How did elevators turn society and real estate markets upside down? And what year is it right now in Ethiopia? Hear the Off Ramp Podcast with Bob & Marcia Smith. (Photo: JamesEdition)
Bob and Marcia discussed the historic transformative effect of elevators on real estate and society, exploring their impact on building design and urban development. Marcia shared her knowledge of the Ethiopian calendar and its cultural context, while Bob highlighted the significance of fingerprints in crime scene investigation and their unique formation during fetal development. They also discussed the location of the tallest freestanding sand dunes in the United States, with Bob correcting Marcia’s incorrect statement and providing accurate information about the Bruneau Dunes State Park in Idaho. Bob explained that these dunes are unique in that they are formed near the center of a basin and do not drift, unlike other dunes.
Outline
Elevators’ impact on society and real estate, plus trivia.
- Elevators transformed real estate by making upper floors more valuable than lower floors, leading to the development of luxury apartments with private elevators.
- The first passenger elevator was introduced in office buildings in 1870, but it took 50 years for the change to occur in residential buildings.
- Bob and Marcia discuss the Ethiopian calendar, Jesus’ birth, and a World War II leader’s love for brick laying.
Mummies, famous people, and fingerprints.
- Marcia and Bob discuss the world’s oldest mummies, with Chile being the correct answer (not Egypt).
- Bob asks Marcia a question about a famous person, to which Marcia responds with the correct answer: Clement Clarke Moore, the author of “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (not Charles Dickens).
- Marcia and Bob discuss the history of mummy unwrapping parties in the 19th century and the significance of fingerprints in forensic science.
- Fingerprints are formed in the womb between the third and sixth months of pregnancy, and even identical twins have different fingerprints due to genetic factors.
Fingerprints, languages, and Madame Tussauds.
- Bob and Marcia discuss the Minister of State for Happiness in Dubai and the unique fingerprints of animals.
- Bob and Marcia discuss the history of fingerprint analysis and language diversity, with Bob sharing interesting facts and Marcia providing additional information.
- Bob and Marcia discuss the origins of Madame Tussauds Museum, including its dark history during the French Revolution.
Glaciers, street addresses, and weight loss.
- Marcia and Bob discuss why Dubai doesn’t have street addresses or zip codes.
- Marcia Smith explains the origin of the term “nest egg,” which comes from 17th-century poultry farmers trying to trick hens into laying more eggs.
- Bob Smith asks Marcia Smith about the number of glaciers still growing, and she mentions the Perito Moreno glacier in South America, which is one of the few glaciers still growing and covers 121 square miles.
- Marcia and Bob discuss a program in Dubai where residents can lose weight and get paid in gold.
Trivia, literature, and journalism.
- Marcia and Bob discuss famous writers and their experiences as journalists, including Rudyard Kipling being fired from the San Francisco Examiner for not knowing how to use the English language.
- The tallest freestanding sand dunes in the US are located in Bruneau Dunes State Park in southwestern Idaho, formed near the center of a basin and reaching heights of up to 470 feet.
- Marcia Smith asks Bob Smith about the duration of day and night during the vernal equinox, and Bob responds with a humorous anecdote about John Maynard Keynes and Henrik Ibsen.
- Bob Smith invites listeners to contribute questions for future episodes and provides contact information on the show’s website.
Bob Smith 0:00
How did elevators turn society and real estate markets upside down?
Marcia Smith 0:05
And what year is it right now in Ethiopia?
Bob Smith 0:09
Hmm? Not not what we think it is.
Marcia Smith 0:13
I may be okay
Bob Smith 0:14
answers to those and other questions coming up in this episode of the off ramp with Bob and
Marcia Smith 0:20
Marsha Smith
Bob Smith 0:37
Welcome to the off ramp a chance to slow down steered clear of crazy take a side road to Saturday and get some perspective on life with some interesting facts and trivia. So Marsha, yes, what did elevators do to society? How did they turn society and real estate upside down? Well,
Marcia Smith 0:56
obviously it went vertical after that it allowed people to expand upward instead of sideways. So that changed everything. Well,
Bob Smith 1:06
here’s what it is or should be for elevators. The upper floors were cheaper to rent than the ground floors they weren’t thought of as valuable in business buildings and in apartment buildings. Now in business buildings. The upper floors were used for storage rooms and custodial services. And before the elevator apartment buildings in New York City were limited to six stories because people wouldn’t walk any higher than that. The upper floors were used for laundry rooms, servants quarters or attic apartments for the poor. Raise how people thought of upper floors of buildings. Even the Dakota which is the first luxury apartment building in New York City. That’s where John Lennon lived. That’s right. All of the original wealthy people lived at the ground floor and the upper floors were for servants quarters.
