Uncle John’s Curiously Compelling Bathroom Reader (62 page)

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Good news for teenagers: There is no evidence that eating chocolate makes acne worse.

TOM SWIFTIES

This classic style of pun was originally invented in the 1920s. They’re atrocious and corny, so of course we had to include them.

“I’ve had my left and right ventricles removed,” Tom said half-heartedly.

“We’ve taken over the government,” Tom cooed.

“Dawn came too soon,” Tom mourned.

“My hair’s been cut off,” Tom said distressfully.

“Company should be here in about an hour,” Tom guessed.

“Where did you get this meat?” Tom asked hoarsely.

“You dropped a stitch,” Tom needled.

“Blow on the fire so it doesn’t go out,” Tom bellowed.

“I suppose there’s room for one more,” Tom admitted.

“That’s no purebred,” Tom muttered.

“I couldn’t believe we lost the election by two votes,” Tom recounted.

“I’m losing my hair,” Tom bawled. “Measure twice before you cut,” Tom remarked.

“Thanks for shredding the cheese,” Tom said gratefully.

“Please put some folds in these trousers,” Tom pleaded.

“I’ve located the dog star,” Tom said seriously.

“You look like a goat,” Tom kidded.

“I used to own that gold mine,” Tom exclaimed.

“Another plate of steamers all around!” Tom clamored.

“I memorized the whole thing,” Tom wrote.

“That’s the last time I’ll pet a lion,” Tom said offhandedly.

“No thanks to that Frenchman,” said Tom mercilessly.

“You’re not a real magician at all,” Tom said, disillusioned.

“I’ve never had a car accident,” said Tom recklessly.

“It’s made the grass wet,” said Tom after due consideration.

Why celebrate? Call in sick—March 22 is International Goof-Off Day.

THE PILGRIMS, PT. III: SAILING TO AMERICA

Historical fact: The Pilgrims never called themselves “Pilgrims.” In fact, they weren’t known by that name until the 1840s. Here’s Part III of our story: the journey to freedom in the New World. (Part II starts on
page 215
.)

C
RAMPED CONDITIONS
The Pilgrims finally set off from Plymouth, England, on September 6, 1620, more than a month behind schedule. Historians can only guess as to the
Mayflower
’s exact size and shape (no pictures of her were ever painted), although most agree that she had two decks and three masts. “Considering the proportions of a number of known merchant vessels of the era,” writes William Baker in
Colonial Vessels
, “the
Mayflower
might have had a keel length ranging from 52 to 73 feet, a breadth of 24 to 27 feet and a depth of 10 to 13 feet.” Other historians say she may have been as long as 90 feet. Even so, that’s roughly the size of a two-story, three-bedroom house. And that’s what 102 passengers, 25 crew members, two dogs, many cats, and even more rats squeezed into for 66 days on rough and often stormy seas.

The
Mayflower
was designed to carry cargo, not people, so there were few cots or hammocks to sleep on. Some of the wealthier families paid the ship’s carpenter to build cots, but most of the passengers slept on hard wooden floors on a constantly rocking boat. Seasickness was common. Because these people were heading to a new life in an unknown land, they brought along as many of their possessions and rations as they could pack in…which made the living quarters below decks extremely cramped. A few of the passengers even slept in the shallop, a surveying boat that was stowed on the gun deck.

SMOOTH START

The first few weeks of the voyage saw relatively calm weather, and the mood among the Pilgrims was good. It is commonly believed that the Pilgrims were a bunch of staid old men who wore black clothes and black hats with buckles. That’s a myth. In reality, there was only one man over 60; the average age was 32; and there were 30 children on board. The Pilgrims even wore colorful clothes; William Bradford, for example, owned a “green gown, violet cloak, lead colored suit with silver buttons, and a red waistcoat.” And unlike the stricter Puritans, the Pilgrims liked to sing and play games.

There’s no such thing as a Cornish game hen—they’re just young chickens (2 lbs. or less).

ROUGH SEAS AND ROUGHER SAILORS

But after those first couple of weeks, the fun came to a stormy end. The sky grew dark and the ocean swelled. Then the rain began pouring and the wind blew—and hardly let up for the rest of the journey. The foul weather forced the Pilgrims to huddle in the crowded holds. The rain leaked in through the creaky deck boards, making their lives cold and damp. The children suffered the most—from both sickness and boredom. On the few nice days, kids were permitted to climb up on deck and run around. But Master Jones and the
Mayflower’s
crew of roughnecks weren’t interested in cavorting with or entertaining their devoutly religious passengers. One of the sailors especially despised the Pilgrims, telling them that his only wish was “to throw your dead bodies into the sea and claim your treasures for myself.” Luckily for the Pilgrims, he never got the chance. Bradford wrote:

It pleased God before they came half seas over, to smite this young man with a grievous disease, of which he died in a desperate manner, and so was himself the first that was thrown overboard.

Bradford and Master Jones also had more than a few heated discussions, arguing about the route, the crew’s attitude, and whether the creaky old ship was seaworthy. Jones made it very clear that even though Bradford was the leader of the Pilgrims,
he
was in charge of the
Mayflower
. Besides, in addition to the Pilgrims and the ship’s crew, there were other paying passengers on board, about 30 regular folks booking passage to America. (Little is known about who these people were or where they ended up.)

MORE TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS

For the most part, the Pilgrims kept to themselves and stuck together, spending their days and nights below decks praying, reading the Bible, singing songs, and sleeping. In the mornings and evenings, the 20 women prepared the meals, which consisted of salted meats, peas, beans, hard cheese, water, and beer.

Hannibal, Missouri, celebrates its annual Tom Sawyer Day with a fence-painting race.

During a particularly rough storm, one of the
Mayflower’s
main support beams cracked and splintered. This beam had been holding the ship together, and for a brief time it looked and felt like the old wooden ship might break apart. Luckily, one of the passengers had brought a “great iron screw,” which was used to repair the beam and bind it back together.

During yet another storm, a 25-year-old Pilgrim named John Howland went up on deck to try to assist the crew, but when the
Mayflower
listed heavily, he fell overboard and was nearly lost in the North Atlantic. Howland was able to grab a rope hanging down from one of the masts…right before the current pulled him under. If Howland had been a little slower, or if the crew had not been on hand to haul him in, America might be different today, because two of Howland’s descendants would become president of his future homeland: George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush. (Other presidents whose ancestors came over on the
Mayflower
: John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Zachary Taylor, Theodore Roosevelt, and Franklin D. Roosevelt.)

LIFE AND DEATH

Two of the Pilgrim women had especially rough voyages. Elizabeth Hopkins and Susanna White were each seven months pregnant when the
Mayflower
left England. The constant rain and the ship’s incessant tossing and heaving during six straight weeks of storms made their pregnancies that much more difficult. And the Pilgrims all wondered which would happen first: landfall or childbirth? Hopkins gave birth to a baby boy while at sea. He was called Oceanus. White didn’t give birth until shortly after they landed, when she delivered a boy named Peregrine.

Oceanus’s birth did little to liven the mood—the Pilgrims were cold and weary, and many were sick. A 12-year-old boy named William Butten fell ill early in the voyage and, despite the best efforts of the Pilgrims, died only two days before the
Mayflower
reached land.

The Pilgrims would find life in their new home even harder than it was at sea. For the final installment of the story, turn to
page 489
.

Widespread use of wooden coffins began about 200 years ago.

BILLY MITCHELL’S BATTLE, PART II

Here’s Part II of our story on one of the first Americans to realize the crucial role airplanes would play in the future of warfare (Part I is on
page 185
).

F
ROM THE SUGGESTION BOX…
After World War I, Brigadier General Mitchell fired off one proposal after another to his superiors in Washington, describing the innovative ways the military could organize and develop its air power. Among other things, he believed that the Army and Navy air services should be combined to form one independent air force, just as the British had done to create the Royal Air Force in 1918. He also told the military that it should develop aircraft carriers, long-range bombers, and heavily armored “flying tanks” that could fly over battlefields and attack ground troops. And he proposed developing transport planes that could carry troops across oceans without fear of enemy submarines.

But what would prove to be Mitchell’s most controversial proposal was that planes carrying bombs and aerial torpedoes could sink enemy battleships—behemoths that were thought to be unsinkable, except when fired upon by another battleship.

…TO THE CIRCULAR FILE

Airplanes sinking
battleships
? The top brass laughed off Mitchell’s recommendations and tossed them onto what became known as the “Flying Trash Pile.” Besides, even if they had believed in his ideas, there was no money to fund them. Now that the war was over, the military budget had been cut to the bone, and the Army had its hands full just fighting with the Navy over what little money was left. They weren’t about to create an independent Air Force and then have to fight
it
for money, too.

Mitchell had tried to work through the chain of command, but when he realized that his ideas were being ignored, he decided to go public. He began writing articles, making speeches, and giving interviews to newspaper and magazine reporters. He figured that if he could generate enough pressure from the public and Congress, the military might finally begin to act.

So you
can
take it with you! Neanderthals sometimes buried their dead with tools and food.

I DARE YA

Mitchell’s public relations campaign worked. In January 1921, he was called before a hearing of the House Naval Affairs Committee and testified that the age of the battleship was over. Since airplanes could easily sink them, he explained, they weren’t going to be of much use in the next war. He even offered to prove his point—all he needed was a surplus battleship to sink.

It just so happened that one was available: The Germans had surrendered their battleship
Ostfriesland
to the United States after the war, and the Navy was planning to sink it as part of a test of battleship heavy guns. The Navy refused to budge from this plan, until Senator William Borah of Idaho threatened to cut off funding for new ships until it was determined whether they were as vulnerable as Mitchell claimed.

If ever a ship deserved to be called unsinkable, the
Ostfriesland
was it. Nearly two football fields long and boasting numerous watertight compartments, it had a four-layer steel hull that was nearly a foot thick in places. Airplanes, by contrast, were flimsy little things made of wood, wire, and canvas. How could an airplane sink a battleship? The Navy was so certain that Mitchell would fail, it decided to have him fail on as grand a scale as possible, to put the issue to rest once and for all.

Why stop at a single battleship? The Navy offered to let Mitchell try his luck against four ships—a submarine, a destroyer, a light cruiser, and the
Ostfriesland—
in a series of tests off the Virginia coast. It even made a troop ship, the USS
Henderson
, available for any politicians, journalists, foreign diplomats, and military officials who wanted to be there when Mitchell fell on his face. Nearly the entire Atlantic fleet would be floating nearby, too.

GETTING READY