Steve Silverman - Einsteins Refrigerator: And Other Stories from the Flip Side of History

AND OTHER STORIES
FROM THE FLIP SIDE
OF HISTORY

by Steve Silverman

Introduction

Welcome to my book! I am well aware that most people want to breeze right through the Introduction, so I will keep this short.

What you are about to read is the very best of my Useless Information Home Page. I started the Web site just prior to the explosion of the Internet while people were still holding to the steadfast rule that the Net was not a place for commercial exploitation. Intended solely as an exercise to learn the newly invented HTML coding, I never thought that anyone would ever see my work. Without any idea of what to place on a Web page, I turned to a few of the crazy stories that I had e-mailed to a friend. Just a bit of cutting and pasting, coupled with some basic Web page coding, and the site was born. The title Useless Information was thrown on for lack of a better idea.

As I had expected, no one initially looked at the Web site. My total number of visitors during the first two years was just over thirteen thousand. I then went to visit my parents over one July Fourth holiday and came back three days later to find that my readership had doubled. I found out through one of my e-mail messages that Yahoo had chosen my Web site as their pick of the week. That just started the ball rolling. Millions of readers and many awards later, traffic to the Web site continues to grow exponentially each year.

I assure you that every story contained in this book is absolutely true. Mankind is a very unusual beast and has created a history that is full of the wonderful and the truly bizarre. My research into each of the topics has been very time consuming due to the obscure nature of every story. Many times the most often told version of a story is not always the correct one. When sources have been contradictory or sketchy, I have chosen what I felt was the best inference that could be made. Readers have also been very kind about pointing out minor errors and sources of additional information.

My process of selecting story topics is nearly always the same. When I come across a tidbit that fascinates me, I then present it to my students. Having taught high school science students for so many years, I can testify to the fact that they are the toughest of all audiences to please. Some of the stories prove to be duds and are quickly dropped. Those that fascinate my students are added to a long list of possible subjects. As information is gathered, a file folder is started. The final stage is the hardest part: the actual writing of the stories.

Thanks must go to all of the people whom you have probably never heard about: my family, friends, students, and readers for their constant support and words of wisdom. In particular, I need to personally thank my best friends Barbara Roosevelt and Jamie Keenan for all of their helpful suggestions and editing of my writing.

I doubt that any one of these stories will make any difference in your life. These are certainly not the inspirational type of stories that Oprah would ever choose to do a show on. Yet, if in the end you have a smile on your face, then I will know that I accomplished my goal. So, sit back, get some milk and cookies, and relax. Enjoy this journey through the other side of history.

PART 1:

You've got to be kidding!

Mike, the headless chicken

He really was a chicken running around with his head cut off

The e-mail message seemed innocent enough. A reader simply asked "Ever heard of the story posted here at this link?" and offered a hyperlink to another Web page. I clicked and came across a story that I was sure had to be pure fiction. The only problem is that the story appears to be totally true.

This is the story about Mike the Chicken. Mike, of course, was not your ordinary chicken. No, not ordinary at all. You see, Mike was a headless chicken. If you want to be really specific, Mike was actually a headless wyandotte rooster.

I should point out that Mike wasn't always a headless bird. In fact, he was born 100 percent normal, complete with a head in Fruita, Colorado.

On September 10, 1945, Mike's short five-and-a-half-month life was about to take a turn for the worse. On this day, Mike received a death sentence. His owners, Lloyd and Clara Olsen, decided that it was time to slaughter a group of birds, sell some, and prepare others for themselves. Out to the hen house they went.

Watch out, Mike!

As you can probably imagine, Mr. Olsen was the one whacking the heads off while Clara plucked and cleaned the birds.

Bash! Down came the ax and off went Mike's head.

Mike's head was surely dead. Mike's body was not.

Now I know what you are thinking-it is well known that chickens will run around frantically when their heads are chopped off. That's probably where that old expression comes from. And, everyone knows that a headless chicken just can't survive more than a few moments.

Apparently, Mike forgot to read the rulebook for playing the game of Life. His head may have been lying on the floor, but he had no problem standing up and strutting around as if nothing had actually happened. The next day, Mike was still flopping around, so Lloyd decided to feed him to see how long he could keep the bird alive. Through his open esophagus, Mike was fed a mixture of ground-up grain and water with your typical eyedropper. Little bits of gravel were dropped down his throat to help his gizzard grind up the food. Day after day he continued to gain weight.

Mike the Headless Chicken with his supposed head. (Waters collection photograph, http:// miketheheadlesschickenbook.com)

Mike could easily balance himself on the highest perches without falling. His crowing consisted of a gurgling sound made in his throat. Mike even attempted to preen his feathers with his nonexistent head. It seems that Mike could do just about anything that any other chicken could do, if you excluded all of the functions of his head. Apparently he never noticed that he was missing a major body part.

As I'm sure you can imagine, headless chickens are not an everyday event. In the tradition of that famous huckster Barnum, there was money to be made in this oddity. A promoter by the name of Hope Wade came along and convinced Lloyd that Mike would be a big draw in the sideshow circuit. Miracle Mike, as he soon came to be known, toured up and down the West Coast of the United States. The head was stored in a canning jar and traveled along with Mike. (Actually, a cat ate Mike's head. Some other poor chicken's head was pickled in the jar.) Just six weeks after his beheading, Mike was featured in a Life magazine article and his fame grew. Anyone could pay to get a look at Mike for just 25 cents. At the height of his popularity, Mike was raking in a cool $4,500 per month, which was no small potatoes in those days.