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  HORIZON ORGANIC DAIRY

  Grass Roots: Horizon was founded in 1991 by organic food pioneers Mark Retzloff, co-founder of Alfalfa’s natural food store in Boulder, Colorado, and Paul Repetto, who had once worked for Westbrae Natural. Each invested $100,000 of their own money, and both worked the first year without taking a salary. First product: six different flavors of organic yogurt.

  Green Giant: Just seven years later, Horizon—by this time the country’s largest supplier of organic dairy products—went public. The stock offering brought in $46 million. In 2004 Dean Foods, the United States’ largest milk supplier, bought the 87% of Horizon Organic stock it didn’t already own—for $216 million in cash.

  NAKED JUICE

  Grass Roots: The Naked Juice Company was founded in Santa Monica, California, in 1983 by Jimmy Rosenberg—who made juices in his home and sold them on the beach. He called them “naked” because they were 100% pure juice—not dressed up with additives. Rosenburg’s juices were a huge hit, and before long they were in stores all over California.

  Technically speaking, the sun is white, not yellow.

  Green Giant: In 2000 Rosenburg sold Naked Juice to North Castle Partners, a private-equity firm based in Greenwich, Connecticut, for an undisclosed amount. In 2006 they sold it to Pepsi. Sale price: $450 million.

  EMERGEN-C

  Grass Roots: In 1978 chemist Jay Patrick created Emergen-C—packaged powdered drink mixes that contained large amounts of vitamin C. When he started the company (at the age of 60), he made the mixes on his kitchen table.

  Green Giant: Patrick died in 2003…at which point his company imploded. Jay Patrick’s widow became embroiled in a battle over control of the company with Ronald Patrick, Jay’s son from a previous marriage. The legal smoke didn’t clear for eight years. The results were complex—suffice it to say that Ronald Patrick won. Soon after it was over, in February 2012, Ronald Patrick sold his dad’s little company to Pfizer—the largest pharmaceutical company in the world. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it’s estimated that Pfizer paid in excess of $100 million.

  NEW CHAPTER

  Grass Roots: New Chapter, which specializes in organic vitamins and herbal supplements, was founded by herbalist Paul Schulick and his wife, Barbi, in Massachusetts in the early 1980s. In 1986 the Schulicks moved the company to Brattleboro, Vermont, in 1986, where, according to the company website, they “prepared their herbal remedies in the back room of a redwood saltbox nestled high in the Black Mountains.”

  Green Giant: In 2012 the Schulicks sold their company to Proctor & Gamble. The terms were not released, but by this time New Chapter was doing more than $100 million a year in business. “For us,” said Schulick, “this has been a dream come true.”

  BURT’S BEES

  Grass Roots: In 1984, 33-year-old Roxanne Quimby, struggling single mother of two living in a cabin in northern Maine, met Burt Schavitz, a reclusive beekeeper who lived in a converted turkey coop and sold honey out of his pickup truck. They soon became friends, then partners. Roxanne started making candles from the leftover beeswax, selling them wherever she could. In 1991 she discovered an old recipe for beeswax lip balm and started selling it under the name “Burt’s Bees.” It sold like crazy, and in 1993 Quimby and Schavitz moved the company to North Carolina. Not long after that, the two had a falling-out, and Quimby ended up buying out Schavitz’s stake in the company for about $130,000. Schavitz went back to his turkey coop.

  The United Nations has banned the use of lasers that are designed to blind enemies.

  Green Giant: In 2003 Quimby sold 80 percent of Burt’s Bees to a New York City–based investment company for $141 million. (The stake Burt Schavitz sold for $130,000 would’ve been worth about $60 million in that deal. Quimby gave him an additional $4 million after it went through.) Four years later, Quimby sold the remaining 20 percent—to Clorox Company, for another $183 million.

  Bonus: While Roxanne Quimby may have sold her little hippie company for millions of dollars, she’s at least lived by her hippie principles: She s spent more than $50 million buying forest land—over 100,000 acres, primarily in Maine—to protect it from logging and other development. “I feel the fact that I was able to sell the company accelerated the process of land conservation in terms of what I could do,” Quimby told the New York Times in 2008. “So if there is any negative karma, I’m neutral.”

