Marcia Smith 0:00
Where in the world will you find Lamborghini police cars? Whoa.

Bob Smith 0:05
And how did African elephants lead to the demise of Vikings in Greenland? He account me answers to those another questions coming up in this episode of the off ramp with Bob and Marcia Smith.

Welcome to the off ramp a chance to slow down steer clear of crazy and take a side road to sanity with fascinating facts and tantalizing trivia. Well Lamborghinis as police cars, is that what you’re saying?

Marcia Smith 0:48
That’s what I’m saying, baby. You know, you know what those sell for?

Bob Smith 0:51
Over $100,000? I

Marcia Smith 0:53
think I’ll try 1 million for Oh my god. Some of the new ones. Holy

Bob Smith 0:57
cow.

Marcia Smith 0:58
I wonder if that’s what my nephew will get for the one he just rebuilt his retirement fund. But anyway,

Bob Smith 1:03
is this in Beverly Hills possible? No. Is it in Monaco? Monaco. That’s where I’m thinking where Princess Grace was. Big gambling man. Yeah,

Marcia Smith 1:11
well, Bob No, it’s Dubai. Oh course Dubai seriously loves its police force and displays it by making sure cops get to ride in style with the latest models of Aston Martin’s Ferraris and Lamborghinis us which it says here are priced at $1.7 million. Holy cow. So anyway, to tap off the cops life in Dubai, the crime rate is extremely low. Well,

Bob Smith 1:37
if you chop off people’s hands they stop doing there is very severe

Marcia Smith 1:41
punishment. It’s the kind of place where luxury cars are often abandoned by common citizens because if you miss car payments, you’re in prison. Oh, dear God, you miss any payments? If you’re in debt, you get thrown in prison very David Copperfield. And of course soakin premarital sex, find Julian not present. So just keep that in mind. If you’re thinking Tobias total nirvana? No,

Bob Smith 2:04
I guess not just because he have cool cars. Wow. Yeah. Well, it’s kind of hard to outrace a Lamborghini when somebody’s chasing after you. That’s amazing.

Marcia Smith 2:13
Like, one to 102 seconds. Yes. Okay, Marcia,

Bob Smith 2:17
how did African elephants lead to the demise of Vikings in Greenland? Well,

Marcia Smith 2:23
ya know, that’s the thing I ponder regularly and I’m very curious to hear the answer. Let me guess, let me guess. The demise of elephants. Say it again saying

Bob Smith 2:33
How did African elephants lead to the demise of Vikings in Greenland? This is a story of global trade.

Marcia Smith 2:42
So it was had something to do with ivory trade. That’s exactly what it was. And they couldn’t get it anymore. And then they didn’t have the money and they couldn’t be Vikings of the world. Well, here’s

Bob Smith 2:51
how it goes. Okay, so in the year 1983, you remember that, don’t you? The Vikings from Iceland led by Eric the red or Leif Erikson travelled 900 miles and they settled in a new place called Greenland. And for 300 years they farmed and fished and raised cattle and hunted animals there but there were two things Greenland didn’t have timber for building an iron for metal so Greenland Vikings had to trade with Europe for those things he had to trade for metal and timber. But what else did they trade exotic Arctic animals and ivory that became one of their major products. And archaeologists who wants assumed Vikings in Greenland were primarily farmers now believe that first and foremost they were ivory hunters. Oh, really? Where did they get the ivory? There were no elephants there. Why don’t know, walrus ivory was their big product. Oh, really. I

Marcia Smith 3:44
hadn’t thought of that. It was

Bob Smith 3:45
one of the most prized commodities of medieval Europe. It was used for sword hilts and game pieces. And for sacramental objects and churches and the Vikings with their ships and their far flung trading networks, they monopolize the ivory trade. And scientists now believe that after hunting walrus is to extinction in Iceland, they went to Greenland, and they found large herds there. And that’s why they actually went to Greenland, they believe. And they found walrus artifacts everywhere that have been excavated from Greenland. No kidding. Yeah, their ivory trade was incredibly profitable. There’s a 1327 document recording the shipment of a single boat load of tusks to Bergen, Norway, that one boat load with tusks from 260 walruses was worth more than six years worth of woolen cloth sent to the king by Icelandic farmers. Interesting

