Bob and Marcia Smith discuss various trivia topics, including World War II technology, with the B-29 Superfortress bomber costing $3 billion, more than the Manhattan Project’s $1.9 billion for the Atom Bomb. They also explore historical figures, such as Barbara Bush and Abigail Adams, and White House details, like its six stories and 35 bathrooms. They play a game identifying cities based on clues, discuss Texas’s historical bat guano exports, and delve into the history of the Eiffel Tower and the Gateway Arch. They also touch on cultural practices like chopstick use in China and the evolution of soccer balls. The episode concludes with a discussion on the number of prime ministers under Queen Elizabeth II and a trivia quiz about skin cells.
Outline
World War II Technology and the B-29 Superfortress
- Bob Smith asks Marcia Smith about the World War II technology that cost more than the atomic bomb.
- Marcia Smith and an unknown speaker guess radar and television, respectively, but Bob Smith reveals it was the B-29 Superfortress bomber.
- Bob Smith explains that the B-29 was the most expensive project of World War II, costing $3 billion, while the Manhattan Project cost $1.9 billion.
- The B-29 had state-of-the-art technology, including a pressurized cabin and an analog computer-controlled firing system.
Trivia on Presidents’ Wives and Mothers
- Marcia Smith asks Bob Smith about two women who were both the wife of a president and the mother of a president.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss Barbara Bush and Abigail Adams as the correct answers.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith reminisce about Abigail Adams’ profound letters and her role as the mother of John Quincy Adams and the wife of John Adams.
- They also discuss George W. Bush as the son of Barbara Bush.
White House Facts and Trivia
- Bob Smith asks Marcia Smith how many stories the White House has, revealing it has six stories.
- They discuss the White House’s complex structure, including the West Wing, the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, and Blair House.
- Bob Smith asks Marcia Smith about the number of bathrooms in the White House, revealing there are 35 bathrooms.
- They also discuss the number of rooms, doors, windows, fireplaces, staircases, and elevators in the White House.
Geography and History Trivia
- Marcia Smith introduces a card game called “Where in the World” and provides clues to identify Prague.
- They discuss the city’s connection to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, John Lennon’s graffiti wall, and its status as the capital of the Czech Republic.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith identify Prague as the city in question.
- They also discuss the city with the most skyscrapers in the world, identifying Singapore as the correct answer.
Texas’s Mineral Export and Civil War Trivia
- Bob Smith asks Marcia Smith about Texas’s greatest mineral export before oil, revealing it was bat guano.
- They discuss the historical significance of bat guano during the Civil War as a source of nitrates for gunpowder.
- Bob Smith asks Marcia Smith about the city’s railway with one of the highest passenger densities in the world, identifying Mumbai as the correct answer.
- They discuss the historical significance of Mumbai as the main hub of the Bollywood film industry.
Chocolate and Camel Trivia
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the largest chocolate outlet on Earth, revealing it is at Brussels Airport.
- They discuss the daily sales of chocolate at Brussels Airport, which exceeds three pounds per minute.
- Bob Smith asks Marcia Smith about what a camel stores in its hump, revealing it stores fatty tissue, not water.
- They discuss the benefits of camels storing fat in their humps, including dissipating excess heat and serving as a source of water.
Historical Landmarks and Trivia
- Bob Smith asks Marcia Smith about a universally popular landmark that was once called a tragic street lamp and a hole-riddled suppository, identifying the Eiffel Tower as the correct answer.
- They discuss the historical criticism of the Eiffel Tower and its eventual acceptance as a symbol of Paris.
- Bob Smith asks Marcia Smith about the height comparison between the Gateway Arch in St. Louis and the Great Pyramid of Giza, identifying the Gateway Arch as the taller structure.
- They discuss the historical significance of the Gateway Arch and the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Snake-Themed Trivia
- Marcia Smith introduces a card game called “AKA” with the subject of snakes.
- They discuss various names for snakes, including “feathered scarf” for a boa constrictor and “hooded king of India” for a garter snake.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the historical significance of snakes in various cultures and their symbolic meanings.
- They also discuss the name “Mamba” for a snake and its significance in African culture.
Civil War and Prime Minister Trivia
- Marcia Smith asks Bob Smith about the Confederate officers who seceded from the Union, including Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Ambrose Hill, and Joseph Johnson.
- They discuss the impact of these officers joining the Confederacy and the challenges faced by the Union army.
- Marcia Smith asks Bob Smith about the number of prime ministers who served under Queen Elizabeth II, revealing there were 15.
