Bob and Marcia Smith discuss various trivia topics, including the origin of the word “ambush,” which means “hiding within nature.” They explore the history of the Supreme Court, noting that justices like John Marshall and Salmon Chase have appeared on U.S. currency. They delve into the marketing of the 1975 film “Jaws” and its impact on Hollywood. The conversation also covers the development of new fruit varieties, such as Honeycrisp apples, which took 31 years to breed. Additionally, they touch on the history of hood ornaments on cars and the rarity of the 49-star American flag.
Outline
Roman Napkins and Neil Armstrong’s NASA Application
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the Romans’ practice of bringing their own napkins to dinner, which were the earliest versions of doggy bags.
- Bob Smith shares a trivia question about a famous American hero who turned in a government application a week late and might not have achieved his historic feat without a friend’s help.
- Marcia Smith guesses the historic feat, and Bob Smith reveals it is Neil Armstrong, who submitted his NASA application late but was helped by a colleague, Dick Day.
- Bob Smith explains how Armstrong’s late application was saved by Day, allowing him to become the first human to walk on the moon.
Supreme Court Justices on U.S. Currency
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss Supreme Court justices who have appeared on U.S. currency, mentioning John Marshall and Salmon Chase.
- Marcia Smith notes that the Supreme Court didn’t have a fully functional home until 1935 and that justices used to ride the circuit and hear cases around the country.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the number of Supreme Court justices, with Marcia Smith stating there have been 17 courts in the history of the Supreme Court.
- Bob Smith shares a trivia question about the first true summer blockbuster film, “Jaws,” and its impactful marketing campaign.
Jaws and Its Marketing Impact
- Bob Smith recalls working at a radio station when “Jaws” was released and saved the radio commercial for the film.
- Marcia Smith and Bob Smith discuss how different movie marketing is today compared to the 1970s, noting the lack of narration in modern movie trailers.
- Bob Smith explains how “Jaws” revolutionized Hollywood by earning $100 million at the US box office in its first run, thanks to its unprecedented marketing blitz.
- Marcia Smith and Bob Smith reflect on the impact of “Jaws” on popular culture, including the fear it instilled in people about swimming in the ocean.
Supreme Court Clerks and Word Origins
- Marcia Smith shares a trivia question about future Supreme Court justices who clerked at the Supreme Court, listing several notable justices.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the origins of the words “Equinox” and “Solstice,” explaining their meanings and historical context.
- Bob Smith shares a word origin about the term “ambush,” explaining its roots in hiding within nature and its evolution over time.
- Marcia Smith and Bob Smith take a break before discussing garlic consumption in the U.S. and other interesting trivia.
Garlic Consumption and Taiwan’s Garbage Trucks
- Marcia Smith asks Bob Smith about the average amount of garlic consumed by Americans annually, revealing it to be two pounds per person.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the origins of garlic and its classification as a vegetable.
- Bob Smith shares a trivia question about a custom in Taiwan where garbage trucks play classical music to notify residents, specifically mentioning Beethoven’s “Fur Elise.”
- Marcia Smith and Bob Smith find the custom amusing and discuss the cultural significance of the music.
Hood Ornaments and Airplane Ashtrays
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the history of hood ornaments on cars, noting their decline due to aerodynamic concerns and pedestrian safety.
- Marcia Smith shares a trivia question about why airplanes still have ashtrays, explaining that the FAA requires them to prevent trash bin fires.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith find the requirement surprising and discuss the historical context of smoking on flights.
- Marcia Smith and Bob Smith take a break before discussing superheroes and their AKA names.
Superhero AKA Names and Fruit Breeding
- Marcia Smith and Bob Smith play a trivia game where they guess the real names of superheroes based on their AKA names, such as Spider-Man and the Hulk.
- Bob Smith shares a trivia question about the time it takes to develop a new fruit variety, explaining the extensive process and the importance of plant breeding.
- Marcia Smith and Bob Smith discuss the development of fruits like Honeycrisp apples and cotton candy grapes, highlighting the scientific efforts involved.
