Trivia and humor mix in ‘Actual Facts’
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Courtesy of Main Street Press
By Trevor McArthur
Staff Reporter
“Moses May Have Been an
Apache and Other Actual Facts,”
Cully Abrell and John Thompson
(Main Street Press)
After the age of 30, the human
brain begins to shrink, according to
the Reader’s Digest “Book of
Facts.” It is because of this or some
other lame excuse that Cully Abrell
and John Thompson have compiled
and written their new book “Moses
May Have Been an Apache — and
Other Actual Facts.”
The book’s purpose is to give the
reader necessary information to
speak with other truly educated
people as a pseudo-intellectual,
even if you are barely literate, to
gain an edge in trivia games or to Fill
up the brain with things it can afford
to lose. Because of this, you can
keep important bits like “pants first,
then shoes” well into your 80s.
The book’s pur
pose is to give the
reader necessary
information to
speak with other
truly educated
people as a
pseudo-intellec
tual, even if you
are barely liter
ate.
James “Cully” Abrell has com
piled an interesting and diverse list
of jobs he had until his retirement to
his farm in Peck, Kan., to which he
holds an open invitation to Ronald
Reagan when he loses his latest job.
Included in Abrell’s list of former
employment are radio announcer,
actor, telephone solicitor, work as a
Burns Detective and as a carnival
worker, as well as 19 years as the
head of the drama department of the
Friends University of Wichita
(Kansas). Today he still does radio
and television commercials,
though he mostly “wallows in the
joys of retirement.”
John Thompson of Scottsbluff
received his bachelor’s degree in art
from Friends University in Wichita,
where he first met faculty member
Abrell. He at one time worked at
Chadron radio station KCSR,
where he worked his way up from
announcer to news director. But he
claims to have not been steadily
employed since college, which he
says has been a source of fun and
recreation in itself. He also extends
an invitation to the Reagans, but
only if they don’t bring their
un-White-Housc-traincd dog. He
currently resides on Abrcll’s farm
in Peck and does free-lance art (he
drew all the book’s illustrations)
and mechanical tinkering.
“Actual Facts,” the book they
compiled at their suburban Peck
think-tank, is an invaluable addi
tion to our modem, empty lives and
the great store of trivial information
that society in general is based
upon.
Well, maybe they made it all up,
but it’s a great spoof of Ripley’s
“Bel ievc It Or Not” and other books
of the kind, such as the new one by
Reader’s Digest.
Many of the shards of “truth” are
just great one-liners, often of an
obvious nature. For example:
“Most (U.S.) states fit together
so closely that almost no space is
wasted.”
Or against all logic:
“There have been four par
tially successful attempts to relo
cate Yellowstone National Park.”
Somcgo intoadarker humor like
that explored by Gary Larson’s
“The Far Side”:
“So-called ‘lap dogs’ were
bred to be eaten.”
As well as Larson’s bend to
wards reinventing history or mak
ing in-jokes for the various sci
ences:
‘The Rosetta Stone
was found in 1412
1581 and 1617,
but they kept
throwing it back.’
—Moses May Have
Been an Apache and
Other Actual Facts
“Notorious gadabout William
Techumseh Sherman was, in ad
dition to everything else, ex
tremely careless with campfires.”
“The Rosetta Stone was found
in 1412,1581,1586 and 1617, but
they kept throwing it back.”
The temptation to list every line
from the book is strong, but that
would ruin your reading it.
Also like Larson’s “Far Side,”
there are several recurring themes,
such as cheese, especially cottage;
Grosvenor, Utah, sister city of
Grosvenor, Utah, and father city of
suburb Bad Boot; Field Marshal
Hernando Civet (shoe size 7B); and
U.S. presidents, including probably
the least-appreciated one, Leland
Piatt (one of the hardest people to
research since only the fact that he
served as president, and nothing
else, was ever written about him).
Unfortunately, they took out the
section on the facts of porpoise life
at the request of Prince Philip, but
otherwise the book touches on ev
ery subject you wanted to know
about.
In a phone interview, Abrell said
the book took about 10 or 12 years
to write. They are writing more, as
Thompson says he has just discov
ered a correlation between the uni
fied forces theory of the universe
and 3-and-l oil, but they say they
probably couldn’t come up with
enough good bits for daily newspa
per syndication. However, weekly
printing, such as in some student
newspapers, is under consideration.
The book costs just under $7 (or
just under $9 for our readers at
UNL’s Canadian campus), which
incidentally is just a little less than
a third of what was originally paid
for Manhattan Island. However,
“Actual Facts” is a little easier to
carry to parties and store on a book
shelf, thus making it a much better
value.
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