Uncle John’s Unstoppable Bathroom Reader by Bathroom Readers’ Institute
Authors: Bathroom Readers’ Institute
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saw the row of apartments up above the shop,” he explains, “and I thought, bloody hell, I’d better do something!”
What did Leech do? He kicked open the door of the shop and started pouring milk on the fire. By the time the firefighters arrived 15 minutes later, the fire was under control—and Leech is credited with saving the row of eight shops, as well as the lives of the people living in the apartments above them. “It was hard work opening all those bottles, since they have tamper-proof lids,” he says, “but it was even harder trying to explain to my boss where all the milk (320 pints) had gone.”
Update: Leech needn’t have worried about his boss—he not only kept his job, in January 2002 England’s National Dairymen’s Association named him the “Hero Milkman of the Millennium.”
FIRST-RATE THIRD GRADER
Local Hero: Austin Rosedale, a third-grader at Sunny Hills Elementary School in Issaquah, Washington
Heroic Deed: Saving his teacher from choking
The Story: Austin was in the computer lab one day in November 2001 when his teacher, Mrs. Precht, started choking on a cough drop. She was just about to pass out when he sprang into action.
Luckily for Precht, Austin’s parents had given him a Day Planner organizer that happened to have an instructional diagram of the Heimlich maneuver printed on the cover. Austin had read it so many times that helping Mrs. Precht was a snap. With two thrusts to her abdomen, he dislodged the cough drop. “I just visualized the pictures,” he says, “and remembered what I’d read.”
Birmingham, England, has 22 more miles of canals than Venice, Italy.
BLUE’S BROTHER
Local Hero: Art Aylesworth, a Montana insurance agent
Heroic Deed: Helping to save the mountain bluebird and the western bluebird from extinction
The Story: A longtime conservationist, Aylesworth had worked on a few wildlife habitat restoration projects. But in the mid-1970s he became alarmed when he learned that extensive logging in the state was pushing the bluebirds—which nest in the cavities of old trees—toward extinction. So he got some scrap lumber and built some nest boxes for the birds; then he founded an organization called the Mountain Bluebird Trails Group and recruited hundreds of volunteers to do the same thing.
The organization gave the boxes to anyone willing to put them up and keep an eye on them; it estimates that over the next 25 years, it gave away more than 35,000 boxes. Did it work? Yes—when Aylesworth started handing out the boxes in 1974, only a handful of the bluebirds were thought to still exist; by 1998 the count had grown to more than 17,000.
GUN CONTROL
Local Hero: Dale Rooks, a crossing guard at Suter Elementary School in Pensacola, Florida
Heroic Deed: Finding a unique way to get speeding motorists to slow down in front of the elementary school
The Story: For years Rooks had tried everything he could think of to get drivers to slow down in front of the school—including waving his hands and yelling—but nothing worked. Then inspiration struck him—he got an old hair dryer and covered it with gray duct tape so that it looked like a radar gun, and started pointing it at speeders. That did the trick. “People are slowing down, raising their hands at me apologetically,” he says. “It’s amazing how well it works.”
Update: Inspired by his example, fifth-graders at the school set up a lemonade stand and raised $93 to buy Rooks a rea l radar gun. “I don’t mean it to be funny,” he says, “but it looks just like a hair dryer.”
World’s bestselling cookie: Oreo.
MONEY TALKS
A few priceless nuggets from our quote bank .
“Money’s a horrid thing to follow, but a charming thing to meet.”
— Henry James
“It’s not money that brings happiness; it’s lots of money.”
— Russian proverb
“If you can actually count your money, then you are not really a rich man.”
— J. Paul Getty
“Once in a while my wife complains about my jokes.
What did Leech do? He kicked open the door of the shop and started pouring milk on the fire. By the time the firefighters arrived 15 minutes later, the fire was under control—and Leech is credited with saving the row of eight shops, as well as the lives of the people living in the apartments above them. “It was hard work opening all those bottles, since they have tamper-proof lids,” he says, “but it was even harder trying to explain to my boss where all the milk (320 pints) had gone.”
Update: Leech needn’t have worried about his boss—he not only kept his job, in January 2002 England’s National Dairymen’s Association named him the “Hero Milkman of the Millennium.”
FIRST-RATE THIRD GRADER
Local Hero: Austin Rosedale, a third-grader at Sunny Hills Elementary School in Issaquah, Washington
Heroic Deed: Saving his teacher from choking
The Story: Austin was in the computer lab one day in November 2001 when his teacher, Mrs. Precht, started choking on a cough drop. She was just about to pass out when he sprang into action.
Luckily for Precht, Austin’s parents had given him a Day Planner organizer that happened to have an instructional diagram of the Heimlich maneuver printed on the cover. Austin had read it so many times that helping Mrs. Precht was a snap. With two thrusts to her abdomen, he dislodged the cough drop. “I just visualized the pictures,” he says, “and remembered what I’d read.”
Birmingham, England, has 22 more miles of canals than Venice, Italy.
BLUE’S BROTHER
Local Hero: Art Aylesworth, a Montana insurance agent
Heroic Deed: Helping to save the mountain bluebird and the western bluebird from extinction
The Story: A longtime conservationist, Aylesworth had worked on a few wildlife habitat restoration projects. But in the mid-1970s he became alarmed when he learned that extensive logging in the state was pushing the bluebirds—which nest in the cavities of old trees—toward extinction. So he got some scrap lumber and built some nest boxes for the birds; then he founded an organization called the Mountain Bluebird Trails Group and recruited hundreds of volunteers to do the same thing.
The organization gave the boxes to anyone willing to put them up and keep an eye on them; it estimates that over the next 25 years, it gave away more than 35,000 boxes. Did it work? Yes—when Aylesworth started handing out the boxes in 1974, only a handful of the bluebirds were thought to still exist; by 1998 the count had grown to more than 17,000.
GUN CONTROL
Local Hero: Dale Rooks, a crossing guard at Suter Elementary School in Pensacola, Florida
Heroic Deed: Finding a unique way to get speeding motorists to slow down in front of the elementary school
The Story: For years Rooks had tried everything he could think of to get drivers to slow down in front of the school—including waving his hands and yelling—but nothing worked. Then inspiration struck him—he got an old hair dryer and covered it with gray duct tape so that it looked like a radar gun, and started pointing it at speeders. That did the trick. “People are slowing down, raising their hands at me apologetically,” he says. “It’s amazing how well it works.”
Update: Inspired by his example, fifth-graders at the school set up a lemonade stand and raised $93 to buy Rooks a rea l radar gun. “I don’t mean it to be funny,” he says, “but it looks just like a hair dryer.”
World’s bestselling cookie: Oreo.
MONEY TALKS
A few priceless nuggets from our quote bank .
“Money’s a horrid thing to follow, but a charming thing to meet.”
— Henry James
“It’s not money that brings happiness; it’s lots of money.”
— Russian proverb
“If you can actually count your money, then you are not really a rich man.”
— J. Paul Getty
“Once in a while my wife complains about my jokes.
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