Uncle John’s Giant 10th Anniversary Bathroom Reader (5 page)

We weren’t getting anywhere. Then came a day I was flying home from the West Coast. I was trying to think of a slogan—
crunch crime, stomp on crime.
And I was thinking of animal symbols—
growling at crime, roaring at crime.
But which animal? The designated critter had to be trustworthy, honorable, and brave. Then I thought, you can’t crunch crime or defeat it altogether, but you can snap at it, nibble at it—
take a bite out of crime.
And the animal that takes a bite is a dog.

A bloodhound was the natural choice for a crimefighter, but they still needed a name…so they sponsored a nationwide name-the-dog contest. The most frequent entry was Shure-lock Bones. Others included: Sarg-dog, J. Edgar Dog, and Keystone Kop Dog. The winner was submitted by a New Orleans police officer. In the ads, Keil supplies McGruff’s voice.

TONY THE TIGER.
In 1952, Kellogg’s planned to feature a menagerie of animals—one for each letter of the alphabet—on packages of its Sugar Frosted Flakes. They started with K and T: Katy the Kangaroo and Tony the Tiger. But they never got any further. Tony—who walked on all fours and had a much flatter face than today—was so popular that he became the cereal’s official spokes-character. In the first Frosted Flakes commercials, only kids who ate Tony’s cereal could see him. His personality has changed a number of times since then, but his voice hasn’t. It’s Thurl Ravens-croft, an ex-radio star who jokingly claims to have made a career out of just one word: “Grr-reat!”

Here it is again—our feature based on Andy Warhol’s prophetic comment that “in the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.” Here’s how a few people have been using up their allotted quarter-hour.

T
HE STAR:
Pete Condon, 1989 graduate of the University of Georgia

THE HEADLINE:
Case Clothes’d: Job Seeker Wears Resumé, Gets Calls

WHAT HAPPENED:
Condon had graduated from college with a 3.5 grade average, but couldn’t get the marketing/advertising job he wanted. Finally, in February 1992, the 25-year-old blew up his resumé, put it on a sandwich board, and stood on an Atlanta street corner during rush hour with a sign saying: “I will work for $25,000 a year.” An
Atlanta Constitution
reporter spotted him. The next day his photo and story were in newspapers all over the country.

AFTERMATH:
In the next two months, Condon got more than 500 job offers from as far away as Japan and Panama. He was the subject of college lectures and term papers, and women sent photos asking to meet him. Condon finally took a job at Dean Witter…at a salary of considerably more than $25,000.

THE STAR:
John (or Tom) Helms

THE HEADLINE:
Lucky Leaper Lands Lightly on Ledge, Likes Life

WHAT HAPPENED:
Just before Christmas in 1977, Helms—a 26-year-old down-and-out artist—decided to commit suicide by jumping off the Empire State Building. He took the elevator to the 86th floor observation deck (more than 1,000 feet up), climbed over the safety rail, and let go. He woke up half an hour later, sitting on a ledge on the 85th floor. Miraculously, a 30-mph wind had blown him back against the building. He knocked on a window, and an astonished engineer in the NBC-TV transmitter room helped him in. “I couldn’t believe it,” the engineer said. “You don’t see a lot of guys coming in through the window of the 85th floor. I poured myself a stiff drink.” The story made national news.

AFTERMATH:
Helms decided life was okay after all, and got hundreds of offers from families who wanted to take him in for the holidays. Two years later a similar incident occurred. On December 2, 1979, Elvita Adams climbed over the 86th floor’s safety rail and jumped. She fell about 20 feet before she was blown back onto a 2 1/2-foot ledge, breaking her hip. A guard heard her yelling in pain and rescued her.

THE STAR:
Graham Washington Jackson, a Navy musician

THE HEADLINE:
Sobbing Soldier Shows Symbolic Sorrow

WHAT HAPPENED:
President Franklin D. Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, at the “Little White House” in Warm Springs, Georgia. Jackson was there to see FDR’s body taken away. “It seemed like every nail and every pin in the world just stuck in me,” he said later. As tears streamed down his face, he spontaneously began playing a tune called “Goin’ Home” on his accordion. Edward Clark, a photographer, noticed Jackson and snapped a shot that was published in
Life
magazine. The picture captured the nation’s shock and grief so well that both the photo and Jackson became world-famous.

AFTERMATH:
Over the next four decades, Jackson was invited to the White House to play for every president. In fact, Jimmy Carter—who regarded the
Life
photo as one of the best ever taken—had Jackson named Georgia’s “Official State Musician” when Carter was governor. Jackson died in 1983, at age 79.

THE STAR:
Leon Henry Ritzenthaler, possible half-brother of President Bill Clinton

THE HEADLINE:
Surprise Sibling Surfaces in Paradise

WHAT HAPPENED:
In June 1993, a few months after Clinton took office, The
Washington Post
announced that Ritzenthaler—a retired janitor in Paradise, California—was the president’s long-lost half-brother.

Clinton’s mother had married William Blythe in 1943. Ritzenthaler’s mother had married Blythe eight years earlier, in 1935. She and Blythe had divorced in 1936, but continued to “visit” after the divorce; Leon was born in 1938, the result—his mother claimed—of one of those visits. The
Post
spent four months checking, and sure enough, Leon’s birth certificate listed Blythe as his father. But Blythe’s sister insisted that it was
another
member of the family who was really the father—that Blythe had merely covered for him.

Meanwhile, the press camped on Ritzenthaler’s doorstep. Leon said he wanted nothing from the president except their father’s health records, so he could pass them on to his kids. (Although he admitted he wouldn’t mind meeting his brother.) Clinton said he’d comment after talking to Ritzenthaler.

