Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discussed various historical artifacts and mysteries, including a secret from the 1970s and a missing White House tape from the Nixon administration. They also shared interesting facts and trivia, such as the history of paper money and the strange statistic that more people own mobile devices than use toothbrushes. In another part of the conversation, Bob and Marcia shared their knowledge of geography and culture, discussing unique features of various continents and islands, and Marcia revealed that Michigan is actually the largest state when considering landmass plus territorial waters. Bob then asked Marcia about the longest beard ever recorded, which was 17.5 feet long.
Outline
Historical artifacts and Nixon tapes.
- Bob and Marcia Smith discuss the Oscars, including a historic artifact kept in a climate-controlled vault and a superstar who had to be restrained by security at the 1973 ceremony.
- Marlon Brando’s Oscar was accepted by Maria Luis Cruz, a 17-year-old Native American actress who spoke about Wounded Knee and the treatment of American Indians in the film industry, prompting John Wayne to be restrained by security.
- The White House tape number 342 from the Nixon administration is kept in a climate-controlled vault at the National Archives, with hopes of unlocking its secrets someday.
Various topics, including termites, money, and continents.
- Marcia and Bob discuss termites’ preference for rock music, and how it can accelerate their destruction of a house.
- Spielberg has been nominated for Best Director in six decades, including 2022.
- Marcia and Bob discuss why geographers consider Australia a continent, despite being smaller than Greenland, due to unique plant and animal life, and a former leper colony.
History, culture, and crime.
- Marcia Smith shares interesting facts and trivia, including how time was measured in the Andes and the purpose of refrigerators among Eskimos.
- Bob Smith asks questions and provides humorous responses, including one about Gibraltar Island changing ownership over 700 times.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the history of the Pyrenees Mountains, including their alternating ownership between France and Spain.
- Agatha Christie, a famous author, attempted to frame her husband for murder and make it look like a perfect crime, but was found 11 days later at a spa enjoying herself.
- Marcia Smith shares an interesting fact about the history of erasers: before erasers were invented, people used damp bread to remove pencil marks from paper.
- Bob Smith asks Marcia about the origin of the phrase “read the riot act,” and Marcia explains its British law passed in 1714 to prevent riots, and an official had to read it aloud to face punishment.
Records, plagues, and celebrities.
- Marcia Smith and Bob Smith discuss the number of applications Guinness World Records receives each year, with over 50,000 applications and 1000 applications every week.
- The editorial staff at Guinness World Records makes tough calls on who makes the record books, with a $5 fee for applications and expedited processing for an additional $800.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss a listener’s correction regarding the location of the Hollywood sign, with Bob thanking the listener and Marcia expressing confusion.
- The pair then engage in a discussion about the 10 plagues visited upon Egypt in the biblical book of Exodus, with Marcia naming several and Bob providing a brief overview of the United States, mentioning the Mississippi River and large states out west.
Trivia, beards, and economics.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the largest state east of the Mississippi River, with Bob incorrectly guessing Ohio and Marcia correcting him with Georgia.
- Marcia shares a fascinating fact about the longest beard ever recorded, which measured 17.5 feet in length.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss various facts and trivia, including the origin of Twinkies and the similarity between Jello and the human brain in terms of movement and taste.
- The hosts share fun facts and engage in lighthearted banter throughout the show, ending with a quote from John Maynard Keynes and a call to action for listeners to submit their own trivia questions or corrections.
Bob Smith 0:00
What historic artifact is kept in a climate controlled vault in hopes that one day its secrets may be revealed
Marcia Smith 0:08
and what superstar in 1973 had to be restrained by six security men from storming the stage at the Oscars?
Bob Smith 0:17
Oh really? I don’t remember that. 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 by chance to slow down steer clear of crazy and take a side road to sanity. Well, we all felt like we needed a side road to sanity recently with the big slapping incident at the Oscars flap
Marcia Smith 0:55
gate Bob slap slap gate.
Bob Smith 0:56
Funny, but you tell me that that’s not the first time there’s been almost violence at the Oscars.
Marcia Smith 1:03
Absolutely. So the question is what superstar had to be restrained from storming the stage in 1973?
Bob Smith 1:11
I bet it was John Wayne.
