Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader (3 page)

Big Whoop

“A lot of Chinese feel rather patronizing toward the millennium. The idea of a calendar with only 2000 years is rather charming.”

—Charlie Chin,
New York Chinatown History Project

Uncle John’s

FIFTH
BATHROOM
READER

First published October 1992

UNCLE JOHN’S NOTES:

This was the first book we ever published.

Reading it over now, I like the ideas and information but think the writing is still a little rough. This book clearly needed more editing—but frankly, we didn’t know how to do it back then.

Still, you can see the BRI style developing. Compare the section called “Order in the Court,” for example, with the “Court Transquips” in our current work. It’s clearly on it’s way to becoming a viable format.

We were also just starting to figure out that the length of the articles in a
BR
should vary. There are a few longer-than-average pieces (e.g., “The TV Speech that Made a President”) here—but not enough. A number of articles would have been much better longer. For example: compare the section on
Citizen Kane
in this book (2 pages) with the one in
Uncle John’s Absolutely Absorbing Bathroom Reader
(6 pages). It’s night and day. But, then, we had to start somewhere.

Some of our favorites in this volume:

•  Carnival Tricks

•  The Myth-Adventures of Christopher Columbus

•  Meet Dr. Seuss

Cats are America’s most popular pet. Here are six things you may not know about them.

T
HE INSIDE POOP
Nearly all domestic cats bury their feces—but in the wild, only timid cats do. Aggressive cats in the wild actually leave their droppings on tiny “advertising hills” that they create. This leads researchers to believe that domestic cats see themselves as submissive members of their human families and environments.

FAMILY FLAVOR

Does your cat lick its fur clean after it rubs against you? That’s its way of “tasting” you—becoming familiar with the taste and scent of the people in its life.

CAT & MOUSE

Why do cats play “cat and mouse” with their victims? Experts believe it’s because they’re not hungry. Wild cats, who eat nothing but the food they catch, rarely, if ever, play cat and mouse.

PURR-FECT

Do cats purr because they are happy? Probably not, researchers say; even dying cats and cats in pain purr. The researchers think a cat’s purr is a sign it is receptive to “social interaction.”

THE BETTER TO SEE YOU WITH

Unlike human eyes, a cat’s eyes have pupils that are shaped like vertical slits. These vertical slits work together with the horizontal slits of the cat’s eyelid to give it greater control over how much light it allows into its eyes.

WHISKED AWAY

Because a cat’s whiskers are sensitive to the slight air currents that form around solid objects (such as furniture and trees), they help it to “see” in the dark. This is especially helpful when the cat hunts at night.

Elvis Presley’s favorite amusement park ride was the bumper cars.

Ever wonder how fabric designs and clothing styles get their names? Some are named after the places they were created or worn. Far example...

C
ALICO.
In the early 1700s, a fabric from India became so popular with the British public that they stopped buying English cloth and English weavers began losing their jobs. The weavers rioted. (In fact, they started attacking people wearing the cloth.) The result: Parliament banned imports of the fabric, and English weavers began making it themselves. They named it after the place it was originally made, the Indian town of Calicut. Eventually,
Calicut
cloth evolved into
calico
cloth.

PAISLEY.
These amoebalike patterns were originally found on shawls imported into England from India in the 1800s. Scottish weavers in the town of Paisley began producing their own versions of the design.

BIKINI.
Daring two-piece swimsuits were introduced at end-of-the-world parties inspired by America’s 1946 A-bomb tests on the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific.

BERMUDA SHORTS.
Bermuda, an island in the Atlantic, was a popular warm-weather tourist resort in the 1940s. But female vacationers had to use caution when they relaxed—a law on the island prohibited them from walking around with bare legs. The fashion solution: knee-length shorts, worn with kneesocks.

CAPRI PANTS.
Fashion designer Emilio Pucci met a beautiful woman while vacationing on the Isle of Capri in the 1950s. The encounter inspired a line of beach fashions that featured these skintight pants.

JODHPURS.
These riding pants were created by English horsemen living in Jodhpur, India.

Batter up: An estimated 41 million Americans play softball in their free time.

We’ve included this feature—based on Andy Warhol’s comment that “In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes”—in almost every Bathroom Reader. Here it is again, with new stars.

T
HE STAR
: Oliver Sipple, an ex-marine living in San Francisco

THE HEADLINE:
“Man Saves President Ford’s Life by Deflecting Assassin’s Gun”

WHAT HAPPENED:
President Gerald R. Ford was visiting San Francisco on September 22, 1975. As he crossed the street, a woman in the crowd, Sara Jane Moore, pulled out a gun and tried to shoot him. Fortunately, a bystander spotted Moore and managed to tackle her just as the gun went off. The bullet missed the president by only a few feet.

Oliver Sipple, the bystander, was an instant hero—which was about the last thing he wanted. Reporters investigating his private life discovered that he was gay—a fact he’d hidden from his family in Detroit. Sipple pleaded with journalists not to write about his sexual orientation, but they ignored him. The next day, the
Los Angeles Times
ran a front-page story headlined “Hero in Ford Shooting Active Among S.E Gays.”

THE AFTERMATH:
The incident ruined Sipple’s life. When his mother learned that he was gay, she stopped speaking to him. And when she died in 1979, Sipple’s father would not let him attend the funeral. Sipple became an alcoholic. In 1989, he was found dead of “natural causes” in his apartment. He was 47.

THE STAR:
Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese army lieutenant during World War II

THE HEADLINE:
“Japanese Soldier Finally Surrenders...29 Years After the War”

WHAT HAPPENED:
In February 1945, Allied forces overran Lubang Island in the Philippines. Most of the occupying Japanese soldiers were captured, but a few escaped into the hills. There they waited to be “liberated,” unaware that Japan had surrendered. They survived by living off the forest and raiding native villages for food. Villagers called them “the mountain devils.”