Marcia Smith 4:34
trade. Do you have any idea what the walrus population is today? Is it an endangered species? I

Bob Smith 4:41
don’t know. But I’m sure at the time they probably hunted there almost to extinct I

Marcia Smith 4:45
was gonna say So where did elephants come in? Well, things went

Bob Smith 4:48
swimmingly for 300 years. And then it was a perfect storm in the 13th century that doomed the Vikings because first game climate change and that led to longer harsher winters with shrank the time they could go out in boats and so forth to hunt for the walrus is second, the market for walrus ivory collapsed because Portugal and other countries started to open trade routes with Africa and ivory from African elephants flowed into Europe. And that was far higher quality than the wall recovery. Then came the black death. And then almost all the trade kind of stopped, then everything collapse for the Vikings in Greenland and they left Why did they go? They went back to Iceland or they went back to Norway. Okay, all right. They said they probably could have survived one of those calamity separately, but all three of them climate change, globalization and the ivory trade and the pandemic.

Marcia Smith 5:38
Were pretty fatal. Sounds familiar? What year was that again? Well,

Bob Smith 5:42
it all ended in the 14th century. That’s when the Viking settlements were vacant. But they were there for 300 years. So that’s how African elephants led to the demise of Vikings in Greenland. That’s gonna make you realize how intricate trade was we think globalization as the past 30 years but no, no, no, there’s been global trade going on forever in this world.

Marcia Smith 6:02
Well, Bob, last week you remember I told you about the world’s first coin operated vending machine right in the first century

Bob Smith 6:08
and it was holy water this sense told me

Marcia Smith 6:11
for a fee of course, okay, but let’s update that and see if you can guess Bob, what unusual item a vending machine in Dubai currently dispenses it must

Bob Smith 6:22
be rubies or gold or diamonds. It is diamonds I bet you can get diamonds in a vending machine rubies now gold, gold you can get gold in a vending machine in Dubai 24

Marcia Smith 6:31
karat gold Wow. Yeah put in your cash or credit card and out pops 24 karat gold. Isn’t that nuts? It is and since the price of gold is always fluctuating the computer in the machine keeps prices constantly updated. Of course the machine is so popular it has to be reloaded every week. The gold is dispensed in many forms including gold bars and wearable jewelry

Bob Smith 6:56
in just a minute let me stop you there You mean the machine you mean the vending machine has to be restocked

Marcia Smith 7:00
every week twice a week

Bob Smith 7:02
because gold is coming out of that thing. People are buying so much gold they have to go online

Marcia Smith 7:06
they put in their credit card or cash that’s a little different than our town. And it dispenses it in various forms like gold bars or wearable jewelry, which is nice honey go out and get me a 24 karat gold necklace.

Bob Smith 7:20
Oh dear.

Marcia Smith 7:21
This is a part that’s prizes me Dubai was the first to do this. But right now many other countries such as Germany, Australia and Switzerland have decided to place more than 500 Gold vending machines across their countries, in railroad stations, airports and shopping malls.

Bob Smith 7:38
That’s just amazing.

Marcia Smith 7:39
I had no idea. I couldn’t believe all these other countries we’re doing it which means we’re not too far behind.

Bob Smith 7:44
So we get a vending machine in our little town here in Wisconsin with gold someday soon. Cedarburg. Absolutely.

Marcia Smith 7:49
Okay.

Bob Smith 7:50
It’ll be interesting to see. Oh my god. Okay, so put your geography cap on now. On our history cap on our car cap, my favorite. Okay, geography which US states entire coastline is a national monument. Now think about that entire coastline? Because I’m gonna give you some tricky suggestions here. Is it Florida? Is it Michigan? Is it Louisiana? Is it Maine? Alaska or California?

Marcia Smith 8:19
I would say Alaska. Okay, that sounds like it’s a no,

Bob Smith 8:25
let’s see. That’s wrong.

