Who was the 1st woman nominated by a major political party for U.S. President? And what’s STILL the world’s largest office building –- 80 years after it opened? Hear answers to those and other questions on another fun, shelter-in-place episode of the Off Ramp, with Bob and Marcia Smith.
Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discussed the evolution of inflight movies, while Bob and Marcia also exchanged historical trivia and misconceptions. Bob argued that building size is not important but rather square footage, while Marcia suggested boarding planes from back to front for efficiency. Speaker 3 identified the Pentagon as the largest office building in the world. Later, Bob and Marcia were joined by Unknown Speaker and Speaker 3, who provided additional perspectives on nuts and their botanical definitions.
Outline
Largest office building, jigsaw puzzle, and Pentagon history.
- Bob and Marcia discuss the world’s smallest jigsaw puzzle, Black Hill, with 1000 micro pieces in a single color.
- Bob and Marcia discuss the Pentagon’s floor area and restroom facilities.
Historical events, trivia, and etymology.
- Marcia Smith: First woman nominated for President by major party (1976).
- Bob Smith: Inventor of tommy gun, John Thompson, created weapon in 1920.
- Marcia and Bob discuss Portuguese explorers’ knowledge of cannibals in South America.
- Bob and Marcia discuss the origin of the phrase “baker’s dozen” and its historical significance.
Nut classification, nose growth, and in-flight entertainment.
- Bob and Marcia discuss the differences between nuts and seeds.
- Bob and Marcia discuss the parts of the body that continue to grow during lifetime, with Marcia providing correct answer of nose and ears.
- Marcia shares interesting fact about human nose, which cleans and humidifies 600 cubic feet of air daily.
- Bob and Marcia discuss the history of in-flight movies, starting with silent films in the 1920s and 1930s.
Inflight entertainment history and current changes due to social distancing.
- Bob Smith shares stories about the history of in-flight entertainment, including live shows, movies, and video games.
- Marcia Smith adds details about the evolution of in-flight entertainment, including the first back of seat screens and multi-channel systems.
- Bob Smith discusses airline changes due to social distancing, including seat rearrangement and back-to-front boarding.
- Bob and Marcia discuss boarding planes from back to front to prioritize first class passengers.
Trivia questions with incorrect answers.
- Marcia Smith asks Bob Smith about the origin of chop suey, and Bob explains it was invented by a Chinese dignitary visiting America in the late 1800s.
- Bob and Marcia discuss the mispronunciation of the dish’s name, which became known as chop suey due to a misunderstanding of the Chinese accent.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discussed trivia questions and shared interesting facts, including the Inca Indians’ use of gold and semi-precious jewels to inlay their teeth for a bright smile.
- The hosts also talked about the Nazi dentist, Marathon Man, and their experiences with the show.
Bob Smith 0:00
What is the largest office building in the world?
Marcia Smith 0:04
Who was the first woman to be placed in nomination by a major political party for President?
Bob Smith 0:10
answers to those another questions coming up today on the off ramp with Bob and
Marcia Smith 0:14
Marsha Smith?
Bob Smith 0:32
Welcome to the off ramp, a place to slow down steered clear of crazy take a side road to sanity and get some perspective on life. Well, my show here we are at the end of the seventh week of the lockdown. Yeah, I know you’ve been doing things like playing puzzles and things and so I got to press the wine bottle. But I have a question. Ask you about puzzles here. Sure. How many pieces does the hardest jigsaw puzzle? Have?
Marcia Smith 0:58
You mean? Anyone that says that kind of 1000 piece? It’s
Bob Smith 1:02
yeah, that’s the standard for jigsaw puzzle. Yeah, for most jigsaw puzzles much for me. But the trick question here is this particular puzzle is smaller than the standard puzzle. So that pieces are called micro pieces. And here’s why. It’s the hardest puzzle. There is no design just 1000 pieces in a solid color. White or black. That’s stupid. No, it’s not stupid. It’s called Black Hill. Or if you prefer Whitehill, and they’re made by a Japanese Puzzle Maker Beverley, and each puzzle features a single color and the company claims that those micro sized pieces are the world’s smallest only for little hands. How long does it take to put together
Marcia Smith 1:43
for the average person or what
Speaker 1 1:45
for who me for somebody who claimed to have put it together? Me You’re
Marcia Smith 1:49
talking two years for the average puzzle solver. You’re
Bob Smith 1:53
funny you said two years because one reviewer said it took him 17 months to complete just half of the puzzle. Yeah. Okay. Even though the back of the puzzle has different patterns and printed to help users he called it the devil reincarnated into an inanimate objects.
