What’s the only river in the world to cross the equator twice? And how did Playtex help America win the space race? Hear the answers on The Off Ramp with Bob & Marcia Smith. (Photo: CNN Traveler)

Bob and Marcia discussed Playtex’s involvement in America’s manned space program, including the company’s contribution to the program by manufacturing spacesuits for astronauts. Bob shared insights on the quality of Playtex’s suit, while Marcia provided historical and cultural context. The conversation then shifted to a wide-ranging discussion on various aspects of history, culture, and language, including the origins of common phrases and sayings, Mark Twain’s inventions, and the use of innovative tactics in warfare during the American Revolutionary War. Both speakers shared interesting trivia and anecdotes, showcasing their vast knowledge and passion for learning.

Outline

Space suits and their history.

  • Playtex contributed to America’s manned space program by designing and building spacesuits for astronauts, including those worn by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Moon.
  • Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the challenges of designing and manufacturing spacesuits for the Apollo missions, including extreme temperature fluctuations and the need for durability and flexibility.
  • Playtex, an unlikely candidate, successfully developed a suit with 21 layers of flexible material, including bra and girdle material, and tested it by having a technician play football in it for several hours.

 

History, literature, and presidential trivia.

  • Bob Smith shares a fascinating story about a woman who became a spacesuit assembly supervisor after an engineer asked her to try something new.
  • Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the origin of the phrase “lost generation,” which was coined by Gertrude Stein in 1926.
  • The US president receives advice from 15 cabinet officers, with the inner circle consisting of the secretaries of State, War, Treasury, and Justice.
  • Marcia and Bob discuss the inventor of the bra clasp, Samuel Clemens, who also invented a scrapbook with self-adhesive pages that was popular and profitable.
  • Clemens’ invention of the bra clasp led to a standard used in bras for the next 150 years, and his scrapbook invention made $50,000 in sales.

 

History, language, and travel trivia.

  • Marcia and Bob discuss Hitler’s targets for extermination, including Jews, homosexuals, and people with disabilities.
  • Bob shares interesting facts about word origins, including the etymology of “fornication” and the misconceptions about fruits and vegetables.
  • Bob and Marcia discuss US presidents’ travel history, with Bob providing interesting facts and Marcia expressing confusion.
  • Bob and Marcia Smith discuss obscure facts, including Freud’s payment for “The Interpretation of Dreams.”

 

History, music, and trivia.

  • Marcia Smith shared her fascination with rock music and reading as a child, and Bob Smith discussed the origin of the phrase “he can’t hold a candle to you.”
  • Bob Smith asked Marcia Smith about Jon Bon Jovi’s first professionally produced album, and Marcia correctly identified it as the Star Wars Christmas album.
  • Marcia and Bob discuss the Red Sea’s name, the 27 Club, and the first submarine attack to claim lives in warfare.

 

Historical events and trivia.

  • Bob and Marcia discuss a historical event involving a one-man submarine and a British vessel, with Bob providing insights on the innovative tactics used.
  • Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discussed the origins of McCall’s, a major American magazine that started as a pamphlet to promote dress patterns.
  • In 1634, the first stocks for prisoners were built in Boston by a man named Palmer, who was later sentenced to a half hour in the same stocks.

 

Bob Smith 0:00
They were known for years for their living bras. How did Playtex contribute to America’s manned space program?

Marcia Smith 0:08
an uplifting subject? Okay. What’s the only river in the world to cross the equator twice? Wow,

Bob Smith 0:15
that’s a good one answers to those and other questions coming up in this episode of the off ramp with Bob and Marsha Smith.

Welcome to the off ramp a chance to slow down steer clear of crazy take his side road to Saturday and get some perspective on life. Well, Marcia, that gives me a different kind of perspective. This is a river that what was that? Again? It crossed me

Marcia Smith 0:53
it crosses the equator twice.

Bob Smith 0:55
What river crosses the equator twice?

Marcia Smith 0:59
It flows both north and south. Man.

Speaker 1 1:01
That’s a great question. Okay. Is that in the in the Americas? No. It has to be either in Asia or Africa then. So I’ll say is it an Africa?

Marcia Smith 1:12
Maybe?

Bob Smith 1:14
Okay, but I don’t know the answer. The Congo.