Marcia Smith 1:12
Very good. You
Bob Smith 1:14
know what it was it was the incident where the the actress came up and she was posing as an Indian and she got George C. Scott. Oscar. Is that what it was
Marcia Smith 1:21
Marlon Brando’s are Oscar Marlon Brando for godfather.
Bob Smith 1:25
I’ll be darned.
Marcia Smith 1:26
And her name was Sasheen Little Feather. Her real name is Maria Luis Cruz.
Bob Smith 1:32
But she was a Native American apparently, yes,
Marcia Smith 1:35
there’s there was a lot of back and forth. But I did a deep dive and yet she was Native American somewhere along the line. She was only 17 years old at the time when she went out and accepted the award for Brando and she wanted to speak about Wounded Knee and the treatment of the American Indians in the film industry. Remember, they had everybody but Indians playing Indian? That’s right. Yes. Right. Well, anyway, John Wayne was he was off in the wings. And he was so livid at this woman who was speaking, but he also was livid at Brando. Wayne said Brando should have been up there talking about it if he felt that strongly, instead of sending some little unknown girl and dressing her up in an Indian outfit.
Bob Smith 2:18
So he had to be restrained by what again, six security people. Wow, he
Marcia Smith 2:22
is a big guy
Bob Smith 2:23
what was he going to do when he got up there – slap her?
Marcia Smith 2:24
I don’t know. I don’t think she was given 60 seconds to speak. And then they arrested her.
Bob Smith 2:31
arrested her. Yeah. Wow. That’s interesting. Well, Marsha, your item was suggested by something that recently happened. My item is suggested by something that recently happened. So here’s the question, what historical artifact is kept in a climate controlled vault at the National Archives? In the hopes that one day its secrets may be unlocked?
Marcia Smith 2:52
What item? Yes.
Bob Smith 2:55
It’s a physical item.
Marcia Smith 2:57
Is it an Egyptian thing? Or United States things? It’s
Bob Smith 3:00
a United States thing? It dates from the 1970s 1970s. It has a number on it. 342?
Marcia Smith 3:07
Is it from the moon? No, no. Is it from deep dig? What is it?
Bob Smith 3:12
It is the White House tape number 342. From The Nixon Presidential Administration. Now, we recently had the seven hour gap in the records for President Trump on January the 6th, 2021. This is about the famous tape with the 18 minute gap, right. And the Nixon administration covered up what was believed to be a conversation about covering up the Watergate break in exactly well, they tried to decipher that
Marcia Smith 3:39
and hold experts that maybe someday they will That’s right, fascinating.
Bob Smith 3:44
They think someday technology will catch up with this problem, and they may be able to pull out the conversation. In 2003, the chief archivist concluded I’m fully satisfied. We’ve explored all the avenues to attempt to recover the sound of this tape. But we will continue to preserve the tape and hopes that later generations can try again to recover this vital piece of history. So it’s kept in a climate controlled vault in the National Archives preserved with a hope that its secrets may one day be unlocked.
Marcia Smith 4:14
Okay, Bob, if you have termites, why is it bad to play rock music?
Bob Smith 4:19
It’s bad to play rock music for termites. Yeah, if
Marcia Smith 4:22
you have them in your house, it must agitate them. Actually, they like it so they work faster and more diligent more efficiently. Yeah, they eat wood twice as fast when listening to rock music. And in 1968, there was a study done in Florida, they found that termites respond well to heavy metal music, and they just chewed faster when they were listening. Oh, fear, faster,
Bob Smith 4:46
more efficient destruction of your house. You have termites
Marcia Smith 4:50
in heaven,
Bob Smith 4:51
who knew? Let’s go way way back in history now. This is the time of Marco Polo. Marco Polo went to China. What was the thing that confused him the most and astounded him the most?
Marcia Smith 5:04
Oh, gosh, China must have blew him away. Oh, what would be the most I don’t know about it. Was it a structure?
Bob Smith 5:11
No. Was it? It was a medium of exchange.