- Bob Smith emphasizes the significance of food modification and the work of plant breeders in creating the fruits we consume.
Turkey’s Name Origin and Flag Designs
- Marcia Smith asks Bob Smith how the American bird, the turkey, got its name, explaining its historical misidentification as coming from Turkey.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the prehistoric appearance of turkeys and their common sight in North America.
- Bob Smith shares a trivia question about the number of different star and stripe designs of the American flag, revealing there have been 27 official designs.
- Marcia Smith and Bob Smith discuss the rarest flag design, the 49-star flag, and its historical significance.
Quotes and Show Closing
- Bob Smith shares quotes from Wayne Gretzky, Michael Jordan, and Irving Berlin, emphasizing the importance of taking shots, reacting positively to life, and making the most of opportunities.
- Marcia Smith and Bob Smith invite listeners to contribute trivia to their show and express their hope that the audience enjoys the content.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith sign off, reminding listeners to visit their website for more information and to join them for future episodes.
Bob Smith 0:00
What famous American hero turned his government application in a week late, and if not for a friend, he may never have achieved his historic feat. Who was it?
Marcia Smith 0:10
And why did the Romans bring their own napkins to dinner?
Bob Smith 0:15
Answers to those and other mysteries coming up in this episode of The Off Ramp with Bob
Marcia Smith 0:19
and Marcia Smith,
Bob Smith 0:37
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. And the Romans were just very nice, polite people. Apparently, they brought their own napkins to their meals.
Marcia Smith 0:52
It befuddles you, doesn’t it?
Bob Smith 0:53
Yes, it does.
Marcia Smith 0:53
In ancient Rome, dinner guests would bring their own cloth napkins – cloth napkins – to wipe their hands and faces and package up any leftovers.
Bob Smith 1:05
Oh, that was it was also your package you took home with you.
Marcia Smith 1:07
That’s correct. These napkins were the earliest versions of doggy bags, and it was considered impolite to arrive at a dinner party without your own napkin to wipe your hands and face and bring home your left.
Bob Smith 1:21
Oh how funny.
Marcia Smith 1:22
Isn’t that weird?
Bob Smith 1:23
Geez, just the opposite of today you say, what’s wrong with these people?
Marcia Smith 1:26
Those Romans had all sorts of fun.
Bob Smith 1:28
All right? Marcia, this piece of trivia comes under the category. At some point everyone needs a helping hand. Here’s the question again, okay, what famous American hero turned his government application in a week late, and if not for a friend, he may never have achieved his historic feat.
Marcia Smith 1:46
Well, what was his historic feat?
Bob Smith 1:48
Well, that’s what you have to guess. Do you want me to give you a hint?
Marcia Smith 1:51
Well, you should tell me.
Bob Smith 1:52
Here’s the hint. The hint is he may never have achieved his historic feat – with his own feet. Who am I talking about.
Marcia Smith 2:01
I have no idea
Bob Smith 2:02
That’s one small step for a man.
Marcia Smith 2:05
Oh, was it really – that’s for a man.
Bob Smith 2:07
I never heard this story before until just now, Neil Armstrong, who will forever be remembered in history as the first human being to put his feet on the moon, submitted his application to NASA to be an astronaut one week too late. Normally, that would have cost him his chance of going to the moon, but fortunately for Neil, one of his colleagues, a man named Dick day, had become a member of NASA’s selection panel, and day saw Armstrong’s late application and quietly slipped it into the stack of the on time applications for consideration by NASA. What was he doing and what was so important that the man who first went on the moon couldn’t put his application in on time exactly. So, as I said, everybody needs a helping hand at one time or another, and he got his from a friend who stuck his late application into the pile. It’s
Marcia Smith 2:58
who you know, Bob. It’s always who you know, right? That’s what it is, okay, okay, Bob, how many Supreme Court justices have appeared on us? Currency,
Bob Smith 3:08
well, that’s interesting. How many justices have appeared on
Marcia Smith 3:12
us? Currency, yeah, I didn’t know any head personally.
