The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 171: He Really Stuck With It

Episode Date: September 22, 2020

And that was good news for the naked burglar.

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because your data can be relisted at any time. With ORA, you can even see where and when your data was found and removed. The longer your data stays out there, the more it spreads. Try ORA for free at ORA.com.com slash hidden. That's ORA.com slash hidden to try ORA for free. This is the way I heard it. On a warm summer evening in San Diego, California, way back in 1953, Norman Lawson wrestled to find a new solution for an old problem, a problem that had plagued the United States Navy for years. A loyal employee of the Rocket Chemical Company,

Norman labored, after hours, in a lab he built above his garage, surrounded by concoctions and mixtures that bubbled and fizzled as his dinner grew cold. Once again. It had been like this for the last several months. Norman locked away in his lab as his family slowly began to wonder if he would ever emerge for something more than cold leftovers. So far, 11 experiments had been conducted, but all had come up short. Norman's failures, however, only deepened his resolve to find the right ingredients for an elusive solution, and tonight he was experimenting with mineral oil, paraffin, and carbon tetrachloride,

otherwise known as the goop inside of a lava lamp, which he had added to a beaker of petroleum with the unflagging confidence of a true optimist, only to get another negative result. Damn it! Norm went back to work as his wife called him to dinner for the third and final time. 20 years later, more or less, on a warm summer evening in downtown Denver, a concerned citizen out for a late-night stroll heard muffled cries coming from the inside of a bank. The concerned citizen called the police, and moments later, Officer McCourt arrived on the scene. A veteran of some experience, Officer McCourt followed the sounds of distress to the back of the building, specifically to an air vent leading into the bank. A closer investigation revealed a naked burglar jammed inside.

Thank God you're here, officer. I admit it. I was trying to break into the bank and now I am absolutely stuck. Please, can you get me out? Officer McCourt attempted to pull the naked burglar out by his legs. This attempt failed. He then tried to push him forward, but that attempt also failed. He might as well have tried to thread a needle with a side.

passage. So, Officer McCourt called for backup, and soon several firemen entered the bank and attempted to pull the naked burglar out by his arms, but that only seemed to wedge him deeper into the bend of the ductwork. We're going to have to cut him out, said one of the firemen. I'll get the hacksawls, said another. God help me, said the naked burglar. 20 years earlier, more or less, in the lab above his garage in San Diego, California, Norman Lawson was still experimenting as another family dinner was consumed without him. You'll recall that his 12th attempt, the one that incorporated the goop from lava lamps, had failed.

Well, so too had the 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, and the next 10 attempts after that. Now, he was about to begin his 27th experiment and feeling very optimistic about the addition of an alkaline found in the scent gland of the red-banded stink bug, along with a shot of baby oil, and a sprinkling of aliphatic hydrocarbon. Surely, muttered Norman, this will do the trick. Well, the 27th experiment failed, as did the 28th and the 29th. Norm wandered downstairs to cold spaghetti and meatballs, vowing as he always did to crack the code the next day. But the next day was no different. Nor was the day after that, or the day after that, or the day after that.

Over the next month, another ten experiments would be carefully conducted, and another ten failures would be dutifully logged. Until finally, Norm conducted his 39th attempt by adding to his naphtha-based compound a pinch of fish oil, a dollop of Vaseline, and a dash of silicone. The result? Complete and total failure. Twenty years later, more or less, a team of Denver firemen armed with hacksawls began the delicate process of cutting a naked burglar out of a metal air vent, a procedure that caused the naked burglar no small amount of consternation. Officer McCourt's flashlight danced off the man's alabaster buttocks,

which now glistened with sweat as the sawblades passed within millimeters of his tender flesh. Hang on, fellas, said Officer McCourt. I've got something in my trunk that I think might help. Get it, said the burglar. Whatever it is, get it. I'm not going anywhere. Twenty years earlier, more or less, Immediately following his 39th failure, Norman Lawson finally stumbled across the ingredient that led to a brand new solution to a very old problem.

A lot of problems, in fact. For his persistence and ingenuity, the rocket chemical company awarded him a $500 bonus and went on to market his solution not just to the U.S. Navy, but to housewives who used it to remove gum from carpeting. and husbands who used it to remove tell-tale lipstick from shirt collars, and once to a bus driver in Southeast Asia who used it to remove a 20-foot python from the undercarriage of his vehicle. What was the secret ingredient that turned Norman's compound into a billion-dollar all-purpose solution? No one knows. The recipe is locked away in a vault somewhere in California. But the product is pretty much everywhere, more ubiquitous than the iPad, more popular than Netflix, and, according to many, more useful than both.

Just ask Officer McCourt, who retrieved from his trunk a blue and yellow can, a can filled with Norm Lawson's solution, a solution designed to combat rust and corrosion aboard Navy ships, that also just happened to work great on hinges, sticky drawers, dirty guitar strings, tangled jewelry, sputtering showerheads, and pretty much anything else that might benefit from a little lubrication, including a naked burglar, stuck inside an air vent of the Denver bank he was attempting to rob on a warm summer evening in the summer of 1973, more or less. Thus, Officer McCourt, going far above and beyond the call of duty, bravely crawled into that air vent and slathered a burglar's bottom with Norman Lawson's all-purpose solution before extracting him unscathed from his temporary prison and into a more permanent one,

where he would spend the next five years for attempted robbery. Just one of many happy endings made possible by Norman Lawson's final, attempt to invent a revolutionary water displacement compound, the 40th attempt, in fact, that resulted in a lubricant for just about everything. A water displacing lubricant, he called WD40. Anyway, that's the way I heard it. Moves us, surfing a wave or savoring the view. The ocean delights us as playful otters restore coasts, Kel Porres. The Ocean Connects us. Visit Monterey Bay Aquarium.org slash

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