Marcia and Bob shared a range of fascinating facts and trivia, including the history of oatmeal, film industry insights, and untranslatable English words. Bob provided insights into lightning strikes in Florida and shared his knowledge of the Bible, while Marcia discussed common automobile phrases, the rudest and most polite cities in America, and historical events. They also explored the cultural significance of pigs as a lucky symbol in Germany and beyond, dating back to the Middle Ages and continuing in modern times with people bringing marzipan pigs as gifts to wish someone good luck. Through their conversation, they demonstrated their enthusiasm for sharing knowledge and learning from each other.
Outline
Oatmeal’s history and popularization.
- Ferdinand Schumacher popularized oatmeal by advertising and using a Quaker symbol, despite cartoonists depicting oat-eating humans as horses.
Unusual buildings and famous authors.
- Marcia Smith and Bob Smith discuss a city in Saudi Arabia being built with one building, and Ernest Hemingway’s dedication of books to each of his four wives.
A skinny skyscraper and a historical state tidbit.
- Marcia and Bob discuss the world’s skinniest skyscraper, the 84-story residential Steinway tower in New York City, with luxury apartments costing $18-$66 million each.
- Bob Smith learns Kentucky was once a county of Virginia, and its history.
Movie stars, rudest cities, and polite cities.
- Marcia and Bob discuss the top three actors in the film industry based on box office gross, with Stanley Lee ranking highest.
- Bob and Marcia discuss the origins of automobile phrases, rudest and polite cities in America, and family members in the Bible.
- Bob Smith shares interesting facts about historical figures, including Abraham, King Solomon, and Ferdinand Magellan.
- Marcia Smith interjects with additional information and corrections, highlighting the challenges and difficulties faced by Magellan and his crew during their voyage.
Lightning, language, and animals in Florida.
- Bob and Marcia discuss lightning strikes in the US, with Florida identified as the state with the most lightning strikes per year.
- Marcia and Bob discuss untranslatable English words, including “serendipity” and “gobbledygook,” with Marcia providing historical context and Bob offering humorous examples.
- Bob asks Marcia about the most frequently mentioned animals in the Bible, and Marcia provides answers with interesting facts about some of the animals, such as the hippopotami and cheetahs.
- Bob and Marcia discuss the country that consumes the most frozen pizza per capita, with Norway being the answer.
- Bob and Marcia also explore the origins of the phrase “rub someone the wrong way,” which dates back to colonial times in America, and the term “skeleton in the closet,” which refers to a secret or embarrassing information.
Airlines, Peanuts creator, and lucky symbols.
- Marcia Smith: KLM Royal Dutch Airlines is the world’s oldest airline still in operation, founded in the Netherlands in 1919.
- Bob Smith: Charles Schultz, creator of Peanuts, died two years after his last original strip was published, and united features ordered him to take five weeks off around his 75th birthday.
- Marcia Smith explains why pigs are considered a lucky symbol in Germany, citing their historical significance as a source of food and security.
- Bob Smith adds to the conversation with a quote from Paul Newman about his motivations for acting, and shares a personal anecdote about his father’s sporting goods business.
Marcia Smith 0:00
I’m ready to roll. All right, all right,
Bob Smith 0:04
what food product was once considered suitable only as horse feed and
Marcia Smith 0:09
what country is building a one building city
Bob Smith 0:14
wide? Okay answers to those and other questions coming up in this episode of the off ramp with Bob and
Marcia Smith 0:21
Marsha Smith
Bob Smith 0:39
Welcome to the off ramp a chance to slow down steer clear of crazy take a side road to Saturday and get some perspective on life with some fascinating facts and tantalizing trivia. Oh
Marcia Smith 0:51
my time is up bet. I’ve made so many adjectives we ran out of time.
Bob Smith 0:57
Well, Marsha named this food it was once considered suitable only as horse feed.
Marcia Smith 1:03
Oatmeal.
Bob Smith 1:04
That’s exactly right. Yeah.
Marcia Smith 1:06
Ding ding ding.
