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    Uncle John's Facts to Go Nice People
    Uncle John's Facts to Go Nice People
    Uncle John's Facts to Go Nice People
    Ebook98 pages1 hour

    Uncle John's Facts to Go Nice People

    By Bathroom Readers' Institute

    5/5

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    About this ebook

    Restore your faith in humanity in just 50 pages.

    This very special e-book will lift your spirits with inspiring stories of heroism, overcoming adversity, random acts of kindness, wise thoughts, and some really weird tales of people who benefitted from amazing luck. So put on your rose-colored glasses and curl up with these Uncle John’s gems—both old and new—that prove once and for all, the glass really is half full! Some heartwarming examples:

     

    • The origin of Mother’s Day
    • Strangers who saved the lives of strangers
    • The anonymous good deed that led to the “Pay it Forward” movement
    • How Rodney Dangerfield finally got some respect
    • The biologist who wrote a book and gave birth to the modern environmental movement
    • The bus driver who gave a man his shoes
    • The heroes of September 11th
    • Crime-stopping kids

    And much, much more!
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPortable Press
    Release dateApr 1, 2014
    ISBN9781626862388
    Uncle John's Facts to Go Nice People
    Author

    Bathroom Readers' Institute

    The Bathroom Readers' Institute is a tight-knit group of loyal and skilled writers, researchers, and editors who have been working as a team for years. The BRI understands the habits of a very special market—Throne Sitters—and devotes itself to providing amazing facts and conversation pieces.

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      Book preview

      Uncle John's Facts to Go Nice People - Bathroom Readers' Institute

      UNCLE JOHN’S

      STALL OF FAME

      Let us begin this uplifting e-tome with some of the nicest bathroom stories we’ve ever flushed out.

      Honoree: Cody Yaeger, 10, a fourth-grader at Jamestown Elementary School in Hudsonville, Michigan

      Notable Achievement: Striking it rich in the bathroom… and being honest enough to report it

      True Story: In May 2004, Cody was making a pit stop at school when he found something unusual inside a roll of toilet paper—a neatly folded $100 bill. The bill was so perfectly tucked into the roll that it seemed like it must have been put there by someone at the toilet paper factory. Cody knew the money didn’t belong to him, so he took it to a teacher. The school’s lost-and-found policy states that if, after two weeks, nobody claims the item, the person who found it gets to keep it. Two weeks later, no one had claimed the money, so Cody became $100 richer. His mom, Terri, says she isn’t surprised that he acted so honestly. When it comes to school or church, when he finds something, he turns it in, she says. But if it has anything to do with his sister, he’ll keep it.

      Honoree: The city of Hampton, Virginia

      Notable Achievement: Creating new life with old toilets

      True Story: In 2000, city officials began a program to collect old toilets, sinks, and other porcelain fixtures that could be used to rebuild oyster beds in the nearby Back River that have been damaged by pollution and disease. The city collected fixtures for about two years, then smashed them into pieces about the size of oyster shells (baby oysters like to attach themselves to mature oyster shells) and built an artificial reef in the Back River.

      Four years later, scientists examined the reefs to see if the oysters were putting the toilets to good use. Sure enough, they were—in samples taken from the reefs, just as many baby oysters had attached themselves to the toilet shards as had attached themselves to real oyster shells. Really, anything that’s made into the size of a shell, is hard, and doesn’t float, oysters will find it and grow there just fine, says Jim Wesson, the director of oyster restoration at the Virginia Marine Resources Commission.

      Honoree: Steve Oswald, a Michigan merchant

      Notable Achievement: Cleaning his town’s filthy public rest-rooms…for a price

      True Story: August is the busiest time of year for the popular tourist destination of Saugatuck, a culture and arts mecca on the shore of Lake Michigan. But in 2008, Oswald received several complaints from out-of-towners about the state of the city’s dirty restrooms. After looking at them himself, Oswald agreed: I wouldn’t have sat down there, either. He tried notifying the city council, but no one called him back.

      So Oswald took matters into his own hands and cleaned up a few of the filthiest loos near his shop. Afterward, he sent a cleaning bill to the city for $156.94. Saugatuck’s mayor thanked Oswald for his civic-mindedness, but refused to pay, saying it might set the wrong precedent. That didn’t surprise Oswald. He only sent the bill as a matter of principle. He just wants the town to stop grossing out its most important economic stimulators—tourists. (The city council promised to hire more cleaners.)

      Bonus: As a token of appreciation (and in lieu of payment), the mayor presented Oswald with Saugatuck’s first ever Golden Plunger Award (a plunger spray-painted gold). I will display this proudly in my window as a symbol that one person can make a difference, said Oswald at the ceremony.

      Honoree: The government of Suwon, South Korea

      Notable Achievement: Using clean bathrooms as a foreign-relations tool

      True Story: In this era of globalization, declared a Suwon government official, it is important to become the leader in the world in the cleanest bathrooms. The city has spared no expense in making that a reality. There are 580 plush public restrooms with heated toilet seats. Visitors can enjoy violin music (piped in through speakers) along with tasteful paintings and flower arrangements to keep the mood fresh. Suwon makes a little extra on the side by giving guided tours, and well-to-do ironic hipsters sometimes meet in the fancy bathrooms for tea.

      The only way to have a friend is to be one. —Ralph Waldo Emerson

      RING BELL FOR SERVICE

      It’s one thing to talk about helping the poor and downtrodden… but going to where they live and actually doing it is quite another. Here’s the story of one simple idea that has made a huge impact around the world.

      A CALL TO ARMS

      William and Catherine Booth never set out to start a new church. But in 1865, the Methodist minister and his wife realized that they had a higher calling than merely giving sermons to London’s well-to-do citizens. Wanting to give help where it was needed the most, they opened the East London Christian Mission in one of the city’s most impoverished areas. While William preached to the poor, Catherine sought funds from the rich to fund a shelter and donation center.

      In May 1878, when William and his son Bramble were working on their annual report, Bramwell objected to a sentence that read, The Christian Mission is a volunteer army. He argued that he wasn’t a volunteer, because he felt compelled by God to help the poor. So Booth crossed out the word volunteer; in its place, he wrote salvation…and the Salvation Army had its name.

      The new church was set up in a quasi-military fashion; William became General Booth, and recruits start out as cadets. The Booths adopted what they called the three S’s: First, soup; second, soap; and finally, salvation. Today, there are 1.5 million Salvationists in 126 countries.

      A PROMISE MADE…

      The famous red kettle comes from San Francisco. In the winter of 1891, a Salvationist there named Captain Joseph McFee vowed to provide a Christmas dinner for anyone who couldn’t afford one. He expected a huge turnout. His only problem was paying for it.

      McFee thought back to his sailing days in England and remembered the large iron kettle that stood at Stage Landing, Liverpool. It was called Simpson’s Pot, and generous sailors heading to and from the ships would toss in a coin to help feed the poor. McFee wondered if a similar pot would work

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