Q: What cable TV channel is available to the most American viewers? A: C-SPAN.

The U.S. and Japanese governments knew there were holdouts on the island, and for more than 25 years they tried to reach them by dropping leaflets, organizing search parties, and bringing relatives to coax them out of hiding. But nothing worked.

By 1974, there was only one soldier left: 53-year-old Hiroo Onoda. One day, he spotted a young Japanese man drinking from a stream in the hills. The stranger turned out to be Norio Suzuki, a university dropout who’d come to the island specifically to find Onoda. Suzuki explained that the war had been over for 27 years and asked Onoda to return with him to Japan. But Onoda refused—unless his commanding officer came to the island and delivered the order personally. Suzuki returned to Japan, found the commanding officer, and brought him back to Lubang Island, where Onoda finally agreed.

THE AFTERMATH:
Onoda was regarded as a curiosity in the world press, but in Japan he was a national hero. More than 4,000 people greeted him at the airport when he returned to Japan. He sold his memoirs for enough money to buy a 2,870-acre farm in Brazil, stocked with 1,700 head of cattle.

THE STAR:
Roy Riegels, captain of the football team at the University at California, Berkeley during the 1929 season

THE HEADLINE:
“Blooper of the Century: Cal Captain Runs Wrong Way, Gives Away Rose Bowl Game”

WHAT HAPPENED:
It was the 1929 Rose Bowl game: U.C. Berkeley was playing Georgia Tech, and the score was 0-0 in the second quarter. Cal had the ball deep in Georgia Tech territory, but in four attempts, they failed to score. Now Tech took over the ball...but on first down, the Georgia quarterback fumbled. In the confusion, Roy Riegels recovered the ball and started running for a touchdown. The only problem was, he was running
the wrong way
.

Benny Lom, Cal’s center, realized what was happening and chased Riegels, shouting and screaming. But Riegels outran him, carrying the ball 69½ yards down the field. Lom finally tackled him—six
inches
from the California goal line.

Heavy fact: Pound for pound, earthworms make up half of all animal life.

THE AFTERMATH:
On the next play, Tech nailed Cal for a safety, making the score Georgia 2, California 0. They added a touchdown in the third quarter, but failed to make the extra point. Now the score was Georgia 8, California 0. In the fourth quarter, California scored a touchdown and made the extra point—but that was it. Final score: Georgia Tech 8, California 7. Riegels’s blunder had cost Cal the game. The next day, Riegels was the most celebrated sports figure in the country. In fact, he’s still known as “Wrong Way” Riegels.

THE STAR:
William Figueroa, a 12-year-old student

THE HEADLINE:
“New Jersey Student Makes Vice President Look Like a Foole”

WHAT HAPPENED:
In June 1992, Vice President Dan Quayle visited a Trenton, New Jersey, elementary school where a spelling bee was being held. Quayle took over. Reading from a cue card, Quayle asked Figueroa, a sixth-grader, to spell the word “potato.” The boy spelled the word correctly, but Quayle insisted that he change it, because “potato” was spelled with an ‘e’ at the end. “I knew he was wrong,” Figueroa later told reporters, “but since he’s the vice president, I went and put the ‘e’ on and he said, ‘That’s right, now go and sit down.’ Afterward, I went to a dictionary and there was potato like I spelled it. I showed the reporters the book and they were all laughing about what a fool he was.”

THE AFTERMATH:
Figueroa became an instant celebrity. “Late Night with David Letterman” had him on as a guest, and he was asked to lead the pledge of allegiance at the 1992 Democratic National Convention. Afterwards, an AM radio station paid him $50 a day to provide political commentary on the Republican National Convention. He was also hired as spokesperson for a company that makes a computer spelling program.

TV QUIZ: THE ADDAMS FAMILY

1
.
What language drove Gomez crazy?

2
.
What did Gomez called Morticia?

3
.
How did Uncle Fester produce electric light?

4
.
What kind of creature was Wednesday’s pet, Homer?

5
.
How was Itt, the four-foot ball of hair, related to Gomez?

Answers:
1. French;
2. Tish;
3. He put a bulb in his mouth;
4. Black widow spider;
5. Cousin.

Here’s another of our regular
Bathroom Reader
features—the origins of familiar phrases.

N
OT UP TO SCRATCH

Meaning:
Inadequate, subpar

Background:
In the early days of boxing, there was no bell to signal the beginning of a round. Instead, the referee would scratch a line on the ground between the fighters, and the round began when both men stepped over it. When a boxer couldn’t (or wouldn’t) cross the line to keep a match going, people said he was “not up to the scratch.”

CAUGHT RED-HANDED

Meaning:
Caught in the act

Background:
For hundreds of years, stealing and butchering another person’s livestock was a common crime. But it was hard to prove unless the thief was caught with the dead animal...and blood on his hands.

CAN’T HOLD A CANDLE TO (YOU)

Meaning:
Not as good as (you)

Background:
Comes from England. Before there were streetlights, when wealthy British nobles went walking at night they brought along servants to carry candles. This simple task was one of the least-demanding responsibilities a servant could have; people who weren’t able to handle it were considered worthless. Eventually, the term “can’t hold a candle” came to mean inferiority.

GIVE SOMEONE THE BIRD

Meaning:
Make a nasty gesture at someone (usually with the middle finger uplifted)

Background:
Originally referred to the hissing sound audiences made when they didn’t like a performance. Hissing is the sound that a goose makes when it’s threatened or angry.