Do Elephants Jump? (28 page)
Read Do Elephants Jump? Online
Authors: David Feldman
Thank you for all the wonderful letters and e-mails you’ve sent since the publication of
How Do Astronauts Scratch an Itch?
praising our efforts. But we won’t be publishing those. This is the space for folks who have a bone to pick with us, sometimes to the point of wanting to take a pickax to our head.
We don’t have space to publish all the worthy additions and corrections to our labors, but even the most picayune criticisms are welcomed, and will lead to modifications in future reprints. Without further ado, let’s embrace the abuse!
Some things you can count on. The swallows will return to San Juan Capistrano. Every summer we will be bombarded with crummy sequels to movies we didn’t care about in the first place. And the Red Sox will field a promising team that will wilt in the clutch.
In this, our tenth volume, we wax nostalgic for some of the Imponderables that elicit the most passionate letters of comment. And of course, if there is an
Imponderables
book, there will be letters about why ranchers hang boots on fence posts, a mystery first “answered” in
Why Do Clocks Run Clockwise?
For those of you new to the fracas, here are some of the theories that have been advanced to explain this phenomenon: to shield the post from rotting during rain; to discourage coyotes and other predators; to keep foul-smelling boots out of the house; to display pride; to mark where repair work on a fence is required; to amuse themselves; to signal that someone is home; to point toward a rancher’s home (in case of heavy snowfall); to keep horses from impaling themselves on posts; to point toward the nearest graveyard; to shield posts from adverse reactions to the sun; and to do
something
with single shoes that lie on the road. But
Imponderables
readers have indomitable spirits. There are always new theories, like this one from Nicki Woodard of Rapid City, South Dakota:
I was born in Nebraska and raised in South Dakota, and to us this is just common knowledge. In the Old West days, when a cowboy got a new pair of boots he would put his old boots out on the fence posts. That way if another cowboy had a pair of boots that were in bad shape, he could take the ones the first cowboy left if they were in better shape than his own. I guess they were into recycling back then, too.
Pam Dellinger of Ashdown, Arkansas, wrote to confirm that a passage we quoted from a Tony Hillerman novel was true:
Perhaps part of the answer to this Imponderable could have been answered by heading southwest. It is a practice by many, where ranches are still of some size, to follow the Navajo tradition of using the boot at ranch accesses to signal whether or not family members are home.
As the drive from county-maintained roads to a front door can be considerable, the practice saves many miles of riding at a snail’s pace. Why travel all that way if you don’t have to? The boot is always a cheap resource (we are never without at least one pair beyond human wear), and it takes no thought to turn it up or down as you come or go.
We have no idea why Steven Serdinsky of West Covina, California, would ever think that the National Museum of American History could possibly be a more authoritative source than we are, but Steven wrote them about this Imponderable and received a response from Lonn Taylor, a historian in the social history division:
Several scholars in the field of folklore and anthropology have written about this phenomenon, and the only thing that they can agree on is that it originated in western Nebraska in the mid-1970s. In fact, an Associated Press story published in the Emporia, Kansas,
Gazette
of April 23, 1979, quotes Nebraska folklorist Roger Welsch as saying that a Nebraska farmer named Jim Lippincott originated the practice in 1974. It has now spread across the Great Plains from Texas to Alberta. [Our own research led us to the conclusion that Henry Swanson, before 1974, originated the boot ritual in the same general area of Nebraska.]
Two reasons are consistently advanced for the practice: that it protects the tops of fence posts from water, which would otherwise get into the cracks of the post, freeze, and eventually cause it to split; and that the human scent on the boots deters coyotes and wolves from crossing the fence lines into pastures. However, Tom Isern of North Dakota State University, who mentions the practice in an article entitled “The Folklore of Farming on the North American Plains,”
North Dakota History
41 (Fall 1989), tells me: “There aren’t any practical reasons for putting boots on fence posts. They don’t deter coyotes, they don’t preserve the posts, they don’t mark anything. They just offer a message to passersby, a message having to do with identity and hard work. They are folk monuments, just like an old threshing machine on a hilltop.”
Boots might not scare away a coyote but just about anything seems to frighten baby pigeons — at least we sure don’t see them very often. In our first book,
Imponderables,
we wrote about why we never see baby pigeons, and readers have sent us sighting reports ever since. Here is one of our favorites, from Nat Segaloff of Los Angeles, California:
My friend Pam and I drove up the California coast to Monterey last week and stayed at a couple of inns. Under the eaves of one of them, just down from our window, was an illustration to one of your original Imponderables. Seen close-up, a baby pigeon looks not so much like a bird but like a fuzzy, bile-covered turd. Which is consistent.
No wonder baby pigeons hide from us — they can’t stand the criticism. Actually, Nat sent us a photo, and truth be told, “fuzzy, bile-covered turd” is an apt description.
Speaking of unpleasant birds, in
When Did Wild Poodles Roam the Earth?
we discussed why sea gulls congregate in parking lots. The professional bird experts seemed to think that the feeding possibilities were plentiful in parking lots, and that expanses of asphalt resembled the sandbars where gulls often congregate in beach areas. But David Moeser of Cincinnati, Ohio, noticed Kassie Schwan’s cartoon illustrating this Imponderable (it depicted several birds poring over a map, with one apologizing to the others, with one sad gull crying: “Gee, I could swear a wetland habitat was here! Honest!”). Moeser was inspired by a trip to a shopping center on the day before Christmas:
My [first] reaction was exactly the same as the suggestion your funny artist makes via the bird in the picture. I figured there may have been a wetland there before the shopping center was built. But on second thought, I think not. A better explanation is that the pavement, heated up by the sun (especially if it’s blacktop), is a warmer landing spot for birds (and their feet!) than frozen grassland, with or without snow on it.
And I’d like to debunk the food theory. Of the thousands of gulls (yes, “sea” gulls, possibly from the Great Lakes or other water holes up Canada way), in several large groups of hundreds each, only a dozen or two nibbled at some birdseed put down in one spot. The rest just watched the nearby humans who were watching them. A small pond of water nearby was completely ignored, although surely they would have seen it from the air. Meanwhile, a group of several hundred gulls at the other end of the parking lot whirled around in what seemed to be some kind of social ritual, seemingly pointlessly flying in circles for minutes before rising up to cruising altitude and winging their way south. Why did they choose to congregate at the parking lot instead of the oodles of open space on real ground in the surrounding countryside? I think they just considered it a good place to rest.
Maybe gulls just like cruising the mall? Teenagers have been doing so for decades. But we have to admit that we love the theory proposed by William Stickney of Cresco, Pennsylvania:
I’ve been fortunate enough to emulate the soaring seagulls by flying sailplanes. Sailplane pilots stay aloft by flying in lifts (rising air currents) just as gulls do. Two common types of lift are ridge lift and thermal lift. Ridge lift occurs when wind is deflected upward by rising terrain. Ridge lift is common along shorelines where the sea breeze blows against a bluff or large sand dune. Thermal lift occurs when the sun heats the ground unevenly.
Dark areas, such as asphalt parking lots, absorb heat faster than surrounding areas with vegetation or lighter colored soil. The solar heat is transferred into the air above the dark surface, making it hotter than the surrounding area. This relatively hot air is buoyant and will rise in a column referred to by pilots as a “thermal.” Cooler air from the surrounding terrain then flows laterally into the hot area to replace the air that has risen away. Now this air is heated, and the cycle repeats.
If the dark area is very large, the lateral wind velocity induced by the thermal can overwhelm the prevailing winds and produce continuous flow. The parking lot effectively becomes a huge solar air pump. Thermals from East Coast parking lots can rise as fast as 1,000 feet per minute, and can often lift sailplanes to altitudes of 6,000 feet or more. Seagulls, of course, can stay aloft in much weaker lift.
In my opinion, seagulls are attracted to shopping center parking lots in part because of abundant thermal lift, which allows the gulls to soar while looking for food, just as they do in nature.
When we answered “How Do Fish Return to a Lake or Pond That Has Dried Up? in
When Do Fish Sleep?,
we focused on the ways that fish or eggs could “hide” in the supposedly “dead” lake and how fish can swim back once water has returned. But one enterprising reader, Paul H. Roek of Madison, Tennessee, wants us not to duck and cover, but to cover the ducks:
Waterfowl, especially the plentiful mallard duck, will dine in an active lake on wild rice and other foods that contain fish and frog eggs. Then, flying to nearby lakes and ponds (whether they are recently rejuvenated by water or not) to rest, nest, or sleep, they “recycle” those ingested eggs of fish and frogs, which hatch and are now located in a new home.
Apparently this mystery was studied in “landlocked” lakes or ponds, those not having a stream, creek, or river flowing in or out. This made sense to me, and I have watched the eating habits of ducks, and found small lakes and ponds in my old home state soon had species of fish that were once not there. I had always guessed that some fisherman had caught the fish in one lake and released them in another.
Speaking of ducking and covering, martial arts exponents are still furious about what many of the boxing coaches said in
Why Do Clocks Run Clockwise?
about why pugilists make a loud sniffing noise when punching. Rodney Sims wrote to us via the Internet:
In martial arts, you are taught not only to exhale when delivering a blow, but to vocalize along with this exhalation when you wish to deliver a particularly powerful blow. In Tae styles, this explosive exhalation is
ke-ai
(pronounced “kee-eye”). It serves to focus the chi, which is one’s inner power or spirit located at one’s center (just behind your belly button) and push it through the extremity delivering the blow.
Mystical aspect aside, it does work. I speculate that the philosophy of mind, body, and spirit that must be present in order to excel at any coordinated physical activity manifests in different ways through the necessary translation from teacher to student. Finding a way to connect or relate to a youngling in teaching is sometimes difficult, not to mention reaching more than one.
The martial arts teach you that to control yourself, mind, body, and spirit, is to reach for perfection, and value is placed upon such control: involuntary functions can be controlled, more force can be delivered, and things outside of normal understanding can be understood. Martial philosophy aside, it seems logical to assume that so many people are taught to do it, and consequently practice this exhale, that it does work to focus one’s mind. From my experience, boards are easier to break when you
ke-ai.
Does Michael Tyson
ke-ai
when he bites an opponent? While we muse about that, Ryan Pentoney shot us an e-mail that focused on the physical effectiveness of the sniff:
I have been trained in the martial art goshin ru, and through my four years, I have been taught to exhale on all offensive and defensive maneuvers (punches, kicks, blocks, and some stances and movements). I am not familiar enough to speak for boxing specifically, but I can offer an explanation for fighting in general.
Ira Becker’s stab at the question [the owner of world-renowned Gleason’s Gym pooh-poohed the effectiveness of exhaling while delivering a punch] seemed rather senseless…. In general, the body receives the necessary oxygen through the normal breathing patterns and bodily responses observed under such increased activity (wider nostrils, increased adrenaline flow, and an increased heart rate, more relaxed blood vessels, and the constriction of many of the capillary sphincters leading to the digestive and other “non-essential” organs and systems to maximize the amount of blood oxygen to the muscles and other useful organs and systems). The amount of carbon dioxide and oxygen expelled or inhaled, or an inhibition thereof due to the sharp exhale, is negligible. The time spent sharply exhaling converted into an inhale period would not be constructive, seeing as how these exhale periods occur at the time the fighter is throwing a punch (in the case of boxing) — it would not be advisable.
The next time you’re feeling energetic, try throwing a punch or two in succession while inhaling, and then while exhaling. You will probably find that it is harder to inhale while punching (holding your breath isn’t very good either, as you inhibit gas flow altogether).
I believe that there is a greater purpose to the exhaling than simple gas exchange or a psychological reason. I have been taught that exhaling upon striking, blocking, exploding into a stance, or dodging out of the way of an attack severely minimizes the risk of having the wind knocked out of you. When you exhale quickly, your abdominal muscles tighten up and also protect your diaphragm. The opposite is true when you inhale. The end result is disastrous when you are struck in the upper abdominal area when you inhale, and in a fight can spell the end.