Bob and Marcia discussed US presidents’ military service and personal facts, sharing trivia and questions about famous prisoners and their ranks. They later exchanged animal and presidential trivia, and discussed the significance of transportation and communication in shaping historical events. In a separate conversation segment, the Smiths discussed various exploration and discovery traditions, including ship launching and passports. Bob highlighted the Viking tradition of sacrificing a human being on a ship’s bow, while Marcia shared information about breaking a bottle of champagne over a ship’s bow. Bob questioned Christopher Columbus’s certainty in reaching the Orient in his first voyage, and Marcia explained that he took passports and letters of introduction.
Outline
US presidents’ military ranks and trivia.
- Bob and Marcia discuss US presidents’ military ranks, with Bob revealing that President Abraham Lincoln’s highest rank was private before becoming commander in chief.
- Marcia and Bob discuss Rudolf Hess, a German prisoner who was kept in isolation for 40 years and eventually died by suicide in 1987.
- Bob asks Marcia who the heaviest US President was, and Marcia answers William Howard Taft, who weighed 353 pounds.
- Beaver teeth grow about an inch per month, but are worn down by gnawing on wood.
Puffins, wildfires, and ship launching traditions.
- Marcia and Bob discuss puffins, with Marcia providing interesting facts about their size, diet, and record-breaking catches.
- Bob jokes about the puffins’ small size and the number of fish they can carry in their mouths.
- Wildfire smoke from West Coast has traveled to Europe, including the Netherlands.
- Bob and Marcia Smith discuss Christopher Columbus’s passport and letters of introduction for his first voyage to the New World.
US history, transportation, and communication.
- Marcia and Bob discuss Calamity Jane, a frontierswoman who was an Army scout and aide to General Custer, and was known for her sharp shooting, whiskey swilling, and cross-dressing ways.
- Bob Smith discusses US presidents’ innovative use of transportation and communication technologies during the Civil War.
- Marcia Smith explains why giraffes with longer necks live longer, citing their ability to reach food on higher branches.
- Bob Smith discusses a Norwegian startup’s potential solution to slow down hurricanes by pumping cold water from deep in the ocean to the surface during storm season.
Geography, history, and exploration.
- Marcia Smith asks Bob Smith a question about Abraham Lincoln’s patent for a device to lift ships out of the sea, which was never manufactured.
- Bob Smith answers Marcia Smith’s question about the Himalayas being the mountain range with 60 of the tallest mountains in the world, including Mount Everest.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the discovery of a 156-pound gold nugget in Australia and the story behind the name “Welcome Stranger.”
- Zebulon Pike’s incorrect assumptions about the Central Plains of America led to the myth of a great American desert, slowing settlement for a time.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss funny book titles, including “To kill a Mockingbird” and “My Last Dying Words.”
- Marcia Smith tells a joke about a husband giving his wife a dart and a world map, and Bob Smith shares his experience of being behind the refrigerator.
Bob Smith 0:00
Numerous US presidents have served in the military some as high as four star generals, which US President’s highest military rank was as a private. Oh,
Marcia Smith 0:10
really? Oh, I was thinking, Oh, I know this and no, I don’t. Okay. Who’s spent 40 years as the only prisoner in a 600 Sell jail?
Bob Smith 0:21
Is this a famous person? answers to those and other questions coming up in this edition of the off ramp with Bob, Mr. Shaw Smith.
Welcome to the off ramp, a chance to slow down steer clear of crazy, take a side road to Saturday and get some perspective on life. We love to read, go to the library, go online, get all kinds of interesting facts and bring them to you. And that’s what we’re going to do again today with trivia on this episode. Okay, Marsha. I have a question about President. Numerous presidents have served in the military over the years. Some became like four star generals like Eisenhower grant and also in retrospect,
Marcia Smith 1:18
Washington. Exactly. He was five. I of course, cuz that was my question a couple of weeks ago.
Bob Smith 1:26
Okay, well, here’s my question. Yeah. Which US presidents highest military rank was as a private All right. Well, I’ll tell you this was a very ironic fact. All right. All right. All
Marcia Smith 1:37
right. Let’s see Kennedy was an ensign. He was higher. All right. I’ll just say, Nixon.
