Daily Dirt: Just be grateful you are not a wood frog in Alaska

Daily Dirt for Sept. 10, 2021

I first ate Pringles as a wee lad, and it’s been a lifelong love affair. Vol. 63 of the Daily Dirt provides background about the famous cans of stacked chips. Welcome to today’s three thoughts.

1. I love Pringles, those somewhat goofy potato chips stacked in cans. A reason why: The inventor of those famous cans/containers is buried in one. Fredric Baur developed in 1966 the idea for Proctor & Gamble to uniformly stack chips inside a can instead of tossing them in a bag. Baur was so proud of his invention that he wanted to take it to the grave — literally. He let his family know of his wishes, and when he died at age 89 in 2008, his children stopped at a store on the way to the funeral home to buy a can of Pringles. The big decision was which flavor. Baur’s children told Time magazine they decided on the original (flavor).

2. Wood frogs in Alaska have been known to hold their pee for up to eight months. Whoaaaaa!!! They hold that urine while working their way through the region’s long and cold winters before relieving themselves once temperatures begin to increase in the spring. Scientists say the urine the frogs hold helps keep them alive during hibernation. Special microbes in their gut recycle the urea (urine’s main waste) into nitrogen. Who was interested enough in this subject to pursue a study of it?

3. My favorite college football announcing team is the No. 1 crew on Fox — Gus Johnson and Joel Klatt. Johnson’s nicknames and his love for the Ohio State Buckeyes are his strongest selling points, but what has separated this tandem from the rest in recent years is an improved Klatt. Earlier in his career, Klatt was way too prone to fall back on strategies and Xs and Os. I felt he lost many fans with his coachspeak, but in recent years we have heard a more human side to his broadcast. As a result those Fox broadcasts have become must-see on a Saturday afternoons. Johnson and Klatt will be handling Saturday’s Oregon-at-Ohio State slugfest.

Steve Fact O’ the Day
I am currently celebrating the 50th anniversary of my love affair with the music of Rod Stewart. 

When he dies, Steve reportedly wants to be buried in an empty box of Raspberry Zingers.