Ripley's Believe It or Not by Ripley’s Believe It or Not! for February 20, 2021

A traveling salesman has just been awarded a new territory, and when he came into a small town on his route, he saw a big sign over the theater: TONIGHT ONLY – THE AMAZING GOLDBERG! Well, the town was all a-buzz about the act, and even though no one could tell him exactly what the act was, he went to the box office and bought the only remaining ticket.

Well, the appointed time came, and the salesman took his seat in the theater. The lights dimmed, the curtain came up, and there stood a table with three walnuts on it. A small, weasened old man came out, walking on a cane, and stood in front of the table. He then unzipped is pants, took out his schlong (I used that word in your honor, Silver) and WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! He smashed the walnuts into smithereens. The crowd erupted into tumultuous applause, the curtain came down, and the act ended.

“Strange act,” the salesman thinks. “But worth it.” So he goes on with his career, and decades later, he finds himself in another small town, and once again sees the theater marquis: TONIGHT ONLY – THE AMAZING GOLDBERG! The salesman says to himself, it can’t be the same man; all those years ago, he was so old…but I’ll check it out anyway.

So he bought a ticket – the only remaining ticket – and when the appointed time came, he sat down in his seat. The lights dimmed, the curtain came up, and there stood a table with, instead of three walnuts, contained three coconuts. Then a very small, weasened old man came out, walking on a walker, and stood in front of the table. He unzipped is pants, took out his schlong, and WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! He smashed the coconuts into smithereens. The crowd erupted into tumultuous applause, the curtain came down, and the act ended.

The salesman couldn’t contain himself, however. He fought his way backstage and found Goldberg. He asked him, “Mister Goldberg, I saw you years ago, and I was impressed! But all those years ago, you were smashing walnuts. Tonight, you used coconuts. Why the change?

Goldberg looked at the salesman, and sadly shook his head. “Mine eyes, mine eyes,” he said. “They just aren’t vat they used to be.”

Texas could use that pickle juice treatment for their snowy mayhem.

Cool, I hate pickles.

Icy roads, eh. So much for global warming, eh.

The back story regarding Jimmy Bozart is very interesting:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_Nickel_Case

Pickled roads, pickled drivers, pickled combination.

and beet juice.

Hey, smart drivers KNOW that snow and ice aren’t slippery, just fake news! That is why you get 130 vehicle smashups in Fort Worth and other places. Smart people also know doing 80 MPH in the fog is no problem either. I stay off the road on bad days because of all the smart people.

I’ll bet Mount Olive, NC uses pickle juice as deicer.

Ah the pickle brine and the salty cracker, an icy duet, for sure.

Take care, may windows frost artist Suzie Feurd be with you, and gesundheit.

Sweet or Dill? ;o]

You know what else is no bigger than a tennis ball? A tennis ball! BELIEVE IT, OR DON’T!

I remember as a kid having a magic set that had a magic nickel (or maybe it was a quarter). It was basically a coin with a hollow cover so you could show it as a “real” coin with a heads and tails, then flip the cover to the other side (tails) and it would then show two heads.

…as a snowplow driver for the state I have used beet juice on the roads…

…the difference between it and salt or brine is that while coming back to treated roads with beet juice is that the beet juice roads …

…were not partially melted ,but still totally snow covered…

…but, when plowed, the snow totally splashed off leaving clear roads…

…my guess is that the juice became a barrier between the road and the snow…

…a nice weapon to have in your arsenal…

I wouldn’t want to eat any pickles that came out of that. It’s called brine which is what pickles are made in, but this brine is road salt mixed with water.

A man is sent to prison for the first time.

The first night there, after the lights in the cell block are turned off, he immediately sees his cellmate going over to the bars and yelling, “twelve!”

The whole cell block breaks out laughing. A few minutes later, somebody else in the cell block yells, “twenty-three!” Again, the whole cell block breaks out laughing.

“Why are you guys just yelling numbers?” He asks his cellmate. “What’s so funny about random numbers?”

“Well,” says the older prisoner, "They’re not random. It’s just that we’ve all been in here for so long, we all know all the same jokes. So after a while we just started giving them numbers and yelling those numbers out.

Wanting to fit in, the new prisoner walks up to the bars and yells, “SIX!” But instead of laughter, a dead silence falls on the cell block. He turns to the older prisoner, “What’s wrong? Why didn’t I get any laughs?”

“Joke telling is all in the delivery!”

And this is how I feel about the initial letter switch joke that Snason Jakelover does – his delivery is just better!

Stalin’s KGB was known to be on a very tight budget.

Wilson Sporting Goods tennis balls are the size of a Spectral Tarsier.

My uncle was fired for inappropriate behavior with his company’s pickle slicer. She was fired too.

Brings a new meaning to the saying “Wow, this storm’s a real dilly!” ☺

Pickle juice (brine) will work; they use something like that in NC for the roads.

As for the paperboy, that was a lucky “break” for the Feds- but maybe not so lucky for the spy…

Pickle juice is more environmentally friendly than rock salt.

Wow – the hollow nickel story was so interesting to me I had to do Wikipedia research on it. What a great story – I never knew of it before. It sounds like something straight out of a Hardy Boys book. Many more interesting facts associated with this story, if anyone cares to look it up.

My brain storm regarding icy roads is this: In wintery climates, I have often thought why can’t they mix rock salt into the asphalt when building roads. Wouldn’t that directly help melt the ice/snow when it comes down?

The pickle juice won’t melt ice but it makes the roads smell so bad no one will drive on them…

Several Indonesian tennis matches were censured for cruelty to Tarsiers…

Well, pickle juice pretty much is salt!

Pickle juice. What can it not do.

i got news for you: a tennis ball is barely larger than a tennis ball

In Arkansas, they are using beet juice to combat icy roads..

We use beet juice as anti-ice in some canadian cities

While the actual pickle juice is amusing, sadly there is another type of “brine” being used as well. This is the wastewater from fracking, which contains much more than just salt, including all our favorite carcinogens like heavy metals, VOCs, and radioactive material.