Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discussed various topics, including the origins of a popular skin moisturizer brand, interesting facts about human skin, and common themes in people’s dreams during the COVID-19 pandemic. They also engaged in a lively conversation covering mountains, ancient recipes, everyday life, pumpkins, aviation, and airplane history. Bob shared interesting facts about the oldest surviving recipe and the tallest mountain outside of Asia, while Marcia provided insights into the origins of toasting and the etymology of the term ‘comatose.’
Outline
Skincare, crocodiles, and human biology.
- Bob and Marcia discuss the origins of Jergens lotion, a best-selling hand lotion in America since 1901, founded by a former lumberjack named Andrew Jergens.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the potential ways to escape a bear attack, with Marcia suggesting running in a zigzag pattern to confuse the bear and Bob asking about the length and difficulty of turning a battleship.
- Marcia Smith shares interesting facts about the human body, including that there are more living organisms on a person’s skin than there are human beings on Earth, and that the determination of a baby’s sex is often related to the stress level of the parent at the time of conception.
- Bob and Marcia discuss the world’s oldest recipe (beer) and a record for consecutive horseshoe ringers (50).
Geography, mountains, and police slang.
- Marcia and Bob discuss mountains, with Marcia incorrectly identifying the tallest mountain outside of Asia as being in North America, and Bob correcting her that it is actually located in South America.
- Bob asks Marcia another mountain question, which she answers correctly, and he then reveals that the highest capital city in the world is La Paz, Bolivia, which is located at 11,907 feet above sea level.
- Marcia and Bob discuss the origins of the term “cop” and the story of a soldier trapped in his sleeping bag during World War II.
- Marcia and Bob discuss the origins of toasting and Osama bin Laden’s favorite American products.
Pumpkins, nutrition, and Wisconsin lakes.
- Marcia and Bob discuss Osama bin Laden’s favorite American TV shows, with Bob providing trivia on the topic.
- They also talk about the world’s biggest pumpkin, with Bob sharing a record-breaking weight of 857.5 pounds and Marcia expressing interest in growing a big pumpkin for a fall festival.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the origins of phrases like “What in tarnation?” and “Big Berry.”
- Marcia and Bob discuss the origins of the phrase “what in tarnation” and how it has evolved over time.
- They also share interesting facts about snakes, including the length of their fangs and venom, and the common dreams people have during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dream analysis, airplane technology, and cat grooming.
- Dreams during COVID-19 pandemic often featured swarms of insects, including tarantulas and bees.
- Marcia Smith explains why jet liners don’t fly at lower altitudes, citing fuel efficiency and reduced resistance in thinner air.
- Bob Smith asks Marcia Smith about two disasters in US history that were made possible by airplanes, and Marcia names Pearl Harbor and the dropping of the atomic bomb.
- Bob and Marcia discuss fun book titles and quotes from Reader’s Digest.
Bob Smith 0:00
What world famous women’s skin moisturizer was actually the brainstorm of a lumberjack?
Marcia Smith 0:08
I like that. Okay, Bob, what’s your best course of action if you’re being chased by a crocodile?
Bob Smith 0:14
And what are people dreaming about during COVID answers to those and other questions coming up in this episode of the off ramp with Bob and Marsha
Marcia Smith 0:23
Smith
Bob Smith 0:40
Welcome to the off ramp, but she asked us to slow down steer clear of crazy take a side road to sanity and get some perspective on life. Well, to find that this name in cosmetics was actually started by a former lumberjack I found it very very funny because this cosmetic brand says it’s dedicated to helping women achieve soft, smooth sensuously gorgeous skin. And the lumberjack came up with the original product like
Marcia Smith 1:08
something in shea butter or or honey, something from a tree.
Bob Smith 1:13
Actually, I’m just asking for the brand name right now.
Marcia Smith 1:16
Oh, okay. I don’t know. guy’s
Bob Smith 1:18
name was Andrew.
Marcia Smith 1:19
Andy Andrew cosmetics. No, it’s
Bob Smith 1:23
not Andrew cosmetics. No, I’m
Marcia Smith 1:24
trying to think. Okay, Estee Lauder only Andale. No, no, I don’t know.
