310 Encore Just The Facts Trivia 053 Ed

Bob Smith 00:00
This episode of The Off Ramp is an encore performance of an earlier show. If you want to commit the perfect murder, why is Yellowstone National Park the place to do it?

Marcia Smith 00:13
Uh, oh, okay. What are the seven natural wonders of the world?

Bob Smith 0:18
Answers to those and other questions coming up in this episode of The Off Ramp with Bob

Marcia Smith 0:23
and Marcia

Bob Smith 0:24
Smith. What do you want to go for vacation?

Marcia Smith 0:53
Why do you always look at me when you say

Bob Smith 0:56
Steer clear of crazy? No, no, no, just an expression.

Marcia Smith 0:59
Yeah, okay, all right. Who’s gonna begin?

Bob Smith 1:02
Okay, I’ll do it.

Marcia Smith 1:03
Okay.

Bob Smith 1:03
Well, Marcia, one of the places people like to go to get perspective is the national parks, but why is Yellowstone National Park the place to go to commit the perfect murder?

Marcia Smith 1:15
Well, you’re giving our listeners ideas they shouldn’t have, I guess. Well, because it’s so isolated, and there’s so many high places to nudge somebody off?

Bob Smith 1:26
No.

Marcia Smith 1:26
Or just push them into that boiling pot of stuff that we,

Bob Smith 1:30
Oh God, now you’regiving people ideas! No, no, no, because there’s a 50 mile stretch of Yellowstone that’s a legal no man’s land, and there’s a campground within it, you might want to avoid, you know, we all know that Yellowstone National Park is in Wyoming, right. Well, guess what? There’s a 50 mile stretch that spills over into Idaho, and as you know, it’s a very rough territory out there, very rough country. This place is isolated, it has no roads and no human inhabitants, and it also has no legislation that can be used to charge people with serious crimes, including murder,

Marcia Smith 2:05
Because it’s considered in two states, so no one put laws there?.

Bob Smith 2:08
Here’s the problem: it deals with the Sixth Amendment, because that dictates that a jury must be comprised of people from the state and federal district where a crime is committed.

Marcia Smith 2:40
What a surprise. Nothing happened.

Bob Smith 2:42
So, there is a legal loophole that makes it possible to get away with murder within a 50 mile stretch of Yellowstone National Park.

Marcia Smith 2:48
That’s a screenplay waiting to happen.

Bob Smith 2:50
Yeah, well, it actually did. It inspired a horror film, Population Zero, in 2016 and a novel, 2008 Free Fire. So, Marcia, if a friend, spouse, or significant other says, hey, my GPS can take us to Buffalo Lake Campground.

Marcia Smith 3:08
Okay. So, Bob, can you name all of the natural wonders of the world?

Bob Smith 3:14
Natural wonders of the world, I always think of Crater Lake, that’s a place we like.

Marcia Smith 3:19
That is beautiful, but no.

Bob Smith 3:20
Okay,

Marcia Smith 3:21
This list is from National Geographic.

Bob Smith 3:23
Can you give me one?

Marcia Smith 3:24
Sure. The Great Barrier Reef in Oceana, it’s the largest coral reef system.

Bob Smith 3:34
Is Mount Everest considered one of them?

Marcia Smith 3:46
It was a place that you’ve been.. you’ve been there twice.

Bob Smith 3:51
Not that prison! No, I was just visiting!

Marcia Smith 3:55
No, you went there as a little boy. Grand Canyon.

Bob Smith 3:58
Oh, the Grand Canyon.

Marcia Smith 3:59
Yeah, Victoria Falls in Africa.

Bob Smith 4:02
Oh, yes, that’s gorgeous. I’ve seen pictures of it

Marcia Smith 4:04
And Parícutin in North America. That’s a volcano. It’s almost six miles high.

Bob Smith 4:10
Where is it?

Marcia Smith 4:11
In Michoacán, Mexico. The youngest volcano in the Western Hemisphere, and was born in 1943. It’s on the list because people witnessed the birth of this volcano.

Bob Smith 4:23
Wow, okay, that’s fascinating. What are the other things on the list?

Marcia Smith 4:26
Aurora Borealis.