Marcia Smith 2:08
Wow. I’m sorry. I think it’s just stupid. Well, who would put together
Bob Smith 2:12
that there are bigger puzzles though. There are bigger puzzles. Amazon sells a jigsaw featuring Disney characters with 40,000. And there’s a massive puzzle from Kodak that has 51,000 pieces. Wow. All right. Well, let’s start with the two questions we teased. What is the largest office building in the world?
Marcia Smith 2:33
Hmm. office building? Is it in Dubai?
Bob Smith 2:37
No.
Marcia Smith 2:38
Is it in New York?
Bob Smith 2:39
It’s in terms of its square feet. Okay, the terms of square feet. That’s what we’re going by not the height, not the width, not the square feet, the number of square feet?
Marcia Smith 2:50
Okay. Well,
Speaker 1 2:51
is it in New York? No, it’s not. Okay. And it’s not to buy? No, it’s not Dubai. Is it? Is in Washington? Pentagon? Yes.
Bob Smith 3:01
The Pentagon has a total floor area of how many millions of square feet you think it has? Five, six and a half million square feet? Even so no two offices in the building are more than 1800 feet or six minutes walking time distant from each other. So they built it. Yeah. That’s why they built it as they did amazing. Now, why when it was built? Did the Pentagon have twice the amount of restrooms as it needed?
Marcia Smith 3:31
Because African Americans had to have their own bath? That’s exactly
Bob Smith 3:35
right. Because of the laws of the District. Yeah, they required separate restrooms for what they called colored people at the time. It’s amazing that they had to do that. So they had to put that in the planning when they built that building. That’s probably
Marcia Smith 3:47
the only place in the US that has enough bathrooms for women.
Bob Smith 3:52
That’s probably true. Yeah. That’s a good way to look at it. I think. Yeah.
Marcia Smith 3:56
Well, all women look at it that way. Okay, what are bathrooms, please,
Unknown Speaker 4:00
let’s look at yours. What’s your question? Okay, who was
Marcia Smith 4:03
the first woman Bob to be placed in nomination by either major political party for President of the United States? And tell me if you know, the year two, okay,
Bob Smith 4:13
this had to be in our time, right? Yes. Gosh, I’m trying to think of her name. That was back in 1970 1980. Was it I think was 1976. Now,
Marcia Smith 4:26
when was that 60s, really? And she was the only woman who ever served in both the Senate and House of Representatives. Okay. She had a lot of gravitas back then. It was you’ll remember this name? Congresswoman Margaret Chase Smith. Oh, well, I forgot about her. Yeah, me too, of Skowhegan Maine, and she was the Republicans put her up.
Bob Smith 4:52
What year was it? 6419 64. So that was the first woman to be put in Who nomination for president by a major party and the party was the Republican Party? Not the Democratic Party?
Marcia Smith 5:05
Well, one was that Johnson that year? Yes, sir. Yes. Okay. Here’s
Bob Smith 5:08
another one. Here’s another question. Okay. Why is the submachine gun known as the tommy gun? Remember that in all the movies? Yeah, the gangsters had the tommy guns back in the Warner Brothers films was
Marcia Smith 5:20
a dead old gangster named Tom.
Bob Smith 5:23
It’s the inventor. His name was John Taliaferro Thompson. He invented it in 1920. In the Bob’s got that was a technology a crime technology all the mobsters God holds on right away
Speaker 1 5:35
and Tom Thompson right. John Thompson. Oh, John. John. Gotcha.
Marcia Smith 5:40
Here’s one. I bet you know, okay. Mr. Presidential History lover. Okay. Oh, what does that teddy bear have in common with a President of the United States? Oh, is
Bob Smith 5:51
Teddy Roosevelt. Yes, because he treat a bear. So a barrel was up a tree and he caught it, and then he would not kill it, because he thought that was inhumane to shoot, that was a hunting incident. But he didn’t want to kill the bear. And so that was played up in all the papers. And then there was a toy store owner who built a little toy bear and he named at Teddy for for Roosevelt.