- They discuss the historical significance of each prime minister and their contributions to British history.
Soccer and Chopstick Trivia
- Bob Smith asks Marcia Smith about the historical significance of soccer balls being black and white, revealing it was due to television.
- They discuss the historical development of soccer, including its origins in China and its standardization in England.
- Bob Smith asks Marcia Smith about the traditional use of chopsticks in China, revealing it is due to Confucian philosophy and cultural values.
- They discuss the practicality of chopsticks for eating small pieces of food and their continued use in Chinese culture.
Final Thoughts and Quotes
- Marcia Smith shares a quote from George Bernard Shaw about listening to the Brahms Requiem.
- Bob Smith shares a quote from Dolly Parton about her look being inspired by Cinderella, Mother Goose, and a local hooker.
- They conclude the episode with a light-hearted discussion about their favorite quotes and the importance of humor in their trivia show.
Bob Smith 0:00
What World War Two technology cost more than the atomic bomb?
Marcia Smith 0:05
Really? Geez, what two women have been both the wife of a president and the mother of a president?
Bob Smith 0:12
Answers to those and other questions coming up in this episode of the Off Ramp with Bob
Marcia Smith 0:17
And Marcia
Bob Smith 0:18
Smith.
Bob Smith 0:18
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, Marcia, what World War Two technology cost more than the atomic bomb for God’s sakes?
Marcia Smith 0:51
Wasn’t radar? Was it?
Bob Smith 0:52
No, it wasn’t. Now, that’s a good guess, though, because that did come about during World War Two.
Marcia Smith 0:56
Television
Bob Smith 0:57
No
Marcia Smith 0:59
Cost more than the atomic bomb.
Bob Smith 1:01
Here’s a hint. The government only made 3,970 of them,
Marcia Smith 1:06
Bazookas.
Bob Smith 1:07
No.
Marcia Smith 1:08
I don’t know. Bob.
Bob Smith 1:09
It was the B 29 super fortress bomber, those huge four engine bombers for World War Two. It was the most expensive project of World War Two, eclipsing the Manhattan Project. It was designed for high altitude bombing as high as 31,000 feet, and they had to go 2,000 miles. And Boeing started working on these in the 1930s and the government actually dropped out of funding because they didn’t have the money, and Boeing decided to keep it going as a private project. Thankfully, in 1940 when the government came along and said, we’ve got a contract for this bomber we’d like to build, Boeing was there with their own and so it became the one they used. And it had state of the art technology, a pressurized cabin that was brand new, and an analog computer controlled firing system, which allowed one gunner and a fire control officer to direct four remote machine gun turrets at the same time.
Marcia Smith 2:02
Oh
Bob Smith 2:03
So it was quite the super fortress, and it worked. It worked.
Marcia Smith 2:07
Okay
Bob Smith 2:08
They only made 3970 of them. They remain in service until the early 1960s but the cost $3 billion and the Manhattan Project was only $1.9 billion to build the atomic bomb.
Marcia Smith 2:22
Okay, Bob, you know, we’re coming up on 300 shows. So there are some oldies, but goodies I like – old questions. So this is repeat. You’ll probably remember it. You probably got it right the first time.
Bob Smith 2:32
I know the answer I I do.
Marcia Smith 2:34
I’m sure you do, but it’s a good thought. Provoker. I thought, Okay, what two women have been both the wife of a president and the mother of a president.
Bob Smith 2:44
That would be Barbara Bush and John Adams’s wife.
Marcia Smith 2:49
What’s her name?
Bob Smith 2:50
Oh, my God,
Marcia Smith 2:52
She had all the great letters she wrote.
Bob Smith 2:54
Yes, she did. Now I’m drawing a blank, so tell me your name.
Marcia Smith 2:58
It’s Abigail Adams.
Marcia Smith 2:59
Abigail Adams, yes.
Marcia Smith 3:00
She was so good. When we watched the revolutionary documentary, her letters were really profound,
Bob Smith 3:06
Very good quotes.
Marcia Smith 3:07
Yeah, really great.
Bob Smith 3:08
So she was – those two women were first the wives of presidents.
Marcia Smith 3:13
Yeah.
Bob Smith 3:13
And then they were the mother of presidents. And so John Quincy Adams was her son.
Marcia Smith 3:18
Correct.
Bob Smith 3:18
Okay, got ya. And then George W Bush was the son of
Marcia Smith 3:23
Barbra Bush. Ok, what do you got?
Bob Smith 3:25
Actually, I have some questions on the White House now, okay, how many stories does the White House have? This surprised me. Does it have 712, nine, six or three?
Marcia Smith 3:36
I say three.
Bob Smith 3:38
I would have thought that too. It has six.
Marcia Smith 3:40
I had no idea.
Bob Smith 3:41
The executive residence is made up of six stories, the ground floor, the State Floor, the second floor and the third floor, and then there’s a two story basement that makes six floors.
Marcia Smith 3:52
So you don’t see the basement,
Bob Smith 3:53
No, but I think you only see two when you look at it. There’s actually four.
Marcia Smith 3:57
Yeah.
Bob Smith 3:57
Visible? You know
Marcia Smith 3:58
Two basements?
Bob Smith 3:59
Yeah
Marcia Smith 4:00
There’s the sub basement and then the sub-sub basement.
Bob Smith 4:03
And technically, the White House is more than that. It’s a complex. It also includes the west wing and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and the Blair House. Okay, now this is the all important question on the White House. How many bathrooms are there?
Marcia Smith 4:16
Oh, Lord, well, that’s for the whole thing.
Bob Smith 4:18
For the whole thing.
Marcia Smith 4:19
Does that include Blair House and everything.
Bob Smith 4:21
No, I’m gonna give you choices here.
Marcia Smith 4:23
Oh, thank you.
Bob Smith 4:23
12 bathrooms, 35 bathrooms, 96 bathrooms, or 48 bathrooms.
Marcia Smith 4:29
I’m gonna go with –
Bob Smith 4:31
Yes?
Marcia Smith 4:32
What came after 12?
Bob Smith 4:34
35.
Marcia Smith 4:34
I’ll say 35
Bob Smith 4:35
That’s right.
Marcia Smith 4:36
Okay.
Bob Smith 4:36
Ding, ding, ding, ding. There are 35 bathrooms in the White House, 132 rooms, 35 bathrooms, and six levels, as we said. And there are 412 doors, okay, 147 windows. How many fireplaces you think there are?
Marcia Smith 4:54
How many fireplaces?
Bob Smith 4:55
It is a mansion.
Marcia Smith 4:56
Yeah, I don’t know. Uh, 22.
Bob Smith 5:01
28. Eight staircases and three elevators.
Marcia Smith 5:04
And 32 bathrooms?
Bob Smith 5:05
And 35 bathrooms.
Marcia Smith 5:06
That’s a lot of trips to Costco for paper rolls. Okay, so a stocking stuffer I had recently was, Where in the World. Did you give me that a little card game?
Bob Smith 5:19
No, no, I didn’t.
Marcia Smith 5:20
Well, the whole point of this little thing is you have three chances to get what city they’re referring to. And I remember when the kids were small, we had Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego.
Bob Smith 5:30
Oh, that’s right. I love that game.
Marcia Smith 5:31
Yeah, but this is just like a little card game, and it gives you three clues, and you got to figure out what the heck city they’re talking about. The fewer the clues, the smarter you are. So these are clues to a city somewhere in the world. You ready?
Bob Smith 5:43
Okay
Marcia Smith 5:43
All right. This is home to a building inspired by Fred Astaire and Ginger
Bob Smith 5:48
Rogers, inspired by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers?
Marcia Smith 5:52
I have no clue what that building is.
Bob Smith 5:53
Would it be a dance hall?
Marcia Smith 5:55
I don’t know.
Bob Smith 5:56
Oh, man, I don’t know what that is.
Marcia Smith 5:59
Okay.. Clue two, this is more in your lane. This is the same city, yeah, these are all clues to help you figure out where in the world the city is okay. All right. There is a graffiti wall solely dedicated to John Lennon.
Bob Smith 6:13
Hmm, would that be in London?
Marcia Smith 6:15
No, okay, good. Guess last clue. All right, the capital of the Czech Republic,
Bob Smith 6:23
Chechnya – Prague. So all those things are in Prague?
Marcia Smith 6:26
Yeah, I didn’t know that.
Bob Smith 6:27
Me either.
Marcia Smith 6:28
Okay, and I’ll have to look up. I want to go see a visual of that building devoted to Fred.
Bob Smith 6:33
Astaire and Ginger Rogers, right.
Marcia Smith 6:35
All right, quickly, we’ll go through the next one. What city am I talking about? Ready? Clue one, it has the most skyscrapers in the world, double the number of New York City.