Marcia Smith 8:27
Let’s say that Bob,

Bob Smith 8:29
what about Michigan? No, there is not an interesting one with the Great Lakes all around it. Couldn’t that be a national monument?

Marcia Smith 8:34
I sense let me let me second guess I’ll say Michigan biomar Sure you’re wrong again.

Bob Smith 8:40
Okay, now what?

Marcia Smith 8:41
What’s their third choice curry?

Bob Smith 8:43
Curry was not Alaska. It’s not Michigan. It’s one of the other states Florida or what’s the Florida Alaska, California, Maine, Louisiana, Michigan.

Marcia Smith 8:51
I’ll say California.

Bob Smith 8:52
That’s it Marsh very good,

Marcia Smith 8:54
because of all its regulation, better believe the

Bob Smith 8:57
weather has nothing to do with it actually. But the entire coast of California that’s 1100 miles from Mexico to Oregon is a protected ecosystem thanks to a 2000 proclamation by President Bill Clinton. And it’s not just the beaches in the shoreline. The California Coastal National Monument extends 12 nautical miles basically to the horizon from the shore. The whole continental shelf islands, cliffs, rocks, reefs, shoreline and anything above the high tide line. They’re all part of the monument. And when you think about it, that’s a pretty diverse wildlife. You know, you got the you got your normal fish, you got your seabirds, you got seals, you got sea lions. So that’s why it was designated as a unique ecosystem, ensuring that it remains that way for years to come. So California, when you’re on the beach, you’re at a national monument no matter where you are. Well, isn’t that interesting? I’ll say it’s

Marcia Smith 9:49
interesting. murshid is very interesting. It’s interesting to you so interesting. Bob, did we cover this before? What was the original name of Air Force One

Bob Smith 9:57
it was called us The sacred cow.

Marcia Smith 10:01
Yeah, no must have had. No, I

Bob Smith 10:03
think I read that recently, too. That was what they called it in FDRs time. Yeah, the sacred cow.

Marcia Smith 10:08
Yeah, it was a plane specifically designed for Franklin to meet his needs for international travel and his wheelchair. Although it was officially named the flying White House. Yes. And the White House press corps began calling the aircraft the sacred cow name inspired by its heavy security that was dedicated to keeping the plane and its passengers safe. So they kind of said, Oh, it’s the sacred cow. But Air Force One was its callsign. And it was first used to identify the Presidential airplane in 1953. Oh, really? Okay, when the Air Force was booming there, and the term became the official designation in 1962. So it was the callsign for the plane was Air Force One. And then everybody thought, well, that’s kind of cool.

Bob Smith 10:54
Yeah. Well, it has a great term. Yes. And let me tell you something about the sacred cow. Yeah. You didn’t know this. Your son and your husband were on that plane? You were Yes, we were. But down in the Air Force Museum at Dayton, Ohio. They have it there. Oh, really? And you can you know, go up the stairs and climb right up inside of it.

Marcia Smith 11:12
That’s why you knew Yeah, I’ll be there. Sacred Cow.

Bob Smith 11:15
Okay. Okay. Here’s

Marcia Smith 11:16
a couple of factoids. How many phones are on the modern Air Force? One? How many phone? Yeah. 85.

Bob Smith 11:24
Wow, those are basically hardwired phones. But they’re in the air. Yeah. I wonder if can you use your cell phone up? There had to be interesting. I didn’t ask probably have Wi Fi total number

Marcia Smith 11:33
of floors on Air Force? One, three? That’s correct. Okay. And the cost to operate it by the hour? $177,843? An hour per hour? Yeah. So you don’t use it for fluff? No, you don’t. And we’ve covered this before. There’s two of them out there. Air Force One. And if if the President is in the plane, that’s Air Force One at the time, but there’s two identical planes

Bob Smith 11:57
and the President is not on the plane. It’s not called Air Force, Boeing

Marcia Smith 12:00
747.