  * * *

  REVENGE!

  In 2005 British DJ Tim Shaw was interviewing British model Josie Marsh and joked that he’d leave his wife and children for her. At least he said he was joking. His wife, Hayley, was listening and didn’t think it was funny. Rather than call him out on the air, she went to eBay and listed his $40,000 Lotus Esprit Turbo sportscar for sale. The description read, “I need to get rid of this car immediately—ideally in the next two to three hours, before my husband getrs home to find it gone.” The car sold in five minutes.

  Seventy-five percent of all U.S. territory above 10,000 ft. in elevation is in Colorado.

  IT COULD ONLY HAPPEN IN…

  Ever hear about some odd thing that occurs and find yourself saying, “That could only happen in ____”? That’s how we felt about these stories.

  …DUBAI

  In 2008 the luxury hotel chain Palazzo Versace announced that they were building a plush resort in the Middle Eastern jet-setting hot spot Dubai. Besides all of the usual luxurious amenities stuff you’d expect to find at such a $2.3 billion resort—five-star hotel, gourmet restaurants, luxury spas, etc.—the resort will feature a…refrigerated beach. The plans provide for refrigeration lines to be laid under the sand so that visitors won’t burn their feet.

  …TEXAS

  In July 2012, restaurateur Doug Guller purchased the central Texas “ghost town” of Bankersmith on eBay and promptly announced he’d be changing the name to “Bikinis,” which is the name of his sports-bar chain (staffed, of course, by women wearing bikinis). “Bikinis, Texas,” Guller said in a press release, “will be a world-class destination, and I am thrilled to expand the Bikinis brand to include town ownership.”

  …IRELAND

  The Mullingar Equestrian Centre, located about an hour from Dublin, had to cancel its 2006 Christmas party after a resident camel entered the party area and drank several cans of Guinness. (It bit through the cans to get to the beer.) The intoxicated beast then ate the 200 meat pies that had been laid out for guests. The camel, named Gus, had somehow escaped from his pen when staff left to change for the event. “You couldn’t blame him,” said owner Robert Fagan. “He’s really a very gentle, docile sort of camel.”

  It takes the silk of 2,000 silkworm cocoons to make one kimono.

  Q&A: ASK THE EXPERTS

  Everyone’s got a question or two they’d like answered—basic stuff, like “Why is the sky blue?” Here are a few of those questions, with answers from some of the world’s top trivia experts.

  WHAT A WASTE

  Q: Do insects pee? Do they poo, too?

  A: “Land insects cannot afford to lose much water when they eliminate wastes and thus do not urinate at all. Insects produce waste with kidney-like organs called Malphighian tubules. Uric acid and ammonia are dumped into the insect’s hindgut and mixed with other waste products instead of traveling out of the body through a separate tube, as urine does. As for defecation, all insects must get rid of solid wastes, called frass. (Exception: insects on a strict liquid diet, like blood and nectar.) Frass is usually very dry and looks like tiny pellets. Caterpillars, which can consume huge amounts of plant material, leave larger, moister pellets. If there are flies in your house, you may find fly ‘specks,’ which look like little grease spots on the countertops.” (From Do Bees Sneeze? by James K. Wangberg)

  ALL WET

  Q: What’s the difference between an ocean and a sea?

  A: “Oceans are described as continuous bodies of saltwater surrounding the continents. If all of the water in the oceans were to disappear, the continents would be surr
ounded by great depressions. Each of the individual oceans contains shallower areas that differ physically, chemically, or biologically from one another; these are called seas. Geographers define a sea as a division of the ocean that is enclosed or partially enclosed by land. Based on this definition, there are more than 50 seas on Earth.” (From The Handy Ocean Answer Book by Thomas Svarney and Patricia Barnes-Svarney)

  BAG MAN

  Q: Why are plastic potato-chip bags so hard to open?