Bob Smith 4:28
That’s not on Earth, though,

Marcia Smith 4:30
it’s around the world.

Bob Smith 4:31
Okay, that’s the Northern Lights, right?

Marcia Smith 4:33
Yeah, and then the harbor of Rio de Janeiro, the largest bay in the world, based on the volume of water. It’s beautiful. That’s where that beautiful Christ in the Redeemer statue is above the harbor.

Bob Smith 4:47
So, it’s the largest harbor in the world?

Marcia Smith 4:49
Yeah, yep.

Bob Smith 4:50
Interesting perspective on what are the

Marcia Smith 4:52
Natural

Bob Smith 4:52
Wonders. And this was National Geographic.

Marcia Smith 4:55
Yep.

Bob Smith 4:56
So again, the list is

Marcia Smith 4:57
Great Barrier Reef, the Grand Canyon, Victoria Falls, Mount Evers, Paracutin, Aurora Borealis, and the harbor of Rio de Janeiro.

Bob Smith 5:06
All right, I got a funny one here.

Marcia Smith 5:09
Okay, good. I like fun.

Bob Smith 5:10
All right, what popular recreational product was introduced at a British masquerade party and almost resulted in tragedy? Now this is something people use to get around for fun. Chelsea just bought a pair of them.

Marcia Smith 5:25
Roller skates.

Bob Smith 5:25
Roller skates! They were introduced in London by Belgium musical instrument maker Joseph Merlin, who rolled into a masquerade party at Carlisle House in Soho Square, playing a violin in 1760. Now he was unable to stop and turn, so unfortunately he crashed into a large mirror valued at more than 500 pounds, broke his fiddle, and severely injured himself. That was the introduction of roller skates.

Marcia Smith 5:51
Oh, that’s funny.

Bob Smith 5:52
Didn’t have that little rubber thing in the front to stop himself.

Marcia Smith 5:55
Well, you know, nobody had luck with the first of anything.

Bob Smith 5:59
Yeah.

Marcia Smith 5:59
That’s good, Bob. All right, name this person.

Bob Smith 6:02
Okay.

Marcia Smith 6:03
it’s a Prime Minister in 1984 who was assassinated by their own bodyguards.

Bob Smith 6:09
Well, that was Anwar Sadat, wasn’t it?

Marcia Smith 6:11
No.

Bob Smith 6:11
Oh,

Marcia Smith 6:12
it was Indira Gandhi.

Bob Smith 6:14
Oh gosh, I forgot about that.

Marcia Smith 6:16
She was walking out of her house, and her two bodyguards shot her down with a submachine gun and a shotgun.

Bob Smith 6:23
Oh gosh.

Marcia Smith 6:24
They were Sikh bodyguards, and they were captured and hung five years later.

Bob Smith 6:28
Wow.

Marcia Smith 6:29
Prime Minister from 1966 to 1977 and again in January 1980 until her death in 1984. So she was around when we were younger. You heard her name a lot.

Bob Smith 6:42
Was she related to Gandhi?

Marcia Smith 6:44
No, she was not. I looked it up.

Bob Smith 6:45
Okay, that’s what I wondered. I thought maybe Gandhi was her father or something like that.

Marcia Smith 6:50
Yeah.

Bob Smith 6:51
All right. Now here’s one question I think might be fun. For years, the most complex machine ever built was the clock. What was the most complex machine ever built prior to the first mechanical clock in the 14th century? We hear these machines, but we’ve never seen one this big in our lifetime. I guarantee you – it was a pipe organ!

Marcia Smith 7:16
Oh.

Bob Smith 7:16
A massive pipe organ installed by Bishop Alpheg in Winchester Cathedral, 950 AD. How big was it, you ask?

Marcia Smith 7:24
How big?

Bob Smith 7:25
This pipe organ had 400 pipes, and 70 men were needed to operate the 26 bellows. That’s considered the most complex machine ever built prior to the first clock.

Marcia Smith 7:38
You need a pretty big congregation to support that thing

Bob Smith 7:42
Hey, at least you got music out of it, right?

Marcia Smith 7:44
Good Lord. Well, thanks for that, Bob.

Bob Smith 7:48
Oka.,

Marcia Smith 7:49
Captain James Cook was the first European explorer to find what country in 1769 and claim it for Great Britain?

