Uncle John's Top Secret Bathroom Reader for Kids Only! Read online

  Uluru rises 1,100 feet above the desert floor, and is 2 miles long and 1 miles wide. But that’s just the top of it. Most of the rock lies underground, extending 3 miles below the surface.

  How it came to be in the middle of the Australian desert is still being debated by geologists. The most widely held theory is that a great deposit of sedimentary rock was created 600 million years ago and that then this bed of rock was tilted, probably by violent earthquakes, until it stuck straight up out of the ground.

  LIGHT SHOW

  Uluru is covered in a layer of iron oxide, which gives it a reddish tint. But during the day, the play of sunlight on the rock makes it seem to change colors. It might glow bright red in the afternoon, then change to orange and then to deep purple by evening. The traditional Aboriginal belief is that there is a light source deep inside Uluru that causes the color changes.

  Count ’em yourself: There are exactly 42 eyes in a standard deck of playing cards.

  In fact, every crag, crack, water stain, crevice, and cave of the rock has a meaning to the Aborigines. They believe this sacred rock was created by Kuniya (a python), Kurpany (an evil, doglike creature), and Mala (a wallaby-like creature) at the very moment of creation, which they call Dreamtime.

  PAINTED MEMORIES

  The insides of the caves around the base of the rock are covered with paintings made by the Aborigines over centuries. The most recent were done in the 1930s, but some of them are thousands of years old. The Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara tribes have lived near Uluru for 10,000 years, and have used its cave walls to record a visual history of their peoples. Some of the caves are for women only, some are for men, but all of them are considered holy places.

  Uluru remained relatively untouched even after Europeans arrived in Australia because it is in one of the most remote areas of the country. Today, however, it is a popular tourist spot, and that’s a problem. Visitors aren’t always respectful of the rock or the traditions of its owners. Result: The Australian government has had to restrict access to it. But you can still visit Uluru if you ever go to Australia. It’s in Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park in the Northern Territory.

  One underground fire in Australia has been burning continuously for 2,000 years.

  WORD PLAY

  Concealed in each puzzle below is a common word or phrase. Can you guess what it is? (Answers are on page 284.)

  1.

  Head

  Heels

  2.

  CHIMADENA

  3.

  M CE

  M CE

  M CE

  4.

  XQQQME

  5.

  ARREST

  YOU’RE

  6.

  MEREPEAT

  7.

  A B C D E F G H J M O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

  8.

  $0 ALL

  ALL ALL

  ALL

  9.

  YYYGUY

  10.

  poFISHnd

  11.

  12.

  Wear

  Polka Dot

  13.

  History

  History

  History

  Q: What is a heliologist? A: Someone who studies the sun.

  STRANGE SPORTS

  Do you think that baseball is dull? Or that soccer is boring? Perhaps you’d be interested in an exciting match of elephant polo.

  ELEPHANT POLO

  Out of the choking dust appears a grumbling, rumbling, tumbling mass of gray pachyderms. Somewhere in the center of this mass is a three-inch ball. Whack! Someone hits the ball. The herd shifts and the dust is kicked higher. Thwack! The ball is hit again. Loud trumpeting blares across the hill. Then, in the shuffling mix of elephants, men, sticks, and ball, Splat! Someone hits a pile of elephant dung. “Oops—sorry about that, mate.” The game continues.

  Rules of the Game

  Regular polo is played using teams of horses; elephant polo is played with two teams of four elephants. Playing time is two 10-minute chukkers with a 15-minute rest period in between. Each elephant carries a polo player and a mahout (pronounced ma-howt), or driver. The mahout sits directly behind the elephant’s ears and directs the beast using his voice, hands, and feet. The player sits behind the mahout and hangs onto the elephant while striking at the ball with a long-handled mallet. The umpire watches the play from a wooden howdah (platform seat) on the back of another elephant.

  Not only does the umpire need to stop the game every now and then to bring out a giant pooper-scooper, but he also has to make sure the elephants don’t cheat…which they love to do.

  Dogs were first domesticated in about 10,000 B.C., pigs in 7000 B.C., and cows in 6500 B.C.

  Elephants are not allowed to pick up the ball with their trunks and just toss it into the goal. Nor are they allowed to lie down in front of the goal. Other than that, the game is very much like regular polo—only louder.

  World Championship

  The annual World Elephant Polo Championship is held high in the Himalayan kingdom of Nepal. This contest attracts teams from many countries, including Great Britain, the United States, Iceland, and South Africa. The 2003 title was won by the Tiger Tops Tuskers from Iceland.

  COCKROACH RACES

  Billed as the “greatest gathering of thoroughbred cockroaches in the known universe,” the World Championship Cockroach Races are held in Queensland, Australia, every year. Thousands of fans crowd into the stands to watch the races. Events include a race around a circular track and a straight sprint for the finish line.

  Cockroach Gold Cup

  But the main event is the Story Bridge Hotel Gold Cup. In this race, 20 roaches are placed under a can in the middle of a six-meter (20-foot) ring. The can is raised…and they’re off! The first roach to escape the ring wins the cup.

  India has a bill of rights…for cows.

  OSTRICH RACES

  Two thousand years ago, Queen Arsinoe of Egypt rode an ostrich with a saddle. Ancient Romans used teams of these giant birds to pull carts in chariot races. In the early 1900s, jockeys rode ostriches in races throughout the U. S. and Europe.

  Today fans flock to ostrich races in South Africa and many places in the western United States, including Chandler, Arizona, which holds an annual Ostrich Festival.

  Jockeys mount the big birds, who race down a straight track, galloping for the finish line. But ostriches really don’t like being ridden. They’re sensitive and get upset under pressure. And when they get upset, they start spinning around and around. The only thing the jockey can do is hold on tight and wait—because no human is powerful enough to make an ostrich stop spinning once it has started.

  The races can look hilarious—with the ostriches spinning in circles—but the jockeys can actually get seriously injured. Why? Ostriches are big: they stand six to nine feet tall and weigh about 400 pounds. They can kill a grown man with just one kick and can run at a speed of up to 60 miles per hour. If you ever want to ride an ostrich, remember this: don’t hold onto its neck—that will only make the bird angry and it will start spinning…and spinning…and spinning!

  An insect known as the ant lion spends its entire life walking backward.

  SECRET PLACES

  Do you have a top-secret hideout? It can’t compare to these.

  PLACE: Fort Knox

  LOCATION: 45 miles south of Louisville, Kentucky

  TOP SECRET! Fort Knox is actually the name of the army base next door to one of the most secret places in the world: the U.S. Bullion Depository. The nation’s entire gold reserve is kept there in a two-story underground vault, surrounded by a super-secret fortress. The vault’s walls are made of granite, concrete, and steel. The door alone weighs 60,000 pounds!

  The Depository has its own Treasury Department defense force, but it’s also protected by the next-door neighbor, the U.S. Army. For obvious reasons, details of its security system are kept secret from the public. No one person knows the entire combination to the vault door; many peop
le each know little pieces of it. What’s inside? About 368,000 gold bars, each weighing 400 ounces (25 pounds). That’s 147 million ounces of gold, which, at the current price of about $400 per ounce, would be worth roughly $58.8 billion!

  COOL FACT: That’s enough money for one large pizza, one half-gallon of ice cream, and two CDs for you and five friends, every day—for more than a million years!

  The awful truth: The word awful originally meant “awesome.”

  PLACE: Air Force One

  LOCATION: Unknown

  TOP SECRET! Air Force One is the official jet used by the president of the United States. Its flight plans are secret, and no other aircraft can ever fly in its path. The Secret Service sends advance teams to check the runways and ground personnel before every flight. Food is bought anonymously so that no one knows who it’s for—to avoid the risk of the president being poisoned.

  There are even secret areas within the plane that only high-level people can access. Those areas house satellite communications systems, coding and decoding devices, antimissile weapons, and other super-secret technology.

  COOL FACT: Two jumbo 747s are generally used as the president’s planes, but any Air Force plane the president boards immediately becomes known as Air Force One.

  PLACE: Granite Mountain Records Vault

  LOCATION: 20 miles southeast of Salt Lake City

  TOP SECRET! Granite Mountain is where the Mormon Church keeps the genealogical records of millions of families. After decades of gathering research, they have more than two billion individual records from 126 different countries—probably including your family’s. The records are guarded vigorously, kept in huge vaults dug deep into the mountain. If you wanted to break in, you’d have to dig through 700 feet of solid granite!

  COOL FACT: The church claims that the vaults are so secure, they could survive a nuclear attack!

  Only about 5% of incandescent lightbulb energy is radiated as visible light.

  HOT SHOTS

  Our good friend Marley Pratt, at 18 years old, helped his local fire department fight fires while he was fighting his own battle with cancer. Marley and the kids below prove that you don’t have to be grown-up to help others.

  HOT SHOTS: The Dragon Slayers

  THE SPOT: Aniak, Alaska

  WHAT THEY’VE GOT: The Dragon Slayers are a rescue squad that was formed in 1994. What makes them different from other squads? Most of the seven Dragon Slayers are teenagers. They are also Yupik and Athabascan Indians. These teens spend about 400 hours a year in rescue training.

  They are often beeped out of school to help in an emergency: fighting fires, rescuing people who have fallen through ice, and searching for lost hikers. What else makes them different? Until recently, all of them were girls!

  HOT SHOT: Tyrell Lashley

  THE SPOT: Washington, D.C.

  WHAT HE’S GOT: Tyrell was just 12 years old when he became a Red Cross volunteer. He joined the youth services team at the National Capital Chapter of the Red Cross in 1999. Tyrell soon realized he wanted to help in disaster operations but was told he was too young to work in this critical area. Determined to overcome the age barrier, Tyrell spent the next three years studying disaster response and researching ways that young volunteers could participate.

  Robin Williams and Tom Cruise were both voted “Least Likely to Succeed” in high school.

  When the September 11 tragedy struck, Tyrell, then 15, volunteered to answer calls at the Red Cross offices and serve as a “home base” while relief teams responded to the crisis at the Pentagon. A month later, during the anthrax crisis, when people feared the deadly poison was being sent through the mail, Tyrell acted as a staffing officer, assisting team members as they went out on emergency calls.

  His dedication and training paid off. At 16, Tyrell Lashley became the youngest Red Cross volunteer ever to hold the position of vice chairman of Disaster Services.

  HOT SHOTS: Camp Blaze campers

  THE SPOT: Pacific Northwest (the location changes every year)

  WHAT THEY’VE GOT: At Camp Blaze, girls don’t canoe, make arts-and-crafts projects, or sing wacky camp songs. They climb 100-foot ladders, rappel down seven-story buildings, and fight fires in burning cars, dumpsters, and buildings.

  Picky, picky: Maine is the world’s largest producer of toothpicks (50 billion per year).

  Founded in 1999 by eight women firefighters, Camp Blaze gives girls between the ages of 16 and 19 a glimpse of what it’s like to be a career firefighter. For an entire week in July, campers get up at 6:30 a.m., do an hour of calisthenics before breakfast, then spend the rest of the day learning the basic skills it takes to be admitted to local fire academies.

  Camp Blaze is intended to give girls a head start in a mostly male field, and it’s free to all girls with the desire and drive to become firefighters.

  It’s illegal to leave nude mannequins in New York City store windows.

  NAME THAT GOD

  The ancient Romans borrowed most of their culture from the ancient Greeks, including their gods. See if you can match the Roman god with its Greek original.

  ROMAN GREEK

  1. Jupiter, king of the gods a. Pan

  2. Juno, queen of the gods b. Hestia

  3. Minerva, goddess of wisdom c. Ares

  4. Venus, goddess of love d. Hermes

  5. Diana, goddess of the moon e. Zeus

  6. Mars, god of war f. Athena

  7. Neptune, god of the sea g. Hera

  8. Aurora, goddess of the dawn h. Aphrodite

  9. Pluto, god of the underworld i. Poseidon

  10. Cupid, god of love j. Eos

  11. Mercury, messenger of the gods k. Artemis

  12. Ceres, goddess of the harvest l. Eros

  13. Vesta, goddess of the home m. Demeter

  14. Faunus, god of nature n. Hades

  ANSWERS

  1. e; 2. g; 3. f; 4. h; 5. k; 6. c; 7. i; 8. j; 9. n; 10. l; 11. d; 12. m; 13. b; 14. a

  A set of false teeth—made of bone and dating from 1490 B.C.—was found in Switzerland.

  DUMB WARS

  Wars are fought for lots of reasons. Land. Honor. Security. But some wars have been fought for truly bizarre reasons. Like these.

  WAR OF JENKINS’ EAR (1739–1741)

  Between: Spain and Great Britain

  Who Started It: In 1731 the British merchant ship Rebecca, under the command of Captain Robert Jenkins, was sailing off the coast of Cuba when it was boarded by a Spanish coast guard sloop (Cuba was part of Spain at the time). The Spanish captain thought Jenkins insulted him, so he cut off the Englishman’s ear. Jenkins kept the ear and preserved it in a jar. Seven years later, he told the story to the House of Commons and the English public became enraged. On October 23, 1739, the English government declared war on Spain.

  Who Won: Nobody. Both sides won a few battles and lost a few battles, but neither ever got the upper hand (or ear). The war ended in 1741…from lack of interest.

  WAR OF THE OAKEN BUCKET (1325–1337)

  Between: The Italian states of Modena and Bologna

  Who Started It: Modenese soldiers invaded Bologna to steal a bucket. Why? Nobody remembers. They succeeded in getting the bucket but killed hundreds of Bolognese in the process. Bologna declared war to avenge those deaths…and to get the bucket back.

  England’s Prince Charles once turned down an invitation to appear on The Muppet Show.

  Who Won: The Bolognese battled the Modenese for 12 years but never did get the bucket. To this day it’s stashed in the bell tower of a cathedral in Modena.

  SOCCER WAR (1969)

  Between: El Salvador and Honduras

  Who Started It: The neighboring countries were facing each other in a World Cup soccer match on June 27, 1969. Late in the game, a referee gave El Salvador a penalty kick. They scored from the penalty spot and won, 3–2. When news of the ref’s call spread, riots broke out in both capitals. Fans went on a rampage, looting stores and beating up opposition supporter
s. On July 14, war was declared, and the Salvadoran army launched an attack.

  Who Won: The actual war only lasted four days, but 2,000 people were killed and the Central American Common Market—on which both countries depended—collapsed. Result: Serious food shortages. To add insult to injury, El Salvador lost the next round and was eliminated from World Cup competition.

  Ready to settle down? In Massachusetts, girls can get married at age 12.

  IT’S ABOMINABLE!

  Ever heard of Bigfoot, the big hairy monster said to live in the remote forests of western North America? Well, halfway around the world lives another great hairy beastie.

  BIRTH OF A LEGEND

  High in the Himalayan Mountains of Asia lurks a legendary race of huge, hairy, humanlike creatures known as Abominable Snowmen. Stories of these strange beasts, covered in thick reddish-brown hair, go back centuries.

  The Sherpa people of Nepal call them yeti, which means “rock animals.” The Bhutanese call them migyu, or “wild men.” So why do we call them “Abominable Snowmen”? Because of a spelling mistake.

  NAME THAT CREATURE

  In 1921 British explorer C. K. Howard-Bury led an expedition attempting to climb Mount Everest in Tibet. At about 17,000 feet, where there’s nothing but rocky outcroppings and lots of snow, the climbers saw some “shadowy forms” moving across a snowfield. Howard-Bury asked his Tibetan guides what they were. The guides described them as metoh-kangmi, which means “snow creature” or “man-sized snow beast.”

  But when the report reached newspaper columnist Henry Newman of the Calcutta Statesman, he botched the term and repeated it as metch-kangmi, which translates to “abominable (or disgusting) man of the snow.” News of a mysterious wild man in the far-off and desolate Himalayas traveled like wildfire around the world, and the legend of the “Abominable Snowman” was born.