  A: Blame chemist John Spevacek. In a 2012 article called “I’m That Guy,” Spevacek wrote that while working for a chemical company that made “multilayer polypropylene films for food packaging,” he was given the job of creating a seal strong enough to withstand pressure changes without breaking open—which often happened when cargo trucks carrying bags of chips traveled over the Rocky Mountains. “Other options were technically possible,” Spevacek writes, “but not economically feasible. While options exist to prevent premature opening of the bag, such as reducing the initial air pressure in the bag, attempting to add this to the existing processing equipment would have been a nightmare. So it was necessary to increase the seal strength.” Good news: Potatochip bags don’t pop open at high elevations. Bad news: They’re very difficult to open at any elevation.

  Big shots: The upper classes in ancient Egypt wore high-heeled shoes.

  TIME FOR A PITS STOP

  Q: What’s the difference between an underarm deodorant and an antiperspirant?

  A: “According to John Seifert, a consumer researcher for Procter and Gamble, ‘Odor is caused by the bacteria that feed on chemical components in underarm sweat. A deodorant works by controlling the populations of bacteria and doesn’t help control wetness.’ An antiperspirant, on the other hand, helps control both odor and wetness. The active ingredient in an antiperspirant is aluminum—a mineral that does a lot more than just control bacteria. In fact, aluminum travels to sweat glands, where it reacts to obstruct the flow of perspiration. It’s not necessary to use a lot of antiperspirant. If you’re using a solid or roll-on, just a thin layer will give maximum protection. The best time to apply for maximum protection is when your underarms are a little warm and moist. This enables the active ingredients to enter the sweat glands more readily.” (From The Experts Book of Hints, Tips & Everyday Wisdom, edited by Edward Claflin)

  * * *

  “If there is anything the nonconformist hates more than a conformist, it’s another nonconformist who doesn’t conform to the prevailing standard of nonconformity.”

  —Bill Vaughan

  Only city in the U.S. whose name is all vowels: Aiea, HI.

  NORA’S NOTIONS

  Writer and film director Nora Ephron (1949–2012) was the acerbic wit behind When Harry Met Sally, Julie and Julia, Heartburn, and many other books and movies.

  “It’s true that men who cry are sensitive to and in touch with feelings, but the only feelings they tend to be in touch with are their own.”

  “When your children are teenagers, it’s important to have a dog so that someone in the house is happy to see you.”

  “I don’t think any day is worth living without thinking about what you’re going to eat next at all times.”

  “I look as young as a person can look given how old I am.”

  “A successful parent is one who raises a child who grows up and is able to pay for his or her own psychoanalysis.”

  “In my sex fantasy, nobody ever loves me for my mind.”

  “The desire to get married is a basic and primal instinct. It’s followed by another basic and primal instinct: the desire to be single again.”

  “Never marry a man you wouldn’t want to be divorced from.”

  “Insane people are always sure that they’re fine. It is only the sane people who are willing to admit that they’re crazy.”

  “My mother was a good cook, but what she believed about cooking is that if you worked hard and prospered, someone else would do it for you.”

  “Oh, how I regret not having worn a bikini the entire time I was 26. If anyone young is reading this, go put on a bikini, and don’t take it off until you’re 34.”

  “There’s a reason why 40, 50, and 60 don’t look the way they used to, and it’s not because of feminism, or better living through exercise. It’s because of hair dye.”

  “If pregnancy were a book they would cut out the last two chapters.”

  “You can’t retrieve your life (unless you’re on Wikipedia, in which case you can retrieve an inaccurate version of it).”

  In gangster slang, a fixed boxing match is called a “barney.”

  DYING LANGUAGES

  Of the 7,000 languages in use around the world, half may be extinct by 2050. Learn about them before they’re gone.

  LANGUAGE: Aka-Jeru

  REGION: Andaman Islands, Indian Ocean

  DETAILS: Aka-Jeru is probably the oldest continuously used language on the planet. It dates to the Neolithic Era—about 8,000 years ago. The Aka-Jeru people live on an isolated island almost 200 miles from the Asian mainland, and linguists say their language has no relation to any other currently in use around the world. The Aka-Jeru have words for six seasons, which are all related to the relative availability of honey. The once-large cultural group is now a small tribe. Only about 20 to 40 people still speak Aka-Jeru.

