Bob and Marcia discuss various aspects of American history, including the first president to visit every state in the Union and the oldest seaside resort in the country. They also explore new discoveries in science and history, such as new dinosaur species and the oldest song ever written. The conversation delves into personal experiences and perceptions, revealing their thoughts on beauty, dreams, and the human body. Marcia shares her fascination with colorful dreams, while Bob provides insight into pollution levels around the world.
Outline
US presidents and their travels.
- George Washington wrote the first airmail letter in the US by sending a letter via a French balloonist from Philadelphia to New Jersey.
- Bob Smith explains how George Washington united the early United States through a series of road tours, staying overnight in local towns and paying for it all himself.
Dreams, history, and technology.
- Marcia Smith and Bob Smith discuss new species discovered in 2021, including 2 new types of dinosaurs found on the Isle of Wight.
- British history museums have acquired over 5000 artifacts found by members of the general public using metal detectors and other technology in the first two decades of the 21st century.
- Bob Smith discusses his dreams with Marcia Smith, mentioning he has 3-4 dreams per night and the average person has 1460 dreams per year.
- Bob and Marcia discuss the vividness of dreams, with Bob sharing an experience where he dreamed in color and Marcia mentioning she reads a lot before bed.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss a study on catchy tunes, with Queen topping the list.
- Blondes have twice as many hairs on their heads as redheads, while brunettes have the most hairs overall.
Lifespans, pollution, and oldest seaside resorts.
- Marcia and Bob discuss various living things and their average lifespans, including blondes, redheads, brunettes, Auburns, and more.
- Marcia and Bob disagree on the country with the cleanest air in the world, with Marcia naming Finland and Bob suggesting somewhere in Africa or Scandinavia.
- Marcia Smith mentions that the oldest known horse lived 62 years, while Bob Smith provides a trivia question about the oldest seaside resort in the US, which is located in Cape May, New Jersey. (14 words)
- Bob Smith asks Marcia Smith how many feet of film were shot for the movie Gone With the Wind, and Marcia correctly answers 475,000 feet. (23 words)
Film history, animal intelligence, and unusual people.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the intelligence of cats and dogs, with Marcia revealing that dogs have more neurons in their brains than cats.
- Bob Smith asks Marcia about the origin of Irish coffee, and Marcia explains that it was created by a restaurateur in Ireland in the 1940s to comfort tired plane passengers with a special drink made with coffee, sugar, whiskey, and whipped cream.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss unusual facts, including a man who ate two pounds of metal a day without a problem and another who painted a picture of his mother, James Abbott McNeill Whistler.
- Marcia Smith wonders if the man could eat an airplane, to which Bob Smith responds with a skeptical “Oh dear.”
Human-made lakes, underwater survival, and art.
- Marcia Smith and Bob Smith discuss various topics, including the longest time a person has spent underwater and lived with full cognitive function, and the rattlesnake’s heat detecting equipment in nature.
- In 1986, two-year-old Michelle Funk survived being underwater for 66 minutes after falling into a swollen creek.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the unfinished portrait of George Washington painted by Gilbert Stuart, with Bob sharing interesting facts about the painting and Marcia asking questions.
- Albert Einstein’s quote about the universe and human stupidity is shared, with Bob and Marcia laughing at the comment.
Bob Smith 0:00
Who was the first president to visit every state in the Union during his term in office? And what President wrote the first airmail letter in the United States?
Marcia Smith 0:09
Is it the same man,
Bob Smith 0:10
it is the same first Hall letter?
Marcia Smith 0:12
It is exciting. Okay. And Bob, how many new animal species were added to the list last year?
Bob Smith 0:19
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 a side road to sanity and get some perspective on life. Well, I’m going to start with two presidential questions, Marcia. I live for those who was the first president to visit every state in the Union during his term in office. It was the president who also wrote the first airmail letter in the United States. So what President was this?
Marcia Smith 1:08
Was it. I have to think it was? Was it FDR? No, it wasn’t FDR. Before FDR.
Bob Smith 1:17
Yes. I’ll give you a hint. He was the first president to visit every state during his term. There weren’t 50 states.
Marcia Smith 1:24
Oh, now,
Bob Smith 1:25
this can take you back.