Marcia Smith 5:15
They exchanged silk and the things they used for money, paper money, paper money, they had paper. They had
Bob Smith 5:23
paper money in China and he was just amazed at it. You know, he got there and he saw so many wonders, gunpowder and coal and eyeglasses and porcelain. But the thing that astonished him the most was a new invention implemented by Kubler Kahn, a grandson of Genghis Khan. Paper money introduced in 1260. He thought that Kubler Kahn possessed the secrets of magicians because he had the art of producing money. It’s so
Marcia Smith 5:48
fascinating. Okay, so here’s something a little more arcane. What is the most common color toothbrush people buy today? I think green or blue? One of those blue, correct thing ding more people buy blue than any other color. And red is the second really? Yep. And according to Capitol Hill, pediatric dentists, Capitol Hill, more people own and use a mobile device, then those people who own a toothbrush. What? Yeah, the world has more than 8 billion mobile devices and only about 3.5 billion people are estimated to
Bob Smith 6:24
use a toothbrush. So this is strange. Yes. It’s a strange statistic. That’s why
Marcia Smith 6:28
I brought in the Capitol Hill pediatric dentist. I’m just hoping
Bob Smith 6:32
somehow these people find a toothbrush to brush their teeth. Yeah, that’s
Marcia Smith 6:36
a lot of pets not brushing. Okay,
Bob Smith 6:38
I have a question for you on Oscars. Okay. Who is the only movie maker who’s been nominated in his category in six different decades? The only movie maker who has been nominated in his category in six different decades. So I gave you a clue there difference a man six decades. He’s still alive. Wow.
Marcia Smith 7:00
Okay, give me the decades,
Bob Smith 7:02
the 70s 80s 90s 2000 2000 10s and 2000 20s. So that six decades right there. Somebody like somebody who was just nominated again? I’ll read those in 20.
Marcia Smith 7:14
You should know that Spielberg. It was Spielberg. Yeah,
Bob Smith 7:17
he received a Best Director nomination for West Side Story in 2022. His first nomination was for Close Encounters of the Third Kind not that long ago. 1977. So he got a nomination for each decade in the 70s 80s 90s 2000s 2000 10s and 2026. decades. He’s been nominated eight times for the Best Director Award during his career. Well has one Bob, he won twice for best director and one for Best Picture. So we’re
Marcia Smith 7:47
talking about spiel, yes, sir. Okay, okay, Bob, Australia is Earth’s smallest continent is closer in size to Greenland than any other continent. So why did geographers decide Australia was a continent instead of an island? Like Greenland
Bob Smith 8:05
has something to do with the continental shelf? I think, doesn’t it? It’s part of it, but
Marcia Smith 8:09
it’s not the biggest part. Okay, I don’t know. Australia is a much larger landmass than Greenland roughly 3 million square miles compared to Greenland, which is 836,000 square miles. Okay. But also, much of Australia’s plant and animal life is endemic to the country, including its indigenous people. The aborigines in Australia are found nowhere else. The
Bob Smith 8:33
DNA is unique. It is very unique just like the animals to so unique continent, unique people, unique animals, because you have marsupials there, which are the animals with pouches. Yeah, kangaroos and so forth is correct. Those are all unique. They can’t be found anywhere else on Earth.
Marcia Smith 8:49
Yeah. And it’s a lot bigger. That’s why good old Greenland is in the continent. Okay,
Bob Smith 8:53
so we talk big. Let’s talk small. What state has the smallest county by area in the United States In
Marcia Smith 9:01
the United States files? Tell me what part of the United States? Okay, I’ll
Bob Smith 9:05
give you four choices. east west, north or south? East? No, no, no, Connecticut? Yeah, Texas, Rhode Island or Hawaii.
Marcia Smith 9:16
I’ll say Hawaii.
Bob Smith 9:17
It is in Hawaii, right? It’s America’s smallest county. It’s Caldwell County on the Hawaiian island of Molokai. It’s small, very small, only 12 square miles in area. This county has a population of just 82 people as of the most recent census. So it’s the second smallest county by population. First smallest by size. One of the reasons this county is small and so isolated as it was held up leper colony for a number of years that would keep it down. Yeah. Victims of what is now known as Hansen’s disease. That’s the term for it for leprosy.
Marcia Smith 9:50
Yeah, I didn’t think they’ve conquered that with with penicillin. Most of it. Yeah, it’s a bacterial infection. Yeah. All right before M.A.S.H., Well, All sitcoms were filmed on stage sets in front of a live audience. To enhance the wartime realism of the show, exterior and 10 shots were shot on location where in Southern California. It was Malibu. Oh no kidding They did it in the mountains near Malibu, and in October 1982. As the series was wrapping up production, a sweeping brush fire destroyed most of their outdoor sets. Well, the fire was written in to the final episode as being caused by enemy bombs that forced the M.A.S.H. unit to move out. The site today is known as Malibu Creek State Park and some of the original set locations are still intact and open to visitors. I didn’t know that’s why I’m here, Bob, to enlighten you.
Bob Smith 10:46
Okay, let me ask you this question in the Andes. How was time often measured? They didn’t have clocks. How do they measure time in the Andes in the Andes Mountains?
Marcia Smith 10:57
How was time South America, I would think by the sun or the moon or some kind of things, but you tell me depends
Bob Smith 11:03
on how long it takes to chew a quid of cocoa leaf. Oh, well, that
Marcia Smith 11:08
was my next response. So
Bob Smith 11:09
sometimes the destination was said to be so many cigarettes away.
Marcia Smith 11:15
Is that funny? That is funny. I like that. Oh, and
Bob Smith 11:18
what use do Eskimos have for refrigerators?
Marcia Smith 11:22
Keep their snowing. I don’t know
Bob Smith 11:24
they keep their food from freezing using refrigerators.
Marcia Smith 11:28
Oh, they keep it from freezing. That’s
Bob Smith 11:31
Isaac Asimov’s book of facts. It’s almost inappropriate today to talk about that that way. But I thought that was fun.
Marcia Smith 11:37
That is okay. We should take a break, Bob. All right. We’ll
Bob Smith 11:40
be back in just a moment. You’re listening to the off ramp with Bob and
Marcia Smith 11:43
Marsha Smith.
Bob Smith 11:47
We’re back. You’re listening to the off ramp with Bob and Marsha Smith. And Marsha has a question. What island
Marcia Smith 11:52
has changed ownership more than 700 times an island has changed ownership more than 700 times
Bob Smith 12:00
700 times? How many years? Does that take? A lot. So is this goes back centuries? Yes. Okay. What part of the world is this in? Oh, can you give me some choices here? It’s
Marcia Smith 12:11
between France and North Eastern Spain and southwestern France. That’ll give you a complete understanding. Oh, that
Bob Smith 12:18
helps me so much.
Marcia Smith 12:20
What’s the island? Okay,
Bob Smith 12:21
Gibraltar. Know what Island is it?
Marcia Smith 12:24
pheasant Island pheasant Island? Yep.
Bob Smith 12:27
It’s for the birds. Okay, it’s
Marcia Smith 12:29
between France and Spain. There are no permanent residents Bob. And it’s only two acres and visitors are banned. Why? Except for twice a year, government representatives from each country came together to transfer ownership. That’s
Bob Smith 12:44
why it’s 700 times after
Marcia Smith 12:47
the 30 year war ended in 1648, France and Spain signed the Treaty of the Pyrenees and made sure it would alternate ownership in perpetuity to demonstrate equality between the two nations. Very
Bob Smith 13:02
odd, isn’t it? Yeah. So it flips back and forth between France and Spain? Yeah,
Marcia Smith 13:06
every year, twice a year, twice a year. Yeah, that’s nuts. I don’t know why they.
Bob Smith 13:12
These people need a life. Okay. All right. Let me ask you this question, Marcia. This goes back to the 1920s. Okay, okay. What famous woman tried to make it look as though her husband had murdered her and set the whole country off on a wild goose chase?
Marcia Smith 13:28
Is she an actress or she was an author. She was an author,
Bob Smith 13:32
the most famous crime writer in Agatha Christie, Agatha Christie, did you know about this, and so I didn’t tell me she tried to construct the perfect crime that would have her husband tried, convicted and executed her husband. The Colonel had a mistress he planned to marry ah, and she lured him away from an engagement party he was throwing for his girlfriend by telephoning and threatening to make a scene. So he came home to find nobody was there. Later police recovered a car at the bottom of a chalk pit it had been pushed in the ignition key was off and a fur coat was inside and so was their driver’s license. Now police knew of the Colonel’s marital situation and his mistress, and they forbade him to leave the area and then 2000 people plus the army in the Navy searched a 40 square mile area of England looking for the body with tracking dogs and planes. A waterhole was even dragged. Oh my god. Finally, 11 days later, his wife was found at a hotel, a very famous spa, where she was enjoying herself playing billiards and so forth. She had registered in the name of his mistress last name.
Marcia Smith 14:41
How hath no fury Bob? Yeah. Now
Bob Smith 14:44
the official story came out she had amnesia. She didn’t know what she was doing. And then some people think she actually did have a nervous breakdown, but she never ever fully addressed it in her biography. It’s always been a matter of did she intentionally do this or not, but it looked as though she was the original gun girl. Wow.
Marcia Smith 15:01
Jeez, that’s a cranky girl.
Bob Smith 15:04
Agatha Christie. Yeah, her own mystery.
Marcia Smith 15:07
No, I never heard that story. Yeah, how about that about speaking of writing, the very first pencils arrived around the dawn of the 17th century. That’s even before you were born, thanks a lot after graphite was discovered, but the eraser didn’t show up until the 1770s at the tail end of the Enlightenment. So my question for you miss you. What did they use for erasing pencil marks for 170 years?
Bob Smith 15:36
Did they use them at all? Did they just cross things out? No, they had something they used that would get rid of the graphite on the page, right? Did they use like leaves? They’ve rubbed the leaves on it. Now they rubbed. I don’t know what bread bread look
Marcia Smith 15:51
no further than bread on your table. Back in the day, artists, scientists, government officials, and anyone else prone to making mistakes would wad up a small piece of bread and moisten it ever so slightly. And the resulting ball of dough erase pencil marks on paper. Wow, almost as well as erasers did in the years to come,
Bob Smith 16:12
huh. And a research came out because of rubber things like rubber. Yeah, yeah.
Marcia Smith 16:16
But there were 170 years when there weren’t erasers while they use bread. Damp bread
Bob Smith 16:21
to get rid of mistakes. Yeah, you use bread. Isn’t that funny? I had I never knew about that. Okay, Marcia, you’ve heard people say, I’m gonna read them the riot act.
Marcia Smith 16:29
What is the riot act? That’s
Bob Smith 16:31
my question. I don’t know. There actually was a riot act. It was a British law passed in 1714 to prevent riots. And it went to effect only when it was read aloud by an official. So an official had to read the riot act. If too many people were gathering and looking troublesome an officer would let them know that if they didn’t disperse, he would read them the riot act real and they would face punishment. Okay, now another question. I have another expression. Hands down. Somebody says he won hands down. What does that usually mean? It means without dispute. without effort, hands down, does it? Well, it’s obvious. It’s easy, easy to say? That’s the answer. Okay, fine. Where does that come from? comes from a certain type of sport. Okay, something with hands down the sport with animals animals. Oh,
Marcia Smith 17:22
was it the back in the days of your right gerbil racing? Coliseum days? No, it
Bob Smith 17:27
didn’t go back that. Okay, it goes back to horse racing. When if you’re ahead of everyone else, you can relax your grip on the reins and let your hands down. So when you win hands down, you win easily. And that’s where that expression came from. Huh? Horse racing.
Marcia Smith 17:41
All right. Hey, how many applications for World Records does the Guinness Book of World Records receive every year? You think?
Bob Smith 17:50
Man, I’ll bet it’s in the 1000s? I’ll say 15,000? Yeah, that’d be a lot.
Marcia Smith 17:54
Yeah, it would be. But they receive an incredible 1000 applications every week, over 50,000 a year. Wow. And there’s no shortage, it seems that people want to claim the title for best in the world. Although doing so is no simple manner. It takes a lot of rigmarole to get considered even meaning there’s a lot of process. Yeah, there’s a lot of processes, routines, protocols, state, just going back to the numbers here, the Guinness database holds more than 40,000 records. And fewer than 40% just 15,000 have made it into the website, let alone the book, which is a lot fewer. Wow. So it’s very hard to get, you know that distinction.
Bob Smith 18:36
It’s like because they often send observers to contests to watch and determine if there was a winner that they could put in the book.
Marcia Smith 18:41
And the book remains one of the best selling copyrighted books of all time since it came out in 55. And who you know, who finally picks the winners here, it’s up to the editor in chief and the rest of the editorial staff to make those tough calls on who makes the
Bob Smith 18:56
cut. How many applications do they get in a year, in a year over 50,000
Marcia Smith 19:00
or 50,000? Yes. And applications take 12 weeks to process. And there’s a $5 fee to apply for a new record, instead of applying to break an existing record. Oh, really, which is free. But if you want to rush things along and be considered immediately and be looked into Oh can
Bob Smith 19:23
be expedited for money? Yes. Just like the government. Yes.
Marcia Smith 19:26
Priority applications. Bob currently costs $800 for people trying to break existing record and 1000 for those who want to set new record. Well, money always talks does, doesn’t that’s so one way for them to get some cash. Hey,
Bob Smith 19:41
recently, you and I had a nice little press that went on the web about our show. And we thought that was great, our local Ozaki news graphic printed it and put it on the web. And it kind of smoked out friends that I didn’t even know we’re listeners, one of whom is a fellow named Mark drew ik who I worked with when I was in advertising. At Hoffman, your captain, I’m telling you this because he wants to correct us on one important reason,
Marcia Smith 20:04
new listeners and now they’re correcting. Alright, what did he say? Okay, Mark,
Bob Smith 20:09
he said in a member a couple of weeks ago, he said in a Mad Mad, Mad Mad World. I said he’s under the big W. Yeah. So I think it’s under the Hollywood sign, right? Yeah. He said actually, the W was not the W in the Hollywood side. But at fact for palm trees planted at an angle that made them appear as a W. Right. So thank you Mark for giving us that. That correction. And he also adds one bit of Ethel Merman trivia, what was the last movie Ethel Merman appeared in it one of your favorites? You always loved Ethel Merman. Is
Marcia Smith 20:41
she saying love her? I just Well you impersonate I impersonate her there’s no shot. Oh bash national. Okay, but what was her last movie? Her last movie? I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her. Anybody was up in the sky was up in the sky.
Bob Smith 20:54
Just a little cameo – one of the great cameos in the movie Airplane!
Marcia Smith 20:56
Airplane! Oh, that’s hilarious. Yeah, that was last Kareem and all those. That’s funny.
Bob Smith 21:03
So thanks to our newly discovered listener. Mark Drewek Yeah. Thanks. Great. Yeah, okay.
Marcia Smith 21:08
Okay, Bob. Besides locusts. What are some of the other 10 plagues that visited Egypt in the biblical book of Exodus? Oh, God,
Bob Smith 21:18
the 10 plagues of Egypt? Yeah. How
Marcia Smith 21:20
many can you name honey?
Bob Smith 21:21
There were the Well, there was flooding. That was one. Wait a second.
Marcia Smith 21:26
I don’t see flooding. No. Okay. I don’t know what were they hail, fire, frogs, lice, livestock diseases. Darkness, boils. The death of firstborn sons. No problem with girls. And all water turning to blood. Look, good old Exodus is full of fun thing. Fun times. Those are the 10 plagues that visited Egypt
Bob Smith 21:51
10 of those and then finally they let the people go. Good Lord. All right, two questions about the United States. All righty. Let’s look at a map of the United States in your mind. Okay. bisecting it in the middle is the Mississippi River. Right. Right. Okay. You know, there are big states out west. What is the largest state east of the Mississippi River? The largest state
Marcia Smith 22:12
east of the Mississippi River would be I give you four. Okay,
Bob Smith 22:18
is it Ohio? Is it Georgia? Is it New York, Florida or Michigan?
Marcia Smith 22:22
My guess was before the group. I was thinking New York is pretty big. New York. Yeah. New York
Bob Smith 22:27
is pretty big. But it’s not the biggest and what is Georgia? Oh, really? It has a total area of 59,489 square miles. It’s the largest state east of the Mississippi River by landmass even bigger than New York State. I didn’t know that. Now. What’s the biggest state east of the Mississippi River when you consider landmass plus the territorial waters under its control? Oh, give you a hint. It’s a Great Lakes State.
Marcia Smith 22:57
It is. Yeah.
Bob Smith 22:57
It’s a place you’ve lived. I’ll say Wisconsin, Michigan. It was Michigan. You and I have both lived in Michigan. You look at a map you see Michigan smack dab in the middle of the Great Lakes and portions of those lakes are under Michigan’s control portions are state territory. Michigan’s landmass is close to Georgia’s it’s 58,100 Miles compared to George’s 59,495 miles. But when you add the territorial waters that includes roughly half of Lake Superior Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, plus portions of Lake St. Clair and Lake Erie, so Michigan has a total of 97,990 square miles of territory. wouldn’t have guessed that at all. Yeah, only Alaska has more water territory than Michigan. So Michigan and Georgia far larger than you think. And Michigan and Georgia, they have this in common. Most of their land has forests in Michigan, Michigan and Georgia. More than half of Michigan’s land area is still forest. And 60% of Georgia is pine forest.
Marcia Smith 24:03
And speaking of the Guinness Book of World Records, how long do you think the longest beard was ever record?
Bob Smith 24:11
The longest beard? Yeah, the longest face years recorded. So this must be something that just kept growing and growing. And then they just kept bundling it up and carrying at this person as they went places, but I think hair only grows so far, doesn’t it? It stops at some point. So I will say this is probably too far. 12 feet. Well,
Marcia Smith 24:31
no, it was 17 and a half feet. Well. A guy named Hans lons gaff matted his beard into a coil. So it would keep getting longer, you know, and he could flick it over his shoulders and so forth. He died in Iowa in 1927. And he wanted his beard to be cut off after death for posterity. His son donated it in 1967 to the Smithsonian Institute. Oh my God really used to see a picture of it’s really gross. There’s like five people holding it and trees and do that. That is really gross. It is. I don’t know why it is it’s just hair but oh my god. 17 and a half feet. Wow,
Bob Smith 25:13
that is a mind blower. And the fact that the Smithsonian accepted it is a mind blowing. Yeah.
Marcia Smith 25:19
And posed with it.
Bob Smith 25:21
You’re proud of this? Oh, we have kind of a lot of other stuff. It’s more interesting. We’re proud of
Marcia Smith 25:26
this should be over at Ripley’s that the Smithsonian here it’s way over
Bob Smith 25:30
there. All right. Okay, Marcia. I’ve got a quote to end the show today. John Maynard Keynes. He was a famous economist. He championed government spending to control the economy. What were his last words? I wish I drank more champagne. Sometimes, just don’t spend so much time
Marcia Smith 25:50
on business. Just enjoy yourself facts and figures. Okay,
Bob Smith 25:53
we hope you’ve enjoyed the show. If you’d like to send us your trivia question or correction?
Marcia Smith 25:59
No, send the corrections to Bob. Send me the good question. Oh,
Bob Smith 26:02
okay. You can go to our website, the off ramp dot show. Scroll down to contact us and you can leave your information there. Okay. All right. Well, that’s it for now. It’s half hour goes by faster, doesn’t it? Mark. When you’re talking about long facial here?
Marcia Smith 26:17
I didn’t have feet. In your dreams tonight. Like it
Bob Smith 26:21
went too long this day. I don’t know why, because that just graded me the wrong way. All right. I got two other little fun facts here.
Marcia Smith 26:28
Let me have a fun fact.
Bob Smith 26:29
What do jello and the human brain have in common?
Marcia Smith 26:33
Well, they’re both kind of wobbly.
Bob Smith 26:34
Let’s get it IP. Actually. If you hook up Jello to an EKG, it registered movements virtually identical to the brainwaves of healthy adults. No kid, it’s according to the book. Who knew? Did you know that Twinkies originally tasted like bananas? I did know that. Oh, you didn’t know that? Yes. That was the original flavor. Yes. Why did they change it? Well, that I don’t know. Well, the United States experienced a banana shortage in World War Two. And the banana filling was replaced by vanilla flavored cream.
Marcia Smith 27:05
I would have liked banana Twinkie. Yeah, I might have eaten that more than the one that they have now. That’s all right. You got 1000 years to eat yield Twinkie in the class. Oh, it’ll
Bob Smith 27:15
last a long time. Yeah, it’ll be still be there when you’re Yeah. Bouldering in the grave. Yeah. Okay. Thanks
Marcia Smith 27:20
for that. Time to check out Bob.
Bob Smith 27:23
No, no, it’s not time to
Unknown Speaker 27:24
check out the show. Oh,
Bob Smith 27:27
okay. I’m Bob Smith.
Marcia Smith 27:29
I’m Marcia Smith.
Bob Smith 27:30
We hope you’ll join us next time when we return with more interesting facts and some fiction to hear 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
