Ripley's Believe It or Not by Ripley’s Believe It or Not! for January 18, 2019

Did Friedrich even encourage underage drinking?

No wonder they called Frederick great.

What’s wrong with just pressing down on the toe to see if the shoe is too large?

I still remember as a small boy using the fluoroscope in the shoe department of the old JC. Penney store that was way back then in Pasco, WA. They have long ago since banned using them because of the high radiation of X-rays it produced.

I remember the fluoroscope when my parents took me to buy shoes. I guess that dates me!

For years they had the metal plate like measuring device, with sliding pieces for length & width, & were very accurate. Your right & left feet are rarely exactly the same in measurement.

At least we now know why Freddie was great!

So no one had a ruler, tape measure, chart or thought to use their thumb to check for a comfortable fit? Fluoroscopes seem like over kill.

Here’s to Frederick the Great! -clink

The south used urine to make one of the chemicals in gun powder during the civil war ;-)

Ah bacon, is there anything it can’t do? LOL

Use bacon for explosives? I shudder to think of it! (OK, I just checked on this; The American Fat Salvage Committee was urging people to save their excess bacon fat rendered from cooking and donate it to the Army.)

This panel prompted me to consider the simultaneous push for Prohibition. I recall that the folks who were campaigning for Prohibition complained that crops were being wasted for the production of beer and liquor instead of being used to feed the troops/support the war effort.

just to beers away from a beautiful day

I’m more interested in explosives being used to make bacon.

I remember them too. No wonder they called Fredrick “The Great”.

People were encouraged to save ALL animal fats not just bacon grease for the war effort, it was one of the major sources of glycerin for making nitroglycerin

Purging the nitrates seems a waste of good bacon.

Some of us have eaten enough bacon to almost explode. Especially with pancakes.

My mom told me about how they did that. They also wanted to use X-rays to treat my sister’s acne. Mom didn’t allow it, thankfully.

Smell that? You smell that? Bacon, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of bacon in the morning.

So that’s what caused my hammertoe!

I was born in 1945, and definitely remember those machines. At the time, I wondered WHY they had to look at my feet, and why they stopped. I now know about radiation, so I understand.

In the 1960s they finally eradicated “foot cancer.”

What a waste of perfectly good bacon!

The only explosion I related to bacon was popping popcorn in bacon fat.

The beer was safer than the water

I love the smell of bacon in the morning!

Frederick the Great’s edict is alive and well in Wisconsin.

We have everything you need, from bacon to bombs.

Wow, it really is true; bacon makes everything better!

…And the beer I had for breakfast wasn’t bad, so I had one more for dessert!

In the 1940s an uncle of mine had a shoe store on Market Street in San Francisco. I stopped in about once a week to say hello and goof around with the shoe fluoroscope. Now, nearly 70 years later, I still have never gotten cancer. Guess I’m just lucky.

Exploding pigs is what beat Hitler!

How do kids today count to 20 with their shoes on? Do they get stuck at 10?

Frederick the Great had stock in a urinal manufacturing company…

I remember going to the shoe store when I was a kid and a looking at the bones in my feet through one of those fluoroscopes.