Bob Smith 3:15
Well, that would be one of the presidents who became a chief justice. Well, that was
Marcia Smith 3:19
just one, and he’s not on this list of two. Oh, really, yeah, that would okay. That would have been Taft.
Bob Smith 3:24
So then this might be John Marshall and John Jay, or somebody like they got one.
Marcia Smith 3:29
John Marshall was on the $500 bill and salmon Chase. Salmon P Chase, he was on the $10,000 bill. And neither bill is in circulation today. There you have it all right to to supreme I have some other mildly interesting random facts about the Supreme Court. Like, did you know that the court didn’t have a fully functional home until 1935
Bob Smith 3:52
Yes. They operated in the basement of the United States Capitol, right? Or
Marcia Smith 3:56
the old Senate chamber, yeah, yeah. And they used to have a lunch in the robing room.
Bob Smith 4:03
Well, they have much better digs now. And you know
Marcia Smith 4:05
the one we just talked about, Taft. William Howard Taft led the drive for his supreme court building in the 1920s that’s how they got that. Did you know that the justices really did ride the circuit and hear cases around the country? Oh, I didn’t know they did that originally, I didn’t know it either. Oh, that was a sticking point with some justices who didn’t like to travel. And the requirement meant Justices of the Supreme Court were mandated to preside once a year over the circuit courts located throughout the country. Who knew that? I
Bob Smith 4:37
didn’t know that. I thought everything was in Washington, DC or Philadelphia originally.
Marcia Smith 4:41
You want to guess how many chief justices. How many courts there have been? There’s a court for every Chief Justice. Okay, and how many do you think there have been?
Bob Smith 4:50
Let’s see, we’ve had how many presidents? 47 so I’d say there’s been like 30 different justices Supreme Court. No, that’s
Marcia Smith 4:58
a good guess, though. 17. Jim. 17, yeah. Supreme Court historians categorize errors in court history by the name of the Chief Justice Court, right. Okay. The Roberts Court is the 17th court on the books. The J court was the first. Is that the guy from the Constitution, John J Yeah, right. Okay. The Marshall court was in session 34 years that’s a John Marshall court. Yes, right. And Chief Justice Roberts was 50 years old when he took his oath in 2005
Bob Smith 5:29
All right? Marcia, I want you to, I want anybody listening to put themselves in a little time capsule. We’re going back a half a century ago, 50 years ago, to the summer of 1975 it was June 20 when a film was released that is now considered the first true summer blockbuster ever, and this is how it was marketed on radio.
Speaker 1 5:53
There is a creature alive today who has survived millions of years of evolution, without change, without passion and without logic, it lives to kill a mindless eating machine. It will attack and devour anything it is as if God created the devil and gave him jaws.
Speaker 2 6:18
A shark is attracted to the exact kind of splashing an activity that occurs whenever human beings go and swimming. You cannot avoid
Speaker 1 6:24
it. Universal Pictures presents Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfus and Lorraine Gary in the terrifying motion picture from the terrifying number one best seller, JAWS. None of men’s fantasies of evil can compare with the reality of jaws. Jaws, JAWS rated PG, parental guidance suggested maybe too intense for younger children.
Bob Smith 6:48
That is a commercial that ran on radio, the radio station I was working at 50 years ago when this great movie came out that was it was such a phenomenon, I saved the radio commercial because
Marcia Smith 7:01
your first radio
Bob Smith 7:03
that’s right, wow. And I thought, isn’t it interesting how they marketed that movie? Yeah, but also how different they market movies today, you rarely hear commercials for movies on radio anymore, but when you do, they don’t have a lot of narration or anything you watch on TV. There’s very rarely a narrator on a movie trailer, right? But I thought that was so well done. Doesn’t it bring back all of the scenes. I
Marcia Smith 7:25
love the voiceover. Actually, he did a great job. I’d like to watch that again. Let’s, let’s watch it again this weekend to see if it
Bob Smith 7:31
holds up. Yeah, remember, everybody was afraid to go into the water because all of the shark attacks that have been occurring every year just started being reported all the time. Yeah, that summer, it was like, here’s another shark attack, another person died.
Marcia Smith 7:45
People stopped going to the shower after Psycho and they stopped swimming in the ocean with JAWS.
Bob Smith 7:51
Jaws is considered a film that revolutionized Hollywood because it was the first film to earn $100 million at the US box office in its first run, no other film had ever made that much money. Films had made that much money over time, but not in their first run. And part of that was due to this unprecedented marketing blitz, including that radio commercial and a bunch of other things as well. And it also had a very wide release strategy and a lot of word of mouth. Everybody talked about it. And of course, this was the beginning of the career of one of our greatest movie directors, Steven
Marcia Smith 8:23
Spielberg, yeah, yeah. Not a bad way to get out of the box. Boy,
Bob Smith 8:28
sonically, I thought it was sonically a fascinating example. Yes, of you know how we sold movies back in the 70s. Yeah, 50 years ago,
Marcia Smith 8:38
it got everybody into the theater, that’s for sure. Okay, Bob, I have just one more Supreme Court factoid, okay, and I’ll let you guess how many future Supreme Court justices clerked at the Supreme Court.
Bob Smith 8:53
Oh, that’s a good one. So they worked there as clerks before they became
Marcia Smith 8:57
and they went on to be judges, yeah,
Bob Smith 8:59
I would say, well, at least a half a dozen, at least 610, wow.
Marcia Smith 9:04
And here they are. Okay. Byron R white, William Rehnquist, John Paul Stevens, Stephen J Breyer, John G Roberts, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and ketanji Brown. They were
Bob Smith 9:18
all clerks. That’s most of the Supreme Court today. I know that’s interesting.
Marcia Smith 9:22
So there’s, I would say there’s a career path they’re getting on.
Bob Smith 9:27
I say they did well. Yes, they did very well. Marcia, we recently had the summer solstice. What is the origin of the word Solstice? What does it
Marcia Smith 9:35
mean? Funny, you should ask. I have no idea.
Bob Smith 9:38
And what does the word Equinox mean, where does that come from?
Marcia Smith 9:42
Equal noxes. The NOx is being the time frame from summer to winter. Oh,
Bob Smith 9:49
it’s so pathetic. Okay, let’s get to the answer. Then get me out of my misery. Bob. The word Equinox comes from the Latin equinoctium, ah, equal, meaning equal and nocti. NOx meaning night. So Equinox means equal night or equal light, because it’s got to be equal day and equal night. So the sun is directly over the equator, right? That’s when the equinox. Okay. Now, Solstice. What does the word Solstice mean? We know the first full day of summer, longest day of the year, yeah. But what does the word mean? Solstice?
Marcia Smith 10:20
Solar, solar, something
Bob Smith 10:23
Sol for sun, yeah, and stytium stythium, which can mean Sun situation pause or stop. Okay, so it means the sun stops. It stops its rise in the sky. Oh, okay, that’s what the summer solstice means. Okay, in the northern hemisphere, the Earth is tilted closest to the sun, so it’s the longest day of the year. The Solstice in the southern hemisphere is the shortest day of the
Marcia Smith 10:47
year. Yeah. Do you remember where you were with me for an equinox?
Bob Smith 10:53
Chichen Itza. That’s it in Mexico, right? Yeah, the great
Marcia Smith 10:56
Mayan city. When the sun reached, I think it was noon, high noon,
Bob Smith 11:00
the shadow tumbled down the pyramid steps like a snake. Yeah, when they what was it? March, 19 or 20th?
Marcia Smith 11:07
Yeah, we kept saying to our kids, now watch this. You’ll try to remember this. And now they remember, but they, I don’t think they paid any attention at the time.
Bob Smith 11:16
Okay? Marsha, I have a question for you. This is a word origin. What actually means hiding within nature. Hiding within nature a word for a surprise attack that like camouflage, no that actually refers to hiding within nature. It can be used as a verb or a noun. It’s English. It starts with a when people attack you and you don’t realize they’re there. It is an camouflage ambush. Marcia, it’s an ambush. It’s not a camouflage, okay, as a verb, Merriam Webster defines it as to attack by surprise from a hidden place. That’s the definition as a noun, it’s a trap in which one or more concealed attackers lie in wait for surprise. But the root of the word actually refers to hiding in nature, because ambush goes back to the 14th century Middle English, the word embushen borrowed from the French Ambusher and the French embush A which means to place in the woods in order to attack by surprise. The word was found in Germanic as a variant of Bucha, meaning bush or thicket. So ambush means being in the bush to attack someone. That’s a great way to remember the origin of that word. I will forever remember that. Thank you, dear. And there you have it, the Bush part of ambush actually refers to hiding in bushes, trees, forests and
Marcia Smith 12:35
thickets. All right, Bob, we’re moving on to garlic. Oh, maybe we should
Bob Smith 12:39
take a break before that. All right, you’re listening to the off ramp with Bob and Marcia Smith. We’ll be back in just a moment. We’re back, and we’re going to talk about garlic, apparently. But let me tell you just a moment first, that you’re listening to the off ramp, and we do this every week for the Cedarburg Public Library, Cedarburg, Wisconsin, and then we put it on podcast platforms, and it’s heard all over the world. That’s right, my dear, garlic. Your question on garlic?
Marcia Smith 13:07
Oh, I love garlic, and I do sneak it into a lot of your things, and you don’t notice
Bob Smith 13:11
it tastes good, really? Oh, okay, it’s just, if it’s overused, that’s too much. Well,
Marcia Smith 13:15
that’s why you’re not Italian. That’s true. All right. Bob, so the question is, yes, how much garlic does the average American consume every year?
Bob Smith 13:26
Oh, like pounds or ounces? I wouldn’t think it’d be a pound of garlic with it,
Marcia Smith 13:30
because it doesn’t weigh much. You don’t need much either. Well, some of us use a lot of it. Okay, I’ll say 16 ounces of that’s a pound. Yeah, okay, twice that the average American consumes two pounds of garlic annually, which is impressive considering the food’s minuscule weight, while dried garlic is commonly sold as a spice. Garlic is actually a vegetable known as Allium sectavium, belonging to the same family as shallots, leeks and chives, two
Bob Smith 14:00
pounds a year per person in the United States, correct? And in Italy, apparently,
Marcia Smith 14:04
it’s a lot. I’ll bet I should I’ll have to google that later. Okay, I’m going
Bob Smith 14:08
to ask you to tell me which country this occurs in. Okay, this is kind of a fun one. I saw this the other day on britannica.com Why do authorities play classical music on garbage day? In one country, they play classical music on garbage day. Why did, oh, on garbage day? Why this happens in Taiwan?
Marcia Smith 14:27
That’s not where that Symphony from the garbage dump is. No, no, those young people, I don’t know, to ward off animals from coming out to eat the garbage and so that they can pick up
Bob Smith 14:40
the Well, that might be part of the problem, I don’t know, but apparently, the custom there is not to leave your garbage on the curb to be picked up. In Taiwan, the custom is to hand deliver your trash bags to the garbage trucks when they make the rounds. But if you’re not home, well, how do you know they’re driving by your house? Right? How do you know to alert residents in Taiwan? We. Elise, garbage trucks play a tune often. It’s Beethoven’s for Elise. That’s funny. Then that notifies residents up, they’re coming, it’s time to take out the trash. That’s
Marcia Smith 15:10
funny. And what a pleasant song, a pleasant song to be associated with trash, isn’t it funny? Yes, I love it. Okay, Bob, what happened to the hood ornaments on cars.
Bob Smith 15:21
Oh, I never thought of that. That’s right. We used to have the Pontiac Indian. And what were some of the others? Geez, yeah, there was some big ones. I remember that now my grandpa’s cars, shiny things like that. Hmm. Well, apparently we got rid of that for some reason, because it was it, because of the did that interfere with the air aerodynamic? Yeah, less streamlined if you had those.
