Uncle John’s 24-Karat Gold Bathroom Reader® Read online

  OH, BROTHER

  In early 1945 Rudi deserted his post in Poland, fleeing just ahead of the advancing Russian army. He returned to Herzogenaurach, where a doctor friend declared him unfit for military service due to a frozen foot, but he was soon arrested by the Gestapo for desertion. He blamed that on Adi, too. There may actually have been some truth to Rudi’s belief that Adi was out to get him, because not long after Rudi was released by the Gestapo, he was arrested by the Allies, this time on suspicion of working for the Gestapo. According to the report filed by the American investigating officer, both Adi and Käthe told investigators that Rudi had worked for the Gestapo. Result: Rudi spent a year in a POW camp. How did Adi spend the year? Rebuilding Dassler Brothers by selling athletic shoes to American GIs eager to buy the same kind of shoes that Jesse Owens had worn.

  PAYBACK

  Rudi retaliated in the summer of 1946, when Adi was hauled before the local denazification committee. Had Adi been classified as a Belasteter, or “profiteer,” he could have lost control of Dassler Brothers—in which case Rudi might have been appointed to run the company—or he could have been stripped of ownership entirely.

  Rudi appeared before the committee and did his best to paint Adi in a bad light, in the hope of assuming sole control of Dassler Brothers. And then he rejoined his wife and children under the same roof as Adi and his family. But not in the villa: That had been seized by the American occupation forces, who would be living in it until further notice. For the time being, Rudi and his family, and Adi and his family, and their widowed mother, and their other siblings, would all squat together in makeshift accommodations in a Dassler Brothers shoe factory. All the while, the brothers battled each other in public for control of the company.

  SPLITSVILLE

  Adi beat the rap in November 1946, when the denazification committee classified him as a Mitläufer, a “follower,” or a Nazi who had not actively contributed to the party or profited from his association with it. He would not be barred from running Dassler Brothers.

  But by that time neither of the brothers believed they could work together, so they decided to split the company in two. Rudi took the first step, moving his family and his mother (who sided with him) to new lodgings on the other side of the Aurach river, which runs through Herzogenaurach. He and Adi spent the next year and a half dividing the Dassler Brothers assets between themselves. Adi named his new company after himself, combining the first three letters of his first and last names to get Adidas. Rudi took two letters from his first and last names to get “Ruda.” Then he decided that Ruda sounded pudgy and un-athletic, so he changed his company’s name to the more powerful-sounding Puma.

  Neither brother may have realized it at the time, but the Dassler family feud was just getting started.

  For Part II of the story, turn to page 352.

  They gave us the bird: Chickens were first domesticated in Vietnam about 10,000 years ago.

  ODD SCHOLARSHIPS

  The bad news: College is more expensive than ever. The good news: There are a lot of scholarships—and some really weird scholarships—to help soften the financial blow.

  Grant: The David Letterman Scholarship

  Scholarship amount: $10,000

  Details: Students majoring or minoring in telecommunications at Ball State University in Indiana (Letterman’s home state) are eligible for this scholarship. They must prepare a creative project: written, filmed, or audiotaped. The winner is selected solely on creativity. Grades don’t matter at all, a stipulation Letterman made himself because he never got good grades.

  Grant: FBI Common Knowledge Challenge

  Scholarship amount: $1,000

  Details: Any current college student can register to take this annual FBI-trivia quiz about the agency’s history and procedures. Students are then sent the quiz along with a list of links to FBI websites that they can “investigate” to find the answers. The four students who score the highest each year get a scholarship.

  Grant: Patrick Kerr Skateboard Scholarship

  Scholarship amount: $5,000

  Details: This award is given out by the family of Patrick Kerr, a 15-year-old boy who died in 2002 while he was skateboarding and ran into a truck. To qualify, entrants have to write essays telling how “skateboarding has been a positive influence” in their lives, along with demonstrating how they promoted skateboarding in their community. The winner gets $5,000; runners-up get $1,000 each, provided by Mountain Dew and the Tony Hawk Foundation.

  Grant: Bernard Steur Scholarship

  Scholarship amount: $1,000

  Details: Most scholarship applications require a written essay or a list of relevant work or volunteer experience. This scholarship for Philadelphia University textile engineering students calls for applicants to submit an article of clothing they’ve designed and knitted themselves, made entirely out of wool. Strangely, the grant’s namesake, Steuer, had few ties to the textile industry—he was a painter.

