MUFFLER MEN

Between 1962 and 1974, International Fiberglass Company made huge (20 to 30 feet tall) mannequins in a wide variety of designs, such a lumberjacks, gas station attendants, cowboys, etc.  These would be permanently placed in front of commercial establishments, and each one would usually be carrying an appropriate object such as an ax, a muffler, or a branding iron.  They were often found at Texaco stations until a motorist sued Texaco claiming that he had had an accident because he was distracted by one of the figures.  

Uniroyal employed a female version for its stores which looked a lot like Jackie Kennedy in a bikini.  However, an attachable dress was also provided by International Fiberglass for use in the more conservative communities.

These figures, regardless of their sex or occupation, are known as "muffler men."

The first muffler man I ever met was "Big John," who proudly toted four giant grocery bags in front of a rural Midwestern supermarket.  This may be the very same Big John* who currently resides in the care of a muffler man collector (who must have a very tolerant wife**) in Unger, West Virgina.

The muffler men pictured in this factoid were photographed several years ago at the Pink Elephant Antique Mall in Livingston, Illinois. They were (and hopefully still are) surrounded at the facility by other treasures such as a twenty-foot tall tricycle, a huge pink elephant, and a flying saucer. The Harley Davidson guy, who started out as a Paul Bunyan version holding an ax, was out standing in his field.

To find the muffler man nearest to you, click here.

*Big John was not manufactured by the International Fiberglass Company, but he clearly is a muffler man in spirit and should be included within their hallowed ranks.

**Actually, further research indicates that the wife is a full and enthusiastic co-conspirator in the acquisition of the Unger muffler men.

AURIC EPIDERMAL SUFFOCATION

Early in the movie Goldfinger, James Bond convinces Jill Masterson, the secretary of archvillain Auric Goldfinger, to betray her boss. Shortly thereafter, Bond and Ms. Masterson are inexplicably in Bond's hotel suite with Masterson in a highly unclad state. Goldfinger's myrmidon, Oddjob, then enters the suite, knocks Bond unconscious, and covers Masterson's entire body with gold paint. This, as explained in the movie, quickly results in her death by "skin suffocation," a condition which afflicts cabaret dancers who paint their bodies without leaving a bare patch at the base of the spine for the skin to breathe.

Skin suffocation is probably a myth, although I for one do not intend to test it. The TV show Mythbusters painted the entire body of one of the actors with no ill effect except for a very slight increase in blood pressure. It is quite possible that a person who is undergoing vigorous exercise or in a hot climate may suffer heat stroke if all of her pores are blocked or that chemicals could leach into the body over time, but these effects would not occur under normal conditions in a short temporal period.

Nonetheless, just to err on the side of caution, the director of Goldfinger made sure that there was a bare patch of skin on the actress, Shirley Eaton, when he shot the above sequence.

This sequence, by the way, is not the most memorable one in the film.  There is another one involving a 1964 Lincoln Continental which is far too visceral, traumatic, and graphic for me, as a fan of special interest automobiles, even to attempt to describe it.

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THE THUNDER HOUSE

As part of his studies on the phenomenon of electricity, Benjamin Franklin invented the lightning rod in 1749. The lightning rod is, of course, a staff of highly conductive material (such as copper) which sits on the top of a building and which is connected to the ground through a wire. A lightning bolt will normally strike the highest object in the area, which would be the rod, and the current will harmlessly go into the ground through the wire as the path of least resistance. Without the presence of the rod, the bolt can pass directly through the building materials themselves and cause fire, explosion, and electrocution.

Franklin needed a simple way of demonstrating this principle, and he, as a result, developed the "thunder house." The thunder house was a model of a building with loosely connected walls or roof panels as well as a lightning rod on the top and a small amount of gunpowder concealed in the interior. Franklin would first run a metal chain from the rod to the ground (a metal panel on which the house was mounted) and then touch an electrical charge to the rod, Nothing would appear to happen, as the current would pass uneventfully through the chain into the ground. Franklin would then remove the chain and repeat the experiment. This time, the charge would pass through the house itself, set off the gunpowder, and "destroy" the dwelling, much to the awe and delight of the onlookers.

When I was a youth, most homes had grounded television antennas mounted on the roof which served very nicely as lightning rods. Now that external antennas are for the most part extinct, what protects a modern house from the effects of a lightning strike? As far as I can tell, nothing except luck.

To see Ben Franklin demonstrate his thunder house at the Bakken Museum in Minneapolis, click here.