Marcia Smith 6:14
Well, you’d have more information than I have in my answer. But mine says he was presented with an Australian koala bear. And he was a lover of animals, which we know from his biography. He made such a fuss over it that they started putting stuffed toys out of bears, and they call them teddy bears. He actually
Bob Smith 6:35
sort of endorsed it actually, they the toy owner who started it kind of asked him if it was okay. And he said sure, fine, if you want to call it a teddy bear, that’s okay.
Marcia Smith 6:43
Yeah. Good. His name wasn’t Walter sounds.
Bob Smith 6:47
The Walter bear. Okay, now the topic is cannibals. Human beings, human beings. Okay. How did Portuguese explorers journey to South America? Find out if the natives and the jungles were cannibals? How did they determine whether the natives were cannibals? Their
Marcia Smith 7:07
breath? No. Little fingernails hanging out of their mouth? No, this
Bob Smith 7:11
is really sad. Okay. They brought along convicts on their ships. Oh, no. So then they cast them ashore in unfamiliar areas, leaving them to the mercy of the Indians there.
Marcia Smith 7:23
Oh my god. Yeah. Oh,
Bob Smith 7:26
that’s how the Portuguese explorers knew if there were cannibals on
Marcia Smith 7:29
shore. Wow. How did they know if they ate them? Or they just lived happily with a native girl.
Bob Smith 7:35
They must have just hung around to see what happened. Oh, I know. It’s pretty bleak, isn’t it? Yeah.
Marcia Smith 7:43
No, not a way to get rid of prisoners. Yeah, yeah. Now you’re now you’re torturing them. If you don’t give them a TV in the South. Those were really bad times.
Bob Smith 7:55
Okay, although gasoline lines can freeze up due to water caused by condensation. Why is it unlikely gasoline itself will ever freeze on this planet? On this planet in the near future? And
Marcia Smith 8:07
then wow. Oh, well, it can’t ever get cold enough to do that. Isn’t there a temperature that it has to reach? Which is really low?
Bob Smith 8:16
Yeah, that’s the good thing. What usually happens when you have a gas line problem that says water condensation freezes, but gasoline will solidify only under temperatures of 180 to 240 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. And that temperature has never been reached on this planet outside of
Marcia Smith 8:35
a laboratory. Really say again,
Bob Smith 8:37
how gasoline will solidify if it’s 180 to 240 degrees below zero. Okay, and they’ve only made that temperature happen in a laboratory. Okay, and we know none of us would survive that kind of weather.
Marcia Smith 8:50
Wow, interesting. Okay. Well, you’re probably wondering, what is the origin of the phrase a baker’s dozen? Oh, yeah,
Bob Smith 8:59
baker’s dozen. It’s 13 of something right? Correct. A baker made one more than 12 of something and he thought I’ll just throw it in and call it a baker’s dozen. It’s a little bonus for my customers.
Marcia Smith 9:10
Well, that’s too boring for this show. This show. enlightening and exciting. Okay, so let’s see how it goes back to medieval times. A baker who cheated his customers in those days was confined in the dungeon as punishment. So if you’ve cheated your customers from their doughnuts, for this reason, Baker’s would customarily give an extra piece with each dozen to ensure against any possible shortage. Oh really? Yeah. So they always throw in an extra one so that the customer wouldn’t feel cheated because they didn’t want to go to the dungeon
Bob Smith 9:44
didn’t want to go to court to say I got you. I don’t think they
Marcia Smith 9:47
even got caught you mess up my donut order. You’re going geez, these people didn’t fool around back in the day. These people were serious
Bob Smith 9:57
about their food. Yeah. Okay, speak. Finger food I have a question for you. All right, this is a big broad question we can go into great detail or not okay? What do peanuts almonds, cashews walnuts, pine nuts, Brazil nuts, macadamia nuts, pistachios, pecans, and coconuts all have in common.
Marcia Smith 10:18
See, they’re nuts. They’re all grown up above ground. Most
Bob Smith 10:25
of them aren’t nuts. Oh, isn’t that amazing? From a technical standpoint so peanuts for instance, not actually a nut. Instead, peanuts are considered legumes along with soy beans and lentils and chickpeas and lagoons come in self opening pods. Nuts don’t. Almonds are not nuts. They are seeds within the fleshy peach like fruits of the Asian Prunus dulcis tree.
Marcia Smith 10:48
What’s cashew cashews?
Bob Smith 10:50
They’re drupe seeds, which is what the almonds aren’t. They’re pulled from soft fruit packages. Nuts are not okay. Cashew seeds are naturally protected by a toxin coded outer shell that’s roasted to neutralize the acid just like peanuts, you know? But again, none of those are nuts. How about pine nuts?
Marcia Smith 11:12
I love find
Bob Smith 11:14
their seeds from pine trees from Italian stone pine trees, Italian pine Brazil nuts. You’ll find Brazil nuts all over the Amazon rainforest.
Unknown Speaker 11:23
But they’re not not no, they’re seeds. They are seeds.
Marcia Smith 11:25
You will then define a nut for me.
Bob Smith 11:27
Okay, I have the answer to that. Okay, botanist define a nut as a dry one seated fruit encased in a hardened ovary wall called a pair of carp. Genuine nuts are fused to their shells and won’t naturally break open. So hazelnuts fit the criteria. Chestnuts do but none of those others I named are actually nuts.
Speaker 1 11:50
Fascinating. hazelnuts are two nuts.
Bob Smith 11:53
Yeah, hazelnuts and chestnuts are two nuts. But you’re not eating either one of those. I
Marcia Smith 11:57
like Kazem Do you Okay. Interesting. Okay, okay. Okay, Bob. Let’s get back to serious stuff. What are the two parts of your body that continue to grow during your lifetime? That don’t stop growing?
Bob Smith 12:12
I’d say your hair and your fingernails It
Marcia Smith 12:15
seems I don’t know if this classify
Bob Smith 12:17
Oh, I see. Okay, so it’s some physical part of your body that keeps growing Yeah,
Marcia Smith 12:21
I don’t know if fingernails because I would think they’d keep growing and your hair when you know this is like your arms or
Bob Smith 12:29
other part okay, your arms don’t grow butts grow
Marcia Smith 12:35
well, that’s that’s an absolute fact.
Bob Smith 12:37
All stomachs and butts I’d say that’s the answer stomach
Marcia Smith 12:40
butts and feet dad get but no the actual answer is a new new one of these I’m pretty sure your nose continues to grow. You’ve seen that on older people their nose keeps getting bigger and the other thing is ears. They don’t they don’t stop growing.
Bob Smith 12:55
Wow, interesting. Okay, you know you’re right. And why did you say you know this Bob noses continue to grow? Why did you say that? i Is that because you think my nose is getting bigger all the time. It is a little larger
Marcia Smith 13:08
start looks a little bit like your father’s. But he had a fine nose. fine looking man. Fine looking nose. Here’s a little factoid connected with that about the human nose. It cleans and humidifies approximately 600 cubic feet of air each day. Wow. Now I
Bob Smith 13:27
never thought of that. Yeah. So that’s what what your nose is doing for you is wherever you’re going. It is sweeping up everything and cleaning and humidifying it whatever it takes into your body
Speaker 1 13:37
and that’s why we have to wear a mask. Yes, that’s a very good reason to wear a mask because it’s whipping up everything like a big human
Bob Smith 13:45
vacuum cleaner. Okay, yes. Okay, we’ll take a break and we’ll be right back. You’re listening to the off ramp with Bob and Marsha Smith. Okay, we’re back with the off ramp during the lockdown shutdown Shelter in Place Coronavirus, emergency. Okay, Marsha. You know, we think about as we’re all sitting in place and getting cabin fever and so forth. We naturally turn to memories of when we traveled. Maybe when you took an airplane trip? What did you do? Did you watch something on the airplane? Well, yes, Marcia always preys on the plane. But you watch you like watching content on a plane? I do. Yes. Okay. Well, when was the first in flight movie shown? The very first in flight movie?