  First U.S. product sold wrapped in cellophane: Whitman’s Candies.

  Grant: Van Valkenburg Memorial Scholarship

  Scholarship amount: $1,000

  Details: Members of the Van Valkenburg family first came to the New World in 1644 and lived in New Amsterdam, present-day New York. In the 1970s, their descendants established a foundation that awards a scholarship to a student who has contributed positively to the Van Valkenburg family legacy (they have to write an essay proving it). Entrants must have the last name Van Valkenburg or a variation of it—Van Valkanburg, for example.

  Other name-related scholarships: Texas A&M University has a scholarship for people named Scarpinato, and Loyola University in Chicago offers a full ride to a Catholic student named Zolp.

  Grant: The Klingon Language Institute Scholarship

  Scholarship amount: $500

  Details: First of all, yes, there’s an organization devoted to the appreciation and propagation of the made-up language from the Star Trek TV shows and movies (founded in 1992, or stardate 45493.9). And second, it will subsidize the education of a student who studies languages or linguistics. More good news: It can be any language program. (Although enrolling in a college that has a Klingon program—if you can find one—probably wouldn’t hurt.)

  Grant: Duck Brand Duct Tape Stuck on Prom Scholarship

  Scholarship amount: $10,000 per couple

  Details: Duck is a major manufacturer of duct tape—that incredibly sticky, durable, colored tape with a variety of uses, including, it would seem, making clothes. The high-school couple who makes the most creative his-and-hers formal dance ensembles out of Duck’s duct tape (other materials can be incorporated into the garments) wins big. Entries are judged on workmanship, creativity, use of color, and how much Duck Tape you use.

  Wheel o’ fortune: A single Formula One racing tire costs about $1,200.

  UNCLE JOHN’S PAGE OF LISTS

  Some random bits from the BRI’s bottomless trivia files.

  7 NATIONS THAT DRINK THE MOST ALCOHOL (PER CAPITA)

  1. Moldova

  2. Czech Republic

  3. Hungary

  4. Russia

  5. Ukraine

  6. Estonia

  7. Andorra

  8 THINGS YOU CAN’T SELL ON eBAY

  1. Batteries

  2. Catalytic converters

  3. Guns

  4. Food

  5. Cable TV descramblers

  6. Lock picks

  7. Postage meters

  8. Used airbags

  4 ODD PIG BREEDS

  1. Mulefoot

  2. British Lop

  3. Saddleback

  4. Tokyo-X

  4 DEFUNCT BOY SCOUT MERIT BADGES

  1. Taxidermy

  2. Invention

  3. Blacksmithing

  4. Beekeeping

  THE 10 PLAGUES OF EGYPT

  1. Blood (the waters of the Nile turned into blood)

  2. Frogs

  3. Lice

  4. Flies


  5. Diseased livestock

  6. Boils

  7. Hail (mixed with fire)

  8. Locusts

  9. Darkness

  10. Death of the firstborn (of all Egyptians and their livestock)

  3 NICKNAMES FOR THE DEVIL

  1. Old Scratch

  2. Hornie

  3. Father of Lies

  5 MOST COMMON TRANSPLANT SURGERIES

  1. Cornea

  2. Muscle graft

  3. Kidney

  4. Liver

  5. Skin graft

  8 ASIAN FLAVORS OF DORITOS

  1. Coconut Curry

  2. Tuna and Mayo

  3. Fried Chicken

  4. Winter Crab Pizza

  5. Winter Cheese

  6. Rock Taco

  7. OIive

  8. Corn Soup

  SNOOPY’S 7 SIBLINGS

  1. Andy

  2. Belle

  3. Marbles

  4. Molly

  5. Olaf

  6. Rover

  7. Spike

  World’s largest mall: the South China Mall, with space for 1,500 stores. (It’s 99% vacant.)

  DO TRY THIS AT HOME

  We were saving this article about home science experiments for our next Bathroom Reader for Kids Only, but then we thought, why should the kids have all the fun?