Bob Smith 1:07
The man who changed all that was Ferdinand Schumacher, a German immigrant. Ferdie in Akron, Ohio. He was the man responsible for the change. He was born in 1822 in Hanover, and he came to America in 1850. He opened a small mill for grinding oats in the back of a grocery store in Minnesota, Akron, Akron, Akron, Ohio, and was surprised that people weren’t eating the oats. They didn’t like the oats, they didn’t want the oats, they thought that’s horse feed. But they were eating it in Europe. So hey, we’re okay. So he helped popularize it by using advertising. A gentleman who was a Quaker Quaker Oats cover, he started, yes, how it got well, that he wasn’t a Quaker, but the symbol he used was the Quaker, the guy with the hat. That’s right. Okay. So that eventually became the largest oat milling complex in the world. And when he started doing this, though, the cartoonists of the time had a field day they depicted oat eating humans wearing feedbags when eating loudly when eating loudly like horses.
Marcia Smith 2:12
Ah, that’s how you are in the morning after you. So there’s an
Bob Smith 2:16
example of changing things by marketing a difference.
Marcia Smith 2:19
Absolutely. There’s some great examples of like, wristwatch. That’s right. It used to be a woman thing and they had a man come up. That’s right for a guy to put it on his wrist. One reason
Bob Smith 2:29
Lindbergh was asked to wear Well, yeah. And that did the trick. And World War One changed it to Yeah,
Marcia Smith 2:35
that’s a Tim Allen kind of. Okay, what country is building a city with one building in it? I’ll give you multiple
Bob Smith 2:44
choice here. Okay, so this is the city with one building? Yeah,
Marcia Smith 2:48
there’s a country. I’ll give you some countries. Okay. United States, Egypt, Saudi Arabia or Norway? I’ll
Bob Smith 2:55
say Norway. Yeah. Good guests. No, no. Okay. Then let me guess. Again. It’s Saudi
Unknown Speaker 3:00
Arabia. Yes. Those wacky Saudi,
Bob Smith 3:02
they’re gonna build a city with one building? Well, one
Marcia Smith 3:05
building in the desert, the Saudi Arabian desert. It’s 106 mile long.
Bob Smith 3:13
Building will be 106 miles long. Yeah. Really?
Marcia Smith 3:16
Yeah. I don’t know why they announced their plans in 2021. They’re still building apparently. And it’s called the city of neon and E O. M, it will include this mega structure called the line. The line?
Bob Smith 3:29
Yeah. Because it’s such a long build, I
Marcia Smith 3:32
would think Yeah, yeah. So what’s it going to be used for? Well, it’s a home for people who quote, dream big and want to be part of a building for sustainable living, working and prospering.
Bob Smith 3:43
So it’s some kind of experimental community. Yeah. Yeah. It’s never
Marcia Smith 3:48
been done before. And you get to live in the desert. Or you go up can’t
Bob Smith 3:54
wait for that. All right. Well, Marsha, I have a question here. What famous author dedicated a book to each of his four wives.
Marcia Smith 4:04
Oh, that is that is mentally of him. It’s a nice way
Bob Smith 4:07
to make Yeah, make good use of your the fact that you’ve married four times are
Marcia Smith 4:12
so honored. Sounds like Ernest Hemingway.
Bob Smith 4:15
That’s exactly who it was. Yeah, okay. Each time he got divorced. He was married again within the year but he always left something behind in print. Oh my goodness. The dedication for the Sun Also Rises went to his first wife, Elizabeth Hadley Richardson. Death in the afternoon was dedicated to his second wife, Pauline Pfeiffer, For Whom the Bell Tolls was for his third wife, Martha Gill horn and across the river and into the trees went to marry with love. That was to his time in Life Magazine correspondent wife Mary Welsh I
Marcia Smith 4:48
save a very curious to me Bobby’s. He gets married each time within a year. That is so pathetic. I know, isn’t it? Yeah, macho man. Not so much as we know. Okay. Hey, so, Bob Weir is the world’s skinniest skyscraper, the
Bob Smith 5:05
world’s skinniest skyscraper. Yes. So this would be a skyscraper with maybe like one office at the top or something like that.
Marcia Smith 5:12
It’s the whole building is skinny. Really? Yeah. Where is it when it gets? No, not
Bob Smith 5:17
really. Okay. Yeah. Oh, guess. I’ll guess that that is also in the Middle East like Saudi Arabia or something like that. Yeah. I would have guessed that United Arab Emirates. Yeah,
Marcia Smith 5:28
but no, it’s New York City. Really? Yeah. The 84 storey residential Steinway tower. It has a logic defying ratio of height to width. It’s 23 and a half to one. A thin building is one to 10 that’s considered a slender building. With too tight 23 and a half to one to 60 apartments and 84. storeys. That’s interesting. That’s pretty exclusive. Yes. The 60 apartments in the tower cost from 18 to 66 million per unit.
