Author: wdfyfe

Before WD called himself a writer, he worked at a number of different jobs from stacking lumber to interior design. He studied English at UBC and creative writing at ASU where one of his teachers, Rita Dove, taught him the importance of the tale. He has written for radio, magazines and newspapers, but never television. He’s published both fiction and nonfiction in Great Britain and the US. He reads French passably and speaks enough Spanish to get from A to B and find the toilet. He has interviewed John Cleese, Peter Ustinov, Margaret Drabble, Kenneth Branagh and enough other famous people to make him a hopeless name dropper. His not-so-secret passions are history and trivia, and he has never lost a game of Trivial Pursuit — although he did come 4th one drunken Quiz Night at the Uxbridge in Notting Hill. He lives on the Pacific Ocean, although, not close enough to see, so he spends his days looking at a computer screen. It’s a wonderful life and he has only one regret: he can’t type faster.

History’s Mysteries

Mislaid Millions

In the spring of 1945, World War II was just about over.  American bombers by day and British bombers by night were pounding Germany cities into rubble.  General Patton’s tanks were sweeping east, racing for Berlin, where the Russians were already on the outskirts.  In short, Nazi Germany was being squeezed to death.  At the center of the inferno that was Berlin stood the Reichsbank, its buildings blown to ashes but its huge reserves of gold still intact – including the millions looted from Europe during the war.  The question was: what does one do with over a billion Reichsmarks in gold?  It was decided to hide it underground and the vast majority was shipped to the Kaiseroda mine, 200 miles south of Berlin.  Within weeks, General Patton’s army overran the area and seized the stolen assets of the collapsing Nazi regime, every cent of which has been accounted for.  However, not all the gold made it to the Kaisarode Mine.  There are records that show a smaller but still vast treasure was sent to the Bavarian Alps, to be hidden there.  It never got there.  Somewhere in the chaos, what modern speculators say could be as much as $50 million in gold, was “lost.”  What happened?  It’s nearly impossible to tell.  Immediately after the war, several people were caught with small amounts of the “lost” gold, but none of them knew anything about what had happened to the majority of the treasure.  There have been several theories put forward, but none of them answers the two basic questions: how does one hide $50 million in gold, and how does one then transport it undetected?  Occasionally, a stray bar or two will surface in odd places like Canada and Thailand, but, so far, their “ownership” has not been traced.  Ironically, the Nazis themselves put certain impurities into their gold ingots so that it could be easily identified.  There have been a few cases of golden objects with these exact impurities found, but, unless one is specifically looking for Nazi gold, these impurities go undetected.  So, unless someone confesses, the whereabouts of the “lost” Nazi gold will remain a mystery.

 Ice Age Map

In 1929, a minor clerk working in the Turkish Archives in Constantinople found a map of the world.  The inscriptions on it said that it had been drawn for the Turkish Admiral Piri in 1513 and that it was based on several earlier maps, including one of the ones Columbus used on the first voyage to America, in 1492.  The map caused a mild sensation because, not only was it a valuable historical record but it also showed both the American and African coasts, in fairly good detail.  This caused historians to speculate that a great deal more was known about the world in the 1500s than previously thought.  They never suspected how much, however.

After the initial wave of enthusiasm the map was put away with other documents from the period and largely forgotten about, for the next 25 years or so.  Then, in 1956, Arlington Mallery, a retired naval officer, happened to take another look at what had come to be called “The Piri Re’is Map.”  He noticed something that other researchers had missed: drawn at the bottom of the map was the continent of Antarctica.

How could scholars have overlooked an entire continent?  Very easily.  First of all, Antarctica was not known to exist until about 1820, so there was no reason to look for it on a 16th century map, and, secondly, “The Piri Re’is Map” shows Antarctica as it was before it was covered with ice.  Somehow, even though Antarctica has been covered in ice for over 10,000 years, Turkish mapmakers, in 1513, knew what it looked like!  Unfortunately, that is an impossibility.  In 1929, historians were surprised at the amount of detail on “The Piri Re’is Map;” in 1956, they were devastated.

Although there are many theories, none of them offers anything more than speculation.  The best hope historians have of solving the problem is that the inscriptions say that the map is a copy of some earlier maps.  Could there have been ships sailing the Atlantic before the last Ice Age?  Is Antarctica actually Atlantis?  Nobody knows, yet somehow someone looked under the ice of Antarctica, 400 years before modern seismologists did it with radar in the 1950s.  But how they did it remains a mystery.

The Highland Thing

In the upper reaches of Scotland, the summer season comes alive every year when herds of tourists, armed with cameras, head for the Caledonian Canal System.  These tourists aren’t there to admire the engineering feat that constructed the canal, however: they’re there to see, and maybe even photograph, the Loch Ness Monster.  “Nessie,” as she is affectionately called by the locals, has been promoting tourism in the area for at least 1,000 years.  As far back as the 5th century, there is mention of a strange creature who lived in the murky water of Loch Ness.  The legend goes that Columba, the great Christian missionary, frightened the monster back into the water where she now makes her home.  Since then, thousands of people have claimed to have seen something in the waters of Loch Ness, and, although some could have seen logs, or very big fish, and some could have been mistaken, chances are good that not every single sighting is the result of an overactive imagination.

The problem is that there has never been either an authentic photograph or an official search.  In the past, the Loch (Scottish for “lake”) itself prohibited that.  It is extremely deep, deeper than the North Sea, and, although not very polluted, thick and dirty with particles of peat that wash into it.  Even a few feet below the surface, there’s near-zero visibility.  Recently, however, sophisticated sonar and computer imaging equipment has been able to take “Nessie hunters” into the water, and, although they have found some strange things, including ancient weapons, on the floor of the Loch, Nessie herself has proved elusive.  They have detected that some thing (or things) are in Loch Ness.  These things are very large and move very quickly – sometimes even outdistancing sonar – but what they are remains to be seen – literally.  So, is there a Loch Ness monster?  Nobody really knows, but there’s very little evidence that says there isn’t and a whole bunch that says there is.  Yet, even though something just might be swimming around the murky waters of Loch Ness, as of right now, and in the near future, what it is and how it got there will remain a mystery.

Summer: A Time to Wonder Why

Sometimes, reading the news is not the best way to start your day.  I’m not going to recap the body count of disasters pending on our planet, but there seem to be a couple of bucketsful.  So much for the dog days of summer!  Remember when summer was a time when nothing much happened?  When the whole country painted itself into a Norman Rockwell corner and spent the next couple of months lying around, waiting for the colours to dry?  Summer was a time when the beer was cold, young girls were beautiful, old men sat in the park and hot dogs were haute cuisine.  A person could grab a book (that didn’t plug in) and read it or just sit on the grass and contemplate the wisdom of the world.  I’m not lamenting the passing of a former age.  I understand that Rockwell made up those Saturday Evening Post covers, Dennis the Menace was a brat and Father didn’t always know best.  But, however false it might have been, there was a certain security in summer.  It was warm and sleepy.  And there was a vague idea that the bad guys were taking their kids to the beach or something and wouldn’t be plotting our destruction again until after Labour Day.  We had time and leisure to stop and be serious, ask ourselves those insolvable questions or just wonder why.  Nobody ever wonders why anymore.  We all seem to take what we’re given and tough it out.

There’s a famine in the Horn of Africa.  People are starving to death where they stand.  At last count over 10 million folks in Somalia were on the endangered peoples list, and it’s only going to get worse.  It’s common knowledge that Somalia is a basket case country.  Nobody’s in charge, nobody knows what’s going on and nobody cares who does what to whom.  By all accounts, even the Mad Hatter’s is looking around and texting WTF.  But do you ever wonder why we can’t feed these people?  I don’t mean just today or for a while; I mean in the long term.  Why, with all the resources at our disposal we can’t face this human crisis and get things straightened out once and for all? I don’t mean to be flippant, but famines in Africa seem to be one ongoing event.  In my lifetime, millions have died, billions have been spent trying to save them, and nothing ever changes.  We can theorize and chatter all we want about neo-colonialism, addressing the root causes of poverty and blah, blah, blah.  But the reality is we’re doing something wrong.  Do you ever wonder why we keep doing it?

The bottom half of Europe is about to go under.  Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain are financially fast tracking themselves into Debtor’s Prison.  They’ve borrowed and spent more money than they can possibly pay back in ten generations.  Panic is no longer optional.  Currently, the best financial minds in Europe are wearing out calculators, trying to figure a way out of this economic crisis– and they aren’t having much luck.  But they better hurry because if things get any worse, it could possibly destroy the Euro and even the EU itself.  Do you ever wonder why responsible governments get themselves into these financial problems?  It’s obvious to everybody else on this planet that you can’t spend more money than you make.  Why hasn’t it occurred to any politicians?  Aside from times of war or natural disaster, governments should never be in debt.  I’m not saying governments should make a profit but they might try managing their citizens’ money a little better.  National pride alone should kick in somewhere.  It always amazes me that people who manage their own money responsibly allow their governments to act like drunken sailors.  (No offence to the nautical among you.)  And this has been going on since Nebuchadnezzar II borrowed millions to build The Hanging Gardens for no apparent reason — other than prestige.  But do you ever wonder why?

Finally, Rupert Murdoch was summoned to answer a few questions in front of members of the British Parliament.  This is the final act in a scandal that’s probably been going on for over a decade.  Murdoch is certain he’s ashamed of his organization, but he’s just as certain he’s not responsible for it.  To be fair, he probably isn’t.  I don’t think he has the technical knowledge to hack a phone.  And I doubt very much that the old boy stood in a shadowy alley and handed an envelope full of money over to Constable X for the police records.  However, the last time I looked hacking private telephones and bribing policemen were crimes.  Somebody is responsible for them, and the money had to come from somewhere.  It’s pretty cut and dried.  Unfortunately, in this case, although everybody admits villainy was involved, nobody admits to being a villain.  Don’t you wonder why somebody from Parliament didn’t just ask Murdoch who did it?  It’s a simple question: “If you didn’t do it, who did?  Where did the orders come from, and who carried them out?”  There are no complications here.  The guy was sitting there for a couple of hours.  He had time to get a pie in the face.  Yet nobody bothered to ask him who actually committed the crimes his company is accused of.  This is unbelievable!  Nobody has that much influence.

Tomorrow, I’m going to take my electronic newspaper out on the deck.  I’m going to sit in the morning sun — with my coffee — and wonder why.  Why with all our technology, knowledge and problem-solving ability, we can’t figure out how to feed people, manage our finances or convict criminals.  I’m going remember lazy summers, long gone, and try to figure out if I have any answers.  Maybe the folks who run the world should give that a try, as well.

Wit and Wisdom: Part II

Despite rumours to the contrary, the art of conversation hasn’t died.  It’s going on all around us — at 140 characters a second.  However, it’s ill; in fact, it’s in intensive care.  We don’t talk anymore because we don’t have to.  It’s a shame, but that’s the truth.  We communicate further, faster, to more people, more often, these days than at any other time in human history.  Unfortunately, it’s all without ever opening our mouths, although, sometimes the texting tongue is hard at work.  Wouldn’t it be the ultimate kick in the head to all the Fahrenheit 451 Doom Merchants (who’ve been predicting the end of books since the dawn of time) if we actually evolved beyond spoken language?  Could happen, but I doubt it.  We’d miss the sound, the cadence, the pause and that incredible nanosecond of recognition on the other person’s face.  Here are a few gems that might inspire you to help conversation get better.

Dorothy Parker (1893 – 1967)
Part of the famous Algonquin Round Table, Dorothy Parker had a wit that cut like a whip through warm butter and she didn’t care who got splashed.  She wrote for Vogue, The New Yorker and Vanity Fair, as well as writing a regular review column called “Constant Reader.”  Parker also wrote plays and worked in Hollywood as a screenwriter, but it is her ability to turn a phrase inside, outside and upside down that we remember today.

This novel is not to be tossed lightly aside, but to be hurled with great force.
The best way to keep children home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant — and let the air out of the tires.
Brevity is the soul of lingerie
The only “ism” Hollywood believes in is plagiarism.
That woman speaks eighteen languages, and she can’t say “No” in any of them.
Money cannot buy health, but I’ll settle for a diamond-studded wheelchair.
She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B. (reviewing Katherine Hepburn.
Men seldom make passes/At girls who wear glasses

Will Rogers (1879 – 1935)
Interestingly enough, the social commentary of humorist Will Rogers is as biting and relevant today as it was seventy years ago.  Rogers, whose “cowboy philosopher” made him famous, always credited his success to simple observation.  He appeared in movies and wrote a newspaper column, but it was his stage show that was the most popular.  It would be interesting to hear what Rogers had to say about how little things have changed since his time.

Income tax has made liars out of more Americans than golf.
Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.
Democracy is the form of government you have to keep for four years, no matter what it does.
I would rather be the man who bought the Brooklyn Bridge than the man who sold it.
Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.
The minute you read something you can’t understand, you can almost be sure it was drawn up by a lawyer.
I can remember way back when a liberal was one who was generous with his own money.
There’s no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.

Mark Twain (1835 – 1910)
Although Samuel Langhorne Clemens is noted for his novels (which include two classics of American literature, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn)  he was also a popular public speaker.  In fact, after losing most of his money to bad investments in 1893, he literally talked his way out of debt by lecturing around the world.  Here are just a few examples of Mark Twain’s famous wit and some of his comic observations.

There is no distinctly American criminal class — except Congress.
Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.
Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody.
If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.
An ethical man is a Christian holding four aces.
Wagner’s music is better than it sounds.
Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated. (reply to the New York Journal which reported him dead)

Anonymous
Greater than Mark Twain or Will Rogers, greater even than the great Will Shakespeare himself, the greatest wit of all time is, of course, Anonymous.  Throughout history, Anonymous has effortlessly plucked wisdom from what seems to be thin air and shared it with the world.  Brilliant and unselfish, “Anon” (as he and she are affectionately called by friends) is, a genius for all time.

Show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser.
Under capitalism, man exploits man; under socialism, the reverse is true.
It’s easier to get forgiveness than permission.
The people who think they know everything are very irritating to those of us who do.
If it wasn’t for the last minute, nobody would get anything done.
When you talk to God, you’re praying.
When God talks to you, you’re crazy.
Whoever said money can’t buy happiness didn’t know where to shop.
Happiness is a child whose father dies rich.

Internet (1972 – Present)
No greater democracy exists than the Internet.  Anybody — and I mean anybody — can be as smart or as stupid as they please, across the entire planet!  The witless wisdom of common humanity is on display 24/7 and nobody can stop it.  But, as a wise website once said, “Just because you can communicate doesn’t mean you have to.

Life is uncertain; eat your dessert first
I’ll be glad when they finally save the environment so I can go back to styrofoam cups.
Nobody ever bets enough money on a winning horse.
It’s like taking a broom and a cauldron to a witch hunt.
If you die with all the toys, you’re still dead.
Life is short: summer is shorter.
He’s got all of his marbles but some of them are square.
“Nouveau riche” is better than no “riche” at all.