So, at 5pm friday, an alternative history woo called me out of the blue

[semillama]

I was getting ready to go home and our historian comes back to my desk and tells me some lady wants to ask me about brick factories in Columbus. Since brick production is something I have studied, I said I'd take the call.

I was unprepared for what happened next.

The lady started out somewhat normally. She wanted to know what I knew about brick factories in Columbus. I told her that actually I had studied brick factories in Pittsburgh but I was familiar with the general technology. She wanted to know if there was a way to tell early bricks from modern bricks just by looking at them. I told her that generally there wasn’t a sure fire way and was about to start explaining the difference between hand-made bricks and machine-made bricks, when the woo kicked in.

Her interest in bricks stemmed from her conviction that some of the brick carriage houses behind some of the larger 19th century houses in Columbus were actually very old houses from early Columbus that had been converted into carriage houses by later rich people, and that the alleyways were the original streets. Ok, I thought, that’s amusing but wrong, but before I could tell her this, the woo floodgates opened. Turns out these carriage houses were the original dwellings of indentured servants that came over from England and settled in Ohio in the 1600s, and that the descendants of the indentured servants changed the records so there wouldn’t be any mention of them in the history books because they were ashamed their ancestors were indentured servants. Also, this person apparently was unaware that architects like to mimic earlier styles in their designs, and that every building that featured things like pillars or arches or towers had taken these elements from earlier buildings (again, 1600s) in Ohio, including CASTLES. Then she went into something about the cemeteries being missing, passenger pigeons, humans evolving in North Africa and that the white people liked the high points while the dark people liked the swamps and had a religion about passenger pigeons.

So at this point I couldn’t get a word in edgewise, and while it was highly amusing, I could tell this lady was not going to stop talking. I made up an excuse and got off the phone, but not before I was informed that I was ignorant before but now was a little less ignorant. I’m now kind of curious to see if she’s going to try to call me again. I hope not. If she does, I’m going to request she write down all her ideas and send it to me for consideration. You can’t buy this form of entertainment.

[cosmik debris]

1. That theory is easily disproved

by the aerial photos taken by the UFOs in the 17th and 18th centuries. But of course you are not allowed to discuss those with anyone who doesn't have appropriate clearance.

[Deep13]

2. I have a house in Ohio.

Remains me, it is almost time to clean the moat and power-spray the battlements.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. "a religion about passenger pigeons"?

Not so much 'woo woo' as 'coo coo'. :evilgrin:

[semillama]

4. I forgot to mention a part about the passenger pigeon religion

which was that the religion would call what happened when a flock of pigeons flew overhead the "shit wind" - and this was the only part of the rant that made sense, since I can see how you wouldn't want to be underneath a passenger pigeon flock when they started emptying their cloacas.

So the whole thing was sort of a coo coo poo poo woo woo.

[TZ]

6. "coo coo poo poo woo woo"....

:spray:
I'm really glad I don't deal with the public in my job...
I'm keeping that phrase handy though. It's perfect for certain Health Scare Forum posts..:thumbsup:

[trotsky]

7. ZOMG

That right there deserves a Skepticism Group DUzy.

coo coo poo poo woo woo

LMAO

[moggie]

8. I am the walrus n/t

[trthnd4jstc]

5. Having an interest in Architecture, I appreciate the info on the carriage houses.

Also, I am very interested in the religion about the passenger pigeons. Is this a religion held by the passenger pigeons? Or, is it a religion held by humans, worshipping passenger pigeons.

You are right about the entertainment value.

[onager]

9. Expecting something completely different...

But this was even more entertaining! Thank you!

The passenger pigeons were a really nice touch.

And what was I expecting? The Bonnie Prince Charlie myth. But that one seems to be sort of restricted to the South, where I grew up. There are thousands of perfectly nice but crackpottery old ladies in the South absolutely convinced they are descended from Stuart royalty.

Your correspondent went down a whole other dark path entirely.

Humans evolved in North Africa? Well, I'm writing this from North Africa..OK, Egypt...and they seem to have missed this news in the 'hood. The Egyptians can certainly trace their ancestry back a long way. But not THAT long!

[realisticphish]

10. ever been to the OSU campus?

seen the wexner center? where the old armory was? Seen pictures of the armory? Yep, a castle, QED