Marcia Smith 14:30
Well, I have a feeling it’s much sooner than I think. Okay, so I’ll just say 1957
Speaker 1 14:38
Oh, it’s sooner than that. Oh, okay. All right, then. 1942 No, sooner than that.
Marcia Smith 14:44
What the heck, but it Amelia Earhart have one going over sooner than that. Really? All right. Tell me. Okay,
Bob Smith 14:51
it was a 1921 and the film was howdy Chicago. It was a travelogue, shown by Errol Murray. airways Have you ever heard of aero marine airways? Now, it used amphibious planes to fly tourists over the windy city of Chicago and howdy Chicago was projected onto a screen during one of those flights starting in 1921. And since it was 1921, it was a silent film. I’ll be done. Now, when was the first commercial film shown in flight? That’s probably what you were thinking a regular film, huh?
Marcia Smith 15:25
Yeah. Well, that’s what I was. Yeah. Amelia probably had Netflix or something. I don’t know that answer to this
Bob Smith 15:33
one. It was also a silent film. So that would have
Marcia Smith 15:35
be late. 1938. No. 25 Oh, yeah. Cuz that we were well into talkies and 30. Yeah.
Bob Smith 15:45
From the from 29. On it was talkies. Yeah. April 1925. The Lost World was shown by Imperial airways on a flight between London and Paris. Now, the Lost World By the way, was the Jurassic Park of its day.
Marcia Smith 15:58
Yeah. Why they named one of their films. The Lost World, yeah.
Bob Smith 16:02
it’s an Arthur Conan Doyle story about explorers finding dinosaurs and prehistoric birds living in the Amazon jungle and
Marcia: Sherlock Holmes.
Bob: He wasn’t in that story. Okay. All right. Did you know that in flight entertainment once included live shows? You think you think some some of your friends are annoying on a plane? Can you imagine this? The 1941 airlines were hiring actors to sing and entertain on planes. No kidding. All
Marcia Smith 16:29
those days you could smoke and drink like crazy and just you had room to put your feet out
Bob Smith 16:35
to be very rich to be on a plane back then. So yeah. But then the war came and all that ended. Now when did inflight movies really take off? One of your first guesses 5861 Okay. 61. That’s when a lightweight projection system was approved by the FAA and the first film to use the system was a Lana Turner film By Love Possessed.
Bob Smith 16:56
I should – we should dig that up – shown on a TWA trans continental flight. It was Efrem Zimbalist, Jr, who started the FBI when we were growing up on TV and Lana Turner. Okay, now, I’ve got a few more years like you said, the wikipedia rathole, you go down and when you go to these things, when we’re video games first played in flight. People play video games all the time now on planes with their phones and everything.
Marcia Smith 17:23
1989 1975
Bob Smith 17:25
That’s when Braniff airlines offered games of Pong. Oh,
Marcia Smith 17:30
really? In the air? Oh, Braniff was ahead of its time. Yeah, for them. Okay, when
Bob Smith 17:34
were the first back of seat screens in planes, back of seat screens on a plane? Do you remember when you saw that the first time and how big the screen was? It was 1988 Northwest Airlines, they were three inch seatback videos creats. Today in coach, you can get 10 inch screens, but it was three inch screens back then. The first multi channel in flight entertainment system, when you actually could check multiple things. Yeah, what do you think that was?
Marcia Smith 18:03
I don’t know, after they got rid of the ashtrays they had room for that. That’s true.
Bob Smith 18:07
9091 91 it was a it was a multi channel system Virgin Atlantic installed for all classes of service. So it was the first time passengers had a choice of what they would watch on an airplane. And then satellite TV came in 2000 from 2009. You could watch newscasts on on on planes. And finally Marcia Godsey when was the first email sent in flight, people can do that all the time. Now. Tell me Bob 2001. He was sent from the skies during an Air Canada press tour. And then since 2018, the airlines have started adopting a policy, bring your own screen. Bring your iPod, bring your phone, you can use our Wi Fi, which you’ll pay for but bring your own screen. And you know why? Because all those back of the screen Yeah, those things cost $10,000 Each to install real aims. So let’s say a Boeing 747 366 seats times $10,000. That’s crazy. That’s a $3.6 million investment in video per plane. So most of them are encouraging you to bring your own screen. That’s where they’re headed. Because it’s costing it’s going to cost too much money. This is a lot of hardware, any anyway, all that stuff is about movies in flight, which none of us are going on right now. We’re not most of that was from motion pictures, A Brief History of inflight movies from projected to pocket size by The Wall Street Journal. Okay, this is an interesting thing. What is it? And it’s because, you know, it’s about air airlines and so forth. People are making changes, you know, because of the social distancing. I listen to this and I go, why didn’t they do this before? United Airlines has announced a series of social distancing measures that will eliminate many of the annoyances of flying cattle class or cattle class that causes this In The Wall Street Journal, one will be seating pairs of passengers in window and aisle roll
Marcia Smith 20:05
so you know the middle is empty,
Bob Smith 20:08
which would be nice. While passengers won’t have the legroom of those up front, you’ll have the same kind of attention service elbowroom that you’d have in business class. And here’s another sensible change boarding the plane back to front. In other words if you sit in the back of the plane I mean why haven’t they done this before? Funny this is this is I’ve never heard this written this way in the Wall Street Journal. It’s written in the sarcastic voice I would use saying this will protect well heeled travelers up front from being breathed on by by the hoi polloi. As they love their children and roller bags down the aisle. All of us common people Yeah, we can go on first and sit and wait for those
Marcia Smith 20:54
Well, it does make sense I mean that that would be a great permanent change, wouldn’t it? Yeah. And if ah if we were always flying first class which when this podcast takes off we will be there now that’d be worth waiting for it would be worth waiting for. I wouldn’t mind waiting for the those people and their their therapy parrots
Bob Smith 21:19
one more one more thing. It will spare the people in first class from those envious stares from group nine see walk gas
Marcia Smith 21:26
in via stairs. It’s more like just get out of my way. I’m trying to get to my seat.
Bob Smith 21:32
I heard a funny story recently. And it was somebody who took a flight from I forget where, where to where but it was a large plane. And he was the only passenger. And they they greeted him by name at the gate. And he thought, well, everybody else is late like me. But no, he was the only one there. And then he said it was funny that they he was flying Southwest and they kept calling all those everyone in group one. I did this one. Oh, okay. Now group two. Yeah. He said they went through all of them. And they would kind of laugh at about it. And he thought it was funny to
Marcia Smith 22:06
chase and then did he did they let him sit in first class? He got to sit in first class. I would hope so. Yeah.
Bob Smith 22:12
They put him right in first class. But I think the idea of boarding planes from back to front. Why don’t they do that all the time? Oh,
Marcia Smith 22:19
yeah. obvious thing
Bob Smith 22:20
that makes sense to me. I don’t care where you sit in the plane if the people behind you can get on first. It makes sense. Yeah.
Marcia Smith 22:26
Anyway, I can ask a question. No, we’re done. That’s
Bob Smith 22:31
been the show for today. It’s been great. Glad to have you march. Yeah, go ahead. I’m just kidding. All
Marcia Smith 22:35
right. You probably know half of this question. Okay. But maybe not the other half. Okay, who was the first person that occupied the White House? And what was the White House modeled after?
Speaker 1 22:48
John Adams? Correct. He’s the first President to live there. Yeah, he was the second person.
Bob Smith 22:53
I met the first president in the White House. And then if you watch that John Adams show you see they were it was very cold and damp. It’s awful burning lumber in there and everything was modeled after Well, there was a competition to design it. But I don’t remember I don’t was modeled after one specific castle or
Marcia Smith 23:13
the Executive Mansion, now known as the White House was modeled after the palace of the Duke of Leinster in Ireland. So it was some Dukes place in Ireland that they liked and said, Let’s do that. Let’s knock off and even though it burned to the ground in 1812, they later restored it to look just the same.
Bob Smith 23:33
Technically. It didn’t burn to the ground. It was set on fire. The insides all burned, but the walls were still there.
Marcia Smith 23:39
Oh, thank you, Bob. That’s why I’m married. Yeah, excellent. Excellent.
Bob Smith 23:44
Okay, give me another one. Oh, I want you to go.
Marcia Smith 23:46
Okay. All right.
Bob Smith 23:48
Maybe we should start recording. No, no, we’re recording.
Marcia Smith 23:53
We’ve done that before. Yes. Oh advantage. Chop Suey and where? Okay.
Bob Smith 24:01
Now that Chop Suey, you would think? I think most people think well, it’s obviously from China or somewhere? No, it was embedded in was it San Francisco. I think it was California somewhere and it was a restaurant owner, but I don’t know anything about it. Yeah,
Marcia Smith 24:13
we don’t know the guy’s actual name, but it was invented by a Chinese dignitary who was visiting America. In the late 1800s. His American friends asked him to prepare a genuine Chinese meal. But he didn’t have any of the ingredients. Except there was some soy sauce. And so he decided to improvise and gathered a bunch of stuff and combine them and flavored it with lots of was called soya sauce, actually, back in the day. His American friends were impressed mainly because they were unfamiliar with soya sauce and the flavor enhancement it brings out.
Bob Smith 24:53
I love that they were impressed by the sauce. Not necessarily the
Marcia Smith 24:56
Yeah, all the stuff he threw in there. But When someone asked him the name of this great Chinese dish that he just thought of on the spot, he saw some chopsticks lying on the table and he just put it together and said it’s called chop soya.
Bob Smith 25:11
And hoe chop soya from the soya sauce. Yeah.
Marcia Smith 25:15
And they, they because of his thick Chinese accent, they understood him to say chop suey.
Unknown Speaker 25:22
Oh, and that’s where it came from and
Marcia Smith 25:24
some misunderstanding. And so it is so he just put chopsticks and chop. So I had together and made this thing up. So everybody thought it was a Chinese specialty. You see that all the time that somebody looks up at his sciences? Yeah, it’s chop suey.
Bob Smith 25:39
That’s right. That’s right. That was like that guy who invented Twinkies. The hostess Twinkie. He was getting off a plane and he saw a sign on a building called twinkle toe shoes. Oh, that’s cute. So he decided well call these little things. Twinkies. Yeah. All right. Anything else you got there? Marsh you want to that’s it for me. Okay, I’ve got one odds put my best foot forward here. TrackSTar Glenn Cunningham. He held the record for the indoor mile run for years. What was unusual about Glenn? He had new feet. No, his left foot had no toes.
Marcia Smith 26:12
I was close. I get a close one. His left
Bob Smith 26:15
foot had no toes. All right. And one more historical can’t
Marcia Smith 26:19
help himself Kenya.
Bob Smith 26:20
It’s a trivia show. It is a trivia show. Wrap it up? Yes. Is it you’ll find it interesting. Why were the ancient Inca Indians of Central and South America known for their brilliant smiles?
Marcia Smith 26:38
No idea because
Bob Smith 26:39
they inlaid their teeth with gold and semi precious jewels. Wow. Yes. And when an Inca maiden smiled, it was a bright smile. Rubies. That’s one of the things that Spanish saw when they were down there these Incan people’s like, oh my god, what they got in their teeth. They rap stars What the hell? And
Marcia Smith 26:59
you just what did they do then send in the dentists and then people goes
Unknown Speaker 27:05
in the can keister. Doris Yeah, I would do it. Where
Bob Smith 27:08
did you show us where you got these precious?
Marcia Smith 27:12
Oh, I’m having shades. Is it safe?
Bob Smith 27:15
Is it safe? Yes. What was that Marathon Man Marathon Man, the dentist. Supposedly the Nazi dentist. Yeah.
Marcia Smith 27:21
Got me all freaked out now. Okay,
Bob Smith 27:24
that’s enough of that. Well, that’s it for today. Marsh thanks for joining us here. Sure
Marcia Smith 27:28
What else was there to do?
Bob Smith 27:31
Another vote of confidence.
Marcia Smith 27:32
It was great. Good. Fun. We’ll talk to you later. Bob.
Bob Smith 27:36
We hope you join us again next time for q&a trivia on on the cough ramp. No on the off ramp.
Marcia Smith 27:48
Yeah, coffee coughing
Bob Smith 27:49
wrap on the off ramp with Marcia and
Marcia Smith 27:52
Bob Smith.
Bob Smith 27:57
The off ramp is produced in association with CPL radio and the Cedarburg Public Library Cedarburg, Wisconsin.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai