In this episode of “The Off Ramp,” Bob and Marcia discuss the whereabouts of Neil Armstrong’s moon boots, which were left on the moon due to their heavy weight. They also explore a quarry in Condolea, Italy, which has supplied marble for Milan’s Duomo cathedral for 637 years. The conversation shifts to historical high heels, revealing that Victorian heels could reach 20 inches. They touch on Tennessee’s 10 state songs, the invention of the right shoe in 1818, and the Venice of America, Fort Lauderdale. The episode concludes with trivia on various topics, including the quieter world during COVID-19 and the age of skis versus the wheel.
Outline
Neil Armstrong’s Moon Boots
- Marcia Smith asks where Neil Armstrong’s moon boots are today.
- Bob Smith assumes they are at Cape Kennedy or the Smithsonian but learns they are still on the moon.
- The boots were left behind because they were too heavy to bring back.
- The boots had 12 layers of material and a layer of stainless steel to prevent corrosion.
637-Year Business with a Single Customer
- Marcia Smith asks about a company with a single customer for 637 years.
- Bob Smith reveals it is a quarry in Condolea, Italy, supplying marble for Milan’s Duomo cathedral.
- The marble’s unique pink hue and physical characteristics make it high maintenance.
- The cathedral’s maintenance association is 636 years old, and the quarry has provided continuous employment for the village of Condolea.
High Heels Through the Ages
- Marcia Smith and Bob Smith discuss the history of high heels, including Victorian-era heels.
- Victorian heels could be as tall as 20 inches, requiring servants to help women walk.
- In Venice, high heels became so extreme that a law was enforced limiting their size.
- Men also wore high heels, with the height indicating nobility.
State Songs and Shoes
- Bob Smith asks which state has the most official state songs, revealing it is Tennessee with 10.
- Tennessee’s state songs include “My Homeland, Tennessee” and “The Tennessee Waltz.”
- Bob Smith asks about the first rubber heel, which was invented in 1818.
- The first pair of right and left-footed shoes were made in Philadelphia in 1818.
Fort Lauderdale as the Venice of America
- Bob Smith asks which city is known as the Venice of the United States.
- Marcia Smith guesses Fort Lauderdale, which is confirmed correct.
- Fort Lauderdale has an extensive canal system, making it a popular destination for tourists and locals.
- Visitors can experience a Venetian gondola ride on the New River.
Alaska: The State Without Resident Snakes
- Bob Smith asks which state is the only one without resident snakes.
- Marcia Smith guesses Alaska, which is confirmed correct.
- Alaska’s cold climate and long stretches of darkness make it inhospitable for snakes.
- Hawaii has invasive snakes, while other snakeless countries include Ireland, New Zealand, Iceland, Greenland, and Antarctica.
Broadway’s Longest-Running Show
- Bob Smith asks which Broadway show has created more jobs and generated more income than any other.
- Marcia Smith guesses “Phantom,” which is confirmed correct.
- “Phantom” has been running for 35 years, with many musicians staying with the show for their entire careers.
- The show’s orchestra sits close together, leading to unique challenges like the smell of opened candy bars.
Swiss Cheese and Its Name
- Bob Smith asks what the Swiss call Swiss cheese.
- Marcia Smith guesses “American cheese,” but the correct answer is “Emmental.”
- Emmental is the primary Swiss cheese with holes, first mentioned in written records in 1293.
- The cheese is made in the mountains in the summer and transported to the valleys in the winter.
California: The Artichoke Capital
- Bob Smith asks which state is the artichoke capital of the nation.
- Marcia Smith guesses California, which is confirmed correct.
- More than 99% of commercially grown artichokes come from California.
- Castroville, California, is known as the artichoke capital and hosts an annual artichoke festival.
Dangerous Animals and COVID-19 Noise Levels
- Marcia Smith asks if she is more likely to kill Bob with a cow or a shark.
- Bob Smith guesses a cow, which is confirmed correct.
- Cows kill an average of 20 Americans a year, while shark attacks are rare.
- The world was 50% quieter in 2020 due to reduced travel and noise pollution during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Wheel vs. Skis
- Bob Smith asks if the wheel or skis came first.
- Marcia Smith guesses skis, which is confirmed correct.
- The earliest preserved ski relics date back to 10,000 years ago in Yorkshire.
- Skis were invented before the wheel, which was invented about 5500 years ago.
Switzerland’s Bunker Capacity
- Bob Smith asks which country has enough bunkers to house its entire population in case of invasion or nuclear war.
- Marcia Smith guesses Switzerland, which is confirmed correct.
- Switzerland built enough bunker space to house its entire population with a buffer of 10%.
- The government policy mandates that every inhabitant must have a protected place quickly reachable from their residence.
Marcia Smith 0:00
Where are Neil Armstrong’s moon boots today,
Bob Smith 0:04
And what company has had a single customer for 637years?
Answers, good service that is! Answers to those and other questions coming up in this episode of the off ramp with Bob and Marcia. Give me that one 800 number, Smith!
Bob Smith
welcome to the off ramp, a chance to slow down, steer clear of crazy and take a side road to sanity. Well, two great opening questions today. Marcia, yours first Bob. One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind, right, right? That’s Neil Armstrong putting his big foot right down there on the moon. So whatever happened to those moon boots? I assumed they were at Cape Kennedy with the, I think that there, or the Smithsonian, where you can see Neil Armstrong’s suit that he wore up there. Yeah, but they’re not there, huh? Well, I didn’t say they weren’t okay. Where are they? The moon? What? They’re still on the moon. Why did they leave the boots on the day they did, they were too heavy. Bob, too big and heavy. GE made these, but they were too much to take back. And so they just put their little boots out on the moon and left them there. Well, they knew they left a lot of things there because they came back with 40 or 50 pounds of rock, so they needed to in lieu of boots. But were they in their stocking feet? I mean, well, they were big boots that covered their spaceship shoes. They were galoshes. Is that what you’re telling me? Yeah, big, hefty. They cost more than Jimmy choose, I’ll tell you.
Marcia Smith 1:51
So that’s where they are, yeah, and not to mention, I imagine, contamination had something to do with it. They were in quarantine for like, 21 days, but they came back with the space suits they wore. So yeah, that must not have been a concern, maybe space dust, but again, they came back with space rocks. So I guess it was probably weight and weight alone. So those must have been pretty heavy boots, I think. So there are 12 layers of material in those boots, plus a layer of stainless steel, stainless steel, okay, so that was probably because they knew that wouldn’t corrode or something. I don’t know. Well, no wonder they had to leave the boots on the moon.
Bob Smith 2:25
What do they call those work boots when you go into, oh, my god, yeah, Toad boot steel toed. These probably had steel all around with rubber on top of that. Yeah? Well, that’s fascinating. Okay, now we know why the moon boots were left behind on the moon. All right. Marcia, not many companies have had guaranteed business from a single customer, but this one has for 637 years.
years. What does this business do? What kind of service is it in?
Speaker 1 2:55
Get brief, what kind of one customer it’s still in business, still
Bob Smith 2:59
in business with the same customer for 637
Marcia Smith 3:03
years. My God, are they rock makers? What was going on?
Bob Smith 3:10
It’s a quarry, okay? A query found it in condolea, Italy. It’s a small village in the Alps, and that’s where marble for Milan’s Duomo cathedral was first mined in 1386 and where it continues to be mined for the cathedral to this day. Really a reason, a high maintenance construction project, I
Marcia Smith 3:32
guess. How much maintenance does a 637 year old cathedral require? A ton.