Bob Smith 1:46
Nixon actually was in the service, too. But he had a higher rank than private. He was in the Navy. Tell me who, okay, this president actually ran a war. I don’t know Bob Abraham Lincoln. Real Abraham Lincoln, the man who commanded Union forces in the Civil War. Private Abraham Lincoln was 23 years old when he served in the US Army in Illinois during the Black Hawk war. From May to July, the 1833. He was paid 21 cents a day in that rank private was his highest military rank prior to becoming commander in chief of all the services as the president.
Marcia Smith 2:24
Oh, very interesting. They served a very short time. That’s right. Yeah. All right, Bob. I was reading some trivia from back in 1979. And it said this person was reported to be in failing health, and had at that point three decades of being the only prisoner in this jail and was expected to die. Was it?
Bob Smith 2:45
What are the clues again, he is a famous person he was a prisoner is in this prison all by himself?
Marcia Smith 2:50
Yeah, yeah. Oh, that was Rudolf Hess. Oh, for God’s sakes, how did you know that?
Bob Smith 2:55
Because he was the German and he was in Spandau Prison. Where was this prison?
Marcia Smith 2:59
Yes. Well, I see there. I shouldn’t have said 1979. Because then you figured out World War Two, didn’t you? Rudolph
Bob Smith 3:05
has parachuted into Great Britain to try to start peace talks. And they thought he was crazy. And he got thrown in prison and never got out. But you’re right. He was like number two to Hitler for a while. Very bizarre. So
Marcia Smith 3:19
he was kept in this West Berlin 600 cell jail all by himself and spanned out. I wanted to find out when he finally did check out. And it was 1987. Wow, almost 40 years being the sole prisoner. natural causes can kill them. So the 93 year old man hung himself. Oh, dear. And just so you know, after he hung himself, they immediately demolished the prison. No more
Bob Smith 3:45
need for this place. Yeah, he was taken to the German prison after after the war. The Allies tried to get him out of prison on humanitarian terms when he was in his 80s. But the Soviet Union would never allow it. They charged he had been in on the planning of the invasion of Russia, so they never forgave him. Yeah. Okay. I have another presidential question here. Okay. Who was the heaviest US President? Taft? That’s right. William Howard. Taft. And how much did he weigh?
Unknown Speaker 4:15
This guy was heavy. Yeah. Okay.
Marcia Smith 4:17
I’ll just say 350 pounds. 353
Bob Smith 4:20
pounds. Marcia. You win the prize. I’m sorry. We don’t have a prize. Supposedly he became firmly wedged in the White House bathtub and required assistance. Free I don’t know if that’s true. It’s probably was a story told at the time but yeah, he tipped the scales at 353 pounds. William Howard Taft, a president you could truly look at and say heavy man have heavy man. The man
Marcia Smith 4:48
let’s get serious. Okay. Yes. How much do beaver teeth grow every month?
Bob Smith 4:53
Your specialty seems to be animal questions. It does unique and odd. And I did
Marcia Smith 4:58
start with Rudolph Hess. So that’s true departure.
Bob Smith 5:02
So beaver teeth so this is probably the most important part of a beaver. I don’t they Munch up things to create their dams, I guess I would call them. So beaver teeth, how much do they grow every month? Let’s say, let’s say a quarter of an inch. Yeah, you
Marcia Smith 5:17
think Well, how long do they live? long can they be to be as long as your arm? Well, now if you had thought it through, the deductive reason would have told you that actually, they grow at the rate of one inch per month holy cow. However, the teeth are worn down at nearly the same rate as the beaver gnaws on wood. Oh no kidding. NOSM down about an inch a month and he grows and backup inch a month.
Bob Smith 5:43
That is amazing. Wow. So nature knows what to do and he gives it to him. Hey, do during America’s Bicentennial what unfortunate song did the band strike up when Queen Elizabeth danced with Gerald Ford. Now this is 1976 Yes, the Bicentennial 200th anniversary of the United States. What unfortunate song did the band strike up just as Queen Elizabeth started dancing with Gerald Ford.
Unknown Speaker 6:11
Ah, I haven’t a clue the lady is a trick.
Bob Smith 6:18
This is actually true now. 36 years later, a member of the Marine Corps White House dance band explained how that happened. His name is David Wright. He said our songs were organized in groupings of three songs per arrangement, and the arrangements were only numbered, no titles on the music. They had arrangement number 348. On our stands, they performed the first of the three songs and as we began the second the crowd parted President Gerald Ford escorted Queen Elizabeth in her diamond tiara onto the dance floor. And we discovered the second song of our arrangement was the lady is a tramp.
Marcia Smith 6:50
I hope she enjoyed it. It’s so funny. The Washington
Bob Smith 6:53
Post published the story the next morning and of course the leader of the Marine band received a call from the Commandant of the Marine Corps at 6am saying what is this about? You guys played Lady in the tramp would Queen Elizabeth dance last night? No, no, no, we didn’t play that we played arrangement 348
Marcia Smith 7:11
I didn’t think that I have a propensity for the animal questions but I do have another one. What
Bob Smith 7:18
is your next animal question Marsh I cuz I’ve got another president question.
Marcia Smith 7:23
This in a different location. Know what a puffin is?
Bob Smith 7:26
A Puffin? Yeah. Is that like a puffy muffin? For
Marcia Smith 7:30
God’s sakes? Is it No Oh,
Bob Smith 7:33
okay. I thought it was right again.
Marcia Smith 7:35
No, it’s It’s that weird little animal that looks like but has nothing to do with a penguin. It has that big funny thing. Oh,
Bob Smith 7:42
is that why that cereal I like is called a puffin and Scott, why did they have a penguin on this series?
Marcia Smith 7:47
Yeah, it’s not a penguin. It’s a puffin. But anyway, you know how fast they fly? No, of course you don’t even know what the hell it was.
Bob Smith 7:56
Okay, how fast are these things fly?
Marcia Smith 7:58
It flies 55 miles an hour. Holy.
Bob Smith 8:01
Thank you can actually fly? Yeah, like a pelican can’t fly. That’s the penguins, kangaroos.
Marcia Smith 8:05
Most puffins can be found in Iceland. And I thought they were you know, maybe the size of a penguin but no, nay. They’re only 10 inches tall. And weigh about a pound 10 inches tall. If you have these beautiful beaks and this some of them have horn
Bob Smith 8:25
that’s a miniature size of what I thought it would be
Marcia Smith 8:28
too tall. I had no idea until I started looking into this. Wow. And they eat mostly fish. Not big ones, but little fish and they can carry they have little hooks in their mouth or something and they can carry around 10 in their mouth at one time. 10 fish yeah. Wow. But for some reason, or the record was broken in Britain, the all time record by one Puffin was 62 fish in his mouth at one time.
Bob Smith 8:52
Oh my goodness. They gotta be pretty small.
Marcia Smith 8:56
What the fish? Yeah. Well, I don’t know are the pictures I suppose you
Bob Smith 9:00
would say think of it. Think of it Marcia through. This is an animal that’s 10 inches tall. It has 62 fish in its mouth.
Unknown Speaker 9:09
They must be tiny. Okay, go ahead.
Bob Smith 9:12
Okay, I’ve got something related to events that have been occurring recently. We know that the weather travels from the west to the east. So you told me how’s the United States tie with all the wildfires out on the West Coast? Yeah. How Far East has some of the smoke been seen? Well,
Marcia Smith 9:30
that’s gone all the way to the East Coast. He made so it’s gone across the ocean too. So it’s been in England,
Bob Smith 9:37
that little farther than England. Some of the smoke of the West Coast fires has been seen as far east as the Netherlands, as Holland now we’re talking at this moment we’re doing this show. It’s only been a few days since the height of those fires out on the West Coast. The storms are massive. They’ve ravaged more than 6 million acres in Oregon and California and already some of that smoke has been seen in Holland in Europe. But also they’ve gone to the west Believe it or not to smoke has headed west a cyclone that absorbs some of the smoke moved it over the Pacific Ocean. They go to Hawaii. I don’t know for sure. But you can see this from space supposedly. Oh, see these plumes of smoke? Yeah.
Marcia Smith 10:16
Okay, moving on. In today’s world, when we Kris in a ship, we break a bottle of champagne over the ship’s bow. It’s a long held tradition. So how did the Vikings used to do it? Bob?
Bob Smith 10:29
How did they launch their ships? Yeah. What do you just push them out into the water? Next question. Now they also the sheriff ceremony. Yeah, so this is an old
Marcia Smith 10:39
old tradition and for 1000s of years of a long time. So
Bob Smith 10:43
let’s see, what would they do? They had a bag of wine and they slept it against.
Marcia Smith 10:48
Oh, why? Why did become a tradition before champagne. But centuries ago? Scandinavian Vikings christened ships by sacrificing a human being on the bow of the ship. Oh, the blood and soul of the dearly departed was believed to eternally guard the crown. Oh,
Bob Smith 11:07
my goodness. Oh, the Vikings. Those Viking
Marcia Smith 11:11
goodness. Yes. They shouldn’t play football and they shouldn’t Christian ships. Oh, Lord.
Bob Smith 11:16
Okay. I’ve got a an interesting question for you. Well, we all know that Christopher Columbus was one of the first Europeans to come to the New World. Christopher Columbus and his, you know, little fleet of three ships. He was so intent on reaching the Orient. He thought for sure that’s where he was headed. How do we know he was so intent on reaching the Orient? What did he bring with him?
Marcia Smith 11:39
I read that once. Did he bring something to trade with them? That he thought they’d like? He probably
Bob Smith 11:45
did. But that’s not what I’m looking at it? No, then this is diplomatic stuff. Oh, okay.
Marcia Smith 11:49
Tell me okay. So
Bob Smith 11:50
Christopher Columbus was so certain he would reach the Orient in his first voyage that he took with him a passport. I want to make sure I’m legal here. He had passports they didn’t have a passport. And he had three letters of introduction. One was made out to the grand con, the supposedly leader of the Orient to or blank where the name of the ruler could be written. And I will bring to that we can fill out depending on who it is number
Marcia Smith 12:18
con from Star Trek, Ricardo.
Bob Smith 12:21
Oh, yes, Ricardo Montalban. He was actually the best villain in the TV series. By far and then he was in the movie. They had him come back
Marcia Smith 12:29
from Wrath of Khan, the Wrath of Khan. That’s right, that again, driving a car dobar around space.
Bob Smith 12:35
And that Corinthian leather. Alright, let’s take a break. And we’ll be back in just a moment. You’re listening to the off ramp with Bob
Unknown Speaker 12:42
and Marsha Smith.
Bob Smith 12:46
We’re back again. You’re listening to the off ramp with Bob and Marcia Smith trivia on this new episode. And Marcia, I have a presidential question and other one but I’ll let you
Marcia Smith 12:56
start. Oh, thanks, Bob.
Bob Smith 13:00
As you complained during the break, go ahead. This
Marcia Smith 13:03
famous person ran a stagecoach that carried the US mail was an Army scout and an aide to General Custer. Who was it? Was that William Cody? No. Oh, wasn’t Buffalo Bill Cody. No Kit Carson? No.
Bob Smith 13:18
And he did General Custer. Obviously he didn’t make it to Little Bighorn or did he? It wasn’t
Marcia Smith 13:24
a he. Who was it? It was Calamity Jane. I didn’t know that. He was an interesting person. Yeah, she was orphaned at 12 She took herself over to Deadwood and met up with Bill Hickok and was renowned for her sharp shooting whiskey swimming and cross dressing ways.
Bob Smith 13:44
She was a woman head over time she
Marcia Smith 13:45
was but also she was known for her great kindness towards others. And before she died of pneumonia in 1903, she appeared in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, and she is buried today next to Bill Hickok. I
Bob Smith 13:59
remember as a kid seeing the grave You did well. Yeah. Yeah. She
Marcia Smith 14:05
carried the US Mail. She was an Army scout and an aide to General Custer. Wow. That’s pretty cool. Yeah, quite a life for a kid who was on her own at 12. You know, and
Bob Smith 14:15
she’s kind of been reduced in our minds to this kind of cartoon crazy woman. Oh, shoot. Oh, shoot. Yeah, like Annie Oakley, but she was an actual us to God hero of the West and the thing she did in the people she interacted with. That’s amazing. She was really far ahead. And
Marcia Smith 14:30
I couldn’t find it. And I’m sure it’s Googled out there somewhere. How she got the calamity part of Jane, probably
Bob Smith 14:36
because she was a little difficult to deal with. But yeah, maybe we could find that out or somebody could tell us because
Marcia Smith 14:42
of her long, crazy life. Yeah, that’s a calamity she dealt with starting as a young girl.
Bob Smith 14:49
Well, presidents have to deal with calamity. Which leads me to my next question.
Marcia Smith 14:53
Another president.
Bob Smith 14:54
I got I got a sheet here with presidential questions. I got two books on this and I’m going to And with this one, all right, okay. Tell me what transportation and communications distinctions these precedents have. They either have a transportation or a communication distinction. All right. Okay in American history, Andrew Jackson, what was his distinction? I’ll tell you his was transportation. Ah, he was the first US president to ride on a horse a railroad train. Ah, first president to ride on a train was Andrew Jackson. James Garfield was the first president to use a this is too tough telephone. Okay. He was the first president to use the telephone. Theodore Roosevelt was the first to ride in an automobile. Okay, doing terrible. Okay, okay. Finally, geez. Abraham Lincoln, the first leader in world history to lead a war using who which President Abraham Lincoln, first US President and the First leader in world history to lead a war using a certain kind of communication. Oh, that telegraph? Yes. Yes. So he’s actually considered the first ruler in history to lead battle by remote control, basically, through electronic communications. Pretty cool. He wrote more than 1000 Telegraph’s to his generals, and he visited that war department, telegraph office every day, he read every Telegraph that came in, and he answered them, even if they weren’t addressed to him real time info, he could do this because the Union Army actually had portable telegraph equipment it took from battle to battle in wagons, they decided this early on, and they set up 15,000 miles of wires they strung across the US, they even tap the Confederate lines and crack their ciphers, quite an operation. And it was a very dangerous operation, a number of these people died. And the reason we know about this is because two of these guys who led this operation later went on to lead Western Union and one of them wrote a book about it. Nobody really knew about this stuff until the early 1900s. All the work that the Union did with electronic communications to win the war.
Marcia Smith 17:10
Well, from Civil War to drafts,
Speaker 1 17:13
okay, drafts, JIRA, oh, giraffes. Why do
Marcia Smith 17:17
giraffes with longer necks live longer than other giraffes with shorter necks?
Bob Smith 17:24
Why do they live longer? Because they have longer necks? Because they get more food? Excellent. How do you know that? That would make sense if you have a longer neck, you’re not just gonna go after the low hanging fruit. You’re gonna go after the other stuff. See,
Marcia Smith 17:35
I was hoping you deduce that and I’m wrong, right? No, that’s exactly right. Oh, no kidding. Giraffes with the longest necks get the most food as the leaves of lower tree branches are already eaten by other animals. Ergo, a great percentage of them survive. It’s a prime example of species evolution. Okay. Yeah, I knew if you thought about it for a second, you’d say Well, yeah, there’s cat longer necks, they can do that. Okay,
Bob Smith 18:01
well, I’ve got another current events kind of fact here. And I think if you think about this, you’re still not gonna get it because I didn’t get it. Okay. But here’s an idea. We’ve had a lot of tropical storms were in the tropical storm season as we as we do this broadcast, weaken hurricanes with bubbling underwater pipes. How would you do this?
Unknown Speaker 18:22
We can hurricanes. I don’t know Bob.
Bob Smith 18:25
Science has recently determined that the deadly speed of a tropical storm is linked to how warm the ocean is when the storm is passing over. That’s the theory anyway. And it’s why people think that climate change is warming the oceans is leading to more hurricanes. Something does seem to be going on because in September of 2020, satellite spotted five huge tropical storms in the Caribbean at the same time, they were all potential hurricanes. But there is a Norwegian Business Startup in there called Ocean therm. Their theory is you could use a series of pipes to pump cold water from deep in the ocean to the surface during storm season. And this would slow down the storms just enough it could slow down the storms by as much as 20 miles per hour sounds if you have a four degree temperature change in the water. Well, it sounds questionable, but this company is in Norway. And for decades in Norway, they’ve had submerged pipes, pushing warmer water to the surface in the winter keeping the oceans or that part of the sea from freezing. So this fella who came up with this idea, he’s old love howling Stetter. He’s a retired submarine officer in the Norwegian Navy. And he’s got this company called Ocean therm. And they’re beginning a two year pilot in the Caribbean. And that’s the idea that they would deploy large pipes with holes deep in the ocean where the water is cooler. And during storms they start pumping it up to try to slow down the storms. That’s who knows why not try it right
Marcia Smith 19:46
can’t hurt. Yeah, well, maybe it could maybe they’re flooding the up. Okay, nevermind. I have a president question for you. And I’m sorry. We’re done with President questions. And it’s our beloved Lincoln over the busy bee bet you didn’t know This though, okay. He was granted a patent.
Bob Smith 20:03
Yes, I knew that. I’m sorry. Oh, no, I
Marcia Smith 20:06
didn’t know that. Tell me about it for what invention?
Bob Smith 20:09
It was invention that would lift ships out of the sea. If they had sunk. I think it was so
Marcia Smith 20:16
well yeah, you’re on that. Yes, I’ll give you a ding ding for that you got a patent though it was never manufactured but it was a device for lifting riverboats over Scholz by inflating a set of cylinders on the boats with air. I don’t know how they got the air in there. But apparently it was never made. But he was the only president in history to ever hold a patent. That’s pretty cool.
Bob Smith 20:38
I think so.
Marcia Smith 20:39
Can I give you a factoid? Sure. prior to Christmas in 1978, a fire broke out near a television set in Winnetka, Illinois, the TV set exploded, awakening the whole household, and everyone made it out of the home safely. The episode took place in the home of AC Nielsen Jr. The chairman of the Nielsen television ratings service, no.
Bob Smith 21:04
Oh, that’s funny. But his television out of commission. It was ironi. Okay, I’ve got a couple of geography
Marcia Smith 21:11
question. All right. All right. Give me one. What a mountain.
Bob Smith 21:17
What mountain range has 60 of the tallest mountains in the world? At least 60 of the tallest mountains in the world? are in one range. Apple?
Marcia Smith 21:28
No. In China, somewhere in China?
Bob Smith 21:32
Well, some of them are in China. Some of them are in India. Some of them are in Nepal sovereign.
Marcia Smith 21:37
Are they all the same mountain range? Yes. And that is called. It’s
Bob Smith 21:41
not the Hurley This is the Himalayas? Himalayas?
Marcia Smith 21:46
I take offense. Okay. You
Bob Smith 21:47
can take offense. It’s the mountainous region between India and Tibet. In Asia. It’s the most spectacular mountain range in the world because more than 60 Mountains are taller than 23,000 feet there. In fact, if you look at a list of the world’s tallest mountains on Wikipedia, all 109 are in Asia, in either Nepal, India, Pakistan or China. Now the tallest is what? Evers Everest which is 29,029 feet tall.
Marcia Smith 22:15
I thought it was 28. But go ahead.
Bob Smith 22:18
Which country is it in? Shoot. Two countries claim it because the China Nepal border crosses the summit. So they both say it’s okay. All right. That’s my question. On geography. There will be more.
Marcia Smith 22:33
Okay. All right. How big was the biggest gold nugget ever found? Can you tell me?
Bob Smith 22:39
Are we talking? How are we measuring this? What’s the size? I would say? 10 pounds. That’s it?
Marcia Smith 22:44
That’s a big goal docket? No, this one in 2018 was 198 pounds. Oh, my goodness, it was worth 2.6 million. You should see a picture this second. It’s crazy. But yeah, the second biggest one, which I think is more fun because it was by two poor guys who were gold prospecting also in Australia. They were tin miners, actually. And they went out to seek their fortune. And they found it in Victoria, Victoria, Australia. And they found 156 pound nugget. And they called it welcome stranger.