Marcia Smith 1:27
You visited 49 haven’t you
Bob Smith 1:30
Not a president. So
Marcia Smith 1:31
Aren’t you Bob? Well, tell me who it was.
Bob Smith 1:35
The first president of the United States. Oh yeah. George Washington did both. He wrote the first airmail letter in the US. He, believe it or not, sent a letter from Philadelphia to New Jersey by way of a French balloonist. So that’s the first airmail letter. But according to Nathaniel Philbrook, who’s the author of travels with George, a new book, Washington used his celebrity from the Revolutionary War to try to unite the 13 stubbornly independent colonies into a single country. And he did that through a series of road tours. He started in 1789. Just before he was taking over, and over the span of two years he visited all 13 original states 14 If you count Maine, which was then part of Massachusetts,
Marcia Smith 2:21
That’s very tricky, Bob. It was. But it’s a very enlightening to have when you put it like that.
Bob Smith 2:26
And here’s something that will ring a bell if you remember it as you were a kid you’d always see signs George Washington slept here. Yeah, well, he traveled horseback and by carriage along these rutted dirt roads, and over rising rivers, you can imagine how hard that was packed his trip through Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia in 1792, took three months to cover 1800 miles. And what he did was drive into town on in his carriage. He usually had his Continental Army uniform, he was greeted by citizens and he made a point of staying and local ins along the way. That’s why used to see the George Washington slept here signs up and down the East Coast, really, he wanted to put a face on the new constitution and the new nation, he would stay and he would eat even drink with the people at the inns. And he stayed overnight, and he paid for it all himself. You don’t say that anymore. That’s how he did it. That’s how he united the early United States. Pretty interesting.
Marcia Smith 3:20
Now, it should still be done that way, just one on one as much as he can. And that’s awesome. Now,
Bob Smith 3:25
how many of the modern presidents have visited all 50 States?
Marcia Smith 3:29
Oh, not many.
Bob Smith 3:32
Only Richard Nixon, the first George Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Now most of those presidents had eight years in which to do it. The elder Bush visited all 50 before the end of his first and only term.
Marcia Smith 3:46
Wow, that’s pretty impressive. 50 in four years, as if there’s not enough to do.
Bob Smith 3:53
All right now you had what was your question there?
Marcia Smith 3:55
Well, we always talk about all the animals going extinct every year. But hey, there are new species discovered all the time. Okay. Yeah, I guess we don’t think of it. In 2021. Scientists at the Natural History Museum in London added how many new species of animals to the world roster
Bob Smith 4:16
in one year’s time, and we’re talking in modern times. 2021 How many did they add? I’ll say this would probably be a lot I’ll say 10 new species. How many?
Marcia Smith 4:28
552 Oh, my God. Yeah, you wouldn’t think would you know it’s true. The list included two new types of dinosaurs. They discovered on the Isle of Wight Wight. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, they found the bones to these new humongous creatures. They found a lot of new prestations Okay, called copepods. They’re found all over the world, not just in one area, and they kind of look like shrimp. They’re a food source for other marine life. And there was a new snake ache in India they found
Bob Smith 5:01
Well, that’s encouraging when all you hear about our species that are dying,
Marcia Smith 5:05
and 552 that have never been identified before. That’s hard to believe. Yeah.
Bob Smith 5:09
That’s hard to believe that is very good.
Marcia Smith 5:11
Thank you, Bob.
Bob Smith 5:12
Speaking of discovering new things, okay, let’s How did technology help British history museums discover things in the first two decades of the 21st century?
Marcia Smith 5:22
So we have computers, and had to be that No, no, go ahead. Tell me tell me it’s
Bob Smith 5:28
metal detectors, oh, metal detectors. In a country where the history stretches far into the past. And the first two decades of the 21st century, British Museums acquired more than 5000 artifacts found by members of the general public things like Bronze Age axes, Iron Age cauldrons and Roman coins.
Marcia Smith 5:48
Makes you kind of want one doesn’t, you know.
Bob Smith 5:51
You have to live someplace like England where these things aren’t very far under the surface in yards and fields and farmlands and parking.
Marcia Smith 5:57
I suppose Lake Michigan shoreline doesn’t have a lot of ancient don’t have a lot of that around here.