The president did call Leon a few days later; they chatted for 15 minutes. And in August, Clinton sent a note that said, “I look forward to meeting you before too long.”

AFTERMATH:
The story simply died. Clinton seems never to have mentioned Ritzenthaler again, and the press apparently lost interest.

Sidelight:
In August 1993, a woman named Wanetta Alexander surfaced, swearing to reporters that the William Blythe she’d married in 1941 was the same man who’d fathered Clinton. That would have made her daughter the president’s half-sister…but more interesting, it would have made Clinton “illegitimate.” Alexander hadn’t divorced Blythe until 1944, and Clinton’s mother had married him in 1943. It was apparently never proved.

THE STAR:
Ruth Bullis, a waitress at Stanford’s Restaurant in Lake Oswego, Oregon

THE HEADLINE:
Tip Tops Charts

WHAT HAPPENED:
In November 1995, a customer ordered a gin-and-tonic and a sandwich from Bullis, paid for it with a credit card, and wrote in a $40 dollar tip. Then he ordered another gin-and-tonic and left $100. Four hours later, after a third gin-and-tonic, he left a whopping $1,000 tip. Bullis said he insisted: “I can leave you whatever I want…I’m a big spender.” But she put the tips aside, waiting to see if he’d have second thoughts. A few weeks later, he showed up again…and left $100. She decided it was okay to spend the money. But she was wrong. In February, American Express notified Stanford’s that the customer wanted his money back.

AFTERMATH
: When the story was picked up by national news media, the company that owned Stanford’s decided on its own to avoid publicity and refund the tip to the customer. Bullis kept $1,000
and
her job.

Here are some of our favorite lines from the silver screen.

ON DATING

Allen:
“What are you doing Saturday night?”

Diana:
“Committing suicide.”

Allen:
“What are you doing Friday night?”

—Play It Again, Sam

ON LOVE

Darrow:
“You ever been in love, Hornbeck?”

Hornbeck:
“Only with the sound of my own voice, thank God.”

—Inherit the Wind

“Jane, since I’ve met you, I’ve noticed things I never knew were there before: birds singing…dew glistening on a newly formed leaf…stoplights…”

—Lt. Frank Drebin,
Naked Qun

ON ANATOMY

Nick Charles:
“I’m a hero. I was shot twice in the
Tribune.”

Nora Charles:
“I read where you were shot five times in the tabloids.”

Nick:
“It’s not true. They didn’t come anywhere near my tabloids.”

—The Thin Man

ON GOLF

“A golf course is nothing but a poolroom moved outdoors.”

—Barry Fitzgerald,
Qoing My Way

ON RELIGION

Sonja:
“Of course there’s a God. We’re made in his image.”

Boris:
“You think I was made in God’s image? Take a look at me. Do you think he wears glasses?”

Sonja:
“Not with those frames…Boris, we must believe in God.”

Boris:
“If I could just see a miracle. Just one miracle. If I could see a burning bush, or the seas part, or my Uncle Sasha pick up a check.”

—Woody Allen’s
Love and Death

ON BEING CLEAR

Ted Striker:
“Surely, you can’t be serious.”

Dr. Rumack:
“I
am
serious. And don’t call me Shirley.”

—Airplane!

Ollie:
“You never met my wife, did you?”

Stan:
“Yes, I never did.”

Helpmates

We’ve all heard the expression “Don’t believe everything you read.” Here are a few examples of why that’s true.

P
LAINFIELD TEACHER’S COLLEGE WINS AGAIN!

(New York Herald Tribune
and other papers, 1941)

The Story:
In 1941 the
Tribune
, the
New York Post
, and a number of other New York papers began reporting the scores of a New Jersey football team called the Plainfield Teachers College Flying Figments as it battled teams like Harmony Teachers College and Appalachia Tech for a coveted invitation to the first-ever “Blackboard Bowl.”

The Reaction:
As the season progressed and the Figments remained undefeated, interest in the small college powerhouse grew, and so did the press coverage. Several papers ran feature articles about Johnny Chung, the team’s “stellar Chinese halfback who has accounted for 69 of Plainfield’s 117 points” and who “renewed his amazing strength at halftime by wolfing down wild rice.”

The Truth:
Plainfield, the Flying Figments, and its opponents were all invented by a handful of bored New York stockbrokers who were amazed that real teams from places like Slippery Rock got their scores into big-city newspapers. Each Saturday, the brokers phoned in fake scores, then waited for them to appear in the Sunday papers. The hoax lasted nearly the entire season, until
Time
magazine got wind of it and decided to run a story. In the few days that remained before
Time
hit the newsstands, the brokers sent in one last story announcing that “because of a rash of flunkings in mid-term examinations, Plainfield was calling off its last two scheduled games of the season.”

PETRIFIED MAN FOUND IN NEVADA CAVE!

(Virginia City
Territorial Enterprise
, 1862)

The Story:
According to the article, a petrified man with a wooden leg was found in a cave in a remote part of Nevada. The man was found in a seated position, with

      
the right thumb resting against the side of his nose, the left thumb partially supported the chin, the forefinger pressing the inner corner of the left eye and drawing it partially open; the right eye was closed, and the fingers of the right hand spread apart.

The article claimed the man had been dead for at least 300 years.

The Reaction:
The story spread to other newspapers in Nevada, from there to the rest of the country, and from there around the world. The archaeological “find” was even reported in the London scientific journal
Lancet.