Uncle John's Great Big Bathroom Reader (6 page)

The Winner:
Stanford.
Five years later, Stanford was still burning to know whether he was right. This time, using the latest technology, Muybridge was able to take a picture that showed all four of Occidental’s feet off the ground at once. Fascinated with the results of the new photographic technology, Stanford told Muybridge to spare no expense and buy state-of-the-art photographic equipment for another test. In 1878, with the new equipment in hand, Muybridge set up a battery of 24 cameras alongside Stanford’s private track, and by precisely timing the exposures, successfully captured every position in a horse’s stride. This approach to rapid-motion photography paved the way for development of the movie camera.

Truth or Legend?
The story about the photo is true, but it probably didn’t happen as part of a bet for two reasons. Stanford wasn’t a betting man, and, in 1872, MacCrellish was using the
Alta Californian
to lambast Stanford for unsavory business practices—hardly conducive to a “friendly wager.”

Next time you’re traveling across America, set aside some time to visit these unusual atractions. From the hilarious book
, Roadside America.

T
HE CEMENT OX

Location:
Three Forks, Montana

Background:
The ox, nicknamed “New Faithful,” is one of two 12-foot tall cement oxen statutes that stand outside the Prairie Schooner Restaurant, and appears to be pulling the restaurant—which is shaped like an enormous covered wagon.

Be Sure to See..
.the cashier gleefully asking customers, “Have you seen old faithful?” and then adding, “Well, take a look at
new
faithful!” She pushes a secret button, and the cement ox starts peeing.

THE HAIR MUSEUM

Location:
Independence, Missouri

Background:
This museum is all that remains of an art form developed by cosmetology schools in the 19th century to keep hair clippings from going to waste.

Be Sure to See...
the museum’s collection of 75 items made entirely from hair, including hair wreaths, hair bookmarks, and a hair diary that belonged to a convict. You can even get a discount haircut, performed by “fully licensed” cosmetology students.

THE HOEGH PET CASKET CO.

Location:
Gladstone, Michigan

Background:
Hoegh makes seven different sizes of coffins for pets, including boxes tiny enough for birds and large enough for Great Danes.

Be Sure to See...
the “model” pet cemetery and demonstration. Note the brass sign over the crematorium that reads, “If Christ had a dog, he would have followed Him to the cross.”

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF HEALTH AND MEDICINE

Location:
Bethesda, Maryland

Background:
The museum is actually quite respectable and has been around for more than a century, but the definition of what is “respectable” has changed a lot over the years. Some of the older items on display are pretty disgusting.

Be Sure to See...
the amputated leg of Major General Daniel E. Sickles, who lost the leg during the Civil War when it was hit by a 12-1b. cannonball—which is also on display. “For many years,” the sign reads, “Sickles visited the museum on the anniversary of its amputation.” Also: the computer terminal that lets you play doctor to a mortally wounded Abraham Lincoln. “Congratuations! You’ve scored an 84 out of a possible 100. The nation applauds your effort as a doctor and as a responsible member of society. Unfortunately, the president is dead.”

THE WORLD’S SECOND-LARGEST BALL OF TWINE

Location:
Cawker City, Kansas.

Background:
When Frank Stoeber learned of the existence of the World’s Largest Ball of Twine (12 feet in circumference, 21,140 lbs. of twine) in Darwin, Minnesota, he set out to roll an even bigger one...but died when his ball was still one foot too small in circumference. The city fathers put it on display anyway.

Be Sure to See...
Stoeber’s ball of twine, displayed outside in a gazebo. Note the aroma: a musty smell, kind of like damp, rotting...twine.

THE HOLE ‘N’ THE ROCK

Location:
Moab, Utah

Background:
In 1940, a man named Albert Christensen took some dynamite and started blasting holes in a rock. He kept blasting until 1952, when he had enough holes—14 in all—to build a house, a cafe, and a gift shop. The Hole ‘N’ the Rock attracts 40,000 visitors a year.

Be Sure to See...
the bathroom, which has an entire cavern to itself. Christensen named it “a toilet in a tomb.”

THE MUSEUM OF QUESTIONABLE MEDICAL DEVICES

Location:
In a strip mall in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Background:
Operated by Bob McCoy, the museum was founded to encourage interest in science and medicine.

Be Sure to See...
the Prostate Warmer, which plugs into a light socket and “stimulates the abdominal brain,” and the Nemectron Machine, which “normalizes” breasts through the application of metal rings of various sizes.

THE CORAL CASTLE

Location:
Homestead, Florida

Background:
Edward Leedskalnin was a young man when his 16-year-old fiance, Agnes Scuffs, ended their engagement. Leedskalnin spent the next 20 years carving a massive memorial castle to Agnes out of coral, using tools he made from junked auto parts. By the time he died in 1951, Leedskalnin (who weighed approximately 100 lbs.) had quarried, carved and positioned more than 1,100 tons of coral rock for the castle. Some of the blocks weighed more than 25 tons—but because Leedskalnin worked alone, in secret, and usually at night, nobody knows how he managed to position the blocks in place. He never explained, other than to say, “I know how the pyramids were built.”

