Uncle John’s Unsinkable Bathroom Reader Read online

  In Caracas, Venezuela, the streets are blocked off on Christmas so people can roller-skate to church.

  DOWNS AND UPS

  When Old Virginny and the others finished washing all the surface dirt through their “rockers”—mining equipment resembling baby cradles that rocked back and forth to separate out the gold—they dug deeper. As they did, the amount of gold steadily increased, first to $5 per day for each miner, then $12, and for a time as high as $20, at a time when gold sold for $13.50 an ounce.

  So why isn’t the Comstock Lode known as the Finney Lode or the Old Virginny Lode? Because as the months passed and the miners dug deeper, they eventually hit a deposit of difficult-to-work clay that had very little gold in it. Most deposits of gold are small, so when the miners ran out of the easy diggings they assumed they’d found all there was. That’s what happened to Old Virginny: the gold ran out, so he moved on.

  That June, just a mile down the hill, two miners named Peter O’Riley and Pat McLaughlin struggled to make a profit on a 900-foot-long claim they’d staked for themselves. The claim was yielding only one or two dollars’ worth of gold a day, and the men had heard about richer claims near the West Walker River, about 25 miles away. But they decided to stick around a little longer, probably until they made enough money to pay for the move.

  It takes water to sift gold out of sand and dirt, and the closest water source was a tiny spring that the men decided to dam up with some strange bluish sand they’d uncovered nearby. Almost on a whim, they tossed some of the odd sand into the rocker to see if it contained any gold. It was heavy and difficult to work with, but when they cleared it away they were stunned to see that the entire bottom of the rocker was covered in a layer of shimmering gold. Where Old Virginny had recovered gold by the ounce, O’Riley and McLaughlin were mining it by the pound.

  The term “taken aback” comes from sailing: a gust of wind can catch the sails and stop the ship.

  RANCHO COMSTOCKO

  So why isn’t the Comstock Lode known as the O’Riley Lode or the McLaughlin Lode? Because later that same day, another miner, Henry “Old Pancake” Comstock, happened to ride by while the men were celebrating their good fortune. When Comstock saw the gold, he hopped off his pony and told the two men that they were prospecting on land that he and a partner had already claimed for a ranch. In those days, you could claim unoccupied land for a ranch just as easily as you could stake a mining claim. Comstock told the “trespassers” that if they would let him and his partner, Emmanuel Penrod, become equal partners in the claim, he wouldn’t take them to court. Furthermore, if he and Penrod were given 100 feet of the claim to work by themselves, he’d even let them use the water from “his” stream.

  DEAL OR NO DEAL

  Nearly 150 years have passed since then, and in all that time no record of a ranch claim by Comstock has ever been found. But O’Riley and McLaughlin didn’t know that, and in those days it was common to settle mining disputes quickly without resorting to lawsuits—why waste money on lawyers when nobody knew how long the gold would last? Even the best claims might peter out after a month or two.

  O’Riley and McLaughlin took the deal…and Comstock started getting credit for their discovery. Comstock “was the man who did all the heavy talking,” Dan DeQuille wrote in his 1876 book A History of The Big Bonanza. “He made himself so conspicuous on every occasion that he soon came to be considered not only the discoverer but almost the father of the lode. People began to speak of the vein as Comstock’s mine, Comstock’s lode…while the names of O’Riley and McLaughlin, the real discoverers, are seldom heard.”

  THE BAD WITH THE GOOD

  Beneath the crumbly blue dirt was a firmer, compacted blue stone that yielded even more gold. On good days, the men pulled more than $1,000 worth of gold from the earth, more than 5½ pounds of gold a day. When the men hit a really rich patch, they might collect $150 worth in a single pan of dirt. The only frustration was the fact that the strange blue dirt clogged the rockers and other mining equipment terribly. “For weeks they let it go to waste,” DeQuille wrote, “throwing it anywhere to get it out of the way. They not only did not try to save it, but constantly cursed it. It was the great drawback.”

  Hey, who said life was fair? Part II of the story is on page 222.

  First known phobia to be described: Hydrophobia, a fear of water, in the mid-1500s.