Bob Smith 1:33
This was an American. He was a 24 year old former lumberjack or Dutch immigrant to America. His name was Andrew Jergens. Oh really heard of Jergens lotion? Well, in 1880, he formed a partnership with a Cincinnati soap maker to manufacture prestigious toilet soap. But from his years in the lumber industry, he was aware of the benefits of hand lotion. And in 1901, he formulated Juergens classic cherry almond lotion, which became known as Jergens lotion. And that was the best selling hand lotion in America starting in 1901. still around today, never heard of that cherry wine. That’s what they call the original formula now. Oh Jergens lotion still around. They have 42 different products in six categories, really. And it’s owned by a Japanese cosmetics company now called kayo. The own band and a number of other brands were juggling
Marcia Smith 2:23
your with chickens goes way back in the family bathroom. That’s right. Wow. Okay, Bob. So if for some reason, here in Wisconsin, you’re being pursued by a crocodile.
Bob Smith 2:34
There’s a problem. You got a real problem.
Marcia Smith 2:36
The thing to do is what? Well,
Bob Smith 2:39
is it like a bear you get to get bigger he kind of get bigger and kind of threaten them? Yeah, no. Do you just run like hell, that’s what I that’s
Marcia Smith 2:47
part of it. Okay, but you have to run in a particular way. Okay. You run like a three legged race. You run in a zigzag pattern? Oh, crocs though very fast on land, and they can catch up with you. They have virtually no ability to make a sudden change in direction. If you’re going zigzag it confuses the heck out of Oh, is that right? Yeah.
Bob Smith 3:08
Well, then I would think they’re they’re very big. It’s like a battleship hard to turn a battleship. That’s your expression,
Marcia Smith 3:14
that perhaps it was something to do with their spacing of their eyes. But oh, I don’t know if that’s true or not.
Bob Smith 3:19
I think it’s how long they are and how difficult that is, huh? Yeah. Anyway,
Marcia Smith 3:23
so just run like hell and in his Exec.
Bob Smith 3:26
Okay, I’ve got a Marcia question now. Okay. You are one person Marsha. One person. But how many living organisms are living on you?
Marcia Smith 3:36
I don’t want to know. Oh, it’s millions. And that’s right, Bill. Yeah, that’s
Bob Smith 3:42
right. And Bill. Yeah, this is a good way to describe it. There are more living organisms on your skin than there are human beings on the entire Earth. Yeah, the average adults skin has a surface area of 16 to 22 square feet. Yeah. And scientists estimate that each square inch houses 20 million micro organisms, that’s 20 million things living on you not inside you
Marcia Smith 4:09
per inch. Yeah. Yeah, per square inch. That’s crazy. And then that follows the Juergens question for a reason. Well,
Bob Smith 4:16
skin to skin. I got more skin questions. Really? No, no.
Marcia Smith 4:21
That’s funny. Okay, let’s go on six. Okay, okay. Okay, guys, it’s so simple. University of Iowa surveys suggests that the determination of a baby’s sex is often related to what at the time of conception, temperature?
Bob Smith 4:40
No, temperate? No. What’s it related to at the time of conception? I don’t know why I found
Marcia Smith 4:47
this very fascinating. Okay, stress. The report indicates that a child tends to be the same sex as the parent who was under less stress at the time of conception. So we took turns.
Bob Smith 5:04
Yeah. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Really? Really? Yeah. So, if a family is a family of girls, yeah. That means the guy is more stressed than the wife. Apparently.
Marcia Smith 5:16
Yeah, I you know, it doesn’t mean that that’s it every time but there seems to be a correlation between stress and
Bob Smith 5:24
very interested in the sector and what’s going to give you more stress than a family of girl. Let’s hide me when I met. Well, it would seem to be self to feed
Marcia Smith 5:33
her fun. It’s just a fun place. houseful full of girls in puberty, okay.
Bob Smith 5:40
Okay. All right. I’ve got a question for you. This is what is the world’s oldest surviving recipe? How old is it and what is it for? Survive? So it’s an actual recipes and actual recipe somebody found bread or something? No, it’s a recipe for bread. It was found in stone. It was a recipe that was found.