Marcia Smith 1:51
No kidding. What year did the elevator the first passenger
Bob Smith 1:55
elevators in an office building were in 1870. And that started to reorganize the way buildings were thought of but took almost 50 years before things changed in residential buildings. In 1922, developer Emery Roth constructed twin 15 storey buildings, Myron Arms and Jerome palace had Broadway in at second and he designed top floor apartments with terraces on all sides. And people can have gardens up there and he introduced the word penthouse to real estate. That’s when the upper floors of buildings began to be valued more than the lower floors. And they use elevators actually to lower the wealthy people because they said you can have a private elevator to your mansion in the sky. Yeah.
Marcia Smith 2:40
And your view is better obvious. Yes. And you won’t have to deal
Bob Smith 2:42
with the hoi polloi. They’ll have separate elevators. This is from a book that came out recently called lifted a cultural history of the elevator by Andreas Barnard, New York University Press got a lot of interesting facts. And I’m
Marcia Smith 2:55
sure I’ll be hearing about him day and night for quite a while. Okay, Bob. So it’s 2022. What year is it now in Ethiopia?
Bob Smith 3:05
I assume it’s not 2022? They’re using a different calendar. Just a new calendar. This
Marcia Smith 3:11
is the question Bob, this is the trick.
Bob Smith 3:12
I don’t know the answer. I
Marcia Smith 3:14
don’t know. Just say just say it is so hard for you, isn’t it?
Bob Smith 3:19
I don’t know the answer. Okay, what is it
Marcia Smith 3:21
is 2014 in Ethiopia, they have their own calendar, seven years and eight months behind the Western calendar. Oh, so it’s just the start of 2014 there right now. That’s because it calculates the birth of Jesus Christ differently. Instead of zero. The Ethiopian calendar places Jesus’s birth around seven BCE. Okay. That’s because when the rest of the Christian world under the Roman Empire changed its calendar in 500 ad the Ethiopian Orthodox Church
Bob Smith 3:56
did not so it’s remained the same calendar since then.
Marcia Smith 3:59
So they say Christ was born around seven BCE. So they’re 2014 right now I don’t know how you deal with the rest of the world when you’re in a different year but okay,
Bob Smith 4:10
and speaking of Christ’s birth many Christians today think it was about anywhere from four to seven or eight BC so they may be right on the mark guards to that but as far as the rest of their calendar no a little behind everyone much that’s okay Marcia what famous world ruler loved brick laying in fact, so much so that until his death he was a dues paying member of a brick layers Union. This is a world war two leader Okay, say
Marcia Smith 4:38
the opening again.
Bob Smith 4:39
What famous world leader left brick laying brick laying so much so that until his death he was a dues paying member of a bricklayers union World War Two someone you
Marcia Smith 4:49
admire. I would say Winston Winston Churchill
Bob Smith 4:52
That’s right. From 1928 until his death in the 1960s. He was a dues paying member of the Amalgamated union of the building trades workers, and he wasn’t just a bricklayer on paper. He personally built a swimming pool and a tree house out of bricks for his children at Chartwell, his estate. Well see
Marcia Smith 5:10
now that’s my kind of guy. He’s got both sides of his brain going there. I mean, you know, so you got Prime Minister and bricklayer very charming. Okay, Bob, where are the world’s oldest mummies located? Well,
Bob Smith 5:23
I would assume that they’re in Egypt but asking the question, obviously they aren’t. That’s correct. Okay. I will then guess one of the oldest civilizations there’s Sumerian civilization which was in what is now a rack that area there. Yeah, that’s
Marcia Smith 5:38
a good that’s a good detention. Yes. And I’m right. Yeah, no. Oh, Egypt may be home to the world’s most famous mummies, but not the world’s oldest. That distinction belongs to Chile or really in South America. Yeah. Okay. mummified remains there predate their Egyptian counterparts by more than 2000 years. Wow. Yeah. Known as the Chinchorro mummies. These artificially preserved hunter gatherers were first discovered just over a century ago in the Atacama Desert, the driest non polar desert in the world. Okay. And their recent discovery as explained by the fact that they weren’t buried in ostentatious pyramids. No, no. After. Not for these guys, but rather after being skinned and refurbished with natural materials, to refurbish your mummy honey. Oh, dear. They’re wrapped in reads and placed in shallow modest graves. It’s estimated that the oldest mummies their date back a full 7000 years
Bob Smith 6:40
that is amazing. And again, in an arid condition, and in a desert
Marcia Smith 6:43
area. That’s right. So that’s it. That’s the answer. All right. Here’s
Bob Smith 6:47
another question about a famous person not known for what you think he was. Okay. named this man. He was a biblical scholar, a professor of Oriental and Greek literature, and a compiler of a Greek and Hebrew Lexicon. But he is remembered for a simple easily remembered rhyme who was that person?
Marcia Smith 7:07
Do I know this person? You’ve heard his name?
Bob Smith 7:10
Okay. You hear his creation every Christmas. Okay,
Marcia Smith 7:13
so it was it Silent Night. Holy Night. No, nothing.
Bob Smith 7:18
This is a poem. Oh,
Marcia Smith 7:19
was it? Was it? Charles Dickens? No. Okay. I didn’t know. Clement more Clark Clemmer. Oh, yeah. Yes. Up on the rooftop. Yeah,
Bob Smith 7:27
the night before Christmas, or A Visit from St. Nicholas. He lived from 1779 to 1863. And I guess this is why sometimes people are a little, you know, upset that they are not remembered for what they think are their greatest Oh, absolute greatest creation. This guy was a biblical scholar, Professor of Oriental and Greek literature and a compiler of a Greek and Hebrew Dictionary, essentially. But he’s remembered for that simple verse he wrote for his children. Yeah,
Marcia Smith 7:54
it’s, it drives people nuts like Conan Doyle. He’s remembered always for Sherlock Holmes, and he hated that. Yeah. But he wrote, you know, what became Jurassic Park
Bob Smith 8:04
and all that with the lost world was the name of the Jurassic Park. That’s correct. Do you want
Marcia Smith 8:09
it his novels to be the center of his life? Right. All right. Oh, in the 19th century, would British elites have fun at parties with Egyptian mummies smoked
Bob Smith 8:21
the Egyptian mummies. What did they do? They would
Marcia Smith 8:25
hold mummy on wrapping parties. Oh, dear. Oh, isn’t that disrespectful
Bob Smith 8:29
to say the very say it’s disrespect to the dead? Yes, that was Victorians
Marcia Smith 8:34
had a few strange ideas on how to have fun and one of which was holding parties devoted to unwrapping mummies. They were all in full throes of Egypt mania at the time everybody was they’d go there and then they’d bring back a mummy and they all on rapid
Bob Smith 8:49
sea. This is where you hear people say, well, they shouldn’t return all of these artifacts to these countries. They don’t have the best museums and everything. But what did they do when they brought them here? Yeah, they brought the mummies here and then they had money in wrapping parties. Yeah, somehow these things got out of the hands of scientists or archaeologists and into parties. That’s just disgusting. Isn’t it
Marcia Smith 9:09
pass the canopies. And the mummy. Yeah.
Bob Smith 9:14
Okay, Marsha, what are Dermatoglyphics Dermatoglyphics?