Bob Smith 6:00
Oh my goodness.
Marcia Smith 6:01
They offer a 360 degree view of the city. And check this out. When the wind blows those luxury homes on the upper floors sway by a few feet. Oh my Can you imagine a few feet I can see a little few inches. But if my house were going three feet to the left and right oh,
Bob Smith 6:20
that’s like a comedy movie. No kidding. So it i That would be scary. So this has 84 floors, 60 apartments, and they cost how much
Marcia Smith 6:31
anywhere from 18 to 66 million.
Bob Smith 6:34
I’ll take two of them. Cheese. Can you believe that? Well, okay, I’ve got a question about a state. Okay. Okay. What state was once a county of Virginia. I’m gonna give you four choices here. Thank you, Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee or Rhode Island. I’ll say Maryland. That sounds like that would be appropriate because it’s close to Virginia. But actually it’s Kentucky on the other side of the Allegheny County. Hmm, was a county, the great state of Kentucky was once a great county of Virginia. And isn’t that amazing? That is funny. County the size of Kentucky seems huge, right? Yes. But imagine how big Virginia was at the time. Oh, that makes sense. From 1611 to 1620. It stretched from sea to shining sea, encompassing most of the 48 states of the United States, and parts of Mexico and Canada. So it went from Atlantic to the Pacific. This was because King James was trying to keep the investors investing in Virginia because Jamestown was suffering so badly. So as well, I’ll give you the whole continent there. Because King James didn’t want James Town to fail. I’ll forget six. So anyway, Kentucky became a county in this huge landmass. And then after the Revolutionary War in 1792, it had enough settlers that it became a state. That’s
Marcia Smith 7:52
hard to believe. Yeah, I got one you’re gonna like, okay, according to the film industry website, it’s called the number one movie actors are the top three box office stars domestically.
Bob Smith 8:05
Well, I would say Tom Cruise has got to be probably number one. And that
Marcia Smith 8:09
would be wrong. Why? Okay. Samuel Jackson. Ah, very good. He’s, he’s number two.
Bob Smith 8:18
He’s number two. Well, who’s number one?
Marcia Smith 8:20
Number one is Stanley. Stanley. Okay, let me explain. So, number one is Stanley, because his films that he appeared in grossed more money than all the other ones. He acted in 49 films, films like Ant Man, Iron Man, Spider Man, Black Widow, Black Panther, Avenger, Captain, you name it.
Bob Smith 8:42
Also, this is a technicality. This is an actor who’s appeared in the highest grossing films, not necessarily the star or the highest paid person. Correct.
Marcia Smith 8:51
He acted in 49 films that gross $30.6 billion worldwide, but we’re not done. Who is number three? Okay, so we got Sam Jackson. Number two, we got Stan Lee.
Bob Smith 9:05
I’ve got Sylvester Stallone there. He’s a there’s no okay. Dwayne, Dwayne Johnson the
Marcia Smith 9:10
No. Okay. All right, who all right. It’s Frank Welker ever hearing him. No. He’s a voice and on Camera Actor in 112 films, films in which his voice characters have grossed $7.4 billion domestically and 4 billion globally. He’s lent his voices to Aladdin Beauty and the Beast. He was the footstool. Of course. You remember. You remember though? Yes. Super Mario Brothers transformers Scooby Doo. He was Scooby Doo. Oh, The Lion King Star Trek and Caddyshack. Who do you think he was in Caddyshack? The gopher
Bob Smith 9:47
Oh, no kidding. So he lent his voice to all of those films and more. Yeah,
Marcia Smith 9:53
so he’s number three. Wow. Okay. Interesting,
Bob Smith 9:57
interesting technicality. either more high grossing films than any other actors and, and only one of them we’ve really heard Stanley Of course, he was a Marvel Comics creator. Then he became a producer when they got into films. And then he was in all these cameos. 49 films. I didn’t know there were that many. Yeah. Holy cow. Yeah. Okay, Marcia, a word origin question for you today. Oh, kiddo. What automobile phrase comes from the stagecoach era.
