A n d r e w s G u m W o r l d

Late in July, one of AndrewsGumWorld’s very first posts was a video of a lady blowing a world-record sized bubble on a Spanish television.

That lady’s name was Susan Montgomery Williams, and yesterday’s Fresno Bee reported on her untimely death last week at the age of 47.

As the earlier video attests, Williams’ bubble-gum blowing feats made it on to a number of television shows both throughout the United States and the world, and she also had her own website which chronicled some of those appearances, and describes the 19 1/4-inch bubble that brought her the world record in 1994 (and how she later broke it by blowing a 23-inch bubble on television).

As her obituary notes, she received notoriety not only for her record-making bubbles, but for the noises they made when they popped, which also led to arrests at a Smokey Robinson concert and outside a Fresno murder trial.

She will be best remembered, though, for blowing amazingly large bubble gum bubbles, far beyond those than most of us can ever imagine…or attempt.

Our condolences to her family and those who loved her.

Here are the opening lines of yesterday’s obituary:

Susan Montgomery Williams, a Fresno woman with a talent for blowing enormous chewing gum bubbles, parlayed that skill and a keen understanding of the news media’s enthusiasm for superlatives into eccentric international semi-celebrity.

Mrs. Williams, 47, died Wednesday of an aneurism after suffering a stroke the week before, apparently unrelated to her hobby.

She had painstakingly inflated her bubble gum abilities into appearances on the Johnny Carson and Jay Leno late-night television programs. Her talent won her travel for appearances on broadcasts in Spain, Germany, England and Japan.

Today’s The Peninsula, from Qatar, reports that many in that Emirate are frustrated with a growing practice by hypermarkets of giving chewing gum (or sweets), instead of actual change.

Here’s how the article describes the dilemma:

There is no shortage of 50-dirham (about US14¢±) coins in Qatar. This is contrary to what some hypermarkets and grocery store officials say to justify giving away cheap candies and chewing gums instead of the small denomination change.

Based on the Second Quarterly Statistical Bulletin for 2008 released by the Qatar Central Bank, there was QR11.52m worth of 50-dirham coins in circulation as of June this year. In other words, there were 23.04 million units of such coins in the country.

A recent post in Qatar Living (QL) entitled ‘Fifty Dirhams Robbery’ has solicited dozens of reactions from concerned residents with one respondent calling the act of giving out sweets that don’t sell instead of the 50-dirham change a ‘gum selling strategy’ of some hypermarkets and grocery stores.

 Last Friday’s Hospitality Magazine website in Australia reviewed a biodegradable stain removal product, Lift Off, invented by chemist Gregg Motsenbocker for removing stains, including the ongoing challenge of discarded gum.

As the magazine notes, the product has no ammonia or solvent smell and “…it can be used on any surface without damaging or degrading the surface or the environment.”

There are three different varieties available, but when it comes to gum, it’s the second variety that you want:

Lift Off 2 removes oil and petroleum-based stains such as oil, grease, labels, chewing gum and candle wax, all of which will disappear from areas such as metal, plastic, wood, glass (labels), hair (chewing gum), carpet and fabric.

 Our friends at Wrigley Airwaves are the official chewing gum sponsors of the FIA World Rally Championship, and are also now supporting FSTi (Fiesta Sporting Trophy International), as reported today on the Italian website DueMotori.com.

This is good news for those who win, as Emre Yurdakul of Turkey discovered after coming in first in this weekend’s Rally RACC Catalunya – Rally de España.

Besides the fame and glory of winning this round, there’s gum to be had, and lots of it:

Following the recent announcement that Airwaves® has become the Official Chewing Gum Sponsor of the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC), the brand (who also count Stobart VK M-Sport Ford Rally Team’s Matthew Wilson amongst their ‘Airwaves® Pro’ line-up), increased their involvement in the WRC this weekend by supporting FSTi and awarding Yurdakul the Airwaves Award of a year’s supply of Airwaves chewing gum for his victory.

IMAGE: Los Angeles Times

Anne Kilkenny (pictured above), who lives in Wasilla (hometown of Sarah Palin), decided to write to 40 of her friends to share her impressions of fellow resident, former mayor, current Alaska governor, and now John McCain’s vice president candidate.

Since it was e-mail, it didn’t stop there, and by the time the Los Angeles Times reported on it last week, she had 13,700 e-mail responses, half a million Google hits (and, one presumes, counting)….an e-mail that had gone viral as only these things can do (you can make it 500,001 by reading it here).

As the Times article notes, Kilkenny crossed paths with Palin, in particular, because of a driveway proposal that needed City Council approval:

It was Kilkenny’s firsthand experience with Palin — who was elected to the council in 1992 and became Wasilla’s mayor in 1996 — that inspired her to craft the e-mail that made her famous.

“I wanted people to be informed,” Kilkenny said. “I wasn’t trying to make a judgment call.”

A 70-foot-long and 30-foot-wide smooth slab of concrete fans out from the garage of Kilkenny’s home to the street. She glances through the window of her tidy kitchen plastered in dandelion-yellow and pumpkin-orange wallpaper. Most of what she knows about local politics started with her fight to pave that driveway.