Bob Smith 3:38
Actually, many times it’s because the stone was chosen for its unique pink hued marble. It’s a beautiful stone, but the stone’s physical and chemical characteristics which gave it that beautiful color came with a fatal flaw. The veins in the marble contained traces of ferrous materials metal, and when they or the iron pins anchoring the stones of the cathedral together, oxidize, they expand and they shatter the marble into tiny pieces. Well, switch marbles. Well, unfortunately, the Cathedral has 3400 carved statues and decorative carvings on its exterior features exposed to the element. So replacing those keeps the quarry in business year round. Now the cathedral’s owner, the Catholic Church, they started to realize the problem a year into construction, and they formed an association to look after repair and maintenance. Today, the cathedral is 637 years old. The maintenance association is 636 years old, and the quarry is still serving the same customer, providing continuous employment for the village of pandolia, a population of 200 for seven centuries. So it’s
Marcia Smith 4:51
like it had a one year warranty, right? Like the washer and dryer, and then after that, okay, you got here’s your maintenance plan. This is
Bob Smith 4:59
Art installation, yeah, so how expensive is this? Well, the cathedral is wired today with high tech sensors, and that’s just like a constant digital metrics. It’s like a continuously running electrocardiogram. Twice a year it gets a physical checkup from specialized workers. They swing from cranes and inspect for fractures and fissures. And the quarry cuts stones and stores blocks of stone, and it maintains two marble restoration laboratories, one at the quarry, one in Milan. They’re busy year round. How did they pay for it all? Bob, well, they had this association, but over the years, the cathedrals decided to take in the businesses nearby and offered them an Adopt a Statue program. It’s true, companies can finance the restoration of one of the cathedrals, 1000s of statues. In exchange, they get to show off the statue at corporate headquarters for three years. Oh, for God’s sakes, should ramp get one of those? Yeah, I don’t know if we can afford that. Okay, but can’t modern technology help some of this? Well, they do pre work the stones with modern machines, but they say that special training is still necessary because they’re replacing the work of long dead sculptors. The human hand is still essential. So good one official, yeah. Well, some of those human hands have added modern touches over the years to the cathedral, carved images of Abraham Lincoln
and boxer primocanera are known to be hiding among statues hundreds of feet above the ground. That’s hilarious, just so you know, it’s been officially completed since 1965 it took 579 years to complete, but the maintenance goes on. I
Marcia Smith 6:42
still can’t believe they only didn’t need the maintenance requirement after, you know, for one year, the first year, and after that, here’s your here’s your policy for the next 637
Bob Smith 6:53
years, as the condolea still in business, taking care of this cathedral that comes from a New York Times article Milan’s Duomo, a high maintenance icon for 637, years. It was published in the New York Times in February 2023, great story.
Marcia Smith 7:08
Okay, Bob, did you know that back in the Victorian days they wore high heels? Well, I knew they
Bob Smith 7:14
wore high heels years ago. I think in in Louis, the 14th time they had high
Marcia Smith 7:18
heels. Yeah, they go way back. But in Victorian times, How tall do you think the heels got?
Bob Smith 7:24
Well, a lot of things got exaggerated in the Victorian they did,
Marcia Smith 7:26
didn’t they remember the hairdos and all that? Yeah, wild. High to the sky. I would
Bob Smith 7:31
assume that there were some pretty tall stiletto kind of heels back then. So I’ll take, I’ll say, three inch heels, Bob, what?
Marcia Smith 7:39
You know what a high heel like on the Academy Awards? What those women are wearing? They’re six inch stilettos. But back in the Victorian days, 20 inches, oh, my God. And six inches is ridiculous. 20 inches, yeah. Do you have to get a ladder to get to somebody to kiss them?
Speaker 1 7:57
Exactly who you be kissing? Bob. The woman with the 20 inch heels, holy cow,
Marcia Smith 8:03
in the 16th century, way before then, aristocratic women began to wear shoes that were extremely high heeled. The heels on some of these shoes were so high the women needed servants to help them walk.
Bob Smith 8:19
That’s hilarious. Stupid. Is stupid? Oh, that’s stupid, all right,
Marcia Smith 8:23
after this stilt like shoes were invented and became the rave in Venice, so prostitutes wore these shoes and the height of the heels became so ridiculous that a law was enforced limiting the size of heels on women’s shoes in Venice. Yeah, yeah, wow. Women would actually fall to their death on some
Bob Smith 8:47
deadly, deadly, deadly high heels
Marcia Smith 8:49
fall off. And men had heels too, as you know from Louis the what 14th? Yes, I think Louis the 14th, yeah, he was short, and so he kind of invented heels for men. The higher the heel, the more noble you were, and well heeled you were, right. Okay, so that’s the story of death by stiletto,
Bob Smith 9:07
death by high heels. Holy cow. All right. Marcia, you might know that almost every state has a state song. We have state birds, state cars, state all kinds of other state things, state guns. I just learned recently, there’s now state guns. What state has the most official state songs? Well, you can choose from one of these, Tennessee, Kentucky, Michigan, Texas or California. Texas, Texas? No, not Texas. One of the other states, Tennessee, Kentucky, Michigan, Kentucky, no one of the other states. Okay, there aren’t numerous states with more than one state song. But Tennessee takes it to another level. They have 10 state songs, 10 Tennessee. Tennessee has 10. Well, maybe not surprising, considering the state’s capital of Nashville is Music City, USA. But the. 10 official state songs of Tennessee include these, my homeland, Tennessee, when it’s Iris time in Tennessee, my Tennessee, the Tennessee Waltz, Rocky Top. Those are the only two I know of on this list, the pride of Tennessee. Tennessee, a Tennessee Bicentennial rap, Smoky Mountain rain and another name Tennessee from 2012 we mentioned the Bicentennial rap. Tennessee is the only state with a rap song as one of its official state songs. It’s the Tennessee Bicentennial rap 1796 to 1996
Marcia Smith 10:35
Well, you know what we have here, Bob, it’s a failure to focus, I guess so. Good Lord. All right. Last shoe question, okay, all right, don’t ask me how I started going down shoe land. But what happened Bob to shoes in 1818? What happened to shoes in 1818? Yes, something happened. That’s when they had their first
Bob Smith 10:56
rubber heel, a rubber sole.