RAT BOMBS

                      

In 1941, one of the weapons developed by the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) was the dreaded rat bomb. The rat bomb consisted of the skin of a Rattus norvegicus or Rattus rattus stuffed with high explosives and a heat-sensitive detonator so that the resulting package looked like a stiff dead rat. The rat bombs were to be thrown into German coal piles for ships and locomotives. The fireman, in the course of his duties, would shovel the rat into the firebox and the rest would be history.

Unfortunately, the Germans discovered a shipment of unexploded rat bombs early on and became extremely diligent about not incinerating rats, so the project had little direct success. On the other hand, many thousands of man-hours were expended by the Germans looking for remarkedly rigid rodent remains.

Some of the rats were to be loaded with time-delay fuses instead of heat sensitive detonators.

You may be wondering why anyone would even shovel a rat into a firebox. You are sweltering in an overheated confined space with a stinking dead rodent on top of the coal you need to shovel. You cannot leave your post. You are going to be there for several more boring hours. There is a white-hot cleansing inferno right in front of you. Plus, you are bored stiff. What would YOU do?

THE ONION SPIRED CONUNDRUM

Legend states that when the iconic St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow was completed in 1561, Ivan the Terrible ordered its architect, Postnik Yakovlev, blinded so that Yakovlev could never again design anything else as beautiful. Although such a cruel and capricious decision would have been well within Ivan's wheelhouse (after all, there was a reason why he wasn't called "Ivan the Adorable"), some historians gainsay the verisimilitude of this tale due to the fact that Yakovlev apparently did design some other buildings at a later date.

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THE SCANTILY CLAD SOX

For three games during the regular season of 1976, the Chicago White Sox wore shorts as part of their uniforms, notwithstanding predictions that it would discourage sliding into base.  The shorts were the inspiration of owner Bill Veeck (pictured below), who had earlier achieved infamy with other extreme examples of baseball showmanship (which will probably be described in future Factoids).

Some of the news photographers objected to the new garb on the basis that it was hard to distinguish in black-and-white pictures the skin of the African-American players from the dark-colored shorts; however, the primary reason that Veeck terminated the program after three games was the fact that he did not achieve as much notoriety as he anticipated. 

Veeck determined the success of the White Sox and Sox publicity gimmicks scientifically by measuring each day the number of lines devoted by the Chicago Tribune to the Sox as compared to the Cubs.  When the shorts stories became too short, Veeck figured that he had gotten all of the news coverage he would get from the novelty uniform and killed it.

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THE BEAR TO BITE ARMS

Did you ever just have one of those days? If so, then C. Dale Peterson can empathize with you.

Peterson was a hunting guide in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. One day, he happened upon a grizzly bear who had just been irritated by backpackers. The bear expressed his frustration by trying to kill Peterson. Peterson had no weapon. He realized that simply exchanging blows with the grizzly might result in an undesirable resolution of the conflict, especially since his right arm and hand were already wedged inside the bear's mouth. Thinking quickly, Peterson bit down on the bear's jugular vein hard enough to impede the flow of blood to the bruin's brain. The bear passed out, and Peterson beat the bear to death with a stick--making Peterson the second known human to kill a grizzly unarmed (or at least with only one functional arm). And no, I do not know who was the first.

You will find this story repeated all over the internet, usually along with commentary suggesting that it would be a bad idea to pick a fight with Peterson. Often included is a photo of a plaque describing the encounter which is affixed next to Peterson's mounted assailant. Generally, the location of the display is described as being in a Jackson Hole tavern--perhaps the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar.

Although it is lamentable that the bear had to die, Peterson's story is an inspiring tale of cool-headed thinking under adverse circumstances and the advantages of not panicking simply because you are in a tough situation. It might even be more inspiring if it actually could be shown to be true. None of the numerous accounts on the web contain any facts (such as dates) or links to news accounts or other reports of the incident other than the information on the plaque itself (well, one site does include a biography of Peterson, but I am not convinced of its reliability, including but not limited to the claims that he was a sexual partner of Marilyn Monroe and killed three grizzlies a day at age 96--however, it does display a copy of the photo of the previously-mentioned plaque). While there probably is a bar in Wyoming with the original plaque depicted in the photo and a stuffed grizzly bear, one has to consider the possibility that the bar owner is engaging in hyperbole and that an asinine ursine actually never did take on a guide named C. Dale Peterson.

Sometimes truth is simply overrated--I was really hoping to read about a real C. Dale Peterson.