Bob Smith 12:03
But especially outfitted so it’s very special, very electronically hardened to

Marcia Smith 12:08
oh my god kinds of stuff. Like we talked about nuclear forces and all that. We all learned that pretty

Bob Smith 12:13
much when George Bush was up there. Remember during 911 That day, remember they kept the plane in the air for a while because they didn’t know if it was safe to land anywhere for the President.

Marcia Smith 12:21
Did they refuel it while he was up there? I don’t know how they did. He kept saying bring me down, bring me down. That gives them we don’t know what’s going on. Nobody knew.

Bob Smith 12:30
Nobody knew that was probably the only plane flying for a while

Marcia Smith 12:33
it was somebody said it flew over Iowa. That’s right. Susie Wilkins. Yeah. Yeah. And it was chilling. She said they looked up and everything was quiet. No planes in the sky, but they saw Air Force One overhead. That

Bob Smith 12:44
would be something you would remember 20 years later, right? Okay, Marcia, you’ve heard of Robinson Crusoe. Alright have the story. And he was living on an island, right. So, Robinson Crusoe Island, where is that? What country does it belong to? And I’ll give you choices. Oh, that’s very cool. Of course. I’m always I’m always kind to you, you know, giving you these choices and opportunities and you don’t give Barbados, Argentina Chile bliss or the United States? I forgot the question Robinson Crusoe island belongs to which country? Barbados, Argentina, Chile or Belize. Where did the story take place?

Marcia Smith 13:23
I think it was on a like a Tahitian Island or something. No, no,

Bob Smith 13:29
actually, the story took place in the Caribbean. But the island is off the coast of Chile. Oh really? Real Island. Yeah, I didn’t know that Robinson Crusoe Island exists in real life. It’s also called Desert Island, the deserted Chilean isle. It’s the second largest in the Juan Fernandez archipelago in the South Pacific. It’s thought to be the inspiration for Daniel Defoe’s novel. It actually did serve as the accidental home for a real life Scottish Royal Navy officer Alexander Selkirk, that’s the story. It was based on his tail. He was marooned on this uninhabited island for four years in the early 18th century. So we’re talking the 1700s and like Robinson Crusoe, he adapted to nature hunting, farming, the islands resources and then when the rescues arrived there, he aided them by capturing goats to feed the people suffering from scurvy on the ship. Hmm. Okay, we were there, you know, where Robinson Crusoe Island, down in the South Pacific Disney World. Oh, that’s a different place. Kids loved it. That was good. But the Chilean government officially renamed the island Robinson Crusoe island in 1966. But it was never called that before. Yes.

Marcia Smith 14:36
Okay. Bob, what is a Nygma? ologists

Bob Smith 14:40
Enigma ologists. Somebody who somebody who looks into things that are hard to explain something it’s a real puzzle. It’s

Marcia Smith 14:46
a person who studies puzzles, relatively new word it is making its way into all the dictionaries slowly. And it’s typically used in referring to New York Times puzzled editor will shorts Oh, Yeah, so that’s Sarkeesian

Bob Smith 15:01
niggemann ology that’s not easy to say yes. And

Marcia Smith 15:05
I do a couple of those NYT puzzles and Oh, New York

Bob Smith 15:09
Times puzzles. Yeah,

Marcia Smith 15:10
he’s a freak. Okay. Okay, I’ve

Bob Smith 15:12
got a song about a singer a story about, about

Marcia Smith 15:15
a singer song about it seeing or hear it is a singer, popular singer, a popular

Bob Smith 15:20
singer. much in the news lately. This singer reportedly still has to sleep with a nightlight because as a youngster rats used to skitter across the floor in her family’s two rooms shack. Who is she? She’s two rooms shack. She’s fantastically wealthy today isn’t

Marcia Smith 15:37
like Beyonce. No, no. Is it like Dolly Parton?

