If you are curious about the world, like to expand your knowledge of little known facts, or just want to have fun reading about things you’ve never known, Sid Ascher’s World of Trivia and more! will keep you informed and entertained for hours. Just like Sid himself!

Introduction
Why I Decided To Write A Trivia Book
How I Became N.Y.C.’s “Brightest” Boy
How I Came To Be Known As The “Star Maker”
Sid’s Animal Trivia
Sid’s Customs Trivia
How I Got Norman Rockwell To Paint A Portrait
Sid’s Entertainment Trivia
Sid’s Food Trivia
Sid’s Food For Thought
How I Got To Sleep In The Lincoln Bedroom
Sid’s Geography Trivia
Sid’s History Trivia
Sid’s Human Trivia
How Hollywood Starlets Made Me Blush
Sid’s Humor Trivia
How General Dwight Eisenhower Requested My Presence Overseas
Sid’s Language Trivia
How I Pulled Off The Most Important Day of My Life
Sid’s Photo Album
Sid’s Music Trivia
Sid’s Odds & Ends Trivia
How Lee Iacocca Fixed My Chrysler
Sid’s People Trivia
Sid’s Plant Trivia
How I Spent a Night in Sing Sing Prison and Witnessed an Electrocution
Sid’s Trivia Puzzlers
Sid’s Quotes Trivia
How I Beat Cancer
Sid’s Sayings Trivia
Sid’s Science Trivia
Sid’s Sports Trivia
Sid’s Superstitions
How I Got Computer Data From The President Of IBM
Sid’s Technology Trivia
How I Wrote President Roosevelt’s “Fala Speech”
Sid’s U.S. Trivia
How I Traded Tips for “Insider Payoffs”
What Is A Policeman?
Sid’s Modern Day Fairy Tale
The Claddagh Ring
How I Learned That Money Isn’t Everything
How I Made A Baby Famous And Helped The War Effort
How “The Skaters Waltz Saved” My Life

How Lee Iacocca Fixed My Chrysler

I think it was in 1990 when singer Vic Damone was starring for the weekend in one of the Atlantic City casinos. It was a steaming hot Saturday afternoon when I was visiting him. Auto industry magnate Lee Iacocca was also in Vic’s suite. The conversation naturally included automobiles.

I happened to mention to Iacocca — the internationally famous automobile genius who was bringing Chrysler out of the doldrums as the firm’s chief executive — that I was having a little problem with my Chrysler, purchased only a month before. Iacocca was curious. “What’s wrong with your car?” he asked.

I told him when I first got the car, there was a light that came on when I opened the door on the driver’s side, but after a week it no longer did. I had taken it back to the dealer’s service department where the mechanics laughed it off saying it never did light up, it must be my imagination.

Iacocca jumped up and asked, “Where’s your car now?” It was in the casino’s garage I told him.

“Well let’s go down and see what’s wrong,” he demanded. So right then and there we went down to the vehicle. There he stood, the dynamic guiding force of the Chrysler company, in a loose sport shirt, eager to examine my car. Iacocca opened the door, got down on his knees and peered around carefully. In about a minute he got up and said, “Okay, it works now — it was just a loose wire. Tell your dealer to go get new mechanics.”

The perspiration was dripping all over his face and shirt, but he smiled. “It’s tough getting good help these days.”


Sid’s Human Trivia

65 percent of prison inmates are tattooed.

By the age of 55 most people will have lost more than 50 percent of their taste buds.

Fear and worry can cause tooth decay.

Fingernails grow four times faster than toenails.

It is impossible to sneeze and keep one’s eyes open at the same time.

Men have more blood than women and it is richer in red blood cells.

Muscles make up 40 percent of the total weight of an adult.

Seventeen facial muscles are needed to smile, and 43 to frown.

Sid’s Food Trivia

Chocolate has been described as “the sexiest flavor on Earth.” Americans have had a love affair with chocolate for hundreds of years. It began when New England sea captains found cocoa beans growing in profusion in the West Indies and South American countries. They traded rum and sugar with the natives for the valuable beans.

America’s first chocolate factory was established 237 years ago.

More than 100 years ago a Chicago hostess created a chocolate cake that was so luscious and so tempting that it became known the world around as “Devil’s Food Cake.”

Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the morning.


How I Got To Sleep In The Lincoln Bedroom

Having helped the Boy Scouts since I was a teenager and being an Eagle Scout myself, as well as a volunteer publicist for the Brooklyn Boy Scouts, one day in 1932 an executive of the organization said to me, “All we get is local publicity. How about national stories?”

By then I had learned how it’s strange but true that when you do something for nothing, it is seldom appreciated. But I answered him, “What do you think about a story about President Herbert Hoover with us?”

Everyone laughed, but I took this idea seriously. So I checked up on President Hoover’s life and found that his birthday was August 10, 1932 — just ten weeks away. I conducted a contest among the Boy Scouts who were interested in art. The idea was to have someone come up with a “Proclamation of Best Wishes from the Brooklyn Boy Scouts” to be presented to the President on his birthday. After contacting a major paper company, they provided me with a two foot by six foot piece of parchment paper on which the proclamation was drawn and which bore the signatures of the Brooklyn Scouts. I obtained some 600 signatures in all.

I then wrote to the President requesting an appointment for the purpose of giving him the good wishes on his birthday. It took a bit of doing, but I succeeded. I was asked to come to the White House, had breakfast with President Hoover, and met with his wife Lou Henry while he rushed off to attend an important meeting.

At noon, the President was given several birthday gifts including a large replica of the new ocean liner Manhattan, our proclamation, and other items. I again talked with Mrs. Hoover, who turned out to be a gracious lady. She then asked where I was staying while I was in Washington and when I told her I expected to leave on the bus later in the day, she invited me to remain overnight and sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom and be a guest at a small party in the evening to celebrate the “birthday boy.” It would have been impolite to turn down the invitation, so, of course, I accepted. It was a thrilling experience.

Incidentally, in 1998 when the Philadelphia Inquirer did a story on me, they checked to see if this story was true. They learned that the six foot proclamation is now displayed on a wall of the President Hoover Library in West Branch, Iowa.

Everyone has a story about an interesting person. Certainly the most interesting individual I have met in my lifetime is Sid Ascher.

Quite simply, Sid is a unique human being. I first met him nearly twenty years ago when I was in charge of marketing for one of Atlantic City’s big casino hotels. One day a quiet, charming gentleman with gray hair stepped into my office with the words, “Hi there, kid. My name is Sid Ascher. Can I have a few minutes of your time?” Since that day nearly twenty years ago, the thousands of minutes of time I’ve spent with Sid Ascher have enriched my life.

As a former journalist and public relations executive, I came to appreciate the many years — now more than 70 years — of Sid’s pioneering work as a publicist, author and collector of interesting — and trivial — information. In many ways, I’ve come to look upon Sid as my second father and consider it a rare privilege to be asked to include this introduction in his latest work.

Trivia aside, you will be fascinated by Sid’s personal stories — which range from the White House to the streets of Brooklyn.

Sid’s book may be “a world of trivia,” but the world itself is a kinder place to know the likes of this nontrivial man.

Robert Renneisen, President/CEO
Miss America Organization

When Lynda Kenny wrote "Nobody doesn't like Sid Ascher" in the Press of Atlantic City, she didn't exaggerate. Since his early teens as a Boy Scout in Brooklyn, New York, Sid has given of himself to help others and make them look good.

In May of 1992 Sid marked his 80th birthday in the belief that he was living on borrowed time. Given only 30 days to live in 1985 because he had advanced pancreatic cancer, a surgeon had Sid on the operating table immediately. Nine weeks later, Sid left the University of Pennsylvania Hospital weak but alive. He took a chance and as a result, the now 89 year old Ascher has had the chance to counsel some 500 cancer sufferers to give them hope.

Not one to sit around the house, Sid Ascher has kept active in recent years by working full time as Public Relations Manager at the "smaller but friendlier" Claridge Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, writing a weekly syndicated newspaper column, a trivia column, and until 1995, broadcasting three times a day with his taped "Sid Ascher's World" commentary on WFPG FM radio in Atlantic City. His social commentary has been printed in the Congressional Record on two different occasions.

When Sid was 14, the New York Daily Mirror proclaimed him "New York's Brightest Boy." Several years later he developed the "Miss Rheingold" beer competition that won awards in national advertising circles. Disliking comedic remarks about his hometown, in 1941 Sid founded "The Society for the Prevention of Disparaging Remarks about Brooklyn," gaining one million members. He penned the widely noted "Fala" speech in 1945 for President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and slept in the White House's Lincoln Bedroom while representing the Boy Scouts on the occasion of President Herbert Hoover's birthday in 1932.

Sid Ascher's volunteer efforts include having served as chairman of the Atlantic County Division of the American Cancer Society, serving on the executive boards of the Boys and Girls Club of Atlantic City and the Atlantic Area Council Boy Scouts. He has been the recipient of more than a dozen awards for volunteer community service.

Sid has had four books published - one of poetry, another on trivia and a third, a children's book, with royalties going to the Shriners' Hospital for Crippled Children. He was ghostwriter on three other books, and a portion of his proceeds for his just published Sid Ascher's World of Trivia and more! benefits the Boys and Girls Club of Atlantic City. Sid composed "The Very Thought of You", which he sold to bandleader Ray Noble because, at the time, publishers said the song could never amount to anything. (It has been recorded around the world by more than a thousand vocalists and orchestras and was background music for the film, Casablanca. He also sold the rights to "The Touch of your Lips" for the same reason.

Sid claims the biggest achievement and joy of his life is his wife, Evelyn, and his two daughters, Sharon and Joan, and 7 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.