Trick or Treat!

Halloween is a time of ghouls and specters and candy and scary stories. With all holidays, there are traditions that seem strange if you partake out of that season. Halloween has an exceptionally strange tradition of children gallivanting around the neighborhood in a costume, knocking on a stranger's door, saying "trick or treat", then being handed candy. If your child did this in the middle of March, it might seem very strange. So, where did such an unusual tradition come form?

Trick or treating goes back a long time: back to the Middle Ages. Back then, poor people would go door to door on Hallowmas (November 1) who would receive food in exchange for prayers for the dead on the following day All Souls Day (November 2). This practice (known as souling) can be traced to the British Isles, but similar practices can be found around Europe. (A reference to this can be found in Shakepeare's play The Two Gentlemen of Verona.) The notion of a person wearing masks comes from ancient Celtic traditions of dressing up as evil spirits to pacify them. In Scotland, in the late 19th Century, a group of young men would dress up with black faces or black masks and white dress and carry lanterns. They would visit homes and in return would be given fruit, cakes, and money.

In North America, the first instance of going door to door while dressed up can be traced to 1911 where an Ontario newspaper reported children going "guising" around the neighborhood. Ruth Edna Kelley wrote a US history book in 1919 with a chapter called "Hallowe'en in America". She cited the origins for Halloween in her town as coming from the traditions from Europe that had become a custom adopted in America. Kelley's town was Lynn, Massachusetts, which had a large population of Irish, English, and Scottish immigrants.

The actual term "trick or treat" was not seen in a print form until 1927, in Alberta, Canada. Postcards of the era would show children dressed up or they might show tricksters of a ghoulish nature, but not exactly trick or treating, nor using the words. The term "trick or treat" didn't become a well-known term until the 1930's, and wasn't seen in a national publication until 1939. Typically, and mention of the term "trick or treat" came from the West and gradually moved East. World War II created a sugar shortage, which took until about 1947 to end. But the late 1940's and especially the 1950's, the term "trick or treat" spread quickly and because of increased attention from children's programming on TV and magazines, the modern idea of Trick or Treating came about.

Another interesting thing to mention is what happened when trick or treating went back across the Atlantic. Before the 1980's, the term trick or treat was not common in England and when it started to become more recognized, it was an unwelcome term. The English preferred guising because it  was "free from any threat". Trick or treating has been referred to as "making demands with menaces" and the "Japanese knotwood of festivals" (since Japanese knotwood is thought of as an invasive plant species that is highly undesired and unwelcome).

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Jack Pierce: A Cautionary Tale

Jack Pierce should be a household name, but he isn't. If you work in makeup effects in Hollywood, he would probably be one of your idols. However, his story is a tragic story of what can happen if you don't update yourself with the times.

Jack Pierce was born in Greece in 1889 as Janus Piccoula. He emigrated to the US in his teens and tried odd jobs, even trying amateur baseball. He eventually found his way into doing small jobs in Hollywood: actor, assistant director, stuntman, etc. But he knew that he would never be a big star because of his small stature, so in the 1920's, he focused on working with makeups for other actors. His star as a makeup effects guru was made when he created the famous face for actor Conrad Veidt in the title role of the film The Man Who Laughs, which is still a disturbing facial makeup to this day. He was then hired fulltime by Universal Pictures. Universal had made a name for itself with horror movies from the 20's, and together with Jack Pierce creating makeups for Lon Chaney, Universal was the company to beat with makeup effects. When Chaney died in 1930, many thought that Universal could not recover, but other actors stepped up to fill the mighty shoes that Chaney left. Most notably, Boris Karloff used a number of famous Pierce makeups (Frankenstein and The Mummy). Lon Chaney's son had his own career, and he used Pierce for memorable makeups as well (The Wolf Man). There was even subtle makeup for Bela Lugosi in the classic Dracula.

From the 1920's-40's, Jack Pierce won award after award for his amazing makeups, and created makeup designs that are still remembered and acclaimed to this day. He was well on his way to movie-making imortality... That is until the middle of the 1940's rolled around. Apparently, Pierce was a very difficult person to work with and not many people at Universal liked him. Lon Chaney Jr. in particular really disliked Pierce, saying that it took Pierce too long to do makeups and made them really painful. The other contributing factor in Pierce's demise was the industry itself was changing. He worked from a kit of his own making to create magnificent wonders, but new inovations in foam latex made makeups cheaper, quicker, and easier to work with. Pierce refused to work with anything but his own kit. In 1946, he ws unceremoniously fired from Universal.

In the 1950's, television became huge, and because of that, the major studios were downsizing to compete with television. Pierce's chance of working in movies was over, unless he would use the newer cheaper methods, which he continued to refuse to do. His last major work was on Mister Ed from 1961-64. He died in 1968. The man who created such amazing visuals for some of the most famous movies ever made was kicked out of the industry that he reinvented only because he wouldn't adapt to it. Recently, there has been a push to get Pierce a star on the Hollywood Boulevard, but it hasn't happened yet. Let that be a lesson!

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Bette Nesmith Graham

Few people know the name Bette Nesmith Graham (born as Better Claire McMurray), but they have probably used something she created. She was born in 1924 in Dallas, Texas. She married Warren Nesmith before World War II, but they divorced in 1946. Since she was then a single parent, she had to support herself, so she took a job at a bank. She rose to the job of executive secretary, which was as high a position as a woman could make in those days.

She used a typewriter everyday, and when a mistake was made, it was very difficult to fix. There were ink erasers, but one has to basically etch away the top layer of paper without breaking a hole in it. Bette began taking tempera water-based paint and a watercolor brush to work everyday and used that to correct her mistakes. Over the next few years, she used this to fix any mistakes that were made. She used her son's chemistry teacher sometimes to make improvements to the paint compound. She was told not to use the mixture on her work, but soon coworkers began wanting to use her mixture.

In 1956, she began selling her compound. She called it "Mistake Out". The name of the compound was changed to "Liquid Paper" a few years later when started her own company. She married in 1962 to Robert Graham, who helped her run the company. She evenrually sold Liquid Paper in 1979 to the Gillette for $47.5 million. Her company at that time had about 200 employees. She died the following year (1980) at the age of 56, but she left the legacy of the all-famous and ever-used "white out".

Possibly the most interesting note with the life of Bette (other than her literal rags-to-riches tale) was who her son is: Michael Nesmith of the Monkees.

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President for a Day..?

If the name David R. Atchison doesn't sound familiar, don't worry. It's not one of those memorable names from history class. But he does have a notable honor that has been bestowed upoon him: allegedly, he was President of the United States for one day.

What happened was on March 4, 1849, James Polk's term ended at noon, and Zachary Taylor was to be sworn in as President. March 4 was a Sunday, and Taylor refused to be sworn in until Monday, March 5. Taylor's running mate Millard Fillmore also refused to be sworn in until the next day. With no President or Vice President sworn in, the order of succession of that time then falls to the President pro tempore of the Senate, which was David Atchison. (Now, the Speaker of the House is before the President pro tempore.) So, the story goes that until Taylor took the oath on Monday, Atchison was President for a day.

The truth is much less dramatic. Atchison himself never admitted to being the President for a day, nor did he spread the idea that he was. Even the actual rules of succession dictate that Atchison wasn't actually President. Firstly, Atchison's tenure as President pro tempore of the Senate ended on March 3 when the session adjourned. Secondly, Atchison must take an oath of office, which he didn't do. And thirdly, there was no illness or death which prevented the President or Vice President from serving. Some of these rules were more clarified in the 25th Amendment in 1967, and the 20th Amendment in 1933.

Technically, the situation was nothing more than Taylor's official taking of the job on March 5, but his job actually began on March 4, even if he didn't take the oath of office until March 5. There was nothing official about Atchison's "Presidency", so one can't even call it "being President for a day". This is why you won't see Atchison's name on any lists of Presidents, unless you look in trivia books. Unfortunately, there is no legal basis for Atchison's "Presidency", so I'm sorry to say: Atchison was not President, not technically, not legally, not anything, even though Atchison's gravestone says "President of the United States for one day: March 4, 1849".

One more interesting note about Atchison on the day he was supposedly President: he slept through most of the day. Apparently, he had been up late for several nights, and he was catching up on his sleep. So even if you think of him as President for a day, he ended up sleeping for most of the day.

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Hiroo Onoda's Thirty-Year War

This is certainly one of the most bizarre stories that I've come across. Have you seen movies like Rambo and thought "The war has been over for like ten years, so why is he fighting? And why are they fighting?" Have you ever wondered about people who never got the memo that the war was over? That's exactly what happened to Hiroo Onoda, more or less.

Before we can begin this strange story, you have to understand the Japanese mentality in 1944. This was a "never give up, never surrender" society. They looked at being a prisoner of war as cowardly and punishable by death; however, some guerilla warfare schools at the time taught that a soldier should stay alive no matter what. They taught that under no circumstances should a soldier take their own life, and they should do anything to win against their enemy. They were taught to be suspicious of everything, especially of enemy tricks. The mentality of the time was that it would take 100 years to beat the Japanese, so they were taught to be willing to fight for the rest of their lives.

Hiroo Onoda was trained in such a place. He was drafted in 1942, and at the end of 1944, he was sent to a little island Lubang, just 75 miles from the Philippines. His orders were to 1.) do anything to frustrate the enemy's actions on the island (which included destroying the airstrip and the pier in the harbor), 2.) not take his own life, and 3.) take as many years as he needed to fulfill his mission. He was sent alone to the island and joined a group of Japanese already in place, but since he was not the senior officer, he was not able to take out the airstrip or the pier. The Americans landed February 28, 1945, and easily took over the island. Onoda was recently promoted to Lieutenant, and the last officer, so he ordered the remaining men to the mountains. The only Japanese soldiers who had not been killed or captured were Onoda and three others (Akatsu, Shimada, and Kozuka).

The four Japanese soldiers basically resorted to survival in the mountains. They raided the villages and soon developed the names "mountain devils" and "mountain bandits". They survived mostly on bananas and berries. Occasionally, they would shoot water buffalo, wild boar, wild chickens, and iguanas. They wouldn't hunt too often not to give away their position. They would frequently move to keep from being discovered.

Akatsu was the first to leave the group. He was tired of the whole thing, so he left in 1949 and surrendered to the Philippine Army. He left a note for Onoda which said he was found by friendly troops and urged them to join him. Akatsu even took an expedition of Philippine soldiers into the mountains to find Onoda's group, but Onoda assumed that Akatsu had switched sides and was working with the enemy. In 1952, a plane flew over and dropped and letters from family and friends to coerce the men out of the mountains, but this was thought to be a very clever attempt to get the men to surrender, so they stayed in hiding.

In 1954, a search party was looking for the men, when Shimada was killed by a stray bullet from the search party, which left only Onoda and Kozuka. A few days later, more flyers were dropped from a plane, while a loudspeaker blared that the war was over. Onoda and Kozuka didn't believe them, so they continued their hiding. That same year, Onoda's own brother spoke on a loudspeaker urging him to come out of hiding and that the war was over. Since they were somewhat far away and could not see the speaker's face, they thought it was another American ploy to get them to surrender.

In 1965, they stole a radio and listened to radio reports from China, but since their minds were stuck 20 years in the past, they didn't believe what they heard about politics or foreign affairs. The only thing that lifted their spirits was that Japan had grown into a major industrial society, which only bolstered their efforts.

In 1972, Onoda and Kozuka were burning rice piles of the islanders. The police were able to arrive and Kozuka was killed, but Onoda escaped back into the wilderness. Search parties, continuous droppings of leaflets, loudspeaker pleadings, and the leaving behind of magazines and newspapers did nothing to draw out Onoda.

Oddly enough, what made Onoda finally retreat out of the jungle was a university dropout student (named Suzuki) who wanted to find Onoda, a panda, and the Abominable Snowman. He was camped on the island, and Onoda and Suzuki soon became friends. Suzuki said that he had to leave, but that he would return. On March 9, 1974, Suzuki left a note to Onoda along with two photos he had taken with Onoda, as well as a set of orders. Onoda decided to hike for two days to find Suzuki. When Onoda found Suzuki, he saw a special guest: Major Taniguchi, who had commanded Onoda back in 1944. Taniguchi gave Onoda verbal orders to surrender. He never surrendered officially, but he was relieved of duty.

Onoda returned to Japan and became a media sensation, but he hated the way the world had grown without him. He published his memoirs, then moved to Brazil to a small cattle farm. He married a Japanese woman in 1976, then moved back to Japan in 1984 to start a nature camp for kids. He is still alive today, and lives three months of the year in Brazil.

So, in conclusion, Hiroo Onoda joined World War II in 1942 and was sent to Lubang in 1944. Japan surrendered officially September 2, 1945, with the signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender aboard the USS Missouri. Onoda continued to believe the war was going on until 1974. So he had a 30 year war. You can read all about his adventures in his memoir: No Surrender: My Thirty-Year War.

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"The pretty blue-green light"

Marie Skłodowska-Curie is most known for her work with radiation. She studied elements such as uranium and thorium. She even discovered other radioactive elements: polonium (named after Poland) and radium. Her work with radium seems to be most remembered. She went on to study radioactivity, but never seemed to fully understand its effects on the human body. Many people know that she eventually succumbed to the effects of radioactivity.

However, some might not know that she treated test tubes of radium or polonium as if they were just nothing more than a simple ordinary compound. She routinely walked around her laboratory (which was basically a shed) with test tubes of radioactive elements in her pocket. She also would keep these samples in her desk drawer. In the dark, she would often comment about "the pretty blue-green light" the samples emitted in the dark. However, the damaging effects of radioactive isotopes were not known for some time.

Marie Skłodowska-Curie died on July 4, 1934, from aplastic anemia (a condition developing from prolonged exposure to radioactivity where bone marrow does not produce enough quantities of new cells to replenish blood cells, which in this case, it's all three: red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets). Interestingly, her notes from the 1890's are thought to be too radioactive to handle to this day. They are kept in boxes lined with lead. Anyone who wants to go through these papers have to be fully suited in a radiation suit. It has been mentioned that even her cookbook is too radioactive to handle freely.

On another note, Marie Skłodowska-Curie is currently the only woman who is buried at the Panthéon, Paris for her own achivements. She and her husband Pierre were moved there in 1995, which was a huge honor for Marie, even though it was 60 years after her death.

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Big Word: Honorificabilitudinitatibus

Honorificabilitudinitatibus sounds like a made-up word, but it does exist. Not only that, it's been around for quite a while. This long word simply means "honorableness". The word first showed up in the English language around 1600, and by the 1720's, it was called the longest English word (according to Bailey's Dictionary).

For those that are fans of William Shakespeare, they may recognize this massive word. Shakespeare actually used the word in the comedy "Love's Labor's Lost", in Act V, Scene I.

It reads:
"O, they have lived long on the alms-basket of words.
I marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word;
for thou art not so long by the head as
honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier
swallowed than a flap-dragon."

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