John Cletheroe's
USA and Canada Holiday Hints

Odds and Ends

Some entries previously located on this page have now been moved to the new People page.

Table of Contents For This Page

Introduction
Paul Bunyon
CCC - Civilian Conservation Corps
Exit Guides
Fireworks
Groundhog Day
Hamburgers
Lewis and Clark Expedition - The Corps of Discovery
Mailboxes
McDonald's
Piggly Wiggly
Racial Groups
School Bus Yellow
School Holidays
The Sioux Indian Calendar
Thunderbird
Tipping
Trees: Tallest, Biggest and Oldest

Introduction

This page contains various short articles which don't fit conveniently into any other category.

Paul Bunyon

A legendary folklore hero of the lumber camps of the American Northwest, with enormous strength and cunning. The stories have Paul Bunyon and his giant blue ox, called Babe, creating the most significant geological features of the Pacific Northwest or even the North American continent such as the Grand Canyon. There are many theories to explain the origin of the tales, including:

From French-Canadian sources.
From European sources.
Created by a logging company early in the twentieth century.

The earliest known publication of some Paul Bunyon tales was in a newspaper in 1910.

There is a suitably huge statue of Paul Bunyon and Babe in the redwood forests of northern California, I think possibly alongside the Avenue of the Giants.

CCC - Civilian Conservation Corps

The Civilian Conservation Corps was set up under President Roosevelt's "New Deal" in 1933 during the Depression era as a "make-work" program. The Corps worked on various public projects, including many in State and National Parks. For example, the Civilian Conservation Corps were responsible for much of the early construction work on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The CCC was terminated in late 1942 or early 1943. The WPA (Works Progress Administration, later renamed Work Project Administration) served a somewhat similar but more general role.

Exit Guides

These guides list the facilities (motels, restaurants, petrol stations, etc) available at each exit of an Interstate. They are packed with numerous coupons, mainly for motels and to a lesser extent for restaurants.

While the information in these guides is of some slight use, I certainly wouldn't advise paying for a copy. Sometimes copies can be picked up free of charge. Remember that both the information and the coupons will become out of date very quickly.

Since the coupons all have the proviso that they "cannot be combined with any offer", they are of extremely marginal value in most cases. You might be lucky and find the occasional bargain, though.

Fireworks

While the use of fireworks in Britain is mainly limited to the Fifth of November, there is of course no celebration of that date in America or Canada. Instead people in the USA use fireworks on dates such as the Fourth of July. Stands selling fireworks are sometimes seen at state lines, since their use or purchase by the public is illegal in some areas. For example, Tim Showalter sent me an email to say that in Ohio it is legal to buy and sell fireworks but not to set them off.

Gene Johannsen sent me this email:

You are correct that fireworks are illegal in some states and a thriving Fourth of July business is to set up a stand right across the state border in a legal state. When growing up, fireworks were legal in my home state of South Dakota (still are as far as I know - I live in California now) but illegal in Minnesota. When my family visited relatives in Minnesota we would stop at the big fireworks stand just inside South Dakota and run a load of the illegal incendiaries to the rest of the family. Pornography is under a similar cloud, and I've seen at least one combined Porn and Fireworks shop just across a state border (in Texas, across the line from Oklahoma).

Groundhog Day

According to tradition, on Groundhog Day (the second of February) groundhogs (marmots, and also sometimes called woodchucks) are supposed to be able to predict whether spring will be early or late that year, depending on whether they can "see their shadow", in other words whether the sun is shining or not. The creatures are supposed to leave their burrows where they have been hibernating for the winter and then decide whether to return to hibernation or not. If the sun is shining and the animal can see its shadow then according to tradition there will be six more weeks of cold weather and the creature returns to its burrow.

The most famous weather predicting groundhog is Punxsutawney Phil (external link verified Feb-05) who lives in the town of the same name in Pennsylvania. Punxsutawney is located about 63 miles (as the crow files) northeast of Pittsburgh, at the intersection of US119 and Pennsylvania State Highway 36, south of I-80.

Punxsutawney Phil has some rivals in the weather prediction business, including Wiarton Willie who lives at a motel in Wiarton, Ontario (on the Bruce Peninsular). There is also another motel in Wiarton with a weather-predicting groundhog (I forget his or her name).

Presumably all these are in fact stage names, the roles being filled by a succession of animals over the years.

The groundhogsday.com web site (external link verified Feb-01) suffers from excessive commercialisation but it does have a useful page of links to the web sites of various weather predicting groundhogs in the USA and Canada.

Hamburgers

According to a news story on BBC's Ceefax teletext service on 16-Aug-97, "People in North America consume 38 billion hamburgers a year, equivalent to three hamburgers per person per week".

While the item didn't state whether "North Americans" was meant to include not only the citizens of the USA but also those of Canada, Mexico and the Central American countries, or if the word "billion" was used in the British or the American sense, a little experimentation with a calculator shows that it almost certainly only includes the citizens of the USA and that "billion" is used in the American sense (10⁹). This gives a population for the USA of 243,589,744 compared with the figure given on Encarta 1997 of 263,437,000, which seems very consistent. My grateful thanks to Miguel Cruz for pointing this out.

Definitions of the words hamburger, cheeseburger, etc
See also McDonald's below (on this page).

The Lewis and Clark Expedition - The Corps of Discovery

In 1803 the USA purchased vast regions of the west from France. This was called the Louisiana Purchase. President Thomas Jefferson authorised an expedition to explore this land with the primary aim of finding a navigable route from the east to west via the Missouri and Columbia rivers. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were the expedition's leaders; a Shoshoni Indian woman called Sacajawea was one of its guides. The expedition, which took place from May 1804 to September 1806, was highly successful in terms of exploring the territory and establishing contacts with the Indians. It did not of course manage to find a navigable route the entire distance to the Pacific because one does not exist. "Lois and Clark", referring to Superman and his girlfriend (Clark Kent and Lois Lane), is a deliberate pun on "Lewis and Clark". The Lewis and Clark Expedition is also often referred to as the "Corps of Discovery".

Mailboxes

Although visitors won't have cause to use them, they will without doubt see the mailboxes outside many American houses and perhaps wonder what the purpose of their little red flags is. Here's an explanation, kindly supplied by Dave Krupka of Bolingbrook, Illinois:

In rural areas and in some suburban areas the houses have mailboxes near the street so that the mail may be delivered directly from a vehicle. Most people still call those that deliver the mail "mailmen". Lately, the Postal Service has recognised the fact that more and more women are doing this job. Their uniforms now have the title "letter carrier" on them.

If the letter carrier has no mail that day for a particular box, he or she normally passes it by. By putting up the little red flag, the resident signals the mailman that the boxholder has letters to be picked up and mailed. Letters to be picked up and mailed must be stamped.

It's a strange mix. Some homes do get the mail delivered directly to a mail slot [i.e. letterbox - JC] or small box near the front door. Some have a mailbox (with a red flag) at the curb in front of the home; and in really rural areas several farms or ranches will set up a cluster of mailboxes near the main road. The local postmaster makes the decision based on his manpower and the size of his area.

Visitors should put mail that they wish to send in "mail drops" which do the same job as British pillar boxes. Be careful not to confuse mail drops with litter bins, though - they can sometimes be similar in design. Mail drops are dark blue and have the Postal Service logo on them. The slot has a counterweighted flap which you open in order to deposit your mail. Dark green mailboxes with the notice "Not for deposit of mail" and with no slots are for letter carriers on foot to store mail to be delivered later in their route. Stamps are best obtained in post offices. Although they are the same price at other sources, the post office will be able to look up the correct cost of sending mail abroad.

Many houses also have simple plastic boxes outside for newspapers to be delivered.

McDonald's

How many McDonald's restaurants are there in the USA? I have seen two contradictory figures, as follows:

"About half the U.S. population uses one or more of the country's 16,000 library branches, which are twice as numerous as McDonald's restaurants". Source: Bill Gates' New York Times Column 22-May-96: Closing The Information Gap.
"There are over 12,000 McDonald's restaurants in the USA." Source: The Daily Brief 10-Jul-97.

In addition, Steve Shaw of Toronto, Ontario, sent me this comment:

From McDonald's latest financial results, which can be found at http://www.mcdonalds.com/whatsnew/pressrelease/Press_Release15880642, McDonald's currently (as of March 31, 1998) operates 12,413 restaurants in the US and 1,054 in Canada.

According to another source:

McDonald's is the second largest retailer in the USA (behind Wal-Mart).
On average McDonald's serve 35 million customers per day (worldwide).
96% of people in the USA have eaten at a McDonald's restaurant within the last twelve months.
Over half the population of the USA live within a three minute drive of a McDonald's.
McDonald's is the largest purchaser of beef in the USA, purchases 5% of the US potato crop and 2% of US chicken production.
One in fifteen people in the USA obtained their first job with McDonald's.

Piggly Wiggly

Only in America could a supermarket chain be called Piggly Wiggly!

In the film "Bonnie and Clyde" there is a brief mention of a newspaper article wrongly holding the Barrow gang responsible for a robbery at a Piggly Wiggly store.

A Piggly Wiggly truck appears briefly in a few scenes of the film "Close Encounters of the Third Kind".

Piggly Wiggly's web site includes an interesting page about the history of the company, which opened the USA's first self-service supermarket in Memphis Tennessee in 1916. (External link verified Apr-99.)

Racial Groups

According to an article in USA Today 18-Nov-02, the population of the USA includes the following percentages of racial groups:

White 78%
African American 10%
Hispanic 8%
Asian American/Pacific Islander 3%
Native American 1%

School Bus Yellow

For an idea of the colour of American and Canadian school buses, click here.

School Holidays

US school holidays vary from district to district but are typically from mid-June to the Labour Day weekend in early September. I imagine that Canadian School holidays are similar. During these holidays the pressure on accommodation is at its height and tourist attractions are most crowded.

The Sioux Indian Calendar

This entry has moved to this page.

Thunderbird

There are a large number of independent motels in the USA called the "Thunderbird Motel". The name comes from the thunderbird, or phoenix, which is a spirit sacred to many Native American tribes. The thunderbird brings thunder which is thought to be the voice of the Great Spirit. Depending on the tribe, the thunder either comes from the thunderbird's eyes or beak. The thunderbird and other related spirits are often depicted on totem poles, drawings of which often feature on signs advertising motels which use the name.

My thanks to Major Jim Collins of the USAF who informs me that the Air Force's air demonstration team is also named "The Thunderbirds".

Tipping

Tipping can be an emotive subject. If you are entirely happy with your habits regarding tipping then please rest assured that I am not trying to make you change them. This information is for visitors to the USA and Canada from other countries, based on my own observations of what happens in practice. If you are in a group of people then the best policy is probably to chicken out and follow what everyone else does.

Airports

Do not attempt to tip any official, such as those at security inspections, immigration and customs. This would almost certainly be taken as an attempt at a bribe and would probably have extremely serious consequences.

Airline employees, both at the airport and on the plane, are not tipped.

If you employ the services of a porter at an airport then you may wish to consider tipping. However, hardly any airports provide porters these days - nearly everyone carries their own luggage.

Employees of car rental companies are not tipped, except possibly the driver of the courtesy bus which takes you between the airport terminal and the car rental company's depot. I have never personally seen anyone tip a car rental courtesy bus driver, but some people have told me that they do tip in this situation.

Gas Stations (Petrol Stations)

Most gas stations have both self service and full service pumps. The price is slightly higher at full service pumps, so you should never tip. In New Jersey and Oregon self-service is not permitted by law so gas stations offer mini-service (petrol filling only) and full service.

Motels

Even if you stay at the same motel for several days, you are unlikely to meet any employee of the motel except when you check in, and perhaps when you check out. In many motels you pay when you check in and you leave the key in your room or drop it in a box near the office when you leave. Therefore tipping at motels is almost totally unheard of. In a few motels the people who tidy the rooms leave an envelope for tips, but this is very rare. However, guests may wish to leave a small tip for the room staff especially if they have stayed for several nights. Tipping is much more common at expensive hotels, where you have more contact with the employees, I would imagine.

Restaurants

At fast food restaurants, where service is at a counter, you do not tip. Many fast food restaurants have signs indicating that their employees are prohibited from accepting tips.

At any restaurant where you are served by a waiter or waitress, including the semi-cafeteria service common in steak restaurants, many people leave tips, depending on the quality of the service they receive. The likelihood of a tip being expected almost certainly increases significantly if the restaurant is licensed. Some guide books for tourists quote a percentage rate for tips but I feel this is ridiculous - the amount should depend entirely on the quality of service.

Trees: Tallest, Biggest and Oldest

This information is largely derived from a leaflet issued by the Redwood National Park dated Summer 1997.

The tallest tree is a coast redwood in Redwood National Park, California, about forty miles north of Eureka. In 1995 it was measured at 376 feet tall.
In 1992 a redwood estimated at between 369 and 379 feet tall fell in Humboldt Redwoods State Park, California about 50 miles south of Eureka.
The biggest tree is a giant sequoia named General Sherman in Sequoia National Park, California. It is 275 feet tall and its diameter at five feet above ground level is 36.5 feet. Its weight, including roots, is estimated at 2800 tons.
The General Sherman is thought to be the oldest sequoia, estimated to be 3500 years old.
The oldest coast redwood is a fallen tree in Humboldt Redwoods State Park, California, estimated to be 2200 years old.
The oldest tree ever discovered was a bristlecone pine in the Great Basin National Park, Nevada which was found to be 5100 years old after it was cut down.
The oldest known living tree is a bristlecone pine near Bishop, California which is 4600 years old.
Other ancient bristlecone pines can be seen in Cedar Breaks National Monument, Utah.
The creosote bush, found in many desert areas of the American west, has an interesting method of growth. Individual bushes can live for up to a hundred years, but the crown of the bush splits into several lobes which eventually bend over into the surrounding soil and form new roots and branches. These new shoots could be regarded as being part of the original bush. A group of such bushes in the Mojave Desert has been dated as being about 11,700 years old, possibly making it eligible for being regarded as the oldest living thing on Earth.

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