Bob Smith 6:00
But think of this centuries and centuries of history in Europe, you’ll find discoveries and in Great Britain, it’s almost always somebody’s backyard. Roman coin from you know, 20 ad. Us. A Roman coin in your yard in Wisconsin, that would be something really would be something.
Marcia Smith 6:21
How many dreams Bob? Does the average person have in a year? In a year? Yeah.
Bob Smith 6:26
Wow. Sometimes I mean, I think I have like five or six a night sometimes.
Marcia Smith 6:30
So what would that be?
Bob Smith 6:34
That one where you with that English lady being very snooty with me the other night.
Marcia Smith 6:39
That was where we watching creatures great and small.
Bob Smith 6:42
You’re watching something on PBS and you turned into one of those people? How many dreams does the average person have in a year? There’s 365 days, let’s say three or 400 dreams a year,
Marcia Smith 6:54
You just said before you have three or four? Or five, but
Bob Smith 6:57
I may be unusual.
Marcia Smith 6:58
No the average is 1460 dreams a year. Okay? So it’s like, it’s just exactly what you said
Bob Smith 7:05
Three or four a night or night. On average,
Marcia Smith 7:08
you ever go back to dreams after you wake up?
Bob Smith 7:10
I have done that before I’ve succeeded in doing that never really turns out to be as good as the original dream
Marcia Smith 7:15
Never quite connects the same. And something is radically different. Like the way I look. Or what does my father doing here with Bob that that’s not supposed to be what would you dream in color.
Bob Smith 7:27
I do dream in color. And in fact, I have now I know this because I’ve had a dream and some time back. It was in total color. And there were credits coming up with music all years. And the credits came up with music at the end of my dream. And I was thinking, wow, that’s a nice dream, that’s really well photographed. I think I was watching too many movies.
Marcia Smith 7:49
Never can watch too many movies. I dream. I’m reading a lot.
Bob Smith 7:53
I’ve trapped that before we you see the words and you’re moving your eyes across the words, but you can’t figure out what you read. Yeah,
Marcia Smith 7:58
it’s going very fast.
Bob Smith 8:00
Well remember an episode or two back, Marcia. You had a question on what group had the three of the most addictive or catchy tunes? Yes. And that turned out to be Queen right in the top 10.
Marcia Smith 8:12
Yeah. And what were the songs? It was We Will Rock You We are the Champions and Bohemian Rhapsody. Yes.
Bob Smith 8:18
Well, a listener commented on it and came to our website, Jeff Burrell, who listens from Kansas City. He said I just listened to the episode about catchy tunes made me wonder why the Bee Gees didn’t make this beside queen. And this is interesting because this is his personal experience. When I took a CPR course many years ago, two songs were used to teach chest compressions. One was Another One Bites the Dust. And the other one was appropriately Staying Alive.
Marcia Smith 8:49
Really. They do it while they were pumping to keep your rhythm going.
Bob Smith 8:52
Both songs are 120 beats per minute, which was the recommended speed for performing CPR. That’s why they used it. I didn’t. He said the instructors were three EMTs that had come to the plant to teach the class the company was Three Men and a dummy from from St. Joseph, Missouri. But anyway, he said that those were the two songs they used. What were some of the other songs on that list.
Marcia Smith 9:14
I got him here. You know what the oldest song on the list was?
Bob Smith 9:17
No Jingle bells, jingle jingle as an addictive song. Yeah,
Marcia Smith 9:21
yeah. Some of the other songs in the top 20 or the Village People YMCA? Well, that makes sense. IMCA Journey Don’t Stop Believin Okay. Taylor Swift. Shake it off. Oh, yes, yes, yes. And Michael Jackson, what do you think?
Bob Smith 9:40
Beat it. That’s it. All right. And that, again, was from the scientists at the University of St. Andrews. Some kind of a study they did
Marcia Smith 9:47
Yes. On ear worms. Very good.
Bob Smith 9:50
Okay. Let me ask you this. Which sects has more left handed people male or female males? Why? Because they’re deformed or they have a problem. Is that what you’re thinking? All right, you’re right. There are twice as many left handed men as women. So for some unknown reason, left handedness generally is a male characteristic. All right, which people have more actual hairs on their heads. Women. I’m not talking about male or female. I’m talking about color. Blondes, redheads are brunettes. Oh, okay.