Bob Smith 7:59
Ah, what country? Because he was the first European to make it to Hawaii, and he’s an amazing guy. Gosh, what country? I don’t know.

Marcia Smith 8:09
It was New Zealand.

Bob Smith 8:10
New Zealand,

Marcia Smith 8:11
Originally, though, New Zealand was discovered by the Maori culture, and that’s where the Pacific culture started in New Zealand.

Bob Smith 8:22
Yeah, that’s where a lot of the Polynesians –

Bob Smith 8:25
They settled there.

Bob Smith 8:25
Yeah.

Marcia Smith 8:26
I didn’t know that.

Bob Smith 8:28
Apparently, the Polynesians traced their DNA back to Taiwan, so it’s Chinese, then they went down to New Zealand, and then they spread throughout the entire ocean, the mid Pacific Ocean, including Hawaii. And it’s just an amazing story, unwritten in a way, because there’s not a whole lot of documentation. It’s being discovered more and more by genealogists. I’ll have a story on that upcoming.

Marcia Smith 8:49
Well, what’s interesting is what the year that Cook discovered that it was 1769. Think they had enough on their hands trying to deal with the United States. Oh, here’s another country, let’s claim this one, right?

Bob Smith 9:03
1769. I got a funny one. You know, we know the MC for the Academy Awards. That’s always a big job. Always try to find a comedian, somebody can hold the show, make it interesting.

Marcia Smith 9:12
I think the last one, they didn’t even have one.

Bob Smith 9:13
That’s right

Marcia Smith 9:14
No one would say yes,

Bob Smith 9:15
Kind of a rotating host. It’s become very political.

Marcia Smith 9:17
Yes.

Bob Smith 9:17
Okay. Who was the MC for the first telecast of the Academy Awards in 1955?

Marcia Smith 9:24
Was it wasn’t Bob Hope?

Bob Smith 9:26
No, he was, he was later the host for many years.

Marcia Smith 9:29
Was it some radio star like George Burns?

Bob Smith 9:32
He was also on television, but he wasn’t a comedian, you’d be amazed at this.

Marcia Smith 9:36
Okay, Ed Sullivan?

Bob Smith 9:37
No. it was, “Just the facts, ma’am.” Jack Webb, star of Dragnet. Why would you make him the first host of the Academy Awards, the first TV host?

Marcia Smith 9:47
Not a lot of personality there.

Bob Smith 9:49
Yeah, like, “All right – next category.”

Marcia Smith 9:54
Here’s a question.

Bob Smith 9:55
Okay,

Marcia Smith 9:56
Related to a book you just recently bought me at the Cedarburg Public. Library and their used book room, all books, $. But the name, the name of the book is “Do Penguins Have Knees” by David Feldman.

Bob Smith 10:08
That’s right, I remember getting that, saying, “Hey, this looks like it has some good trivia in it.”

Marcia Smith 10:12
So you’re probably wondering what’s the answer to that question, Bob.

Bob Smith 10:16
Do penguins – I would say, of course, they – no they don’t have knees.

Marcia Smith 10:20
They sure do

Bob Smith 10:22
Shoot!

Marcia Smith 10:23
But they’re discreetly hidden under their feathers. Penguins, flamingos, and other birds do have knees with patellas, kneecaps that bend and function much like their human counterparts. You just don’t see them because there’s all those feathers.

Bob Smith 10:37
I never see penguins at prayer, that’s probably why. Okay, now Thomas Edison, tell me, what did he require of all his potential employees before he considered them for employment?

Marcia Smith 10:49
Oh God.

Bob Smith 10:49
what did Thomas Edison require of all of his potential employees before he considered them for employment?

Marcia Smith 10:55
Take an oath of silence.

Bob Smith 10:57
No, they had to answer a trivia quiz. It was a questionnaire with 150 questions. They included: Who assassinated President Lincoln, who invented logarithms, and what is the weight of the air in a room 20 feet by 30 feet by 10 feet? So, not everybody could do this.

Marcia Smith 11:14
Yeah, it’s his little IQ test is what it is.

Bob Smith 11:17
So, it’s estimated that in order to pass one of Edison’s quizzes, a person would have needed an IQ of at least 150 so all the people that work for him were very, very brilliant people, and we know the names of only a few of them because of the writings, but – yeah, he surrounded himself with basically what today would be considered brilliant engineers, and that’s why he had this idea factory.

Marcia Smith 11:38
huh?

Bob Smith 11:39
But yeah, kind of a pretty arcane, interesting trivia quiz.

Marcia Smith 11:42
Did he devise that test by himself?

Bob Smith 11:44
Apparently.

Marcia Smith 11:45
Yeah.

Bob Smith 11:45
The third one would get me. That was like, okay, weight of the air in a room 20 feet by 30 feet by 10 feet? I wouldn’t work out well here.

Marcia Smith 11:54
Let’s go from Edison to MTV. Okay.

Bob Smith 11:57
Okay.

Marcia Smith 11:59
Name the first Music Video Bob that aired on MTV in 1981

Bob Smith 12:05
I know the answer to this. It was Music Killed – Music Killed the Radio Star? Something like that.

Marcia Smith 12:11
Video Killed the Radio Star.

Bob Smith 12:14
Video killed the radio Star

Marcia Smith 12:15
By the Buggles.

Bob Smith 12:16
I thought it was such an interesting way to start MTV to say Video killed the radio star.

Marcia Smith 12:21
Yeah, yeah, and it’s its lyrics refer to the technical changes in the 1960s and the desire to remember the past. So that was the Buggles, and who could forget them?

Bob Smith 12:34
Ah, the Buggles, not like the Beatles

Marcia Smith 12:37
And their crazy hairstyles, the Buggles. Okay,

Bob Smith 12:40
what happens in the animal kingdom every spring near Narcisse, Manitoba, in Canada? What happens in the animal kingdom every spring? Every spring

Marcia Smith 12:50
in where

Bob Smith 12:50
Narcisse or Narcisse, Manitoba? What happens there?

Marcia Smith 12:55
Do some birds come back?

Bob Smith 12:56
No,

Marcia Smith 12:57
Or take off

Bob Smith 12:58
Every spring.

Marcia Smith 12:58
Lay eggs.

Bob Smith 12:59
Every spring, 70,000 garter snakes gathered to mate in a series of sinkholes.

Marcia Smith 13:07
Oh my god,

Bob Smith 13:08
So it’s an interesting thing.

Marcia Smith 13:10
How did they celebrate?

Bob Smith 13:11
They mate!

Marcia Smith 13:12
I know. I mean, the people that lived there.

Bob Smith 13:14
Oh no, I don’t think anybody’s really happy with It.

Marcia Smith 13:16
I thought there was a festival, or

Bob Smith 13:18
The snakes have the festival.

Marcia Smith 13:20
Okay, Bob, you remember seeing all those chickens all over the Hawaiian Islands?

Bob Smith 13:25
Oh, yes, yes, yes.

Marcia Smith 13:27
Do you remember how they told us they got there?

Bob Smith 13:30
Yes. If you’ve never been to Hawaii, that’s one of the interesting things. All these little chickens everywhere, apparently. Wasn’t it a disaster? It was like a – it was a hurricane or something, and there was a cargo of these chickens, and somehow it got dispersed. Is that what it was?

Marcia Smith 13:48
Not according to my sources. They were brought by the Polynesians in their many canoe voyages to Hither and Yon. Really, the chickens were brought to the Polynesian islands from Southeast Asia,

Bob Smith 14:02
Holy cow.

Marcia Smith 14:02
By Pacific Ocean sailors during the Lapita expansion, about 3,300 years ago. So they got to Polynesia via the Chinese, and then the Polynesians canoed them over to Hawaii

Bob Smith 14:15
in these little.. well, they’re not little boats, from what we understand, they were big boats, so they’ve been there a long, long time!

Marcia Smith 14:21
Yeah

Bob Smith 14:21
Far longer than I thought, yeah.

Marcia Smith 14:23
And they’re everywhere.

Bob Smith 14:24
Yes, they are. God,

Marcia Smith 14:26
it’s like Tyson chicken factory everywhere you go.

Bob Smith 14:29
They’re kind of cute, actually, though. I mean, I didn’t find them bad, and it’s interesting to be there and hear a rooster crow. It’s like, what is this?

Marcia Smith 14:36
And, of course, just like living anywhere, you get used to them, and it’s not odd. People, I imagine that never have seen a squirrel come here and go, what are all those weird things running around your yard?

Bob Smith 14:45
All right, we’ll take a break and be back in just a moment. You’re listening to Trivia on the Off Ramp with Bob

Marcia Smith 14:50
and Marsha Smith.

Bob Smith 14:51
We’re back. You’re listening to The Off Ramp from Bob and Marsha Smith. We do this each week for the Cedarburg Public Library, so. Peterborough, Wisconsin, and then put it on platforms where we are heard

Marcia Smith 15:03
all over the world.

Bob Smith 15:05
That’s right, Marcia. Now, what old school indoor hobby doubled in popularity since the coronavirus? Now, here’s a hint: it’s collecting something inexpensive and non-digital. What old school indoor? That’s it. Stamp collecting. Now, the way they judge this is, if web searches are any indication, the interest doubled, according to Scott English, the executive director of the nonprofit American Philatelic Society.

Marcia Smith 15:32
I bet you, coins are another coin collecting is another new thing. Actually,

Bob Smith 15:38
no,

Marcia Smith 15:38
no,

Bob Smith 15:39
coin collecting was hurt by the coronavirus. The pandemic caused a coin shortage, so it basically halted the flow of physical money.

Marcia Smith 15:47
That’s very interesting.

Bob Smith 15:48
Okay, now again, stamp collecting. How far back does stamp collecting go? Any idea?

Marcia Smith 15:52
When was the first stamp? Aha, aha, you got

Bob Smith 15:57
onto something.

Marcia Smith 15:58
Britain, 1789

Bob Smith 16:00
Britain, may 1, 1840 and it didn’t take long for the hobby of stamp collecting to arise. Apparently, within a year, a young London lady was letting it be known in a newspaper ad that she was desirous of covering her dressing room with canceled postage stamps.

Marcia Smith 16:16
Desires, isn’t that funny? Yeah, not like today’s ads.

Bob Smith 16:20
Anyway, yeah, so that’s how far back stamp collecting goes. Not that far.

Marcia Smith 16:24
Ah, yeah. Oh, here’s Swamp Bob.

Bob Smith 16:26
Okay?

Marcia Smith 16:27
What Apache Chief rode in Teddy Roosevelt’s inaugural parade?

Bob Smith 16:31
That was Geronimo. Oh,

Marcia Smith 16:33
you know that. Yeah, you got two good ones today.

Bob Smith 16:36
Yeah, he was like a celebrity. He was a celebrity because of the Buffalo Bills Wild West show made him well. He was

Marcia Smith 16:42
still a prisoner of war, and had been for 20 years when he was in that parade. Really, yeah, he was one of the greatest and most feared Apache warriors and medicine man of his time. And then he made his famous appearance in the inaugural parade, writing in that,

Bob Smith 16:59
what year was that?

Marcia Smith 17:00
1905

Bob Smith 17:02
1905 oh five. Yeah,

Marcia Smith 17:03
okay. I got a different Gandhi question. Okay,

Marcia Smith 17:06
who knew that once you get on these, once you get on the

Bob Smith 17:10
Wikipedia rat hole, yeah, Gandhi? Okay.

Marcia Smith 17:12
Oh, but here’s that. He’s the great peace activist, Mahatma Gandhi. What was his profession, Bob?

Bob Smith 17:20
He was a lawyer.

Marcia Smith 17:21
Oh, you could, you just ace in it today. He

Bob Smith 17:24
was from India, but he was educated, I believe, in England or in South Africa, England,

Marcia Smith 17:28
both places, I think.

Bob Smith 17:30
Yeah, so he was a very well-educated attorney, yes, who went and just went the whole opposite direction. This very simplistic life, and

Marcia Smith 17:38
yeah, champion of peaceful, nonviolent political action. He was born in 1869 and like Indira, he was assassinated in 1948

Bob Smith 17:48
Okay, got more questions, Marsh?

Marcia Smith 17:50
I do. In baseball, why is the pitcher’s mound 60 feet at six inches from home plate?

Bob Smith 17:56
Wow, that’s a why is it that far? Does that go back to the Knickerbocker Club rules? That’s, I think, a New York club that started baseball, or one of the first. I have

Marcia Smith 18:06
no idea. Oh, all right. Originally it was 45 feet from home plate, but that’s when they were still doing underhand pitching, and then it was moved back to 50 feet in 1881 but when overhand pitching was legalized, it was moved back to 60 and a half inches in 1893 And why did they keep moving it out?

Bob Smith 18:26
Why?

Marcia Smith 18:27
Because of the same reason that fences are moved in. Teams weren’t generating enough interest because batters were having a hard time making contact with the ball,

Bob Smith 18:36
all with the pitchers being so close. Yeah, they

Marcia Smith 18:38
just were there, was no action on the field. It was just boring, you know. They were struck out all the time, but.. and the reason for that extra half, 60 and a half inches, they believe that was an architectural drawing misread that they.. somebody saw 60.0 and thought it was 60.60

Bob Smith 18:57
really? The landscape architects drawing.. oh, that’s funny. Yeah, and you said earlier in one of your comments about the fences, they had to move the fences in a

Marcia Smith 19:07
home run wasn’t so far away, so

Bob Smith 19:09
hard to do. I’ll be darn

Marcia Smith 19:11
pitchers went farther out, so that the batters had a better chance of hitting that ball.

Bob Smith 19:16
Okay, and I didn’t realize there was that much of a change. I knew in basketball they went from peach baskets, but okay, I don’t know how many, how many rules James Naismith made for the first basketball games in the YMCA, but something like nine of his rules still apply today, even in modern times in basketball, so yeah, those are that’s interesting, how things change as a result of activity in sports, all right. As recently as the 1950s doctors considered this activity dangerous for people over the age of 40. What activity did doctors consider dangerous for people over the age of 40 as recently as the 1950s

Marcia Smith 19:58
For dangerous for what, your health? Yeah, for your

Bob Smith 20:00
health,

Marcia Smith 20:01
what activity? Running,

Bob Smith 20:04
believe it or not, exercise. As recently as the 50s, doctors considered exercise dangerous for people over the age of 40. Well, no wonder our parents’ generation didn’t go out and exercise, didn’t go to workout clubs or anything like that. That was the attitude. So, for heart disease, which was then killing a record number of Americans. They prescribed bed rest, nothing about exercising, nothing about moderate walking.

Marcia Smith 20:28
Jeez, that’ll kill you. Bed

Bob Smith 20:31
rest will kill you. No kidding. Yeah,

Marcia Smith 20:34
well, that’s that’s interesting. I remember when JFK started pushing, yes, people getting more athletic, that’s when it

Bob Smith 20:41
changed. It did, you know? It was a younger president, yeah. Did this thing, and that basically they gave awards to you. Remember, at school they gave awards, president awards for physical fitness. That’s

Marcia Smith 20:51
when you actually had to do stuff in gym class. That’s right. It went from nothing to, you know, oh

Bob Smith 20:55
my god-shops, jumping

Marcia Smith 20:58
jacks. What the hell?

Bob Smith 21:00
Since we’re on the human body, well, since I am, let’s start at the very beginning. A baby, how long does it take for a baby’s vision to equal or exceed an adult’s?

Marcia Smith 21:12
How long in their development stage? How long does it.. well, I’ll bet it’s only six months.

Bob Smith 21:18
Wow, that’s perfect. It’s actually six months, yeah.

Marcia Smith 21:21
Oh, really? Yeah, apparently right for the market. Newborn

Bob Smith 21:25
babies have pretty terrible vision, not just focusing, but colors too. Newborns have only about 5% of the visual acuity that adults do, but it improves quickly, takes about six months before they can see as well as a grown-up. But this is interesting. There are some things babies can see better than adults. Up until that six months, a baby can tell monkeys apart.

Marcia Smith 21:47
No, they see a different color, they see an additional color.

Bob Smith 21:51
Well, I don’t know what it is. Yeah,

Marcia Smith 21:52
that’s it.

Bob Smith 21:53
But they see difference. Well, these are things older babies and most adults can’t do. Monkeys all look alike to them, but not little babies.

Marcia Smith 22:00
Okay, here’s a couple of Beatles questions. Oh no, more Beatle questions, just make fast ones here. Okay,

Bob Smith 22:06
okay.

Marcia Smith 22:07
What demand did the Beatles make about seating fans in their Jacksonville, Florida concert on their first tour in America?

Bob Smith 22:15
That’s when they insisted that it be black and white audience members.

Marcia Smith 22:20
You are betting good today. Yeah, because it was going

Bob Smith 22:23
to be a segregated audience, and they’d said they will not go on stage if you do that.

Marcia Smith 22:27
And that was what, the 60s, right? Yeah, and they were still segregated in the South, and they couldn’t sit together, and the Beatles said, ‘Not in our concert, in our concert, good for them. Wow. And this one, I think you know this one, what Hollywood actor invited the Beatles to his Bel Air mansion for dinner and a movie?

Bob Smith 22:46
Well, I know Elvis invited them to it. This

Marcia Smith 22:48
is a Hollywood actor.

Bob Smith 22:50
Oh, wait a minute, it was Peter Fonda.

Marcia Smith 22:53
No,

Bob Smith 22:53
oh, you would

Marcia Smith 22:54
think someone like that, right? But Burt Lancaster. Oh, really? Burt Lancaster, that movie from here to eternity, you know. And he invited the Beatles to his home for dinner, though. There’s a.. you know, I never heard

Bob Smith 23:07
that story that they went there, they met him. I never heard anything. I never

Marcia Smith 23:10
did either. That’s just a cosmic disruption from my head, and he was very

Bob Smith 23:15
reticent, kind of guy. Like, yeah, come to my house, dinner, tell me about your music. Okay, those are

Marcia Smith 23:24
my two Beatles questions.

Bob Smith 23:25
All right, another American history question. All right, and this is a religious group we’re dealing with here. What American religious group gave us some of our basic household innovations, including the common clothespin and the needle with an I in the middle, a American religious Amish, close, but no,

Marcia Smith 23:46
the cigar,

Marcia Smith 23:48
they don’t smoke, but

Bob Smith 23:49
okay,

Marcia Smith 23:49
the Mennonites,

Bob Smith 23:52
no, the

Marcia Smith 23:52
trying to think, all right, who

Bob Smith 23:55
these are people who people accuse them of moving fast when they

Marcia Smith 24:01
sang, say, what. Well,

Bob Smith 24:03
they were accused of jitterbugging almost when they had their services. Shakers, the

Marcia Smith 24:08
Shakers, Shakers,

Bob Smith 24:08
yeah, the Shakers. They were, they were pretty self-sufficient. They made all of their own shoes and silk and clothes. They were a utopian religious group that lived in rural communities, mostly in the northeastern US, and they invented. Now, listen to this. They invented the circular saw, which I think is one of the greatest inventions. You can use it for so many things. The circular saw, the common clothespin, an apple parer, the first one horse buggy in the United States, a four-wheeled dump cart, a rotary harrow, the automatic spring, a washing machine that was later used by hotels, and the needle with an eye in the middle, which was later adapted for sewing machines.

Marcia Smith 24:51
Well, aren’t they? Necessity

Bob Smith 24:53
was the mother of the Shaker invention,

Marcia Smith 24:55
I guess. So they were very clever, obviously. Wow,

Bob Smith 24:57
another fact from Isaac Asimov, so. How about Seven Up, Bob? How did it get its name? Seven Up, I can’t remember.

Marcia Smith 25:05
Well, despite its identification as a lemon lime drink, it’s actually made up a blend of seven natural flavors, which they don’t tell you what they are, but that’s where the seven came from, and the up, they describe themselves as a product that’s uplifting.

Bob Smith 25:22
Okay,

Marcia Smith 25:22
it’s

Bob Smith 25:23
because of the sugar, probably, probably.

Marcia Smith 25:25
Can I just read you Seven Up promoted as a tonic for our physical and emotional ills? Okay, let’s hear it. Yeah, Seven Up energizes, sets you up, dispels brain cobwebs and muscular fatigue. Brain

Bob Smith 25:39
cobwebs and muscular fatigue. Here’s

Marcia Smith 25:41
another ad fills the mouth, thrills the taste buds, cools the blood, energizes the muscle, soothes the nerves, and makes your body alive, glad, and happy.