Marcia Smith 11:00
Thought that was the Beatles, honey.
Bob Smith 11:02
Oh, there was a rubber sole. Was there? Okay, what’s the answer? The
Marcia Smith 11:05
right shoe was invented. Oh, no kidding. Until that time, there was no distinction between left shoes and right shoes.
Bob Smith 11:13
So there was only a right shoe invented. There was a right shoe and then the other shoe. I mean, didn’t they have a left shoe
Marcia Smith 11:18
too? There were two left shoes, two left feet. Oh, dear. And then someone said, you know, feet kind of curved, and the first pair of right and left footed shoes were made in Philadelphia. Obviously, shoes weren’t made for comfort up to this point. Holy
Bob Smith 11:34
cow. They were just like nondescript shoes you put your feet in before, yeah, just straight ahead. I guess. Aren’t we lucky today? Huh? That’s amazing. Okay, another fact about the United States, what city is known as the Venice of the United States? I’ll give you clues. Okay, as I always do. I Is it in Florida? I’m not telling you. I’m telling you these cities, and you tell me which one, okay? Minneapolis, Minnesota, Boise, Idaho, Fort. Lauderdale, Florida, or St Louis, Missouri. What Fort Lauderdale? Fort Lauderdale? Yes, you can see it better than that. Fort Lauderdale, Fort Lauderdale, yes, that’s right, it’s the Venice of America. Because, much like its Italian counterpart, Fort Lauderdale, has an extensive canal system. You remember we saw that when we were driving through, yeah, more than 300 miles of inland waterways in the greater metro area. That’s amazing. And a popular way for tourists and locals to get around is via water taxi on the city’s many canals. And you can even have a full Venetian experience by hopping aboard an authentic Venetian gondola on the New River. Yeah,
Marcia Smith 12:39
there’s a lot of like, we go to Marco Island. They have lots of back waterways there too, right, right? That’s already has a boat and pops out. It’s a
Bob Smith 12:47
great unique distinction to have, yes, it’s
Marcia Smith 12:50
like an alley. The houses up here, only they have a canal in the back and a boat.
Bob Smith 12:55
Well, those houses don’t look like they’re on an alley, though they’re pretty nice houses. I
Marcia Smith 12:59
meant that, all right, what is the only state Bob without resident snakes? What do you mean residents? Meaning that there is no natural snake. Some people bring in snakes, okay? They don’t reside there, but there’s no resident snakes. Yeah. What state is the only state without snakes of their own? Okay?
Bob Smith 13:19
I’m gonna take a guess here, and I’m gonna say it’s one of two states. It’s either Alaska, because it’s way up there, maybe too far north for snakes, I don’t know, or it’s Hawaii because it’s an island.
Marcia Smith 13:33
Ah, you were right about Alaska. It’s Alaska, yeah, because of the environment, snakes don’t like it. They don’t like the cold climate and long stretches of darkness too inhospitable for them. Hawaii, snakes are all invasive. Texas, on the other hand, is home to 105 different kinds of Oh, my God, 105 there are some countries that don’t have snakes, like Ireland, don’t you find that ad? Isn’t there some popular legend about driving serpents from the island? Well,
Bob Smith 14:04
I think that’s the idea was that St Patrick drove the snakes from Ireland.
Marcia Smith 14:07
But there were, it was a miracle, and other snakeless countries, it’s only Ireland, New Zealand, Iceland, Greenland and Antarctica,
Bob Smith 14:16
and they’re all islands or the very remote place, their
Marcia Smith 14:21
environments just aren’t conducive to the slimy, slithering sweetheart. Ooh, the sweethearts. I don’t think of them that way. No, thanks. I just trying to rhyme something with slimy and slithering.
Bob Smith 14:31
Okay? Marcia, this is a Broadway question, okay? What Broadway show has created more jobs and generated more income than any other in Broadway history. Well,
Marcia Smith 14:43
I’ll have to go with some of the big ones. So the longest that ever ran wasn’t that big of a production, which was
Bob Smith 14:52
fantastic, or something like that, was the you knew that. I’m surprised. That’s not it, though I know
Marcia Smith 14:56
that. That’s why I said it was too small. I’ll have to say. Yeah, something like Phantom, Phantom,
Bob Smith 15:02
that’s it. Phantom, which is just about ready to conclude its 35 year run. When that started, people were pretty optimistic. They said, You know, this could run five or seven years, you know, but
Marcia Smith 15:14
it’s been 35 years. Has it? Really? It did. Lore created
Bob Smith 15:19
more jobs and more income than any other show in Broadway history, according to Michael baroski, its press representative, lots of people involved that show, and a lot of musicians have stayed with it from the beginning. They’ve been there in the orchestra from the 80s. So they were, they were like, just out of college, and now they’re ready to retire. It’s amazing. Oh,
Marcia Smith 15:40
really. So they spent their whole career. Have one big, good gig,
Bob Smith 15:44
yeah, very unusual for musicians to have that kind of stable life, you know,
Marcia Smith 15:49
yeah, because it’s a very unstable life that’s like, what’s his name? And Johnny Carson show the band leader. He and his band spent their whole careers, yeah, Johnny Carson before getting
Bob Smith 16:00
hired by Phantom, many musicians that were in the orchestra there juggled jobs. Peter Wright, the French horn player, made fur coats in the garment district, tended bar and sold vacuum cleaners before he joined that orchestra in 1987 he’s 63 now, the musicians said they won’t miss some aspects of the show, like the pit, where they have to be. They sit so close to one another, if one of them opens a candy bar, the rest can smell
Marcia Smith 16:28
it. Oh, dear God. Oh, you’d think they’d have a bigger pit in New York. Apparently,
Bob Smith 16:32
a lot of shows now have the orchestra off in another room, all microphones, and then the music comes out live, but you never get to see the musicians, but at least you could look down into the pit, yeah, and you could, you could tell, you could sense there’s an orchestra. Yeah, when you see a show, love it. Remember
Marcia Smith 16:48
the Oscars? That’s exactly what we saw. First time I ever saw that. I thought that was strange. Why is the orchestra
Bob Smith 16:54
around the corner? Yeah, didn’t make sense. Yeah, they took a shot and showed that. Uh huh, okay,
Marcia Smith 16:59
Bob, I
Bob Smith 17:00
have a question about Swiss cheese. Marsha Okey doke, now we call it Swiss cheese, right? What do the Swiss call Swiss cheese? American
Marcia Smith 17:08
cheese? No, here are the
Bob Smith 17:10
choices. Gouda, camembert, amento, or Roquefort,
Marcia Smith 17:16
what’s that third one? Amento, uh huh. I never heard of that. I’ll say that. That’s
Bob Smith 17:20
it. That’s right. There are several varieties of Swiss cheese, but the primary one with holes is mn, tau. That’s E M, M, E N, T, A L. It’s got a couple of pronunciations. Okay. It sounds good. Known as that, though, and it was first mentioned in written records in 1293, but was called by its present name in 1542, and that’s made up in the mountains in the summer, and then it’s transported in the winter, when the cows come down into the valleys. Swiss cheese is called em and Tao
Marcia Smith 17:48
in Switzerland,
Bob Smith 17:50
yes,
Marcia Smith 17:52
okay, all right, time for a break. We’ll
Bob Smith 17:55
be back in just a moment. We’ll take a cheese break right now. Not a bad idea. You’re listening to the off ramp with Bob and
Marcia Smith 18:00
Marsha Smith,
Bob Smith 18:05
Okay, we’re back. You’re listening to the off ramp with Bob and Marcia Smith, we do this for the Cedarburg Public Library, Cedarburg, Wisconsin, every week, and then it goes out on their internet radio station and on podcast platforms around the world. Around the World. Marcia, what state is the artichoke capital of the nation? This is one of your California. Yes, you love artichokes, don’t you? I do California. Here are the choices Marcia. All right. The choices were Oregon, California, Arkansas or South Carolina. But more than 99% of commercially grown artichokes come from California, and that’s the state vegetable. Is it really the official state vegetable in
Marcia Smith 18:46
California? Last week we were there in Los Angeles, and I saw artichokes as big as my head.
Bob Smith 18:53
They were huge. Yes. Well, there’s one town in particular that’s proclaimed itself the artichoke capital of the world. It’s Castroville, which is 19 miles northeast of Monterrey. It’s home of one of the largest artichoke producers. Did you know that the town is the home of a 20 foot tall artichoke statue? That’s where you need to go. Marsh. This is a big place for you. If it has a museum you’re in, right? Well, they have an artichoke festival. An artichoke festival has been there for more than half a century, two day event. They have the crowning of the artichoke queen and king,
Marcia Smith 19:26
as exciting as that sounds, guess who the
Bob Smith 19:29
1948 first artichoke queen was
Marcia Smith 19:32
1948 Yeah, is this a person I have heard of? Yes, it is first I was. Must have been like a Hollywood celebrity, right? Yes, and it was, I’ll say Scarlett O’Hara what’s her name? Vivian. Vivian lay, yeah, yes. It wasn’t who taught me, sir, who
Bob Smith 19:55
might it be somebody who became a movie star shortly after this? Marilyn Monroe, Marilyn. Monroe was the first artist.
Marcia Smith 20:02
I was gonna say her first, but I thought she was too young for
Bob Smith 20:06
Oh, so that’s the reason you said the wrong answer first. Oh, well, I don’t give you credit for that. Marsh. Sorry.
Marcia Smith 20:11
All right, okay, my turn for a change. Okay, okay, Bob, are you more likely to be killed by a cow or a shark or me?
Bob Smith 20:20
I think you would be the person that would probably kill me first, that’s
Marcia Smith 20:24
right. Secondly, let me think
Bob Smith 20:26
about that a cow or a shark. I would think that the proximity to cows is more likely than proximity to sharks. So I’m gonna say, when I live in Wisconsin, a cow. Marcia, is that right? That’s absolutely right. But is that right for everybody that you’re more likely to kill by a cow? Yeah,
Marcia Smith 20:48
suffering a shark attack and dying is practically nil the chances of that you made, yeah, okay, yeah. Like in 2022 out of the 32 provoked shark attacks, only one was fatal, really? Okay, yeah, so it’s, it’s pretty rare. Other animals are much more likely to kill you, including cows, which kill an average of 20 Americans a year. Wow, so that’s like one to 20, and that’s more than sharks kill a year. Yeah? Like last year was one, one person,
Bob Smith 21:18
one person died from a shark attack, but 20 people were killed by cows. Yeah, we should outlaw these animals. What’s wrong with us? Well,
Marcia Smith 21:24
and then Hornets, bees and wasps, your favorite, okay, they kill about 48 people a year, okay? And dogs around 19 people a
Bob Smith 21:33
year. And we know mosquitoes kill a lot of people because of the
Marcia Smith 21:36
diseases. That’s correct, okay?
Bob Smith 21:40
Well, it’s so much fun to think about these things. Well,
Marcia Smith 21:43
it’s you don’t have to be so afraid of you know, you might lose a limb, but you won’t necessarily die if you rub up against a shark. Okay,
Bob Smith 21:50
well, I’ll keep that in mind. Marsh All right, meantime, I’m not going in the water. Alright? Marsha, we’re still getting research out of the COVID pandemic of 2020 and guess what? It turns out, the world was quieter in 2020 so how much quieter in noise pollution? Yeah, and percentage, percentage of sound, how much quieter was it in 2020 during
Marcia Smith 22:12
COVID? Yeah, because, because people weren’t traveling, people were going by jet everywhere. I get it, that makes sense. I will say 14% Well,
Bob Smith 22:21
it’s a lot more than that. The New York Times reports that data in 2020 provided by amateur and professional seismologists showed that COVID lockdown measures reduced worldwide seismic noise on the planet by up to 50% the whole world was 50% quieter because people were not going anywhere and they weren’t running a lot of
equipment. How many 50%
Marcia Smith 22:48
hard to believe? Isn’t that amazing?
Bob Smith 22:49
And that’s that’s by using seismology. You’ve seen the needles going up and down. Yeah, they weren’t jumping as much back then. I’ll
Marcia Smith 22:56
be darned. Yeah, that’s very interesting. Okay, Bob, what came first, the wheel or skis?
Bob Smith 23:03
Well, that’s a good one. The wheel or skis. Did they find some fossils up in Alpine mountains like Scandinavia or Switzerland? And they found skis. And they go, these skis are 7000 years old, maybe, and the wheel is only 5000 years old. Okay, what is it? Okay? Skis are first.
Marcia Smith 23:23
Yes, the earliest preserved ski relic fragments we have discovered to date come from a site in Yorkshire dating from approximately 10,000 years ago. And further ski fragments as old as 8000 years in northern Russia have been found. Wow. To put it in context, the wheel was, you almost nailed. It was invented only about 5500 years ago, jeez. So they were skiing. There was a lot of snow back in the day and and so they had to figure out how to get around faster back then. So, okay, so skis before the wheel. Who knew? All
Bob Smith 24:02
right, we talked last week about a country that put dynamite in all of its bridges. Remember that one? Yeah, that was Switzerland. That’s right. So what country has enough bunkers to house its entire population in case of invasion or nuclear war? Well,
Marcia Smith 24:18
what country? Yes, well, there can’t be a very big country. Well, it’s a country of 9 million people. Oh, that’s 9 million bunkers. Well, no, there’s obviously you can put a family,
Bob Smith 24:29
that’s right, you can do community bunkers. Yeah, okay, okay. I what country has enough bunkers to house its entire population and more in case of a nuclear war or an invasion?
Is it a Slavic country? It’s a European country, I’ll say that. All right, oh, I don’t know. It’s Switzerland, Marcia,
same country we were talking about. Yeah, it built enough bunker space to house the country’s entire population with a buffer of 10% no other country’s shelter capacity comes close, huh? And this was as a result of the government, they argued that the safety from nuclear attack was every citizen’s right. So a Swiss Federal law on Civil Protection declares every inhabitant must have a protected place that can be reached quickly from his place of residence. So it was government policy to do this. And then I think I told you when I was over there. Even in the Alps, you can see on some of the mountainsides, huge doors. They’re like metal doors, because there are bunkers and all kinds of, yeah, right on the highway, you see a road that looks like it dead ends right there at a mountain, because that is where a tunnel is designed to be. It’s honeycombed with bunkers. I’ll be darned Yeah. In fact, they even, they carved out insides of mountains to create hundreds of bunkers and supply storage spaces, whether and the exterior slopes were rigged to trigger landslides if anybody tried to attack that.
Marcia Smith 25:53
Oh, that’s clever, yeah. Think they have a red light district down in one of the bunkers. No, I don’t think so. Yeah, isn’t that where they have already,
Bob Smith 26:00
no, no, you’re thinking of, you’re thinking of Amsterdam.
Marcia Smith 26:04
Oh, that’s it. Because I knew you went to one of those countries and went there, didn’t you?
Speaker 2 26:07
I did not go to the red light district. No. Marcia, okay. Start some kind of stories about, oh, they’re talking now. Bob, Okay, God, again. Reputation is in tanners. Okay, I’m gonna wrap
Marcia Smith 26:19
it up with a couple of quotes. First, Will Rogers, the road to success is dotted with many tempting parking spaces. But that’s funny, is it? I love it. Why is it funny? It’s a road with lots of parking meaning you can the road to success people park and never get moving again. Oh, okay, I get that. I thought that was brilliant. That’s will. Rogers, okay, I like it. Bob, okay, so we’ll keep it and last. Sam Levinson, you must learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t possibly live long enough to make them all yourself.
Bob Smith 26:56
Well, that’s true, as it is
there. It’s true. There’s no way you can live long enough to make enough mistakes to make yourself wise. You only be half wise. All right, that’s it. All right, that’s good for today. And we invite you to give us any questions you might have that you’d like to be answered. And you can go to our website, the offramp, dot show and scroll down to contact us. I’m Bob Smith, I’m
Marcia Smith 27:17
Marcia Smith. I was going to try to send you, but I changed my mind. Okay, go ahead.
Bob Smith 27:24
I’m Bob Smith, I’m Marcia Smith. Join us 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, the.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai