Futility Closet - 227-The Christmas Tree Ship

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 10,000 quirky curiosities from Latin piggies to migrating cats. This is episode 227. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. Cats. This is episode 227. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. In the late 1800s, Chicago families bought their Christmas trees from the decks of schooners that had ferried them across Lake Michigan. In today's show, we'll meet Herman Schooneman, known as Captain Santa,

Starting point is 00:00:36 who brought Christmas to the city for 30 years until a fateful storm overtook him. We'll also peruse some possums and puzzle over a darkening phone. In Algoma, Wisconsin, on the western shore of Lake Michigan, stands a lone evergreen tree that's decorated year-round with white lights. It commemorates a Christmas tradition from the late 1800s and a tragedy that took place on the lake in 1912. The story concerns two brothers, August and Hermann Schoonemann, who were born in Algoma in the middle of the 19th century. Their father was a farmer, but the brothers were drawn to the water, working as sailors out of the port at Anabee. As they gained experience, each of them became part owner of a vessel which he sailed as captain. It was an exciting time to be a sailor

Starting point is 00:01:24 on Lake Michigan, which in those days was populated by 1,800 sailing vessels. The most common of these was the schooner, which could be handled by as few as four crew members and could haul heavy loads into shallow harbors. Most schooners carried lumber to Chicago and Milwaukee, but in the 1870s they began to see a new opportunity. The area's German immigrants had brought with them the tradition of decorating Christmas trees, and there was a great demand each year for evergreens. So around Thanksgiving each year, lake schooners began delivering trees to markets around the Great Lakes. And the Schoonman brothers began to serve Chicago, carrying trees from northern Michigan and Wisconsin to the city's thriving German population. This was a tricky business. The freshly cut trees

Starting point is 00:02:03 had to arrive shortly after Thanksgiving when demand was high. If your competitors beat you, the prices would drop. That meant transporting the trees in November, the most dangerous month of the year for sailors on the Great Lakes. But the money was good. They could buy a tree for 25 cents in the northern forests and sell it in Chicago for a dollar or more. So they began to bring three or four vessels worth of trees each season down to the city. This became a tradition. The arrival of a Schoonerman Christmas tree schooner signaled the start of the holidays in Chicago. The ship would tie up at the dock on the Chicago River and families would buy trees right off the deck. The journalist Vincent Sterrett wrote, the Christmas

Starting point is 00:02:38 season didn't really arrive until the Christmas tree ship tied up at Clark Street. The brothers kept up their regular sailing business during the year, but that became more difficult as the 19th century wore on. The lucrative passenger and package freight traffic was moving to the railroads, and steamships were carrying bulk freight such as grain, coal, and ore. Schooner captains had to take what was left, serving ports that were too small or obscure for the larger ships to serve. To make ends meet, August took on side businesses. He ran a grocery store in 1892 and later was part owner of a tavern. But each autumn, he sailed north for a new load of Christmas trees, and Herman usually went with him. One fateful exception was

Starting point is 00:03:16 1898, when Herman stayed home to help his wife care for their newborn twins. August bought a 31-year-old 75-foot schooner called the Estal for $250, sailed it up to Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, and loaded it with thousands of evergreens. But on the return journey, strong winds drove him onto a sandbar near Glencoe, Illinois, and the ship broke up, killing August and his five crewmen. The Schoonman family was devastated, but Herman decided to carry on the tradition of the Christmas tree runs. He was less adventurous than his brother, but the two of them had invested years of hard work, and many families looked forward to their arrival each season. He continued for the next dozen years, carrying his cargo from the north

Starting point is 00:03:53 and taking a berth in the Clark Street docks on the Chicago River. He added festive touches to help grow the business. He'd string electric lights from bow to stern, with a sign reading, Christmas trees for sale. My prices are the lowest. Customers would come aboard to choose their trees, and Herman's wife and daughters made wreaths, garlands, and other holiday decorations to go with the trees. Most of the trees went to family homes, but a few went to hotels or other businesses, and he gave the larger ones to churches and orphanages. Through diligent effort, an outgoing personality, and a love of the work, Herman Schooneman grew