  POTATO-POWERED CLOCK

  What You Need: 2 fresh, raw potatoes; 2 shiny pennies;2 galvanized nails; 3 short pieces of insulated wire with small alligator clips at each end; 1 battery-operated LED clock (with battery removed); and 1 black Magic Marker. You should be able to get almost all of these items at any hardware store.

  What to Do: Use the Magic Marker to mark the potatoes “1” and “2.” Push the pennies edgewise into each potato, leaving some of each penny exposed. Stick the nails partway into each potato. Using the first wire, attach one alligator clip to the penny in potato #1 and the other to the positive (+) terminal in the clock. Using the second wire, connect one clip to the nail in potato #2 and the other to the negative (–) terminal in the clock. Take the third wire and clip one end to the nail in potato #1, and the other end to the penny in potato #2.

  Result: Take a look at your clock. It’s running...on potato power.

  Explanation: What you’re witnessing is an electrochemical reaction, or a chemical reaction that produces electricity. In this case, the zinc coating on the galvanized nails and the copper in the pennies are reacting with chemicals in the potato, resulting in the movement of electrons—that’s electricity!—through the potato, the wires, and the clock. Bonus: You don’t need potatoes. You can use lemons, apples, or bananas.

  EGG IN A BOTTLE

  Warning: Kids, this experiment uses fire—so don’t do it in a barn full of hay. Or at a gas station. Or, more importantly, without a responsible adult present. (And don’t be sneaky: It has to be an awake adult.)

  What You Need: 1 hard-boiled egg; 1 glass bottle that’s dry on the inside and has a fairly wide opening (like a fruit juice or iced tea bottle), but not wide enough to let the hard-boiled egg fall into it; a little vegetable oil; a small piece of paper (3 inches square); and a match or lighter.

  First airport: College Park Airport in Maryland, founded by the Wright brothers in 1909.

  What to Do: Rub a little bit of oil around the inside of the lip of the bottle. Fold the piece of paper into a strip that can be easily dropped into the bottle’s opening. Ignite one end of the strip of paper and drop it into the bottle. Set the egg on the opening of the bottle while the paper is still burning.

  Result: You’ll be amazed...as the egg starts to wiggle...then squish...and squeeze through the opening, falling into the bottle.

  Explanation: What you’re seeing is a demonstration of how temperature affects air pressure. Before you drop the burning paper into the bottle, the temperature in the bottle and in the surrounding air are the same—so the pressure is the same, too. But when you drop the burning paper in, the heat from the fire causes the air in the bottle to expand—or increase in pressure. (That’s why the egg wiggles: air was escaping.) After the fire goes out (because the egg blocked oxygen from getting in), the air in the bottle cools down and contracts—or decreases in pressure. The air outside the bottle is now more highly pressurized than the air inside. High pressure naturally flows toward low pressure, so the air outside the bottle is drawn into it, and squishes the egg into the bottle in doing so. Once the egg is out of the way, the air pressure in and out of the bottle are equal again.

  CABBAGE-JUICE pH TESTER

  Warning: If you’re not allowed to use the stove by yourself, find someone to supervise.

  What You Need: Stove; pot; a head of red cabbage; white vinegar; baking soda; pencil and paper; and assorted things from around the house

  What to Do: Chop up the cabbage and boil it in a mediumsized pot for 20 minutes. Pour the liquid into a measuring cup and let it cool. Use a spoon and put a little bit of the purple-blue cabbage juice on a white surface, or in a white cup, or just a glass if that’s all you have handy. Now add a tiny bit of vinegar to it. Now start over, and add some baking soda to the cabbage juice instead.

  The human body glows in the dark, but the light emitted is too dim for our eyes to see it.

  Results: When you add vinegar to the cabbage juice, it turns bright red. When you add baking soda, it turns green.

  Explanation: The reactions that you are witnessing are the result of the substances’ pH level, or how acidic or how basic (or alkaline) they are. PH is measured from 0 to 14: Water is neutral, with a pH of 7. Anything less than 7 is an acid; the lower the number, the more acidic the substance is. Anything above 7 is a base; the higher the number, the more basic it is. (For “The ABCs of pH,” go to page 496.) Acids cause the cabbage juice to change toward purple, pink, and red; bases make it change toward blue, green, and yellow. And you can now determine, pretty accurately, the pH level of anything you can dissolve in water, using the chart below, with the approximate pH level on the top, and color on the bottom.

  Go ahead, test some other things: beer, yogurt, maple syrup, shampoo—whatever you like. Any colors you get, just try to place them where you think they belong on the chart.

  You now have a simple, homemade pH-level testing system, useful for a variety of purposes. Extremely acidic or alkaline foods, for example, will be very sour or bitter, respectively. And, more importantly, the water in your hot tub should have a pH level of between 7.2 and 7.8.

  Extra: Cut some white paper into strips (coffee filters work well), soak them in cabbage juice for a few hours, take them out, and let them dry. You now have pH-level testing strips that work just as well as the ones you can buy in the store—and they’ll last for months.

  A GROANER

  Did you hear about the hurricane

  that lost its force? It was disgusted.

  Bears don’t raid beehives for honey—they’re after the larvae. (But they’ll eat the honey, too.)

  SECRET INGREDIENTS

  Great ice cream! You can really taste the beaver butt!

  Ingredient: Sunscreen

  Found in: Salad dressings

  Explanation: Burger King’s Fat Free Ranch Dressing and Wendy’s Low Fat Honey Mustard Dressing both contain titanium dioxide. It has several commercial uses: In salad dressings it’s used to create an appetizing, creamy-white color; in beauty products, it’s used as a sunblock.

  Ingredient: Pepper juice

  Found in: Healthcare products

  Explanation: Oleoresin capsicum is the active ingredient in pepper spray—when you spray the stuff in a bad guy’s eyes, oleoresin capsicum is what makes his eyes burn, swell, and redden. That same ingredient is present in personal products that create a warming sensation to let you know they’re working, like pain and itch creams.

  Ingredient: Sheep oil

  Found in: Multivitamin tablets

  Explanation: If you take a multivitamin supplement that contains Vitamin D3—and most commerc
ially available adult vitamins do—you’re also consuming a byproduct of wool. The vitamin contains a chemical called cholecalciferol, a derivative of lanolin, a waxy oil that is extracted from sheep’s wool.

  Ingredient: Insect attractant

  Found in: McDonald’s cilantro-lime and orange glaze dressings

  Explanation: These salad dressings and sandwich glazes contain propylene glycol alginate. It’s considered safe for human consumption in small doses...but it’s illegal to use in cat food, because the FDA doesn’t think it’s safe for cats. Propylene glycol is also used as an agent in bug traps because it both attracts and traps beetles.

  Banana split: In a traditional Hawaiian burial, the body is wrapped in banana leaves.

  Ingredient: Nuts

  Found in: Artificial fire logs

  Explanation: If you have a peanut allergy, you might want to stay away from light-and-burn artificial fireplace logs. The composite quick-burn material contains peanut shells and skins, which burn and become airborne in the smoke, and then can be inhaled.

  Ingredient: Beaver secretions

  Found in: Ice cream

  Explanation: The male North American beaver marks its territory by urinating on things. Along with the urine, it secretes a liquid called castoreum, which gives off a sweet scent. Castoreum also enhances the intensity of vanilla flavor, which is why this extract, made in the beaver’s anal glands, is used to flavor vanilla ice cream. (It’s not listed in the ingredients—it’s one of the “natural flavors.”) Trappers harvest the scent glands and sell them to additive companies.

  Ingredient: Animal fat

  Found in: Those ubiquitous thin plastic shopping bags

  Explanation: Plastic grocery bags are manufactured with an innate slipping agent to reduce friction, allowing the bags to be grabbed easily and opened without sticking to each other or themselves. What makes the best slipping agent? Animal fat.

  Ingredient: Hair remover

  Found in: McGriddle sandwiches

  Explanation: Both the maple syrup-flavored “griddle cakes” and the egg patty of this breakfast sandwich contain sodium acid pyrophosphate. Generally regarded as safe by the FDA, it’s used to maintain color and moisture in protein-heavy products (like eggs) and acts as a cheap alternative to yeast in manufactured baked goods: Coupled with baking soda, it makes bread rise. Elsewhere, sodium acid pyrophosphate aids the removal of hair, dandruff, and feathers in hog and poultry processing. It’s also an effective stain remover, particularly when applied to leather goods.