Futility Closet - 176-The Bear That Inspired Winnie-the-Pooh

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 Morse code in music to an elf made of states. This is episode 176. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. In 1914, Canadian Army veterinarian Harry Colburn was traveling to the Western Front when he met an orphaned bear cub in an Ontario railway station.

Starting point is 00:00:34 In today's show, we'll follow the adventures of Winnie the Bear, including her fateful meeting with A.A. Milne and his son, Christopher Robin. We'll also marvel at some impressive finger counting and puzzle over an impassable bridge. Harry Colborne was born in 1887 and raised in Birmingham, England. He was raised in a family that valued kindness to animals, and in his youth he worked as a stable manager for some wealthy landowners. Early in life, he decided to dedicate his life to animals and become a veterinary surgeon, so in 1905, at age 18, he moved to Canada following two sisters

Starting point is 00:01:15 who had settled there earlier and enrolled in the Ontario Veterinary College, where he got his degree in 1911. Then he accepted an appointment with the Department of Agriculture and moved to Winnipeg in Manitoba. Like other young men of that era, he trained in the military, in the militia, and when World War I broke out, he was already a trained officer in the Veterinary Corps. They ordered him to travel from Winnipeg to Quebec, which was the staging area where Canadian soldiers were gathering before heading overseas to England. The trip to Quebec was 1,500 miles, and on the journey, Harry served as the veterinary officer in charge of the horses on the troop train. One day, they happened to stop at a railway station in White River, Ontario, to take a

Starting point is 00:01:53 four-hour break. As the train arrived, Harry saw a solitary trapper sitting on a bench in the station. Sitting next to him was a black bear cub tethered to the armrest. The trapper told him that the cub's mother had been killed, but that the cub had survived. Harry decided immediately to adopt her. His journal entry for this day reads, August 24th, 1914. Left Port Arthur 7A. In train all day.

Starting point is 00:02:15 Bought bear. $20. $20 is actually a lot back then. It's about $400 today. Wow. He named the bear Winnipeg Bear after his adopted home city. Later, he shortened this to Winnie. She was only about seven months old. They traveled for two more days on the train and

Starting point is 00:02:29 arrived at their destination on August 26th. At the training camp, Winnie became the official mascot of the infantry brigade, Harry's new unit. Like Voytek, the Syrian military bear that we talked about in episode 122, Winnie adjusted quickly to living among humans, and she turns up in many of the photographs that were taken around this time. He found he could train her by rewarding her with apples and a mixture of condensed milk and corn syrup. He taught her how to stand up straight and hold her head high, and he'd hide things around the tent for Winnie to find, which she could usually do within seconds. On September 28th, Harry and his unit embarked for England on a troop ship across the Atlantic, and Winnie came along with them. They docked at Plymouth and set out on October 17th for the Salisbury Plain, which was the main training ground for the British Army and troops from the British Empire. In effect, it was a giant tent city.

Starting point is 00:03:23 He continued to teach her tricks, and she played games with the men. She liked to climb up the center pole in the tent and shake it. In fact, she was growing so fast that she threatened to collapse the tent, so they set up a special pole outside for her to climb. She became a pet to many of the men. She'd follow them around like a puppy during their off-duty hours. She had a playful, gentle nature and a willingness to please, and she seemed to think of herself as human, possibly because she'd lost her mother so young and perhaps had imprinted on Harry.

Starting point is 00:03:49 In early December, after four months on the Salisbury Plain, Harry was ordered to go to the front lines in France, and he was told to remove Winnie from the brigade headquarters. She couldn't go with him to the battlefield, and he couldn't leave her on the training ground. So on December 9th, 1914, he took a day's leave, borrowed a motor car, and drove her up the A303 to the London Zoo. Winnie was still less than a year old at this point, perfectly tame but very friendly and mischievous. It's said that she tried to escape from the car on the way up. At the zoo, he asked if they could look after her until the war was over. This sounds like an unusual request, but apparently it wasn't.

Starting point is 00:04:16 The zoo actually accepted six black bears from various Canadian units during the first year of the war. Oh my. Which is amazing. That's just one year. As he said goodbye to Winnie, Harry thought this was just going to be a temporary measure. He expected that the war would be over by Christmas, and he planned to visit her whenever possible in the meantime. His timing was good.