Until then, Kilkenny rarely paid attention to city issues, though she did vote to put Palin on the City Council. Four years later, the city of Wasilla announced it was going to pave Kilkenny’s street.

She had a fondness for municipal development because her father had been a civil engineer. The family used to drive around their neighborhood in Contra Costa County, Calif., to check out new building projects.

Kilkenny sketched a drawing of how she wanted her driveway apron to look and showed it to planning officials. It was rejected because the footprint was too wide.

“They said, ‘You can only have 12 feet,’ ” Kilkenny said.

At a council meeting, an attorney told her the only way to appeal the ordinance was to rewrite it.

So she did.

Kilkenny showed up at each City Council meeting with her typed driveway ordinance, trying to get it approved. The sessions were held inside a refurbished high school gymnasium. Six council members sat around a horseshoe-shaped table; in the center was Palin, often chewing a wad of gum.

 Last week’s Stuff news site from New Zealand reported that a new round of tax cuts were safe, unlike the “chewing gum tax cuts” that were cancelled two years ago (so called because they brought the average tax payer the equivalent of about 67¢ a week, enough to buy a pack of gum). The cuts in the past had also moved up into block of cheese territory, and at the very least, the Finance Minister assures the Kiwis these new cuts are here to stay, as the article reports:

Finance Minister Michael Cullen reiterated yesterday that tax cuts, due to take effect from today with further cuts scheduled from April 2010 and April 2011, were locked into place by law. That gave people “certainty”, he said.

His comments came after National’s finance spokesman Bill English questioned Labour’s commitment to tax cuts and revived memories of the “chewing gum” cuts, which were cancelled in 2006.

Today’s Beacon News, from northern Illinois, reports on the latest invention of retired chewing gum inventor (and Wrigley executive) Ron Reams, who has moved on from some of his earlier inventions, which included Mork bubble gum, Ouch bandage-shaped bubble gum, and Bubble Tape — five to 15 new products a year for 30 years, by his own estimation — has shifted his chewing gum invention focus to a new product with a serious intent — first responders who are fighting in the war in Iraq.

His new company, Marketright,  has introduced a new caffeinated gum after a decade of research, as the article reports:

Working with scientists at a Florida lab, (Reams) discovered that a stick of gum containing caffeine provided an instant boost compared to a cup of coffee, an espresso shot or energy bars being digested for example.

This past summer, after 10 years of research, Ream’s Plano firm Marketright has distributed a caffeine gum, available only to a very specific consumer: first-responders fighting the war in Iraq.

Ignited by a federal grant secured by former House Speaker Dennis Hastert back in 1998, Ream collaborated with scientists of the Walter Reed Army Institute to research the effects of a caffeine gum containing 100 mg of caffeine per piece. One piece is equivalent to a six-ounce cup of coffee.

“I was the gum man, and they were the clinical testing gurus,” Ream said.

Marketright firm has distributed 500,000 packages of Stay Alert Gum to the military so far, Ream said. The contract lasts two years.

IMAGE: Financial Times

We’ll readily acknowledge that AndrewsGumWorld is not Jeopardy, but we’ll pretend, for a moment, that we are.

Question: How did Warren Buffett begin his journey towards becoming the second richest man in America?

Last week, the Financial Times began a series of articles about Warren Buffett (as well as a link to a review of his biography, “The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life”), and we were nothing less than pleased to discover that his fabulous success in the world of business began quite simply, and that his first profits were made from selling our favorite brand of gum:

The first few cents Warren Buffett ever earned came from selling packs of chewing gum. And from the day he started selling – at six years of age – he showed an unyielding attitude toward his customers that revealed much about his later style.

“I had this little green tray, which had five different areas in it. I’m pretty sure my aunt Edie gave me that. It had containers for five different brands of gum, Juicy Fruit, Spearmint, Doublemint, and so on. I would buy packs of gum from my grandfather and go around door to door in the neighborhood selling this stuff. I used to do that in the evening, largely.

“I remember a woman named Virginia Macoubrie saying, ‘I’ll take one stick of Juicy Fruit.’ I said, ’We don’t break up packs of gum’ – I mean, I’ve got my principles. I still, to this day, remember Mrs Macoubrie saying she wanted one stick. No, they were sold only in five-stick packs. They were a nickel, and she wanted to spend a penny with me.”

Making a sale was tempting, but not tempting enough to change his mind. If he sold one stick to Virginia Macoubrie, he would have four sticks left to sell to somebody else, not worth the work or the risk. From each whole pack, he made two cents profit. He could hold those pennies, weighty and solid, in his palm.

 Yesterday’s The Times in London reported on the production of a new series of radio sci-fi comedies based on the late Douglas Adams’ stories and produced by Dirk Maggs. The new series, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, promises to be of high quality, the article notes, and to make this point, they invoked Beatles chewing gum:

During the height of Beatlemania you could buy Beatles chewing gum. It cost twice as much as competing brands, but it was worth it. Not only did you get an exclusive colour picture of the Fabs, but the colours were brighter, the taste better and more varied. Or so we thought. As with their music, the impression was given that Beatles gum was a superior product. Care had been taken.

The producer Dirk Maggs is the radio comedy equivalent of Beatles gum.

Wrigley Building in Fog, originally uploaded by spudart.