Marcia Smith 9:19
Any idea what that might be? Let me think Don’t be skin a tattoos
Bob Smith 9:23
where you’re close to it. Okay. Oh, Jeremiah being skin and glyph being carving. That’s the technical name for the patterns and ridges your fingertips make on objects. In other words, fingerprints, okay, generally the glyph acts, but it’s almost impossible to change or eliminate fingerprints. So how did the famous gangster John villager try to hide his
Marcia Smith 9:43
little didn’t he put his fingertips and acid somebody? Yes,
Bob Smith 9:47
yes, he tried to burn off his fingertips with acid but it didn’t work. It didn’t know he still had prints they still have prints. In fact you can find in the literature pictures of before and after and you can still see the original Yeah, they you see them enough. They can be identified. Isn’t it interesting pain? Was it, John? No, it wasn’t. And the ridges eventually grow back in the same patterns. No kid after you try to destroy them. Isn’t that curious? Huh? All right now, I went. Couple more questions on fingerprints. When do your fingerprints and other skin ridges form? In the womb? Yes. When
Marcia Smith 10:22
I need to give you the month. Yes. fourth month? Well, you’re
Bob Smith 10:26
right between the third and six months of pregnancy. Well, very good. Very good. And you know that even identical twins have different fingerprints. Oh, I didn’t know. Yeah, they have different fingerprints. Because during fetal growth, the genes that control the dermal layers of the body parts dictate the size, shape and patterns of those, those ridges. Alright, so now I given you a couple questions about fingerprints. And you know that Dermatoglyphics are the fingerprints. Yeah. So what is a derma? To glyphis? No fingerprint. That’s right. It’s a genetic condition where people are born without fingerprints. Technically, they’re born without the ridges on the skin, which can be on the palms, the soles of your feet, all those ridges are in multiple places be very uncommon. Yeah, it is uncommon be a good person to have be a thief. And I’ll have one more question on fingerprints coming
Marcia Smith 11:12
up. Oh, okay. All right, Bob, what city in the world has a government position entitled, Minister of State for happiness?
Bob Smith 11:21
There is actually a country that has the Minister of what is it again,
Marcia Smith 11:25
Minister of State for happiness. Well, I like that. Me too. Yeah. It’s Dubai. Oh, no kidding. As Dubai city has a genuine concern and passion for its citizens. This is a Miranda, this is Chamber of Commerce. Yeah, that’s where I got this. The United Arab Emirates wants to ensure the citizens are happy. Hence, it has created a position in the government responsible for citizens happiness, the tremendous responsibility of the Minister of Happiness is to harmonize government plans, policy and programs to ensure they bring happiness to their citizens.
Bob Smith 12:04
That sounds like just BS, doesn’t it?
Marcia Smith 12:08
It’s a paying position.
Bob Smith 12:10
Hey, I’ll take it. Yeah. Interesting. Yes. How in the world do you you know, who’s the police that makes sure that works, right? Yeah. Is that kind of a funny thing? Oh, no, they
Marcia Smith 12:20
got a little happiness meter. Eat neat.
Bob Smith 12:23
Okay, two more fingerprint questions. True or False? Do animals have unique fingerprints? Yes. Oh, really? What animals have unique that be apes. Yes. gorillas, orangutans and chimpanzees. They have them on their fingers and toes that are unique to each individual. And sometimes, this is one reason scientists think maybe the reason for these ridges we have on our fingers are to help grip things. Yeah. Because these animals have them and they hang. Okay. How far back does the use of fingerprints go?
Marcia Smith 12:56
I don’t believe it became a thing until the 1800s. Middle 1800s
Bob Smith 13:02
The first record regarding the use of fingerprints is a document entitled The volume of crime scene investigation. burglary. How old is that document? Wow, the volume of Crime Scene Investigation dash burglary,
Marcia Smith 13:16
I’ll bet it goes back to ancient times more
Bob Smith 13:19
than 2200 years ago, the Lord goes back to the Qing Dynasty in China between 221 to 206 BCE. That document relates to how fingerprints were used as a type of evidence and the Chinese have extensive records of fingerprints being used both for crime solving, and for securing important documents going back more than 2000 years, way before. Way before the 1890s Yeah. And they used fingerprints in clay on seals on documents to authenticate who sent that Doc Yeah, 200 BC or so. And then after the invention of paper by the Chinese in ad 105, it became common to sign documents using friction Ridge skin, so they would use the index finger as a way to sign a document. So basically using a fingerprint and that goes back to 105. Ad.
Marcia Smith 14:07
That’s hard to fathom.
Bob Smith 14:08
It’s a long time ago.
Marcia Smith 14:09
Okay, how many languages barber in the world?
Bob Smith 14:12
How many languages today? Yeah, I saw a statistic recently it said in New York City. There’s 800 languages spoken in New York City, you know, with all the different people from all over. Yeah, so I’ll say 1000 Yeah. 1500
Marcia Smith 14:26
languages. Nope, it’s 7100 languages still existing in the world today, right? Course they’re all not equal. There’s one language called Bisou b u s, u u. And it’s spoken by only the three people that are left. As of 2005 or only three people. It’s spoken in Cameroon, but the top five languages in the world are name a couple. Chinese now. Oh, I guess Mandarin
Bob Smith 14:55
is Yeah, Chinese English. Yes. Are those the top two?
Marcia Smith 14:59
Yes, English. Mandarin Hindi Spanish and French Wow those are the top five languages of the world of which there are 7100 That
Bob Smith 15:08
is amazing and people might think French well that’s kind of a small country well Britain was a small country of course exported English all over the world but French was used in many countries as the language of diplomacy for centuries now I see. Okay, we know Madame Tussauds museum we’ve been to that in London right madam to so is is a famous wax museum with all kinds of celebrity figures throughout history oppose there the Beatles are there there are all kinds of people going back to Henry the Eighth and before that, now, how did man up to so get started in France? In business, madam to so got started in business in France. I
Marcia Smith 15:49
don’t know she made hats a millenary. No,
Bob Smith 15:53
she got her start during the bloody Reign of Terror. During the French Revolution. The radicals came to power and many members of French ruling class were beheaded. And she was commissioned to make death masks of the famous that’s how she got her were being guillotine Ah, good times. Her wax museum opened nine years later in London in 1802. And then in 1833, it was moved to Baker Street, where it was connected to a chamber of horrors containing relics of criminals and instruments of torture. So it’s had a dark history. Yeah, ghastly history. Oh, and it began very ghastly times during the French Revolution.
Marcia Smith 16:28
Yeah, that that was something something fun something fun.
Bob Smith 16:34
I don’t know French Revolution. We need picked we need these people’s images. We’re going to kill here. Yes. Wouldn’t it be awful to be your your? You’re going to not only have your head cut off, they’re going to make a wax image of your face before you die.
Marcia Smith 16:47
Okay, we need to take a break, Bob. Oh, okay.
Bob Smith 16:50
heads off. I mean, we’ll be back in just a moment. You’re listening to the off ramp with Bob
Marcia Smith 16:55
and Marcia Smith.
Bob Smith 16:59
Welcome back. You’re listening to the off ramp with Bob and Marsha Smith. Marcia has a question.
Marcia Smith 17:03
What made you city Bob has no street addresses or zip codes?
Bob Smith 17:08
What major city has no street addresses or zip code? is in the United States now. Okay. I’m gonna guess what part of the world first Okay, I’m gonna say is it in Europe? Is it the Vatican?
Marcia Smith 17:21
Now? It’s not Europe either. Oh, okay. Where is it? To buy?
Bob Smith 17:25
Oh, here we go. You in Dubai? Yes.
Marcia Smith 17:27
Well, I would had a rather large rabbit hole on Dubai, where across the world Dubai is the most growing city in most respects. This fast growth rate resulted in the government choosing not to have street addresses and zip codes really? Now why that
Bob Smith 17:43
follows? It doesn’t make any sense. I think it’d be just the opposite. Yes. Instead, the
Marcia Smith 17:48
people of Dubai primarily use landmarks maps drawn by hand or verbal illustrations for directions. To me that sounds like a big waste of time. That’s backwards. On the other hand, it might sound challenging to move around without street addresses if you are visitor, but with time you get used to the system, so they’re not going to change. So you bet. Apparently not. addresses are provided only to a very few companies under very specific situation, dear Lord, yeah. How to use but how do you send that?
Bob Smith 18:21
For a fast growing area? You’d think you’d want some type of metrics.
Marcia Smith 18:25
It’s ancient thinking it’s Wow, crazy. Okay,
Bob Smith 18:28
what continent is home to the longest glacier in the world? It’s both the longest glacier and the fastest moving one by let’s
Marcia Smith 18:39
say an Arctic. Okay, you’re right. But it’s Thank you mom.
