The number two is unluckier than number 13.
Parental pride breaks up a peck at line.
The thunder of machinery starts a great industry.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, those facts are all true.
And this is Lindsay McHarry saying that my cohorts and I shall be back in just one minute
and a half to prove them.
You know, there's a great deal of superstition that centers around the number 13.
It's supposed to be unlucky and in deference to some person's dread of it, hotels have
no 13th floor, no rooms ending in the number 13.
Some people will not sit down at a dinner table at which there are 13 guests present.
In Hollywood, some of the studios, there are no sound stages number 13.
Can you imagine that?
But we said that number two is far more unlucky than number 13 and it is.
However, in tarotology or fortune telling by cards, the number two by some authorities
is supposed to mean happiness, sunshine and so forth.
But to the rulers bearing the number two, it certainly doesn't have that meaning.
For royalty, number two is doubly dangerous and we may add to the old saying, uneasy lies
the head that wears a crown by adding, and uneasy is the ruler who is the second of his
name.
The proof?
Listen to this.
Some strange, even weird aura of doom surrounds the number two when it is applied to a ruler,
be he king or emperor.
For listen.
Nicholas II of Russia.
Shot down with his family at a Katerinburg, Russia, July 16, 1918.
William II of Germany.
Abdicated 1918 at the close of the World War.
James II of England.
Died in exile September 17, 1701.
Mancisco II of Sicily.
Died in exile December 27, 1894.
Charles II of France.
Deposed date 87 A.D. Died in poverty in exile January 18, AD 888.
Alexander II of Russia.
Murdered by near-less bombs March 13, 1881.
Richard II of England.
Abdicated September 30, 1399.
Died in prison February 1400.
And so runs the list, but it isn't finished.
The following rulers were either murdered, abdicated their thrones, or were deposed by
force.
Charles II of Anjou.
Frederick II of Germany.
William II of England.
Manuel II of Portugal.
John II of France.
Peter II of Russia.
Harold II of England.
France II of Germany.
Edward II of England.
Ethelrod II of England.
And there is the list.
The fatal number two carried those crowned heads to either violent death or loss of country
and throne.
Can you imagine that?
Well here's a neat little bit of philology, meaning the study of language.
In the late 1860s in San Francisco there lived a gang of what we'd call today hoodlums.
They wore spring-bottom trousers taken from early Spanish styles for men, double-breasted
coats and broad brimmed black hats.
Their leader was a bully named Bill Hood, and Hood and his gang became such a scourge
in the community that local police came to call them, yes, the word is, hoodlums.
H-O-O-D-L-U-M-S.
And of course from the name of the leader, Hood, H-O-O-D.
Can you imagine that?
Well monkey see, monkey do.
I'll bet there isn't a parent in the country who hasn't said that to daughters or sons.
Well here's a case, a very funny one.
It seems that in Chatham, Ontario on February 18, 1937, a group of workmen were picketing
a building which was being dismantled.
A group of boys, curious, edged closer.
Finally one of them got up enough nerve to ask,
Say mister, I uh, me and my pals here, we'd like to carry those banners for a while.
Go away son, it's a business.
Oh please mister, we want to have a parade.
No listen, no listen.
Hey, let the kids carry them for a while, I'm tired.
Sure, you can sit down and rest and me and my friends will carry them, we want to.
Huh?
All right, here, take this one.
Get your buddies to take the other one.
You bet.
Hey Billy, Ed, Tommy, hey Smiley, we're gonna get to carry the banners for a while.
We can have a parade.
And carry the picketing banners they did.
Crowdily they marched up and down, their small shoulders carrying the burdens willingly,
in fun, but soon,
Sure, I was telling you.
Hey wait a minute, isn't that your kid over there in front of that building?
Yeah.
Huh?
Where?
There, carrying that banner.
Hey, it looks like those kids are picketing that building.
Oh good grief, look at that banner, holy smoke, listen, I gotta get that away from the kid
before my wife hears about it and those other kids, you go ahead, we'll catch up with you.
Well, maybe that isn't so funny, but it does get funny when we learn what the banners the
boys were carrying had painted on them.
In big letters, huge enough for all to read were the words, we want food.
Can you imagine that?