Marcia Smith 1:16
The Congo River? Yeah, yeah, it crosses twice and runs both north and south. Wow.

Bob Smith 1:22
How long is that?

Marcia Smith 1:24
How long is it? It is 2920 miles long. Wow. It spans nine countries in Western Africa. It goes through nine countries. Yeah. It’s the second longest river in Africa after the Nile. And it’s the ninth longest river in the world. Wow.

Bob Smith 1:42
All right. Very good. Well, Marcia, they were known for years for their living bras. How did play techs contribute to America’s manned space program?

Marcia Smith 1:55
Well, it was it something to do with the the composition of the living bra that helped in their spacesuits, manufacturing,

Bob Smith 2:05
you’re right on target. That’s exactly right. Not only that, they actually manufactured and still manufacture this spacesuits for American astronauts, really the lunar landing suits that astronaut Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin wore on the Moon were designed and built by Playtex. I had no idea. Now the suits had been designed by other people before but this was a new item. This was a new problem. These suits were going to be worn on the moon. So they not only had to be inflated and pressurized to carry around, you know human atmosphere. They had to withstand temperatures of negative 280 degrees Fahrenheit in shadows on the moon to 500 degrees Fahrenheit in the sun. That’s the range of temperature that’s arranged go away, and they had just survived being hit by a micro meteorite traveling, traveling 36,000 miles per hour little specks of dust just hitting them. No wonder

Marcia Smith 3:00
I’ve had the same bra for 50 years.

Bob Smith 3:04
Now Playtex was part of a corporation called International latex company. They were an unlikely choice. They went up against Hamilton Standard BF Goodrich and Litton Industries, and the struggle they went through just to keep the contract could be a movie in fact, the guy who wrote the book on this actually option to to Warner Brothers. They haven’t made the movie yet. At one point Playtex when the contract to make the suits, then they were made a subcontractor to Hamilton Standard. So you have to make these but make them for Hamilton Standard. They’ve made backpacks for us and everything. So what is Hamilton’s standard? Do they fired plain texts? Then play Texas officials had to fly to Houston and they begged to be allowed to submit a suit at their own expense and the government said okay, and within six weeks they developed a suit with 21 layers 21 Flexible legally come on land. Yes, some of those layers were composed of bra and girdle material and

Marcia Smith 3:57
six weeks. It’s like the skunk works with Martin developing

Bob Smith 4:01
that great fighter plane. You’re

Marcia Smith 4:03
right in a short time. Okay,

Bob Smith 4:05
so what was their advantage? Well, some of the other suits were too big or too bulky. They couldn’t even get back into the spaceship with some of them. Once pressurization was so bad, the suit blew the astronauts helmet clean off. Oh my god. But Playtex they prove their suit was the best by sending a technician to the Dover high school football field in Delaware near their factory. And he played football with a colleague and they filmed it for a couple of hours he ran he kicked he punted he passed, he dropped to the ground did push ups while wearing the spacesuit. He even touched his toes without bending his knee. So they knew well this this looks like it would work. And every stitch of every inch of every layer of every suit had to be counted and inspected to make sure it was quality. So they brought in their best seamstresses from their consumer products group. One woman Eleanor foraker remembered I was sewing latex This baby pants and an engineer came over and asked if I’d like to try something else. So she did and she eventually became a spacesuit assembly supervisor and play tech suits worked perfectly. Neil Armstrong even wrote a letter thanking Playtex 25 years later. And today, they’re still making those spacesuits and guess what’s the address of their, the address of their factory

Marcia Smith 5:21
space way. It’s

Bob Smith 5:24
it’s one Moonwalker rode one mood marker in Dover, Delaware. So yeah,

Marcia Smith 5:30
that was pretty good story from it’s interesting that came

Bob Smith 5:33
from a couple of sources. One was Fast Company. And another one was from Nicholas Montrose book spacesuit fashioning Apollo.

Marcia Smith 5:42
I never heard about that before.

Bob Smith 5:44
I thought that was fascinating. Okay, Bob, Mr.

