Uncle John’s Fast-Acting Long-Lasting Bathroom Reader (51 page)

SMALL WORLD

From his earliest memories, Robert towered over his peers—he never knew people his own age who were his size. By the start of his teenage years he’d grown taller than all of the adults he knew. By his mid-teens, Robert entered a new phase of his life: he literally began to outgrow the world around him. Until then his hobbies had included photography and playing the guitar, but his hands grew so large that operating a camera or playing his favorite instrument became impossible.

By his 16th birthday, Robert stood more than 7'10" tall and weighed 370 pounds, making him the tallest person in the United States. Even the largest-sized clothing didn’t fit him anymore; from now on everything he wore would have to be tailor-made, using three times as much cloth as normal-sized clothing. His shoes had to be made by hand, too (the machinery that mass-produced footwear was designed to make shoes only up to about a size 15, and Robert’s feet would one day top out at size 37). And because Robert’s feet never stopped growing, he had to order his shoes a few sizes too large so they would still fit by the time they arrived.

Columbus’s ship, the
Santa Maria
, weighed less than the
Titanic’s
rudder.

TAKING ITS TOLL

Robert’s rapid, uncontrollable growth was more of a handicap than you might think: he needed to take long walks and participate in other regular exercise to keep up the muscle strength that supported his enormous frame. But his rapidly growing bones couldn’t get all the calcium they needed, so they were weak and prone to injury. He didn’t have much sensation in his feet, either, which made walking more difficult. As Robert got older his body became increasingly frail and unsteady; falls became more dangerous. By his late teens he was walking with a cane.

When Robert entered college in 1936 at the age of 18, he was 8'3½" tall and less than an inch away from becoming the tallest human in recorded history. Rather than walk to school as he had in high school, he now had to take a cab. Too large to sit upright in a normal-sized car, he had to crouch on his hands and knees across the backseat. When he arrived at school, he shoved one leg backward out the door, then the other, and backed his way out of the cab.

IF THE SHOE FITS

College proved to be too much of an ordeal for Robert. He could not sit at a normal desk. Fountain pens and notebooks were tiny and unwieldy in his hands, making note-taking during lectures almost impossible. He had trouble working the microscope in his biology class and drawing diagrams of the organisms he was studying in his lab notebook. Even going up and down stairs was a challenge—Robert’s 18-inch-long feet were too big to fit on the steps. And because he didn’t fit in—literally—with the other students, he was frequently lonely.

Robert finished his first year of college but didn’t return for a second. Instead, he decided to open a shoe store. To do that he needed money, of course, and he knew how to get it: in the past he and his dad had made occasional promotional tours for the International Shoe Company. Now that Robert was finished with school, he talked his dad into quitting his job and traveling with him full-time until he had enough money to open his own shoe store in Alton.

By now Robert was so large that travel by train or airplane was pretty much out of the question—sure, if the railroad or the airline agreed to remove a row or two of seats, there might be room enough for Robert to sit, but he could no longer squeeze himself into the tiny train and plane bathrooms. So he and his dad bought a car that was big enough to seat seven people, ripped out the middle row of seats, and hit the road—Dad did the driving, and Robert sat in the back (he was too tall to drive).

According to experts: School buses are eight times safer than cars.

In the summer months, Robert made appearances in northern states; in the winter Robert and his dad headed south. They would stay out for a few weeks at a time, typically visiting two towns every day. Robert drew huge crowds wherever he went, and it soon proved to be impractical to greet so many people inside the shoe stores. So they began working with an advance man who arranged for either a large truck or a platform to be set up outside each store.

Most of the people who came to see Robert were polite, but he had to put up with the same old jokes (“How’s the weather up there?”) at every stop, and some people even pinched his legs through his trousers or kicked him in the shins to see if he was walking on stilts. Robert took it in stride—but if the pincher or kicker was wearing a hat (and nearly everyone did in the 1930s), he playfully retaliated by grabbing it and putting it someplace high where the person couldn’t easily get it back.

GENTLE GIANT

In all, Robert and his dad visited more than 800 towns in 41 different states between 1937 and 1940, traveling more than 300,000 miles in the process. On July 4, 1940, they were scheduled to ride in a parade in Manistee, Michigan. Robert wasn’t feeling well, but he decided to go ahead with the parade anyway.

The parade lasted more than two hours, and in that time Robert’s condition deteriorated until he could barely hold his head up. By the time he made it back to the hotel he had a fever of 101°F. The hotel doctor looked Robert over and found the source of the problem: an infected blister on Robert’s ankle, caused by a poor-fitting metal brace. The brace had been fitted a few weeks earlier to strengthen his ankle. (By his early 20s, Robert had very little feeling left in his feet; if he had noticed the blister at all, he didn’t realize how serious it was.) When doctors couldn’t find a hospital nearby that was equipped to handle a patient as large as Robert—he was too big to fit in a hospital bed—they decided it would be better to treat him right there in the hotel room.

That’s a latte! 30% of all coffee sold in the U.S. is classified as “gourmet.”

Over the next several days, the infection worsened and Robert’s condition deteriorated. Had it happened just a few years later, Robert could have been treated with penicillin and might have made a full recovery. But penicillin had not yet come into widespread use, and once an infection got established there was little that could be done to stop it. At 1:30 a.m. on the morning of July 15, Robert passed away in his sleep. At the time of his death he was 8'11", making him a full seven inches taller than the previous record holder, an Irishman who died in 1877.

He never did get to open his own shoe store.

Robert’s body was returned to Alton, where it was buried in a 10'9"-long, 1,000-pound casket, carried by 12 pallbearers and eight assistants. The big man got a big send-off as every business in Alton shut down on the day of the funeral. More than 40,000 people filed past the casket before it was laid to rest.

LEGACY

If you’re lucky enough to find a shoe store that Robert Wadlow visited on one of his publicity tours, it might still have a pair of his shoes on display—he left a pair at every stop. And, if you visit Alton, Illinois, you can see his lifesize bronze statue, erected in 1985. The town museum has a display of some of Robert’s personal possessions.

During his lifetime Robert resisted being exploited for his size, and he feared that his remains might be exploited, too. So before he died, Robert asked his father to do everything he could to prevent his body from being abused after his death. Accordingly, Harold Wadlow refused to allow a postmortem exam, and he had his son buried under eight inches of reinforced concrete to protect against grave robbers. The family also destroyed Robert’s clothing and most of his oversized personal possessions, to prevent them from being displayed in freak shows.

“We treated Robert after death just as he would have wanted us to,” biographer Frederic Fadner quotes Harold Wadlow saying in his book
The Gentleman Giant
. “I am sure that he died with complete confidence in us. We could not and did not betray that confidence after he was gone.”

Whoa! An alligator can run as fast as a horse.

ICE CREAM TOILETS

Communication can be difficult…even in your native language. Here are actual signs posted across America and England
.

In a dry cleaner:
We do not tear your clothing with machinery. We do it carefully by hand.

At a convention:
For anyone who has children and doesn’t know it, there is a day care center on the first floor.

At a camera store:
One Hour Photos Ready In 20 Minutes

At a clothing store:
Men’s wool suits—$10. They won’t last an hour.

At a health clinic:
We Unblock Your Constipation With Our Fingers

At a post office:
This Door Is Not To Be Used As An Exit Or An Entrance

At a church:
No Trespassing Without Permission

At a basketball court:
Anyone Caught Hanging from the Rim Will Be Suspended

At a golf course:
All Persons Caught Collecting Balls On This Course Will Be Prosecuted And Have Their Balls Removed

In a bookstore:
Rare, Out-of-Print, And Non-Existent Books

In a pizza parlor:
Open 24 Hours Except 2 a.m. to 8 a.m.

At a campsite:
Ice Cream Toilets

At a drugstore:
Why be cheated elsewhere when you can come here?

At a general store:
We Buy Junk and Sell Antiques

At a department store:
Our bikinis are exciting—They are Simply the Tops

In a pharmacy:
We Dispense With Accuracy

At a tire shop:
My boss told me to put something on the sign

A single day’s trash from New York City would fill the Empire State Building.

WARHOLISMS

Andy Warhol was more than just one of America’s most famous artists. He created “Popism” and became America’s high priest of pop culture. Here are some of his cynical observations about the world he worshipped
.

“If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films, and there I am. There’s nothing behind it.”

“I asked 10 or 15 people for suggestions and finally one friend asked the right question, ‘What do you love most?’ That’s how I started painting money.”

“During the 1960s, I think, people forgot what emotions were supposed to be. And I don’t think they’ve ever remembered.”

“It’s the movies that have really been running things in America ever since they were invented. They show you what to do, how to do it, when to do it, how to feel about it, and how to look how you feel about it.”

“My idea of a good photo is one that’s in focus and of a famous person.”

“I love Hollywood. Everybody’s plastic, but I love plastic.”

“I’m afraid that if you look at a thing long enough, it loses all of its meaning.”

“When I got my first TV set, I stopped caring so much about having close relationships.”

“I met someone who said wasn’t it great that we’re going to have a movie star for president, that it was so Pop. And when you think about it like that, it
is
great. It’s so American.”

“I never think that people die. They just go to department stores.”

“It would be very glamorous to be reincarnated as a great big ring on Liz Taylor’s finger.”

“Isn’t life just a series of images that change as they repeat themselves?”

“I always thought my tombstone should be blank. No epitaph, no name. Well, actually, I’d like it to say ‘figment.’”

“I’m bored with that line. My new line is, ‘Everybody will be famous
in
15 minutes.’”

The are 44,000,000 ways to make bingo on a 90-number bingo card.

PARTY GAMES

Some fun and challenging ways for you and your friends to pass the time
.

UN-THUMB HEROES

What you need:

1 roll of Scotch tape 1 roll of wrapping paper

1 pair of scissors

1 pair of shoes with laces A pad of paper and pencils

How to play:

1
. Have the players help each other tape one of their fingers to their thumb.

2
. Now see if they can accomplish different tasks without using their thumbs: tying shoes, wrapping a gift, writing their names.

3
. First to finish wins.

APPLE BEAR

How to play:

1
. The first player says a word that begins with
A
.

2
. The next player repeats the
A
word, then thinks of a word beginning with
B
…and so on.

3
. Each player has to say all of the previous words before thinking up a new one.

4
. If someone goofs, start over.

5
. If everyone can make it through the entire alphabet, everybody wins!

SNIFF TEST

What you need:

1 four-inch square of tissue paper

2 breath mints (optional)

How to play:

1
. Two players stand nose to nose.

2
. One keeps the tissue stuck to his nostrils by sniffing in.

3
. The other tries to capture the tissue by sniffing it away.

4
. After 30 seconds, whoever has the tissue wins.