By 1977 Winkler's billing had gone from closing credits to fifth, and finally to second. When Ron Howard left the show in 1980, Winkler was given top billing. ABC almost retitled the show
Fonzie's Happy Days
.

Blast From The Past:
Check out the scene in
Pulp Fiction
where the hit-man Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) is trying to calm down the diner robbers he's terrorizing: “Let's all be good little Fonzies. And what was Fonzie like?” he asks. One of them sheepishly answers, “Coo-ol.” “Correctamundo!” says Jackson.

Catchphrase:
“Two thumbs up.”

From:
Sneak Previews
(1975–80), renamed
At the Movies
(1980–)

Here's the Story:
“Thumbs up” has been a symbol of approval since Roman times. But “
two
thumbs up” means a whole lot more to the movie industry. Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, film critics for rival Chicago newspapers, worked together for 24 years before Siskel's death in 1999. Their opposite tastes in movies assured moviegoers that if both of these guys liked the movie, chances are you would too. Filmmakers also took note of the growing popularity of the phrase; they watched the show each week, hoping their latest project would get two thumbs up. If so, it was plastered all over movie ads. Why? Because “two thumbs up” means big box office. If not…well, have you ever seen a movie advertised that got “one thumb up”?

Catchphrase:
“De plane! De plane!”

From:
Fantasy Island
(1978–84)

Here's the Story:
At the beginning of each episode, the vertically challenged Tattoo (Herve Villechaize) shouted this phrase to alert his boss, Mr. Roarke (Ricardo Montalban), that “de plane” was coming. The phrase did so much for
Fantasy Island
that in 1983 Villechaize asked for the same salary as Montalban. Instead, he was fired. Ratings dropped off dramatically and the show was cancelled after the following season. In 1992 Villechaize turned up in a Dunkin' Donuts commercial asking for “De plain! De plain!” donuts.

Catchphrase
: “Resistance is futile.”

From:
Star Trek: The Next Generation
(1987–94)

Here's the Story:
This line actually made its television debut on the British TV serial
Dr. Who
. Its more recent use by the Borg, aliens out to assimilate humans, made it a household phrase. It has even become a response to the growing power of corporations and governments. A political cartoon in the late 1990s showed a Borged-out Bill Gates declaring, “We are Microsoft. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.” And now a new bumper sticker is showing up that says, “Resistance is
not
futile.”

Catchphrase:
“Book 'em, Danno!”

From:
Hawaii Five-O
(1968–80)

Here's the Story:
Even though
Hawaii Five-O
ran for 12 years, more people today remember this catchphrase than the show itself. When he caught the bad guy, detective Steve McGarrett (Jack Lord) would smugly utter this line to his assistant Danny “Danno” Williams (James MacArthur). To say the phrase is a part of pop culture is an understatement: a 2002 Internet search found more than 1,000 entries for “Book 'em, Danno!”

“Your marriage is in trouble if your wife says, ‘You're only interested in one thing,' and you can't remember what it is.”

—Milton Berle

Here's a trivia question you can use to win a bet: Who was the first president to claim he saw
Lincoln's ghost? Answer: Lincoln himself
.

Take America's “royal residence,” the White House; examine tales of hauntings that have surrounded it for nearly two centuries; and add Abraham Lincoln, an odd president who believed in the occult and was murdered while in office, and you have the recipe for America's most famous ghost story.

• According to legend, shortly after Lincoln was elected to his first term in 1860, he saw a double image of himself while gazing in a mirror at his Illinois home. One was his normal reflection, the other a pale double. Mrs. Lincoln didn't see the second image but was convinced that it was a sign. The sharper image, she said, represented Lincoln completing his first term; the other was a sign that he would be reelected, but would die before completing his second term.

• As Lincoln began his first term, the nation was on the verge of the Civil War. In the midst of trying to reunify the divided country, Lincoln faced a terrible personal tragedy—his 11-year-old son, Willie, died from a fever in 1862. A grief-stricken Mrs. Lincoln conducted séances in the hopes of contacting the boy. Although the skeptical president never participated in the séances, historians say his wife's belief in the supernatural may eventually have rubbed off on him.

• Lincoln suffered restless nights filled with nightmares and premonitions of his own death. He once told his wife about a dream where he was asleep, then was woken by the sounds of someone crying. He went to the East Room and found the source of the sobs: mourners and a casket. He asked a woman, “Who died?” “The assassinated president,” she told him. Lincoln walked over to the casket and saw himself inside.

• Several months later, on the morning of April 14, 1865, Lincoln called an emergency meeting of the Cabinet and delivered a cryptic message: “Expect important news soon. I have had a dream,” he told them, “I am on a boat, alone in the ocean. I have no oars, no rudder. I am helpless.” That evening, while attending a play at Ford's Theater, Lincoln was shot from behind by John Wilkes Booth; he died the next morning at 7:22 a.m.

Parapsychologists define ghosts as “people who died with unfinished business”—and Lincoln certainly fits the bill. The Confederacy had surrendered only five days before Lincoln's assassination, but the United States was in disarray. The economy of the South had been decimated by the war; hatred and animosity were rampant. Lincoln's plans for repairing the nation were cut short by his murder. As a result, does Lincoln's ghost still roam the halls of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? Many subsequent residents and visitors have been convinced it does.

The Teddy Roosevelt White House (1901–1909)

“I think of Lincoln, shambling, homely, with his strong, sad, deeply furrowed face, all the time. I see him in the different rooms and in the halls.” Skeptics maintain that this quote by President Roosevelt was taken out of context. But believers in the spirit world say that Roosevelt was speaking literally—that he actually saw Lincoln's ghost.

The Coolidge White House (1923–1929)

Calvin Coolidge's wife, Grace, claimed she saw the tall figure of Lincoln “at the window in the Oval Office, hands clasped behind his back, gazing out over the Potomac River, perhaps still seeing the bloody battlefields beyond.”

The FDR White House (1933–1945)

• While sleeping in the White House, Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands was awakened one night by knocks at her bedroom door. When she answered it, the former president was standing before her. The queen fainted. When she came to, the ghost was gone.

• For a time, the Lincoln Bedroom was Eleanor Roosevelt's study, and the First Lady claimed she could feel the presence of the former president. “Sometimes when I worked at my desk late at night I'd get a feeling that someone was standing behind me. I'd have to turn around and look.”

• A few years later in the same room, a seamstress was working on the drapes and kept hearing the sound of someone approaching the bedroom door, but no one ever came. She found a White House butler and asked him why he kept pacing back and forth. “I don't know what you're talking about,” he said. “I haven't been on that floor. That was Abe.”

• Winston Churchill, a frequent guest during World War II, had an “eventful” night in the Lincoln Bedroom. He was found the next morning sleeping on the floor of the room across the hall. He told no one what had happened that night and vowed never to set foot in the Lincoln Bedroom again.

The Ford White House (1974–1977)

Gerald Ford's daughter Susan was so sure she felt Lincoln's ghost in the White House that she wouldn't set foot in the Lincoln Bedroom, either.

The Reagan White House (1981–1989)

• The most prominent modern sighting comes from yet another presidential daughter, Maureen Reagan, along with her husband, Dennis Revell. One night while in the Lincoln Bedroom, they both saw “an aura, sometimes red, sometimes orange.” According to Reagan, it was the ghost of Lincoln.

• Just as mysterious is the fact that the Reagan's dog Lucky would never enter the Lincoln Bedroom. She would, however, stand in the hallway and bark at something inside.

The Clinton White House (1993–2001)

“A high percentage of people who work here won't go in the Lincoln Bedroom,” said President Clinton's social secretary, Capricia Marshall. According to Marshall, many White House maids and butlers swear they've seen Lincoln's ghost.

More tales of outrageous blunders to let us know that
other people are screwing up even worse than we are
.