Marcia Smith 10:21
I will say black hair. brunettes then. Okay, well no brunette and black are different. Okay, but I
Bob Smith 10:29
asked you three I said blondes, redheads are brunette. Oh, did you? Yes, I did.
Marcia Smith 10:32
Sorry brunettes
Bob Smith 10:36
Wrong. I love that. Didn’t even get the question right. And I gave it to you and then you’re still wrong. Okay. Blondes Believe it or not really with brunettes next and then redheads Blondes have twice as many hairs on their head as redheads about 150,000 hairs in
Marcia Smith 10:54
my experience with blondes I never see them with a lot of hair of course they’re probably not blonde anymore. So who knows? Oh, there we go. I just lost half my
Bob Smith 11:04
like a former redhead There you go.
Marcia Smith 11:09
Well, that was helped out oh my goodness. But no, I do you know a lot of full head maybe wish just about every you know.
Bob Smith 11:21
little snippy. They’re brunette girls don’t like blondes. That’s interesting.
Marcia Smith 11:25
I was I was
Bob Smith 11:26
Auburn. Oh, well. Auburn girls don’t like blondes, then.
Marcia Smith 11:29
Oh, I like blonde. Oh, did you as friends? Oh, I don’t like man. Close friends.
Bob Smith 11:36
All right, let’s move on. Okay,
Marcia Smith 11:38
which country Bob has the cleanest air in the world?
Bob Smith 11:42
The country that has the cleanest air in the world. So we’re talking someplace that has less pollution? So probably has less industry? So I’d say somewhere in Africa? Nope. Oh, Finland, Finland. Okay, so I was gonna go to Scandinavia next.
Marcia Smith 12:00
So you’re wrong. Yeah. Okay. And Helsinki is considered the cleanest city in the world, not just the air but the city. Yeah. And you know, what countries have the most polluted air, India, Pakistan, Mongolia and Afghanistan as of 2020.
Bob Smith 12:16
So countries that are industrializing that are developing and coming
Marcia Smith 12:19
along developing and poor often. Yeah, not all of them are poor, but I thought maybe were you Mexico city once and it was so.
Bob Smith 12:29
Yeah, it was like, it was like walking behind a bus. That’s how it smelled. And that’s because of the terrain.
Marcia Smith 12:36
Yeah, it’s in a valley. Valley. Yeah.
Bob Smith 12:38
So all the pollution goes down there.
Marcia Smith 12:40
Okay, let’s talk about average lifespans. Okay. All right. I’ll give you the living thing and you give me your best guess for the average lifespan, like a house fly.
Bob Smith 12:51
Oh, I think those don’t last very long at all – three days.
Marcia Smith 12:55
Surprisingly, one month. Okay. Dragon Fly.
Bob Smith 12:59
Oh, dragon fly. I like those. I always like to be around those.
Marcia Smith 13:03
I’ll do a week on those. Okay. No. 24 hours.
Bob Smith 13:07
Really? Yeah. 24 hours is all the longer they live. Yeah.
Marcia Smith 13:10
Oh my goodness, mosquitoes.
Bob Smith 13:12
Whatever it is. It’s twice the length of time. It should be
Marcia Smith 13:16
Six and a half days. Almost a week. Yeah. It said six or seven days. So I settled on six and a half. How about your Black Garden? And how long do they live? I don’t know. Four years. Four years. Yeah, cats. Cats
Bob Smith 13:32
can last about well, what are a cat lasted 20 years
Marcia Smith 13:35
21 God, but he’s was above average was a long time.
Bob Smith 13:42
He wasn’t my cat. That’s why it seems so long. Okay, what’s the average?
Marcia Smith 13:47
12 to 18 years? Well, okay. Okay. And for dogs, it’s 10 to 13 years. How about a horse?
Bob Smith 13:54
I don’t know how long a horse lasts -10 years.
Marcia Smith 13:57
It’s more, it’s 25 to 30.
Bob Smith 14:00
Well think of racehorses. They may be only five, seven years at the most of racing, but the rest of their lives if they’re allowed to live, it could be 25 years has 25 years of breeding. This could be fun,
Marcia Smith 14:11
And we always need more superglue Marcia, the oldest, the oldest known horse was called Old Billy born in 1760. And he lived 62 years. Wow. Got into my Guinness books. All right.