Bob Smith 15:42
That’s who it is. Dolly Parton. At least that’s what the story is. She was born and raised in a two room shack in the Great Smoky Mountains and she was the fourth of 12 children raised by a farm and labor family. And she said her memory of rats running across the floor at night was so vivid that she could only sleep with a nightlight on years later, Dolly Dolly, she began writing songs at seventh and she met her future husband just 24 hours after stepping off the bus in Nashville in a laundromat. Isn’t that interesting? Wow. Now there’s another story about this when she was a kid kids at school locked her in a dark closet and when let her out and that led to a fear of the darkness. She says it’s amazing a kids can be cruel without knowing that they are. She wrote that in our 2020 book, Song teller so one of the other she still has a nightlight and I’m sure it’s one of the best money can buy. This is Bob and Marcia Smith. You’re listening to the off ramp. We’ll be back in just a moment. We’re back. This is Bob and Marsha Smith and you’re listening to the off ramp. We do this every week for the Cedarburg Public Library and Cedarburg, Wisconsin, they have an internet radio station. After that. We put it on podcast platforms and it goes around the world. And we have a lot of folks listening to us that are friends and family and we want to say hi, everybody. Hi.

Marcia Smith 16:59
Come on over for dinner.

Bob Smith 17:01
There you go. I’m only joking. Okay, Marsha, what was your question?

Marcia Smith 17:05
Well, what President was nominated for the office without his knowledge?

Bob Smith 17:10
Oh, really? Somebody was nominated without knowing about it. Was this one of the early presidents before Lincoln? Yes, of course. Was it John Tyler? No. Was it thinking of Andrew Jackson now? Okay, who was it?

Marcia Smith 17:26
It was Zachary Taylor. At the 1848 Whig Party convention delegates nominated former military generals Zachary Taylor as their candidate for president. And he was eventually elected to the position. However, Taylor wasn’t present at the convention and was nominated without his prior knowledge. Nobody told him didn’t find out about it for several weeks, as he initially refused to pay postage on a letter sent his way alerting him of the news. I mean, my God,

Bob Smith 17:59
how cheap Can you gotta

Marcia Smith 18:00
say, this guy? Well, I guess he’s good for fiscal responsibility. But he didn’t want to pay postage.

Bob Smith 18:06
Well, I think in those days, did you have to pay the postage when you got the mails?

Marcia Smith 18:10
I guess so. Some of the letters. You guys know that he was nominated. I gotta

Bob Smith 18:14
pay for that about from Washington. What could that be? That can’t be important. I love it. Party. I don’t want to belong to how important could that be? Okay. All right, Marsha. I have a White House question. Okay. How many weddings have been in the White House. Now? Give me a numbers. All right. One 712 to 19. How many weddings have there been in the White House? And not all of them involve the president?

Marcia Smith 18:42
No, no. I know, their family or their family? Yeah. Oh, well, that cake. Okay. I’ll say seven.

Bob Smith 18:47
Well, I would have thought that too. There have been 19. According to the White House history.org Website 19 documented weddings hosted by a president and or First Lady. The first was in 1812. And that was when the sister of Dolly Madison married Supreme Court Associate Justice Thomas died. So it wasn’t even a president or vice versa. It was a family member. Eight years later, the daughter of President James Monroe and First Lady Elizabeth Monroe, married Samuel governor. So that’s another family member. And the third one was also just a family thing. John Adams the second the son of President John Adams and his fiancee got married. That was 1828. And then in 1832, relatives of Andrew Jackson got married in the White House. So there’s like the first four weddings were just like, oh, yeah, we got a big place. Come over here and say

Marcia Smith 19:36
it’s a family perk. Right?

Bob Smith 19:38
Isn’t that interesting? Yeah.

Marcia Smith 19:39
Well, you know, uncle’s got the White House. Let’s do it there. It’s cheap. It’s free. Also

Bob Smith 19:44
in Andrew Jackson’s administration, the White House wedding hit neither spouse related by blood to the first family. It was the first of three weddings known as friends at the family White House wedding. So again, it was just like a perk of knowing the president. But that’s the story. worry of the first five or six weddings in the White House. Hardly any family.

Marcia Smith 20:03
Okay, so Bob, you’re not at my beck and call. Are you dear?

Bob Smith 20:06
No, I think you’d like me to be. I have been at times, yes, it means

Marcia Smith 20:12
to be standing by ready to respond to me immediately.

Bob Smith 20:16
That’s right.

Marcia Smith 20:17
But did you ever wonder where that expression comes from beck and call beck and call it the house of Beck?

Bob Smith 20:23
Let’s do a question and call.

Marcia Smith 20:25
It’s what the heck is a bet?

Bob Smith 20:27
Oh, what the heck is this? Does this go back to Shakespeare or something like that? beck and call? Nope. Okay. Does it go back to before that time?

Marcia Smith 20:34
I don’t know. It doesn’t give me a year. Okay, tell me the answer. The expression comes from the rules of servitude, when a Beck was a silent single, like a nod of the head or a hand gesture to summon your servant or really so you just nod and the better show up? Yes. And if that failed, the master or mistress would have to resort to a verbal call, they’d

Bob Smith 20:55
have to call all the humanity Oh, my God, all the effort they had to put into it.

Marcia Smith 21:00
So it’s a back little knot or a call a get your butt over here. Oh, that’s interesting.

Bob Smith 21:05
So I’m at your beck and call. That’s where that comes from. That’s pretty fascinating. Wow. And so is this bit of trivia. Back to White House weddings, who was the only US president who was married in the White House? That wedding was in 1886. Only one US president ever got married in the White House. weddings in the White House. Only one involved

Marcia Smith 21:27
a president to 18 I should know that there is it? This guy married

Bob Smith 21:31
a very young woman. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I

Marcia Smith 21:33
know. The story, but I can’t remember the president. You tell me

Bob Smith 21:37
Grover Cleveland. Grover. Yes. He married Francis Folsom. And he was 30 years older than her. He was 49. She was 21. And she was remember a friend of the family. She was like the daughter of one of his best friends. And then after his best friend, it helped raise her.

Marcia Smith 21:52
That’s right. It was like an adopted daughter, which seemed a little cringy cringy when she did that, so she’d have money and I don’t think they were ever officially men and wife. Oh, I

Bob Smith 22:02
don’t know Marsh. Well to find out from other people. Okay,

Marcia Smith 22:05
fine. All right, Bob. Here’s something to ponder. Okay. What do I head of broccoli, a queen and chair leg, a dog bowl, and an old license plate? Having comments.

Bob Smith 22:17
That sounds like something in our garage actually is

Marcia Smith 22:19
weird. Wow, they all have some common nouns. So the

Bob Smith 22:23
thing that is the weird part, there is the leg of the Queen and chair.

Marcia Smith 22:27
Broccoli was

Bob Smith 22:27
the weird part of broccoli is everywhere. But you don’t get clean and legs very often. So you know, it sounds like a 19th century scavenger scavenger hunt. Yes, but it sounds like yeah, okay, but what okay,

Marcia Smith 22:41
but you’ll like this and it makes perfect sense. Okay, they’re all rejected monopoly playing token. Oh, the ones that didn’t make the cut. Isn’t that funny? Broccoli

Bob Smith 22:51
for 200? Yeah. Do not pass. Go do not pass the dog bowl. Yeah.

Marcia Smith 22:55
Okay. What’s

Bob Smith 22:56
the other one? What’s the queen? Anything?

Marcia Smith 22:58
That’s a queen and chair leg. Well, how

Bob Smith 23:00
could that be on a monopoly? Well, it’s

Marcia Smith 23:02
just a little a little pewter piece. You know? You know how it is. It’s a little bit theory. The game itself goes back to the 1930s. And one game expert concludes that the tokens they finally use break down into rich and poor, like the game. Oh, the rich being the top hat, the car and the dog. The dog looks like the terrier Asda from that? Yes, yes. And then the thimble, wheelbarrow old shoe and iron. We’re all possessions or tools of the poor. Okay, that makes it so that it does make sense. Do you have one that you always go to when you’re playing Monopoly?

Bob Smith 23:39
I haven’t played Monopoly in years. I can’t remember that much. And

Marcia Smith 23:42
I’m sure you hated it. Because it’s a long game. That’s

Bob Smith 23:44
what I hated about. Yes. Okay. It took so long. Yeah. Well, I wanted to go back to that wedding of Grover Cleveland. They were concerned about that because they were worried about the reputation and everything a little bit there. So they had a very small wedding. Yeah, they only had 31 people there. So that sounds like a tiny little wedding. Quiet except Except Except John Philip Sousa is orchestra play. So that can’t be quiet. Right.

Marcia Smith 24:10
Got that, that? That that that? Okay. Which

Bob Smith 24:12
president had two daughters both married in the White House? Johnson’s

Marcia Smith 24:15
girls weren’t married there. Were they? One of them was Yeah, but not both. I

Bob Smith 24:20
thought both of them were but no one of them was so only one of them. So this was before LBJ. Yeah, this president had had two daughters and a nice to wed in the White House. I

Marcia Smith 24:29
don’t know it was Eisenhower had David did he have two daughters? I know. Tell me

Bob Smith 24:34
Woodrow Wilson. Okay. Francis bows SEER was married to Jesse Woodrow Wilson in 1913. And then in 1914, Eleanor Randolph Wilson got married. And you said LBJ, yes. The only daughter that got married those was Linda Bird Johnson. She married there in 1967. And then, out of the nest, though, she flew out of the nest, and then Tricia Nixon got married in 1971 in the 21st century mark Should there have been two White House weddings? The first was another friends of the family ceremony. And that was the White House photographer. Okay, Sousa he married Patti least in 2013. Now the second wedding of the 21st century was November 2022. Who got married in the White House?

Marcia Smith 25:18
That’s got to be Biden’s family. Yes. His niece or something his granddaughter

Bob Smith 25:23
Oh, Naomi Biden married Peter Neal on the South Lawn November 19 2022. Now that’d be a thrill those are just some of the 19 documented weddings in the White House. Okay, I think it’s fascinating that so many of them let their friends kit yeah you can have the wedding here Yeah, we got the use of this big place so

Marcia Smith 25:42
size of bridal parties now you need a house like the White House to accommodate everybody stuff

Bob Smith 25:47
taxpayer supporting that building just doesn’t seem right to me. It’s it’s family.

Marcia Smith 25:51
Okay. Maybe they do pay for everything all the way down. They may they may. Yeah. Including extra time for the you know, the waitstaff and all that

Bob Smith 26:00
just for the entertainment value? I’d like to suspect they don’t.

Marcia Smith 26:04
Okay, before my quotes to end the show. Why are police vans called paddy wagons?

Bob Smith 26:10
Hmm, this probably goes back to England, doesn’t it? Maybe a guy named Paddy Chayefsky or something? Throw him in the wagon. So he’s Paddy? No, I don’t know why they call them Paddy. wagons

Marcia Smith 26:22
are like the UK but Paddy Wagon is a slur against the common Irish name Patrick. Oh, Patty is a diminutive form a little Patrick little Patrick is Patty. Yeah, I see. Yeah. Back in the day when Irish people were considered the lowest in the social order of things. And when police wanted to appear to crack down on crime, they would go out and fill their wagons with Patrick’s or patties. Oh, that’s great. That’s back there. That became paddy wagon. Yeah, there’s just any poor Patrick out there. Any Irish guy is a patty. And here’s a quote from Seth Godin. Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from. That’s good. I like that. And this one is unknown, but I like it a lot. A fallen leaf is nothing more than a Summer’s wave. Goodbye. Well,

Bob Smith 27:14
we’re starting to see that. It’s just around the corner. Summers wave. Goodbye. All right, we’re gonna wave goodbye for a week or so here and then we’ll be back again later. We hope you enjoyed the show and we invite you to go to our website and give us any comments about the show at the off ramp dot show. I’m Bob Smith.

Marcia Smith 27:32
I’m Marcia Smith. Join us again next

Bob Smith 27:33
time when we return with more fascinating facts and tantalizing trivia here on the off ramp. The off ramp is produced in association with CPL radio online and the Cedarbrook Public Library Cedarburg, Wisconsin.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai