Uncle John's Great Big Bathroom Reader by Bathroom Readers’ Institute
Authors: Bathroom Readers’ Institute
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tobacco. To make trading easier, Seatlh encouraged Dr. David Maynard to open a store at the little settlement of Duwanmps. Maynard, in turn, suggested changing the name of the town to Seattle in honor of the friendly Indian chief.
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Most popular names for U.S. high school sports teams: 1. Eagles; 2. Tigers.
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How He Lost It: From Sealth’s point of view this wasn’t a compliment—it was an attack. It violated a tribal custom that forbade naming a place after a person who was still alive because it would offendhis guardian spirit. When the townspeople refused to change the name, Sealth asked the residents for gifts to repay him for problems that using his name would cause him in the next life. They refused that, too.
Ultimately, the Suquamish tribe was exiled from their homeland and driven onto the Port Madison Indian Reservation. Tourists can visit Chief Sealth’s grave today on Bainbridge Island where the inscription on his tombstone, I.H.S. —Latin for “in this spirit”—was interpreted by his Indian kinsmen to stand for “I have suffered.”
FAMOUS AMOS COOKIES
Named After: Wally Amos
How He Got It: Amos was a talent agent at the William Morris Agency who used home-baked chocolate chip cookies as a calling card (he found it put producers and executives at ease and in a good mood for negotiations). After awhile, some of his famous clients began encouraging him to sell the cookies. They even invested in the Famous Amos Cookie Company, which he started in 1975—making him one of the pioneers of the gourmet cookie trend. Sales at Famous Amos hit $12 million by 1982.
How He Lost It: His cookies were a success, but he was no manager, and his company started losing money. Amos had to bring in new money; from 1985 to 1988 he went through four different co-owners. Each time a change was made, Amos gave up more of his share of the pie. By the time the Shanby Group bought it in 1988, Amos had nothing left; he even signed away his trademark rights. In 1992, when he started a new company called “Wally Amos Presents: Chip and Cookie,” the Famous Amos Corp. sued him for infringement and libel.
After an acrimonious dispute, Wally Amos agreed not to use his own name or a caricature of himself on his cookies and not to bad-mouth the company that owns his name. Wally Amos then moved to Hawaii and started another cookie company called the “Uncle Noname Cookie Co.”
* * *
“Names are not always what they seem. The common Welsh name Bzjxxllwcp is pronounced Jackson.”
—Mark Twain
----
Julia Ward Howe sold her “Battle Hymn of the Republic” to the Atlantic Monthly for $4.
----
THE POPCORN CHRONICLES
Whenever people at the BRI crave junk food, we pop a bunch of popcorn. As we were munching away the other day, Uncle John asked if anyone knew why popcorn popped, or where it came from. That sent us scrambling for a few answers. Here’s what we found.
B ACKGROUND
There are five strains of corn on the family tree: sweet, dent, flint, pod, and popcorn. The first four are essential to world nutrition; 23% of all arable land in the world is used to grow corn. Their country cousin, popcorn, is grown on less than half of 1% of those acres. It’s less productive—the kernels and ears are smaller—but it’s the only one that pops.
What makes it pop? The popcorn kernel has a hard shell. When it dries, microscopic droplets of water are sealed inside. If a kernel is heated above 212°F, the water inside boils and turns to steam, creating internal pressure. When the pressure reaches about 135-165 pounds per square inch, the kernel explodes, or pops. It literally turns inside out as the soft white interior bursts out.
EARLY HISTORY
• Popcorn is native to the Americas. Corn cobs dating back to 5,600 B.C. have been found in excavations in a bat cave in New Mexico.
• Native Americans believed that a tiny demon lived in each kernel. When the demon’s house was heated,
----
Most popular names for U.S. high school sports teams: 1. Eagles; 2. Tigers.
----
How He Lost It: From Sealth’s point of view this wasn’t a compliment—it was an attack. It violated a tribal custom that forbade naming a place after a person who was still alive because it would offendhis guardian spirit. When the townspeople refused to change the name, Sealth asked the residents for gifts to repay him for problems that using his name would cause him in the next life. They refused that, too.
Ultimately, the Suquamish tribe was exiled from their homeland and driven onto the Port Madison Indian Reservation. Tourists can visit Chief Sealth’s grave today on Bainbridge Island where the inscription on his tombstone, I.H.S. —Latin for “in this spirit”—was interpreted by his Indian kinsmen to stand for “I have suffered.”
FAMOUS AMOS COOKIES
Named After: Wally Amos
How He Got It: Amos was a talent agent at the William Morris Agency who used home-baked chocolate chip cookies as a calling card (he found it put producers and executives at ease and in a good mood for negotiations). After awhile, some of his famous clients began encouraging him to sell the cookies. They even invested in the Famous Amos Cookie Company, which he started in 1975—making him one of the pioneers of the gourmet cookie trend. Sales at Famous Amos hit $12 million by 1982.
How He Lost It: His cookies were a success, but he was no manager, and his company started losing money. Amos had to bring in new money; from 1985 to 1988 he went through four different co-owners. Each time a change was made, Amos gave up more of his share of the pie. By the time the Shanby Group bought it in 1988, Amos had nothing left; he even signed away his trademark rights. In 1992, when he started a new company called “Wally Amos Presents: Chip and Cookie,” the Famous Amos Corp. sued him for infringement and libel.
After an acrimonious dispute, Wally Amos agreed not to use his own name or a caricature of himself on his cookies and not to bad-mouth the company that owns his name. Wally Amos then moved to Hawaii and started another cookie company called the “Uncle Noname Cookie Co.”
* * *
“Names are not always what they seem. The common Welsh name Bzjxxllwcp is pronounced Jackson.”
—Mark Twain
----
Julia Ward Howe sold her “Battle Hymn of the Republic” to the Atlantic Monthly for $4.
----
THE POPCORN CHRONICLES
Whenever people at the BRI crave junk food, we pop a bunch of popcorn. As we were munching away the other day, Uncle John asked if anyone knew why popcorn popped, or where it came from. That sent us scrambling for a few answers. Here’s what we found.
B ACKGROUND
There are five strains of corn on the family tree: sweet, dent, flint, pod, and popcorn. The first four are essential to world nutrition; 23% of all arable land in the world is used to grow corn. Their country cousin, popcorn, is grown on less than half of 1% of those acres. It’s less productive—the kernels and ears are smaller—but it’s the only one that pops.
What makes it pop? The popcorn kernel has a hard shell. When it dries, microscopic droplets of water are sealed inside. If a kernel is heated above 212°F, the water inside boils and turns to steam, creating internal pressure. When the pressure reaches about 135-165 pounds per square inch, the kernel explodes, or pops. It literally turns inside out as the soft white interior bursts out.
EARLY HISTORY
• Popcorn is native to the Americas. Corn cobs dating back to 5,600 B.C. have been found in excavations in a bat cave in New Mexico.
• Native Americans believed that a tiny demon lived in each kernel. When the demon’s house was heated,
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