Marcia Smith 15:45
That’s one of the things that was a possibility. Can I
Bob Smith 15:48
build them like ships back then? Oh, god yes. And that’s, I think that’s why they did it. They were like mimicking a big ship with a figure
Marcia Smith 15:54
bold and noble. I once dated a guy who looked like a hood owner, but basically they got rid of them for pedestrian safety concerns. Oh really, yeah, you know, people would get impaled on them. Oh so theft. People were stealing them left and right. Oh no. And automotive fashion trends have dwindled, but they’re still out there, and they started once was a symbol of automotive elegance and brand identity, and who do you think was the first one?
Bob Smith 16:22
The first one Mercedes? Close. Rolls Royce, yes,
Marcia Smith 16:26
okay. And it was in 1911 and guess who still has that iconic Spirit of Ecstasy figurine on its hood? Rolls Royce, yes. And that was an art No. And guess how they keep people from stealing it? I don’t know. I had no idea if somebody tugs on it, it goes back into the hood. It’s retractable. Oh, no kidding. Rolls Royce, you know,
Bob Smith 16:49
yes, if you have the two remedy to go up to a Rolls Royce and just manhandle that thing.
Marcia Smith 16:53
Yeah, and let’s see who else has one, Mercedes Benz. It’s three pointed star and Jaguar with its leaping cat, and Bentley with its flying bee. They still, they’ve kept their hood ornaments. Bentley has a bee, a flying bee.
Bob Smith 17:08
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Bentley. That’s a hand assembled car, all right. Marcia, here’s a head scratcher. You told me about why cars got rid of hood ornaments. Uh huh. Why do airplanes still have ashtrays, do they? They’re still some, they’re that old, right? There’s still some ashtrays on airplanes.
Marcia Smith 17:28
I assume they’re just really old, and that makes me nervous. That’s what I thought, too, yeah. But no,
Bob Smith 17:33
no, then this is a new statistic. Smoking on flights has long been banned by most airlines. That’s why they supposedly got rid of them, right? But the US, Federal Aviation Administration requires planes to have ashtrays available for people who break the rule. Oh, for God’s sake. Why? Because a lit cigarette could light a trash bin on fire, and the FAA considers ashtrays required equipment. The regulations require them to be in laboratories, so that’s where you’ll find them, even though they don’t publicize that. Oh, my. So they may be hidden, but they’re somewhere on the plane laboratories,
Marcia Smith 18:08
huh? Wow, all right, aka time Bob. And what’s the topic today? Today it is superheroes. Ooh, I think you’ll know nine out of 10 superheroes. Yes, this is also known as, which is AKA, it’s a card game at Marshall likes so if I said arachnids, guy,
Bob Smith 18:30
that’s Spider Man, that’s correct, arachnids are spiders,
Marcia Smith 18:33
yeah, okay, and a guy is a man in many cases, okay, that’s right, yeah. Unbelievable, bio myth.
Bob Smith 18:40
That’s the Hulk, Incredible Hulk. That
Marcia Smith 18:43
is correct. Extreme risk taking,
Bob Smith 18:47
extreme risk taking, extreme risk taking.
Marcia Smith 18:52
This is the one I I didn’t get. It’s not the flash or the now it’s actually, it’s literal with extreme risk taking. What kind of person does that a daredevil, and I never heard of him as a superhero. No, me neither. And I think it’s, I think it’s a he, Oh, all right, so, but these other ones you’ll know, ready, okay, Wrinkle Remover dude.
Bob Smith 19:16
Wrinkle Remover dude, yeah. Wrinkle Remover, yeah, that’s not Superman. It’s not Batman. It’s not, I don’t know.
Marcia Smith 19:25
Well, it’s not wrinkles on your face, baby. It’s in your shirt, yeah? Okay, you get rid of
Bob Smith 19:30
them. Iron Man, yeah, the irons, yeah, the wrinkles out. Okay, gotcha good.