Starting point is 00:04:34 The zoo had just opened a new bear habitat that looked like a mountain landscape. A Himalayan bear in the same enclosure resented Winnie at first, but accepted her when it realized that she wouldn't fight back. Harry went to France in early February 1915, and there he worked in the veterinary hospital at Loire and on the Western Front, and he returned to visit Winnie at the zoo as often as he could. He'd always intended to take her to Winnipeg Zoo after the war. He sent a photo to one friend with the caption, myself and Winnie the bear. Winnie is now on exhibition at the zoo in London, but is

Starting point is 00:05:03 coming back to Canada with me someday. But it turned out that the war stretched on for four years, and by that time, Winnie had made a home at the zoo and was much loved. In fact, by 1918, she was the star attraction and practically an institution in the minds of Londoners. Harry saw this and knew that the zoo would take good care of her, so on December 1st, 1918, on his way back to Canada, he officially donated her to the London Zoo. In the 1920s, Winnie was a celebrity at the zoo. People would come specifically to meet her, to watch her playing, and to have photographs taken with her. She was known for her friendliness.

Starting point is 00:05:35 Visitors could give her what was called a Winnie's cocktail, which was a quart of condensed milk sweetened with golden syrup. She loved these, but she was so docile and friendly that even a child could take one away from her. She kept this friendly, accepting nature as she grew up. Zookeeper Ernest Seals once told a London newspaper that Winnie was quote, quite the tamest and best behaved bear we have ever had at the zoo, and the only bear they ever trusted entirely. The keepers actually allowed children to enter the pit to ride on her back or feed her out of their hands, which is kind of alarming even for a friendly bear. Yeah, I can't imagine they would do that nowadays, but that's kind of sweet. Yeah, and she was fine with it. I mean, nothing ever went wrong.

Starting point is 00:06:09 Some of this was her own natural personality, but some would have come from Harry, whose early interactions would have shaped her behavior. Harry Colborn's son Fred later said, I'm sure that's because of the way my father treated her. He loved animals and they returned the affection. One day in 1924, Winnie was visited by a local novelist and playwright named A.A. Milne and his four-year-old son Christopher Robin. Christopher immediately fell in love with Winnie. He said she was his favorite animal at the zoo, and he and his father began to make regular visits

Starting point is 00:06:35 to see her. Christopher would spend time in her cage feeding her condensed milk from a spoon. Milne's friend, the writer E.V. Lucas, was a member of the London Zoological Society and knew many of the keepers at the zoo, so he could open doors for them. In the introduction to one of his books, Milne later wrote, When Christopher Robin goes to the zoo, he goes to where the polar bears are, and he whispers something to the third keeper from the left, and the doors are unlocked, and we wander through dark passages and up steep stairs until at last we come to the special cage. And the cage is opened, and out trots something brown and furry,

Starting point is 00:07:04 and with the happy cry of, Oh, bear, Christopher Robin rushes into his arms. Now this bear's name is Winnie, which shows what a good name for bears it is. Indeed it is. It was such a good name that one day as they were leaving the zoo, Christopher announced that his teddy bear, Edward, was now named Winnie. This is a bit confusing because Edward was a male bear. His father later wrote, when I first heard his name, I said, just as you were going to say, but I thought he was a boy. So did I, said Christopher Robin. Then you can't call him Winnie. I don't.

Starting point is 00:07:32 But you said, he's Winnie the Pooh. Don't you know what the means? Ah, yes, now I do, I said quickly, and I hope you do too because it is all the explanation you are going to get. In other words, even his father didn't understand exactly how all this fit together. In fact, Pooh was originally the name of a swan. In the early 1920s, the Milne family rented a summer cottage in West Sussex, and they would sometimes visit a pond there where a swan lived. They would call to the swan, but it would never come, and they would say Pooh to it. Christopher Robin, who was a toddler at the time, took to calling the swan Pooh, and when the family left, Milne wrote, we took the name with us as we didn't

Starting point is 00:08:08 think the swan would want it anymore. So at the zoo, apparently Christopher decided that poo is a sort of gender converter. If you and I had a male teddy bear, we couldn't name it Sharon because Sharon is a girl's name, but we could name it Sharon the poo because poo converts a girl's name into a boy's. I guess the swan was a boy. It's all rather mysterious. Anyway, while all this was happening, Milne was still pursuing his career as a writer. In December 1925, he was asked to write a story for the Christmas Eve issue of the London Evening News, and his wife suggested that he write down one of the stories he used to tell Christopher at bedtime.