Bob Smith 14:27
Speaking of old. Yes. Where is the oldest seaside resort in the United States? It’s been attracting tourists for 200 plus years. St. Augustine. I’ll give you some hints. Okay. I’ll just give you hints about the states. Okay. New Jersey, Connecticut, North Carolina, Rhode Island or Arizona, the oldest seaside resort in the US. You’re it’s clear one of those pretty easily Arizona. I don’t think there’s any sea there now.
Marcia Smith 14:55
North Carolina, North Carolina.
Bob Smith 14:57
No, but That’s a good guest too. It’s what would you I’ll give you a second chance here. Okay. New Jersey, New Jersey, New Jersey. It is built in 1816 on Cape May Congress Hall. It’s the oldest seaside resort in the United States. Its builder Thomas Hughes originally called the resort the big house, which used to be a term who used for prisons in the 30s movies. It was one of the largest structures in the US upon its completion. But locals called it Tommy’s folly because they were skeptical that Congress Hall would draw enough guests to turn a profit, but they were soon proven wrong. And now more than 200 years later, the owners of that place are still turning a profit. So it’s great. It’s called Congress Hall, Cape May New Jersey, build an 1816, the oldest seaside resort in the United States and are still turning a profit today. Okay, and the resort even hands out brass room keys instead of plastic balls. How sweet that is. Congress hole in Cape May New Jersey,
Marcia Smith 15:59
time for a break, Bob.
Bob Smith 16:01
We’ll be back with more in just a moment. You’re listening to the off ramp with Bob
Marcia Smith 16:04
and Marcia Smith.
Bob Smith 16:08
We’re back you’re listening to the off ramp with Bob and Marsha Smith and Marcia, how many feet of film were shot for the movie Gone With the Wind?
Marcia Smith 16:16
How many feet? Yeah,
Bob Smith 16:17
it’s just an odd question. But it’s all about what was leftover. What
Marcia Smith 16:21
can I use multiple choice? Okay,
Bob Smith 16:23
I’ll give you a chance here. Okay, five feet. That one 120,000 feet. 475,000 feet.
Marcia Smith 16:33
Wow, it wasn’t long war, civil war. So we’ll go with the 400.
Bob Smith 16:38
It’s 475,000 feet, it was cut to 25,000 feet. That’s a lot of film shots. Almost a 20th of the total length had grossed $70 million over time. So that was a very, very big film it was epic. And it took three years to make with 13 writers and three directors. And it costs $4 million for MGM to make it many writers 13 writers, three directors 1000 Girls tested for the part of Scarlett O’Hara, David O Selznick had already picked Clark Gable. Okay, king of Hollywood was going to be it. They needed a girl and Vivian Leigh was the one okay.
Marcia Smith 17:15
All right. Here’s an ongoing argument, Bob. Okay. According to the most recent studies counting cerebral neurons, who is smarter cats or dogs?
Bob Smith 17:29
That was always you know, I always thought dogs were smarter because the dogs would respond to you. But then I heard that cats actually are smarter. And cats are one reason we know they’re smarter. It’s because they’d like to ignore you. They have a mind of their own. But I don’t know what’s the answer? Yeah,
Marcia Smith 17:44
That’s the last thing I remembered. But not according to new studies. It is dogs. To analyze cognitive function, scientists counted neurons in the human cortex. And we humans have about 16 billion neurons in our brains. Dogs have between 429 and 623 million, with the lowest being mixed breeds and the highest being Golden Retrievers, those beautiful dogs and kitty cats, they only average 250 million.
Bob Smith 18:15
So it is dogs dog. So what do they have, again?
Marcia Smith 18:19
How many they have between 429 and 623 million compared to cats that have 250? Okay, so there you are. Our dog Buster was smarter than our cat Bowser. There it is in black and white. According to science. That’s good to know.
Bob Smith 18:36
All right. I have a question for you. Yes, here. It was first introduced in Ireland, but it was not a national tradition. What is the story behind Irish coffee? You’ve heard of Irish coffee? Yes,
Marcia Smith 18:48
It has potatoes in it. No, it. Yeah. What’s the story behind Irish coffee? I don’t know. They put whiskey and everything so why not coffee?
Bob Smith 18:58
Well, it was a dark and stormy night. Really? Bad weather forced a transatlantic flight to turn around and come back to the Emerald Isle of Ireland one night in the 1940s and the restauranteur, Joe Sheridan was closing down his place at Foynes airport in Ireland. But he realized that the plane’s passengers were going to be tired and upset so we stayed late made them something special coffee, mixed with a little sugar spiked with a shot of Irish whiskey and topped with whipped cream. He was asked by passengers. Is this Brazilian coffee? He said no. It’s Irish coffee. Okay, that’s a new tradition was born. So it’s only been around that long. What was the year? It was in the early 1940s. Oh, okay. And Joe Sheridan the airport restaurant tour, who invented it later emigrated to America and he worked at the Buena Vista cafe in San Francisco and they started serving it there in 1952.
Marcia Smith 19:50
We haven’t had one of those in quite a while. Irish coffee. I like it. Okay. All right. In 1959 Mon su mega thought why Also known as Michel Lotito of France, discovered he had a knack for eating what? When was this 1959?
Bob Smith 20:11
Can you give me any clue Marsh?
Marcia Smith 20:13
It’s not food. Okay, paper? No. What? Glass and metal? Why so doctors x rayed this guy’s stomach and found he could consume two pounds of metal a day without a problem. Geez, so his diet included 18 bicycles 15 supermarket. Oh no seven TV sets, six chandeliers, two beds a pair of skis a computer a coffin. And it took him two years but he polished off a Cessna light aircraft
Bob Smith 20:49
Such odd information it that is
Marcia Smith 20:51
It’s beyond weird to me.
Bob Smith 20:54
Oh my god.
Marcia Smith 20:55
I’ll go eat a television set today.
Bob Smith 20:58
Oh dear. I never heard of any such thing. Oh, he kept track of everything and
Marcia Smith 21:02
the gastroenterologist x rayed his stomach.
Bob Smith 21:05
Well, okay. Little known fact. Here’s another little known fact, what great American artists had a father who built railroads for the Russians are a famous American artist who had a father who built railroads for the Russian Tsar. Ah, this guy painted a picture of his mother. Whistler. Yes. James Abbott McNeill Whistler. He was a US emigrate, painter. He lived in Russia during his teens, while his father directed construction of a railroad for Tsar Nicholas the first and then Whistler the artists went to West Point in his late teens, but he was forced to leave at age 19 When he failed chemistry. Then he went abroad to live, took up painting and became this great American artist. But yeah, his dad was his dad actually was an American who built railroads for the Russians are that’s a strange another. Yeah.
Marcia Smith 21:57
Yeah. But did he could he eat an airplane? No, I don’t think so.
Bob Smith 22:01
Either locomotive. That gets where he was headed. Okay, what state has the most manmade or human made? Lakes? I’ll give you four. Michigan, Minnesota, Oklahoma or Louisiana? Oklahoma.
You’re right. It’s Oklahoma. All right. Yes. And it all comes from a huge flood called the Great Mississippi River flood in 1927. More than 200 human made lakes were built in Oklahoma during the subsequent years. And today, Oklahoma has more artificial lakes than any other state. Their biggest lake, the biggest human made lake in Oklahoma. How many miles of shoreline Do you think it has? Oklahoma’s lake you follow?
Marcia Smith 22:46
For this one manmade lake? I’ll say 120 Miles 600.
No kidding. Yes.
Bob Smith 22:52
Amazing. It is I was gonna go there. So.
Marcia Smith 22:56
All right. Here’s the question. What’s the longest time a person has spent underwater and lived with full cognitive function? Oh,
Bob Smith 23:05
my question is, were they able to get any oxygen? No. So this is holding their breath. No,
Marcia Smith 23:11
no, no, they were drowning, I assume.
Bob Smith 23:15
Oh, okay. And yet they came back and they’re fine. Yes.
Marcia Smith 23:19
How long is the longest?
Bob Smith 23:21
Oh, I don’t know. I mean, five minutes, I think would be a long time. How long?
Marcia Smith 3:25
66 minutes. Wow. In 1986, two year old Michelle funk of Salt Lake City, Utah, fell into a swelling Creek and was underwater for 66 minutes. They revived her and she made a complete and full recovery over an hour. You know, I
Bob Smith 23:46
know water. Isn’t it interesting. It was a child. Yeah,
Marcia Smith 23:48
that’s what I was thinking, you
Bob Smith 23:50
know, a creature that doesn’t have all the fear that an adult would if that happened to them right away?
Marcia Smith 23:54
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and also think about it two years, you’re not that far removed from living in an embryonic sack.
Bob Smith 24:01
That’s true. That’s true. So it’s like going back to the womb and yeah, I don’t call little being tossed around. I’m just gonna show the base.
Marcia Smith 24:09
Yeah. I have nothing to base that on. But you know, the connection.
Bob Smith 24:13
What was the year again, and the name of the
Marcia Smith 24:15
1986 Michelle funk.
Bob Smith 24:18
Wow, that’s, that’s pretty impressive.
Marcia Smith 24:20
Yeah. All right. The rattlesnake I’ll bet you didn’t know has the best heat detecting equipment in nature. No, I didn’t know that. Now. You do. Using it to organs between its eyes and nostrils. It can locate a mouse by its body heat. Well can sense its heat from how far away Oh, so
Bob Smith 24:41
it’s got to be surprising, I guess. Yeah. Like maybe. I don’t know. 100 feet? No.
Marcia Smith 24:49
How far 15 mile.
Bob Smith 24:52
Oh, my God. How can that be? I can’t imagine consents them. Well, that snake must never be hungry. I because he can smell food 50 miles away, and then it’s got to get there. Yeah, but I’m sure there’s some between here and 50 miles.
Marcia Smith 25:07
I wonder. Yeah, I don’t know.
Bob Smith 25:08
That’s where did you find that? For God’s sake, again, the useless book of information. Okay.
Marcia Smith 25:14
Okay, got a last question for me.
Bob Smith 25:16
I do. Gilbert Stuart. You remember that famous painting of George Washington where it’s not quite complete. There’s like clouds and there’s George Washington’s head and in his part of his body, yeah, it’s a famous painting. He failed to finish that intentionally. And he profited because of it. Why and how,
Marcia Smith 25:35
why and how? I have no idea. Well,
Bob Smith 25:39
it’s called the Anthony M portrait painted in Greek style with clouds in the foreground. You see it in school rooms across the country. Gilbert Stuart intentionally failed to finish it. He painted it in 1796. He didn’t deliver it to Martha Washington who commissioned it, why? He kept the painting and copied it repeatedly in hopes of getting rich. He never finished the background so he could truthfully tell Martha whenever she requested the portrait, not yet complete.
Marcia Smith 26:07
Oh, the kind of a scoundrel ice I was gonna say scallywag virtually.
Bob Smith 26:11
But that’s considered a great American painting. So it’s portrait portrait of George Washington. So
Marcia Smith 26:17
that’s the one that hangs everywhere. It’s unfinished, which which unfinished one? Just the same unfinished one? Good question. Yeah. Okay. All right. I’m going to finish with a quote from Albert Einstein. All right, okay. He said, only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity. And I’m not sure about the former.
Bob Smith 26:40
But he’s certain about stupidity. I’ve never heard that one before me. Usually he is always something about science and God. Yeah, something like that. But that is funny. Say that, again.
Marcia Smith 26:50
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity. And I’m not sure about the former.
Bob Smith 26:58
The latter is certain. Okay, well, we hope you’ve felt smarter. Having listened to absolutely.
Marcia Smith 27:07
I know I am where we try
Bob Smith 27:09
to cover a multitude of topics, and trivia every episode and we want to thank Jeff Burrell for chiming in on something on the show and write you to comment if you’d like to or give us any question or
Marcia Smith 27:21
give us a question to do on the air. We haven’t heard from anybody for a while. So please do all
Bob Smith 27:26
you have to do is go to our website, the off ramp dot show, scroll down to contact us and leave us your information. Well, that’s it for this week. We hope you enjoy us next time. I’m Bob Smith.
Marcia Smith 27:37
I’m Marcia Smith.
Bob Smith 27:38
You’ve been listening to 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