You remember, of course, that when Christopher Columbus first landed on the island of Guanahani
in the West Indies, and named this land San Salvador in commemoration of his miraculous
preservation throughout the long voyage from Spain, he believed that he had found a new
route to India, that this chain of islands really belonged to Eastern Asia, a belief
which he carried with him to his death 14 years later.
Well, here's a man whose memory carries with it the same sort of explorative error, Simon
Fraser.
Fraser was born an American colonial in Bennington, Vermont about 1776.
When he was only 16 years old, he became a fur trader with the Northwest Company, and
at the age of 26 became a partner.
Not contented with the trapping facilities in Eastern Canada, Fraser explored the region
beyond the Rocky Mountains and opened this vast territory for his company.
As he blazed through this unmapped, unknown country, he came upon a rushing river, coursing
its wild way through the series of deep gorges.
At first he thought he had discovered a new river, never before seen by the eyes of any
white man.
But upon consulting his charts, he decided he had come upon a portion of the Columbia
River, already discovered years ago.
When he returned to civilization, the British government decided that Simon Fraser had actually
made the discovery of a new river, and the Crown offered him a knighthood.
But believing his river was the Columbia, Fraser turned down the honor and died at the
age of 82, still refusing to realize that he had actually discovered the now famous
Fraser River.
Can you imagine that?
Sweet are the uses of adversity.
Of course everyone knows that quotation from Shakespeare, but here's a story of a man who
put it to practical use.
It was more than 25 years ago that a young man walked to his usual place in the factory
where he was employed.
In his hand he carried a rubber mat.
Very carefully he put it down on the floor and then stood on it.
Of course his fellow workers weren't going to let this seeming bit of odd behavior go
unheeded, and one of them asked the young man,
Hey, what's the big idea?
Going high hat on us?
What do you mean high hat?
Standing on a rubber mat.
Afraid of catching cold or something?
Not at all Ed.
I just got tired of having this machinery jar the daylights out of me.
This rubber mat I'm standing on takes out some of the shock.
Here, here, let me try it.
Sure, go ahead.
Well I'll be...
Now, that's something all right.
By golly it does help a lot, like standing on a soft cushion.
For several days the young man stood on his rubber mat.
Then the word spread around that someone stole the mat.
But that didn't stop the young fellow.
When he came to work another day...
What's the matter kid, get tired of bringing mats for other people to hook?
Nope, I got rubber mats now that nobody can steal.
You crazy, you ain't got no rubber mat there.
Yes I have Ed.
Here, take a look at the heels of my shoes.
See?
Say, ain't you the one nailing pieces of rubber to the heels of your shoes.
Nobody can steal them from you.
I'll say they can't Ed.
What's the matter?
Nothing, nothing, just thinking.
That's all.
And what did the young man think about?
Rubber heels.
His name was O'Sullivan and today his firm is one of the largest manufacturers of rubber
heels in the world.
Can you imagine that?
What national flag do you suppose is the oldest in the world?
No, it isn't the flag of Japan or Great Britain, certainly not Germany, Italy, nor France.
It's the flag of Denmark.
The simple cross of the Danish flag was selected as the national emblem more than seven centuries
ago in the year 1219.
Can you imagine that?
And now what flag do you think is the next oldest?
Well, all right, we'll tell you.
It's the Stars and Stripes of the United States, which was adopted on June 14, 1777.
The British national flag, the Union Jack, was adopted in 1801, the year of the Union
of Great Britain and Ireland.
And that Union gives the Union Jack its name.
Comes now the time for another lesson in musical oddities, or rather comes now the time for
you to test your wits and see if you can detect the traces of a popular song of a few years
back in one of the classic arias from Wagner's musical drama, Tannhäuser.
First we're going to have the orchestra run off a few bars to an evening star, which Wolfram
sings in Tannhäuser.
You ready?
All right, sharpen up your wits and try to catch part of the popular melody.
Did you get it?
Watch, you're not going to give up.
All right, here's the popular number.
It's Sweethearts.
Listen to it and you'll note the similarity.
And no pun intended there.
Listen to it and you'll note the same song.
Listen to it now.
And with that we turn you over to your own station announcer and say to you, this is
Lindsay McCarrie saying goodbye now.