Starting point is 00:08:42 Christopher was now five and a half. Most of those stories involved dragons and giants and magic rings, but he chose a story that stood out, one about Christopher and his teddy bear. It was called The Wrong Sort of Bees. That became a hit, and so he followed up with a book called Winnie the Pooh about characters that were inspired by Christopher's stuffed animals and their adventures in the wood behind their house. Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore, Kangaroo, and their friends. This came out in October 1926 and was a huge success. Milne wrote two more books with the same characters, Now We Are Six in 1927 and The House at Pooh Corner in 1928. The books became classics the world over. In a BBC poll in 2003, Winnie the Pooh was voted the seventh best-loved novel of all time in the United Kingdom,

Starting point is 00:09:22 and as a grown-up, Christopher Robin Milne unveiled a plaque in the wood where the stories are set. His father had once written, In that enchanted place on the top of the forest, a little boy and his bear will always be playing. Winnie, the original black bear who had befriended Christopher, lived at the London Zoo for nearly 20 years altogether, from 1914 to 1934. Her health began to fail in 1931, and the zoo authorities retired her from public appearances, though privileged visitors could still see her in her private enclosure. They finally put her to sleep on May 12, 1934, at age 20, and her death made news around the world. Her skull was put on display in a London museum in 2015, just a couple years

Starting point is 00:10:01 ago. Apparently she'd had terrible tooth decay because of all the sweets the children had fed her over the years. At the time of Winnie's death, Harry Colborne was still working at the Department of Agriculture in Winnipeg. He was there for more than 21 years and kept up a small private practice as a veterinarian as well. He died in 1947 at age 60. Interestingly, A.A. Milne probably didn't know that Winnie the Bear had been named after Winnipeg, and Harry Colborne never knew that Winnie the Bear had inspired Winnie the Pooh. Harry's great-granddaughter, Lindsay Maddox, told the Telegraph, Harry had no idea what legacy he'd left. Despite his success, A. A. Milne spent the latter part of his life regretting that the Pooh books had eclipsed his work as a serious

Starting point is 00:10:37 playwright, essayist, and novelist. It was said that Pooh made him rich but not happy. But the books enshrined forever his affection for his son and the imaginative world they'd shared for a few important years when Christopher was young. The stuffed animals that inspired these stories, Winnie the Pooh, Eeyore, Kanga, Tigger, and Piglet, are now on display in a glass case at the New York Public Library. The grown-up Christopher Milne was sometimes asked whether he wanted to have them back again. He wrote, Every child has his Pooh, but one would think it odd if every man still kept his poo to remind him of his childhood. But my poo is different, you say. He is the poo. No, this only makes him different to you, not different to me. My toys were and are to me, no more than yours were and are to you. I do not love them more because they are known to children

Starting point is 00:11:19 in Australia or Japan. Fame has nothing to do with love. I wouldn't like a glass case that said, here is fame, and I don't need a glass case to remind me, here was love. Futility Closet is a full-time commitment for us and is supported primarily by our wonderful listeners. Our Patreon supporters are really the backbone of this show, giving us the support we need to be able to commit to the time that the show takes to make each week. If you'd like to help us keep celebrating the quirky and the curious, check out our Patreon campaign at patreon.com slash futilitycloset. Everyone who joins will get access to outtakes, extra discussions on some of the stories, more lateral thinking puzzles, and updates on Sasha, everybody's favorite podcast, who is definitely going to be the subject of several outtakes this week.

Starting point is 00:12:15 We also want to thank those who have made donations to the show, which you can do at the website, and everyone who leaves ratings and reviews of the podcast or who helps spread the word about us. All of these things really do help us out. So thanks again to everyone who helps contribute to Futility Closet. We got a number of emails regarding some of the different topics that we covered in episode 171. The feature story was about Joshua Norton, an eccentric resident of San Francisco who declared himself Emperor of the United States. Christopher Meyer wrote, Just heard Episode 171 on the Emperor of the United States. You may or may not know that the Emperor was the topic of Issue 31 of the critically acclaimed comic book series The Sandman, written by Neil Gaiman. The series focuses on Dream, the timeless personification of sleep and dreams, as well as the other members of the Endless, his siblings' desire, despair, delirium, death, etc.

Starting point is 00:13:25 his sister despair, at the point in his life where Norton became penniless. She bets that Dream cannot keep Norton from her domain, to which Dream responds by placing the notion of becoming emperor into Norton's mind. The rest of the story follows Norton through the rest of his life as emperor and how this dream of his keeps him from despair. Many of the anecdotes and even quotes that you mention in your episode are present in the story. At one point, Dream's other sister Delirium even states, he's not mine, is he? His madness, his madness keeps him sane. A point you both touched on in your discussion. It's a great story in a great comic series. Thanks for reminding me of it. P.S. My daughter wants to let you know that we too have a cat named Sasha. So purrs to your Sasha, Christopher.

Starting point is 00:14:11 In a similar vein, Joe Gordon wrote, Hi guys, and tummy tickles to Sasha. I was listening to your recent podcast while working away here in Edinburgh's old town. The part we call the new town predates the founding of the United States. Time is reckoned differently here, and was delighted to see one of my favorite historical oddities turn up when you covered Emperor Joshua Norton I. You may be interested to know that a couple of decades ago, a then bold new voice in comics, now international best-selling author, Neil Gaiman used Joshua for a short self-contained story in an issue of his Sandman series. What may interest you even more, given you discussed his possible mental health issues, is that in his story, Neil had Joshua become emperor after his central character, Dream, is challenged by his younger siblings, Despair and Delirium, to use the power of dreams to keep him from their less pleasant realms. As he and the city both embrace his new imperial persona, Delirium comments that he should

Starting point is 00:15:01 be hers, yet he isn't. His madness keeps him sane. Dream nods and replies to her, do you think he is the only one? It was a lovely example of how sometimes we're better embracing our dreams over reality when they harm no one else. And in fact, as you yourselves commented, actually made the city a little better. And that perhaps little dreams keep us all going at some point. I really like that idea that if he went bankrupt, you could easily understand if he just gave up hope. Right. But he never did.

Starting point is 00:15:30 Right. Because he thought he was emperor of the whole country. So it is kind of a sweet idea that maybe our dreams keep us going sometimes. Sustain us, yeah. In episode 171, we also discussed some different methods of finger counting that you can use to keep track of numbers higher than 10. Several of our listeners let us know about a method that we didn't mention that allows you to use your 10 fingers to count to over a thousand. Tom Barron wrote, Hi, Sasha and Sharon and Greg. I eagerly anticipate each new Futility Closet in my podcast feed. I was touched by the

Starting point is 00:16:01 story of Emperor Norton I in episode 171. What I wanted to tell you about, though, is a method of finger counting I've been using for years that allows me to count to 31 on one hand or 1,023 on both hands. By using base 2, the same number system that computers depend on, with each finger representing a bit, my left thumb is 0 or 1, left index finger is 2, left middle finger is 4, left ring finger is 8, and left pinky is 16. Right pinky is 32, right ring is 64, right middle is 128, right index is 256, and right thumb is 512. Given those assignments, you can represent any value from 0 to 1023 unambiguously on your 10 fingers.

Starting point is 00:16:42 I learned this system from a highlights magazine when I was 10 or so around 1970. Years later, studying to become a computer scientist, I was shocked to realize that that old counting method I'd learned as a child was based on the same number system that computers use. I mostly use this style of finger counting for tracking my steps to measure approximately distance when walking or running

Starting point is 00:17:02 or breaths when meditating. Since this is often in a public place, I try to avoid the numbers 4 and 128 when anyone else can see me to avoid any possible misunderstanding. Thank you for the podcast. I enjoy it very much. And for those who might want to see a demonstration of this method that Tom described, Patrick Walker sent a link to a video, though Tom's method goes from left to right and the video demonstrates it from right to left. It seems like from some of the different emails that we got that people are learning this method going in either direction.

Starting point is 00:17:35 Fred Kearns also wrote about the binary counting system, which he also uses, and he included a variation of holding one of your palms face down instead of both of them facing up, so that then you can use your thumbs for the lower values, Fred said. Moving your ring finger and little finger independently can be difficult, so it made sense to use them for higher values. See Benford's Law. I came across this method in a book of short stories by Paul Anderson. I have to admit that the Indian method of counting up to 12 on your hand is easier. Keep up the good work. And Benford's law turns out to be a law that states that in many naturally occurring collections of numbers, the first digit is likely to be small. This seems to apply to a variety of data sets,

Starting point is 00:18:14 especially if the values have a large range, and apparently it's generalizable enough that it's been used to detect various forms of fraud and other crimes. So this being the case, then I guess it would make sense to have your thumbs represent lower rather than higher numbers. Just because it's easier. Yeah. Orion Sauter also wrote in about the binary counting method and suggested that you need to be careful of counting 4 or 128, and mentioned that the counting to 12 on one hand method that I covered in episode 171 was discussed on the British show QI, where they described it as Babylonian and credited it for our base 60 time system. So looking into this, I learned that this is called a sexagesimal or based on 60 number system. This system, which Christopher Gibson had written in

Starting point is 00:18:56 to tell us about, apparently originated with the ancient Sumerians in the third millennium BCE, was then passed down to the ancient Babylonians and is still in use in parts of Asia today, which is apparently where Christopher's wife had learned about it. In this method, you use the thumb of one hand to count the three bones of each finger on that hand to get you up to 12, and then you use the fingers of the other hand to count how many 12s you have, which is up to 5 12s or 60. Christopher had hypothesized that this method of using our hands to count 12 might be the reason why that number crops up in some of our measuring systems, and it seems that

Starting point is 00:19:30 there are others who quite agree with him on this. This sexagesimal system is considered to be the basis for measurements based on 12, such as inches, months, pence, and hours, as well as those based on 60s, like seconds, minutes, and degrees in a circle, which is 660s. In addition, Christian Dayton, who had earlier expressed the advantage of 12 having so many more factors than 10, is also vindicated, as that reason is commonly cited for the endurance of this type of number system. 12 has a nice number of factors, and 60 has a whole wealth of them, with 60 actually being the smallest whole number divisible by all the integers from 1 to 6, as well as having several other factors. So measurements based on 12s or 60s are more easily divided into fractional parts. Thanks to the QI website, I also learned that the Korean

Starting point is 00:20:17 finger counting method that I learned as a kid that lets you count up to 99 on your fingers is called Chisenbap. It was developed in the 1940s and brought to the U.S. around 1977. Given how old some of the other methods were, I was really surprised to find that this one is so recent. But the advantages of the Chisenbop system are that it can be easily taught to even pretty young children and help them add and subtract numbers up to 99. There are videos on YouTube of kids as young as three adorably doing simple arithmetic using this Chisholm Bop method, and kindergarten kids doing more complicated computations, including some multiplication and division.

Starting point is 00:20:53 Wow. Which is pretty impressive for so young. Morley Ravie sent us a link to a video of some older kids doing wickedly fast higher level arithmetic, doing something with their fingers that is apparently using a mental or imaginary abacus. And that was really impressive to see. A quick YouTube search turned up several videos of this technique, which is currently being taught in several countries in Asia. There are even major competitions for how quickly contestants can perform calculations using this kind of a mental abacus.

Starting point is 00:21:25 An article in The Guardian, for example, describes a competition where 15 three-digit numbers are flashed on a screen so fast that the article's author says you will be unlikely to be able to even read just one of the numbers, yet the winner of the competition was able to correctly add all 15 of the numbers when they were flashed in 1.7 seconds. That's the total time for displaying all 15 numbers, 1.7 seconds. You're kidding. No, he added them all up. You have to actually see it to believe it. So of course, we'll have links to videos and articles in the show notes.

Starting point is 00:22:02 And I actually have a couple of more updates from episode 171, including one on the complicated system of Roman timekeeping that I discussed in that episode. But there was just too much to fit in this segment this week. So you'll just have to tune in next week to hear the rest. Thanks so much to everyone who writes to us. We really appreciate hearing from you. So if you have any updates or comments for us, please send them to podcast at futilitycloset.com. And continued thanks for all the pronunciation help. It's Greg's turn to try to solve a lateral thinking puzzle. I'm going to give him a strange sounding situation,

Starting point is 00:22:42 and he has to work out what's going on, asking only yes or no questions. This puzzle comes from Jack McLaughlin, who said, this is for Greg to solve and has a woman protagonist that doesn't die. I don't know if I'm imagining it, but it seems most puzzles sent in by listeners feature a man doing X, and often X is dying or being dead. So here's a woman involved in non-morbid activity. It's refreshing. So here's Jack's puzzle. A woman is driving a large truck along a high mountain road.

Starting point is 00:23:11 She comes to an old wooden bridge that crosses a steep-sided canyon. The bridge will break if she drives on with the truck, but she can't turn around as the road is too narrow and this is the only road that can take her where she needs to go. She stops the truck, gets out, and sees a herd of goats coming up the road behind her, and she instantly knows how she'll manage to continue forward without any danger. What does she do? I like the puzzle. Okay, did you say the problem with the truck is that it's too heavy, specifically? I did not say that. Okay. You said if the truck tried to cross the bridge as it is, the bridge would collapse?

Starting point is 00:23:48 I did not say that. The bridge will... I'm glad I asked. The bridge will break if she drives on with the truck. Bridge will break, but not because of its weight. Right. That seems a significant clue. Does the truck have some cargo?

Starting point is 00:24:04 Is it carrying some kind of... It is not. Oh. Besides her. Well, besides her. So a woman's driving an empty truck. A woman's driving an empty truck. Exactly.

Starting point is 00:24:12 And comes to a bridge that will break. Yes. Okay, break. If she continues on, if she drives. Break does not mean collapse? Break does not mean... Well, yeah, I wouldn't say collapse. She's not afraid it will collapse under the truck.

Starting point is 00:24:24 She's not afraid it will collapse under the truck. She's not afraid it will collapse under the truck. And by bridge, you mean a bridge like a... Yes. Yes, it's an old wooden bridge that crosses a steep-sided canyon, according to Jack. Break. Is it a drawbridge? No. Is it mechanical in some way?

Starting point is 00:24:42 Does it move in any way? No. So when you say break, it doesn't mean that it breaks down. Right. I'm having trouble with, if it doesn't collapse, how can a bridge break? What a bridge does is span a gap. Right. So she's afraid it won't span the gap if she tries to cross it?

Starting point is 00:25:02 That's, I can't answer that sentence as it's phrased. All right. Let's pursue this. This sounds important. She's afraid the bridge will break. She's afraid the bridge will break. The bridge is a man-made section of, let's call it, roadway. Okay.

Starting point is 00:25:23 That connects, that spans some kind of gap in the mountains. Yes. And she would normally drive across it. No. Uh-huh. Really? Right. Really.

Starting point is 00:25:37 The bridge isn't designed to help people travel along the roadway. It is designed for that. But it's not a lot of surface that they travel on top of? It is a surface that people travel on top of. Okay, so let's say she did try to cross it in the truck.

Starting point is 00:25:55 Let's not say that. Meaning that's not possible? That wouldn't be possible? That might be possible, but that's not actually... I understand that's not what she does. I'm just saying it's not even... We can't even entertain the idea that she would actually try to do that?

Starting point is 00:26:11 Okay, we could entertain that idea if you like, but it's irrelevant. All right. But we can entertain it if you like. Okay, by truck has meant what I'm thinking of as a truck, like a pickup truck or something? Yes, like a pickup truck or something, or probably a little bigger. Large truck, he says. And the roadway is a normal roadway. Yes.

Starting point is 00:26:33 So she's driving along in a normal truck on a normal road and comes to a wooden bridge. Okay. That's designed to help her cross some chasm to get to the other side. Designed to help her cross some chasm to get to the other side? Welled to help her cross some chasm to get to the other side? Well, the truck, yes. No. No. No.

Starting point is 00:26:47 Is her sex important? No. It was just nice to have a female protagonist. Is it designed to help other people? I mean, drivers in general try to get across this? Yes. Yes. But not her?

Starting point is 00:27:00 In this case, in this particular case, not her. Is she human? Yes. Is she a criminal in any way or would she be? No, no. It's not like it would be illegal to do this. Right. Normal truck, normal road, wooden bridge.

Starting point is 00:27:18 Other people could do this. Is there something unusual about the truck? something unusual about her no is her occupation important no is the time period important no is the location important apart from what you described right apart from what i've described the goats are important though well yeah but it seems like there's so much to deal with now all right let's get the goats then no no no actually you probably should deal with what you you're dealing with first i just thought it was cute that there were goats. Well, there's a, okay, so there's the truck. Let's leave her out of it then. Let's say she didn't even show up that day. Okay. And another car, a car, let's say, comes along, driving along the road, reaches the bridge. The same road she was on?

Starting point is 00:27:55 Yes. Yes. Could she cross the bridge, the driver of that car, cross the bridge, meaning drive along the surface of the bridge. Okay. And come to the other side. Okay. A driver of the car is going along the same road as this woman is on? Yeah. Could she cross the bridge? No. Could anyone cross the bridge? Could anyone?

Starting point is 00:28:12 Who came along the same? Who came along the same road that this woman is on? Yeah. No. Who came along a different road? Yes. Okay. I think I asked this.

Starting point is 00:28:24 By road, it just meant a road, like a thoroughfare. Yes. Okay, so some people are doing that. She arrives at the same location by another route? What do you mean by the same location, please? The place where this road meets the bridge. Does she arrive at the place where the road meets the bridge? Yeah, she's apparently not driving on the surface of the road.

Starting point is 00:28:46 She's driving on the surface of a road. But not the one that meets the bridge. I guess you would say not the one that meets the bridge, probably with what you have in mind. Depends how mysterious I want to be because I could answer yes to that question, but I'm trying to go with what I think you're thinking. So as not to mislead you completely. You're making an assumption. Yeah, I can see that.

Starting point is 00:29:06 It's problematic. Is the truck airborne or suspended in some way? No, it's driving on a road. But not the road that meets the bridge. But not the road that meets the bridge. And you say it's not some particular bridge I need to know. It's not some specific location. It's not.

Starting point is 00:29:30 So a woman is driving a large truck along a high mountain road she comes to an old wooden bridge that crosses a steep-sided canyon the bridge will break if she drives on with the truck if she drives on not meaning if she drives onto the bridge with it right meaning just if she drives onward yes in the same direction she would have been going. Yes. Is her direction of travel parallel with the road? Is she moving along the surface of the ground? She's moving along the surface of the ground on a road. It's not that she's coming down, for example, to plunge into the bridge?

Starting point is 00:29:59 Correct. And there are these goats that are going to help out, too. The fact that there are goats behind her is what lets her know that she's going to be able to actually go on without breaking the bridge. Do I need to know more about the bridge than what I know? Probably. I think there's one important piece of information that you're missing about the bridge. Is it man-made? Yes.

Starting point is 00:30:21 Well, I know it's wooden. I know it's not a drawbridge. It's not mechanical. It doesn't have any... It's the location relative to her. Is it below her? No. Is it above her?

Starting point is 00:30:31 Yes. She's driving... Oh, I see. She's coming down a river in the chasm? No, she's driving on a road that goes under the bridge. The bridge. Yes. Sort of the same thing.

Starting point is 00:30:44 Yes, yes, yes. And the truck is big enough that it'll hit the bridge. It'll break the bridge. The bridge. Yes. Sort of the same thing. Yes, yes, yes. And the truck is big enough that it'll hit the bridge. It'll break the bridge, yes. So how are the goats going to help her? Goats going to help her. So there are goats coming up behind her and she suddenly knows,

Starting point is 00:30:55 this is what I'm going to be able to do to be able to travel on without breaking the bridge. Is it that she puts the goats in the truck? Yes. And their weight lowers it just enough? Yes, that's exactly it. And Jack says that this is actually based on something that actually happened to him.

Starting point is 00:31:12 He says, on a high school camping trip in Scotland, we took a minibus under a bridge that was very tight to squeeze under, but we managed carefully to get under. After dropping off 16 teenagers, their camping gear, a water barrel, and other supplies, the bus driver couldn't get the bus back under the same bridge as the bus was riding a few inches higher after shedding all the weight. So that gave him the idea for the puzzle.

Starting point is 00:31:33 That's a good puzzle. So thanks to Jack for his female protagonist and the general lack of any dying. Even the goats didn't die as far as we know. Everyone made it. Everyone made it. And if anyone else has a puzzle for us to try, please send it to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. This podcast would not be here today if it weren't for the generous support of our listeners. If you'd like to join them in supporting the show, then please see our Patreon page at patreon.com slash futilitycloset.

Starting point is 00:32:03 Or see the support us section of the website at futilitycloset or see the support us section of the website at futilitycloset.com. While you're at the site, you can also graze through Greg's collection of over 9,000 trivia tidbits, browse the Futility Closet store, check out the Futility Closet books, or peruse the show notes for any of the episodes. If you have any questions or comments, you can email us or Sasha at podcast at futilitycloset.com. Our music was written and performed by Greg's supremely talented brother, Doug Ross. Thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.

Futility Closet - 176-The Bear That Inspired Winnie-the-Pooh

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