Bob Smith 23:21
Welcome stranger. Yeah. And they
Marcia Smith 23:23
found it like tangled up in tree roots or something and they dug it out. And that is in a magnificent piece. And that’s kind of fun, because it wasn’t in a mind. It was just there. Yeah. Under the
Bob Smith 23:34
would you love to find something like that? Well, yes. And I think the rule is if you find a piece of gold, it’s 156 pounds, you get to name it, whatever you want.
Marcia Smith 23:41
Right welcome straight. It’s up to you. Welcome stranger.
Bob Smith 23:45
Well, speaking of strangers, this fella was a stranger to the plains of North America. Famous names is epsilon Pike, Pikes Peak and all these things. So he discovered one of our greatest mountains that inspired settlers. He also characterized much of the United west as uninhabitable. What was he talking about? The Rockies? Well, actually, no, it was the central plains, the plains where we have all the wheat, the wheat and the corn, the breadbasket of America. He said it was incapable of civilization, the Central Plains likely to become as celebrated as the sandy deserts of Africa. Now, that description gave rise to the myth of a great American desert, which actually slowed settlement for a time and that’s because Zebulon Pike who was a great explorer that was the wrong attitude. He had the wrong idea. Anyway, yeah.
Marcia Smith 24:34
Oh, you know, you’re a target for most creatures of nature, aren’t you Bob?
Bob Smith 24:39
Yes, I am always the one that the I love nature but nature doesn’t love me
Marcia Smith 24:42
anything out there wants to fight you or each
Bob Smith 24:47
one unfortunate.
Marcia Smith 24:48
What household product does Reader’s Digest suggest Bob that you smear on your ankles, wrists and neck before you leave the house to deter gnats, mosquitoes and ticks. said it’s in our bathrooms. Vicks Vapor Rub. Oh my God. Is it? Yes.
Bob Smith 25:05
Oh, well, I was thinking that probably that camp for Yes. Probably what repels the insects
Marcia Smith 25:09
that was a good deduction and I will always smell like you’re sick, aren’t you? But they’d like sweeter smelling people. Yeah, so, yeah, so it repels them. Who knew?
Bob Smith 25:22
Okay, all right. All right. I got a few fun things here we can close with. Okay. Now you can’t judge a book by its cover, but you can anticipate a great read if the title is clever. And these are actually current books with some very funny titles. I’ll tell you the name of the title and what it’s about. Okay. Okay, here’s looking at Euclid. This is by Alex Bellos. It’s a play on words on the expression. Here’s looking at you, kid. But Euclid of course, was a famous mathematician. And here’s looking at Euclid is the all inspiring journey through the world of numbers from counting ants to games of chance. Now, isn’t that a that makes you want to read that book on math, you could have given it a boring title. But here’s looking at Euclid. I thought that was a great title. I got another one here. Tequila Mockingbird. cocktails with a literary twist. Not To Kill a Mockingbird, but to Keela it’s a new book by Tim fedeli. And it’s a play on the title To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee Tequila Mockingbird cocktails with a literary twist focuses on how they make drinks and chapters include a rum of one’s own. The Picture of Dorian Gray goose and the last of the Mojito is isn’t that great? So those are two fine fun Pong books.
Marcia Smith 26:42
I definitely find at a bar literary bar with authors up there and then you could just have a whole menu of these fun Yeah, that’s very funny.
Bob Smith 26:51
I thought those were great. And I’ve got a whole bunch more we’ll get to those later either along with
Marcia Smith 26:54
your last dying words and and
Bob Smith 26:56
more presidential quest. Oh,
Marcia Smith 26:59
and I’ll finish up with a joke. Okay. It says my husband purchased a world map and then gave me a dart and said throw this and we’re ever at lands. I’m taking you there when the pandemic ends. Turns out we’re spending two weeks behind the refrigerator
Bob Smith 27:19
you know, that’s one place I just don’t want to go. I’ve been to the back of the refrigerator. It’s not what it’s cracked up to be.
Marcia Smith 27:25
Not a pretty pic. No,
Bob Smith 27:26
it is. Okay, that’s it for this week. You’ve been listening to the off ramp with Bob and Marsha Smith. Join us again next time. Thanks for listening.
The off ramp is produced in association with CPL radio and the Cedarburg Public Library Cedarburg, Wisconsin.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
