Hey, Camp Fans!

When you deal with so many interesting products like we do here at Everything Summer Camp, you can’t help but get a little curious about the origin of the gear, supplies, toys, and other items that we handle on a daily basis. That’s why I’ve started writing these History posts in which we investigate the back stories behind specific gear and other products. A lot of the products we sell have histories that go way back, even to ancient times.

Today, however, we’re going back only 64 years ago, to 1953. Today we’re looking at the history of Mad Libs.

This unrivaled, classic, fill-in-the-________ word game was an overnight success! By removing parts-of-speech and replacing it with a different, random noun, verb, adjective, etc., Mad Libs transform simple stories into hilarious laugh attacks. The best way to give a group a big case of the giggles is with an uproarious tale from a Mad Libs page.

The concept for Mad Libs was born that fateful night back in 1953 when their co-creator, Leonard Stern was looking for the right adjective in a script he’d been writing. After he had struggled in the search for half an hour on this single word, his best friend Roger Price walked in. Evident to Roger that his friend was in deep frustration, he asked what he could do.

Leonard confided in his friend over this elusive adjective that he could not track down for the last 30 minutes. When Leonard asked for help, his friend Roger blurted out “clumsy and naked” which, as incorrect as it was, at least made Leonard laugh. The pair almost immediately recognized the potential behind this hilarious description of somebody’s nose (as Leonard’s script had been calling for).

Leonard commenced to leave the script where it was for the rest of the night and went to work with his friend Roger writing short, page-long write-ups with key words missing. You can find awesome, camp-themed Mad Libs and other fun ones right here when you shop our website! Enjoy laughin’ it up with your friends with Mad Libs and, as always, thanks for reading.

- John

Hey, Camp Fans!

Do you ever find yourself wondering about the origin of some inventions? When it was invented. And why? We do here at Everything Summer Camp. We offer a number of items that have interesting back stories, which is why I like to take a day here and there on this Blog to investigate the origins of specific gear and other camp supplies.

Today: the toothbrush.

People have been doing the best to their abilities for about as long as history can tell us to make some attempt at dental hygiene. Artifacts that date back well over 5000 years ago have been found and recorded as ‘chew sticks’. People would use pretty much whatever was around. A twig or branch was typical to chew on and work around in the mouth.

Roughly 1400 years ago, the first bristle brush came around. Invented in China, Tiny holes were bored into a hard-handled object—likely bone or bamboo—and then coarse horse tail or hog hair was inserted into the holes. Yep. You read that right. People actually brushed their teeth with animal hair! Hogs in Northern China grew very coarse hair to protect themselves against the cold climate which made for sturdy brushing material.  

This may seem pretty primitive compared to our modern methods, but, if you ask me, I’d rather brush my teeth with animal hair than do what they were doing in Europe at the time!

These guys rolled rags in salt or soot and then proceeded to rub their teeth with these rags! In the year 1780, an Englishman by the name of William Addis is credited as the inventor of the modern toothbrush. Jailed over a dispute that grew out of hand, Mr. Addis found himself in a dim-lit and dirty jail cell where he sat with horrible breath. Inspiration struck him along with the recognition of his breath problem.

He pried up a bone that was embedded in his jail cell floor, somehow managed to drill holes into it and was able to get bristles from one of his jailers that recognized Addis’ invention as something to benefit mankind. The material of the bristles is unknown, but it certainly wasn’t animal hair. Eventually nylon became the choice material to use and this allowed for cheap, mass-production.

Even so, daily dental hygiene wasn’t practiced as a popular habit until after World War II when soldiers brought the required dental regimen back home with them. Can you imagine the breath they had before then? Remember to brush your teeth, kids! It brightens your smile, cleans up your mouth’s odor, and you don’t have to do it with animal hair anymore!

Everything Summer Camp is proud to promote the habit by providing the very awesome and very first portable, battery-operated toothbrush from VIOlife. Vibrating at more than three times the speed of the fastest electric toothbrush, the Slim Sonic brush is fun to use and habit-forming! Check it out right here and, as always, thanks for reading!

- John

Happy Fourth of July, Compatriots!

For 240 years, we have been celebrating our freedom from the rule of any other country but ourselves. That’s why we make it a pretty big deal once a year to enjoy our freedom on the Fourth of July. Back in the colonial days, around the 1750’s, our ancestors made settlements in ‘The New World’ in an attempt to flee the unjust government of Great Britain under the rule of King George III.

But still pulling the colonial strings from across the Atlantic Ocean, King George implemented unfair taxes and unfair laws over the colonies. To much dismay of George, the settlers increasingly felt that they were able to be its own government—independent of British rule. They fought back.

Couldn’t we all just get along? Well, ol’ George was turning into quite a villain as he continued to make life pretty unfair for everyone in The New World with his unrelenting taxes and unjust laws. He acted so brashly that modern historians have started posing the question, ‘What was up with King George anyway?’

Known as ‘the mad king’, many agree that George must have been crazy to have driven 13 colonies out of the British Empire. Was he literally crazy? Yes, he was. It turns out that George battled with insanity throughout his life. In fact, his condition reached levels of such severity at one point that he was restrained in a straitjacket. He’s recorded to have had fits of rage, shouting, hallucinations, confusion, and extreme pain.

The cause of his mental state is thought to be connected to a metabolic disorder called porphyria. Porphyria attacks are known to create extreme agitation and confusion. They can cause nausea as well acute pain in the abdomen and make speech difficult for the victim. By the end of his life, the mad king had gone blind, deaf, and absolutely mad.

So, poor George may not have been such a bad guy after all—just absolutely nuts. In any case, he certainly was not fit for kingly duties and we owe our independence to the colonists who recognized the injustice of their situation and aimed to correct it. Happy Independence Day to our fellow Americans and, as always, thanks for reading!

- John

Hey there, all you mistake-makers!

Don’t worry—everyone makes mistakes. In fact, I’ve already hit the ‘Backspace’ button at least five times just typing to this point in the post. Mistakes are inevitable—bound to happen multiple times on a daily basis. They come in all shapes and sizes, transpiring on a small-scale or as a grand goof-up. Typically, the bigger they are, the harder they are to reverse, but, luckily, a lot of small mistakes can be undone.

Today is National Rubber Eraser Day—a day where mankind’s triumph over written mistakes are celebrated! Thanks to this rubber invention, we can make all of our spelling errors, math mistakes, and drawing slip-ups disappear with just as much ease as when they first showed up. Here’s how the mighty eraser works:

When you put marks down on a piece of paper, flakes of pencil lead are dragged across the paper’s fibers and cling to them along the way. Those flakes will stick around for decades so long as they’re left undisturbed, but erasers are able to pick those flakes up from off the paper fibers because the rubber of an eraser is stickier material than the paper fibers and the flakes of pencil lead find their new home on the eraser.

Boasting a near-magical capability, erasers may surprise you for how long they’ve been around. While rubber erasers have only been in production for the last 250 years (roughly) other means of erasing have been around since ancient times. Erasers were not originally made of rubber, but instead of a food that’s probably in your house right now—BREAD!

But unless you’re looking for a snack while you’re undoing some mistakes, rubber erasers are definitely the way to go.

Certain trees excrete rubber to discourage insects from making a feast out of them. This excretion was discovered back in 1770 by a man named Joseph Priestley who noted that a specific type of ‘vegetable gum’ had a great ability to ‘rub out’ pencil marks.

This ‘rubbing gum’ eventually developed the name rubber, so erasers spawned our name for this material. The word ‘eraser’, however, is really only common in the US and Canada. Almost anywhere else you go, people call them ‘rubbers’. Make sure to appreciate the magical abilities of erasers today, and, as always, thanks for reading.

- John

Hey there, History Buffs!

If you really ARE history buffs, then you probably already know what today is—the birthday of our nation’s third president, Thomas Jefferson. An irregular president and rather intriguing man, I thought I’d share just a few facts with you about this infamous character who adorns the rare $2 bill as well as our American nickel. I’ve compiled a list of—what I think to be—this president’s most interesting qualities.

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1)    To start things off, he was nicknamed the ‘Man of the People’ as our president because of his informal apparel when he greeted visitors of the White House. He would sit to meet with powerful men of the time in his robe and slippers without concerning about his reputation—after all, he was already the president!

2)    More admirable than his love for lounging, Jefferson loved books. He loved them so much that when British troops attacked the US Library of Congress and burned all the books in 1814, he restocked its shelves when it was rebuilt a year later with 6,587 books from his own personal library. He loved to read and loved to encourage literacy across the nation.

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3)    Last, and most interesting, is the inscription of Jefferson’s headstone: “Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, Author of the Declaration of Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia.”—nothing about being the third president of a new nation. Why didn’t he bother to include his presidency? Possibly because he wasn’t sure how he felt about politics in the first place.

Yes, Jefferson had more interest in science and reading than he did politics, but, nevertheless he led our nation for two full terms from 1801 to 1809. There are lots of other quirky things you can learn about this former president (like his obsession with Mastadons, for instance, which he confused for Mammoths). Enjoy learning about ol’ Jefferson and, as always, thanks for reading!

- John