Uncle John's Endlessly Engrossing Bathroom Reader (66 page)

Halt and his men watched the strange lights for another 15 minutes, until 3:30 a.m., then headed back to base. At 4:00 a.m., Halt ends the tape by reporting, “One object still hovering over Woodbridge base at about 5 to 10 degrees off the horizon, still moving erratic and similar lights and beaming down as earlier.”

In the days that followed, Halt had several of the witnesses to the events of December 26 submit written statements describing what they saw and experienced. He used these statements, along with
his own recollections from the night of December 27, to write a one-page official memo titled “Unexplained Lights.” In it he describes the object that some witnesses claimed to have seen as “a strange glowing object…metallic in appearance and triangular in shape, approximately two to three meters across the base and approximately two meters high.”

Two separate sightings in the same place two days apart, each witnessed by numerous credible witnesses. Written statements describing what was seen, backed by police logs that confirm the dates and times. An official Air Force memo written by the deputy commander of the military base where the events took place. Physical evidence, in the form of indentations in the ground and marks on nearby trees. An actual
tape recording
of the second encounter as it unfolds. That’s
a lot
of evidence. Rarely—if ever—has a reported UFO encounter been documented as thoroughly as the Incident at Rendlesham.

“Alleged victims of UFO abductions occasionally claim to have had sexual relationships with the occupants of extraterrestrial spaceships. Such an incident is referred to by some writers as a
Close Encounter of the
Fourth
Kind
(CE-IV), although others use the term to denote only an abduction in which no sexual activity has occurred. Mating between earthlings and extraterrestrials is a theme encountered in the arguments of supporters of the Ancient Astronauts hypothesis. Many of them believe that the human race was actually the result of the interbreeding of extraterrestrials and some advanced species of animal on Earth, such as Bigfoot.”

“The truth ain’t like puppies, a bunch of them running around, you pick your favorite. There’s one truth, and it has come a knockin’.”

 

“Lies are like children—they’re hard work, but it’s worth it because the future depends on them.”

—
Dr. House,
House, M.D.

“What you call love was invented by guys like me to sell nylons.”

—
Don Draper,
Mad Men

“I love it here, man. You can sing as loud as you want. That dude wails away on the organ. That dude up there tells stories. It’s almost a religious experience!”

—
Leo,
That ’70s Show

“I didn’t think it was physically possible, but this both sucks and blows.”

—
Bart,
The Simpsons

“I’m no VIP, I’m not even an IP; I’m just a lonely little P sitting out here in the gutter.”

—
Robin,
How I Met Your Mother

 

“Maybe we like the pain. Because without it, maybe we just wouldn’t feel real. What’s that saying: ‘Why do I keep hitting myself with a hammer? Because it feels so good when I stop.’ ”

—
Meredith,
Gray’s Anatomy

Jack:
I don’t believe in destiny.

Locke:
Yes you do; you just don’t know it yet.

—
Lost

Frank:
I tried nice once. Didn’t care for it.

Marie:
Is that what happened to smart?

—
Everybody Loves Raymond

“Sometimes for an artist, the only difference between insanity and genius is success.”

—
Reid,
Criminal Minds

Sanders:
I’m like a sponge: I just absorb information.

Grissom:
I thought that was
my
line.

Sanders:
Yes, and I absorbed it.

—
CSI

 

“I learned a valuable lesson that night. If you’re going to try to fly a bicycle, you’d better make sure E.T. is sittin’ in your basket instead of a twelve-pack of beer.”

—
Earl,
My Name Is Earl

 

Dan:
You’re 19 feet tall! Why are you wearing heels?

Sally:
Are you feeling diminutive?

Dan:
No, but now I have to go look up that word.

—
Sports Night

“I do not like television. Notice how I didn’t say ‘TV,’ for ‘TV’ is a nickname, and nicknames are reserved for friends, and television is no friend of mine.”

—
David,
Mr. Show with Bob & David

“When I tell people that I work at Dunder Mifflin, they think that we sell mufflers or muffins or mittens…and frankly, all of those sound better than paper so I let it slide.”

—
Jim,
The Office

“Criminals are the vomit of society, and we cops are the sawdust.”

—
Deputy Garcia,
Reno 911

“The only person more self-centered than me is Carlos; he’s so self-centered, he doesn’t even know how self-centered I am.”

—
Gabrielle,
Desperate Housewives

“I believe that the moon does not exist. I believe that vampires are the world’s greatest golfers but their curse is they never get a chance to prove it. I believe that there are 31 letters in the
white
alphabet. Wait…what was the question?”

—
Tracy,
30 Rock

“Television is the triumph of machine over people.”

—
Fred Allen

While much is made of the ferocity of bears, there are, on average, only 10 to 20 bear attacks in North America each year, with fewer than half of one percent of those resulting in deaths. Bears are exceptionally shy creatures and typically will attack a human being only if they’re surprised or if their food or cubs are in danger. And it’s even rarer still for an individual bear to become an infamous man-eater. But that’s exactly what happened a century ago in the case of one particularly ferocious grizzly known as “Old Two-Toes,” who earned both his name and his fearsome reputation all on the same day.

In early May of 1912, near Crevice Mountain, Montana, a 63-year-old prospector named Johnny Graham found tracks belonging to “the biggest bear I ever seen.” Suspecting that it was headed to feed on the carcass of a pack horse that Graham had recently put down, he decided to trap and kill the giant “grizz.” He set a 60-pound Newhouse Bear Trap (which featured large steel teeth) near the dead horse, went home, and waited. Two days later, Graham went to check the heavy trap…and it was gone. He followed the trail 200 yards down the hill and found the enormous bear—still in the trap—struggling to free itself from between two fallen logs where the trap had become wedged. Graham raised his rifle, took careful aim, and put two bullets in the bear’s chest.

The grizzly lay still as Graham leaned his rifle against a tree and prepared to skin the massive beast. Bad idea: It wasn’t dead, just stunned. The bear suddenly lurched upward and freed itself from the steel jaws, losing three toes (complete with four-inch claws) in the process. Then it ripped into Johnny Graham.

Old Two-Toes, as the bear was called from then on, fled the scene, leaving the wounded prospector behind. A passerby came upon Graham and heard his harrowing tale. He promised to get help. When news of the vicious grizzly spread, a heavily armed
posse tracked him down. They were closing in on him, but he escaped by crossing a river and fleeing into Yellowstone National Park—where no hunting was allowed. The men, knowing they’d face stiff fines and the confiscation of their weapons if caught, grudgingly gave up the chase. By the time help reached Graham, he was dead. Old Two-Toes, however, was just getting started.

Four years later, two men were hauling supplies across Yellowstone when they paused at Soda Butte Creek to camp for the evening. In the middle of the night, one of the men, 61-year-old Pat Welsh, was awakened by the unmistakable sounds of a bear tearing into his stocks of cured ham and bacon. Scrambling from his bedroll, Welsh tried to scare the animal away by banging on pots and pans. Bad idea #2: The bear turned on Welsh, who grabbed a hand axe and swung it wildly. The grizzly casually swatted the axe away, knocked Welsh to the ground, and mauled him. Welsh’s partner frightened the giant grizzly off with Roman candles, but it was too late for Welsh, who died of his wounds a few days later. Tracks later found at the scene confirmed that Old Two-Toes had claimed his second victim.

It was nearly six years before Old Two-Toes struck again. On June 12, 1922, notorious prospector and poacher Joseph “Frenchy” Duret found a gargantuan grizzly caught in one of the many traps he’d set along Slough Creek near Yellowstone’s border. Duret hurried home to grab his Winchester 45-70 rifle, informed his wife of the find, and told her he’d be home before nightfall. Bad idea #3: Frenchy’s mangled body was found two days later, nearly a mile and a half from where he’d battled with the bear. His rifle was found at the scene, its barrel deeply scarred and the stock chewed in half. There was a single empty cartridge on the ground.

It’s unknown whether Duret’s bullet had hit its mark, but one thing was certain: The mark got away. Old Two-Toes had claimed another victim and escaped again, this time carrying the 60-pound trap with him—its severed chain trailing behind as he lumbered away. The empty trap was found a year later; Old Two-Toes, on the other hand, was never heard from again…so watch out!

 

1.
Only two states in the United States have names that begin with two consonants. What are they?

 

2.
Rearrange these letters to make four different six-letter words:
BELSTU

 

3.
If today is Saturday, and you have to clean your bathroom two days after the day before the day after tomorrow, when do you have to clean your bathroom?

 

4.
What do these seven little clues suggest to you?

 

5.
Riddle time: Which one of the Osmonds likes books but not libraries, letters but not words, mirrors but not windows, kittens but not cats, and puppies but not dogs?

 

6.
How can you use half a dozen ones to make a dozen?