In 2005, Ed Shelton of Riverside, Calif., ripped in half 55 telephone books in three minutes, setting a Guinness world record. His feat, listed in “Guinness World Records 2008,” was included in an Aug. 12 article in the Week in Review about sports achievements and other records that might stand the test of time.
Turns out Mr. Shelton’s record did not last very long. Ed Charon of Sutherlin, Ore., a Christian minister whose hands were so big he wore a size 16 ½ ring, tore through 56 phone books last September.
So why wasn’t Mr. Charon listed in the latest compilation of Guinness records? Apparently, it wasn’t certified before the 2008 edition went to print.
“This doesn’t happen often, but does occur from time to time,” Brian Reinert, a spokesman for the record book, wrote in an e-mail message.
Mr. Charon, who died earlier this year at 71, used the Portland, Ore., white pages directory to set the record — 56 of them, at 1,006 pages each.
“Of all the books I’ve torn,” he said at the time, “I’ve found that the Portland ones tear better.”
Comment: I thought this article was pretty funny. I've heard of phone book ripping contests, but I didn't think they were real or at least not this big of a deal. I guess there's a world record for everything pretty much. It's sad that the guy died before he could see his name in the record book. I'm not a tree hugger or anything, but 56 ripped up phone books, at 1006 pages each, is a lot of wasted paper. Thats almost 60,000 pages wasted. This kind of makes all the saving of paper that others are doing a big waste of time. I guess thats kind of like auto racing. We're in a gas crisis, and race cars burn up thousands of gallons of gas every time there is a race.
1 comment:
Graham, This is a good and insightful comment. Keep posting them!
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