Futility Closet - 130-The Unlikely Ultramarathoner

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Futility Closet podcast, forgotten stories from the pages of history. Visit us online to sample more than 9,000 quirky curiosities from the longest nose in history to a ping pong table made of snow. This is episode 130. I'm Greg Ross, and Sharon caught a cold and lost her voice before we could record this intro. Australia's Westfield Ultra Marathon had a surprising entrant in 1983, a 61-year-old potato farmer who defied all expectations to win the race against a field of professional runners. In today's show, we'll tell the story of Cliff Young, whose indomitable

Starting point is 00:00:41 spirit inspired a nation. We'll also learn the difference between no and nay, and puzzle over a Japanese baby shortage. Thanks to Paul Duggan for his help with this one. In the 1970s, solo runners used to run along the Hume Highway between Sydney and Melbourne in southeastern Australia, trying to beat one another's records. This was before the running boom hit, and they were largely seen at the time as eccentric. But gradually, interest in the runs attracted the attention of marketing managers and

Starting point is 00:01:13 advertising agencies, and the shopping center group Westfield decided to sponsor a proper race. The first Sydney to Melbourne ultramarathon was planned for 1983, covering a distance of 875 kilometers or 544 miles between the two cities. It would be the most arduous road-running race ever attempted in Australia and, at the time, the world's longest. After the race was announced, the promoter John Tolman, his assistant, told him that they'd had contact from an interesting entrant, an old potato farmer named Cliff Young. He said, she didn't really think this guy was serious and nor did I. My direct boss at Doncaster didn't want some old geriatric causing us grief by dying during the race. So I decided to set up a date for me and Cliff to run together. So they did this. And at the time, Tolman was 27 years old. Cliff was 61. But he found that

Starting point is 00:02:00 Cliff kept up easily, even on steep hills, chatting throughout their run. So he led him into the race. Cliff Young had grown up on a farm in Beach Forest in southwest Victoria. At 61, he still lived there with his 89-year-old mother. The farm was about 2,000 acres with about 2,000 sheep. He said he was a terrible farmer at everything except rounding up the stock, which he did by running, wearing what are called gum boots, long rubber boots, because that area is wet and muddy. He'd taken up competitive running very late in life at age 57, but he found he was good at it, particularly at long distances. He regularly ran 20 to 30 kilometers a day before breakfast. The previous year, he'd won a 100-mile track race in Sydney and then attempted to run 1,000 kilometers but gave up halfway through,

Starting point is 00:02:40 blaming the failure on inexperience. So he wasn't a total novice at this, but he'd never attempted anything on the scale of the Sydney to Melbourne race, where all the other entrants were professional runners. It attracted 11 people altogether, if you include Cliff. The race would be between what were then Westfield's two largest shopping centers, one in Sydney and one in Melbourne. It was expected to take the runners seven days to complete. The Australian marathon runner Robert de Castella said, I think the prospect of getting to the stage of complete weariness and then knowing there are days and days to go is the ultimate test of endurance.

Starting point is 00:03:10 The first prize would be $10,000. Cliff had teamed up with another runner, Joe Record, as his training partner, and they agreed to split the prize if either of them won. Cliff had no money and little experience, so he assembled a team from the people he knew. As his manager, he chose Mike Tonkin, who was a mechanic at the local Mazda dealership. Wally Zunneberg, age 67, was the massage man for the local football club. Tonkin borrowed a panel van from his father-in-law, and his brother-in-law volunteered to drive it. The Westfield Marketing Executive Martin Noonan said, the other runners had mobile homes, hot showers, sponsored clothing,

Starting point is 00:03:42 multiple shoes, and assistance. Cliffy had one pair of shoes in the t-shirt I gave him. While training, he also had to manage his work on the farm. A week before the race, he was at home in Beach Forest digging potatoes and tending the garden. When he joined the other runners in Sydney, Cliff was wearing his first proper pair of running shoes that he'd ever owned. At a press conference before the race, reporters asked why he wasn't wearing the gumboots that had been mentioned in the press materials, and he said, gumboots, bah, these running shoes are great. They're so good, it takes me 200 feet to slow down and stop. The runners would be running along the Hume Highway, which is full of blind spots, or at the

Starting point is 00:04:16 time was full of blind spots, bends, and one-lane bridges. It was very dangerous, and it's just got all kinds of truck traffic between the two cities, and it's obviously not set up for long distance runners. And certainly not at that time. They'd get no special treatment at all on the road, no escorts, no taped off lane. So this is very dangerous on top of just punishing yourself with running 500 miles.

Starting point is 00:04:35 We have to contend with the traffic. Also, there's icy rain. I should mention through a lot of this, the weather was terrible. If that wasn't bad enough already. So you have to, you have to be careful.

Starting point is 00:04:43 Like a truck doesn't like slide into you in the EC room. Yes, right, on top of everything else. CB radio enthusiasts had volunteered to keep an eye out for runners and alert trucks along the way, but this had never been done before, so there was a lot of sort of seat of the pants, let's just see how this goes. Yeah, it sounds so informal. So they started on April 27, 1983, with 11 runners. They started from the Westfield Shopping Center in Sydney.

Starting point is 00:05:03 The pace at the beginning was very fast and unsustainable, and Cliff trailed the leaders for most of the first day. He ran with an odd shuffling gait that he developed running in gumboots, which is hard to describe. It's more like tottering than running. He would keep his hands at his sides and not even flex his knees the way you normally instinctively do when you're running. Sort of using his body as little as possible to cover the ground is the best way I can put it. I'll put a video for anyone who wants to see it in the show notes so you can see what it's like. I tried to make myself run this way on the run today, and it's just hard to make yourself do it. But to him, it came naturally. So he was running like he was still in gum boots, even though he's actually in proper running shoes.

Starting point is 00:05:40 Tolman thought this meant that he was tired, but in fact, it conserved energy because he's using his body as little as possible to still cover the ground, and that enabled him to keep running that night when the other runners had retired. At a turn in the road, he was running in the dark now. At one turn in the road, an oncoming truck startled him, and he fell onto the gravel. He said he was fine, but his support crew insisted he get some rest and food at that point. He had run more than 100 kilometers without eating. This was close to midnight. The crew were asleep, but Wally found him a can of beans, and he ate that and went to bed. The informal understanding, they hadn't set any formal hours for the race, because again,

Starting point is 00:06:13 this is the first time they'd done this. The informal understanding was that the other runners would start again at around 6 or 6.30 a.m., so Cliff and Wally had agreed that he'd get six hours of sleep, and Wally set an alarm clock. When the alarm clock went off, Wally woke with a start and then fell back into a doze confusedly and then sprang out of bed and ran to the van, telling Cliff that he'd fallen asleep and it was just after six in the morning. Cliff sprang out of the caravan and started running, and Wally, feeling bad, put on his own shoes and caught up with him, and the two ran together for a couple of hours. They didn't see any other runners. They didn't see any other runners, you know, equipment camped by the side of the road.

Starting point is 00:06:47 And as time went on, Wally became aware that the sun wasn't coming up. He realized that he set the alarm clock incorrectly. He found later that he'd set it to 2.30 a.m. Oh, no.

Starting point is 00:06:57 So this is just the first day. Cliff had run 100 kilometers, ate one can of beans. Oh, no. One writer I read said that he probably had burned 6,000 calories on the first day, and so had a deficit of 5,700, and now was on the road again after two hours sleep. It turned out that most of the other runners were sleeping in motel rooms in Middigong,

Starting point is 00:07:16 which was behind them. Cliff had just assumed that they were camped out by the side of the road as he was, so Cliff and Wally had thought that they hadn't passed the others yet. That's why they hadn't seen them when, in fact, they were all behind him in bed. So he had a huge lead of many miles. And the astounding thing for me, I mean, this is all astounding, I guess, but at this point, Cliff realized that this was an advantage, not sleeping and decided on his own to make this into a conscious tactic, just sleeping as little as he could in order to keep the lead, which amazes me. I mean, it would be crazy enough to do that, planning it in advance, but he did it by accident and then just decided to keep doing it, foregoing sleep to maintain

Starting point is 00:07:54 his lead. He told a reporter, I'm just an old tortoise. I have to keep going to stay in front. As word of this spread, not just that he wasn't sleeping, but that a 61-year-old man was in the lead in this 500-mile race, people started to turn out by the side of the road, cheering him on. He would wave to them, gaining confidence as the second day progressed. After 20 hours running, he came off, ate, slept for little more than an hour, and was off again. He'd covered more than 200 miles in the first 48 hours. And they had thought this race would take seven days to complete, so he's way ahead of the expected schedule. By the start of the third day, he had a 35-kilometer lead over Joe Record in the second place.

Starting point is 00:08:32 He was now at Gundagai, only 36 kilometers short of the halfway mark. He said, I'll show these jokers a thing or two before I reach Melbourne. By the third night, he'd run 327 kilometers. He began to think he dislocated his shoulder in his fall on the first night. He would wave to people who would come out to see him, but he always waved with his right hand because he couldn't lift his left arm. As I said, a lot of this was through icy rain. John Tolman lent him a rain jacket at one point, but he couldn't put it on because he couldn't raise his left arm because the shoulder was in such pain. Around the halfway mark, John Tolman, the race director,

Starting point is 00:09:05 tried to get him to take a painkilling injection in that shoulder, but he refused, having had a painful experience with needles years earlier. He just didn't trust him. So he just ran with what he began to think was a dislocated shoulder. This whole thing is just an exercise in just self-flagellation, just how much abuse can you take. Runner John Connellan, who withdrew on day four, compared the event to 11 people hitting their Runner John Connellan, who withdrew on day four, compared the event to 11 people hitting their heads against a brick wall, with the winner being the one who lasted longest. And now everyone involved, not just the runners, was exhausted.

Starting point is 00:09:35 Cliff's crew was going to bed at 11 and getting up at 2 and had to keep their van going, creeping along behind them. You'll see this in the video. At the pace he was running for 20 hours at a time just driving very slowly behind a runner at the side of the road without falling asleep or yeah losing your attention and right something and attending to his needs as they went along and running the can of pears or spaghetti out to him and just it's just punishing work so is he like eating as he ran yes can of pears or spaghetti? Yeah. The thing everyone says about him is that he

Starting point is 00:10:05 wasn't particularly fast. He just would keep going. Yeah. Just perseverance. Just sheer determination is what was keeping him going, but that was a gigantic advantage. All the other runners now were running at night to try to make up the ground, so everyone was just getting exhausted. Cliff was the first to reach albury the last city before they crossed from new south wales into victoria this is about the halfway point uh he had been asleep that night for an hour and a half when joe record crept into his van woke him up and said hello old buddy i've caught you sleep tight and took off running and cliff jumped out of bed and ran after him this was the only time in the race when another runner actually managed to catch

Starting point is 00:10:40 up to him and shortly afterward record got shin splints and had to stop up to him, and shortly afterward, Record got shin splints and had to stop. Cliff caught him up and passed him. Cliff was averaging three or four hours sleep a night on top of running all this distance. He said, I don't run at a real fast pace, but I put long hours in. I'm running about 18 hours a day, I'd say. At 9.30 p.m. on day five, he was less than 200 kilometers from Melbourne. Joe Record was now almost 40 kilometers behind him, and the third-place runner, George Purden, was 48 kilometers back. Three other runners had dropped out of the race at this point.

Starting point is 00:11:08 Cliff said, I know the others are faster than me, but I can keep in front if I can keep moving. They keep stopping to eat and drink, and they like their sleep too much. And just, here's a telling quote. He said, if death comes, it comes. I'm prepared to die before giving one of them other fellows the lead. My only concern is that it would upset Mom. She worries. Even when I train along the bush tracks of the Otway Mountains, Mom thinks I will not come back, that I will drop, but it really wouldn't worry me. I'd like to die like that. His sister eventually got word of how well he was doing and told his 89-year-old mother, Mary, that he looked like he might actually win this, so Mary set out for Melbourne to meet him there. She said, I hope he forgets all about it when he gets home. It came up like that. Let's hope it goes away as quickly. By now, his success had inspired the public, and hundreds of spectators were lining

Starting point is 00:11:53 the highway. Newspaper were following the story 24 hours a day, and the publicity drew crowds. A woman hugged and kissed him, and people patted him on the back and shook his hand. He ran the last 24 hours without stopping. Inspired by all this support, he said, they've come out to see me, so I thought I'd keep going. They'd been standing out in the rain, so I better keep on my feet, otherwise they'd get upset. He waved to the crowds, as I said, with his right hand only. He said later, the pain in my entire body, not just the shoulder, became worse and worse. Sometimes it got so bad I would scream in agony, but never when there were crowds around. I had my pride, you know. He said he wasn't thinking about the prize money at all at this point. He said all that counted was to finish and end the pain. When he reached the outskirts of Melbourne, it was raining,

Starting point is 00:12:31 but thousands of people lined the streets. The arrival was aired nationwide on television. The crowds inspired him to run the last 20 kilometers at the fastest pace of the race, which is incredible. When he reached the general post office just before midnight, police estimated that 5,000 people had come out to see him. His nearest rival was now 40 kilometers behind. He kept going toward the shopping center, joined by 30 young joggers for the final stretch. He crossed the finish line shortly after 1.30 a.m. with a final time of 5 days, 15 hours, 4 minutes, the equivalent of almost four marathons a day, shattering the previous race record by more than two days. day, shattering the previous race record by more than two days. He had run through bad weather, contending with massive trucks night and day, virtually nonstop, beating men who were half his age and had 10 times the experience. Altogether, he had run for more than 135 hours, averaging just over six kilometers per hour. He'd had 12 hours of sleep in the past six days, and he'd used 10 pairs of shoes.

Starting point is 00:13:21 And he'd lost altogether five kilograms, which is about 11 pounds, which is really not that much, considering. Yeah. The press immediately loved him. He was compared to Don Quixote, Gandhi, and Christ. Oh, my goodness. One friend called him the little Aussie battler, the guy no one expected to win. One newspaper said his win had done more for senior citizens

Starting point is 00:13:39 than any increase in the pension could. He was already into his fourth press conference when the second runner arrived, George Perdine. At the presentation ceremony, he was carried off the stage, his legs buckled underneath him, and he slept that night in a bed set up at the shopping center. Five more runners finished over the next day and a half. All of them beat the previous record, but all the attention remained focused on Cliff. After five hours of deep sleep, he was up giving interviews. Of his new status, he said, I'd hate to be royalty. I don't think I'm cut out to make such a public figure. I'm just a farmer, really. In less than a week, he received the

Starting point is 00:14:08 keys to three cities, a lunchtime reception with 8,000 people at the city square in Melbourne, a tour of the Victorian parliament by the premier, a year's free train travel, two trips to Queensland, an offer to represent the Guernsey Cow Association, a giant novelty check for $10,000, and a telegram from the prime minister saying, all Australians join me in congratulating you on a truly remarkable achievement. Back home, they declared a Cliff Young Day, dressed him in mayoral robes and regalia, gave him a homecoming parade, and asked Australia Post to create a stamp in his honor. They offered to build a monument to him. He asked that the money be used instead to build

Starting point is 00:14:42 a sheltered playing area at a local primary school. When they asked him what he would do with the prize money, $10,000, he said he'd split $6,000 with Joe Record, as they'd agreed, and the remaining $4,000 he'd share among the other runners, which brought him all kinds of acclaim. On hearing this, an interview show immediately gave him another $10,000. He ran the Westfield race, and later years, several times again, he never won, but he was still a physical prodigy. In 1992, when he was 70 years old, the University of Queensland athletic testing director, Peter Rayburn, tested him and said, in layman's terms, he's as fit as a fiddle. His aerobic fitness level is as high as a 25-year-old non-exercising man. He's strong as an ox. He was 70 years old when they did that. In 1997, at age 76, he tried to become the oldest man to run around Australia, meaning literally run around Australia, hoping to raise $100,000 for charity. He had to pull out of that after running 6,520 kilometers, not because he was in bad shape, but because his crew member became ill. He had one person traveling with him.

Starting point is 00:15:38 He was fine to continue. In 2000, he set a world age record for a six-day race in Victoria. His running style was widely emulated by ultramarathoners. It's called the Young Shuffle. It was considered more aerodynamic and expending less energy than conventional running. I think he'd just come up with it. It just seemed natural to him, but it actually does seem to be a very efficient way to run.

Starting point is 00:15:57 He continued racing right up until three years before his death at age 81, having run 20,000 kilometers in his competitive career. He was survived by all six of his sisters and brothers. One sister said, he's the first of us to go, but then he was always on the go. They sprinkled his ashes along the back roads

Starting point is 00:16:12 around Beach Forest, where he used to run. This episode is brought to you by our patrons and by Harry's, who remind you that guys can be hard to shop for. It can seem impossible to find something that's a thoughtful gift but is also useful and practical. That's why Harry's makes the perfect gift. If you haven't heard of them before, Harry's was started by two best friends, Jeff and Andy, who were fed up with being overcharged for razors, so they started their own razor company to give people what they deserve, a great shave at a fair price. I've mentioned Harry's before on this show. The blades are well made and really do give a great shave, and you can't beat the convenience of having them delivered right to your door.

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Starting point is 00:17:30 That's harrys.com, code CLOSET. In episode 128, we covered the Battle for Castle Ita, in which American and German soldiers joined forces in World War II to rescue a group of French prisoners being held at the castle. Paul Franzosa wrote and said, thanks so much for your piece on the Battle for Castle Ita. I wanted to make sure you heard about this great solitaire world war game, Castle Ita, which enables a player to play out the battle. This is how I first became aware of World War II's strangest battle. It's a print and play game, so with a good color printer, some cardboard, and some glue, you too can take control of the events of that battle.

Starting point is 00:18:11 Thanks for your great work. So this is a fun way to see if you can win the battle yourself. You control the forces defending the castle, and you win if you can keep the SS from reaching the castle before the reinforcements from the 142nd Infantry Regiment arrive. The force that you're in charge of consists of an American tank crew and infantrymen, Wehrmacht infantrymen, a former SS officer,

Starting point is 00:18:35 French prisoners, and an Austrian resistance fighter. So it sounds pretty similar to the actual defensive force from the actual battle. That's a great idea for a game because it's a nice small scale. It would be really dramatic to play that. Yeah. And you're also, besides just trying to hold the castle, you're trying to make it through

Starting point is 00:18:52 the game with as few casualties among the defenders as possible in order to earn the best score that you can. In the actual battle, there was only one casualty, which was pretty impressive given what they were up against. So that might be hard to beat in the game, I would think. So yeah, if you have more than one casualty, you was pretty impressive given what they were up against, so that might be hard to beat in the game, I would think. So yeah, if you have more than one casualty, you did worse than real life. James Nichols also wrote in about episode 128. Hi, it's James Nichols here again, he of the exploding rats.

Starting point is 00:19:17 And that's a reference to the rat bombs that we discussed in episode 101. Your episode about Castle Itta, the only time the Allies and Germans fought on the same side in World War II, reminded me of Operation Unthinkable, a pair of British plans, only declassified in 1998, to combine the Allied forces in Europe with the German Wehrmacht to take on the Soviets. The first plan was an offensive one to impose the will of the Western Allies on the Soviet Union with a surprise attack at Dresden. When it became clear that this was unlikely to succeed, the second version was prepared as a defensive plan to hold back the Soviets should they launch an offensive into Western Europe

Starting point is 00:19:56 once the Americans pulled out. As the war in Europe was winding down in 1945, Winston Churchill was increasingly concerned about the growing threat that Stalin and the Soviet Union represented to Eastern Europe. And so he had his generals draw up plans for a surprise attack on the Soviets to push them out of Eastern Germany and Poland. This secret plan, named Operation Unthinkable, envisioned assembling 47 British and American divisions backed up by another 10 Polish divisions, but this would still leave them far outnumbered by the Soviets. So Churchill imagined employing as many as 100,000 German troops to help attack the Soviet army. And Churchill was serious enough about this plan that he actually ordered units in Germany to start stockpiling captured Nazi arms and equipment

Starting point is 00:20:40 that they could use for this campaign. So this would have been a much larger combined force than Castle Itta. I wonder who gave it that name, Unthinkable. Operation Unthinkable. Kind of a revealing name for it. Yeah. Churchill's generals expected that the Soviets would probably offer some pretty tough resistance to such an attack and estimated that this new round of fighting might end up lasting at least into 1946. So this would have extended World War Two considerably. And as it turned out, intelligence sources indicated that the Soviets were suspecting such a plan, which eliminated Churchill's hoped advantage of a surprise attack. And then President Truman was completely opposed to the idea and

Starting point is 00:21:20 refused to offer any American troops. So the plan was mostly shelved. Though Churchill had a follow-up plan written for attempting to defend the UK if the Soviets ended up attacking Western Europe in the near future. The UK's odds of being able to defend itself against an aggressive Soviet attack were rated as being fanciful, so I guess it's rather lucky that such a scenario did not actually materialize. And if Churchill's offensive aim of Operation Unthinkable intrigues you, and you're interested in how it might have played out, it seems that there is a board game for it that I happened across in my research on the piece. So perhaps you can play it out and see how it might have gone. You can look for a link to that in the show notes. On a completely different topic, Anna Tyler wrote and said, I experienced a little coincidence the other day that is relevant to a side note you have

Starting point is 00:22:08 discussed on a couple recent episodes. This is the issue of English not having a way to answer negative questions. For example, you didn't go out Saturday night where no, I didn't. And yes, you're right, I didn't can mean the same thing. That's right. I personally tend to answer these questions with the word right or correct, with lots of additional words to clarify, as most English speakers probably do. I've actually been thinking about this off and on since you first brought up the topic,

Starting point is 00:22:33 and I love that some other listeners have written in to say that other languages do have a way to answer this kind of question. And then I was listening to NPR, and they coincidentally aired a piece on this very topic. It turns out that English used to have a way to answer this type of question. We used to have two no's with distinct meanings. The word nay was used to answer positive questions. Is the tabard open? Nay, it closed at midnight. And the word no to answer negative questions. Isn't Chaucer meeting us here? No,

Starting point is 00:23:02 he went home to bed. I think it would be too confusing to try to adopt these now, even just for lateral thinking puzzles, but I think it's interesting that we actually used to solve this exact problem as other languages still do, but nay has faded in usage using us only with no. Thanks for all your hard work on your excellent podcast. I always look forward to listening with my husband as we clean up after our babies are in bed. I always look forward to listening with my husband as we clean up after our babies are in bed. And what Anna heard on NPR was a story about how Catherine Schultz, a writer for the New Yorker, became curious about odd linguistic expressions such as no totally or no definitely.

Starting point is 00:23:48 When Schultz started looking into the subject, she discovered, as Anna said, that there used to be a lot more options in the English language, such as nay versus no. Schultz says that when we lost that distinction, we created some real problems for ourselves in trying to answer negative questions. As she explains in an article in The New Yorker, no sometimes suffers from semantic ambiguity, which is odd considering that we regard it as absolute. But consider the question, you aren't a fan of cilantro? The answer no is confusing, since it can mean either no, it tastes like dish soap, or no, I adore it. Schultz notes that several other languages do seem to have better systems for handling this than English does. She says that in Japanese, for example, the words that we usually translate to mean yes and no actually mean something closer to that's correct and that's incorrect. So you'd get

Starting point is 00:24:24 you're not a fan of cilantro? That's incorrect, which is much clearer than the English counterpart. And maybe we should put in a request that people in English should just start saying that's correct and that's incorrect. Well, it's all the more frustrating. We've heard from people about, I think, German and Icelandic have perfectly workable ways to do this. Yeah, and that's what Schultz says, that several other languages have what she calls a three-form system, where you have three options for responding to a yes or no question, which is more than our two options that we have. So for example, she says that in French, you have a word that negates the previous statement or question, which is something we don't really have, as well

Starting point is 00:24:58 as one that's used to respond positively and one that contradicts a statement or question phrased in the negative. So they have like three distinct choices for answering yes or no questions. And as you mentioned, we've heard from some other listeners about other languages, and we've just been really envious that they have advantages over our completely inadequate English two-form system of just yes and no. And it's all the more frustrating that apparently we used to have this. Yeah, right. And actually, we used to have an even better system because it turns out, according to

Starting point is 00:25:27 Schultz, we used to have a four-form system with yes and yay and no and nay. So we used to have four ways to answer yes or no questions. So as Anna noted, nay was what you would use to negate a positive statement or question, and no was used for contradicting something that had been phrased in the negative. So similarly, yay was used to affirm a positive statement, while yes was used to contradict negative ones. So some examples for this that Schultz gives are, is Chaucer drunk?

Starting point is 00:25:58 Yay, and passed out on the table. Shoot, there aren't any open pubs in Canterbury at this hour. Yes, there are. So you used to have four ways to answer questions. That's really interesting. I wonder why at that app that just sounds so useful. Yeah, yeah. So now we have to make do with just our two puny options for answering questions such as, so you aren't a fan of cilantro. And that seems to have given rise to this new usage, which is what sparked schultz's interest in the first place with is this new no totally or no definitely which is to try to make your positive feelings clear if you really do love the cilantro so we still have yes and no

Starting point is 00:26:34 but you just have to explain what you mean by them every time you use them yeah i i'm kind of liking the you know um yes that's correct or no, that's incorrect. I don't know. Like, I suppose that's a way to get around it is just go more with correct or incorrect. But that could sound kind of. That sounds kind of, yeah. So, well, thanks to everyone who writes into us. And if you have any questions or comments, please send them to podcast at futilitycloset.com. Podcast at futilitycloset.com. It's my turn to try to solve a lateral thinking puzzle.

Starting point is 00:27:13 Greg is going to present me with a strange-sounding situation, and I have to try to figure out what's actually going on, asking only yes or no questions. This is from listener John Schweitzer LeMay. Uh-huh. In 1966, the Japanese fertility rate dropped dramatically, only to rebound the next year. Why? In 1966.

Starting point is 00:27:30 Okay. Is there some significance about that year that I need to work out? Yes. About that year specifically? Yes. Okay. Something specifically about the year 1966. Anything to do with the weather or climate? No.

Starting point is 00:27:48 Natural disasters? No. Man-made disasters? No. Geopolitical things like wars or regime changes or anything like that? No. Okay. Something to do with laws?

Starting point is 00:28:02 No. Okay. Does it matter that this happened in Japan? Yes. Okay. Does this have anything to do with the way that they were counting or calculating the birth rate and then they changed it? Oh, good guess. No, I haven't thought about that.

Starting point is 00:28:18 Shoot. Okay. But it matters that it was in Japan. Could this have happened in another country as easily, the same thing? No. No, it had to be specifically Japan, and they were counting birth rates exactly the same way. So you're saying that fewer babies were born in Japan in the year of 1966 than in previous or subsequent years? Per woman, yeah.

Starting point is 00:28:44 Fertility rate is the average number of children born per woman. Okay, so there are fewer babies born per woman in Japan, specifically, in 1966. And this doesn't relate to wars or anything like that. So why? Does this have anything to do with birth control measures? No. That were introduced? Does this have anything to do with birth control measures?

Starting point is 00:29:03 No. That were introduced? Does this have anything to do with that women weren't carrying births to term? Like they were miscarrying? No. So would you say that it's correct that I could say that fewer Japanese women were getting pregnant? Yes. Okay.

Starting point is 00:29:24 Specifically in the year 1966. Was something else invented or debuted in 1966? No. I don't know. They finally got television and they were all too busy watching television to have babies. Okay. So, and this is really specific to Japan. What else do I know about Japan or what else could affect a woman's fertility rates?

Starting point is 00:29:48 Okay. Would you say that this is primarily a biological reason? No. Okay. Sociological? Yes. Was there some kind of movement afoot in Japan? Like women were choosing to not have children?

Starting point is 00:30:08 That's correct. Okay, so women were specifically saying, we're not going to have children? In 1966. In 1966. So this was some sort of like political or social movement. The women were trying to make a point? No. No, they weren't.

Starting point is 00:30:25 Were there too many people? So Japan, the Japanese government had asked people to refrain from having children? No. Okay. So was this a decision that was taken primarily by women as opposed to taken by both genders, by both sexes? No, I think you'd say it's taken by both. The parents...

Starting point is 00:30:48 So the men were also choosing to try to have fewer children. That's right. Oh, okay. I was thinking maybe it's the women doing some kind of protest or making some kind of point or... You could say that people chose not to start families in 1966. Okay. Was there going to be some kind of financial or tax implications of starting a family in

Starting point is 00:31:07 1967 as opposed to 66? And it didn't have anything to do with overpopulation or overcrowding or... No. Can I give you a hint? Yeah. They chose to do this for the welfare of the children. Of the welfare of the children? Was there some kind of... Well, I asked if there was a man-made disaster right so there wasn't like there was a radiation

Starting point is 00:31:30 issue and they were um uh was there some other sort of health epidemic going on no oh kind of like zika now and people yeah no these are all good guesses children um for the welfare of the children they thought they thought it would be better off to not bring to not have children in 1966 specifically they feared that having a baby in 1966 a baby born in 1966 might have a harder life does this have something to do with like um oh i don't know how they do it in japan but like in china they they have these, you know, it's the year of the this and the that. And so like some astrological. Yes. It was believed that this was an unlucky year or something.

Starting point is 00:32:11 That's exactly it. Oh, you're kidding. Wow. The Japanese use an astrological system based on the Chinese zodiac. Each year is assigned an astrological beast and one of five elements. And in 1966, the year that was the year of the Hinoe Uma or fire horse. 1966, that was the year of the Hinoe Uma, or fire horse. One source says,

Starting point is 00:32:31 Girls born in 1966 became known as fire horse women and are reputed to be dangerous, headstrong, and generally bad luck for any husband. Oh my. In 1966, a baby's sex couldn't be reliably detected before birth, hence there was a large increase of induced abortions and a sharp decrease in the birth rate in 1966. Oh, how sexist. Because people didn't want... Didn't want girl babies. Their daughters to have difficult lives because there'd be this sort of social animus against

Starting point is 00:32:51 them. Wow. Which isn't even really necessarily superstitious because even if the parents themselves didn't believe that, if they thought they lived in a society where people generally did... Right. If they thought men wouldn't marry them or... Then their daughter might have a harder time finding a man. They'd be shunned or something.

Starting point is 00:33:05 Wow. That was a very interesting puzzle. Interestingly, these things obviously go in cycles, so it's going to happen again. The next year of the fire horse is 2026, so we'll see what happens then. Well, I would think society's changed enough, so maybe being a fire horse woman will be something to be proud of. Yeah, we'll see. So thanks, John, for sending that in. Thank you. And if anybody else has a puzzle they'd like to send in for us to try, please send it to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. That's our show for today. If you've been enjoying Futility Closet and your

Starting point is 00:33:35 weekly dose of quirky stories and lateral thinking puzzles, then please check out the Support Us section of our website or our Patreon campaign at patreon.com slash futilitycloset to learn how you can help support the show so we can keep making it. If you're looking for more quirky curiosities, check out the Futility Closet books on Amazon, or visit the website at futilitycloset.com, where you can sample more than 9,000 regardable droleties. At the website, you can also see the show notes for the podcast and listen to previous episodes. If you have any questions or comments about the show, you can reach us by email at podcast at futilitycloset.com. Our music was written

Starting point is 00:34:09 and performed by the inimitable Doug Ross. Thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.

Futility Closet - 130-The Unlikely Ultramarathoner

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