The Tree That Owns Itself

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In 1832, Col. William Henry Jackson of Athens, Ga., made an unusual bequest:

I, W. H. Jackson, of the county of Clarke, of the one part, and the oak tree … of the county of Clarke, of the other part: Witnesseth, That the said W. H. Jackson for and in consideration of the great affection which he bears said tree, and his great desire to see it protected has conveyed, and by these presents do convey unto the said oak tree entire possession of itself and of all land within eight feet of it on all sides.

So goes the legend. Legally the land is probably part of the right-of-way along Finley Street, but Jackson’s wishes have been honored in spirit: When the original tree fell in 1942, the townspeople grew a replacement from one of its acorns.

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Yamamoto Meets Wile E. Coyote

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In early 1945, Americans in western states began to notice something odd. Explosions were heard from Alaska to California, and some people reported seeing parachutes and balloons in the sky.

Newsweek ran an article titled “Balloon Mystery” but was soon contacted by the U.S. Office of Censorship, which was trying to keep the story quiet. It seems the Japanese were using balloons to float bombs over the continental United States. At first it was thought the balloons were being launched from North American beaches, but scientists who studied the sand in their sandbags eventually determined they had been launched from Japan itself. The jet stream could carry a high-altitude balloon across the Pacific in three days.

Japan, it turned out, had launched more than 900 such balloons, and 300 have been found in America. The censorship prevented any word of success from reaching Japan, so the project was soon discontinued. But there was, sadly, some success: On May 5, 1945, a 13-year-old girl tried to pull a balloon from a tree during a church picnic. It exploded, killing a woman and five children.

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Holiday for Vowels

“In an old church in Westchester county, N.Y., the following consonants are written beside the altar, under the Ten Commandments. What vowel is to be placed between them, to make sense and rhyme of the couplet?”

P.R.S.V.R.Y.P.R.F.C.T.M.N.
V.R.K.P.T.H.S.P.R.C.P.T.S.T.N

— Charles Bombaugh, Facts and Fancies for the Curious From the Harvest-Fields of Literature, 1860

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Rumors of My Death …

Physicist James Van Allen outlived his own obituary writer.

As Van Allen approached old age, the Associated Press assigned writer Walter Sullivan to prepare a story that could be published on his death. Sullivan did so and died in 1996, but his story sat in the file for 10 more years before Van Allen finally passed away at 91.

| Death · Oddities

Curse of the Colonel

American baseball teams famously blame their losing streaks on curses — for instance, the Red Sox’ long drought after selling Babe Ruth.

But the most colorful such curse is not even American. During a victory celebration in 1985, fans of Japan’s Hanshin Tigers threw a statue of Colonel Sanders into a canal in Osaka. That act started an 18-year losing streak.

The Colonel apparently relented in 2003, when the Tigers finally won a tournament. To prevent a relapse, the local KFC bolted down its statue.

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The Spider and the Fly

dudeney, the spider and the fly

Another puzzle from Henry Ernest Dudeney, The Canterbury Puzzles, 1908:

“Inside a rectangular room, measuring 30 feet in length and 12 feet in width and height, a spider is at a point on the middle of one of the end walls, 1 foot from the ceiling, as at A, and a fly is on the opposite wall, 1 foot from the floor in the centre, as shown at B. What is the shortest distance that the spider must crawl in order to reach the fly, which remains stationary? Of course the spider never drops or uses its web, but crawls fairly.”

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