Marcia Smith 5:47
Presidential Scholar, who was the only person to win all the electoral votes for president. Okay, that’s

Bob Smith 5:55
hard to do today, because there’s a lot of electoral votes, a lot of states. So I’m gonna say it was easier in the beginning, although to get them all, obviously rare, because there’s only one person and that only one person has to be George Washington for you.

Marcia Smith 6:12
Our Founding Father, in 1789, the states ratified the Constitution, and decided that an electoral college would meet and elect a president. George was convinced to come out of retirement and received all the votes mazing It is, isn’t it never happened again.

Bob Smith 6:30
That’s right. All right. I’ve got a question from literature. I don’t know if you remember this phrase, a lost generation. Sure. That was from who who came up with it

Marcia Smith 6:39
for oh, gosh, let me think the last generation. It wasn’t Tom Wolfe was it?

Bob Smith 6:45
No, it was 27 year old Ernest Hemingway. But he didn’t come up with that phrase. Where did he get that phrase?

Marcia Smith 6:51
It does sound like an old old phrase, the last generation it’s, it’s not from Peter Pan, is it?

Bob Smith 6:58
It’s actually Gertrude Stein. i Huh. It didn’t have the great philosophical tone when she first picked it up either a garage owner was angry with a young French mechanic who didn’t make the proper repairs on Gertrude Stein’s Model T. Ford. And he told the boy, you are all a lost generation find him. He and he’s probably a World War One veteran upset with his young man. Yeah, yeah. But she told Ernest Hemingway and he was 27. He heard the phrase in 1926. And he used it. Oh, that’s awesome. Yeah, that’s where a lost generation came from. So that’s one of those examples of you know, just listen to the world around you, and you’ll get your inspiration for your art.

Marcia Smith 7:37
Oh, absolutely. And Peter Pan. That was the Lost Boys. That’s how I was saying. Yes, boys. Okay. Another presidential question, Bob, the US president gets advice on just about everything from his cabinet officers. There are 15 heads of various posts within the administration. But there are only four that make up the inner cabinet, the inner circle. And that’s goes all the way back to Washington. Those four heads of what four departments Oh, dear,

Bob Smith 8:09
here we go. That’d be the Department of State Correct. I don’t think they call it the Department of Defense, but he had the secretary, secretary of Ward. I’m trying to think of what agriculture

Marcia Smith 8:21
Nope. Oh, okay. Help me, Hamilton. Oh, Secretary

Bob Smith 8:25
of the Treasury. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that’s right. We need money

Marcia Smith 8:28
to run a government. That’s right. And the fourth is the justice.

Bob Smith 8:32
So those were the four major Cabinet posts in the original cabinet. Yeah,

Marcia Smith 8:38
that when they meet with the cabinet officer, so many, many presidents, including this one include the vice president in their inner circle. All

Bob Smith 8:46
right, Marcia, his hatred of a particular clothing item led him to invent something used by women to this day. He was an author. Who was he? What was his invention? He hated a particular item

Marcia Smith 8:58
of clothing for men or women for men. For men.

Bob Smith 9:02
I’ll tell you the item of clothing suspenders. He hated suspenders. Okay, so

Marcia Smith 9:06
he did the zipper. No, no, the belt.

Bob Smith 9:10
Nope.

Marcia Smith 9:12
What else holds up your pants? stretchy stuff?

Bob Smith 9:15
Well, it’s interesting because the invention never was used to hold up pants. Velcro. No. His hatred of a particular clothing item led him to invent something used by women to this day. Who was he? What was his intention?

Marcia Smith 9:33
You already did the broad questions.

Bob Smith 9:35
Well, this is a different thing about the the bra clasp.

Marcia Smith 9:38
You really went down and

Bob Smith 9:40
down the Yeah, let’s not talk about that. The bra clasp and who was it invented by?

Marcia Smith 9:46
I don’t know. But Mark Twain. Mark Twain.

Bob Smith 9:49
Yes. Yes, happened. That’s right. The Brock clasp that that hook into a fastener that you have on

Marcia Smith 9:58
the back of your bra. Many women have tried to figure out for you. That’s right.