Bob Smith 6:46
Let’s see. It’s either Hong Kong or Singapore. Pick one, Singapore, Hong Kong. Oh, okay.
Marcia Smith 6:52
At clue two, controlled by the British government until 1997 and clue three was, it’s the birthplace of martial arts legend Jackie Chan, you would have got that right away.
Bob Smith 7:03
How many skyscrapers again,
Marcia Smith 7:04
Double what New York City has. It is a leader in vertical development. That’s interesting.
Bob Smith 7:13
How many? How many?
Marcia Smith 7:13
There’s over 550 buildings that exceed 492 feet.
Bob Smith 7:18
Wow
Marcia Smith 7:19
And some sources cite figures over 560 or even close to 8000 high rises in total.
Bob Smith 7:25
Well, I’ve been there, and it is an amazing place. So
Marcia Smith 7:28
Did you go up a high rise to find me a purse?
Bob Smith 7:31
No, that was a no. That wasn’t a high rise. That’s another story we’ll talk about some other time. That was interesting. All right, Marcia before oil. What was Texas’s greatest mineral export. Oh, I should know this. And here’s a hint. It was produced by a rodent.
Marcia Smith 7:48
Cat litter produced by a rodent. Oh, I know fertilizer.
Bob Smith 7:53
And what kind of fertilizer,
Marcia Smith 7:55
Manure
Bob Smith 7:56
And what kind of manure?
Marcia Smith 7:57
What did you say, mice?
Bob Smith 7:59
No, I said a rodent,
Speaker 1 8:01
a rodent, rat manure.
Bob Smith 8:02
No, a flying rodent.
Marcia Smith 8:04
A bat. Bat s___t
Bob Smith 8:06
Yes. Oh, Marcia, don’t say that bat guano.
Marcia Smith 8:11
Bat guano,
Bob Smith 8:12
Yes, until oil was discovered underground, Texas’s largest mineral export was bat guano. And here’s the reason why Texas has an unusually high concentration of large limestone caves, many of them home to massive colonies of Mexican free tailed bats. Bracken Cave alone has 15 to 20 million bats over the centuries, those colonies produced enormous deposits of guano, sometimes 75 feet deep. During the Civil War, the Confederacy and Texas was part of the Confederacy faced shortages of imported gunpowder due to Union blockades. But bat guano became strategically valuable because it contains nitrates which can be refined into saltpeter, which is a very important part of gunpowder. So that made Texas one of the Confederacy’s most important domestic sources of gunpowder during the Civil War, and more than 2500 pounds of bat guano were shoveled out of Texas caves every day.
Marcia Smith 9:14
What a job that is to go to each day.
Bob Smith 9:17
And then after the war, that became a very important fertilizer product. But all that changed in 1894 when oil was first discovered underground.
Marcia Smith 9:24
Holy cow, Batman. Okay, here’s another Where in the World. Question, okay, okay. This city’s railway has one of the highest passenger densities in the world.
Bob Smith 9:36
The city’s railway has more passengers, yeah, than almost any in the world, yes, okay, I think it’s Brazil. No clue two,
Marcia Smith 9:45
All right, it’s the main hub of Bollywood film industry in India.
Bob Smith 9:50
No kidding. Okay, so it’s not Bombay. What do they call it
Marcia Smith 9:54
now, it used to be Bombay, but it is now. Think of the dance Mamba or mom. Mumbo Mumbai. That’s it.
Bob Smith 10:01
Mumbai. Yes,
Marcia Smith 10:02
Mumbai. Why did they change that name?
Bob Smith 10:05
Oh, that was because they were trying to get away from the colonization terms. Oh, yeah, the things that had British connotation.
Marcia Smith 10:11
That makes sense.
Bob Smith 10:12
Yeah. Sure does.
Marcia Smith 10:12
Okay.
Bob Smith 10:13
All right. Marcia, I have a sweet question for you here. Where is the largest chocolate outlet on Earth? Give me the city and the business. It’s in Hershey, Pennsylvania. No, it’s not
Marcia Smith 10:24
okay. It is in –
Bob Smith 10:26
It sells more chocolate than anywhere else.
Marcia Smith 10:28
Is it that country that you went to and brought me back chocolate?
Bob Smith 10:28
It is a country I went to and brought you back chocolate.
Marcia Smith 10:34
It’s such good chocolate. It’s chocolate from,
Marcia Smith 10:39
I can’t remember
Bob Smith 10:40
Belgium
Marcia Smith 10:41
Belgium chocolates, of course.
Bob Smith 10:43
But where in Belgium is the world’s largest chocolate outlet?
Marcia Smith 10:47
You tell me
Bob Smith 10:47
the Brussels airport.
Marcia Smith 10:49
Really – oh I’ll bet. Everybody grabs one on the way back.
Bob Smith 10:53
That’s exactly right. People ready to board planes out of the country make one last stop at those duty free shops, and they take home souvenirs. And those souvenirs invariably include chocolate. So every day, chocolate goes out the door and onto planes heading all over the world. How much Brussels Airport sells more than three pounds of chocolate a minute. That’s two tons of chocolate.
Marcia Smith 11:15
Oh, my God, every day. I was just thinking at our airport, what we have one of our shops before you get on the plane, you can get a cheese head, right? It probably
Bob Smith 11:24
doesn’t weigh as much as two tons of chocolate.
Speaker 4 11:26
Oh my gosh. Okay,
Bob Smith 11:29
two tons going onto planes all
Speaker 2 11:30
over the world. Bob, what does a camel store in its hump?
Bob Smith 11:35
I thought it was water. We all did, but it’s not. It’s not. Did it store? Does it store fat there? Yes.
Marcia Smith 11:41
Okay, very good. These ships of the desert store water in their humps. Is a popular myth, right? But instead of age two old camels actually store fatty tissue that can be drawn upon when food is scarce, because they store fat vertically in their humps and not throughout their bodies. Camels can also dissipate excess heat more quickly. So it’s got multiple benefits. So it
Bob Smith 12:04
serves a lot of the same purpose as we would think of water.
Marcia Smith 12:07
Yeah, yeah, they can drink 30 gallons of water in 13 minutes.
Bob Smith 12:11
Oh, my goodness. Can you believe that? How many gallons?
Marcia Smith 12:15
3030, gallons in 13 minutes? About a gallon of milk and drink. That’s you ever see their tongue? It’s huge. It can probably lap up a lot of water. Wow.
Bob Smith 12:27
All right, Marcia, I think it’s time for a break. I do too. You’re listening to the off ramp with Bob and Marcia Smith, we’ll be back in just a moment. We’re back. We have returned. You’re listening to the off ramp with Bob and Marcia Smith. We do this each week for the Cedarburg Public Library, Cedarburg, Wisconsin. Then we put it on podcast platforms, and it’s heard all over the world. Okay? Marcia, recently, I was on britannica.com and I saw there was a quiz called which is taller. So I’m going to ask you some questions about that. Okay, cool. This one isn’t about what’s taller, but this is, I rephrase this fact. I thought this was interesting. What universally popular landmark was once called a tragic street lamp and a hole riddled suppository. Oh, my God, riddled suppository.
Marcia Smith 13:16
Where is this landmark?
Bob Smith 13:17
Well, I don’t want to tell you that, because then I’ll know. Just try to imagine a whole riddled suppository, something tall with a lot of spaces in between. What would that be? Okay, it’s in France, Marcia, Eiffel Tower, the Eiffel Tower, yeah, many people in France hated the Eiffel
Speaker 5 13:35
Tower. Oh, they did that. I know
Bob Smith 13:36
when it was under construction and britannica.com reports, there were many cultural critics calling it everything from a giant, ungainly skeleton to a truly tragic street lamp to a to a whole riddled suppository. This is in the 19th century. So people have been witty for a long time, and it kind of does look like a suppository applicator when you think about it.
Marcia Smith 14:00
All right, all right. But I think when they started lighting it up, a lot more people love Oh yeah. It’s a beautiful to the rest of the world. Parisians have got to be used to
Bob Smith 14:11
it by now. Okay, now I’ve got one of the which is taller, questions for oh, okay, shut your eyes and use your imagination now to answer this question. Okay, which is bigger, which is taller, the Gateway Arch in St Louis, uh huh, or the Great Pyramid of Giza, that would be
Speaker 2 14:27
the st Louis, St Louis gateway, yeah,
Bob Smith 14:32
St Louis, that’s where really gateway. You’re right. You’re right, okay, yeah, the largest of the Great Pyramids once stood about 482 feet tall. It was diminished slightly to about 449 feet, but the Gateway Arch in St Louis is much higher 630 feet.
Marcia Smith 14:49
It’s pretty tall. Yeah, okay, okay, I’m gonna give you aka. You ready? Yeah, all right. AKA is a card game also known as and what’s the subject? Day. Subject today is snakes. Bob snakes. Oh, dear. So if I say it’s also known as a baby shaker,
Bob Smith 15:08
a rattle, rattlesnake,
Marcia Smith 15:10
Yes, correct. Funny Monty,
Bob Smith 15:13
funny Monty, Monty, funny Monty, funny Monty,
Marcia Smith 15:19
I don’t know that one. Well, yes, you do, Monty. Was this a show you used to like first name Monty?
Bob Smith 15:26
Oh, yes, yes, yes, okay,
Marcia Smith 15:27
that’s a snake. Okay. How about a feathered scarf? A feathered scarf, also known as a feathered
Bob Smith 15:35
scarf, yes, you know, this is not good. I’m really flappers wore them.
Marcia Smith 15:40
I wear them on extreme occasions. Boa, oh, okay, okay, gotcha okay, I put in two clues in this one because I figured you wouldn’t get part of it, hooded king of India or bride stocking
Speaker 2 15:54
holder, a bright stocking holder, uh huh. Garter, that’s it.
Marcia Smith 16:00
Garter stick. Okay, would you have gotten that hooded king of India? No, no, then I put in the garter. Thank you very much. You’re welcome. Post job insurance,
Bob Smith 16:11
post job insurance
Marcia Smith 16:13
when you don’t have your
Bob Smith 16:14
job, okay? Social Security, no, I don’t see how that fits snakes. Post job insurance. Post job insurance. Okay, help me with that one? Cobra. Oh, of course. Okay, gotcha. Gotcha. Okay, and this is the last one. I hope. Okay, good, thank God, this is terrible. You haven’t I’m way out of practice.
Speaker 2 16:35
I’m sorry. Mother sheep, noise, bah, yeah, okay, that’s a BA. What? Put something
Marcia Smith 16:41
in front of it, mother sheep. What is a mother sheep? A lamb? It’s a mom. And put the two together and you have Mamba, a Mamba snake. Oh, is that the
Bob Smith 16:50
name of a snake? Yeah, I didn’t know that. Okay, wouldn’t have known that. All right, next one. What do you got? Okay, no snake questions for me. We were talking about the White House. Which taller? The Buckingham Palace or the White House bucking
Marcia Smith 17:04
Well, seen both. Come on. I’d say
Bob Smith 17:08
Buckingham Palace. I thought Buckingham Palace looked much taller than the White House, but it’s only nine feet taller than the White House. No kidding, it’s 79 feet taller. Yeah, and the White House is 70 feet.
Speaker 6 17:20
I suspected it was eight and a half feet taller.
Bob Smith 17:23
I think Buckingham Palace has more girth. You know, it’s deeper and it’s wider.
Speaker 7 17:26
It just looks more like a castle.
Marcia Smith 17:28
Yeah, okay, all right, I promised you something you’d like, like a civil war question. Oh, thank
Bob Smith 17:34
you. Something, something I might
Marcia Smith 17:36
know this time. Yes, instead of snakes aren’t your wheelhouse. Apparently, when Virginia seceded from the Union on April 17, 1861 it gave the Confederacy some of the most able and valuable US Army officers. Can you name some of them?
Bob Smith 17:54
Bob, well, Robert E Lee, of course, was the greatest officer from the from Virginia that went into the Confederacy. But I can’t tell you who some of the other ones were.
Marcia Smith 18:04
You know the names, though, Thomas Stonewall Jackson, okay, Ambrose Hill and JOSEPH JOHNSON,
Bob Smith 18:11
yeah, they were all very big.
Marcia Smith 18:12
The Union army had a lot of catching up to do after that. I mean, that’s a big hit on your army. They were all big West
Bob Smith 18:19
Point graduates. And, yeah, that looked pretty bad, yeah. And, you know, Lincoln tried to talk Lee into joining, you know, but they all went with their state. That’s how strong states rights were back then. You know, everybody felt like they were part of a state. More than part of the
Speaker 8 18:33
was Grant born.
Bob Smith 18:34
There was no Grant was born in Ohio. Oh, okay, yeah, all right. Marcia, color questions. Marcia, more color questions, okay, in poker, what’s the name of two black aces and a pair of black eights? Two black aces and a pair of black eights,
Speaker 2 18:52
a flush? No, you need another one for that. It’s either
Bob Smith 18:57
the wheel the Dead Man’s Hand Broadway or pocket kings.
Speaker 2 19:00
Oh, okay, that helps me. And a pair of black eights. I’ll say Dead Man’s Hand.
Bob Smith 19:06
It’s Dead Man’s Hand. Yes, Aces and eights. That was the, you know, the Wild Bill Hickok, yeah, he was shot in the back of the head by Jack McCall, who had been hired to kill him, and he was holding the aces and eights at the time. So they called aces and eights a dead man’s hand. That was August 2, 1876 in Deadwood, South Dakota, and that’s where the name of that hand came from. Bob.
Marcia Smith 19:30
Why do the Chinese still use chopsticks instead of cutlery? I would imagine
Bob Smith 19:35
it’s tradition.
Marcia Smith 19:36
Certainly, half of it
Bob Smith 19:37
traditional way to eat. And maybe,
Speaker 9 19:39
why did they start using them in the first place?
Bob Smith 19:41
Wow, I never thought of that. That’s a good question. Why did they start using so they didn’t have metal cutlery at the time probably that far back
Speaker 10 19:50
preceded it, yeah, what did we use? I don’t know.
Bob Smith 19:52
Well, I think there’s wooden spoons. What do you mean when you say we my family’s always used cutlery. I. Yeah. Okay, maybe, maybe the Druids, the drones of frontier of Wisconsin, only used wooden spoons, but not the Smiths of Ohio. Oh, my goodness, all right, so tell me more about this. Okay, it’s a
Marcia Smith 20:14
tradition, like you said, and a philosophy that goes way back, Confucian philosophy, discourage violent tools like knives at the table. Oh, see, they thought of them as violent weapons, weapons, and you’d be cutting up carcasses. And they say, thought, well,
Bob Smith 20:33
this will just tempt somebody to
Speaker 11 20:35
stab their especially if you don’t like
Bob Smith 20:36
everybody at the table, fellow diner,
Marcia Smith 20:39
they favored chopsticks as symbols of gentleness and refinement. I’ll be tired, a practice encouraged by the pre cut, bite sized nature of Chinese dishes that makes knives unnecessary to this day, right? Yeah, chopsticks emerged as a practical tool for quickly cooking and eating small pieces of food, aligning with resource efficiency and cultural values. Well, you
Bob Smith 21:02
told me something I had never read before
Marcia Smith 21:05
that’s fascinating, yeah. And can you eat with chopsticks? I keep
Bob Smith 21:08
trying, but I fail, you know, I tried. And, you know, diligently, that was like right after, well, I think college, you know, you start going out on your own to restaurants and things. And then I decided, no, no, I’m not going to do this anymore. I tried.
Marcia Smith 21:22
I still do and my my niece laughs at me, and she likes to have lunch with chopsticks. And I said, Nah, give me, get me a fork and a spoon. It’s particularly difficult for me to use chopsticks with soup. You know, that never works.
Bob Smith 21:36
Who’s your niece that laughs at you? Lisa, oh, no kidding. Why does she like chopsticks?
Marcia Smith 21:41
Well, she has no problem with a lot of most people don’t just
Bob Smith 21:45
you me, yeah? Clumsy people, yeah, people with big hands. I don’t know. I don’t know what it is, but you know, it’s just, it’s an acquired skill, and unless you have to do it over and over, you’re not going to get to it. Most people, not.
Marcia Smith 21:59
Yeah. How many prime ministers served under Queen Elizabeth, Bob.
Bob Smith 22:03
Queen Elizabeth, the second. I assume that’s what you’re saying. Yeah, the modern Queen Elizabeth. Let me see I was started with Winston Churchill, it’s
Marcia Smith 22:10
correct one, and ended with Liz truss.
Bob Smith 22:15
Oh yeah. I would say six, maybe. Yeah. How many 15? Oh, my goodness,
Marcia Smith 22:21
I had no idea 15, yeah, and Liz truss, she met just two days before she died, and the other 13, besides Winston and Liz, were Anthony Eden, Harold McMillan, Alec Douglas home, Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, James Galligan, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair, David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson,
Bob Smith 22:45
geez, that’s a lot
Marcia Smith 22:46
of those names that go oh yeah, I remember that name.
Bob Smith 22:49
So that’s how many elections there were and how many different governments under her, under the queen. That shows how long her reign was, too.
Marcia Smith 22:56
What did she enjoy each night before bedtime?
Bob Smith 22:58
Bob, chocolates, champagne. Oh, all right, Queen Elizabeth
Marcia Smith 23:05
and her majesty also reportedly enjoyed a gin and dubourne with a slice of lemon before lunch. Well, a glass of wine with lunch, whoa, and a dry martini in the evening. Sounds like my kind of lady here. Wow, sounds
Bob Smith 23:19
like a advertising agency lunch back in the 60s, to me, very
Marcia Smith 23:23
specific beverages for specific times of day. I like it. What do these two award winning musicians have in common? Bob, okay, 82 year old Julio ingleses and 33 year old Chelsea Grimes.
Bob Smith 23:37
What do they have in common?
Marcia Smith 23:39
Yeah, besides being, you know, stars and they’re both musicians, is the point?
Bob Smith 23:43
Okay? No, I don’t know what they have in common.
Marcia Smith 23:45
Well, they were both professional soccer players in England. Oh, no kidding, yeah, they both played professional soccer in England. Played for the Real Madrid’s reserve team, and Chelsea played for Liverpool, Tottenham and full ham. I know all these names from that Ted last That’s right. Otherwise, I wouldn’t know any of that, but they were both before they became stars, professional players. Well, speaking of
Bob Smith 24:12
soccer, I have the soccer question for you
Speaker 12 24:14
see what I can this
Bob Smith 24:16
is from my color quiz. Okay, okay. Why did soccer balls used to be black and white.
Speaker 13 24:21
Why? Yeah, well,
Bob Smith 24:23
aren’t they still not necessarily, really? Yeah, there’s different colors now,
Marcia Smith 24:26
so you could see it coming ease more easily.
Bob Smith 24:29
Well, I’m trying to give you some answers if you want to check one of these. Okay, it was the only pattern allowed. They were the royal colors, or it improved visibility. Third one, that’s exactly right. But you know what it was television. Television changed.
Marcia Smith 24:44
Oh, sure.
Bob Smith 24:45
Did you know soccer dates back to a game in China called cuju kickball in the second century BC. No kidding, but modern soccer was born in England in 1863 when the Football Association came to be and. They standardized rules, but they never standardized ball colors. Oh, okay, most balls were brown because the hand stitched brown leather was the only practical material available. But then when, when electricity became introduced, and there were night games, they started using white balls so that you could see the ball. So White kind of became the color. But then in the 1950s when went on TV in black and white television, oh, hard to see that white ball on the field.
Marcia Smith 25:27
Oh, that makes sense.
Bob Smith 25:28
And in 1970 for the World Cup, Adidas introduced what they called the Telstar design, the black and white panels, and those improved visibility on the television screens. And isn’t it
Speaker 14 25:40
still the most popular I think it still is.
Bob Smith 25:43
Yeah. So the balls were black and white for almost 30 years, but then in 1998 in the World Cup, Adidas introduced the first multi colored ball. So they’ve been introducing different colored balls for every World Cup from then on, but that’s how we got the black and whites to be able to be seen more
Marcia Smith 25:59
on television. Makes perfect sense. Here’s kind of a gross but intriguing question, how many pounds of skin cells do we lose over the course of a lifetime?
Bob Smith 26:09
Oh dear. This has got to be the last question of the day. I don’t know the I do not know the answer, 100,000 pounds. Oh my. That’s one person, yeah, loses 100,000 pounds of skin
Marcia Smith 26:20
cells, and that’s only living to 70 something every minute, we lose 30 to 40,000 cells, and so over a lifetime, it adds up in weight and becomes 100,000 do I see you gagging over there?
Bob Smith 26:33
I am. That’s enough for me. No more facts needed. Okay, thank you. Oh, my goodness, any last thought for the day? Marcia quotes.
Marcia Smith 26:40
Sure I do. George Bernard Shaw, there are some experiences in life which should not be demanded twice from any man, and one of them is listening to the Brahms. Requiem, apparently didn’t like that. Oh, that’s Ed is a Ed is a dozer. A dirge to me. But anyway, Dolly Parton, let’s finish with Dolly. I patterned my look after Cinderella, Mother Goose and the local hooker.
Bob Smith 27:10
And it worked. It worked.
Marcia Smith 27:12
She appeals to everybody. Oh, my goodness.
Bob Smith 27:15
Okay, that’s it for today. We hope you enjoyed all of the questions, including the one about the skin cells. But we’ll move on, and we’ll be back again next time with more fascinating
Speaker 2 27:25
text, ocean out and tantalizing trivia. I’m Bob Smith. I’m Marcia Smith. You’ve been listening to the off ramp. You
Bob Smith 27:43
the off ramp is produced in association with the Cedarburg Public Library, Cedarburg Wisconsin. Visit us on the web at the offramp. Dot show.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