Bob Smith 18:42
It was discovered in the Australian and Arctic territory Lambert glacier at flows from Central Antarctica, toward the Amory ice shelf on the eastern side of the continent. 250 miles long. Time
Marcia Smith 18:55
for word origin. Oh, you’re like those? Why did we call money saved up for a rainy day? A nest egg?
Bob Smith 19:03
Oh, why do we call it a nest egg?
Marcia Smith 19:06
It’s a good answer.
Bob Smith 19:07
Ah, well, a nest is you the futures coming from from eggs. Right. So why do we call a savings a nest egg? I don’t know why the
Marcia Smith 19:17
term actually comes from the 17th century, when poultry farmers would try to trick their hands into increasing their egg output. Farmers would place a false egg both real or fake in the hens nest to get her mojo going. Okay, okay. And this would generally result in her delivering more eggs than usual, meaning more money for the farmer which he then credits to his nest egg. Oh,
Bob Smith 19:44
no kidding. So it was like a almost a decoy only in reverse all the
Marcia Smith 19:49
money he makes from that. Wow, that’s from my nest egg. Isn’t that funny? Yes, it
Bob Smith 19:53
is. I had no idea. Okay, a couple of more glacier questions for you here. You know, we hear about good glaciers going away. What’s one of the few glaciers that still growing and where would it be?
Marcia Smith 20:05
Well sat down under their
Bob Smith 20:07
own under but not down under down there. Okay, Tom gates in South America it is the Perito Moreno glacier covers 121 square miles it’s still growing one of the Earth’s few glaciers to do so it’s part of an ice field in Argentina and Chile makes up the world’s third largest reserve of freshwater. I didn’t know that glaciers were still growing,
Marcia Smith 20:30
which is good, good, good. Yes. Hope that stays up for a while and
Bob Smith 20:33
in our country. How many glaciers are still in Alaska? This is all brand new information. This is an old stuff I dug out of a sleepy encyclopedia. This comes from the National Park Service. How many glaciers are still in Alaska?
Marcia Smith 20:46
Are they count them? I well. 142 Nope.
Bob Smith 20:52
Glacier Bay National Park in southern Alaska near the capital city of Juneau. It’s home to a whopping 1045 glaciers 1045. Among its most famous is Marjorie a tidewater glacier that extends for 21 miles from the fairweather mountain range. So it’s an estimated that the glacier moves about six feet a day breaking into icebergs, but there are still 1045 glaciers in
Marcia Smith 21:20
Alaska. Bob, get up and go count glaciers today. Oh, one
Bob Smith 21:24
missing from yesterday. So kind of interesting, though. Okay, Bob,
Marcia Smith 21:29
where do you get paid in gold? To lose weight?
Bob Smith 21:33
Gold’s Gym?
Marcia Smith 21:35
That’s a good way. That’s
Bob Smith 21:36
the name of it. Yes. You get paid in gold to lose weight. Now why is this a club or an institution or a country place? Well, is it a country now? Well, who’s giving you the money? The city? The city? Some city gives you gold to lose weight. Let’s go there. Where is this?
Marcia Smith 21:56
Well, now think about it. What’s my city du jour?
Bob Smith 21:59
Oh, no, not Dubai. Oh, dear. That’s it. My last I must be just we should just have. Did you knows about Dubai today as
Marcia Smith 22:08
well. Three questions. Gosh, but in Dubai, you have to admit that’s pretty. What you learned about divided is pretty amazing. Yeah, you are paid two grams of gold for every kilogram, which is a little over two pounds you lose in weight. Well, that’s the government has structured the program to allow only two children per family to be involved in the program. And this city spends about 700,000 a year on gold to pay locals to keep attracted. And just for perspective, and this city, there are some strict laws in Dubai. In Dubai, kissing, dancing or being intoxicated in public spaces is illegal and you can wind up in jail. So no kissing, no dancing,
Bob Smith 22:55
but you can be paid in gold. You lose some weight. Yeah. So
Marcia Smith 22:57
what’s the point of losing weight if you can’t kiss and dance? I don’t know, defies common sense. Good
Bob Smith 23:03
question marks. I don’t know. All right. I got a question. This relates to the fact that sometimes people just don’t recognize talent. Okay, okay. What famous writer was fired from the San Francisco Examiner early in his career. The paper’s editor telling him, this isn’t a Kidner garden for amateur writers, who was the quote, amateur writer unquote,
Marcia Smith 23:25
wasn’t Samuel Clemens. You
Bob Smith 23:27
know, he was in Montana and other parts of the West. But that’s not who this person was. This is San Francisco. Let’s not get distracted. Marcia, who was this writer Fi is a simpler. No, not Raymond Chandler. No, I didn’t know. Rudyard Kipling. Oh, the author of The Jungle Book. Among other great works. He was a reporter for the San Francisco Examiner. He was fired by the editor who said I’m sorry, Mr. Kipling. You just don’t know how to use the English language. This isn’t a kindergarten for amateur writers. Oh, wow. He’d already read a lot of the best short stories in the history of literature The Man Who Would Be King and still was editor just didn’t get out.
Marcia Smith 24:04
Many editors can be idiots. I can vouch that
Bob Smith 24:07
from your experience as a journalist. Yes. That’s funny. Yes. Well, that said but he went on to greater thanks. Yes, he did. Alright, Marcia, where are the tallest freestanding sand dunes in the United States? I’m gonna give you choices. Oh, thank you. Yes. Florida. Yeah. Michigan. Yeah. Idaho. Yeah. Georgia, or the state of California. The tallest freestanding sand dunes in the United States. Michigan. No, not Michigan. No, Georgia. No, it’s an Idaho Believe it or not. Really. Yeah. You think of these things as being a very huge body of water like an ocean or a great lake but
Marcia Smith 24:45
we were just there a couple of days ago. Yeah. And tallest freestanding dunes
Bob Smith 24:49
not part of the dune system, or the dunes at the Bruneau Dunes State Park in southwestern Idaho. The dunes there are up to 470 feet high.
Marcia Smith 24:59
Hey, Lord well isn’t on a body of water. What are we talking about? Well,
Bob Smith 25:03
they’re the only dunes in the Western Hemisphere formed near the center of a basin. Other dunes usually form at a basins edge, but they form at the center of a basin. So they think these dunes started about 15,000 years ago during a period of flooding. They remain there and they remain stable and unlike other dunes, they do not drift. The tallest freestanding sand dunes in the US are in Idaho. Who knew? Not
Marcia Smith 25:27
me? Here’s my last question, Bob. It has nothing to do with Dubai. What happens to the day and night during the vernal equinox? What
Bob Smith 25:37
happens today and night? Yeah, they both get shorter. No, they both get longer. No, they become
Marcia Smith 25:42
of equal duration. Oh, dear, the word Equinox means equal night and that equal and it’s the same amount of hours and time in Night and Day on that day? Wow. I didn’t know that.
Bob Smith 25:57
I didn’t either such simple language and we didn’t know that. That’s correct. Okay, I have you said words. I have a famous last word thing here. All right. Remember, last week or so I had the John Maynard Keynes saying I wish I drank more champagne. That was his last words. Henrik Ibsen, the Norwegian poet and playwright shortly before he died. His wife thought she saw a marked improvement in his physical condition. He sat up in bed said on the contrary, and died. No, my. Dear, dear, dear.
Speaker 1 26:31
So she said to him, I think you’re looking back. He goes on the contrary.
Marcia Smith 26:37
Wow, that’s timing. I like that. Okay. I’m going to end with a quote about freedom from author Virginia Woolf lock up your libraries if you like, but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind. Great quote, There it is. And especially in these days, we’d
Bob Smith 27:00
like to remind you if you’d like to contribute to the show, we love to hear from people who are listening around the world. And you can go to our website, the off ramp dot show and go down to contact us and leave us a question. If you want me to pose one for Marsha or one for her to pose to me question and answer. And tell us a little bit about yourself where you’re writing from. We welcome that kind of contribution. All right,
Marcia Smith 27:23
and if you want to correct us, go ahead. Oh, yeah, that’s okay. All right. I’m
Bob Smith 27:27
Bob Smith.
Marcia Smith 27:28
I’m Marcia Smith. Join us again next
Bob Smith 27:30
time when we return with more fun trivia information here 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