Weird Myths

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either way he was a pragmatist, he did what worked.

There's another one about him inventing the assembly line. It's a bit of a gray area. He went to a slaughterhouse and watched as cattle came in, were killed, then went down a dis-assembly line of meat cutters who removed the various bits. He just reversed the order, an automobile frame was put together, then parts added as it went along. He did this because too many of the workers were standing around, waiting for the next car to be pushed to their area. He hated to pay workers for waiting.

a true self-made man. I remember his statement, "history is bunk."

There's a popular superstition in Korea called "fan death", where people believe that sleeping in a fully closed room (doors and windows shut) with the fan on is actually fatal. Apparently, the fan will suck away all the oxygen near the sleeping person and they end up suffocating. Spooky.

It's called Howard Hughes Spruce Goose. It still holds the record for the largest airplane to ever be made out of wood.

But it's not made out of spruce. It got that nickname because the words rhymed. It's actually made out of birch plywood. Nothing rhymed with birch.

if he had a bit of a fanciful alliterative flair, he coulda called it "the birch lurch."

Not quite the image he wanted to conjure ....

ok then, how 'bout "the tree spree"?

I think we can see how "Spruce Goose" took the day.

"The Flying Forest"!

Not only alliterative,and accurate (given the number of trees used) but it wouldve been a spoof of the nicknames of two other planes of its time: the B17, and the B29, both known as "the Flying Fortress".

It did have some spruce parts, but yes- 99 percent of it was wood other than spruce.

^^^
I shoulda thought of that.

Hitler was evil genius.

Hitler and his staff were not geniuses. When the news arrived that the Japanese Navy had bombed the USA Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hitler had no idea where that was. He turned to his staff and asked them, not a one of them knew. Which is a pretty funny picture if you think about it.

If you bring a cat aboard a ship or a boat, you'll have good luck for the trip.

Circus folk believed the color green was unlucky, so you never saw performers in green costumes. They also believed playing the harmonica was unlucky. They were superstitious, but their livelihood depended on good luck, such as fair weather for performances. A storm could cancel shows, and if it happened during a performance, could blow down the tents.

If you pour salt water into the coin slot of a vending machine, the vending machine
will dispense a free product.

^^^Soapy water,and it did work on coke machines in the early eighties.Learned about that in juvenile hall.There was also a way to tape two beer tabs together with electrical tape and use in machines that took quarters.You left a tape"tail"hanging and you jerked that out when you turned the knob.This was back in the day when clothes dryers were a quarter.

Other creepy old sayings.
That a cat will suck the breathe out of a baby.Old timers would never leave a cat alone with a baby.Most likely the cat was licking milk the baby spit up and wanted to sit somewhere warm,a frail baby maybe couldn't breathe if a large cat was laying on it.No intended malice on the cats part.
That cats will eat the face off a dead person.People would stay with the dead till they were buried so that animals didn't eat the face off.
That it's bad luck to bring red and white flowers to someone in the hospital.They look like blood stains on the sheets.
That it's bad luck to have peacock feathers in the house.
If a hen crows someone will die in the house.The old saying goes,"A giggling girl and a crowing hen will always come to some bad end."They told me this when my giggle box tumoed over.
That it's bad luck to light three cigarettes off one match.This is from combat,in the dark when the match is struck,your enemy sees it,the second person lights their cig,(picture how the tip glows when you inhale),the sniper now has his gun raised,then the third person lights the cig,the marksman shoots.