Be Sure to See...
a coral sundial that tells time, a throne for Agnes that rocks, and a heart-shaped table that made it into
Ripley’s Believe it or Not
as the world’s biggest valentine.

Note:
Leedskalnin’s ex-fiance Agnes Scuffs was still alive in 1992. She had never visited the castle.

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BONUS DESTINATION:
O’Donnell, Texas, hometown of Dan Blocker, who played Hoss on
TV’s Bonanza.

Be Sure to See...
The Dan Blocker Memorial Head. When Blocker made it big, the town fathers had a likeness of his head, carved in granite, installed on a stand in the town square.

Here are a few thoughts from former president Dwight D. Eisenhower.

“There is one thing about being a president—nobody can tell you when to sit down.”

“Farming looks mighty easy when your plough is a pencil and you’re a thousand miles from the cornfield.”

“You do not lead by hitting people over the head—that’s assault, not leadership.”

“When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it.”

(On Vietnam): “We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it.”

“Politics should be the part-time profession of every citizen.”

“Things have never been more like the way they are today in history.”

“Do not needlessly endanger your lives...until I give you the signal.”

“The middle of the road is all of the usable surface. The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.”

“There are no easy matters that come to you as president. If they are easy, they are settled at a lower level.”

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

“An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.”

“There is no amount of military force that can possibly give you real security. You wouldn’t have that amount in the first place, unless you felt there was a similar amount that could threaten you, somewhere else in the world.”

The word “serendipity” means “making happy and unexpected discoveries by accident.” It was coined by the English writer Horace Walpole, who took it from the title of an old fairy tale
, The 3 Princes of Serendip.
The heroes in the story are always “making discoveries they are not in quest of.” For example, it’s just serendipity...

T
HAT BUBBLE GUM IS PINK

Background:
In the 1920s, the Fleer Company of Philadelphia wanted to develop a bubble gum that didn’t stick to people’s faces. A 23-year-old employee, Walter Diemer, took the challenge. He started experimenting with different mixtures, and in a year, he had the answer. In 1928, the first workable batch of bubble gum was mixed up in the company mixing machines. “The machines started groaning, the mix started popping, and then I realized I’d forgotten to put any coloring in the gum,” Diemer recalled.

Serendipity:
The next day, he made a second batch. This time he remembered to color it. But the only color he could find was pink. “Pink was all I had at hand,” he says. “And that’s the reason ever since, all over the world, that bubble gum has been predominantly pink.”

...THAT WE PLAY BASKETBALL INSTEAD OF BOXBALL

Background:
When James Naismith invented his game in 1891, he decided to put a horizontal “goal” high over players’ heads. He figured that would be safer—there would be no violent pushing and shoving as people tried to block the goal...and shots would be lobbed, not rocketed, at it.

Serendipity:
As one historian writes: “The goal was supposed to be a box. Naismith asked the janitor for a couple of suitable boxes, and the janitor said he didn’t have any...but he did have a couple of round peach baskets in the storeroom. So it was baskets that were tacked to the walls of the gym.” A week later one of the players suggested, “Why not call it basketball?” The inventor answered: “We have a basket and a ball...that would be a good name for it.”

...THAT MEL GIBSON GOT HIS BIG BREAK

Background:
According to
The Good Luck Book
, “When director George Miller was looking for someone to play the male lead for his 1979 post-apocalyptic road movie
Mad Max
, he was specifically looking for someone who looked weary, beaten-up, and scarred.

Serendipity:
“One of the many ‘wannabes’ who answered the cattle call for the part was a then-unknown Australian actor named Mel Gibson. It just so happened that the night before his scheduled screen test, Gibson was attacked and badly beaten up by three drunks. When he showed up for the audition the next morning looking like a prize fighter on a losing streak, Miller gave him the part. It launched Gibson’s career as an international movie star in such films as
The Year of Living Dangerously, Lethal Weapon
, and the 1995 Oscar-winning
Braveheart
.”

...THAT YELLOW PAGES ARE YELLOW

Background:
The phone was invented in 1876, and the first Bell business directory came out in 1878. As we wrote in our
Ultimate Bathroom Reader
, it was printed on white paper. So were subsequent editions all over the country.

Serendipity:
In 1881, the Wyoming Telephone and Telegraph Company hired a printer in Cheyenne to print its first business directory. He didn’t have enough white paper to finish the job and didn’t want to lose the company’s business. So he used the stock he had on hand—yellow paper. Other companies around the country adopted it, too...not realizing it was an accident.

...THAT HOLLYWOOD STARS PUT THEIR PRINTS IN CEMENT AT GRAUMAN’S CHINESE THEATER

Background:
In the early days of Hollywood, Sid Grauman’s movie theater, fashioned after a Chinese pagoda, was the biggest and fanciest of its kind.

Serendipity:
One day in 1927, movie star Norma Shearer accidentally stepped in wet cement as she walked in the courtyard of the theater. Rather than fill the prints in, Graumann got other stars to put their hand- and footprints in the cement. That turned it into one of Hollywood’s biggest tourist attractions.

Some people have achieved immortality because their names became identified with products. You already know the names—now here are the people.