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February 2 is Sled Dog Day

February 2, 2017/0 Comments/in February

Today is Sled Dog Day which recognizes the heroism of 20 men and 150 dogs who raced to save the town of Nome, Alaska from an epidemic. In January of 1925, children began to fall ill, gasping for breath. At least four died. Diphtheria is a highly contagious respiratory disease, often lethal without treatment. It’s curable, but the nearest supply of antitoxin serum was in Anchorage, 1,000 miles away.

On January 25th the town’s only doctor, Dr. Welch, arranged for the serum to be transported by train to Nenana, the end of the line, still almost 700 miles away. Experienced dogsledders, called mushers, decided to run their teams in relays to deliver the 20-pound batch of serum, wrapped in fur, to Nome.

The serum arrived in Nenana on the evening of January 27th. Musher “Wild Bill” Shannon tied the package to his sled and set off on the first 52-mile leg of a 674-mile journey that became known as the “Great Race of Mercy.” Wind chill reached -60° Fahrenheit.

The teams averaged six miles per hour and covered about 30 miles of ground apiece, but when Leonhard Seppala, a famous musher at the time, received the serum on January 31st in Shaktoolik, he covered 91 miles with lead dog Togo. He then handed it off to Charlie Olson, who traveled 25 miles before giving it to Gunnar Kaasen for what was supposed to be the second-to-last leg of the relay.

Kaasen and Balto

Kaasen ran straight into a blizzard, the snow sometimes so intense it caused a white-out in which he couldn’t see any of his 13-dog team. He trusted his lead dog, Balto, who relied on scent to guide them. At one point the sled flipped, pitching the serum into a snowbank and sending Kaasen scrambling to find it.

He arrived in Port Safety in the early morning hours of February 2nd, but when the next team was not ready to leave, he pressed on to Nome himself. At 5:30 AM, Balto led the way into Nome to deliver the serum, frozen solid, to Dr. Welch. The doctor thawed the antitoxin, then injected the townspeople. Three weeks later, he lifted the quarantine.

Balto and team in Nome after delivering vaccine

The relay had taken five-and-a-half days, cutting the previous record by almost half. Many mushers had suffered frostbite and four of the dogs died from exposure.

The story got international attention and Balto became a superstar. Within weeks, he was contracted to star in a short Hollywood film entitled Balto’s Race to Nome. After traveling to Seattle, Washington and shooting on Mt. Rainier, Kaasen, his wife, Balto and the rest of the team embarked on a nine-month vaudeville tour of the country. They arrived in December of 1925 to witness the unveiling of a bronze likeness of Balto in New York City’s Central Park.

The statue is located on the main path leading north from the Tisch Children’s Zoo. In front of it, a slate plaque depicts Balto’s sled team, and bears the following inscription:

Dedicated to the indomitable spirit of the sled dogs that relayed antitoxin six hundred miles
over rough ice, across treacherous waters, through Arctic blizzards from Nenana
to the relief of stricken Nome in the Winter of 1925.

Endurance · Fidelity · Intelligence

Although Seppala also toured the country and appeared with Togo in an advertising campaign for Lucky Strike cigarettes, he felt cheated by the attention lavished on Kaasen and Balto. He had raised Balto and considered him genetically inferior, with a boxy build; he’d neutered him as a puppy to ensure his line would not continue.

Seppala and Togo

A quote from biography Seppala: Alaskan Dog Driver reads, “The chief thing which disturbed me was that Togo’s records were given to Balto, a scrub dog who was pushed into the limelight and made immortal. It was almost more than I could bear when the ‘newspaper’ dog Balto received a statue for his ‘glorious achievements.'”

The timing and circumstances surrounding what happened next is unclear. Both men worked for Pioneer Mining and Ditch Company near Nome. Kaasen was recalled by the company, most likely at his superior Seppala’s behest. Some accounts say Seppala’s friend, mountaineer Roald Amundsen confronted Kaasen in Chicago, Illinois, a stop on the vaudeville tour he’d been forced to resume due to financial difficulties, and told him to return home immediately. With Kaasen in Alaska, there would be nothing to divert attention from a ceremony Seppala had planned in which Amundsen would award a gold medal to Togo.

No matter how it came to pass, Kaasen found himself financially unable to secure passage for the dogs and with no time to raise funds. He had no choice but to leave them with the tour’s promoter, who had no use for 13 dogs and sold them at a stop in Los Angeles, California to a “museum” where they were tied up in a small dark room, neglected and sometimes abused. For a dime, people could peek in the room’s one small window and see the hero dogs that had saved a town.

This went on for several months until businessman George Kimble, visiting from Cleveland, Ohio, saw an advertisement for the attraction and went to have a look. Incensed at their deplorable condition, fearing that they would soon pine away and die, he approached the owner who offered to sell them to him for $2,000.

Mr. Kimble worked together with a Cleveland newspaper, The Plain Dealer, to get the word out. Children and adults all over the country donated and in only ten days, Kimble was able to rescue the dogs and bring them to Cleveland. (At this point, only seven dogs remained. It’s unknown what happened to the other six.) On March 19, 1927, Balto and his teammates received a hero’s welcome in a triumphant parade. The dogs were then taken to the Brookside Zoo and lived the rest of their lives in comfort.

After Balto died in 1933, his remains were mounted by a taxidermist and donated to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. In 1998, the Alaska legislature passed HJR 62- the ‘Bring Back Balto’ resolution. The museum refused to return Balto but in October of that year, they loaned him for five months to the Anchorage Museum of History and Art, which drew record crowds.

Sunlight has faded Balto’s coat from black to brown.

After Togo’s death in 1929, Seppala had him custom mounted and displayed at Yale University’s Peabody Museum of Natural History. (His skeleton is still there.) In 1964, the stuffed dog was transferred to a museum in Vermont.

During all the years he was displayed, Togo was not enclosed. His coat had begun to bald where he was petted. His significance forgotten, Togo was put into storage in 1979. A carpenter who happened to have a background in racing sled dogs discovered him in 1983 atop an old refrigerator.

The sled run of 1925 became international news again. The museum was pressured by legislators, dog clubs, and museums to do something, whether it was to try to repair the taxidermy, bury him where he had died or, as a letter-writing campaign begun by Alaskan schoolchildren urged, return him to the place of his greatest triumph.

Today he is on display in a glass case at the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race Headquarters Museum in Wasilla, Alaska.

Raise a glass to Balto and Togo and all the dogs that save lives or just make our lives better. Hear, hear and have a happy Sled Dog Day!

February 1 is G.I. Joe Day

February 1, 2017/0 Comments/in February

Today is G.I. Joe Day. In February of 1964, toymaker Hassenfeld Brothers (later shortened to Hasbro) introduced its first doll specifically intended for boys at the American International Toy Show in New York. The company hoped to duplicate the success of Mattel’s Barbie, which had been introduced in 1959 and sold a record 351,000 units in its first year.

But there was a problem. Parents wouldn’t buy dolls for their sons. Playing with dolls was considered a girl’s activity and boys generally wanted nothing to do with that. Some parents feared it might cause them to become effeminate and possibly even homosexual.

In a brilliant bit of marketing, the toymaker solved this issue by coining the term “action figure,” which has been used for countless toys since. It further masculinized the toy by making it a military man, G.I. (Government Issue) Joe. The name came from a 1945 American war film called The Story of G.I. Joe.

They also placed a scar across his right cheek. Not only did it denote manly ruggedness, combat and valor, but also enabled Hassenfeld Brothers to copyright the toy. (A generic human figure cannot be copyrighted.) The scar made it an identifiable character as did a production glitch that gave Joe an inverted thumbnail.

In an inspired feat of cross-promotion, Hasbro produced a television cartoon called G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero as a vehicle to sell toys. It debuted as two five-part miniseries in 1983 and 1984 and ran as a regular series from 1985 to 1987. The show introduced new heroes, villains and storylines, spawning an ever-increasing number of action figures and turning viewers into avid collectors.

Each episode concluded with a Joe teaching kids valuable lessons like, “don’t go with strangers,” “don’t paint your bike in the garage,” and “blind kids can find lost kittens, too.” The kids would say, “Now we know!” and Joe would reply, “And knowing is half the battle!”

Now you know.

January 31 is Scotch Tape Day

January 31, 2017/2 Comments/in January

Today is Scotch Tape Day and celebrates the invention of cellophane tape in 1930. The story begins in the early 1920s at Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing, now known as 3M, which made only sandpaper at the time. Richard Gurley Drew, a banjo-playing college dropout hired as a research assistant, soon changed the course of the company’s history.

While delivering sandpaper samples to an auto body shop, Drew noticed painters’ frustration with the tape they used to mask car parts. Overly sticky, it ripped off bits of paint when removed, ruining the detail and forcing them to start over. He made it his goal to find a solution to their problem.

For the next few years, Drew experimented until he found the perfect combination of treated crêpe paper, cabinetmaker’s glue and glycerin. It adhered well yet stripped off easily without taking paint with it when removed. Automakers immediately recognized its value and began placing orders for it. The tape was marketed as Scotch Masking Tape in 1925.

Drew rose quickly through the ranks. In 1929, he struck upon the idea of using DuPont’s recently invented cellophane to make transparent tape. Cellophane was a moisture-proof material used to wrap and present baked goods and grocery items. Its only drawback was the difficulty of sealing packages securely and attractively. Drew hoped to develop tape that would blend with the wrap.

The machinery used to apply adhesive to masking tape was ill-equipped to deal with cellophane, which curled and ripped. The amber glue used on masking tape looked terrible on a transparent surface. Drew and his team had to design new machines and a new clear adhesive made from a combination of oil, rubber and resins.

The resulting Scotch Cellulose Tape was introduced in 1930. By that time, DuPont had already developed a new type of cellophane that could be sealed with heat, negating the need for tape. Despite the fact that Drew’s invention missed its target market and debuted during the Great Depression, the adhesive tape sold well to thrifty customers.

In fact, the desperate times may have spelled success for Scotch tape when other products would have failed. Even the racial slur the name is supposedly based on may have helped boost its sales. Scottish people were considered stingy. It was an ethnic stereotype that served 3M well: when money is scarce, stinginess is a virtue and a “cheap” product is a smart buy.

3M later promoted the legend with ads featuring “Scotty McTape,” a cartoon mascot who repeated the story that in 1925, auto painters told a 3M rep (presumably Drew) to go back to his “Scotch” bosses and tell them to put adhesive all over the tape. That’s unlikely since 3M didn’t make tape at the time and, in any case, the problem for the painters was that the adhesive was too strong.

Soon Scotty McTape was declared a member of Clan Wallace and began wearing its red tartan (and Wallace Hunting green plaid.) In the early 1970s, it was decided that McTape was no longer an effective marketing tool and the character was retired. The casual racism of Scotch tape’s name has been forgotten. Dispensers decorated in plaid are purchased every day with no awareness of their association with the clan of William Wallace, also known as Braveheart.

Richard Drew died in 1980 and was posthumously inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame for U.S. patent number 1,760,820. While working for a sandpaper manufacturer, he invented a tool that has become an essential part of our lives. The next time you reach for adhesive tape, at home or the office, take a moment to imagine life without it. We can’t but, thanks to Mr. Drew, we don’t have to.

Happy Scotch Tape Day!

January 29 is Curmudgeons Day

January 29, 2017/0 Comments/in January

Today is Curmudgeons Day, which celebrates the birth, in 1880, of comedian, writer, drinker and self-professed curmudgeon W.C. Fields.

William Claude Dukenfield grew up in Philadelphia, PA, a city that later became the butt of many of his jokes. While this is true, many other aspects of his origin story are difficult to substantiate.

He adopted the name W.C. Fields as a vaudevillian in 1898 and took delight in recounting a tragic personal history. Fields allegedly ran away from home after his alcoholic father beat him over the head with a shovel, ending up sleeping in a hole in the ground, stealing food and clothing to survive, and was often caught and thrown in jail.

At thirteen, he supposedly got a job as a juggler on a pier in Atlantic City, NJ. When business was slow, he would feign drowning at the behest of his employers, who believed the fake rescue they then staged would draw in customers.

Like the best lies, his story had elements of truth. He did sometimes run away from his short-tempered father, but only as far as his grandmother’s house. He was developing a juggling act. But at age seventeen, he was living at home and performing it at church and local theaters.

In actuality, Fields did begin his career in vaudeville and took his stage name in 1898. (He specialized in pretending he’d lost the items he was juggling.) But his family supported him and saw him off on his first tour.

By the early 1900s, he was a headliner in the U.S. and Europe and was often referred to as the world’s best juggler. He toured Australia and South Africa in 1903. By 1904, Fields had become so successful that he bought his father a summer home and enabled him to retire. That’s a heck of a way to repay the man who hit your head with a shovel.

He performed at Buckingham Palace and took the stage at the Folies Bergère when Charlie Chaplin was on the docket. Fields wrote and starred in his first film, Pool Sharks, in 1915. He appeared in the Ziegfeld Follies from 1915 through 1921.

In 1923, he made his Broadway debut in the musical “Poppy,” then reprised the role two years later in D.W. Griffith’s screen adaptation renamed Sally of the Sawdust. By 1944, Fields had made 41 films, including The Bank Dick, My Little Chickadee and Tillie and Gus.

Fields was a staunch advocate of drink and had one in his hand much of the time. (A favorite line: “I certainly do not drink all the time. I have to sleep, you know.”) It should come as no surprise that wear-and-tear on his body caused by alcohol finally did him in.

In the early months of 1945, Fields was admitted to Las Encinas Sanatorium in Pasadena, CA. He never left, dying of a gastric hemorrhage almost two years later, on December 25, 1946—the holiday that Fields, an atheist, said he most despised.

He might have gotten a kick out of the fact that he has a medical condition named after him. Rhinophyma, a form of rosacea that causes the nasal tip to redden and become bulbous, is sometimes referred to as “W.C. Fields syndrome” or “whiskey nose.”

He would certainly be a fan of Curmudgeons Day. He said so many curmudgeonly things in his life, movie scripts, and in ad libs during filming that a Google search for “W.C. Fields quotes” returned 633,000 results. We recommend you make a snack before you dive in. You’re going to be online for a while. Here are a few to whet your appetite:

“Start every day off with a smile and get it over with.”

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then give up. No use being a damned fool about it.”

“I am free of all prejudices. I hate everyone equally.”

“Children should neither be seen nor heard from, ever again.”

“I never vote for anyone. I always vote against.”

“I do if they’re properly cooked.” — (when asked if he liked children)

One frustrating element of Curmudgeons Day is its stubborn resistance to punctuation. Should we read it as a mere grammatical error? Is it written this way by a curmudgeon to irritate other curmudgeons (and the odd English major?) We’ll let you decide.

Happy Curmudgeons Day!

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