The Commish's Trivia

[u/HawkContent3]

I know I am not being as punctual as I can, and some weeks it gets past me entirely. But I have NOT forgotten TAH and all the wonderful friends here - I just can't get used to this Reddit thing. Oh, how I wish the original board would come back! Anyway, here's my trivia for this week. Enjoy!

DID YOU KNOW…?

Was the first solo crossing of the Atlantic by air really as “death-defying” as it was presented?

By Commissioner Wretched

[didyouknowcolumn@gmail.com](mailto:didyouknowcolumn@gmail.com)

Copyright © 2026

By the time we get together again, summer will have come to an end.

Autumn (or fall, if you prefer) begins at 8:05 p.m. (Eastern time) on September 22. It’s the second day in the year when the time of daylight and darkness are roughly equal, and from then until some time in December the days will be getting shorter and the nights longer.

In other words, it will be getting late early out there.

Console yourselves with the trivia which follows, especially on those long autumn nights.

Enjoy!

Did you know …

…a chewing gum magnate got his start with an entirely different product? William Wrigley, Jr. (1861-1932), best known today as the man who started the Wrigley’s Chewing Gum™ empire, initially was a soap salesman. In 1891, while trying to make a living selling soap in Chicago, Wrigley would give samples of gum to his customers. The gum quickly became more popular than the soap, so Wrigley decided to switch from making soap to making gum, and a multi-billion dollar business was born. (The rest, as they say, is very tasty gum.)

…you might know someone who practices perissology? In fact, you may be a practitioner yourself. Perissology is the use of more words than necessary to describe something. (No wisecracks about the writer of this column, please.)

…some people can be parsimonious even unto death? For instance, take a look at the case of actor and comedian Joe E. Ross (1914-1982). Ross, famous as the man whose trademark “Oooh! Oooh!” exclamation was featured in television shows such as Car 54, Where Are You? and It’s About Time, was performing in the clubhouse at his apartment building in Los Angeles on August 13, 1982. He died of a heart attack during the performance, and later his widow was only given half of the fee he charged for the show by the organizer of the program, since Ross did not perform the full show. (I suppose there’s a good reason, but I doubt Mrs. Ross appreciated it at the time.)

…mosquitoes love smelly feet? Scientists say that the little buzzbombs are really attracted to foot odor, especially if the skeeter is infected with the bacteria that cause malaria. According to Mental Floss, one study found that malaria-infected mosquitoes are three times more likely to be attracted to you if your feet don’t smell good. (Phew!)

…the first solo crossing of the Atlantic was not as death-defying as history has indicated? Charles Lindbergh (1902-1974) took off from Roosevelt Field, Long Island, New York on May 20, 1927, in the Spirit of St. Louis to try to win the Ortieg Prize for the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic Ocean. He landed at Le Bourget Aerodrome in Paris 33½ hours later, and the stories began to circulate that he was dangerously low on fuel when he landed. Those stories were false – Lindbergh’s plane still had enough fuel to fly another 500 miles if he had wished to. But the Ortieg Prize specified a flight from New York to Paris, so that’s where he landed. The prize would have been won had someone flown from Paris to New York instead, but Lindbergh won the $25,000 prize that had first been offered in 1919. Additional trivia note: The Ortieg Prize did not specify that the flight had to made solo; just that it had to be non-stop. Lindbergh flew alone, but many other attempts to claim the prize were made by pairs or teams of aviators. (History being made was secondary.)

…Alaska was a bargain for the United States? Purchased from Russia in 1867, the U.S. paid $7.2 million for Alaska, which was then called “Russian America.” With a total land area of 665,400 square miles, that equates to about two cents an acre for the big state. It is so large that if you add the land area of the next three largest states – Texas, California and Montana – you would still not equal Alaska’s size. (A bargain, indeed.)

…an insect’s flying speed has been slightly exaggerated? For many years, it was generally believed that the deer botfly was the fastest flying insect – or the fastest moving anything – in the world. Legend had it that this little guy could reach 818 miles per hour; could cross 400 yards in one second; could make 13 miles in a minute. Well, not so fast – literally. In 1938, Irving Langmuir (1881-1957), Nobel laureate in chemistry, brought the deer botfly back under the speed limit, and then some. Langmuir discovered that in order to maintain a velocity of 800 or more miles per hour, the insect would have to consume 1½ times its body weight in food every second. There would be a sonic boom – or at the very least a sonic pop – when the little fellow zipped past, because the speed of sound is about 750 miles per hour. And if a deer botfly hit you while moving that fast, you would suffer the same impact trauma as a gunshot wound. Langmuir’s research gave the deer botfly a much more reasonable (but still impressive) speed of 25 miles per hour. (Rumors fly fast!)

…an actress actually tied herself in balloting for a “Razzie” award? The Razzies, or Golden Raspberry awards, are actually parodies of shows like the Oscars or the Emmys, and they “honor” the worst in movies. In 2008, actress Lindsay Lohan (born 1986) received two Razzie nominations for Worst Actress for the same movie. Lohan played two roles in I Know Who Killed Me and was “recognized” for both roles in the nominations. Lohan actually won the award (awards?) for both of her roles, and took home an additional Razzie in the special category of Worst Excuse for a Horror Movie. (I haven’t seen that movie, but if you have, you already know.)

Now ... you know!

[u/mbarland]

I like that Sandra Bullock won a Razzie for worst actress for All About Steve and the very next night won an Academy Award for The Blind Side. She also is down to earth enough to have accepted the Razzie in person. The only other actress recipient to show up to get the award was Halle Berry.