Marcia Smith 6:00
I go back it was it bread? No. Oh, okay. Well, then it was found in stone. A recipe was carved in stone carved
Bob Smith 6:07
in stone.
Marcia Smith 6:07
Was it for beers? That’s
Bob Smith 6:09
exactly right. Are you kidding? Yes. It’s a formula for making beer. It was discovered outside Baghdad in 1860 on a 3800 year old Sumerian clay tablet. Now they found two other tablets. What do you think was on them?
Marcia Smith 6:26
Wine and
Bob Smith 6:29
the two other tablets are believed to contain words to drinking songs. So there we go. Funny. The oldest recipe is for beer and next to it some stones with some drinking songs
Marcia Smith 6:41
and and you know, right after the pyramids, they build brew pubs. Is that right? I didn’t know that.
Bob Smith 6:48
I didn’t know that a little, little village there underneath the pyramids. But you
Marcia Smith 6:53
probably didn’t know that the first World Tournament of Horseshoe pitching took place in 1909. In Bronson, Kansas. Would you like to guess? The men’s record for consecutive ringers during the horseshoe cat test and the rigger is an actual Porsche is making those
Bob Smith 7:13
around that pole there. Yes. The number of consecutive ringers? Yes.
Marcia Smith 7:17
It was made in the 1950s the all time record and no one’s beat it yet. 50 ringers, it’s 72. Wow, a gentleman by the name of Ted Allen did it in the early 1950s. And it’s still an unbroken record. The woman’s record is 42. And that was set by Ruth haggin in 74. But still 70 fours
Bob Smith 7:39
are hard records. I mean, when you think yeah, throwing that piece of metal and making passive
Marcia Smith 7:43
Yeah, obviously you get into a zone. Yeah. And you just don’t move your arm. If anybody comes up and hands you a beer or something, you’re gonna get
Bob Smith 7:55
a beer, that’s probably not that that’ll just ruin your judgment. Okay. Okay. I have a question for you here on. Remember, we did some questions on mountains last time. So I’ve got a couple of mountain questions leftover that we didn’t get to. Because you said only do one and I said why? And you said because I’m not good at geography. Did I say that? Yes. I don’t recall off Mike. So we’re back on, on Mike. And remember we talked about if you took a list of the 109 tallest mountains in the world, I asked you what continent they would be on? And the answer was Asia. Yeah. 109 tallest mountains are all in Asia. Okay. Okay. So what’s the tallest mountain outside of Asia?
Marcia Smith 8:37
Kilimanjaro.
Bob Smith 8:38
That’s an Africa. That’s a good question, or a good answer. But it’s not the tallest mountain outside of Asia.
Marcia Smith 8:46
Is it in America? It’s in the Americas? Yeah. So it’s, it’s that one over there on the West Coast. Right. Like what like, like Pikes Peak or wait, Denali in Alaska.
Bob Smith 9:00
That’s a great guest and it’s wrong. You know, this goes to show how North American centric we and the rest of the world south. It’s in South America. Yeah. I’ll come Gaga. It’s the tallest mountain in South America. In fact, in all of the Americas, and it’s in the Andes. In Western Argentina. It’s 22,834 feet tall. No, that is tall. That’s more than four miles high yet. It’s only the 189th highest in the world. But like you said, the tallest mountain in North America is Denali, which was formerly known as Mount McKinley, and that’s 20,320 feet. One more mountain. Okay, one more mountain question. Fascinating.
Marcia Smith 9:40
So,
Bob Smith 9:41
this is my last mountain question for the day. Thank you. What is the highest capital city in the world? It’s on a mountain.
Marcia Smith 9:49
Is it city in Tibet? No, no, it’s
Bob Smith 9:53
La Paz, Bolivia. It’s a city of 1.8 million people. It’s at 11,907 The five feet above sea level which makes it the highest capital in the world.
Marcia Smith 10:04
All right, let’s put this in the category of it’s always something. In 1943 the United States Safety Council reported that an American soldier became became trapped in his sleeping bag. venture a guess on how that happened. This
Bob Smith 10:24
is a National Safety Council story. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 10:27
I soldiery night before I go to bed soldier.