Starting point is 00:04:23 the Christmas ship business into a Chicago institution. In the beginning, he and Auguste had helped the residents of an industrial city to maintain an old-world tradition. Now the German immigrants who bought the trees were skilled and educated, with a lot of purchasing power. And throughout America, Christmas was evolving into a secular, middle-class holiday, a time for gift-giving rather than strictly religious observance. Chicago newspapers dubbed Herman Captain Santa. For local families, he came to symbolize the holiday tradition with gleaming eyes, round cheeks, a broad smile, and a bushy mustache. Meeting him was the closest you could come to meeting Father Christmas. He sold tens of thousands of trees each year, through wholesale business with local merchants, direct sales from the deck of the schooner, and special orders by

Starting point is 00:05:03 organizations and individuals. But his entrepreneurship never made him rich. He was always one of the people. Beneath these gladsome appearances, the business itself was still difficult. Sailing ships had almost disappeared from the Great Lakes now, and schooners couldn't compete with steamships and railroads. So like Auguste, he took up a succession of side businesses to make ends meet. A beer garden, a saloon, a grocery store, and a real estate office. To serve as the Christmas ship, he bought shares in a succession of dilapidated schooners. This was dangerous, but he couldn't afford to buy a ship outright, and the only way to stay profitable was to keep his costs low. In 1910, he bought a partial interest in the Rouse Simmons, a 42-year-old schooner that

Starting point is 00:05:39 had already made well over a thousand voyages, sunk once, and been completely refitted twice. It served him well for two years in the Christmas tree trade, and in September 1912 he set about the regular business of raising a crew and provisioning the vessel. This was an especially lean year. He had to borrow $750 from a crewman to help finance the trip. He bought his supplies on credit, and he asked his crew of woodcutters to accept payment after the trees were sold. After 30 years in this business, he must have seen that he was tempting fate in making these dangerous voyages season after season. He could have chosen to import the trees by rail instead of sailing, or he could have abandoned the Christmas voyages altogether and concentrated on his other businesses.

Starting point is 00:06:17 Possibly he felt an obligation to maintain the tradition he'd created, and he genuinely loved fulfilling it. They set out on October 3rd for Thompson's Pier, a small community south of Manistique on Michigan's Upper Peninsula. He calculated that this should give them six weeks to get the work done in the forest and still reach Chicago at Thanksgiving as they'd done the previous year. They reached Thompson's Pier safely and spent six weeks gathering trees and loading the vessel. I've seen many different estimates of how many trees they loaded, but a conservative number is 5,000. They filled the cargo hold and covered the deck, where the trees were stacked 10 to 12 feet high. They had to raise the booms of the sails to accommodate the load.

Starting point is 00:06:54 When the Rouse Simmons left the dock on Friday, November 22nd, some eyewitnesses said it looked like a floating forest. It was not uncommon for lake schooners to carry large deck loads, but one sailor who quit the crew reported that there was no stone ballast in the bottom of the hold to stabilize the ship. Herman estimated it would take them five days to sail the 300 miles to Chicago. The lake was prone to unpredictable gales in November, as usual, but Herman's customers were expecting him, and if he waited, he might be delayed by days or even weeks and miss the best of the market. As they set out, the going looked safe. The National Weather Service predicted local rains or snow on Saturday with variable winds and said Sunday would be fair. But as Friday evening approached, the wind increased, temperatures dropped, and it began to

Starting point is 00:07:34 rain. By Saturday morning, the rain had turned to wet snow and captains across the lakes began to head for port. Before the end of the day, the gale of November 23rd had turned into the most deadly storm of 1912. At 2 p.m. on Saturday, the captain of the car ferry Ann gale of November 23rd had turned into the most deadly storm of 1912. At 2 p.m. on Saturday, the captain of the car ferry Ann Arbor No. 5 was several miles north of Kewaunee, Wisconsin, and five miles offshore when the captain saw a three-masted schooner in great difficulty. Its main sail was down. It was flying only a stay sail, a jib, and a reefed foresail, and even so, it was badly healed over before the wind. He couldn't be sure of the ship's identity, but it was flying no distress signal, so he yielded way and offered no assistance.

