Uncle John’s 24-Karat Gold Bathroom Reader® (70 page)

YOKEL

Meaning:
A country bumpkin

Origin:
“In England, before the 19th century, a yokel was a woodpecker named after its distinctive call: yo-KEL, yo-KEL. Today the term refers to people who live in the country (where the
yokels
live).” (From
“I Didn’t Know That,” Volume I
, by Karlen Evins)

GUY

Meaning:
A regular person

Origin:
“Used by the British to refer to an effigy of Guy Fawkes, the leader of the infamous Gunpowder Plot, the word still means ‘a thoroughly grotesque person’ in England. The American usage started with playwright Eugene O’Neill in a 1927 letter to a friend.” (From
Origins
, by Eric Partridge)

RIFF-RAFF

Meaning:
People regarded as disreputable or worthless

Origin:
“From the medieval French expression
rifle et rafle
. The phrase referred to lowly scavengers who would plunder (
rifle
) the dead bodies on the battlefield and then carry off (
rafle
) their belongings.” (From
World Wide Words
, by Michael Quinion)

HAM

Meaning:
Someone who overacts, sometimes to unintentionally humorous results (like William Shatner as Captain Kirk)

Origin:
“In 19th-century minstrel shows, white actors in ‘black face’ used ham fat to remove their makeup. (They often strummed the banjo song, ‘Ham-fat Man.’) These performances were usually less than first quality.” (From
Why You Say It
, by Webb Garrison)

Aristotle believed that going barefoot diminished the libido.

CANADA AT RANDOM

A few facts to bring you up to speed (in kilometers)
.

• The highest-grossing domestic film in Canadian history is 2006’s . Once you factor in inflation, though, it comes in third behind
Bon Cop, Bad Cop
, a bilingual buddy film about a serial killer who’s murdering hockey executives
Porky’s
(1982) and the 1970 porn film
Deux Femmes En Or
.

• Average high July temperature in Toronto: 28°C (82°F). In Alert, the northernmost permanently inhabited locale in Canada (and the entire world), the average July temp is a mere 6°C (42°F). Population of Alert: 5.

• In 1992 Michael Ondaatje became the first Canadian author to win the Man Booker Prize, the highest literary prize in the British Commonwealth. Ondaatje’s prize-winning book:
The English Patient
.

• Some Canadian slang:
kerfuffle
(a commotion),
timbits
(doughnut holes), and
two-four
(a case of beer).

• Alberta’s West Edmonton Shopping Mall was the world’s largest when it opened in 1981. It has since dropped to fifth place, but it still holds the record for the world’s largest indoor amusement park.

• Snorri Thorfinnsson, the first European born in North America, lived in Newfoundland around 1010 A.D. His parents, Þorfinnr Karlsefni and Guðríðr Eiríksdóttir, were Viking explorers.

• You probably know that Canada has two official languages—English and French. How many Canadians actually speak both? About 17 percent.

• Canada has its own version of the Loch Ness Monster—a beast called Ogopogo that reportedly lives in British Columbia’s Okanagan Lake.

• The most-viewed television program in Canadian history: the gold-medal men’s hockey game during the 2010 Winter Olympics. Over 80 percent of the country tuned in to watch Canada beat the U.S. 3–2.

Worth it? When sea turtles eat man-of-war jellyfish, they give off a scent that attracts sharks.

WORLD HAIRSTORY

There have always been things people were willing to dye for
.

B
ED HEAD
Black hair was the norm in ancient Rome. Blond hair was associated with exotic foreigners from places like Gaul (France) and Germany, and with...prostitutes. To set themselves apart from other citizens, Roman prostitutes were required by law to dye their hair blond. Natural blonds who weren’t prostitutes could apply a mixture of vinegar and ground-up leeches to their hair and sit in the sun until it baked in, turning their hair black.

DYE, YOU SAXON PUNKS!

When the Germanic Saxons invaded Britain 2,500 years ago, they sported colors meant to terrify. They headed into battle with hair and beards dyed bright orange, green, red, and blue, giving them a distinct psychological advantage. (Of course, those two-handed battle-axes that could cleave a man in half probably enhanced the effect, too.)

BLONDS HAVE MORE SUN

In the late 16th century, women of Venice, Italy, who wanted blond hair wore special crownless hats that allowed their hair to stick out the top as they sat all day in the blazing sun. Richard Corson’s book
Fashions in Hair
describes one woman who stayed out so long that, “she bled almost every day abundantly through the nose,” but she “obtained the effect of her desires”—bleached hair.

THE RED QUEEN

Queen Elizabeth I (1533–1603) had red hair that started a hair-dyeing fad as men and women of rank vied to show their loyalty through their locks. Using a mixture of lead, quicklime, and sulfur, women dyed their hair to match the queen’s. High-ranking men dyed theirs auburn, and some male courtiers dyed their beards as well. Loyalty, how ever, came with side effects: nausea, headaches, nosebleeds, and, thanks to the lead, kidney failure and death.

Another reason to stay inside: Sunlight can trigger a cold-sore breakout.

OPERATION
PAUL BUNYAN

The unoccupied Demilitarized Zone separating North and South Korea has been a tense place since the end of the Korean War in the 1950s. It’s been the site of periodic flare-ups, one of which involved a tree
.

T
WO KOREAS
For most of its history, Korea has been a single country, often a very powerful one. In the late 19th century, the nation lost its independence to Japan. At the time, Japan was trying to build a global empire, and Korea was a valuable strategic target. After World War II, the Japanese Empire fell apart, and the countries it had once controlled became independent nations once again. But a new conflict was developing: the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. Korea’s strategic location made it an important ally to both sides.

The United States assumed the administration of the southern part of Korea, taking steps to assure that it would develop into a capitalist economy. American diplomats and politicians micro-managed the region’s political process to produce leaders sympathetic to the West. At the same time, the Soviet Union oversaw the development of the north, and encouraged that part of Korea to develop along socialist lines. The split was formalized in 1948, when the north refused to participate in United Nations–supervised free elections. Both sides claimed to be the only legitimate government on the Korean peninsula. The Korean War was fought over this issue, which led to two separate nations. To this day, South Korea maintains that it lawfully controls North Korea, while North Korea believes the same thing about South Korea.

Technically, the Korean War never formally ended. There was no peace treaty—only an armistice that ended the shooting (it was temporary, but it’s lasted since 1953) and established a two-mile wide DMZ, or Demilitarized Zone, as a neutral buffer between North Korea and South Korea.

Lose-lose situation: Couples who diet while on vacation argue three times more often.

STAY POSTED

Like all Cold War hot spots, the DMZ was rife with political intrigue and paranoia (and heavily guarded by troops). North Korea accused the South of periodically sending spies into the North, and in 1975 South Korea discovered secret tunnels that North Korea had built under the DMZ.

In the early 1970s, the United Nations set up multiple command posts within the DMZ to help control the situation. U.N. Command Post #3 was critical. It was the northernmost post, situated within sight of North Korean territory. North Korean soldiers had repeatedly attempted to kidnap U.N. officials from Command Post #3, so soldiers stationed at the southern end of the DMZ believed it was vital to keep a close eye on the post at all times. Only problem: Command Post #3 was surrounded by dense foliage, which made the post impossible to observe during summer months. One particularly troublesome poplar tree directly blocked the view.

THE KOREAN AXE MASSACRE

So on August 18, 1976, under U.N. orders, the South Korean military sent five soldiers, escorted by a dozen U.S. troops, into the DMZ to chop down the poplar. Because soldiers are not allowed to carry firearms inside the DMZ, the squad carried only the axes and machetes they planned to use.

Just as the troops began trimming the tree, a delegation of North Korean soldiers arrived at the site and demanded that the South Koreans drop their axes. The tree in question, they said, had been personally planted and tended by Kim Il Sung, North Korea’s first “great leader.” Despite repeated warnings from the North Koreans, the squadron from the South continued to chop... prompting the commanding officer of the North Korean detachment to order, “Kill them!”

The South Korean troops immediately dropped their axes and attempted to flee. The North Koreans—unarmed because of the weapon-free DMZ rule—then picked up the axes and attacked the American escorts, killing the commanding officer, Capt. Arthur Bonifas, and fatally wounding Lt. Mark Barret, and injuring most of the South Koreans. United Nations soldiers at Observation Post #5, watching the proceedings unfold, recorded the entire incident
on camera, and it was quickly reported to the leaders of North Korea and to the general public in South Korea. Through it all, the poplar tree remained standing.

Washington’s Mount Rainier was named for a British soldier who fought against the Americans in the Revolutionary War.

THE ART OF WAR

Because two Americans had been killed, many expected the full military power of the United States to come down on North Korea. But waging all-out war would have been extraordinarily dangerous during the Cold War. Seoul, the bustling capital of South Korea, was located directly south of the DMZ, well within range of North Korean artillery. And while the U.S. had superior air and sea power, North Korea maintained a close diplomatic relationship with China, which had tens of millions of troops that it would almost certainly send to aid North Korea.

Henry Kissinger, then serving as both U.S. Secretary of State and national security advisor to President Ford, was prepared to fight. He suggested to Ford that the best course of action would be a full-scale bombing campaign of the North. Kissinger believed that holding back would make the United States appear diplomatically and militarily weak. Ford, however, did not want to start a new Korean War, or worse, another world war, so he devised a solution that he hoped would allow the U.S. to save face while avoiding a major escalation: Send in the troops...and chop down the tree.

TIMBER!

“Operation Paul Bunyan,” as it was called, commenced on August 21, 1976, just three days after the original confrontation—which was being referred to as “the axe murder incident”—and involved a major military incursion into the DMZ. The primary “attack arms” consisted of two six-man units from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, all armed with chain saws. Each unit was accompanied by a support unit of 30 heavily armed soldiers, and backed up by two dozen attack helicopters and a wing of B-52 Stratofortress bombers. Meanwhile, every military unit south of the DMZ was on high alert: Aircraft patrols were launched from air bases all over South Korea, and the USS
Midway
carrier group held a position just off the Korean Peninsula. Artillery units stood by to detonate critical bridges in the vicinity, and South Korean special
forces ran secret scouting missions along the most critical areas of the DMZ. North Korea responded in kind, dispatching hundreds of sharpshooters and machine gunners to their forward posts along the DMZ. Northern forces set up machine-gun nests in view of Command Post #3.

Despite the armed buildup on both sides, the operation ended without incident. The poplar tree was chopped down in just under an hour. The chain-saw crew left a stump 19 feet high as a visible reminder of what had occurred there, and that was that. In the mid-1980s, Command Post #3 was abandoned, and in 1987 the rest of the stump was removed. But in its place, a small shrine—a stone monument with a bronze plaque—was erected to honor the memory of the two American soldiers who died there.