Marcia Smith 19:35
Michigan player, Michigan
Bob Smith 19:37
player, yeah. Michigan player, come on. I don’t know that one.
Marcia Smith 19:42
Oh, it’s a guy with the with the long nails. Oh, Wolverine.
Bob Smith 19:47
That’s it. That’s okay, because Wolverine is the state animal of Michigan.
Marcia Smith 19:51
Emerald beacon, that’s the Green Hornet. Close. Green beacon, green light. Lantern, Green Lantern. Remember that?
Bob Smith 20:00
That’s another one. I don’t think I ever read about, or anything. Green Hornet. I read about,
Marcia Smith 20:04
yeah? Well, that’s an old it was a radio one. It’s an old radio show. It’s kind of a superhero. Yeah, Green Hornet. And the last one, Bob, Louisville Slugger, female Louisville Slugger. Female wonder. Woman, No, Louisville Slugger. What’s that?
Bob Smith 20:19
Bat? Woman, yes. Bad Girl. Girl, that’s right. God, it never was. Bat
Marcia Smith 20:24
woman, isn’t that interesting? Now there’s wonder. Woman, yeah, and Bat Girl, I’m so confused. That’s all right. Carry on.
Bob Smith 20:30
All right. Marcia, how long does it take to develop a new fruit variety,
Marcia Smith 20:34
a brand new fruit? You mean a fruit that’s grown, where they take a
Bob Smith 20:38
fruit and they modify it, and over time, they come up with a new variety, like a like one we like very much, honey crisp apples, yeah, okay, this was the New York Times has a kids section every Sunday, and they went step by step, how new fruit varieties come about. It’s amazing how much work is involved. Say, 15 years more than that, according to a plant biologist, most of the fruits we buy at the grocery store are not found in nature. Did you know that most fruits at the grocery store are not found in nature because much of the fruit that grows in the wild isn’t especially pleasant to eat, so plant breeders have been developing more tasteful varieties for centuries. So almost everything we eat is a product of some kind of science or modification, right? Honeycrisp apples took 31 years. Wow. They were introduced in 1991 after 31 years of work to breed the perfect apple. And they’re always sweet. They don’t brown as quickly as other apples. You know? They last longer in the refrigerator. For one thing, hybrid fruits include tangelos, part tangerine, part grapefruit, and they were bred to be juicier, sweeter and easier to peel than oranges. Cotton candy grapes. Have you heard of these? I’ve seen these advertised. It’s a cross between concord grapes and table grapes, and they taste like Spun Sugar, which is what cotton candy is, yeah, and they were the product of Thomas Edison levels of development. I mean, their inventor, plant biologist John Clark, grew 100,000 tiny test tube plants before finding one with the perfect cotton candy flavor. Fruits that are a product of breeding, and they’re not all new nectarines. You like those? I do. They were developed more than 2000 years ago when a peach lost what made it fuzzy, but the process of a developing joke there? I know, yeah. But again, this can take forever. It can last, like I said, 30 years to do the honey crisp apples. There’s just a lot that goes into the food we eat. We take for granted. We don’t even want to know about it. Some people don’t even want to know about it. Marcia, how interesting it is
Marcia Smith 22:44
question. Bob, I wonder who that would be. Okay. Bob, how did an American bird, the turkey, get its name?
Bob Smith 22:53
How did it get its name? Did it have anything to do with the part of the world we call Turkey? Exactly
Marcia Smith 22:59
in 1519, Conquistador Cortez returned to Spain with a bird introduced to him by the Native Americans of Mexico. The peculiar bird confounded everyone in Europe, this weird looking bird from America, no kidding, and the French thought it was from India, and called it something Indian, and the Germans thought it was from Calcutta, and called it something appropriate. By the time it reached England, it was determined that the bird had hailed from Turkey, and there you have it,
Bob Smith 23:33
even though he brought it and introduced it and said, I found this in the new
Marcia Smith 23:36
world. Apparently he didn’t speak up much because they didn’t know where it came from, England finally determined incorrectly that it was from Turkey, and that’s how it got. It is a weird bird. Yeah, it is ugly, and we see him around here all the time. So prehistoric looking.
Bob Smith 23:52
Well, we have one more thing here, the Fourth of July. I want to have this question here, all right, how many different star and Stripe designs have there been over history? Yeah, quite a few. Quite a few. How many different official flag designs have there been in 250 years? I’ll say,
Marcia Smith 24:11
actually, I don’t think there are that many. 627, 27 the same thing.
Bob Smith 24:15
27 this star pattern is what has evolved dramatically since 1777 the number of stars always matched the number of states, but the arrangement wasn’t standardized until 1912 so there were multiple flags with circles, rows and star bursts. What’s the rarest flag design you can find? Is
Marcia Smith 24:34
it the original 13 stars or the one with the snake on it?
Bob Smith 24:39
It’s not one of the oldest ones. No, no, I don’t know it’s a recent one. I don’t know it’s the 49 star
Marcia Smith 24:45
flag. Oh, before we got to Hawaii,
Bob Smith 24:48
yes, one of the rarest. In 1959 there was a flag design that was in use for just one year. It was the 49 star flag for Alaska. It had seven rows. Of Seven Stars. And what do you think that’s worth? Not as much as you think it would be, I don’t know how much. Well if you go on eBay, you can find smaller ones for about 50 to $150 and larger, well preserved ones you can find for 150 to $300
Marcia Smith 25:15
it was probably a moment of bliss for flag makers, thinking, oh my gosh, we got 49 we can change the flag, and then the next year, oh my gosh, we got 50. Yeah, and they’ve been pretty stagnant ever since.
Bob Smith 25:27
So the 50 star flag has nine staggered star rows, five with six stars, four with five with seven red stripes, six white stripes, to symbolize the 13 original colonies. And it’s the 27th design
Marcia Smith 25:41
of the flag. Good to know. Good to know. Okay, Bob quotes, starting with Wayne Gretzky. You know who
Bob Smith 25:46
he is? Yes, hockey player. Hockey. God. He’s a hockey god, yes.
Marcia Smith 25:50
He said, you miss 100% of the shots you never take. I thought that was one of the basketball players that came up with that. Oh, that you’re I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking of Michael Jordan. He he had a similar okay, but I think every sport has their own quote on that.
Bob Smith 26:06
Basically, you take as many shots as you can,
Marcia Smith 26:09
yeah? And just because the the real stars, the big football player, they keep going like Brett Favre would throw so many interceptions, but
Bob Smith 26:17
Babe Ruth, he struck out many, many more times than ever. Hit home runs. Yeah,
Marcia Smith 26:21
they keep going at it. And finally, Irving Berlin, and he said, Life is 10% what you make it and 90% how you take it.
Bob Smith 26:32
It’s a reaction, basically, yeah, how you react to things? Yeah, all right. Well, we hope you reacted positively to our show today, and we invite you to contribute any kind of trivia that you might have to us. Just go to our website, the off ramp, dot show, and click on contact us and leave us a
Marcia Smith 26:48
message and be part of the 90% of loving our show. How they you know, it’s how you take it, if you love our show, okay, yeah, I guess maybe it doesn’t. It’s kind of confusing. It is all right, just, just kind of a letdown.
Bob Smith 27:02
Okay, I guess I’ve edited that out, or maybe not. Maybe we just go on from here, Marcia, that’s fine. Maybe I’m just tired of editing out all these mistakes. Oh, just kidding. All right, I’m Bob Smith, are you?
Marcia Smith 27:14
I’m Bob Smith, I’m Marcia Smith.
Bob Smith 27:19
We hope you join us when we return next time with more fascinating facts and tantalizing trivia here on the off ramp.
Bob Smith 27:36
The Off Rramp is produced in association with the Cedarburg Public Library Cedarburg, Wisconsin, visit us on the web at the off ramp dot show at.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
