BOREDOM

~ Longest Continuous Yawn

 The longest continuous yawning reported is by a 15-year-old female patient in 1888 who yawned continuously for 5 weeks.

~ 25% Alive—Other Times Bored

 A recent survey found that the average adult spends about one-third of his waking time bored!

 Famed economist Stuart Chase once sat down to figure the calendar of his days. There is, he said, an ascending scale of human values and somewhere on it there is a line between living and mere existing. In how many hours of the week, he asked himself, had he truly and intensively lived? In how many had he just existed? Out of the 168 hours of the week he found that he had been “alive” only 40, or about 25% of the total time!

—Woman’s Day

~ The Doldrums

 Nothing was so feared by seamen in the days when ocean vessels were driven by wind and sail as the doldrums. The doldrums is a part of the ocean near the equator, abounding calms, squalls, and light, baffling winds. There the weather is hot and extremely dispiriting. The old sailing vessels, when caught in doldrums, would lie helpless for days and weeks, waiting for the wind to begin to blow.

~ Bored To Murder

 Diana Humphries of Houston, Texas, was only a sixteen-year-old pretty blonde, but the routine of everyday living left her tired, wearied, and bored. To “escape the boredom” she ambushed and killed her fourteen-year-old brother Robert with a . 22 rifle. And the reason? “Because nothing exciting ever happens around here,” she sobbed. She planned also to kill her father, mother, and herself—all to end the “always-tired” routine of the family life.

~ Lighthouse Keepers Bored

 After 46 years of service as lighthouse keepers in New England, Joseph and Charlotte Hindley have retired. Their observation after all those years: It was all pretty boring. About the biggest problem was learning to live with the foghorn. “You just talked between the blasts,” Mrs. Hindley said.

—The Calgary Herald

~ Doubling Away Boredom

 During the late 19th century, the small towns of America had grown tired of seeing Uncle Tom’s Cabin dramatized for over 40 years. To revive interest and instead of adopting a new play, the various Tom Companies just doubled the cast, having two Uncle Toms, two Little Evas, two Simon Legrees, and two sets of bloodhounds.

~Fireman’s Holiday

 In the firehouses of Norman Rockwell’s bucolic America, fireman passed the hours between alarms playing checkers and showing off the polished brass and bright-red trucks to wide-eyed young visitors. But for the volunteer firemen of Genoa, Texas, in suburban Houston, that was not enough.

 In the past three years, eight bored Genoa firemen have set about 40 fires in abandoned buildings and grass fields. As soon as the blazes were going, the arsonists would dash back to the firehouse and rush off to put out their own fires.

 The Genoa firemen were quite busy until they made the mistake of setting fire to a barn owned by the brother of a Houston fire department official. An investigation of the blaze led to the Genoa firehouse, and the overeager fire fighters were exposed. Explained one of the firemen charged with arson: “We’d hang around the station on the night shift without a thing to do. We just wanted to get the red light flashing and the bells clanging.

—Time

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