Trivia

Stand a billiard cue on its butt end. Grasp the tip firmly between your forefinger and middle finger. Now turn your hand slowly to raise the cue in an arc until its butt end stands straight up. Impossible? For you and me maybe. But one muscular fellow could do it - a onetime German U-boat captain, Count Felix Von Luckner. In the 1920s, he repeatedly demonstrated this hand strength on visits to several U.S. universities.

Hawaii’s Bill Hickman, a retired engineer, poses this: “Why don’t the razor makers manufacture blades out of tempered glass? They’d be cheaper.”