  LAW AND ORDER: SPECIAL PANTS UNIT

  Why, yes—those are lobster tails in my pants. Why do you ask?

  In May 2008, a liquor store manager in Fort Pierce, Florida, told a man with what newspaper accounts called “a very large bulge” in his pants to hand over whatever it was he had “down there.” The man reached into his pants, pulled out two bottles of Hennessy cognac, gave them to the manager…and then ran out the door with the other two bottles he still had in his pants. (He wasn’t caught.)

  • Keith Miller, 51, was arrested at Sydney Airport in Australia in 2004. He was a rare-animal smuggler, and had 23 birds’ eggs in his underwear. Miller was later sentenced to two years in prison.

  • Giraldo Wong of Hialeah, Florida, was arrested in 2005 at Miami International Airport. He was also a rare-animal smuggler, and had two live Cuban songbirds in his underwear.

  • Workers at Junior’s Restaurant in Brooklyn called 911 in June 2008 to report the theft of 15 lobster tails from their walk-in freezer. Police found them in the cook’s pants.

  • A man in Michigan should have listened to his mother when she said, “Don’t run with sharp things in your hands! Or in your pants!” The man went to a Meijer superstore in Grand Rapids and stuffed about $300 worth of hunting knives in his pants. When security tried to stop him a scuffle broke out, and the man fell and stabbed himself. He was treated at a local hospital…and then arrested.

  • Police in Sweetwater, Tennessee, pulled into a church parking lot in the middle of the night in early 2008 after getting a report of a suspicious car there. A woman walked out from behind the church, saying she’d been going to the bathroom. Then a crowbar fell out of her pants. She was arrested for possession of burglary tools.

  • Ignacio Gueta, 22, was booked into the Santa Clara County Jail in California in June 2008 for violating parole. A search of Gueta found a 4'2" machete in his pants. Gueta said he had it “for protection.”

  All hornets are wasps; not all wasps are hornets.

  MEDICAL MIRACLES

  Do you believe in miracles? These folks do.

  DO THE WALK OF LIFE

  Eugene Stolowski, 33, and five other firefighters were searching for people trapped in a burning apartment building in the Bronx, New York, in January 2005 when the room they were in became engulfed in flames. The only way out was the window—and they were on the fourth floor. They all jumped. Tragically, two were killed on impact; three others survived with various injuries. But Stolowski suffered a freak injury: His spine became detached from his skull in what doctors called an “internal decapitation.” The only thing holding his head to his spine was the spinal cord—which is jellylike in consistency—so the slightest movement of his head could have paralyzed or even killed him. Doctors gave him a 5% chance of surviving emergency surgery. He beat those odds. After the first two weeks, during which he underwent nine surgeries, he was given a 30% chance of survival. He beat those odds, too, and four months later sat in a wheelchair next to his wife as she gave birth to their twin daughters. Nine months later he slowly shuffled—on his feet and without assistance—out the hospital door. And in November 2007, Stolowski went back to work for the New York City Fire Department—not as a firefighter, but back on the force—and can walk just fine today.

  Extra heroics: Of the three others who jumped and survived, Jeff Cool and Joey DiBernardo Jr. both retired. The third, Brendan Cawley, was just a month into the job when he had to jump that day…except that he didn’t actually jump—Stolowski threw him out the window to save his life, then jumped himself. After his recovery, Cawley was able to return to full duty as a
firefighter.

  There are 16 pyramids in Greece. Some are older than the pyramids in Egypt.

  MY BIRTHDAY IS IN FEBRUARY…AND MAY

  Macie Hope McCartney was born in February 2008. But then the doctors put her back in her mom’s womb…and she was born again on May 3, her official birthday. The explanation: A routine ultrasound during the sixth month of pregnancy revealed a tumor growing from the region of Macie’s tailbone. It was noncancerous, but it was huge—about as big as a grapefruit, which was larger than the baby herself at the time. And it was full of veins, so it was robbing the baby of her blood supply. Doctors decided the only thing to do was to operate, so mother Keri McCartney was very deeply anaesthetized—necessary to completely relax the uterus, doctors explained—then the surgical team cut open the uterus, pulled the fetus mostly out (feet first), removed the tumor, put her back inside, and sewed up the uterus very carefully so that it would still hold the amniotic fluid. Ten weeks later Macie Hope was “born again,” a perfectly healthy little girl.

  BATS IN THE BELFRY

  Jeanna Giese of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, was 15 in 2004 when she went to the hospital with tremors and difficulty walking. Doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong, and she was getting worse, so she was transferred to Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin (CHW) in Milwaukee. Doctors there suspected rabies, and Jeanna then told them that she’d been bitten by a bat that she had picked up at church…more than 40 days earlier. A test for the virus confirmed that she had it, which was very, very bad—people infected with the rabies virus who don’t get vaccine shots immediately—before the onset of symptoms—don’t live. Nobody in history had been known to recover from such a situation. That meant Jeanna, whose brain was already swelling, was in grave danger. The doctors at CHW searched in vain for a treatment plan; there wasn’t one. So they had to invent one: With her parents’ approval, they gave Jeanna drugs to protect her nervous system, then put her in a coma and hoped her immune system would “learn” to fight the virus, build up, and eventually win. They tested her spinal fluid to see how she was progressing, and a week later brought her out of the coma…because her immune system had eradicated the virus. She spent the next month in intensive care, followed by therapy to get her brain and muscles back in shape, and within a year she was back in school and even able to drive. She is the first unvaccinated person in history known to have had full-blown rabies and fully recovered. She’s now being studied by some of the world’s leading neurologists, who want to know just how she did it. Asked if she’d ever pick up a live bat again, the ardent animal lover answered, “I would.”

  About 25 million meteors hit Earth’s atmosphere every day.

  THY WILL BE DONE

  There are famous last words, and then there are the last words of the famous. Here are some odd bequests made in the wills of well-known people.

  BOB FOSSE. The choreographer and Oscar-winning director of Cabaret died in 1987 and left exactly $378.79 each to 66 people so they could “go out and have dinner on me.” Recipients included Dustin Hoffman, Liza Minelli, Melanie Griffith, and Roy Scheider (who portrayed Fosse in All That Jazz).

  GEORGE BERNARD SHAW. When the playwright (Pygmalion) died in 1950, he left more than £300,000 to develop a new, more precise English alphabet of 40 letters to replace the current one. (Someone created it, but it never caught on.)

  GENE RODDENBERRY. The creator of Star Trek, who died in 1991, arranged for his cremated remains to be scattered in space. And in 1997, they were shot out into space from a Spanish satellite (along with the ashes of 23 other people).

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. It’s been widely reported that when Shakespeare died he willed his wife, Anne Hathaway, his “second-best bed.” Some scholars say it was an insult that he didn’t leave her his best bed. But in the 17th century, a home’s best bed was reserved for guests; a husband and wife slept in the second-best. The note in the will was a sentimental gesture.

  HARRY HOUDINI. The famous magician bequeathed his collection of books on magic to the American Society for Psychical Research…on condition that J. Malcolm Bird, an ASPR official whom Houdini hated, resign. Bird refused, so the books went to the Library of Congress. Houdini also had a bronze bust of himself placed on his tomb to guide him back from “the other side.”

  DUSTY SPRINGFIELD. The 1960s singer (“Son of a Preacher Man”), who died in 1999, set aside a large sum to purchase a supply of baby food, the favorite meal of her cat, Nicholas. She also directed the executor to line Nicholas’s bed with her old nightgowns and play her songs each night as Nicholas went to sleep.

  McDonald’s restaurants will buy 54,000,000 pounds of fresh apples this year.

  UNSEEN TV

  Ever wondered what the network geniuses do behind closed doors? Here are some TV shows that they approved and produced…but never broadcast.

  SHOW: Manchester Prep

  STORY: For fall 1999, the Fox network planned a TV series version of the racy teen film Cruel Intentions. The movie had a lot of sex scenes, a lesbian kiss, and even incest between two main characters, and the show was just as graphic—too graphic for TV. Fox chairman Rupert Murdoch personally told producers to cut a horseback sex scene. They refused, and the show was cancelled. But rather than let it sit on the shelf, producers reassembled the cast and filmed new footage—sex scenes with full nudity—and added it to the two episodes of Manchester Prep already produced, and released it as a straight-to-video movie called Cruel Intentions 2.

  SHOW: The Young Astronauts

  STORY: In early 1986, the United States was in the middle of a “space craze” not seen since the 1960s. Reason: the upcoming launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger, which would have civilians on board for the first time ever. To play into the excitement, CBS produced The Young Astronauts, a Saturday morning cartoon about teenage space travelers, to air in February 1986. When the Challenger tragically exploded shortly after liftoff, killing everyone on board, CBS immediately cancelled the unaired series.

  SHOW: Babylon Fields

  STORY: Like Desperate Housewives, Babylon Fields was part comedy and part drama, and set in an upscale suburb. Except that in this suburb (for reasons unknown), hundreds of people had risen from the dead and were now zombies, trying to resume their lives. Babylon Fields was supposed to deal with the kind of problems a new zombie might face, such as rotting flesh, rigor mortis, and soothing the emotions of loved ones who’d mourned their deaths and were trying to move on. CBS actually picked up the show for fall 2007, but at the last second (reportedly because of ABC’s raising the dead-themed Pushing Daisies), killed it.

  Only 4 players in NBA history have compiled 20,000 points, 10,000 rebounds, and 4,000 assists: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain, Karl Malone, and Charles Barkley.

  SHOW: Aquaman (also known as Mercy Reef)

  STORY: In 2006 producers of the Superman-based Smallville introduced another superhero, Aquaman (played by Justin Hartley) into an episode, intending to spin him off into his own series. A pilot was filmed (also starring Ving Rhames and Lou Diamond Phillips), which TV insiders and entertainment writers called one of the best of the year. But when the fall 2006 schedule was announced, there was no Aquaman. Why? The WB was merging with UPN, another network, and in consolidating their programming, they left a lot of shows on the sidelines, including Aquaman. Later that year, the pilot was quietly put up for sale on iTunes, and became the online store’s most-downloaded TV show. It still never became a series.

  SHOW: Snip

  STORY: In 1976 NBC gave comedian David Brenner his own sitcom. The premise: Brenner played a divorced hairdresser whose ex-wife moves back in with him. It looked like a surefire hit. Brenner was one of the most popular comedians of the time, and the show was created by James Komack (who also made Chico and the Man and Welcome Back, Kotter). Seven episodes were filmed, but at the last minute, some NBC executives got nervous and pulled the plug. Why? The network feared controversy over another character—a openly gay hairdresser. Brenner bitt
erly quipped to a reporter, “Apparently, in 1976 there were no gay people in America.”

  SHOW: Mr. Dugan

  STORY: In 1978 the title character of Maude got elected to Congress and moved to Washington, but after two episodes, star Bea Arthur got bored with the concept and quit. Producer Norman Lear quickly reworked the show to make it about James Dugan, a freshman African-American congressman, starring Cleavon Little (Blazing Saddles) in the title role. A few weeks before the show’s heavily advertised 1979 debut, Lear screened the show for black members of Congress. They hated it, finding it to be full of stereotypes. One member called it “demeaning” and threatened to organize a boycott of CBS. Lear promptly ended production on Mr. Dugan.

  SINCERELY, STEVEN

  Take martial arts, add explosions, gunplay, ridiculous dialog, and some watered-down Eastern philosophy…and what do you have? The films of Steven Seagal.

  Senator Trent: You can take that to the bank!

  Mason Storm (Seagal): I’m gonna take you to the bank, Senator. To the blood bank!

  —Hard to Kill

  Monkey: Want some blow?

  John Hatcher (Seagal): Yeah, I want some blow. Put your hands where I can see ’em or I’m gonna blow your head off!

  —Marked for Death

  Hatch: What the hell are you doing here?

  Jack Taggert (Seagal): Well, I was just out taking a Sunday stroll. But I guess maybe it’s not Sunday.

  —Fire Down Below

  “Love is eternal, and that’s a long time.”