Bob Smith 25:53
Here’s a copywriter, went way beyond the assignment, don’t you think?

Marcia Smith 25:56
It’s a healer of some of the

Bob Smith 25:59
original copy for promoting Seven Up. I’ll be done. That’s

Marcia Smith 26:02
funny. That’s in the 1920s It came up in 1929 They introduced Seven Up.

Bob Smith 26:07
A lot of the advertising from that time talked about Zippy. Yeah, yeah,

Marcia Smith 26:11
yeah. Apparently they were very lethargic in the 20s.

Bob Smith 26:14
No, they were dancing in the 20s. Everybody was. That’s right. So why did they need

Marcia Smith 26:18
all these pickles? I think

Bob Smith 26:19
it was a perfect drink for them.

Marcia Smith 26:21
Finally, Bob, what marine animal is the only known natural predator of the great white shark?

Bob Smith 26:28
What marine animal is a predator of the great white shark? The

Marcia Smith 26:32
only,

Bob Smith 26:33
the only predator,

Marcia Smith 26:35
besides humans, is it a whale? It is

Bob Smith 26:39
the orca whale. The orca whale, well, that’s the kind they used to have at Sea World and stuff, wasn’t the

Marcia Smith 26:43
guess, so and the orca is considered top of the food chain. Why?

Bob Smith 26:48
Because they kill sharks, I guess,

Marcia Smith 26:50
because nobody kills them except mankind.

Bob Smith 26:52
Oh no kidding. So

Marcia Smith 26:54
they are the top of the food chain.

Bob Smith 26:56
Wow,

Marcia Smith 26:56
yeah,

Bob Smith 26:57
interesting. We want to invite you, if you have any questions or things you’d like to contribute, you can do so by going to our website, The Offramp dot show, and go to contact us. There’s a box there you can leave us information. Okay, I’m Bob Smith.

Marcia Smith 27:12
I’m Marcia Smith.

Bob Smith 27:13
Join us again next week when we return with more fascinating facts and tantalizing trivia here on The Off Ramp. If we don’t go to Yellowstone for that vacation, okay? We’ve been there once. I think that’s enough.

Marcia Smith 27:26
That’s enough.

Bob Smith 27:26
I just didn’t know about the No Man’s Zone. I didn’t know about the Bob. Let it go, the Dead Zone. Bob,

Marcia Smith 27:30
bring up the music.

Bob Smith 27:32
All right, all right. The Off Rep is produced in association with the Cedar Brook Public Library, Cedarburg, Wisconsin.

Bob Smith 0:00
This episode of The Off Ramp is an encore performance of an earlier show. If you want to commit the perfect murder, why is Yellowstone National Park the place to do it?

Marcia Smith 0:13
Uh, oh, okay. What are the seven natural wonders of the world?

Marcia Smith 0:27
Nice try babe.

Bob Smith 0:44
Welcome to the off ramp, a chance to slow down, steer clear of crazy, take a side road to sanity, and get some perspective on life.

Marcia Smith 2:17
Oh geez.

Bob Smith 2:18
But since no one lives there, no jury is possible. Oh, and since Yellowstone is federal land, the two states, Idaho and Wyoming, they have no legal right to change the law. This loophole was not discovered until 2005 It was by a Michigan state law professor. He published information on it, but before he did, he wrote to government agencies, let them know the problem. Nobody, nothing.

Marcia Smith 3:05
Okay.

Bob Smith 3:05
Think twice. Yes.

Bob Smith 3:30
Oh, that’s right.

Marcia Smith 3:31
Over 2,900 separate reefs.

Marcia Smith 3:35
Yes. Yes.

Bob Smith 3:36
Okay, so I’ll do Mount Everest. I’ll do Death Valley, because it’s the lowest point on earth.

Marcia Smith 3:41
It’s not on the list.

Marcia Smith 3:42
The Sahara Desert. Is a huge..

Marcia Smith 3:43
Not on the list.

Marcia Smith 3:44
Oh, okay. What’s on the list?

Bob Smith 4:46
Yes.

Marcia Smith 4:46
Quite stunning.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai