Sid Ascher's World of Trivia and More!
by Sid Ascher
10.95, Cover: Paperback, ISBN: 0-9674074-3-5, ©2001

How Lee Iacocca Fixed My Chrysler

I think it was in 1990 when singer Vic Damone was starring for the weekend in one of the Atlantic City casinos. It was a steaming hot Saturday afternoon when I was visiting him. Auto industry magnate Lee Iacocca was also in Vic’s suite. The conversation naturally included automobiles.

I happened to mention to Iacocca — the internationally famous automobile genius who was bringing Chrysler out of the doldrums as the firm’s chief executive — that I was having a little problem with my Chrysler, purchased only a month before. Iacocca was curious. “What’s wrong with your car?” he asked.

I told him when I first got the car, there was a light that came on when I opened the door on the driver’s side, but after a week it no longer did. I had taken it back to the dealer’s service department where the mechanics laughed it off saying it never did light up, it must be my imagination.

Iacocca jumped up and asked, “Where’s your car now?” It was in the casino’s garage I told him.

“Well let’s go down and see what’s wrong,” he demanded. So right then and there we went down to the vehicle. There he stood, the dynamic guiding force of the Chrysler company, in a loose sport shirt, eager to examine my car. Iacocca opened the door, got down on his knees and peered around carefully. In about a minute he got up and said, “Okay, it works now — it was just a loose wire. Tell your dealer to go get new mechanics.”

The perspiration was dripping all over his face and shirt, but he smiled. “It’s tough getting good help these days.”


Sid’s Human Trivia

65 percent of prison inmates are tattooed.

By the age of 55 most people will have lost more than 50 percent of their taste buds.

Fear and worry can cause tooth decay.

Fingernails grow four times faster than toenails.

It is impossible to sneeze and keep one’s eyes open at the same time.

Men have more blood than women and it is richer in red blood cells.

Muscles make up 40 percent of the total weight of an adult.

Seventeen facial muscles are needed to smile, and 43 to frown.

Sid’s Food Trivia

Chocolate has been described as “the sexiest flavor on Earth.” Americans have had a love affair with chocolate for hundreds of years. It began when New England sea captains found cocoa beans growing in profusion in the West Indies and South American countries. They traded rum and sugar with the natives for the valuable beans.

America’s first chocolate factory was established 237 years ago.

More than 100 years ago a Chicago hostess created a chocolate cake that was so luscious and so tempting that it became known the world around as “Devil’s Food Cake.”

Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the morning.


How I Got To Sleep In The Lincoln Bedroom

Having helped the Boy Scouts since I was a teenager and being an Eagle Scout myself, as well as a volunteer publicist for the Brooklyn Boy Scouts, one day in 1932 an executive of the organization said to me, “All we get is local publicity. How about national stories?”

By then I had learned how it’s strange but true that when you do something for nothing, it is seldom appreciated. But I answered him, “What do you think about a story about President Herbert Hoover with us?”

Everyone laughed, but I took this idea seriously. So I checked up on President Hoover’s life and found that his birthday was August 10, 1932 — just ten weeks away. I conducted a contest among the Boy Scouts who were interested in art. The idea was to have someone come up with a “Proclamation of Best Wishes from the Brooklyn Boy Scouts” to be presented to the President on his birthday. After contacting a major paper company, they provided me with a two foot by six foot piece of parchment paper on which the proclamation was drawn and which bore the signatures of the Brooklyn Scouts. I obtained some 600 signatures in all.

I then wrote to the President requesting an appointment for the purpose of giving him the good wishes on his birthday. It took a bit of doing, but I succeeded. I was asked to come to the White House, had breakfast with President Hoover, and met with his wife Lou Henry while he rushed off to attend an important meeting.

At noon, the President was given several birthday gifts including a large replica of the new ocean liner Manhattan, our proclamation, and other items. I again talked with Mrs. Hoover, who turned out to be a gracious lady. She then asked where I was staying while I was in Washington and when I told her I expected to leave on the bus later in the day, she invited me to remain overnight and sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom and be a guest at a small party in the evening to celebrate the “birthday boy.” It would have been impolite to turn down the invitation, so, of course, I accepted. It was a thrilling experience.

Incidentally, in 1998 when the Philadelphia Inquirer did a story on me, they checked to see if this story was true. They learned that the six foot proclamation is now displayed on a wall of the President Hoover Library in West Branch, Iowa.