Bathroom Readers' Institute's Blog, page 57

July 13, 2017

6 Completely Unnecessary Kitchen Gadgets

Some kitchen tools are must-haves because they do so many different things—a food processor can chop and blend and mix, for example. In other words, they’re useful necessities. Unlike these real kitchen gadgets you can actually buy.



Musical Cake Slicer

Isn’t it so hard to cut a birthday cake and sing “Happy Birthday” at the same time? If that’s a problem for you, then you should invest in the Musical Cake Slice, a cake knife with a sound chip that plays “Happy Birthday” as well as “Jingle Bells” and “The Wedding March.”


Butter Wizard

With a name like Butter Wizard, one would think this tabletop gadget magically turns milk or cream into butter while you wait. It doesn’t. It’s a little box that keeps butter at an ideal temperature (and soft) for up to two hours. (In other words, at room temperature—no ButterWizard necessary.)


Pepper Grinder

Fresh ground pepper is a nice addition to steaks or salads, and this grinder grinds peppercorns into a fine dust at the push of a button. What’s kind of weird about it is that it also has a bright LED light on it, so you can see exactly what you’re peppering.


Devil Oven Pull

Pulling hot pans out of an oven is a burn waiting to happen—unless you’re careful and use oven mitts or a potholder, the way people have been doing for hundreds of years. But in case you’ve never heard of those things, there’s the Devil Oven Pull. It’s a piece of plastic with a chunk cut out of one end that hooks onto a pot so you can pull it out. (And then take it out of the oven the rest of the way with a potholder.)


Dipr

Similar to the Oven Pull in both design and necessity is the Dipr. It holds onto cookies, allowing for hands-free milk dunking.


Avocados Slicer

Avocados are so soft and easy to slice that a knife isn’t even necessary—a spoon works just fine. Or you can purchase the Avocado Slicer, which uses a series of thin plastic bars to slice half of an avocado all at once.


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Published on July 13, 2017 13:00

July 6, 2017

Today is National Fried Chicken Day

Fried chicken

Now there’s a holiday worth celebrating. Here’s a look back at what could be called the Golden Age of Fast Food Fried Chicken: the 1960s and ‘70s. Really.


Fried chicken


Nowadays, Kentucky Fried Chicken is just one of many fast food franchises on the culinary landscape, but the fact that it even has that many competitors is a testament to the success of the chain. In the ‘60s, there were relatively few fast food restaurants, and when KFC arrived on the national scene it was a cultural phenomenon. “Finger lickin’ good!” became a catchphrase, founder/spokesman Col. Harland Sanders became a celebrity, and millions wanted in on the concept of eating good old-fashioned fried chicken without having to go through the messy and time-consuming trouble of making it themselves. Result: A boom in fried chicken restaurants over the next few years… almost all of which failed and faded into history.


Glori-Fried Chicken

John Jay Hooker, a Kentucky businessman and politician who wanted to compete with Kentucky Fried Chicken…which had gone national with the involvement of another Kentucky businessman and politician named John Y. Brown. So, Hooker approached singer Mahalia Jackson about using her name and image on a fried chicken chain. As the Beatles were to rock n’ roll, Mahalia Jackson was to gospel. Regarded as one the greatest singers of all time, Jackson was a superstar in the world of religious music in the 1960s. In 1968, Mahalia Jackson’s Glori-Fried Chicken opened up in cities primarily in the South, including Jacksonville, Houston, and Memphis. Within a few years, almost all of them had closed, owing to an SEC investigation into Hooker’s books. 


Minnie Pearl’s Fried Chicken

Hooker went after multiple markets at once. While Mahalia Jackson’s Glori-Fried Chicken restaurants were placed primarily in cities with large African-American populations, Hooker’s other chain catered to the Deep South. At the same time that he opened Glori-Fried Chicken, Hooker launched Minnie Pearl’s Chicken. This one was branded with the country comedian best known for her appearances on Hee-Haw. (Minnie Pearl’s real name was Sarah Colley Cannon; Minnie Pearl was a character she played, who shouted “How-DEEE” and wore a hat with the tag still on it.) The effect of the SEC investigation destroyed Minnie Pearl’s Fried Chicken just as it had the Mahalia Jackson restaurants. All 500+ company-owned locations quickly closed, except for a single franchised one that hung around in Nashville until 2008.


Sister’s

A decade or so after the dust had settled in the competitive fast food chicken industry, Wendy’s decided to enter the race. In 1982, Wendy’s Famous Hamburgers nationally launched a sister restaurant chain called, what else, Sister’s. Selling primarily fried chicken and biscuits, the new chain couldn’t find a foothold in the crowded fast food marketplace. In 1987, a franchisee purchased 40 of 55 Sister’s locations for a relatively small $3 million. It didn’t help, and Sister’s was entirely gone by the mid-‘90s.


Chicken George

The biggest TV event of 1977 was Roots. Based on Alex Haley’s book about his family history as slaves in the South, Roots was the biggest TV event of 1977. Actor/dancer Ben Vereen was nominated for an Emmy for his portrayal of Chicken George, a Haley ancestor who got his name because he raised chickens for cockfighting at the behest of the slave owner. Not the sunniest inspiration for a fast food chain, but nevertheless, a restaurateur named Theodore Holmes cashed in on the popularity of Roots and opened a handful of Chicken George restaurants in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., in 1979. The chain was an immediate success, out-earning KFC in the cities where it was located, and quickly expanded through the South and to the West Coast. Mismanagement did in Chicken George: Holmes sold the company in 1987, it was sold again two years later, and was bankrupt by 1991.


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Published on July 06, 2017 14:21

July 5, 2017

Do Not Eat or Steal the Toe

cocktails

Here’s the story of one of the most bizarre drinks in the world…and how its legacy may be threatened.


cocktails


If you ever find yourself in the Yukon town of Dawson City, one thing you simply must do, if you can stomach it, is head to the Downtown Hotel for a Sourtoe Cocktail. It’s a simple drink, but it’s still quite the experience. There are just two ingredients: a shot of whiskey, and a real human toe. Tradition states that those who dare try the Sourtoe must touch their lips to the toe.


Why does the Downtown Hotel even do this? Back in the ‘70s, a Yukon man discovered a frostbitten, amputated big toe preserved in a jar of alcohol. (It belonged to a 1920s rum runner.) The lucky discoverer took it to the Downtown Hotel, and the rest is history.


Imbibers are not, however, supposed to eat, drink, or swallow the toe. First of all, that’s gross. Second of all, it’s incredibly hard for the Downtown Hotel to procure human toes. Third of all, doing so will significantly increase one’s bar tab. The stated fine for ingesting (or stealing) the world’s most disgusting cocktail garnish is a steep $2,500. The fine has increased by five-fold. It used to be $500, up until August 2013, when a man identified waltzed into the bar, ordered a Sourtoe, and gulped the whole thing down. He then threw $500 on the table and left; clearly he’d intended to swallow the toe all along.


That was the last toe the bar had…until a donation came through. A man had to have one of his toes surgically removed, and so he kept it and cured it in salt for half a year before donating it to the Downtown Hotel. It was ready to go in June 2017, and, tragically, it was stolen out of the bar by a Sourtoe drinker only a few days after it had gone into use.


Hotel employees think they know who did it, however. The night it disappeared, the bar was patronized by a man from Quebec who had been overheard talking about how he wanted to steal the toe; he later ordered up a Sourtoe, and now the toe is gone.


The Downtown Hotel threatened to both fine the man and press charges “unless the toe [was] returned safe.” Apparently the guilt and/or media attention got to the toe-thieving culprit. A few days later, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police announced that they’d received a call from the man purporting to be the thief. He confessed to the crime and said that he mailed the toe back to the Downtown Hotel. The mysterious “man from Quebec” also called the bar and offered his apologies. Sure enough, the toe (along with a formal, written apology) made its way back to Dawson City. The RCMP says that the toe was in “good condition” (or as much as a brown, shriveled, salt-preserved toe can be in “good condition”).


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Published on July 05, 2017 12:44

July 3, 2017

Here Are Some Truly Bizarre July “Holidays”

Weird July Holidays

It’s July, a time for fireworks, vacations…and getting free bacon for not cheating on your spouse.


Weird July Holidays


July 4: Sidewalk Egg Frying Day


Sure, the fourth of July is also Independence Day in the U.S., but it’s hot almost everywhere in the Northern Hemisphere in early July. So hot that one could, theoretically, as the saying goes, “fry an egg on the sidewalk.” Well, this is a holiday in which celebrants are encouraged to do just that. Get an egg, and during the hottest part of the day, crack it on the sidewalk and see what happens!


July 8: International Town Criers Day


Hear ye, hear ye! Today is the day set aside to honor the noble but dead job of town crier, in which an individual with impressive pipes would announce major news items of the day, and maybe the time and weather. In the centuries before widespread print media—or even widespread literacy—they provided a vital service. (Uncle John plans to appoint himself “town crier,” and stand in front of BRI headquarters shouting out fun facts.)


July 10: National Piña Colada Day


There’s no real connection between the cocktail and this date in particular, other than the fact that it’s summer, and it’s a chilled beverage widely consumed during the hotter months. It’s a mixture of rum, pineapple juice, and coconut cream, and it’s loved by people who also like getting caught in the rain (but who are not into health food, and who have half a brain).



July 19: Flitch Day


What today we call a side or slab of bacon was once called a flitch of bacon—roughly half of a single pig’s bacon. Going back at least as far as the 12th century, July 19th was a holiday in England in which the government honored married couples that stayed faithful to one another with the gift of a flitch of bacon. Some towns in England and the U.S. still have “Flitch Trials,” in which couples go before a jury of 12 unmarried people (six men, six women) and prove their love for one another in order to get that free bacon.


July 24: Cousin’s Day


There’s a holiday to celebrate almost every possible familial relationship. Some are more obscure than others; there’s Mother’s Day (May) and Father’s Day (June), of course, as well as National Grandparents Day (September), and even Aunts and Uncles Day. There’s also one for your Aunts and Uncles offspring: Cousin’s Day. Cousins: they’re like siblings, only more distantly related, but friends, as well. On this day, write an email or make a phone call to all those cousins your age who made big family gatherings fun for you when you were a kid.


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Published on July 03, 2017 10:20

June 30, 2017

Happy International Joke Day!

Ancient Jokes

July 1st is Canada Day, but it’s also International Joke Day. What follows are some of the oldest known jokes in the world.


Ancient Jokes


The oldest joke book in the world—or at least the oldest one that’s survived to modern times, dates to Ancient Greece, and approximately the 4th century A.D. Compiled by two writers named Hierocles and Philagrius, Philogelos, or “Love of Laughter,” is a collection of 265 jokes about things like intellectuals, cheapskates, and fools. While these are definitely and literally “the oldest jokes in the book,” they don’t differ all that much from jokes you’d hear from a vaudeville performer or a stand-up comic on The Tonight Show in the 1970s. Here are some highlights of Philogelos.


A cheapskate wrote his will and named himself as the heir.

An intellectual came to check in on a friend who was seriously ill. When the man’s wife said that he had departed, the intellectual replied, “When he arrives back, tell him that I stopped by.”

An intellectual was told, “Your beard is now coming in.” So he went to the city’s rear-gates and waited for it. Another intellectual asked what he was doing. Once he heard the whole story, he said, “I’m not surprised that people say we lack common sense. How do you know that it’s not coming in by the other gate?”

An envious landlord saw how happy his tenants were, so he evicted all of them.

A cheapskate fell sick and promised to pay the doctor if he recovered. When his wife got mad at him for drinking wine while he had a fever, he replied, “Do you want me to get healthy and be forced to pay the doctor?”

A census taker knocked on my door and asked, “If it please you, do you have a wife?” I replied, “I have a wife, but by Hercules she doesn’t please me!”

A man says to a doctor, “Doctor, whenever I get up from my sleep, for half an hour I feel dizzy, and then I’m alright.” The doctor told him, “Get up half an hour later.”

Wanna hear a good one? Then check out our new joke books:


The Grossest Joke Book Ever


The Funniest Knock Knock Jokes Ever


The Wackiest Joke Book Ever


Dad Jokes: The Punniest Joke Book Ever


They’re all available in right now. (No kidding!)


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Published on June 30, 2017 14:12

June 28, 2017

Happy 50th Anniversary of Being 100 Years Old, Canada!

Canada

In 1967—50 years ago—Canada celebrated its centennial, commemorating its official founding 100 years early in 1867. Here are some of the most fun highlights from the Great White North’s year-long celebration of all things Canadian.


Canada


There Was a Special Song

One of the most popular singer-songwriters of the ‘70s was Canadian star Gordon Lightfoot. He had huge hits in the U.S. with the super-mellow “If You Could Read My Mind” and “Sundown.” But in the late ‘60s, he was already scoring hits in Canada, earning him a request from the federal government to write and record a song for the centennial celebration. On January 1, 1967, Lightfoot’s patriotic “Canadian Railroad Trilogy” hit the Canadian airwaves.



There Was a New Font

Canadian typographer Carl Dair was commissioned by the Canadian government to create a brand-new font that was distinctively Canadian. Dair concocted the elegant, easy-to-read font called Cartier, “the first Canadian type for text composition.”


There Was a Special Gigantic Canadian Tattoo

No, really—although a tattoo isn’t only a form of permanent skin art, it’s also a name for an elaborate performance of a military band. Canadian Armed Forces Tattoo 1967 was an effort by members of three branches of the Canadian military stationed at a base in Picton, Ontario. The show incorporated more than 1,700 uniformed men and women and it traveled around Canada for most of the year, delivering 150 performances. The largest peacetime operation by the military in Canadian history, it depicted—through song and theater—the history of Canada’s military might, from French troops arriving in North America in 1665 up to the present day.



There Was a Coast-to-Coast Canoe Race


The Centennial Voyageur Canoe Pageant was an ambitious national competition. Teams had to navigate Canada’s many rivers and waterways—from the Rocky Mountains in the west all the way to Montreal in the east. It began on May 24 with ten teams, each from one of eight provinces and two territories (two provinces didn’t send a team). In all, the race spanned 3,283 miles—the longest canoeing race in history—and took more than three months for 100 rowers working in shifts to complete. The winner: the team from Manitoba, and every man on the team took home $1,500.


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Published on June 28, 2017 10:00

June 27, 2017

When the Bandit Ruled the World

Smokey and the Bandit

In 1977, the epic tale of a hero captivated audiences and found huge box office success. No, not Star Wars. We’re talking about Smokey and the Bandit.


Smokey and the Bandit


The Plot

The plot of the movie may sound a little strange and dated to modern-day viewers. Two guys make a bet over whether or not the Bandit (Burt Reynolds) can transport 400 cases of Coors beer from Texas to Atlanta, with police and highway patrol on his tail. In the ‘70s, Coors wasn’t the nationally available product it is today. It had no preservatives, and refrigeration technology wasn’t yet sophisticated enough to transport it very far, so it was only available in the Western states. Beyond that, taking it back east was technically a criminal bootlegging offense. (This also explains why the Bandit had such a tight timeline—the beer was going to spoil without refrigeration.)


The Inspiration

An article about Coors bootlegging is what inspired Hollywood stuntman (and Burt Reynolds’ stunt double) Hal Needham to write the movie (which he would later direct). He had been living in Burt Reynolds’ pool house for more than a decade when he wrote the first draft of the script on legal pads.


The Car

After watching Smokey and the Bandit, lots of people wanted to drive a car just like the Bandit’s: a black Pontiac Trans Am. Sales of the car doubled after the release of the movie. On set, a total of three Trans Ams were used—one of which was totaled during the scene where the car has to jump a bridge.


The Budget

This relatively low-budget movie (it cost $4.3 million to make, of which $1 million was Reynolds’ salary) was expected to do moderate business, as Burt Reynolds was already a star, headlining hits like Gator and The Longest Yard. But Smokey and the Bandit was a monster hit. In 1977, it made $126 million at the box office—only Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind made more money that year. In 2017 dollars, Smokey and the Bandit made the equivalent of half a billion dollars.


The Sheriff

For his role as the always apoplectic Sheriff Buford T. Justice, Jackie Gleason took inspiration from real life—he based his performance on Burt Reynolds’ father, a former police chief of Jupiter, Florida.


The Surprising Fan

Surprisingly, it was one of the favorite movies of legendary director Alfred Hitchcock. Every Wednesday, he’d screen movies in his office, and between 1977 and his death in 1980, more than not, Smokey and the Bandit was playing. It was reportedly among the last films Hitchcock watched he passed away.


The Theme Song

Jerry Reed wrote the movie’s theme song, “Eastbound and Down,” in just two hours.



The Sequels

There are lots of sequels to Smokey and the Bandit, none of which performed as well as the original. Reynolds returned for Smokey and the Bandit II, but only makes a brief cameo in Smokey and the Bandit III, in which Sheriff Buford T. Justice is the one who has to make the big delivery (a stuffed fish going from Florida to Texas). In the ‘90s, writer-director Hal Needham revived the franchise for four made-for-TV movies: Bandit Goes Country, Bandit Bandit, Beauty and the Bandit, and Bandit’s Silver Angel. They didn’t have Burt Reynolds of the Trans Am—an actor named Brian Bloom played the Bandit and he drove a Dodge Stealth.


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Published on June 27, 2017 10:00

June 26, 2017

Just What Is a “Fidget Spinner” Anyway?

What is a Fidget Spinner

If you’ve got kids, you’ve probably been bisieged by requests for one. If you are a kid, you’re probably obsessed with getting one. Of maybe you have one already–but if you did, you probably wouldn’t be reading this because you’re hooked. Here’s a look inside the world of fidget spinners, the hottest fad of the year.


What is a Fidget Spinner


It’s sort of like a high-tech, next generation stress ball. A fidget spinner is a handheld, two-or-three-pronged metal toy that spins on an axis in the middle when pushed with a finger. By spinning it around while in school or doing work, it’s been said to help alleviate stress or release nervous energy. With all of that “fidgeting” both mental and physical occupied by the fidget spinner, some experts say (although research is scant) it allows users to focus on the task at hand.


It’s the hot toy of 2017…but the fidget spinner was invented way back in 1993. Chemical engineer Catherine Hettinger filed a patent for a “spinning toy” in 1993. Her inspiration was witnessing children in Israel throw rocks at police officers and she wanted to create something that could help frustrated kids channel or release their energy. The actual design of the toy came when, due to a medical condition that causes muscle weakness that left her unable to play with her young daughter as much as she wanted, Hettinger used “newspaper and tape” to build a toy. She then started selling primitive versions at arts and crafts fairs. Hettinger then partnered with Hasbro to mass-market the toy, but after a test-marketing of the fidget spinner failed, they dropped the deal and the patent lapsed in 2005.


Another inventor named Scott McCoskery also claims to have invented the fidget spinner. In 2014, he made a spinning toy out of metal to deal with a wandering mind during conference calls and meetings at work. He sold his concoction online, which he called the Torqbar.


Many different manufacturing companies other than the one McCoskery used caught on and started making their own unauthorized fidget spinners. McCoskery filed a provisional patent in 2016, just before the craze hit big. That led to a glut of fidget spinners on the market. Earlier this year, Amazon.com’s ranking of the top 50 bestselling toys included 43 different fidget spinners.


Ironically, hundreds of schools have now banned fidget spinners from the classroom—arguing that they’re much more of a distraction than a focus-concentrator.


 


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Published on June 26, 2017 10:00

June 23, 2017

NBA Draft Busts

Basketball

The NBA Draft just happened. Hopefully your favorite team didn’t make a decision that will land them in an article like this one someday.


Basketball


Ben Simmons—Philadelphia 76ers

Ben Simmons, an Australian forward who played just one year at LSU—where he averaged 19 points and 12 rebounds a game—before he was drafted with the #1 pick in the 2016 draft by the Philadelphia 76ers. He looked to be able to turn around the 76ers fortunes…until the last training camp scrimmage before the 2016-17 season. He rolled his right ankle, and fractured a bone. He wound up missing the entire season. (And the 76ers finished in last place in the Eastern Conference.)


Anthony Bennett—Cleveland Cavaliers

Anthony Bennett is the first Canadian to be a #1 NBA Draft pick. Unfortunately, for the teams who he played for, that’s about the only notable thing about his pro career. While only able to play about half the minutes of games he played for UNLV due to shoulder injuries, he still racked up 16 points and 8 rebounds per game. The Cleveland Cavaliers went ahead and grabbed Bennett with the #1 pick in the 2013 draft. He played in a little more than half of the games in the 2013-14 season, averaging just 4 points. The Cavs traded him to the Minnesota Timberwolves…for whom Bennett averaged 5 points. After one season, he was signed by the Toronto Raptors…and after two months of play, he requested to be send to the team’s minor league affiliate, the Raptors 905 of Mississauga, Ontario. He bounced around the NBA a little bit more and played a few months in Turkey. Bennett is not currently signed by any team, anywhere.


Greg Oden—Portland Trail Blazers

The 2007 draft was among the most stacked in NBA history. Up for selection were future MVP Kevin Durant, and future all-stars Marc Gasol, Joakim Noah, and Al Horford. The Portland Trail Blazers had the top pick, however, and needing a center, drafted who looked like a sure thing: Greg Oden. He’d played at Ohio State for one season, and led the team to a Big Ten Conference championship with big offensive (15.7 points per game) and defensive (9.6 rebounds per page, 3.3 blocks per game) numbers. A few months before the season began, Oden signed a two-year guaranteed contract, meaning he’d get paid no matter what. That turned out to be very good for Oden, because he’d ultimately play very little professional basketball. He had to have knee surgery and missed the entire 2007-2008 season. In his first game, which came in late 2008, he played 13 minutes and score 0 points before being sidelined with a foot injury. Oden came back in January and put up decent numbers for the Blazers, only to injury his knee again in February. That benched him for another spell. Early in the next season, he hurt his knee once more and surgery put him out for the rest of the 2009-10 season. In fact, Oden didn’t suit up for a game until 2013—nearly four years later, when he had joined the Miami Heat. It just wasn’t meant to be. While some other teams showed interest, Oden left the NBA in 2015 and played one season in China.


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Published on June 23, 2017 13:00

Flowers for Mrs. Kuroki

Shibazakura (Moss Pink) in Japan

It’s certainly not unheard of for a man to show his wife that he loves her by giving her flowers. (The floral industry kind of depends on it.) But this many flowers? Say hello to Toshiyuki and Yasuko Kuroki. (This story is a sneak peek from our 30th annual edition, Uncle John’s Old Faithful Bathroom Reader, available November 2017.)


Shibazakura (Moss Pink) in Japan


Time for a Vacation

Toshiyuki and Yasuko Kuroki got married in 1956 and started their family on a dairy farm near the town of Shintomi, on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu. With their two children, they spent the next 30 years caring for their herd of dairy cows, which grew to 60 in number. By the mid-1980s the couple was looking forward to the day, not too far off, when they could retire and take a nice long trip to see the rest of Japan.


But it was not to be: one day in 1986 Mrs. Kuroki, a diabetic, began having problems with her eyes. Her vision deteriorated rapidly and within a week she was almost completely blind. The shock of losing her sight so quickly sent her into a deep depression; not only did she not want to travel around Japan, she didn’t want to leave the house. Formerly cheerful and outgoing, Mrs. Kuroki became a virtual recluse and rarely saw anyone outside the family.


Seed of an idea

Mr. Kuroki was at a loss for what to do…until one day he noticed some people admiring the fuschia-pink shibazakura flowers in his and his wife’s small garden. Also known as moss phlox, the flowers bloom prodigiously and they have a strong, sweet fragrance. That gave Mr. Kuroki an idea: if he planted more shibazakura around the farm, their pleasing scent might encourage his wife to venture out of the house more often to smell them. And if the flowers attracted an admirer or two, chatting with them might lift Mrs. Kuroki’s spirits.


The Kurokis farm is several acres, and Mr. Kuroki decided to plant as much of it as possible in shibazakura. He retired from the dairy business, sold his cows, and devoted the next two years to clearing trees, planting shibazakura, and tending to the young plants as they grew. He created footpaths through the fields, so that if anyone ever did stop by to admire the flowers, they would be able to walk out into the middle of the flowers and enjoy them all the more.


In the pink

After two years of planting, the fields were ready; that March the shibazakura came into bloom. The rolling fields of pink that surrounded the Kurokis’ home were a vivid contrast to the green pastures of the neighboring farms, and just as Mr. Kuroki hoped, they began to attract attention. Only a few visitors came by at first, mostly locals from Shintomi and surrounding towns. But as the years passed the numbers grew, and the story of Mr. Kuroki’s gift to his wife spread. Soon people came from other parts of Kyushu to see the flowers, then from other southern islands, and then from all over Japan. The crowds grew so large that Mr. Kuroki converted a cow shed into a visitors’ center filled with photographs and other displays. During March and April when the flowers are in full bloom, a hundred people or more drop by the farm each day to see the flowers and visit with Mr. and Mrs. Kuroki, who are usually in the visitors’ center or out walking along the footpaths that run through the fields.


Flower power

It’s a good thing that the Kurokis enjoy all the attention, because in early 2016 their story was profiled on the English language website Rocket24, and from there it spread all over the Internet. It’s a safe bet that in coming years when foreign tourists travel to Japan each April for Sakura Matsuri, the annual Cherry Blossom Festival, more than a few of them will be adding another destination to their itinerary: a visit to the Kurokis’ farm outside of Shintomi on the island of Kyushu. If they do drop by, they are likely to see Mr. and Mrs. Kuroki socializing happily with their visitors. Mrs. Kuroki still struggles with her blindness, but her depression has lifted and by all appearances she is as cheerful and outgoing as she was before she lost her sight. That she has made such a strong recovery from the depths of her despair is, for Mr. Kuroki, the greatest gift of all.




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Published on June 23, 2017 10:00