Marcia Smith 10:26
Hit your wagon.
Bob Smith 10:27
Get in the car. People go okay, you you can drive I’m going to be riding. Oh.
Marcia Smith 10:32
When you’re sitting next to the driver, you’re riding shotgun. That gun? Yeah, that makes sense. That’s where your shotgun would go when back in the wagon. That’s exactly
Bob Smith 10:40
right. That was a big responsibility to ride shotgun and stagecoaches in the wild west because if they were transporting something valuable you who sat beside the driver might be tasked with fending off thieves and wild animals with an actual shotgun but I
Marcia Smith 10:57
never thought about hey, I’ll ride shotgun. Yes, perfect sense. Okay. All right, Bob. According to a recent survey, what are considered the top rudest cities in America?
Bob Smith 11:08
The top rudest, rudess rudest cities, I always thought Philadelphia was one of those it is it’s
Marcia Smith 11:13
number one. Yeah, it is rude. So you got number one, I’ll tell you the other top ones. Okay. Memphis. Really? New York City, Las Vegas and Boston. See,
Bob Smith 11:22
I’m surprised emphasis you know, the southern cities usually more cordial, but yeah, so Memphis was number two. Yeah.
Marcia Smith 11:29
New York City three Las Vegas for and Boston is fine. Okay. Okay, so how about the same survey? How about the most polite cities?
Bob Smith 11:39
The most polite cities Minneapolis?
Marcia Smith 11:41
No, not not. Really? Minnesota.
Bob Smith 11:42
Nice. That’s always what I hear. But you’re wrong.
Marcia Smith 11:45
Number one is Austin. Two is San Diego than Fort Worth than Nashville. And Indianapolis. The five nicest cities in America. What most
Bob Smith 11:56
pleasant people in those cities? Yeah. What What’s the survey from what is it? It’s out
Marcia Smith 12:00
prep, Lee language learning app survey, the prep li language learning app survey. It’s a it’s a learning app. And they did a survey of all their users. Okay. And that was the questions they asked.
Bob Smith 12:13
It’s interesting. Yeah. Okay, I’ve got some family questions. These are family. These are the Bible. This is from the Bible. Oh, who’s the worst family member in Scripture. This is an interesting list here. Abraham who was willing to sacrifice his only son on God’s command. You might say, well, he was. He was a good person. Well, he was willing to kill his son, Cain who killed his only brother. And then of course, Joseph’s brothers tried to kill him for his coat. That’s pretty bad. I just think these are funny because they you think of it and in its rudest terms as opposed to being the sacred stories.
Marcia Smith 12:50
These are not Hallmark movies.
Bob Smith 12:51
These are people who are bad. Okay, who is the Bible’s most married man? No idea. The one who’s considered the wisest, isn’t it interesting. King Solomon. Oh, really? He’s described as having 700 wives and 300 concubines a little match. Oh, my goodness. All
Marcia Smith 13:08
right. Okay, Bob. Thank fast. Okay, who was the first person to sail around the world? Well,
Bob Smith 13:14
it wasn’t Magellan. I know the story. It was a guy who worked for Magellan because Magellan died on the voyage. Very good, Bob, but I don’t know the guy’s name.
Marcia Smith 13:23
I need to know the name. But I thought for sure you’d say Magellan and I would I am just gonna go aha. He made it halfway around. Then he died. And his navigator Juan Sebastian Konya, stepped up and lead the crew back to Spain.
Bob Smith 13:38
That was a such an amazing story. People are starting to look at that again. With all the stuff they went through. And going through that was a cape down at the tip of South America. That’s a horrible place to try to take a sailing ship through. You have a gentleman was not considered the best boss, apparently. Oh, really? He was 41 when he died. He was killed in the Battle of Mac tan in 1521 in the Philippines, ran into resistance by the indigenous population.
Marcia Smith 14:06
Okay, so it wasn’t his own people on the boat. No, but there was a mutiny.
Bob Smith 14:10
He had all kinds of problems on that trip. The fellow who took lead to the expedition sail did all the rest of the way to Spain. So I forget there was only a fraction of the people on that ship that came back alive. Oh, really?
Marcia Smith 14:21
Bad managing, as
Bob Smith 14:24
well. It was, you know, nobody had gone around the world before. How long were they gone? Took off in 1519. Magellan was killed in 1521. And they returned to Spain at 1522.
Marcia Smith 14:35
Okay, so it was three years. About three years. Yeah. Okay.
Bob Smith 14:39
I think it’s time we take a break. All righty. You’re listening to the off ramp with
Marcia Smith 14:43
Bob and Marsha Smith.
Bob Smith 14:44
We’ll be back in just a moment. We’re back you’re listening to the off ramp with Bob and Marsha Smith. Marcia. What is the lightning capital of the United States? Is it on the plains of Nebraska? Is it down in the prairies. Texas, is it in Hawaii or Florida? Where is the lightning capital of the United States? What state?
Marcia Smith 15:07
I will say Kansas?
Bob Smith 15:09
Well, that’s not one of the ones I mentioned. But
Marcia Smith 15:13
notice I’ve always had my own mind.
Bob Smith 15:17
Okay, let’s try it again. Nebraska, Texas, Hawaii or Florida, Nebraska. No, it’s Florida. Okay. Florida has more lightning strikes than any other state in the country, with the area between the cities of Tampa and Orlando called lightning alley. Really? You’ve heard of tornado alley? Yeah, this is lightning alley. How many cloud to ground lightning flashes every day in Florida every day every day. 10 more than that? 20 No more than that. Tell me 3000 Oh, no. 500 I’d say 3500. cloud to ground lightning flashes per day in Florida, and 1.2 million lightning flashes per year. That is astounding. That is amazing. According to attend your study. Part of the reason for this is the unique shape of Florida’s peninsula and the warm weather that surrounds it foster frequent thunderstorms, especially in the afternoon, when the land is warmed up enough to create ideal conditions. So if you’re heading to Florida as a tourist remember the Florida motto when lightning roars head indoors that’s actually a slogan they use them. Oh, that’s fine. Get inside of a building or a car. Okay. Remember that? But Florida isn’t the world champion for lightning strikes. Where’s that? Do you have any idea? The World Champion
Marcia Smith 16:35
world champion?
Bob Smith 16:36
Lightning strikes? Tell me it’s in Venezuela. Okay. CASA, tune bow lightning that was the place they call it the everlasting storm down there.
Marcia Smith 16:46
All right. I’m gonna do a couple of short ones here. All right. What do these words have in common Bob? Hillbilly gobbly gook serendipity
Bob Smith 16:57
hillbilly gobbledygook and serendipity. These from Shakespeare, these weren’t Shakespeare words. What
Marcia Smith 17:01
are they now?
Bob Smith 17:02
Hillbilly gobbledygook, serendipity? I don’t know. They
Marcia Smith 17:07
are three of pretty many untranslatable English words. Oh, really? Yeah. There’s just no other words in any language form. I would have thought serendipity. But hey, serendipity comes from Serendip, which was an ancient name for Sri Lanka. In at least one Persian fairy tale. The word was used to describe people who make discoveries. They weren’t looking for real. And so it was coined by Horace Walpole in 1754. And he just made it up and there we are. Translated now. Oh, yeah. They can’t think of a translatable word for it. Leser that’s a good one. Yeah, it’s one word.
Bob Smith 17:47
It was hillbilly serendipity. And what was the other one? gobbledygook. gobbledygook? Yeah,
Marcia Smith 17:51
okay. Okay, Bob in 1520. These animals were called strange geese. By the Europeans who first saw them. What animal are we talking about? Strange
Bob Smith 18:02
geese. Geese are something that’s kind of a duck. Or flies. But isn’t. It looks odd. It’s not turkeys. Are
Marcia Smith 18:11
they now? Strange? 1520. Yeah, well, that
Bob Smith 18:15
doesn’t help me. I know. 1520 Oh, no, it was 1980. Yeah, no, what was it? Penguin? Oh, strange geese. Isn’t that funny? You
Marcia Smith 18:24
imagine seeing a penguin for the first time to come out their little tuxedos and go What the
Bob Smith 18:29
I was. So Europeans hadn’t seen penguins until 1520. Yeah, wow. Yeah. Well, that is a strange animal. Yeah, strange looking strange keys and they were called strange keys. A speaking of animals another Bible question. How are you animals and the Bible? What are the most frequently mentioned animals in the Bible?
Marcia Smith 18:49
Mules are acids. No, no.
Bob Smith 18:52
Now there are about 100 Animals ambling across the pages of the Bible.
Marcia Smith 18:59
It’s not the snack camels? No. Would it be a goat? No. It’s not no.
Bob Smith 19:09
What Okay, sheep Marcia sheep. Sheep. Goats are a distant second, though. How Okay, and it’s interesting because some of the animals that have since disappeared from the Middle East such as hippopotami and crocodiles. hippopotami are mentioned in the book of Job crocodiles are mentioned in Ezekiel. Cheetahs are mentioned in Hava, KU. And bears are mentioned in Second Kings lions are mentioned in 150 occasions. Okay,
Marcia Smith 19:37
Bob, what country in the world consumes the most frozen pizza per capita?
Bob Smith 19:46
It’s not the United States now. Per capita, per capita more frozen pizza
Marcia Smith 19:50
and anybody else? Down way above everybody. I’m
Bob Smith 19:54
gonna say something like Norway or Denmark. Excellent.
Marcia Smith 19:57
Norway, Norway hands down it says this country of around 5.4 million people consumes more than 47 million frozen pizza pies a year. That’s roughly comes out to like 11 pounds per person of pizza per year. Okay,
Bob Smith 20:14
okay, Marcia, another word origin rub someone the wrong way. You’ve had a lot of experience with this. So it means to annoy or bother another person’s mind. I know you’ve been known to rub some people the wrong way.
Marcia Smith 20:29
It’s my history. Okay,
Bob Smith 20:31
where does that come from? Uh, well, it goes back to colonial times alone in America as well. Something servants did.
Marcia Smith 20:38
Oh, if you if you accidentally touch your Master, are you rubbing them the wrong Oh, no. Okay, tell me
Bob Smith 20:44
okay. during colonial times, some Americans would have their servants rub the floorboards in a specific way. So you rub the oak slabs if you rub them the wrong way that would result in the formation of streaks which ruin the floorboards and annoyed the homeowner. Don’t rub me the wrong way.
Marcia Smith 21:00
Oh, that’s funny.
Bob Smith 21:02
I’ve got another one too. All right skeleton in the closet. That’s That’s a secret. Somebody’s embarrassed about right, right, right. Where does this come from?
Marcia Smith 21:11
Is it from ancient medical days when it was against the law to have skeletons because they would steal the skeletons from graves
Bob Smith 21:19
are very close to what it is. Yes, it goes back to the UK before the UK passed its 1832 anatomy act. Grave robbers supplied skeletons for medical schools. Ding ding ding. And when a raid occurred, the teachers tended to hide those skeletons in the closet so they didn’t get them confiscated.
Marcia Smith 21:38
I was right. There’s a skeleton in the closet. I wasn’t close. I
Unknown Speaker 21:41
was right. You were very close.
Marcia Smith 21:43
It was right. No, you were very close.
Bob Smith 21:44
You said ancient times. It’s not ancient times. weren’t exactly right. Here’s
Marcia Smith 21:50
one you won’t get in, in the grasslands of Nebraska, near the South Dakota border. Bob lives the municipality of MonaVie mo N OWI. What makes this place unique
Bob Smith 22:07
mono we it’s a singular distinction. I would assume it being mono. Okay, yeah,
Marcia Smith 22:15
actually, you’re on two sub Oh, really?
Bob Smith 22:17
Okay. Mono meaning one. We means Wi Fi. I don’t know what what is it?
Marcia Smith 22:22
The town’s sole residence is LC Eiler. She’s a woman in her 80s. She’s the total population of the town. She’s the town’s mayor, clerk, librarian treasurer. Really? And she receives funding for municipal roadwork in her town. She wears all the hats in that town. And there’s only one that’s mono we
Bob Smith 22:46
mono we Nebraska. Yeah. All right, Marcia, what is the world’s oldest airline still in operation? And when did it begin? I’ll give you four names. Okay. Okay. American, Delta KLM or quantas?
Marcia Smith 23:00
I’ll say KLM.
Bob Smith 23:02
That’s exactly right. KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. They began in the Netherlands in October 1919. So that makes them the world’s oldest airline. In their first year of operation. They transported 440 people, just a fraction of the 34 million who recently flew on KLM in 2018. All right,
Marcia Smith 23:24
Bob. How long after Charles Schultz, the creator of peanuts. How long after he died? Did his new cartoons continue to run?
Bob Smith 23:33
Usually cartoons work about three or four months in advance? Maybe six months, but I think he was really far out there. So I’d say two years later, one day. Oh my god, really? But
Marcia Smith 23:44
you’re right. He did have that work ethic. He was notoriously hard worker and was rumored to have taken only one real vacation in his whole life. Still,
Bob Smith 23:54
he was a day behind. Well, no, he was a day ahead. One day
Marcia Smith 23:58
One day he had he never missed the deadline ever. Reportedly, the only time peanut strips were ever republished during his entire lifetime. Were when united features ordered him to take five weeks off around his 75th birthday. They ordered him to take time off. Yeah, it wasn’t easy for him. It was perhaps fitting that when he died of colon cancer two years later, it was just one day before his last original strip brand.
Bob Smith 24:26
Very good. Okay, one more word origin question. Red Herring. Where does that come from? Red Herring, because
Marcia Smith 24:33
there are no red herrings that it’s it’s, it’s on. obtainable?
Bob Smith 24:39
No, I don’t think that’s it. Okay. Red Herring means a clue that’s meant to mislead or distract someone? Yeah, okay. Well, during the 17th century, hunters would train their dogs to follow the correct scent. They would do this by placing pungent smoked fish in trees to distract the dogs. So they would become used to ignoring irrelevant sense. Oh, that’s cool. So till finally they go no, that’s not it. You know, that’s not come over here. Yeah. So they would just start ignoring this thing. It was a really interesting
Marcia Smith 25:06
Okay, one more question for me before my quote. Okay. Why are pigs Bob considered a lucky symbol in Germany to this day?
Bob Smith 25:15
Why are pigs considered a lucky symbol? If you didn’t know that? No, I had no
Marcia Smith 25:20
idea. It’s actually a very common sense reason. Okay, what is it? It goes back to the Middle Ages when owning a large number of pigs signified wealth and prosperity. While farmers might have wanted to hang on to a cow for milk and a horse for transport, pigs weren’t too valuable to sacrifice for the dinner table. Therefore, if you had pigs, you’d never go hungry. And they considered that good fortune and centuries later, these farm animals are still a lucky symbol the German expression shrine debat translates literally to got pig. No kidding. Oh, the phrase effectively means got lucky. And if you wish someone in Germany Good luck. It’s customary to bring them marzipan pig that’s wrapped in dough, Sweet Almond dough, and to accompany your message with this lucky thing, particularly to ring in the new year. So a pig is considered good luck for the new year.
Bob Smith 26:17
So it was a sense of security. Yeah, pigs. Yeah. You’d always eat. Yeah, never have a problem. Yeah. Lucky you with the pigs.
Marcia Smith 26:26
We all eat ham here on the holidays too. Yeah. Okay. Why don’t you finish up with a quote mark? What do you got? Somerset? Mom, there are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
Bob Smith 26:41
Well, that’s good. And
Marcia Smith 26:42
here’s one by Paul Newman. I wasn’t driven to acting by an inner compulsion. I was running away from the sporting goods business.
Bob Smith 26:51
Oh, that’s right. We saw that documentary. I talk about it. I think his
Marcia Smith 26:54
dad had sporting good business. And we wanted him to work for him. Oh, isn’t that funny? So he found something else to
Bob Smith 27:01
something other than sporting goods to sell.
Marcia Smith 27:03
And it done him. Good.
Bob Smith 27:05
All right. That’s all the time we have today. It looks like we should move on. I think you should move on.
Marcia Smith 27:11
I’m not leaving. Okay, live here.
Bob Smith 27:13
Oh, that’s right. Well, that’s all we have for today. We hope you’ve enjoyed listening to our show. And if you’d like to send us your fact or piece of trivia, you can do so by going to our website, the off ramp dot show and scrolling all the way down to contact us and leave your information there. I’m Bob Smith.
Marcia Smith 27:29
I’m Marcia Smith. Join us again
Bob Smith 27:30
next time when we return with more fun facts and tantalizing trivia 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