Bob Smith 10:02
Samuel Clemens invented that I’ll be it was patented in 1871. He called it an improvement in adjustable and detachable straps for garments. It didn’t mention ladies undergarments. The strap was intended to be a portable one used to tighten shirts at the waist was supposed to take place of suspenders for trousers. Well, it never caught on for pants or shirts, only brazing ears and bra manufacturers quickly began applying it to lady’s undergarments. And his hook clasp became the standard for bras for the next 150 years still use to this day. That’s yeah, who would think that you would be thanking Samuel Clemens for that little brother?

Marcia Smith 10:40
I love it.

Bob Smith 10:41
I love it. Now he invented something for hobbyists. Did you know what he invented for hobbyists?

Marcia Smith 10:46
No.

Bob Smith 10:47
A scrapbook with sticky pages.

Marcia Smith 10:49
Oh, well, God bless him.

Bob Smith 10:52
He loved scrapbooking, but he hated the pastes on the glues. And so he created a scrapbook with self adhesive pages. And while you and I may have never heard of it, the US Patent Office says the improvement in scrapbooking was very popular, sold 25,000 copies. And the St. Louis Post Dispatch newspaper says he made $50,000 from the sales of that alone.

Marcia Smith 11:13
Well see, that’s why he falls in the category of extra ordinary and extraordinary man. Yeah, many levels because extraordinary people do multiple things. All right. Okay, Bob, other than Jews, who did Hitler want to get rid of?

Bob Smith 11:28
J? Anybody who disagreed with him? That’s one.

Marcia Smith 11:32
That is exactly right. Anyone opposed to the Nazis? Yeah. But there were very specific people that were part of his final solution. Okay. People with disabilities.

Bob Smith 11:43
Oh, that’s right. He didn’t like flaws and people,

Marcia Smith 11:47
homosexuals, gypsies, and then anyone who didn’t like the Nazis? I didn’t know he had those categories all lined up for extinction.

Bob Smith 11:58
Well, if you came to the camp and you were disabled, they put you over here and right away. Yeah, they got rid of you. Well, let

Marcia Smith 12:04
me move on to something more fun fornication. Okay. What’s the origin Bob of the word fornication?

Bob Smith 12:11
That’s a good question. It

Marcia Smith 12:12
is for nog,

Bob Smith 12:13
Rafi? I don’t know. How did that begin? How did for a

Marcia Smith 12:19
fee root words right? The word comes from the Latin word Fornix. Which means arch or vault. What do you say? Archer vault? It seems back in the good old days of ancient Rome. brothels were often in caves, under arches and even in Baker’s ovens.

Bob Smith 12:40
What? A brothel in a baker’s oven. I can’t make this up. Over time in the old town tonight, though. That’s exactly

Marcia Smith 12:48
where that phrase came from the word for next to begin to become the Latin word for brothel, which eventually led us to the English word that we all know and love. Fornication. Another F word. You can thank your Encyclopedia of word and phrase origins you gave me to come up with these doozies. So

Bob Smith 13:10
it’s my fault. Oh, of course. Okay, Marcia, this is kind of interesting, because we all know that there’s certain things that are named wrongly incorrectly. Yeah. Okay, and I’ve got a few here. All right. A pineapple is not related to an apple. It’s a berry. A horned Toad is not a toad. It’s a lizard. And banana oil has nothing to do with bananas. It’s made from petroleum.

Marcia Smith 13:34
There’s so much so much of that out in the world of so many lies.

Bob Smith 13:39
Here’s more like oranges, lemons. And believe it or not, watermelons are all berries. Really? Yeah, they’re not what you think these they’re not nuts. And a tomato is not a vegetable. It’s a fruit. It’s a berry, too. So those are all things that aren’t named by what you would think they would be. Those are all misconceptions. We are so so smart. We know these answers. All right, two questions on travel. Who was the first US president to set foot on foreign soil while in office? Say it again? Who was the first US president to set foot on foreign soil while in office while in off? Yes, because we know that Ulysses S. Grant took a world trip and that was after he was and

Marcia Smith 14:19
what did I miss? Jefferson went before he was President. Right. Let’s see who would have gone over there. I don’t know.

Bob Smith 14:29
Okay, the first president to set foot on foreign soil while in office was in 1906. It was Teddy Roosevelt who went to Panama. Oh, I shouldn’t know. Now, who was the first President to travel to Europe? Well, President it was close to that time.

Marcia Smith 14:45
After Teddy. I don’t know.

Bob Smith 14:47
Woodrow Wilson. Okay, when he was campaigning for the League of Nations, okay. People had been overseas before who became president or after they were president. You know, John Adams was over there as a diplomat before he came president. But while President there were no presidents that went outside US soil until 1906. So over 100 years past,

Marcia Smith 15:09
I’ll be darned. According to the US State Department bomb, what are vertical transportation units? vertical

Bob Smith 15:17
transportation unit? They’re not well, okay State Department so it’s got to be actually something that’s used outside of the country.

Marcia Smith 15:27
You’re getting too complicated.

Bob Smith 15:28
I am not talking about elevators then yes.

Marcia Smith 15:34
Why use one word when three words will work better as well. They

Bob Smith 15:38
love Vader was a trade name originally. And that was not just a generic term. Elevator and escalator are both trade names of the oldest company. Okay. Yeah. So they were invented. All right. Speaking of elevators, when and where was the first concrete green elevator introduced? You know, the silos that people use to put grain?

Marcia Smith 15:58
Was it in Europe? No. US? The US. us now. They hadn’t Kansas? No. New York City. No, Orlando. No, Mark,

Bob Smith 16:09
you’re going farther away come closer to home here. It was in 1900. At Duluth, Minnesota, Frank P. V built the 3.3 million bushel elevator, which reduced insurance rates on stored grain by 83%. And more his elevator made wood obsolete for building large grain storage facility was considered an innovation in agriculture. That’s

Marcia Smith 16:32
pretty obscure. Bob knows.

Bob Smith 16:34
Well. Speaking of obscure, that’s me. I want to take a break. Let’s take a break.

Marcia Smith 16:39
I think it’s done.

Bob Smith 16:39
All right. You’re listening to the off ramp with Bob and Marcia Smith. Back from obscurity, this is Bob Smith, along with my partner Marsha Smith, and you’re listening to the off ramp. Okay. Speaking of authors, which we did, how much was Sigmund Freud paid for his major work the interpretation of dreams? This is a story almost like the famous artists of the same period. The impressionists, a lot of them didn’t get rich. Right.

Marcia Smith 17:07
Right. I read that book is to read it under my pillow at night. I don’t know why. I didn’t understand how the

Bob Smith 17:13
question is, yeah, how much? How much was he paid? Okay, what year was that? 1899?

Marcia Smith 17:19
Okay, I’ll say $50,000.

Bob Smith 17:22
He was paid $209 Oh, my God. That’s it. Now there might have been good justification on the part of the publisher because it took eight years before the entire first printing 600 copies was sold. Oh, wow. As for the money he got Freud himself said insights such as this falls to one slot. But once in a lifetime. Today, the book is much more popular. At least three publishers sell it today. Wow. But he only got paid $209. And that’s because in eight years, only 600 copies were sold. But then they became a huge bestseller in this field.

Marcia Smith 17:56
I was fascinated by it as in grade school, a little little girl. I actually read it at night in bed.

Bob Smith 18:03
Really? Yeah. While the rest of us had our transistor radios listening to rock music that too. Oh. So you’re listening to rock and roll and reading and interpretation. And

Marcia Smith 18:12
I didn’t understand half of it. But it fascinated me. Well, here’s

Bob Smith 18:15
the Rock and Roll part. Okay, well, you

Marcia Smith 18:19
know how people often say, Bob, that you can’t hold a candle to me. You know how that is? People. People say that? Well, you don’t hear that. Oh, okay. Maybe not. But would you like to guess where the origin of the phrase, he can hold a candle to you? Meaning he’s greatly inferior to you. You know where that came from?

Bob Smith 18:38
That phrase, that’s a great phrase. And I’d never thought about he can’t hold a candle to you. What would that be? So that goes back before electricity does it how far back does that go?

Marcia Smith 18:47
16th century Holy cow 500 years. It was common in those good old days for servants to guide their masters along poorly lit streets by holding candles or going into a dark theater.

Bob Smith 19:02
So they went trip holding for the master like holding an elevator.

Marcia Smith 19:05
It was considered the worst of the menial jobs for servants. But some poor unfortunates didn’t always know the way around the roads or the theater. And they kind of got lost and they were said not to be worthy to hold a candle to anyone. Oh, is that what that means? Signet masters you aren’t worthy of holding a candle to anyone, isn’t it? I

Bob Smith 19:27
had no idea. Alright, Marsha. This comes from the you gotta start somewhere category.

Marcia Smith 19:32
Okay, haha.

Bob Smith 19:33
What was the first professionally produced album where the rock artist Jon Bon Jovi first appeared? Again, you got to start somewhere, and at least he got paid. What was the first professionally produced album that he appeared on?

Marcia Smith 19:48
Was it a famous album?

Bob Smith 19:49
It was at the time 1980 1980

Marcia Smith 19:50
I don’t know. Was it a Michael Jackson album? Oh, no,

Bob Smith 19:55
it wasn’t that good. It was the Star Wars Christmas album. because they did ADEA and Jon Bon Jovi was built under his birth name Jon Bon Jovi, spelled Bo N gi o vi and guess the title of the song he sang lead on.

Marcia Smith 20:14
Galaxy on high or something like that know about close.

Bob Smith 20:17
Our two D two, we wish you a merry Christmas. So that was his first gig professionally. That’s on vinyl. Then from there, Jon Bon Jovi became huge.

Marcia Smith 20:26
Mr. Bob, how did the Red Sea get its name? It

Bob Smith 20:30
must have to do with soil runoff? I don’t know. Is it something like ancient soil runoff that turned it red? Or was it an algae? Oh, is that what it was? It is an algae. Oh, good for you. Is this an ancient lake in the Middle

Marcia Smith 20:43
East? Right? Yes. And I thought for sure you’d go with the runoff because that’s what I did. But nay it was. It contains a certain algae which I cannot pronounce. Which when dying turns the normally intense blue green. Water red. So it’s dying algae. It’s

Bob Smith 21:02
the Red Sea. It is and it’s not the Dead Sea then it’s got something alive in it. Yeah. If it’s got algae

Marcia Smith 21:07
grow. Yeah, that’s exactly right.

Bob Smith 21:09
Okay, Marsha. I have another musical question for you. If you’re a musician, do you want to join the 27 Club?

Marcia Smith 21:17
Oh, no, I know what that is. What’s the 26 all the young rockers that died at age 27. That’s right. That included Janis Joplin Morrison. Yeah, there were quite a Cobain.

Bob Smith 21:28
Amy Winehouse, Jimi Hendrix. Yeah. Yeah. More than 50 musicians are members or I should say more than 50 former musicians or late musicians are members of the 27 Club.

Marcia Smith 21:40
That’s amazing. 50 Yeah, that’s that that just shows you. You’re probably you’re out of your you’re getting to confident probably at 27 You’re starting to feel empowered and invincible. Lots of money at the money invincible Janis Joplin right.

Bob Smith 21:59
Yeah, and you do kinds of stupid stuff. stupid

Marcia Smith 22:00
stuff. Okay,

Bob Smith 22:02
I’ve got a question for you about the first submarine attack to claim lives in warfare. When do you think that occurred? The first submarine attack they’ve claimed lives in warfare?

Marcia Smith 22:13
I’ll just say 1912 Well,

Bob Smith 22:17
the first submarine attack to claim lives in warfare was in 1777. I wouldn’t have guessed that. 1777 during the American Revolution, Sergeant Ezra Lee commanded the turtle that was the name of the world’s first military submarine. It was a one man vehicle ONE MAN Yeah, he was sealed in it like a sardine to attack a British vessel. He used a long hand wooden screw to bore holes into the bottom of English

Marcia Smith 22:45
shitting did they must have felt that at the bottom of the hole, so basically,

Bob Smith 22:49
he would go up to the ship underwater, and then he’d say, you know, screw a hole in him, and then they bought a clock timer would detonate a bomb, he would put a bomb in the bottom of the ship, and a clock timer would detonate the bomb after a 20 minute getaway. It was wow wasn’t too successful because the screw couldn’t penetrate many British vessels because they had metal plated holes. So they were very innovative and Navy of the British Navy, even in 1777. But in 1777 crew members of the British frigate service hauled in and object they thought to be a wooden keg, and it exploded, killing three men and blowing up a schooner that it was towing, all of which led the captain of the British ship to complain loudly of unsportsmanlike tactics

Marcia Smith 23:34
on sportsmen life and how you should kill us

Bob Smith 23:38
the British always thought war was like a sport. It’s not that’s very uncivilized. Oh,

Marcia Smith 23:42
you should just come up bow and then shoot us in the face killed three of our men

Bob Smith 23:46
unsportsmanlike. Oh, my goodness.

Marcia Smith 23:50
Well, here’s the word Bob. You want to tell me what you think it might mean? Okay. Qe topia.

Bob Smith 23:58
Q E topia.

Speaker 2 24:00
Yeah, how do you spell the QUEUETOPI? A?

Bob Smith 24:06
Is it like a question mark topia que me in question. Now. I have no idea.

Marcia Smith 24:10
It was a word invented by Winston Churchill and I actually had to go online to find out how to pronounce it. Q E. topia he, he invented a word to describe communist countries where people had to line up to buy anything also

Bob Smith 24:26
the Q means a line Yeah, that’s the British word for line that’s to Ethiopia’s

Marcia Smith 24:30
side I thought that was pretty funny. Hold it still goes on.

Bob Smith 24:35
Okay, Marcia, what major American magazine started out as a pamphlet to promote dress patterns.

Marcia Smith 24:43
Women’s Wear Daily No, it’s

Bob Smith 24:44
it doesn’t have a name that suggests clothing. Okay.

Marcia Smith 24:47
What is it McCall’s about make calls is a name of patterns. Well, you’re right.

Bob Smith 24:54
Most women are familiar with McCall’s dress patterns. They came out first then the magazine was invented to promote them McCall’s first appeared in April of 1876. Under the name the Queen and Scots American entrepreneur James McCall started the McCall pattern company in 1870. With a small shop on Broadway, he used his eight page pattern and fashion periodical to promote dress patterns. And it later grew to become a major women’s magazine was published until the early 2000s. Is 2002

Marcia Smith 25:22
I looked it up while you were talking. Okay, and Yeah, cuz I don’t recall seeing it lately. So that is why so

Bob Smith 25:29
the major American magazine that started out as a pamphlet to promote dress patterns was McCall.

Marcia Smith 25:34
What’s weird is I never connected the to the patterns in the magazine. Oh, really? Yeah. I don’t know why. Okay, and

Bob Smith 25:40
I’m going to close with this question, Marcia who occupied the first stocks for prisoners in Boston stocks are those wooden things you’d stick your arms or hitting your head to? Yeah, who occupied the first stocks for prisoners in Boston in Boston?

Marcia Smith 25:54
Oh, I’ll bet it was people’s who’s a tea over the side of the

Bob Smith 25:59
ships. This was in 1634. So it was over 100 years before though okay, then who? Okay. The person who occupied the first stocks for prisoners in Boston was the man who built in 1634, a man named Palmer built the stocks for the city of Boston, he submitted a bill for one pound 13 shillings. Well, the town elders thought that was excessive. So they charged him with profiteering. So instead of making one pound 13 shillings, they find him one pound and sentenced him to a half hour in the same stocks. He built himself. That

Marcia Smith 26:33
is, wow, what is sad justice that oh my gosh.

Bob Smith 26:38
All right, you’ve got the last thing there you want to use I’m

Marcia Smith 26:40
gonna close with a quote. Okay, I’m going to finish with a quote from Grand Prix legend Mario Andretti, who said, if everything seems under control, you’re just not going fast enough.

Bob Smith 26:55
I love that. All right. Well, I think we’ve gone fast enough. I think the time is up, pack up, we’ve crossed the line here. We hope you enjoyed our show today. And if you’d like to give us a question, you can go to our website, the off ramp dot show and scroll to contact us and leave us your name, your address, your question and the answer. And if you could tell us where you got the answer, that would be great too. So that’s it for today. We hope you will join us again when we return. I’m Bob Smith.

Marcia Smith 27:24
I’m Marcia Smith. Thanks

Bob Smith 27:25
for joining us today on the off ramp.

The off ramp is produced in association with CPL radio online and the Cedarburg Public Library Cedarburg, Wisconsin.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai