Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Golden Plunger Awards Read online

  One scientist said that in eastern Maine, things are even worse: about 20 years ago, you could harvest 2,000 worms per tide, which have dwindled to between 250 and 500 per tide. Explanations for the decline range from the natural cycles of tidal ecology, to overharvesting, to poor fishing practices like mussel dragging, in which heavy iron baskets are pulled across mudflats to harvest mussels, damaging worm habitats in the process.

  Another problem facing Wiscasset and surrounding worm towns is that most state research funding goes into better-known and more lucrative species like lobster and cod, while ignoring the worms, as well as the socioeconomic impacts of their scarcity.

  THE FARMER TAKES A WORM

  One solution being tried is a worm farm, the effort of a British entrepreneur named Peter Cowin who got the idea while working on his doctorate in worm biology. Cowin’s company, Seabait, is fully operational in the United Kingdom, and with a loan from the State of Maine, he’s launched a facility there.

  But while the state sees aquaculture as an industry of the future that could enhance its economy and create jobs, many of the worm diggers of coastal Maine believe it is a threat to their livelihood and way of life. Of course, without worms, there won’t be any way of life to protect, so many Mainers believe Seabait technology should be used to re-seed wild worm beds.

  THE WORST GUEST AWARD

  If there’s one worm you don’t want around, it’s a tapeworm. Tapeworms have afflicted human beings for 10,000 years. They attach to the human host’s intestinal wall through hooks on their heads. Although tapeworms start out tiny, they grow . . . sometimes several feet long (an adult human has about 25 feet or more of intestine for the worms to make themselves at home in). They also cast off portions of their bodies in human waste. Those worms then go in search of their own hosts.

  Traditional effects of having a tapeworm include constipation, diarrhea, malnourishment, and weight loss, but the parasites can do far more damage. A pork tapeworm can cause lesions and cysts and, at its worst, damage the brain and central nervous system. The kind of tapeworm that lives in dogs or sheep (though this one is pretty hard to catch) can affect the liver and other organs. So rumors may persist that tapeworms once made good diet aids (read about that on page 4), but really, they’re a wiggly hassle.

  THE MIRACLE CURE AWARDS

  Standing Up, Laughing, and Getting a Pet

  Some unexpected ways to get healthy are easy and even fun. That’s

  a health plan everyone—including Uncle John—can get behind.

  NOT-SO-SECRET MEDICINE

  The best medicine isn’t always a pill or a treatment. And if there were an alternative to surgery, most people would take it. It turns out there are three methods that are easy to implement and inexpensive. And even though they’ve been around for . . . well . . . ever, science is just starting to understand how they help people stay fit and healthy.

  GET UP! STAND UP!

  Common sense says that if you lie around too much, you’ll put on weight. And even though a lack of exercise is one of the main reasons people pack on pounds, it’s not the only one. These days, people spend lots of time sitting at desks and in front of their computers and TVs. In April 2008, Marc Hamilton (a professor of biomedical sciences at the University of Missouri-Columbia) presented a new study that said sitting down dramatically decreases the body’s ability to dispose of fat.

  Hamilton found that fat tends to collect in tissue when people are sitting down. Also, while we’re sitting, our bodies produce only about 10 percent of the lipase, a natural enzyme that breaks down fat, than it does normally. HDLs, the “good” cholesterol, also went down while people were sitting.

  Hamilton’s suggestion: stand up and walk around a little bit. Standing up while watching TV would be one start. Stand up while on the telephone at home. Apparently anything that decreases the amount of time spent sitting will do a body good.

  WHAT ARE YOU LAUGHING AT?

  The average four-year-old will laugh more in an hour than the typical adult. And toddlers usually laugh once every four minutes, while adults get in just 10 to 15 laughs a day. Does that matter? It seems to. The healing power of laughter is finally getting its due.

  In 2005, the University of Maryland School of Medicine released the results of a study showing that laughter could help prevent a heart attack. The study worked like this: A group of people was shown a funny movie. As they watched and laughed, they were monitored. The result: Laughter caused their endothelium linings—the inner part of blood vessels—to expand, which increased blood flow, necessary for a healthy heart. Sad or stressful movies, in contrast, made the endothelium linings contract. The research bore out what science had long thought—stress harms cardiovascular health, while laughter helps it.

  One of the pioneers of laughter research was Stanford Professor William Fry, who documented the intense benefits of laughter back in 1971. He found that laughter, like exercise, increases the heart rate. In fact, all the effects of hearty laughter mirror what the body goes through during a workout—in particular, an increase in blood pressure and oxygen consumption. The effects drop back to normal levels after it’s done, just as with exercise.

  Other studies have shown that laughter also helps with respiration, diabetes (laughter lowers blood sugar levels), stress levels, pain management, and even productivity at work (happy workers get more done). So even though some scientists (probably the grumpy ones) say that the studies are inconclusive and don’t prove that laughter is a form of medicine, everyone agrees that laughter doesn’t hurt and that if there’s a chance it can help, it’s worth trying.

  WOOF! PURR . . .

  At the 2008 International Stroke Conference in New Orleans, Dr. Adnan Qureshi of the University of Minnesota delivered some surprising news: According to a study of 4,435 people, cat owners were less likely to die of cardiovascular disease. On the other hand, people who didn’t own cats were 30 to 40 percent more likely to die from it.

  That was good news for the more than one-third of U.S. households that own a cat. Dog owners were not so elated—their pets didn’t decrease their chances of having a heart attack at all. But dog owners can still take solace in the fact that a 1995 American Journal of Cardiology study found that all pet owners are more likely to survive a heart attack than those who don’t have one. The National Institutes of Health seems to agree, saying that all pet owners have lower blood pressure, triglyceride, and cholesterol levels and feel less lonely than the pet-less. Also pet owners make fewer visits to the doctor.

  Some dogs also seem to be able to warn of oncoming seizures. “Seizure-alert” dogs can be trained to predict a seizure up to 15 minutes before it comes on, giving their owners ample time to take safety precautions. People with Parkinson’s Disease who suffer from a condition called “freezing”—wherein their feet freeze up while their bodies are in motion—can be helped by dogs too. When a dog touches their feet while the situation is occurring, they become unfrozen.

  Pets’ abilities to detect problems like cancer cells are being studied as well. Someday, scientists may figure out how to get Fido to sniff out cancers in the body before they become untreatable. In the meantime, pet owners can relax in the knowledge that their best friends provide many long-term health benefits.

  MATCH THE SPORTS TROPHY TO THE SPORT

  1. Larry O’Brien Trophy a) Canadian Football League

  2. Commissioner’s Trophy b) PGA Championship

  3. Grey Cup c) National Basketball Association

  4. Vince Lombardi Trophy

  d) NFL

  5. Sprint Cup e) NASCAR

  6. Wanamaker Trophy f) Major League Baseball

  THE SULTRY VOICE AWARD

  Lauren Bacall

  A great speaking voice is paramount if you want to become a Hollywood legend.

  All of the greats have their own unique vocal qualities: JohnWayne’s monotone

  drawl or Marilyn Monroe’s breathy whisper. But when it comes to the


  ultimate sultry, sexy voice, we think of Lauren Bacall. Here’s

  how she found that voice . . . and then broke free of it.

  VOCAL TRAINING

  The pretty teenager who would one day become one of Hollywood’s most glamorous movie stars had one big problem: her high, nasally voice. That was the only thing keeping director Howard Hawks from hiring 19-year-old Betty Bacall for his 1944 film adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not. Hawks’s wife, Slim, had seen a picture of Bacall on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar and convinced Howard to fly the young model and aspiring stage actress from New York City to California for a screen test. Bacall (born Betty Joan Perske in 1924) had the acting ability and the look that Hawks was looking for—plus she seemed wise beyond her years—but what to do about that voice?

  Hawks worked with Bacall for two weeks, modeling her speaking on the low timbre of his wife Slim’s. Still not quite there, Bacall went home to New York and practiced for two more weeks. Then she traveled back to Los Angeles and wowed Hawks with her new husky, sultry voice . . . and got the part. At the insistence of Hawks, she changed her first name to the more alluring Lauren (though she still goes by Betty to her friends and family). “He wanted to mold me. He wanted to control me,” Bacall said of Hawks. “And he did . . . until Mr. Bogart got involved.”

  TO HAVE AND HAVE MORE

  He was 44; she was 19, but the chemistry was there from the beginning. On the set of To Have and Have Not, Humphrey Bogart and the newly christened Lauren Bacall sparked a romance, and their attraction translated to the screen. In the film’s most famous scene, Bacall, as Marie “Slim” Browning, says to Bogie in her new sultry voice:

  You know you don’t have to act with me, Steve. You don’t have to say anything, and you don’t have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow.

  Both the line and the movie became instant sensations, propelling young Bacall to stardom.

  Yet, as Hawks pointed out (and rumor had it that he was quite jealous of Bacall’s affections for Bogart), it was the character she was playing that Bogart had fallen in love with, “so she had to keep playing it the rest of her life.” Good thing that the role of a confident woman was easy for her to live up to, both on and off the screen . . . although that voice would one day catch up with her.

  BACALL OF THE WILD

  The public was enamored with Hollywood’s most glamorous couple, eagerly awaiting each new film noir picture they costarred in, most notably The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage (1947), and Key Largo (1948).

  Off the screen, Bacall was making waves for, very simply, living life on her own terms. Even though she was happily married to Bogart, she went against the grain of the 1950s woman—she was outspoken, refused to take roles simply for a paycheck, and even protested against McCarthyism while campaigning for democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson in 1952.

  Showing off her comedic talents in 1953’s smash hit How to Marry a Millionaire (also starring Betty Grable and Marilyn Monroe), Bacall used her sultry voice to poke fun at her screen persona. “I’ve always liked older men—look at that old fellow what’s-his-name in The African Queen. Absolutely crazy about him.” The movie-going public loved the reference. And although Bacall was enjoying the life of a celebrity, all she cared about was the acting part of it—that and being a good citizen, wife, and mother. In the spotlight, people were always telling her what to do, and she hated that. “Let people push you around, and you deserve whatever bad things happen after that.”

  Statements like that, plus Bacall’s insistence on only taking on scripts she approved of, gave her the reputation of being “difficult.” But she felt—after being immediately accepted by the public—that she didn’t have to prove anything to anyone . . . except herself. That became a lot harder after Bogart died from throat cancer in 1957. (At the funeral, Bacall placed a whistle in Bogie’s coffin.) Devastated by the loss of her husband, Bacall, now a 33-year-old single mother with two children, took on fewer film roles, not finding them as much fun as before. A brief romance with Frank Sinatra didn’t work out, and Bacall was tired of being a “movie star.”

  THE PLAY’S THE THING

  It always came back to acting, the only constant in her professional life. But Bacall wanted more out of it than she was getting. “I never even thought I’d be in movies,” she recently admitted. “I only wanted to be on stage. I wanted to see my name in lights. I wanted to take that curtain call.”

  So Bacall moved back to New York and focused her talents on Broadway, where she became one of the theater world’s biggest attractions. She fell in love with actor Jason Robards and married him in 1960, only to file for divorce in 1969 due to his excessive drinking. Bacall has remained happily unmarried ever since. “If you want a good marriage, you must pay attention to that. If you want to be independent, go ahead. You can’t have it all.”

  Again, she focused on acting, earning Tony Awards for the musical Applause in 1970 (based on the 1950 film All About Eve, which starred Bette Davis), and for Woman of the Year in 1981. In that time, Bacall still acted in the occasional movie, including John Wayne’s last film, The Shootist, in 1976. Even though the two were political opposites, they became close friends.

  SMALL TALK

  Her days as a sex symbol long behind her, Bacall was able to rest her sultry speaking voice. Had she kept at it, she could have caused severe damage. The medical field even named a vocal “misuse” disorder after the affliction called “Bogart-Bacall syndrome” (BBS). Technically, it’s a form of muscle tension dysphonia. Actors as well as singers can suffer from BBS after years of speaking or singing in a lower register than their natural voice. Thankfully, Bacall caught it in time, never suffering the full effect of the disorder named for her. Now, she only turns on the huskiness if the role requires it.

  THESE KIDS TODAY

  Over the last 25 years, Bacall has taken on mostly smaller, arty roles. And even now, her voice is still one of her greatest attributes: Bacall’s done voice-over work for animated films such as Howl’s Moving Castle (2004), where she played an evil witch, and Firedog (2005), where she played a cat. On the small screen, she has appeared on Chicago Hope and The Sopranos. Her recent big-screen credits include Dogville (2003) and Birth (2004), two independent films she starred in with Nicole Kidman.

  So what does the outspoken movie star from Hollywood’s Golden Age have to say about outspoken movie stars of today? “We live in an age of mediocrity,” she says. “Stars today are not the same stature as Bogie, James Cagney, Spencer Tracy, Henry Fonda, and Jimmy Stewart.” She calls most of today’s major films “artless” and takes exception with overrated movie stars, especially Kidman’s ex-husband. “When you talk about a great actor, you’re not talking about Tom Cruise. His whole behavior is so shocking. It’s inappropriate and vulgar and absolutely unacceptable to use your private life to sell anything commercially.”

  LIVING LEGEND

  But when Bacall looks back at her own life, she realizes she has little to complain about. “Although I beef about a lot of things, I think I’ve been extremely lucky.” And though she’s never won an Oscar, Bacall did win a Golden Globe Award for her role in 1996’s The Mirror Has Two Faces. She also received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1997, and two years later was named one of the “25 Most Significant Female Movie Stars in History” by the American Film Institute. But at 83 years old, and with nearly 40 films to her credit, Bacall just wants to keep on acting. “I am still working, I’ve never stopped and, while my health holds out, I won’t stop.”

  THE WAY WE WERE AWARD

  A Host of Wonderful, Missing Things

  Remember making crystal radios when you were a kid?

  We do, too. And gosh darn it—we miss it.

  AULD LANG SYNE

  Times keep changing, and simple little things we take for granted go the way of the Studebaker and bell bottoms—but that d
oesn’t mean we have to forget them. Here’s Uncle John’s salute to a few of our favorite (nearly) forgotten things:

  Crystal radios: When Uncle John was a kid, every mechanically inclined child, and many who were not, got a crystal radio kit. It was a very simple radio that you had to assemble yourself. And through the seeming magic of a tiny quartz crystal—it didn’t plug in and had no batteries—it received radio signals that you could listen to through earphones. He still doesn’t know how they worked . . . maybe they were magic.

  Network sign-offs: In a slower and saner world, there were no all-night TV stations, so networks would go off the air around midnight with their own unique “sign-off”: often just a quick “thank you” message from the staff along with a playing of the “Star Spangled Banner,” but sometimes they aired a several-minutes-long, specially made, “arty” public service announcement with a witty and informative message. They’re almost completely nonexistent today, and have been since cable TV took off in the 1980s.

  Blank checks: Tell the kids about this one and they won’t believe you: In the old days stores had “counter checks” from the local bank at their checkout counters. They were blank checks that had the bank’s name and address printed on them, along with a place for a date, the payee, dollar amount, and your signature. If you had an account at that bank, you could use them to pay for your items. Not surprisingly, less-than-honest people—who didn’t have accounts—figured out that they could fill in any name they wanted and get free stuff. Counter checks were history by the 1970s. (We’re surprised they lasted that long.)