Starting point is 00:08:08 About an hour later, a bit further to the south, a Coast Guard life-saving station caught sight of a three-masted schooner that did have its distress signals flying. It was well offshore and running before the Northwest Gale. The station chief didn't have a gasoline-powered boat and decided against trying to row to its aid. But he phoned the next life-saving station to the south in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, and told them a schooner in distress was bound in their direction. They had a gas-powered surf boat and launched it at 3.20 p.m. The waters were

Starting point is 00:08:34 rough and the temperatures near freezing. When they reached the scene, they could see no ship, no wreckage, flotsam, lifeboat, survivors, or bodies. They decided the schooner must have changed course and headed deeper into the lake. It began to snow, so they returned to land. Something had happened between Kewaunee and two rivers, but there was still no reason to think a tragedy had occurred. But when Thanksgiving Day, November 28th, arrived, family and friends of the crew, and Chicagoans in general, began to inquire about the missing Christmas ship. Officials made calls to life-saving stations around the lake, hoping to hear that the schooner was sheltering in some safe anchorage. There was still no evidence to be found, no wreckage, no cargo, bodies, survivors, or witnesses to a sinking.

Starting point is 00:09:11 The easiest and most likely explanation was that the schooner had merely been delayed. For ten days after the gale, nothing could be said except that the ship's whereabouts were unknown. But that didn't stop Chicago's six daily newspapers from jumping on the story, including rumors, fantasies, hoaxes, and sentimentality among the facts. They said that rats had fled the ship before its departure, that the first mate's body had washed ashore, that sunken Christmas trees had dyed the lake water a dark green. They reported that trees had washed ashore in Pentwater, Michigan, and Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, an allegation that Sturgeon Bay's newspaper called,

Starting point is 00:09:42 quote, the most ridiculous lot of trash that could originate in the imaginative mind of a human being. On December 13th, the Chicago American reported that a fisherman from Sheboygan had found a bottle sealed with a wooden stopper whittled from a Christmas tree branch. Inside, supposedly, was a note that read, Friday, everybody goodbye, I guess we were all through. Sea washed over our deck load on Thursday. During the night, the small boat was washed off, leaking badly. Engvald and Steve fell overboard Thursday. God help us, Herman Schooneman. That turned out to be a hoax.

Starting point is 00:10:13 No one had the note, and the local fisherman had never heard of the man who was said to have found it. Doesn't that seem to be a theme through, like, so many of our episodes? I hate saying that. That in the absence of people knowing anything, they just invent things. And especially the media. I mean, it's sort of human nature, I think, just to embroider a story, but that's just complete journalistic malpractice to do it for money. There were also rumors that, like the rats, some crew members had deserted the ship before it had left Thompson's pier. A man named Big Bill Sullivan claimed that he'd gone north with the

Starting point is 00:10:43 crew to help cut the trees and load them, but didn't like the looks of the stormy lake. He said, I simply had a hunch, that's all. It looked bad, so I told the captain I would come back on the train. His story doesn't seem consistent with the facts that we know, but another man, Hogan Hoganson, apparently did refuse to sail and took the train home instead. He told the Chicago newspapers, before we had left the Chicago harbor, I complained to Steve Nelson, the mate, that the fo'c'sle wasn't fit for a human being to sleep in, and he promised to have it looked after. He never did, and perhaps that had something to do with the way my foreboding stayed with me. Gloomy thoughts are easy to entertain in gloomy surroundings, you know.

Starting point is 00:11:15 The search for the missing ship was given up on December 5th, and on Christmas Day, a tree hung with crepe stood on the prow of a boat at the Clark Street Bridge in Chicago. The Titanic had gone down only eight months earlier. Schoonman's widow, Barbara, and their daughters kept up the Christmas tree business, hiring schooners and then trains to deliver the trees, but always selling them from the deck of a schooner at the old dock. When Barbara died in 1933, the daughters continued for a few years, but by then the original tradition was entirely dead. Schooners had stopped bringing trees to Chicago by 1920, and most of the lake's working schooners had retired. Over the years, rumors and legends grew up about the missing ship. Some mariners on the lake claimed to have spotted the Rouse Simmons

Starting point is 00:11:53 appearing out of nowhere like the Flying Dutchman, clad in ice under tattered sails. Visitors to the gravesite of Barbara Schooneman said they smelled evergreens in the air. In 1924, a fishing tug off two rivers found a burgundy wallet wrapped in oil skin. Inside, perfectly preserved, was the business card of Hermann Schunemann. The mystery persisted until October 1971, when a Milwaukee scuba diver named Gordon Kent Bell Richard was exploring the lake off two rivers. He was looking for the wreck of the Vernon, a 700-ton steamer that had sunk in a storm in October 1887, and the local fishermen had told him of an area where their nets tended to snag. His sonar showed something at that location, and he descended to find a well-preserved ship resting upright on the lake bed in 172 feet of

Starting point is 00:12:36 water. On its side was the name Rouse Simmons, and the boards that had been used to secure its evergreens were still scattered on its deck. After 59 years, its hold was still filled with the skeletons of Christmas trees. What had happened? It appears that the ship's weight had been in the bow and it had staggered in the heavy seas under its load of trees. The crew had just dropped the port anchor when the ship crashed bow first into a large wave and went under. The lifeboat from the Two Rivers life-saving station had passed right over it. Because the logbook went down with the ship, we don't know for certain how many people died in the sinking. Certainly, Schoonerman was aboard, as were Captain Charles Nelson and nine or ten other sailors. Some estimates say there were as many as 23 people aboard, including a party of lumberjacks sailing back to Chicago.

Starting point is 00:13:17 But the most common estimate I see is between 11 and 19 people. That's a lot. In the year 1912, the death toll among sailors throughout the Great Lakes was 35, so a third to a half of them died in this one event. The wreck was designated a grave site and added to both state and national historic registers. The starboard side anchor was displayed at the Milwaukee Yacht Club and the ship's wheel at the Rogers Street Fishing Village Museum in Two Rivers. Today, the Rouse-Simmons is the most popular shipwreck in Wisconsin waters, and its story has inspired poets, painters, authors, playwrights, and songwriters. Barbara Schunemann's headstone in the Acacia Park Cemetery in Illinois is engraved with an evergreen tree. Her husband's name appears next to her own, although no bodies were ever recovered from the Rouse-Simmons.

Starting point is 00:13:59 Each year in December, the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Mackinaw makes a journey from northern Michigan to deliver a symbolic load of Christmas trees to Chicago's disadvantaged. If you're searching for an interesting holiday gift, or maybe a fun little gift for yourself, check out the Futility Closet books. The books are a little different than the podcast in that everything in them is very short, so both books have hundreds of quick bites of mental candy, entertaining oddities, quirky inventions, intriguing quotes, and brain-teasing puzzles. Perfect for anyone who would like to learn more about ironic names for law firms, a baby carriage modeled after a tank, or how the Greek king

Starting point is 00:14:50 Periander concealed the location of his own grave. Look for the books on Amazon and see why other readers have called them a fascinating compendium of interesting bits of information and full of wonderful discoveries for the curious mind. In episode 220, I read an email in which a listener explained what pernicious pests possums are in New Zealand and how the country spends a considerable amount of money and effort trying to get rid of them, while in Australia, possums are considered endangered and much money is spent in trying to save them. James Exploding Rats or Possums Nichols wrote, Hi Sharon, Greg, and Sasha. Regarding invasive Australian possums in New Zealand in episode 220, I felt I had to step in and clarify a seemingly common misconception among our Kiwi cousins.

Starting point is 00:15:50 The possum-running riot in New Zealand is the common brushtail possum, Trichoceros vulpecula, which is in no way rare or endangered in Australia. It is protected by law, as many of our animals are, and is experiencing some population decline due to habitat loss, but is categorized as least concerned by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The confusion probably arises from the conservation status of several other species of Australian possums, such as the Leadbeater's possum, Gymnobilidaeus leadbiteri, and mountain pygmy possum, Buramese parvis, which are, sadly, critically endangered. That and the irresistible irony of a tale of one country frantically trying to eliminate a species while another frantically tries to save it.

Starting point is 00:16:27 It should also be noted that Australasian opossums are only distantly related to the American opossums, although the names of both families derive from the Powhatan language of Virginia. Hope you're all well, and Sasha is getting plenty of naps. Thanks, James, and Sasha is getting plenty of naps, too often wherever she can manage to most be in the way, usually. But after reading your email, I realized that I knew almost nothing about possums, including where their name came from, or what kinds live where, or even how many kinds there are. And Wikipedia says there are 108 species of them, which boggled my mind, so thanks for the clarification.

Starting point is 00:17:12 I've talked on the show before, like in episodes 103 and 106, about the etymology of some animal names, so I was particularly intrigued by that part of James's email. Looking into it a bit, I learned that Powhatan, or Virginia Algonquin, is a now extinct language that was spoken by the Powhatan people of Tidewater, Virginia. The word opossum seems to have been borrowed from that language by the British and was first recorded in the early 17th century by John Smith, one of the founders of Jamestown, Virginia, and William Strachey, the settlement's first secretary. Strachey described the opossum as a beast in bigness of a pig and in taste alike, which I guess says a lot about the nature of the settlers' interactions with the animal, while Smith wrote that it half and head like a swine, tail like a rat, of the bigness of a cat. The Powhatan word comes from a Proto-Algonquin

Starting point is 00:17:56 word meaning white dog or dog-like beast, though I've never actually thought of possums as being very dog-like myself. As James noted, the North American possums are only distantly related to the ones in Australia who were apparently given that name by the Europeans when they arrived there. I'm guessing they didn't have a taxonomist with them or they just didn't want to come up with a new name. And I was thinking back to some of the earlier shows I've done about the etymology of other animal names, and it does seem like it's really common to want to try to name an animal based on something that it vaguely resembles or makes you think of. I guess that's true. Adam Smith also wrote about

Starting point is 00:18:34 the New Zealand possums. Sasha, Sharon, and Greg loved your segment on the non-native species of possum causing havoc to New Zealand's ecosystem. In 2000, I was fortunate enough to travel with my girlfriend to Australia, concluding the vacation in New Zealand. And no, I didn't see where they filmed Lord of the Rings. One afternoon, we stopped by a downtown Auckland clothing shop, and I saw an amazing sweater which looked and felt like cashmere on steroids. Turns out the sweater was made using a large percentage of possum fur. The tag on the garment explained the basics of how this critter was taking over the island and was legally hunted, but your podcast helped clear up the issue.

Starting point is 00:19:11 I ended up purchasing a sweater woven from this possum down, and it lasted for years. I can't say the same for my relationship. Eventually, though, I think the sweater succumbed to the ravages of time and overuse, but I still get a kick out of knowing I wore a possum sweater for a good cause. Love the show and keep up the great work. In episode 222, Greg told us about the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815, the consequences of which were felt around the world. Jason Bucata and Rick Byer let us know about a very recent follow-up to that story. Rick wrote, Hello Greg, Sharon, and Sasha. I just read with interest a newsletter from Science about the

Starting point is 00:19:49 worst year to be alive, which according to Professor Michael McCormick was 536 AD. It turns out that 536 or so was the beginning of a terrible century, plagued by a mysterious fog, crop failures, and even a literal plague. McCormick and his co-workers have just published a paper in Antiquity that is mainly about silver production in the 7th century, but includes an interesting tidbit on an Icelandic volcano eruption in 536 AD. It was the mysterious fog that caught my attention and reminded me of your discussion in episode 222, The Year Without a Summer. The fog, which was due to ash from the massive volcanic eruption, caused crop failures as far away as China. Plus, the volcano erupted

Starting point is 00:20:31 twice more, in 540 and 547, causing repeated cold summers and crop failures. And, as if that weren't miserable enough, there was a big outbreak of the bubonic plague right in the middle, in 541, that wiped out between a third and a half of the population of the remnants of the bubonic plague right in the middle in 541 that wiped out between a third and a half of the population of the remnants of the Eastern Roman Empire. I thought this was all fascinating, particularly as it relates to the beginning of the Dark Ages, which I always understood to mean unenlightened as opposed to actually dim. According to a recent article in Science, medieval historian Michael McCormick says that for much of the world, 536 was the beginning of one of the worst periods to be alive, if not the worst year. As Rick wrote,

Starting point is 00:21:12 a terrible fog left Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia in darkness day and night for 18 months. A Byzantine historian wrote, for the sun gave forth its light without brightness like the moon during the whole year. As with the eruption of Tambora, temperatures fell between 1.5 to 2.5 degrees Celsius in the summer of 536, resulting in crop failures and starvation. It's long been known by historians that the middle of the 6th century was a particularly dark time in human history, but what had caused the fog and resulting misery hadn't been known, but what had caused the fog and resulting misery hadn't been known, until McCormick and glaciologist Paul Majewski reported recently that analysis of a Swiss glacier led to the determination that there had been a cataclysmic volcanic eruption,

Starting point is 00:21:54 probably in Iceland, in early 536. As Rick said, this appears to have been followed by two other massive eruptions, in 540 and 547, and the resulting climate change and then plague pushed Europe into a period of economic stagnation that lasted until 640. Oh my gosh. It's funny how these cataclysms are so little known generally, you know? Like historians obviously know about it, but it seems like such a huge event in world history that you'd think it'd be better, even if the cause wasn't understood yet, at least people

Starting point is 00:22:24 would know that it had happened. I'd never heard of that before. Yeah. Well, they knew that something bad had happened, but they didn't understand what. And I suppose if the volcano was in Iceland, there would have been no way for the people of Iceland, depending on how many of them survived the eruption, you know, to get the word out to any other part of the world, I suppose. But just the fact of the circumstances, you think would be better known.

Starting point is 00:22:48 Anyone who is interested should check out the article in Science if you want some of the details of exactly how this kind of research is done and just what kind of data these new conclusions are based on. One point that stood out to me was that a comparison of chemical traces in glaciers with tree ring records of climate has shown that a volcanic eruption has preceded almost every unusually cold summer over the past 2,500 years. That's a long time. Yeah. It's surprising how kind of scary, how fragile the whole system is, you know?

Starting point is 00:23:19 And it's unpredictable and uncontrollable if there's going to be something like a volcanic eruption. And it affects so many people, millions of people. On the topic of the effects of Tambora's eruption, Brad Taylor wrote, Dear Sasha and your human companions, I was very interested to hear more about the eruption of Tambora and the effects it had on the world at large. Did you know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Mormonism, was also greatly influenced by the eruption. When the eruption occurred, Joseph Smith, who us church members call a prophet and others call the founder of Mormonism, was a nine-year-old boy living in Vermont with his family. When things went south that summer and the family looked for greener pastures,

Starting point is 00:23:58 they moved from Vermont to Palmyra, New York. In Palmyra, Joseph and his family were caught up in the Second Great Awakening and frequented a number of different churches and revivals. In 1820, Palmyra was where Joseph Smith said he was visited by God and Jesus Christ in what is known as the First Vision, and three years after that, he was directed by the angel Moroni to Hill Cumorah, where he found the golden plates that he translated into the Book of Mormon. A quick Google search of phrases like Joseph Smith, Tambora, and the year without a summer brings up a number of articles written over the past 30 years linking Tambora, Joseph Smith, and the founding of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Starting point is 00:24:37 In fact, the church's own new volume of history, entitled Saints, Volume 1, the story of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, just released this summer, begins with the eruption of Tambora. You can see this in the Look Inside preview that can be found on Amazon. Regardless of what you believe did or didn't happen in the life of Joseph Smith, it has to be acknowledged that the eruption of Tambora played a role in his life, his journey, and the founding of what Leo Tolstoy called the American religion. Keep up the good work. Love the podcast. And as Brad said, chapter one of the church's book begins with a depiction of an erupting volcano and a discussion of the eruption of Tambora and its effects on the world in general and on the Smith family in particular.

Starting point is 00:25:18 I guess we'll probably never know all the ways that the eruption ended up affecting history, but it was interesting to learn about how, in addition to all the other known effects, it likely contributed to the founding of a new religion. Yeah. That makes you wonder if there are other natural disasters or just other... Events. ...factors that affected world history in a big way that just haven't been uncovered yet. That's true.

Starting point is 00:25:42 And I guess in some ways we might never even know all of them. Because like, for example, if somebody died in an event, we'll never know what they would have done if they hadn't. So I think it just boggles the mind to think of all the different ways things could have gone or did go for what reasons. And lastly, I have a quick update on Larry, one of the more important residents of Britain's 10 Downing Street. Several of our listeners let us know about a recent video of the feline that's been making its way around the Internet, such as the one the BBC posted saying, Downing Street's Larry the Cat gets a helping hand from police. The video shows Larry sitting on the stoop of number 10, looking around hopefully for someone to help him get inside.

Starting point is 00:26:29 He keeps looking at a nearby police officer, who was apparently at his post near the door, and who looks at Larry uncertainly for a few moments and then a bit stiffly makes his way over to knock on the door for someone to let the chief mouser in. I think he was probably well aware that a news crew was filming in the area at the moment, which probably added to his self-consciousness. than a news crew was filming in the area at the moment, which probably added to his self-consciousness. But I thought it was great to see that Larry was being properly attended to and was amused by people's comments about this on social media, such as, is there anything more British than this policeman knocking on number 10

Starting point is 00:26:56 to let the cat in? Or, this is the most British thing you'll see all week. So there will be a link to the video in the show notes for anyone who wants their British fix for the week. So there will be a link to the video in the show notes for anyone who wants their British fix for the week. Thanks so much to everyone who writes in to us. If you have anything you'd like to share, please send it to podcast at futilitycloset.com. It's Greg's turn to try to solve a lateral thinking puzzle. I'm going to give him a strange sounding situation, and he has to try to work out what's going on, asking only yes or no questions.

Starting point is 00:27:34 This puzzle comes from Scott Richards, who said, I was having an issue with my new phone, and when I realized what was going on, I had a smack my head moment and thought it might be good fodder for a lateral thinking puzzle. going on, I had a smack my head moment and thought it might be good fodder for a lateral thinking puzzle. And the puzzle is that Scott noticed that his phone screen was intermittently going black when he rotated it to landscape mode, but was fine as soon as he returned it to portrait mode. He tried changing several settings, which didn't help, and then had an aha moment in which he was able to fix the problem without even touching the phone. You're kidding. What did Scott do? All right.

Starting point is 00:28:06 Do I need to know what particular model of phone this was? No. I mean, it's a smartphone. Let's just stipulate, right? Just to be sure. So does that mean that this could have happened on almost any phone? As far as I know. Really?

Starting point is 00:28:18 Yes. Okay. So he has the phone in, you said, portrait mode? Well, in portrait mode, it's fine. It's when he rotates it to landscape mode that sometimes the screen is going black. Okay. And he can fix this.

Starting point is 00:28:33 Right. Meaning he can put it into landscape mode. Yes. And see the screen fine without doing anything to the phone. Okay. Is there like a field, like an electrical or magnetic field?

Starting point is 00:28:44 No. Is the phone going to sleep? a field like a electrical or magnetic field no um is the phone going to sleep that's what's happening no it's just the screen is going black yes so the phone wasn't designed to do this it's just happening would you say that okay this wasn't intended correct does that have something to do with the camera? No. Okay. And no particular app, nothing about... Right. It can't be the operating system. It can't be anything if he's not touching the phone to fix it.

Starting point is 00:29:13 Right. So it's something in the environment then, would you say, influencing the phone in some way? No, I wouldn't say that. Really? Are there other people involved? No. Is his location important? that really are there other people involved no is his location important uh

Starting point is 00:29:35 something about his location i would say would have been germane now that i think about it okay but not as not as geographic location but like his right his altitude no let me tell you that i think this would have only happened outdoors now that i think about it Let me tell you that I think this would have only happened outdoors now that I think about it. Kudos on the puzzle. Outdoors. Yes. Does that have something to do with available light or darkness? Somewhat.

Starting point is 00:29:58 Somewhat. Yeah, let's say yes. Well, but that would be the same whether you turn the phone or not, right? Yes. Yes. So he's got it in portrait mode and turns it to landscape and let's say it goes black. Yeah. It does that you're saying, at least in part, because somehow it's sensing more or less light? No. No. There is an issue of light here, but it's not that the phone is sensing anything to do with light.

Starting point is 00:30:25 Is the problem something to do with his own vision of the phone? Yes. Okay, so the phone itself is actually displaying correctly? Yes. Does that have to do with polarity? It does. And? Is he wearing glasses? Sunglasses. Scott says what he did was he took off his sunglasses.

Starting point is 00:30:45 Apparently my phone screen was polarized as were my sunglasses. You may recall from high school physics classes that when you rotate two pieces of polarized glass at right angles to each other, they will block out all light going through. That must happen all the time. I never thought of that. Yeah. So thank you to Scott for that puzzle, which might even end up helping somebody else, right? 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.

Starting point is 00:31:15 This podcast would not still be here if it weren't for the generous support of our listeners. If you would like to help support our celebration of the quirky and the curious, please check out our Patreon page at patreon.com slash futilitycloset. Or see the support us section of the website at futilitycloset.com. If you become one of our phenomenal patrons, you'll also get access to extra discussions for some of the stories, more lateral thinking puzzles, peeks behind the scenes, and updates on Sasha, the not-at-all-spoiled chief mouser for the podcast. At our website, you can graze through Greg's collection of over 10,000 exceptional esoterica, browse the Futility Closet store, learn more about the Futility Closet books, or see the show notes for the podcast with links and references for the topics we've covered.

Starting point is 00:32:02 If you have any questions or comments, you can email either us or Sasha at podcast at futilitycloset.com. Our music was written and performed by the incomparable Doug Ross. Thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.

Futility Closet - 227-The Christmas Tree Ship

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