Bob and Marcia engaged in a lively conversation, covering a range of topics from science and history to personal choices and popular culture. Bob shared his knowledge of Edmund Halley’s contributions to the life insurance industry, while Marcia discussed the personal lives of famous inventors. The conversation then shifted to the Boston Tea Party, advertising for maternity clothing, and Broadway shows. Bob provided in-depth insights on the history of Lane Bryant’s introduction of maternity apparel, while Marcia shared her opinions on popular shows like ‘The Sound of Music’ and ‘Wicked.’ Through their conversations, the speakers demonstrated how scientific discoveries, historical events, and personal choices can shape our understanding of the world.
Outline
US presidents’ clothing choices and Halley’s Comet.
- Marcia Smith: John Quincy Adams was the first president to wear long pants, a political statement (1825)
- Bob Smith: John Quincy Adams was the first president to wear pants like we would today, not breeches (1825)
- Halley’s Comet and the life insurance industry share connection to Edmund Halley, who invented actuarial tables and helped establish life insurance industry in 1693.
- Marcia and Bob discuss the Boston Tea Party, with Marcia asking questions and Bob providing answers.
- Bob estimates the value of the tea destroyed during the Boston Tea Party to be around $2 million in today’s money.
History, advertising, and movie soundtracks.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the origins of Antifa and the American Revolution, as well as the history of the PGA and golf profession.
- Lane Bryant introduced maternity clothing in 1911, revolutionizing the industry.
- Marcia and Bob discuss the top 5 best-selling movie soundtracks of all time, including “The Sound of Music,” “Saturday Night Fever,” and “Dirty Dancing.”
- Marcia asks Bob about the weight of a blue whale’s tongue, which can weigh as much as a fully grown elephant or a sport utility vehicle.
Broadway shows and film soundtracks.
- Marcia and Bob discuss Broadway show cast recordings, with Marcia naming some of the top sellers and Bob providing additional information.
- The pair then moves on to other topics, including their personal experiences with various shows and their opinions on the popularity of different productions.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the best-selling Broadway film soundtracks, with Marcia providing clues and Bob guessing the names of the shows.
- The top 5 best-selling Broadway film soundtracks are A Chorus Line, West Side Story, Evita, Chicago, and Mamma Mia.
Entertainment, history, and inventors.
- Marcia Smith and Bob Smith discuss Dolly the cloned sheep and Evil Knievel, with Bob providing interesting facts and Marcia sharing her thoughts on their silliness.
- Bob Smith shares a question about an animal that climbs trees in the jungle but doesn’t have feet, with Marcia correctly guessing monkeys.
- Isaac Singer, inventor of the Singer sewing machine, had 24 illegitimate children while hiding his extramarital affairs.
Animal gliding, weather systems, and cricket temperature estimation.
- Marcia and Bob discuss the gliding abilities of flying squirrels, with Marcia sharing a record of 1476 feet and Bob finding it amazing.
- Marcia and Bob discuss the relationship between crickets and temperature, with Bob sharing a method for estimating the temperature using the number of chirps in 15 seconds.
- Marcia and Bob also discuss the difference between cicadas and locusts, with Bob mistakenly thinking they are the same thing.
Marcia Smith 0:00
Who was the first president to wear pants?
Bob Smith 0:03
And what do Halley’s comet and the life insurance industry have in common? answers to those another questions coming up in this episode of the off ramp with Bob and Marcia Smith
Welcome to the off ramp a chance to slow down steer clear of crazy. Take a side road to sanity and get some perspective on life. Well, Marcia, that’s quite a question there. The first president to wear pants think about it. We’re not talking Levi jeans are we out now? Because they didn’t wear the pants like we have today. Can you explain that a little bit before I get to the answer.
Marcia Smith 0:58
Okay. Yeah, well, what did they wear? What did George Washington wear pantaloons? I don’t know, there was a name for those half pants they were called breeches. Oh, okay. You know those little things that came down the calf. They were above the calf. Anyway, that was a very much held over tradition from England where you would dress to impress and apparently showing off your your ankle and press your muscular calves you press people, but so it we didn’t have an American style back in the day. So all the precedents wore breeches. You see them in all their poses and fancy pants.
Bob Smith 1:38
So I will say Andrew Jackson was the first president who didn’t wear those. You’re getting
Marcia Smith 1:42
warm. Like I said, John Adams wore breeches but his son, John Quincy, he was the first one to wear pants, the
Bob Smith 1:51
first president to wear pants, what we would call pants today.
Marcia Smith 1:55
Yes, it was starting to become a political statement. That day, if you were the breeches still, it was kind of a conservative, old fuddy duddy way where John Q was, you know, he’s a hip guy who. He was a great diplomat. He helped formulate the Monroe Doctrine, and he was steadfastly against the expansion of slavery. Anyway, this new fancy pants guys, and I’m not wearing those and he put on long pants. I’ll be darned. So there you go.
Bob Smith 2:23
So when was John Quincy Adams elected president? knew
Marcia Smith 2:26
you’d ask? So I wrote it down. He was the sixth president. And he was elected in 1825.
Bob Smith 2:33
So it took until 1825. Before we had a president who really wore his pants. That’s correct. Okay.
Marcia Smith 2:40
That’s a question sent in from Steven short. Oh, that’s great. San Francisco.
Bob Smith 2:45
Thank you, Steven, thank
Marcia Smith 2:46
you for inviting me to give you Mr. President two who loves his President questions. He wanted me to give you that question.
Bob Smith 2:53
Okay. Well, I didn’t have that answer. I have the answer. And who really wore the pants in the family was John Quincy Adams. All right. Thank you, Steve. Okay, here’s one. We all know that there’s a comment that circulates and comes back every so many years. It’s called Halley’s Comet. I used to think it was Halley’s. But I read the name of rhymes with Valley. So it’s Halley’s Comet. Now what do Halley’s comet and the life insurance industry have in common?
Marcia Smith 3:21
They only pay off every 10 years. 20 years 50 or under?
Bob Smith 3:27
What they have in common is Sir Edmund Halley, because as a British scientist and astronomer and mathematician, he did many things he predicted the orbit of that comet, which was named for him, he published the first charts of the prevailing winds of the oceans, so we know where the winds are. And he recorded the celestial latitudes and longitudes of 341 stars. So he actually kind of mapped out the skies. But He also invented actuarial tables. And that’s what the foundation of the life insurance industry is interesting
Marcia Smith 3:56
mashup of profession it is. Yeah, he
Bob Smith 4:00
apparently had a talent for reducing large amounts of data to meaningful information. And in 1693, he studied the death records of the city of Wroclaw, Poland, and he published his findings in an estimate of the degrees of the mortality of mankind. Now, that article helped the British government sell life insurance annuities at an appropriate price based on the age of the purchaser. What year was that? That was in 1690.
Marcia Smith 4:25
So they was life insurance in the 1600s. Holy cow.
Bob Smith 4:28
Right,hand actuarial tables became the foundation of the life insurance industry and that was 1693 that it became a science based on the you know, estimate of how long you know,
Marcia Smith 4:39
they had a good chance to make money they saw the actuarial table and that Yeah, okay. And the odds can be in our favor. It’s like Las Vegas, right? Where the answer Yeah,
Bob Smith 4:48
basically, yeah. Was from the astronomer Edmund Halley. Okay, got it. All right.
Marcia Smith 4:53
Okay. Bob, what was the first city in the world to reach a population of 1 million?
Bob Smith 4:59
I thought it was supposedly Rome and back way, way back. But it could have been Beijing or or one of the Chinese cities.
Marcia Smith 5:07
Yeah, they were early but you nailed it honey, Rome in 133 BC.
Bob Smith 5:12
133 bc it had a million people. Yeah. Oh, my God. That’s amazing.
Marcia Smith 5:17
I thought so too. And did you know there’s a Rome on every continent in the world? Yeah.
Bob Smith 5:21
Well, just Rome, New York. I don’t know what other cities in the United States have wrong? Well,
Marcia Smith 5:25
just every continent has at least one room. Okay, I have a question
Bob Smith 5:29
for you.
Marcia Smith 5:30
How big? How big was it?
Bob Smith 5:33
How big was the Boston Tea Party? We all heard of the Boston Tea Party. What
Marcia Smith 5:37
do you mean in terms of? Well, number of people,
Bob Smith 5:40
it was big. It was pretty expensive, too. So you
Marcia Smith 5:44
gotta give me a quantify here. How
Bob Smith 5:46
should I? Well, you know what it was about? Yes. taxes, taxes on tea. Right? Correct. And that was one of the last taxes that the British refused to release, because we have to show our authority to the continental people. We can tax them take
Marcia Smith 5:59
the breaches and the tea. That’s right. Okay. So,
Bob Smith 6:03
how many chests of tea and how many tons of tea and what was it worth? Any idea? Just give me a round number.
Marcia Smith 6:11
How can I just say what it’s worth in today’s dollars or back then in today’s dollars in today’s dollars? I’ll say 432 million.
Bob Smith 6:20
No, it wasn’t that much. Okay, that’s a lot. That’s a lot of tea Marsh. Okay, so now let’s go back in time, this goes, just goes back to December 16 1773. Other cities refused to buy tea. Basically, they just said, we’re not going to buy the tea. Just take your ship back to England. And they sailed all the way back with his tea. merchants were very upset the government No, they’re not buying tea. But in Boston, there was a law that once your ship docked, it had to be unloaded, and the stuff had to be sold. So the night before it was going to be unloaded a raiding party dressed as Mohawk Indians, through 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor. Now, how much tea did they destroy 42 tons of tea? That’s a lot of tea, valued at 9,000 British pounds at the time. Now I went online to see well, what’s that worth in US dollars today? Today, that would be the equivalent of $1.9 million worth of tea. That was the price tag for the Boston Tea Party. $2 million in today’s money. Yes.
Marcia Smith 7:21
That was the beginning of Antifa. That was
Bob Smith 7:27
that was the beginning of the end of civil government. Yeah. Because after that, what the British overreacted, they took away Massachusetts rights to have town meetings. They dissolve the legislature, and any British official who was accused of a crime would be taken all the way back to London for trial. So you’d never you didn’t know if anybody was punished for anything they did wrong. Yeah, yeah. So all that led to the American Revolution. And tea party.
Marcia Smith 7:51
Thank you, Mr. History.
Bob Smith 7:52
Let’s just put that to you way now. Had I
Marcia Smith 7:57
asked your teas. When was the PGA founded Bob, you know what the PGA
Bob Smith 8:02
National Golf Association? Yeah, I would assume that goes back to the late 19th, early 20th century, and I would say around 1910 or 1920.
Marcia Smith 8:11
My goodness, for a non sports guy you You’re good at this 1916 Right, right in the middle of your guests. Today, there are 29,000 men and women members, and it started by a fellow named Rodman Wanamaker, I think is one. It’s a well known name, and he established it to elevate the standards of the golf profession and to grow interest and participation in the game. And it did and it didn’t take off till Tiger Woods joined the club.
Speaker 1 8:41
I think it took off a little before that it did but it’s it really took
Bob Smith 8:46
off and Hogan and all those guys back in the Yeah, it’s always
Marcia Smith 8:48
had a following, but it really became much more of a craze after Tiger took to the professional tour.
Bob Smith 8:57
Okay, now in advertising question yes to your advertising history. It wasn’t until 1911 that the New York Herald accepted advertising for a specific type of product. By closing time that day, the entire stock of this product was sold out what product was finally allowed to advertise in a New York newspaper in 1911. That had never been advertised before. And you know the name and not cigarettes is a woman’s product. It’s a fashion product, a fashion a girdle. No maternity fashion. Oh villi and the brand was Lane Bryant. Oh, no kidding. Yeah. Lina Hammerstein, a Lithuanian immigrant who had married and had been widowed by her first husband, David Bryant went into the business for herself making ready to wear clothing and she also introduced the first maternity dress in 1904. Wow wasn’t until 1911 the New York Herald accepted the advertising for maternity clothing and here’s what the Lane Bryant ad said. I’ve got it here. It is no longer the fashion nor the practice for expectant mothers to stay in seclusion and Doctors and nurses and psychologists agree that at this time just waiting, a woman should think and live as normally as possible to do this she must go about among other people and must look like other people. Lane Bryant has originated maternity apparel in which the expectant mother may feel as other women feel because she looks as other women look. And again, by closing time, the entire stock of that date time maternity fashion had been
Marcia Smith 10:24
sold out. It’s like pantyhose. Hello. It was the beginning of a new industry. Yes, absolutely.
Bob Smith 10:31
Because it was like you’re pregnant and you would just nobody even talked about that. It was with child. Yeah. And then the woman is hiding apparently for the next nine months.
Marcia Smith 10:39
It’s crazy. And you know what’s so funny about going full circle for fashion and pregnancy now? So few people wear maternity clothes, they put on tight clothes to show off their bump there and baby bump. So it’s totally different. Very different. Okay. Can you name any are some of the top five best selling movie soundtracks of all time? I
Bob Smith 11:00
would say the sound of music would be one. Nope. And then I would say
Marcia Smith 11:06
of the top five. I
Bob Smith 11:07
think that that would be one of them. It’s the sound of music. It’s a soundtrack album. You’ve seen all these movies? And are they primarily in the last like 20 years or something more? More than that? Let’s put the one of the Disney films we talked about recently that sold so many millions of copies or was seen by many millions of people. One of the frozen Oh albums. Is that one of them?
Marcia Smith 11:28
No. Okay, I don’t know. Okay, does go. Oh, oh.
Bob Smith 11:32
Oh, yeah, sure. They went Saturday Night Fever. Saturday Night Fever was
Marcia Smith 11:36
number two. Another dancing movie was number three. What’s that? It’s up at the resort in
Bob Smith 11:43
Oh, up in the Catskills. Yeah. What was that that time of my
Marcia Smith 11:49
dirty dance Dirty Dancing. Okay, and the king of the world? Oh, really? The Titanic soundtrack. And number five was Greece. Okay. The number one was the bodyguard.
Bob Smith 12:01
Oh, no kidding. Whitney
Marcia Smith 12:02
Houston.
Bob Smith 12:03
I never thought of that as a soundtrack. No me
Marcia Smith 12:05
either. But she’s saying you know, awesome in there. And okay, sure. So that was the five best selling movie soundtracks of all time.
Bob Smith 12:13
That makes sense. Okay, to change topics. How much does a blue whales tongue weigh? This is a Marcia question. It is. The blue whales tongue weighs as much as a fully grown elephant. Just the tongue of a blue whale. Really? Yeah. Or as much as a sport utility vehicle. All right. Between 12 102,000 pounds,
Marcia Smith 12:36
so it’s a ton. Yeah. Tang.
Bob Smith 12:40
Tang. That’s exactly right.
Unknown Speaker 12:42
All right. All right. And
Bob Smith 12:43
what is unusual about wombat poop.
Marcia Smith 12:45
Oh, you would just follow Marcia question
Bob Smith 12:48
full of this. What is unusual about wombat poop?
Marcia Smith 12:52
Is it the shape of it? Yes, it is. Is it rectangle?
Bob Smith 12:56
Yes, wombats poop and cubes. Well, they’re just like little squares.
Marcia Smith 13:00
Is it Rubik’s Cube? Yeah, no, it’s
Bob Smith 13:02
one bit squares. wombat cubes. You know you got me confused. Okay.
Marcia Smith 13:07
All right. All right. And
Bob Smith 13:08
one more. All right. What’s unusual about some sea slugs? They debated about even including this today. Well, I thought it might upset
Marcia Smith 13:15
that was a good that was a good idea, Bob.
Bob Smith 13:17
But apparently, you went down the wrong path, but you decided to use it anyway into it. Okay, some sea slugs have disposable penises. After meeting they fall off, but then they grow back.
Marcia Smith 13:29
There’s so many jokes there. I’m not going to touch anything. Okay, very interesting. Thank you for that enlightening information.
Bob Smith 13:37
I’ll bet you feel that. Okay.
Marcia Smith 13:39
All right now, you recall the last movie soundtracks best selling bodyguard Saturday night favorite? Can you name any of the top best selling cast recordings from Broadway shows? Sound of Music? None of this? None of the same darn.
Bob Smith 13:57
Broadway cast recordings. Does this go back way back. Are we talking about? Alfred.
Marcia Smith 14:02
We’ve seen all these except one. Me too.
Bob Smith 14:04
What’s his name? The fella from England that did all the shows. Oh, yeah. He’s
Marcia Smith 14:07
in here. Andrew Lloyd Webber. Yeah.
Bob Smith 14:10
So like cats. And it’s not here. What’s the one with the ramparts we saw that
Marcia Smith 14:15
live lame is what you’re thinking and that is number two. Okay, so leanness. I got one and Lloyd Webber did not do that. Okay, sorry. I know. You had a fight with my brother over this. How about the Phantom of the Opera? Yes, that’s the number three and
Bob Smith 14:29
that was Andrew Lloyd Webber Correct. Thank you. You’re welcome. Now how many ever I tried to come up we’ve got
Marcia Smith 14:35
the number two and number three. So these are
Bob Smith 14:36
all cast off this gap for what was that from mescaline way back when we were kids. Oklahoma. No. Oh,
Marcia Smith 14:49
my fair lady.
Bob Smith 14:50
Oh my god is what I said earlier. Oh, I said sound music
Marcia Smith 14:53
Yeah, just as cast recording. And number five is when neither one of us have seen wicked and number one you Should I have this one? All right, what’s the last big show? We saw? We went to Chicago. I know but I can’t say Hamilton. Oh, okay. Number one best selling cast recording. So tell me those Broadway show in order Hamilton lame is phantom My Fair Lady and wicked time that
Bob Smith 15:19
means it’s time now for a break doesn’t it? A break from all this wicked STAA we’ll be back with more in just a moment. You’re listening to the off ramp with Bob and Maricia Smith. Okay, we’re back with the off ramp and Marsha we did a question similar to this some time back but it’s not the same animal. What animals see more daylight than any other creature on the planet. Oh,
Marcia Smith 15:44
that’s intriguing. More daylight. It’s something that flies let’s put it that way. Something that flies daylight and it’s
Bob Smith 15:54
not paper. I don’t know. It’s Arctic turns. These are birds. You think you have a long commute when you have to go to work they have the longest commute known to man or beast 25,000 mile round trip you know why? No, because they commute between their breeding grounds and their wintering grounds in the Antarctic 25,000 miles so they go from the Arctic to the Antarctic. So each year if they make that trip flying from pole to pole almost never landing, really. And because of that migration pattern, they see more daylight than any other creature on Earth. The Arctic turn that to etrn was the name of the bird or did they go to retire? I wonder if they go to Florida like everybody else. Arizona or Florida?
Marcia Smith 16:37
Just wondering. Okay, last question like this. And it’s totally different answers for the top five.
Bob Smith 16:44
Well, hopefully it’s different answers. It’s a different question.
Marcia Smith 16:47
Well, it’s not that difference. Okay. Can you name any of the top best selling film soundtracks?
Bob Smith 16:53
Well, I thought that’s what we were talking about earlier.
Marcia Smith 16:55
Now we did cast cast recordings from the Broadway show Hamilton. It was number one with the cast recording from the original show, but this is film soundtracks. So these are what was the first question you asked me the one was best selling movie soundtracks of all time.
Bob Smith 17:12
Well, what are you talking about now? It’s film soundtrack same thing film
Marcia Smith 17:15
soundtracks, a Broadway shows.
Bob Smith 17:17
Oh, dear God, I know this is a subcategory of a subcategory. I
Marcia Smith 17:21
find it interesting because not
Bob Smith 17:22
saying it’s not interesting. It’s just confusing. I
Marcia Smith 17:25
know honey, I’m here for you. Okay. All right. I know you’ve seen you’ve seen all these movies, best selling Broadway film soundtracks? These were Broadway shows brought to film and
Bob Smith 17:35
can I get any other hints like about give me a hint for one? The plot maybe or the setting?
Marcia Smith 17:42
Okay. All right, Mario. Oh,
Bob Smith 17:45
okay. So we’re talking. That one took place in New York City, Leonard Bernstein did the music and it was called hot the heck was that cool.
Marcia Smith 17:55
Northside Neighborhood. No, I
Bob Smith 17:57
can’t think the name of it Westside. Westside story. That’s
Marcia Smith 18:00
number three. And don’t cry for me.
Bob Smith 18:03
Okay. Well, I won’t. Oh, don’t cry. Don’t cry for me. Argentina. Yeah. Well,
Marcia Smith 18:08
what’s the name of those show?
Bob Smith 18:09
Well, I thought that was it. No, it’s the name of the woman. Yeah, she was the wife of the dictator. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That’s as far as the brain wants to go. That’s
Marcia Smith 18:19
Aveda. That was number two. Okay. Number four was Chicago. Oh, okay. We saw that number five Mamma Mia Yamamoto? Yes, that was number one came in as Oh, I’m sorry. This was referenced on the first one. But this is number one on this one. And it is Greece. Okay. It’s the best selling Broadway film soundtrack. So there you have it.
Bob Smith 18:45
Perfect. You have confused and most of our audience. What’s
Marcia Smith 18:49
great is you hardly answered any of those. Yeah, I
Bob Smith 18:51
know you love that. Let me ask you a very sophisticated question. Since you got all this entertainment. All right. Why was Dolly the cloned sheep named after Dolly Parton. This is the first cloned sheep remember? Remember
Marcia Smith 19:05
the whole thing?
Bob Smith 19:06
Why dolly well named after Dolly Parton. The
Marcia Smith 19:09
thought that comes to mind is not good for Family Library.
Bob Smith 19:13
Marcia. Here’s the answer shame on you. It’s because Dolly the cloned sheep was cloned from a mammary cell. It’s true. She was the first cloned animal and the Stockman adopted that name for her because Dolly Parton has many memory cells, okay, man, or his one. Oh, I wish here’s a question. Animal question. Another animal question for you, Marcia. We’ve moved from Dolly the cloned sheep into another sophisticated area. What climbs trees in the jungle but technically doesn’t have feet. What is it? You’ll be surprised at this. I will, huh? Yeah. Everybody will be surprised.
Marcia Smith 19:49
All right, then. Tell me monkeys. They don’t have feet. You
Bob Smith 19:52
think they have hands and feet but because they have opposable thumbs instead of big toes. They’re classified as being four handed crew Teachers really didn’t know that. I didn’t know that. That’s also why they could claim so well. That’s
Marcia Smith 20:05
why we’re here to enlighten people. That’s right. You remember Evil Knievel bought? Oh,
Bob Smith 20:09
yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was a rocket. We’re motorcycles. He would shoot over the canyons, and so forth. Yeah,
Marcia Smith 20:16
we grew up watching him do stupid,
Bob Smith 20:20
stupid, dangerous thing.
Marcia Smith 20:21
He holds the Guinness Book of World Records for the most broken bones. Really? How many broken bones? Did
Bob Smith 20:28
we have? 200 or 250? Broken bones at some point. 433.
Marcia Smith 20:32
Good god. Yeah, he stopped jumping in 1976 when he was seriously injured during a televised and I think we all saw this attempt to jump over a full tank of sharks at the Chicago amphitheater. He died in 2007 at the age of 69, from pulmonary disease. Well,
Bob Smith 20:52
she was pretty young when he died. When you think about all that, you know, when you watch those things at the time, I don’t know, we were in our 20s I think I was even thinking, why is this guy doing this? You know, is he making that much money? Does it make sense to do these? It’s silly thing. It’s
Marcia Smith 21:06
something you can’t relate to? Because it’s not in you. And that’s the the need to the danger thing. Danger and too they’re driven by different things. But I suppose you’re right. Of course I am. Okay.
Bob Smith 21:17
All right. Speaking of being driven by different things, I’m going to ask you this question. Another history question. Business history. Okay. One of America’s great inventors produce something on the side. Well, he produced his invention. This gentleman produced a number of illegitimate children. A big number. What’s happened, Franklin? No, not Ben Franklin. This is another inventor. Okay. Edison. No, this this gentleman invented something that went into almost every home on Earth at one point. Okay, tell me, Isaac singer. The sewing machines is someone Yeah, the inventor of the Singer sewing machines.
Marcia Smith 21:51
Yes, he got his bobbin going in and out somewhere well in 1852.
Bob Smith 21:55
That’s right. When he and his partner Edward Clark went into business together, he had already fathered 11 illegitimate children. Eventually, he fathered 24 Children 24 illegitimate children, he impregnated four women, only one of which he bothered to marry. And through a series of complicated maneuvers, none of the women found out about the other until 1860 When one of his gals saw him out for a ride with another woman she set off in hot pursuit and told the whole world about their relationship and police were called into break up a violent argument and then the newspapers told the story to the world. Singer took the younger sister of one of his mistresses with him, he fled to Europe. Clark was shocked he dissolved the partnership, but both he and singer retained stock in the company and singer died in his mansion in England in 1875. But Isaac singer who made millions of sewing machines, also father 24 illegitimate children. That was what he was doing on the side when he was inventing zip on it.
Marcia Smith 22:56
Okay, the largest gliding animal in the world, Bob is the giant flying squirrels found in the forests of Asia. Question, how far can they glide?
Bob Smith 23:10
Okay, because they go from tree to tree. Yeah, tree. Yeah. Is it? Is it in terms of feet? Yeah. Okay, so I’d say 300 feet. That’s a long way. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. 150 feet.
Marcia Smith 23:22
Now, the most recorded so far is 1476 feet. Holy cow more than the length of four football fields.
Bob Smith 23:33
Oh my god. That’s amazing. Yeah,
Marcia Smith 23:35
they grow up to three feet seven inches long and themselves the flying squirrels but still, they’re weird to look at if you’ve ever seen their bat wings or whatever. And that’s a lot of gliding
Bob Smith 23:47
that’s longer than a turkey can fly. Turkey has wings and it can’t fly that far. Oh no. And some of their other animals that are birds that you know have evolved to have the equipment but don’t fly with here is an animal that doesn’t.
Marcia Smith 24:00
So think about this at the opening of a football game instead of having the the jets fly over.
Bob Smith 24:08
Gliding squirrels released from what what would they be released? Some kind of a jet or something? I don’t know. Oh, that’s funny. Okay, that’s pretty good. Okay, a mountain question Marsh. Oh, you love those. Okay, mountains Creek
Marcia Smith 24:23
unless you put a president on top of them.
Bob Smith 24:27
1902 when Teddy Roosevelt stood at the peak of No, no, no. Okay. Mountains create their own weather systems. How many weather systems does Mount Kilimanjaro have?
Marcia Smith 24:38
How many out say for?
Bob Smith 24:40
No, it has six. Okay, interesting enough. Now that is a 19,340 foot mountain. So it’s one of the world’s tallest it. I didn’t realize this and it’s you’ve seen pictures of it in Africa. Yeah, it is a volcano with six ecological zones or micro climates. What are they? Where they don’t have names? for
Marcia Smith 25:02
you to ask me Okay, good. All
Bob Smith 25:03
right, let me ask you this little miss smarty pants. Where are a crickets ears located? Where are crickets ears located?
Marcia Smith 25:12
On you know, on his back? No. on his stomach? No on his head no. on his toes. You don’t know
Bob Smith 25:18
what’s left on his front legs just below the knees of course. Why would you put put the God put the ears of the cricket just below its knees? chance he was like why did you put them there? God? Okay. Okay, how can a cricket tell you the temperature?
Marcia Smith 25:36
Oh, the louder he crickets. The warmer it’s going to the rain is going to come?
Bob Smith 25:42
Nope. You count the number of chirps in 15 seconds. Yeah, you put a timer on it. 15 seconds. Then you add the number 37 And you have the temperature in degrees Fahrenheit. Oh, come on. That’s absurd. No, it’s true. If you take the number of chirps and 15 seconds, then you add 37 and you most likely you’ll have the temperature. That’s just the way it is Marsh I know you don’t like that.
Marcia Smith 26:03
But well come summer, baby. I’m gonna give that a whirl
Bob Smith 26:07
if you can hear it for the locusts. Yeah.
Marcia Smith 26:10
You know the difference between a cicada and a locust?
Bob Smith 26:12
I thought they were the same thing.
Unknown Speaker 26:14
I don’t know. Oh,
Marcia Smith 26:15
I was hoping you
Bob Smith 26:18
just added that one out. Okay. Looks stupid.
Marcia Smith 26:23
It’s not that hard. Okay. All right. I’m gonna leave you with a thought from Mac Anderson. You’re always just one choice away from changing your life. Oh,
Bob Smith 26:34
okay. I thought it was you’re always just one choice away from total disaster. That too. Or the best decision you ever made? Depends on how you look. Oh,
Marcia Smith 26:42
yeah. But I prefer to think you know, think people who are in desperate depression all that you just one choice away from changing your life forever.
Bob Smith 26:51
Well, that’s a nice neutral way to look at it. I thought I still have some hope there. Okay, I’ll look at it that way is a very positive thing to say is positive. Bob, what just tell it again.
Marcia Smith 27:01
You’re always one choice away from changing your life. What
Bob Smith 27:05
a positive thing to think. What a great way to end the show. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 27:09
Thank you, Bob. Well, that’s it.
Bob Smith 27:11
We hope you’ve enjoyed this half hour and you’ll join us again next time when we return with the off ramp. I’m Bob Smith,
Marcia Smith 27:17
I’m Marcia Smith.
Bob Smith 27:18
Till next time, take care bye.
The off ramp is produced in association with CPL radio online and the Cedarbrook Public Library Cedarburg, Wisconsin.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