  LANGUAGE: Kallawaya

  REGION: Bolivia

  DETAILS: High in the Andes Mountains live the Kallawaya people, who have been there more than 500 years. The Kallawaya use modern languages (particularly Spanish) to stay in contact with society, but in private they use their own language, which is only passed down—in secret—by men. The Kallawaya are known as accomplished herbalists, and their remedies are used throughout the Andes. The group has dwindled to fewer than 100 people.

  LANGUAGE: Yuchi

  REGION: Oklahoma

  DETAILS: Yuchi, or Euchee, is a language spoken by Yuchi people, who originally lived in Tennessee, but were relocated to Oklahoma in the late-1800s. (“Tennessee” was thought to be a Cherokee word, but some linguists believe it comes from Yuchi.) The Yuchi children were forced to attend government schools, where they were forbidden to use the native language. They were actually beaten for speaking Yuchi. Only five speakers remain, elderly people who learned the language as children and kept it alive. The language has ten genders, including three for inanimate objects, which are separated into “horizontal, vertical, and round.”

  Marilyn Monroe refused to allow other blonde actresses on film sets with her.

  LANGUAGE: Guugu Yimidhirr

  REGION: Queensland, Australia

  DETAILS: When Captain James Cook explored Australia in 1770, he jotted down a few words he learned from the Guugu Yimidhirr, the northern Aboriginal people. Cook’s writing inspired a missionary named Johann Flierl to visit the tribe in the 1880s, and eventually the Bible was translated into the native language. The language, now known by only 200 speakers, may become extinct if younger people continue to reject it in favor of English, but at least one word will remain—one of the words Captain Cook recorded: kangooroo.

  LANGUAGE: Tofa

  REGION: Siberia

  DETAILS: Tofa is a Turkic language spoken in Central Siberia, not far from the Arctic Circle. Reindeer herders developed it into a very efficient way to communicate. To say, for example, “a male domesticated reindeer in its third year and first mating season, but not ready for mating,” speakers need only one word: döngür. Tofa qualifies as a “moribund” language, which means that new generations are no longer actively learning it—they learn Russian instead. Just 30 people are fluent in Tofa.

  LANGUAGE: Nuumte Oote

  REGION: Mexico

  DETAILS: Manuel Segovia and Isidro Velazquez, a married couple in the southern Mexican state of Tabasco, are the only two people on Earth who are fluent in Ayapaneco, which they call Nuumte Oote, meaning “True Voice.” Their children can partially understand them, and they’re both helping linguists c
reate a Nummte Oote dictionary, but amazingly, the last two speakers of this language aren’t speaking to each other. An American anthropologist who studied them said they are “prickly and stoic” toward each other. Also, “they don’t have a lot in common.”

  Top-selling item for the 1975 holiday season: the Atari Pong video game console.

  MOO

  Moo.

  MOO: One morning in 2012, commuters in Rayburn, Pennsylvania, got stuck in a traffic jam when a cow and a bull decided to have “relations” in the middle of a busy intersection. Police tried shooing them away, but, according to reports, “That just got the bull mad and it started to escalate.” Game officials arrived and steered the couple into a private trailer.

  MOO: In 2012 a cow named Sadhana and her “bullfriend” got married in a lavish wedding ceremony in Guradia, India. More than 1,500 guests attended. Reason for the wedding: Sadhana’s owners were unable to have children, so without a daughter to marry off, the well-to-do couple married off their cow.

  MOO: An 18-year-old thief wearing a full-body cow costume stole 26 gallons of milk from a Walmart in Garrisonville, Virginia, in 2011. Witnesses recalled seeing him exit the store “on all fours.” Hours later police apprehended the human cow “skipping down the sidewalk” in front of a nearby McDonald’s.

  MOO: In 2012 a cow named Darcy walked up to a McDonald’s drive-through window and just stood there. Her owner—Sandy Winn of Brush, Colorado—told police that Darcy had walked the half-mile to the McDonald’s because she “just likes attention.”