Bob Smith 10:31
A soldier was trapped in his sleeping bag sleeping bag. Why? Well, the zipper didn’t work, obviously. Oh,
Marcia Smith 10:38
no, no, this is bigger than that. Oh, really? Yeah.
Bob Smith 10:41
This is trapped in a sleeping bag. Was this during warfare? It
Marcia Smith 10:45
was 1943 it doesn’t say where he was. I’m sorry. Okay. Well tell us the the zipper was struck by lightning and welded shut. Hahaha. Oh, Lord, the whole thing welded shut and they couldn’t get him out. So they had a I don’t know. I imagine they had a cut. You know, everything else. Wow. That’s something that’s
Bob Smith 11:07
amazing. You imagine a welded shut so it’s solid metal? Yeah.
Marcia Smith 11:10
And he survived. Yeah. And it just melted as soon as lucky.
Bob Smith 11:14
Oh, God. You know, this brings up something. I was doing some research today. And I found there’s a distinction between the zipper and the fly. People say Your fly is open. Yeah. Oh, is it the flap is the fly? Yeah, the flap that goes over a zipper is called the fly. That’s technically the flights not the zipper. So your flyers interchange
Marcia Smith 11:31
them? Yeah. Yeah. Well, crazy people that we are. Okay, Marcia,
Bob Smith 11:35
where did the term cup for policemen come from? CLP. There are two theories. I’ll give you points for either one. Two theories, okay.
Marcia Smith 11:49
I’ll say comes from copper. That’s
Bob Smith 11:52
one theory. Very good. And because the copper buttons were the bobbies in England, some people thought
Marcia Smith 11:59
that’s what I was gonna say copper buttons. Okay, but there’s another
Bob Smith 12:02
theory. Okay. Now if you watch any of those British TV dramas on television like you and I do you always hear them use their abbreviations when they identify themselves of DCI Smith, which is Detective Constable inspector. Yeah. Well, many people believe the term cop comes from the British police acronym for constable on patrol. Oh, that makes sense. So that might be the answer. Don’t know for sure.
Marcia Smith 12:25
Both of them are good. And they’re both English because that was where the first police station was in Scotland Yard. Yes. Okay, but why do we drink a toast? On special occasions?
Bob Smith 12:36
Why do we drink a toast on special occasions? Was it a ceremony? Or was it like a safety measure?
Marcia Smith 12:44
Maybe. In the sixth century, Greeks discovered that poison wine was an excellent way to kill off their enemies here have a drink? Okay, so it became necessary at fun social events to reassure your guests. You weren’t killing them. So the host would have to always take the first drink. So that became accustomed but the Romans added a piece of burnt toast or toast us it was called oh really to the custom because it would absorb acid making the wine more pleasant to drink. Now I don’t know what they mean by acid do they mean acid like in poison or acid in the
Bob Smith 13:26
in the wine or so? That’s where the term comatose comes from flattering
Marcia Smith 13:30
words were spoken during the toasting ceremony to reassure guests of their safety. When
Bob Smith 13:37
they drink a toast. They really did have toast in the drink. Yeah, a hoppy dark.
Marcia Smith 13:41
Yeah, that was weird. Yeah.
Bob Smith 13:43
Yeah, that’s pretty cool. Okay, let’s take a break. We’ll be back in just a moment. You’re listening to the off ramp with Bob
Marcia Smith 13:49
and Marsha Smith.
Bob Smith 13:52
Okay, we are coming back Marcia and I’ve got one for you. I think you’ll like okay. You can learn a lot from your neighborhood grocer. And according to his neighborhood grocer, what were Osama bin Laden’s favorite American products. Were talking about the grocer was in in Pakistan down the street from his height. This is superb Trivia This probably came from a CIA report somewhere. Yeah, and
Marcia Smith 14:18
it was American food. A couple of things he liked. I’m sure just a couple but I’ll just say Doritos, and hotdogs, Pepsi
Bob Smith 14:26
and Coke were his two favorite food oriented things that were American. Now. The big question What were his favorite TV shows from America.
Marcia Smith 14:37
Oh man.
Bob Smith 14:37
One of these a blow your mind The Golden Girls. That would blow your mind. No, not the golden girl. Okay,
Marcia Smith 14:43
let me guess. Oh, I didn’t know NCIS Miami Vice. Okay, so NCIS isn’t too far out Miami Vice when they dressed real pretty back then MacGyver. Oh, yeah, cool. And
Bob Smith 14:55
The Wonder Years. Anyway, those three America TV shows were his favorites. According to his grocer, they must have interviewed him. Miami Vice makes sense because it was violent and exciting. MacGyver makes sense, too. He was always in a jam figuring out how to free himself out of things. And no summer was in a jam. But The Wonder Years Yeah, all summer life and later to watch the great little show about growing up as an American kid in the 60s. That’s a head scratcher.
Marcia Smith 15:23
Well, yeah, it’s good setting you want to kill us all. In that was a charming, charming show.
Bob Smith 15:29
So again, the answer is Pepsi, coke, Miami, Vice MacGyver and The Wonder Years. Those are the favorite American products of Osama bin Laden.
Marcia Smith 15:36
Well, that’s true trivia and I like it. Okay. All right. This fascinated me because here in our little town every fall, there’s a Fall Harvest Festival, which usually includes a pumpkin regatta race down the local creek a pumpkin Regatta. They carve out these monster pumpkins get inside and paddle down the creek. These are pumpkin. Right. Okay, they’re seriously big.
Bob Smith 15:58
We’re talking here in Cedarburg, Wisconsin. Yes, you’ve mentioned that.
Marcia Smith 16:02
So people hollow them out and they float in them down the water. So here’s the question How big is the world’s biggest pumpkin to date? Are
Bob Smith 16:10
we talking wait? Yeah. Biggest pumpkin in the world weighs 857 and a half pounds.
Marcia Smith 16:18
That’s good. In 2016 The record was set in Belgium to a fellow who grew a gourd that weighed 2624 pounds. Holy cow
Bob Smith 16:30
2624 pounds. That’s a big bulk of the
Marcia Smith 16:35
secret to big pumpkins on a daily basis. You just water fertilizer and prune. And I also read if you got to put them up sometimes on like a little wood platform so they don’t rot underneath, you know, okay, so, but anyway, keep that in mind if we want to do something fun Come spring.
Bob Smith 16:52
Oddly enough. I do have a question about a pumpkin tourists you do? Okay, so pumpkins, they’ve been growing in America for over 5000 years. They are indigenous to the Western Hemisphere. They were completely unknown before the time of Columbus. Now, the question is, how did the pumpkin get its name? What is it really mean? Is it an Indian name? No, it’s French. But it was translated into English. My mistake. I don’t know. Okay. In 1584 the French explorer Jacques Cartier a reported from the St. Lawrence region that he had found gross melons, Grace melons, Yarrow s melons, big melons, right? It was translated into English not as big melons, but pumpy yawns pomp yawns or pumpkins for some reason, so as a mistranslation, but it means gross melons is the idea. Big melons. And they are a very good source of nutrition.
Marcia Smith 17:46
There’s so many jokes there. I’m not going to touch any of them.
Bob Smith 17:49
Okay, they’re not vegetables. Did you know that? Pumpkins are not vegetables? They are berries. Technically, a pumpkin is Berry. So
Marcia Smith 17:58
you’re saying this dude had a 2600 pound Berry? That’s
Bob Smith 18:01
a big Berry. Okay. Never thought of it that way. Did you know tomatoes are technically berries as well. All right.
Marcia Smith 18:09
What state Bob in the United States has the most named lakes larger than 10 acres.
Bob Smith 18:16
Oh, I think that’s Minnesota. Or Wisconsin. One of the two. I’ll see Minnesota land of 1000 lakes or something like that. Or 10,000 1000 1000. That’s right.
Marcia Smith 18:26
But no, they’re not the biggest Oh, sorry, Wisconsin. I 11,981 lakes that are larger than 10 acres and are named and are named Wisconsin beat out Minnesota by 139 lakes. So they’re so they’re so we should have more than dairy land on our license plates. It should say we got more than you
Bob Smith 18:47
know, we should tell our friends the friends that we see them next. Okay, this is another one of those. Where did it come from? What was it originally? This is an old expression. Probably remember hearing old folks saying this or watching a movie where somebody said this? What in tarnation?
Marcia Smith 19:02
What is a tiny, tiny should wait on my foot here.
Bob Smith 19:07
That’s tarnation Yeah, that’s that’s why we lived wasn’t tarnation Okay, where do you think that came from? What
Marcia Smith 19:12
did expression Yeah. Well, it didn’t really have anything to do with tar in a nation. No,
Bob Smith 19:18
it didn’t. Okay, you know, we humans always seem to have the need to compress or abbreviate things right? To save time, I guess you know, instead of saying do not we say don’t instead of saying will not we say won’t Well, what in tarnation derives from an old expression what? in eternal damnation. They flipped it around to say what in tarnation?
Unknown Speaker 19:41
Really? Yeah. The original phrase, the original phrase was,
Bob Smith 19:45
what? in eternal damnation, and then it got changed to talk. What in tarnation apparently, even in the days of eternal damnation people didn’t have enough time to useful expressions. Let’s just abbreviate it.
Marcia Smith 19:58
Okay. I hear let me Do a couple quickies Okay. In 1978, Illinois, sent out 1000s of notices to senior citizens in nursing homes informing them that their Medicare benefits would no longer pay for what?
Bob Smith 20:15
Their care. No medicine. No.
Marcia Smith 20:19
Abortion abortions. Oh,
Bob Smith 20:22
this is good sent to senior citizens. This
Marcia Smith 20:24
is Illinois and all its wisdom. Okay. Moving on. Remember the beaver teeth that I dazzled you with last week? Oh,
Bob Smith 20:32
yeah, question the beaver to grow an inch a month.
Marcia Smith 20:35
Yes. And I whittled down them an inch. Okay, so here’s the question. How long are the longest fangs of any snake?
Bob Smith 20:44
Probably about three inches.
Marcia Smith 20:46
That is long. No, it’s not quite that long. The much loved Gaboon Viper love pets? I’d never heard of it. Oh, has fangs that average two inches. And as a bonus, it can inject enough lethal venom in one shot to kill 30 grown men. Oh my goodness. It’s in fact, Philadelphia Zoo had one of these charmers, and it actually accidentally bid itself to death. They knew it was accidentally I say it committed suicide because it was in a zoo. Well, it could be. It could be okay. What do you got? Well,
Bob Smith 21:25
this is interesting. The question is, what are people dreaming during? COVID? Do you got any idea? I
Marcia Smith 21:30
heard you say that before? Let me see. They’re not dreaming about.
Bob Smith 21:37
It’s not good.
Marcia Smith 21:40
Being trapped somewhere. No,
Bob Smith 21:42
it’s not that it’s not that it’s, it makes sense. When you think about it, what is it? They’re applying big data to dream research. They actually were able to gather more than 9000 dream transcripts from 4000 people in 13 countries. So this is happening everywhere. Here’s what they found. Now think about this. COVID-19 is a virus. How do you generally describe a virus? I’ve got some kind of bug usually people say, Okay, well guess what? Those 19,000 pandemic related dreams were filled with armies of cockroaches. Oh man, masses of wiggling worms. swarms of bees and other insects including a grasshopper with vampire fangs. You talk about fangs. Wow. One particularly vivid dream came from a woman who dreams she saw a huge tarantula crawling into her apartment through the mail slug the door. So bugs swarms of insects, tarantulas, those are a lot of the dreams going on right now. COVID time I’m going to ask you now some more questions. Just regular dreams. Okay. So they went back and found the gathered all these transcripts of people’s dreams that go back more than a century 38,000 dream stories, put them in computers. And then they did key word analysis. What do you think they found in general about the dreams of men, women, teenagers, veterans and the blind to everyday dreams?
Marcia Smith 23:04
That people worry about falling or dying? Or what about women? Having kids? Women
Bob Smith 23:10
had more friendly upbeat dreams? Okay. Men’s dreams were more aggressive and negative. Teenagers dreamed about sex? That’s a surprise. War veterans had violent dreams and blind people dream more frequently of imaginary characters. Interesting.
Marcia Smith 23:29
Tell Bob, why don’t jet liners fly at lower altitudes? Why
Bob Smith 23:35
don’t they fly at lower altitudes? I always assumed it was because the big, smaller planes fly at lower altitudes. Birds fly at lower altitudes. So they’re trying to get above them because we know that a burden on jet engine can be disastrous. Yeah. Is that it?
Marcia Smith 23:50
No. Okay. They’re saving gas money. What the air is thinner at higher altitudes and offers less resistance to the plane. Hence, a plane uses less fuel when cruising at 30,000 feet versus 20,000 feet.
Bob Smith 24:05
I’ll be darned. I had no idea. I
Marcia Smith 24:07
didn’t think of it way up there and rarefied air, you’re not burning as much gas.
Bob Smith 24:12
Speaking of that, I have a question for you. I was thinking about this question the other day. What are the two disasters violent events, only possible because of airplanes that Wilbur Wright had to witness in his lifetime? You know, he and his brother invented the airplane. Two of the biggest events in his lifetime were tragedies. Atom Bomb atom bomb was one. What was the other one
Marcia Smith 24:35
for the United States? Pearl Harbor? Oh, of course. So
Bob Smith 24:39
can you imagine what must have been going through Wilbur Wright’s mind he died in 48. So he actually saw his invention take off and airlines and airplanes and and then two huge disasters. Pearl Harbor is that attack was only possible because of airplanes. First time in history and the dropping of the atomic bomb
Marcia Smith 25:00
Yeah. Wow, that would be, you could see
Bob Smith 25:02
your invention gone wrong. Yeah, you could see that he died three years after the atomic bomb was dropped. So he was aware of Yeah, yeah.
Marcia Smith 25:08
So Bob, why do some people trim their cat’s whiskers?
Bob Smith 25:14
for aesthetic purposes? I don’t know.
Marcia Smith 25:17
The answer is because they’re stupid. Oh,
Bob Smith 25:21
I’m sorry, I didn’t have that answer. Oh,
Marcia Smith 25:22
no whiskers act as feelers on cats. And cats depend on them to provide judgment of with when they go through anything. Okay, so whiskers almost always extend laterally beyond the body. Oh, I didn’t think about that. Yeah, they know how they always stick out just a little bit. So they’re they’re feelers when they’re thinking get their heads through something I’d ever so people that cut their cat’s whiskers are doing them a big disservice.
Bob Smith 25:51
Yes, I guess so. You never did that to your cat. Did you know I remember we had those pun pun book titles. Last time. I said I was cute. They’re kind of fun. Okay, so there is a new book out called the pun also rises. How the humble pun revolutionized language changed history and made word play more than some antics. Get it semantics, semantics, semantics, by John Pollock. Yeah, the writer is a former word pun champion.
Marcia Smith 26:21
All right, one more.
Bob Smith 26:23
What do you think this one’s about Moby duck? The true history of 28,800 bath toys lost at sea? Yes, it’s about Beachcombers, oceanographers, environmentalists, and fools including the author who went in search of them. That’s the whole title Moby duck, by Donovan home. So those are two fun book titles. Okay,
Marcia Smith 26:44
I’m going to close with a couple of quotes from this month’s Reader’s Digest. Of course, of course. Sarah Michelle Gellar, you know, she is yes, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Yes. She’s obviously home with COVID Because here’s her quote, wearing daytime pajamas and then changing into nighttime pajamas, sets a good example for your children. That is hilarious. And then here’s one by Senator John Neely Kennedy. The brain is an amazing organ. It starts working in a mother’s womb and doesn’t stop working till you get elected to Congress very ago and he was a Democrat and a Republican so he can say this from both sides
Bob Smith 27:28
of the aisle. Alright, that’s it for this edition of the off ramp. I’m Bob Smith.
Marcia Smith 27:34
I’m Marcia Smith.
Bob Smith 27:35
Hope you’ll join us again next time when we show up with more fun trivia. The off ramp is produced in association with CPL radio and the Cedarburg Public Library Cedarburg, Wisconsin.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
