Boo_ep008

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:00:00]:
What follows may not be suitable for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:00:05]:
The world is full of stories. Stories of mysteries, of curiosities, of oddities. Join Cat and Jethro Gilligan Toth for the strange, the bizarre, the unexpected as they lift the lid and cautiously peer ins box of oddities.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:00:33]:
This is going to be a little bit different today because we're doing the show from our rv.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:00:40]:
I think it sounds good, though. I mean, it sounds this similar through my headphones.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:00:44]:
Yeah, yeah. We have a. A motor home that we're renovating.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:00:49]:
Motor home makes it sound so 1980s to me.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:00:52]:
It's a motor coach. It's. It's a Fleetwood Bounder. It is what it is.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:00:58]:
It's nice. I like it.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:00:59]:
It's nice and it's used and we're fixing it up and we're going to take it on the road. We're going to take the box of oddities on the road. Yeah, we're pretty excited about this, so we thought maybe today would be a good day to test out the studio that we just put in the. The RV and see how it worked.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:01:15]:
Yeah, I mean, that's not the only motivation for doing it in there, but, you know, it's. That's. I mean, it's good to test things out.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:01:22]:
Yep. Yep.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:01:23]:
We've got family visiting and we're hiding from them.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:01:25]:
Yeah. Yeah. And so far, they haven't discovered where we are. Shh. Sit down. They'll see us. It's the box of oddities. And I'm Jethro Gilligan Toth. She, of course, is Kat.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:01:36]:
Hello.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:01:37]:
And we have a website that you.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:01:39]:
Should check out the boxofoddities.com and we do appreciate it.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:01:42]:
We tell stories of weird and strange things today. I'm pretty excited about today's topic that I've pulled together because it's gonna be a little bit different. It actually involves clips of an interview that I did.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:01:54]:
Oh, cool. O. Cool, cool, cool. I'm super excited about mine too. And I don't know, usually I have an idea about who I'd like to see go first or second based on my story and whether or not I think it's good to lead in with this story or to wrap up with this story.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:02:13]:
Gotcha.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:02:13]:
But all I want to talk about is this story.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:02:16]:
So you don't give a rat's ass about my story. Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. I was thinking maybe to decide who goes first. I thought maybe a good way to do it would be to play rock paper scissors, but in Keeping with the theme of box of oddities, instead of rock, we could use skull. Instead of paper, we could use death certificate. And instead of scissors, we could use scalpel.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:02:41]:
So scalpel beats death warrant, and death certificate.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:02:46]:
Yeah. Skull beats scalpel.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:02:49]:
Scalpel.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:02:50]:
Yeah. And death certificate beats skull. Just like rock. Rock, paper, scissors.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:02:56]:
How does death certificate beat skull?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:02:57]:
Same as paper beats rock.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:02:59]:
You just put it on top of the skull. Yeah, well, now that I'm thinking about it, rock, paper, scissors. Doesn't make any sense.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:03:05]:
It doesn't? Really? No.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:03:06]:
I mean, because rock, you can break the scalpel. That makes sense. Or the. You know what I'm getting at?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:03:10]:
Yeah.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:03:11]:
Oh, man.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:03:12]:
My whole childhood just out the window. Goodbye.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:03:16]:
I mean, I guess. I mean, because it covers it. That's the idea. But, yeah. In no way does that stop it.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:03:21]:
No, it doesn't.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:03:22]:
It should still rip right through that paper.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:03:24]:
It could. Yeah. It doesn't make any sense. It's like when I found out the moon landing was fake.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:03:31]:
You believe there's a moon? Stupid.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:03:36]:
All right, skull, death certificate, scalpel. Here we go.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:03:39]:
Ready?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:03:40]:
1, 2, 3. Elbow. Scalpel. Okay. 1, 2, 3. Scalpel again. 1, 2, 3. Eh, skull beat scalpel. Okay.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:03:52]:
How does that even work? It doesn't matter. I like winning.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:03:54]:
You go first.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:03:55]:
Okay. All right. I'm so excited.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:03:58]:
By the way, these chairs that we have in the RV need to be oiled.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:04:01]:
They are squeaky.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:04:03]:
Very, very squeaky.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:04:04]:
They are very squeaky. Sorry about that. Bros and hoes. Okay, so in 1974, at the age of 33, an Icelandic history teacher named. And I want to get this right. It's Icelandic, so it's Horde.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:04:20]:
Jimmy Dean.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:04:24]:
Sigurd Jardison. Sigurd Jardison.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:04:29]:
Okay, okay.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:04:31]:
Sigurd Jordison was given a penis.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:04:36]:
What was this, like a blind date or.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:04:39]:
It was a dried bull's penis, long and limp. The kind often used in the Icelandic countryside to whip farm animals, which, by the way, don't do that. And a colleague of Judderson gave it to him as a joke at a holiday party. And I'm assuming it's like one of those Yankee swap parties where you're like, ha, ha, you got the penis.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:05:03]:
Yep.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:05:04]:
Soon, though, other teachers began as a joke bringing him penises like bull penis or a whale penis that they came across.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:05:13]:
How does one come across a whale penis?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:05:15]:
Iceland. I don't pretend to understand how it works there.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:05:18]:
Wash up on the shore. And by the way, speaking of Iceland, we actually have listeners in Iceland. I was checking our stats I love you. Yeah. Iceland.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:05:25]:
Woo. So eventually Jarderson thought it might be an interesting challenge to collect specimens from all the mammal species in Iceland. This is how it started. Today we're going to talk about the Icelandic Phallicological Museum, AKA the Penis Museum.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:05:44]:
Phallicological. Is that really a term?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:05:46]:
Yeah, it's a word. Phallological.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:05:50]:
Phallological. FA la la la la la la.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:05:53]:
Dick.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:05:54]:
Okay.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:05:54]:
Yeah. Okay.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:05:56]:
So, so basically this is a penis museum.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:05:58]:
It's a penis museum, yes. And actually our friend Mike Elliot told me about this. He's a big fan. A big fan. I got most of the information about this amazing thing from Smithsonian magazine. There was an article that I snagged from the Penis Museum website itself. And Buzzfeed, of course. So the Icelandic Phallological Museum is probably the only museum in the world to contain a collection of phallic specimens belonging to all the various types of mammal found in a single country, including human. I'm getting to that. The study of peeners is an ancient science which until recent years has received very little attention in Iceland except as a borderline field of study. You know, thanks to the Icelandic. I'm just gonna say the Penis museum. Thanks to the Penis Museum, it is finally possible for individuals to. To undertake serious study in the field of penises in an organized scientific fashion. So the founder Jartson was born in 1941 and he's very well educated. He's a historian with a bachelor's degree from the University of Iceland. He's got a degree in Latin American history from the University of Edinburgh. He worked as a principal and a teacher for 37 years. He's worked as a teacher of history and Spanish at a college in. I always mispronounce that too. Reykjavjevic, Reykjavik. In Iceland. Let's just say in Iceland. Oh, man, this is gonna be a tough one.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:07:43]:
We're really dumbing this down.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:07:44]:
Yeah, he work as teacher. He's written and translated some 20 books, chiefly on Latin American history, including textbooks in history in Spanish. He's a very intelligent man. So this penis Museum contains a Collection More than 200 penises and penile parts belonging to almost all the land and sea mammals that can be found in Iceland.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:08:14]:
And it's under one roof, in one building?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:08:16]:
Correct.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:08:16]:
I wonder how long it took them to erect it.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:08:19]:
Oh, man. You've been working on that?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:08:22]:
Yeah, I just checked that one off my list. Penis joke. Go ahead.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:08:25]:
Visitors to the museum will encounter 55 specimens belonging to 16 different kinds of whales. One specimen taken from a rogue polar bear, 36 specimens belonging to seven different kinds of seal and walrus, and more than 115 specimens that came from 20 different kinds of land animal, including Homo sapiens. The museum has obtained legally certified gift tokens for four human penises. And I saw a picture of one of them and it's grody. So there's actually a guy named Tom Mitchell. He's an American. He wants to donate his penis to the museum before he dies.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:09:08]:
Is his penis noteworthy somehow?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:09:11]:
Well, he has a stars and stripes tattoo on it and he's nicknamed it Elmo.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:09:18]:
Usa. Usa. Oh, wow. Old glory flapping in the wind.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:09:28]:
He says that he wants people to know that the largest and best one came from the States. Okay. There's no further information on why he calls his penis Elmo, which is really what's most curious to me beyond all.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:09:44]:
The other things like the stars and stripes tattoo. Yeah.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:09:47]:
So anyone in the capital of Iceland who can spare about $10 can see the collection. It's housed in a modest street level space on a busy corner downtown. It's in a carpeted room, which I think is a mistake. Lined with wooden shelves and there's an overwhelming number of specimens. Most of them are preserved in formaldehyde and displayed upright in glass jars. Again, whales, hamsters, gray horse penises, rams. Penises that are very unsettling to look at. Some are limp, some were resting aside the the sides of the jars. Some seem to have been preserved in an erect state. The walls are decorated with dried whale penises mounted on plaques. Kind of like hunting trophies. Yeah, like you. Instead of a deer head, it's just a giant wang like coming out at you. It's like the wall has a penis and it's saying hello.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:10:48]:
That's a fine how do you do?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:10:51]:
It's how much to get in and about $10.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:10:54]:
That seems a little stiff. Number two off the list.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:10:57]:
There you go. Well done. Some of them, including the human peener that I saw, included the giblets, the berries there.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:11:09]:
Wow.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:11:10]:
So some do, some don't. I guess that's.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:11:12]:
So it's not meant. It's not a mandatory requirement to get into the museum.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:11:17]:
Correct. And it's not, you know, it's not penises only. And it's not required that you have all the. The bits. It's not a male genital in full requirement. So. There are also some tongue in cheek penis themed arts that you will find, including a sculpture of the silver medal winning Icelandic Olympic handball team's penises. So what what is that? Well, the, you know. Handball.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:11:49]:
Sure.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:11:50]:
So there's an Icelandic handball team that won the gold in the Olympics and so they've sculpted their wieners and you can see the wieners sculpture.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:12:02]:
You mean like a plaster caster?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:12:04]:
Something like that? Yeah.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:12:05]:
Okay.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:12:06]:
Yeah. Other penis based artifacts like lampshades made from dry bull scrubs.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:12:12]:
What?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:12:14]:
Yeah. You know how I love a skin lamp so that.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:12:18]:
Wow. So I would use an LED bulb in it.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:12:21]:
Sure. You don't want it to get too hot?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:12:23]:
Yeah. It might smell awful. Maybe they could. You know what they should do?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:12:28]:
This is they should all kinds of ideas.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:12:31]:
They should make like a. Like a messenger bag out of an elephant foreskin.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:12:36]:
Mm.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:12:36]:
And then when you rub it, it becomes a suitcase.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:12:39]:
Oh, man. The museum's largest specimen is from a sperm whale. It's nearly 6ft tall. It weighs about 150 pounds and it's kept in a giant glass tank bolted to the floor.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:12:52]:
Not the whale, the penis.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:12:54]:
Correct.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:12:55]:
Wow.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:12:55]:
The penis, nearly six feet tall. Wait, I mean I'm repeating this on purpose. It weighs about 150 pounds. Yeah. Sperm whale penis.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:13:06]:
Holy crap.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:13:06]:
Sperm whale. Jartson explained that this was merely the tip of the whale's full penis. Which couldn't be.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:13:15]:
Just the tip.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:13:15]:
Yep.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:13:18]:
Just the tip.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:13:19]:
Yeah. You like it? But it could. The whole penis couldn't be transported intact when the creature died. And it was originally about 16ft long, weighing upwards of 700 pounds.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:13:34]:
I had no idea.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:13:36]:
Amazing, right? So in the Smithsonian article, the writer Joseph Stromberg spoke of how seriously the founder Sigurd took the museum. It's not just for funsies, it's a scientific museum. He even spoke of a student who said that he didn't. He so much better understood whales because of what he was able to observe at the museum. And he said that was really important to him because that's the purpose. Except for a glass room in the corner which is labeled simply folklore section. And in it Sigirder has assembled what he claims to be the penises of elves, water horses, an Icelandic sea monster, a merman and a zombie bull. So there's also a jar in that room that appears to be empty, but it's labeled with Homo sapien invisibilis.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:14:39]:
I see. Okay. Kind of like.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:14:41]:
No, you don't.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:14:41]:
That's. No, you don't see it. It's his version of the pet rock. Yeah, I'm surprised he's not selling those.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:14:46]:
It's an invisible. He may be.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:14:48]:
Yeah. Speaking of that, what would their gift.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:14:50]:
Shop look like that's was one of my first things. I want to go to the gift shop so much. There is a guest book where you can sign in and talk about your experience at the Pianist Museum. They do have some things available for purchase, like little pens that. That look like wieners, which seems like the obvious choice. And so I think that we should definitely go and check it out. I am just as excited about the gift shop as I am about the giant elephant wang that you can actually touch.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:15:26]:
You can touch the wang. Really? Is that extra.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:15:32]:
Usually? Usually.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:15:34]:
Because I don't want to get the shaft. You know, I don't want to have to pay more. That's number five.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:15:38]:
Wow. Well done, Dick joke. Well done.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:15:42]:
I've completed my list of dick jokes.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:15:44]:
I'm so glad. I'm so glad that you brought that whole dream to fruition.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:15:50]:
Thank you. Thank you so much.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:15:51]:
You finished?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:15:52]:
I did finish.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:15:54]:
Okay, so. So there you go. That's the Icelandic Penis Museum. So there you go.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:16:00]:
It's quite a mouthful, isn't it? Number.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:16:05]:
That's the first time you've been able to say that.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:16:07]:
Seven. Okay. All right.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:16:12]:
The Box of Oddities. It's not for everyone.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:16:16]:
It's the time now for that thing in the middle.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:16:17]:
That's right. Five weird things real quick. And since you were having trouble pronouncing that name. From Iceland.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:16:23]:
Yeah. Hergen.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:16:24]:
Yeah. We thought maybe we would do unusual.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:16:28]:
Names belonging to actual people.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:16:30]:
Real people, real names. Real weird.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:16:33]:
Oh, wow.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:16:34]:
That was nice. Number five. Here's a young child. His name is Jed I. Knight. Jedi Knight. That's his name.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:16:44]:
Preserved Fish. Fish was a shipping merchant in the 19th century who had just about the best name possible for a whale boat captain. Preserved Fish.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:16:54]:
I'm looking at a driver's license of a guy from Singapore, and his name is Batman. Beast. Superman.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:17:04]:
Ah. A Titanic survivor who also competed in the 1906 Olympic Games. He won a silver medal. Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:17:14]:
Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:17:17]:
Isn't that wonderful?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:17:18]:
That's a lovely name. And number one, this is an actual headline from an actual newspaper. Beezow doo doo zeboity bop bop Arrested Bizao. Doo doo zoppity bop bop bop Zoppity.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:17:34]:
Bop bop bop Has a hard time staying out of trouble.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:17:36]:
Zoppity bop bop bop. 30, from Madison, Wisconsin, was tentatively charged with carrying a concealed weapon. Beezow doo doo zoppity bop bop bop. I love it.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:17:48]:
That's fun.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:17:49]:
The Box of Oddities with Cat and Jethro Gilligan toth.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:17:56]:
Today I'm pretty excited about this. This is a book I read. It was called the Boy who Knew Too Much. It came out last year. It's written by author Kathy Bird.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:18:04]:
Oh, yeah.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:18:04]:
And you remember me talking about this?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:18:06]:
I do, yeah.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:18:08]:
She claims, and so does her son, who is, I believe, nine years old now, that he is the reincarnated spirit of baseball legend Lou Gehrig.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:18:17]:
So interesting.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:18:19]:
Yeah, it's fascinating. I saw the book and I'm like, baseball and reincarnation. I'm in.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:18:23]:
You know, I did a project on reincarnation when I was in sixth grade.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:18:28]:
You did?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:18:29]:
Yeah, I had to make a poster and so I modeled it after the recycling signs that were becoming so popular then. So I did like a recycle your soul kind of deal.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:18:40]:
Oh, wow.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:18:40]:
And. But I misspelled soul.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:18:42]:
Oh, no.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:18:43]:
Yeah, it was kind of embarrassing.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:18:45]:
Like sole of a shoe.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:18:47]:
Yeah.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:18:47]:
Did they take points off for that?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:18:48]:
Oh, yeah.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:18:49]:
For those of you who maybe aren't baseball fans, even if you aren't, I know you've heard of Lou Gehrig. Lou Gehrig was. His nickname was the Iron Horse. Here are some of his stats, according to Wikipedia. Major League baseball player, New York Yankees from 1923 till 1939. Gehrig was renowned for his prowess as a hitter. He was a seven time all star, seven consecutive seasons. A Triple Crown winner. An American League Most Valuable player two different times. A member of six World Series championship teams. Along with Babe Ruth. He played with Babe Ruth. He had a lifetime batting average of.340 and he hit 493 home runs. He was a legend.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:19:32]:
Why do they call him the Iron Horse?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:19:34]:
Because he played something like 3,000 consecutive games without taking a day off.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:19:38]:
What's that got to do with horses?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:19:40]:
Iron Horse. You know, an iron horse is like a train. They used to call trains iron horse back in the day. And so he just kept going.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:19:50]:
I didn't know that.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:19:51]:
Yeah.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:19:51]:
Why did they call trains iron horses? Oh, because they were transportation made of metal.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:19:57]:
Yeah. I think it was a Native American thing. Garrick died in 1941. Now here's an article by ESPN. They said, did he come back? And he goes on to talk about Kathy Byrd believing her son, Christian Haupt is the reincarnated spirit of Lou Gehrig. And there are a lot of things to make you question whether or not this could be true. It's actually quite persuasive.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:20:25]:
That's good. It'll need to be, because you know how I feel about this kind of Thing.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:20:28]:
This is the part that's going to be a little bit different. I actually got Kathy Byrd on the phone. By the way. She's a wonderful lady.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:20:34]:
Okay.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:20:34]:
I really enjoy talking with her.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:20:36]:
Really? And she really enjoyed it. You really enjoyed it?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:20:39]:
Yes, yes.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:20:40]:
Listen, Kathy.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:20:44]:
No, it's nothing like that.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:20:45]:
Just kidding.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:20:46]:
But she's without a question of a doubt convinced that her son is the reincarnated spirit of Lou Gehrig. When I talked to her, I had her explain some things. I'm gonna play some clips of the conversation. Okay. She explained when he started talking about being Lou Gehrig, what it was like.

Kathy Bird [00:21:03]:
When he did start talking about Lou Gehrig, it was right around the time that he turned three is when he started saying things to us like, mommy, I used to be a tall baseball player, you know, And I would say, yeah, you're going to be tall. Someday you'll be a tall baseball player. And one day he got so upset with me and stomped his foot and said, no, I was tall like Daddy. And I said, you mean you were a grown up? And he said, yes. So from then on is when it really kind of opened Pandora's box. And he just kept telling us more and more things about this lifetime as a baseball player.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:21:34]:
And I think it's important to note that at like, 2, 3 years old, he was a baseball prodigy.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:21:40]:
Oh, wow.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:21:40]:
This kid can play ball. He's considered to be one of the best ball players for his age in the country.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:21:46]:
Oh, my goodness.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:21:46]:
He's. He's on traveling baseball teams. He has been for years. He threw out the first pitch at Dodger Stadium. You can see that on YouTube. And he was. He was really young, like four.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:21:56]:
Well, that's just cool.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:21:57]:
And he. He threw a strike. He wound up like a. Like a major league baseball player and threw a strike at how old? Four.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:22:06]:
That's mind blowing.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:22:07]:
Yeah. And the crowd of 30,000 people just.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:22:09]:
Went nuts, I would imagine.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:22:10]:
Yeah. Check it out. It's on YouTube. Now. One of the things that I knew about, because I'm a baseball history buff, one of the things that I knew about Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig's relationship was that most people think it was. It was a great, strong camaraderie. And it was for a while, but they did have a falling out.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:22:28]:
Oh, no.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:22:29]:
At one point in their career.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:22:31]:
Why?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:22:31]:
Well, she talks a little bit about when she found out that Christian did not like Babe Ruth.

Kathy Bird [00:22:37]:
That happened when we filmed the movie in Boston with Adam Sandler, and I took him to See the Yankees play the Red Sox at Benlay Park. And there was this giant picture of Babe Ruth. And Christian saw it when he was 2 years old and got so upset, like, had a huge emotional reaction to this photo where he was waving his little bat and said, I don't like him. He was mean to me. And at the time, that was really strange. It was before he started telling us things about another lifetime. But I couldn't really put my finger on it. And then, you know, as time went by, he continued to harbor this grudge towards Babe Ruth. So I showed him Pictures of the 1927 Yankees at the suggestion of Carol Bowman, who is a woman I found who actually studies past life memories of children. She wrote a book about it, and she consults with parents who have similar experiences to mine. And she told me to show him photos of Babe Ruth's teams that he played with. And that's when I asked Christian, do you see anyone else in this photo who doesn't like Babe Ruth? And Christian continued to point at a guy with dimples who turned out to be Lou Gehrig. But this animosity towards Babe Ruth, like, he still isn't a big fan of Babe Ruth. He's still. So I don't like him. And as he got older, he said things like, Babe Ruth was a very jealous man. You know, he would get into the story behind it. And what I later found out, once Christian saw a picture of Lou Gehrig and said, that's me, and told us other things about the life of Lou Gehrig. I later found out that Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth had this falling out, that they were very good friends and they had a falling out that led them not to speak, basically for the entire seven years, last seven years of Lou Gehrig's career on the Yankees. They were really good friends. I did so much research on this once. Kristen kept telling me things. Now I know everything there is to know about Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. So they were very good friends, like, to the point that Lou Gehrig's mother actually took Babe Ruth into her home and took care of him after he got divorced. But they did have a big falling out. And Christian, ironically, was the one who shared that with me, what the falling out was about. And as I researched it more, he was actually right. And so what happened is once they had this falling out, they really didn't speak. But there are a lot of pictures of them together. And there's actually that one famous picture when Lou Gehrig gives his luckiest man speech on his retirement day at Yankee Stadium where they. Babe Ruth actually puts his arm around Lou Gehrig, and that's considered to be their reconciliation, where they hadn't spoken for seven years. That's kind of historically looked upon as a reconciliation.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:25:08]:
Now, the thing that made them enemies toward the end was. And I found this out. I researched this myself. Apparently they were on a ship together, and Lou Gehrig found Babe Ruth in the same room with his wife.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:25:24]:
Oh. And Babe Ruth was kind of well known for being a drunken womanizer. Right. I was trying to think of a nice way to say that, but, yeah. No, he was just. He would grab at whatever parts.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:25:37]:
Yeah. And so they had a falling out, and for seven years, they. He. He hated Babe Ruth. And I can. I understand that. Sure. But they were good friends leading up to that and then reconciled that day that she mentioned at Yankee Stadium where he gave that famous speech.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:25:51]:
I'm looking at the hug right now. Oh, that's kind of sweet. You can tell Babe Ruth is into it, and Lou Gehrig's kind of like, yeah, okay. Yeah, I suppose he's letting it happen, but he's still a little apprehensive about it.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:26:06]:
Yeah. Kathy took Christian to Lou Gehrig's house in New York.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:26:12]:
Was he home?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:26:13]:
He was not home. He'd been dead since 1941. But the people who lived there brought them in, and Christian went through the house and told everybody where everything was. He knew. Knew the house backwards and forwards. He made all kinds of comments about, I used to sit here. This was my bedroom. You know, these kinds of things that he couldn't have known but were later verified.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:26:34]:
Oh, wow. That's pretty interesting.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:26:37]:
Now, I mentioned that he is a bit of a baseball prodigy, and he became friends at a very early age with Tommy Lasorda, who is a legendary hall of Fame.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:26:47]:
Right. He was the Weight Watchers guy.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:26:49]:
Yeah, well, yeah, he did that, too. Yeah. But he. He was the manager for the Dodgers for years and years and years, and he just happened to see Christian hitting Wiffle balls in the parking lot outside of Dodger Stadium and pulled Cathy aside and said, that kid's special. That kid has something.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:27:08]:
Oh, that's cool.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:27:09]:
And ever since then, he's invited Christian to go to spring training games for the Dodgers. There's also a video of him on YouTube throwing a baseball to Clayton Kershaw, Cy Young winner.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:27:22]:
Oh.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:27:23]:
And throwing a strike right at him. And the guy's like, oh, my God. He couldn't believe it was coming from this young kid. He's. I think, with being a Red Sox fan, we need to make sure that we draft him when he's old enough.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:27:36]:
I love how you're really thinking about how we can make this work in our. In our interest.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:27:41]:
Yeah. So Kathy talked a little bit about when she started taking him seriously, because at first, you know, you kind of. You're going, well, kids have imaginations and.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:27:49]:
Oh, sure.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:27:49]:
Yeah.

Kathy Bird [00:27:50]:
Well, I was the biggest skeptic of all. Like, when Christian would tell me these things, even when I pretended to go along with it, I was still questioning, like, what is this? And the first thing I did was go to my pastor and shared with him the things that Christian had said. And the pastor basically insinuated that Christian could be possessed by the spirit of a dead person. And this was obviously, as a mother, not something you want to hear. So that's when I took the more scientific route and looked for other answers. But it really was one thing he said to me when he was just turned three and we were in an elevator. And he said, mommy, this elevator kind of looks like a hotel. And I said, yeah, it kind of does. And he said, when I was a tall baseball player, when I was tall, like Daddy, I used to stay in hotels almost every night. And I kind of went along with it. And I said, oh, did you travel on airplanes? I mean. And he said, no, mostly trains. And at that point, it was so strange to me. I didn't even know if baseball players really traveled on trains at that time during Babe Ruth's era. But it just was strange to me because Christian had never played with trains, never been on a train. I don't think we'd ever talked about trains. So I looked it up and found out that Babe Ruth did travel on trains. And then as things began to become more and more confirmed through history, as I would look them up on the Internet, is when it kind of sucked me in. Like, okay, there's something to this.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:29:09]:
In her book, she also talks about how he was interviewed by some medical experts in this area and children that have that claim to have lived past lives and asked him some specific questions, asked him about, well, did you know your mother in a past life? And he claims that Kathy was his mother, was Lou Gehrig's mother as well.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:29:33]:
Oh.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:29:33]:
And so Kathy was like, yeah, I don't know about that. So Kathy went and had a hypnotic regression herself, and sure enough, she could see things that were taking place. She could see the home that she lived in and later when they went to visit Lou Gehrig's home, she recognized it interesting as being what she saw in her hypnotic gotcha. But there were a lot of different things that led them to believe that this could possibly be the case. I went and looked at side by side video comparison of Christian, who is left handed, like Gehrig was swinging a baseball bat. Because, you know, each baseball player has their own style, has their own swing.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:30:18]:
Absolutely. Yeah.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:30:19]:
It's just like the same thing. It's the same swing. You look at Christian's left handed swing and Lou Gehrig's left handed swing and it's the same swing. It's exactly the same. And this kid's been doing it since he was like four.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:30:30]:
Right. And that was before they started really researching Lou Gehrig, that his swing kind of started that to be that style.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:30:38]:
That's right.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:30:38]:
I gotcha.

Kathy Bird [00:30:39]:
These doctors and people who study these cases of kids, there are cases where kids come through with scars on them. Like, for example, if someone was shot in the head, they'll have a scar right where that bullet wound was. With Christian, there are physical things, like he has big, deep dimples just like Lou Gehrig, which isn't like a real characteristic of our family, but. So that was kind of a fun thing. But obviously anyone could have dimples. He's left handed like Lou Gehrig was left handed. We noticed when Christian was about 4, I watched a video that I had shot of a travel baseball game that he was playing in. Believe it or not, he played travel baseball at 4 years old. I know that's strange. And I compared it to videos of Lou Gehrig and his form was quite similar, like his swing and the way he would slide into the bases. He would take his helmet off at home plate and kind of wave it like McGarry would wave his hat at the crowd. Just little subtle things that we would pick up on.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:31:35]:
Now he's still doing travel baseball and he's still considered to be. Well, he is one of the best baseball players in his age group in the country, if not in the world. It's really an amazing thing to. And I was. Kathy's a Facebook friend of mine and she had posted recently something about they were at this competition and one of the other team's players, father was taunting him, was making fun of Christian being the reincarnated spirit of Lou Gehrig.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:32:04]:
Like how?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:32:05]:
Just taunting him.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:32:07]:
What do you mean?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:32:08]:
Yelling out words and making fun.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:32:12]:
Teasing him. Yelling words and making fun? Yeah, like in general or saying things about Lou Gehrig.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:32:17]:
Saying things about Christian claiming to be, okay, Lou Gehrig, let's see if you can hit, you know, that kind of thing.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:32:23]:
Gotcha.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:32:23]:
I mean, I wasn't there, but that's how I pictured it in my head.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:32:26]:
Okay.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:32:27]:
And so I asked her about how he deals with that because now everybody knows that he believes that he's Lou Gehrig. How does he deal with that? And she says he's incredibly mature for his age. And it just rolls off his back and he's like, I just want to play baseball. Oh, he's a good kid. Now at one point, and this is, this is getting kind of weird, Kathy took Christian and his sister to visit Lou Gehrig's grave.

Kathy Bird [00:32:54]:
I think there's a video in the book trailer. We did a book trailer that Jack Canfield narrated. And there's also a little video of that moment too. And it really was a very special, special time getting on the airplane and leaving New York. And you know, it was, it was just a really sense of closure for Christian. It was, there was a lot of reverence. And even my daughter who used to make fun of him, she used to actually get him all wound up because she would call him Babe Ruth and he would come after her and he would try to pull her hair. But even my daughter in that moment, she knew that that was special.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:33:26]:
What was going through your mind when you were watching that? I mean, that's a pretty big thing.

Kathy Bird [00:33:31]:
You know, I mean, it seems strange to bring your six year old son to a grave, right? It was, it was definitely something. It was something that was so deep in his soul and so much a part of his reality. We had just spent a couple weeks in Cooperstown right before we went to the grave where Christian was at the hall of Fame Museum and got to see like Lou Gehrig's old uniforms and his locker and trophies and, you know, so it was really kind of a deep emotional experience. We went to the home of Lou Gehrit. We walked through the home. We got to, you know, be in the place where Lou Gehrig used to live, you know, and that Christian actually did say when we were out on the patio there at that the house that Lou Gehrig lived in and bought for his parents in 1927. Kristin said, we were standing on the patio and he said, Babe Ruth used to smoke here. Which was kind of funny. But that moment at the graveyard and just being at the grave and was just so special. And one cute Thing Christian said as we were flying home to Los Angeles, was he. There were a bunch of balls all over Lou Gehrig's grave. And then Christian said, I hope when I die, I get a lot of balls on my grave.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:34:45]:
The kid is incredibly well adjusted for the spotlight that he's been standing in. When he threw out the first pitch at four years old in front of 30,000 people, she said that he was just as comfortable as can be.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:34:57]:
That's really cool.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:34:58]:
And he just quietly goes about his business, which is to become the best baseball player he can. And he is, as I've said, considered to be one of the best at his age group. So it's an interesting story, and it's one that you can't discount. And if you read the book, there are a lot more examples of things that really kind of point to this as being a very strong possibility. They actually found a couple who Lou Gehrig's mother lived with before she passed away. And they were able to verify a lot of the information that Christian had told them about Lou Gehrig and his mother at that time. And you'll just have to get the book and check it out for yourself. It's. It's called the Boy who Knew Too Much. It is soon to be a major motion picture. 20th Century Fox.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:35:44]:
Oh, that's cool.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:35:45]:
And, yep, they're doing the screen play right now. And earlier in the interview, she talked a little bit about being a Christian and going to church to talk to her pastor about this. And her pastor saying, well, he might be possessed by the spirit of a dead person. And that kind of freaked her out a little bit. And so she had to pull back a little bit from that. And I asked her how she kind of dealt with it, and she said that. And I love this. She said, what this has taught me is that we're all just souls in a human body and that we're all the same and that we all just need to love each other.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:36:19]:
Well, I can definitely get on board with that sentiment.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:36:22]:
I asked her to kind of sum things up a little bit at the end of the conversation.

Kathy Bird [00:36:25]:
You know, one thing I would just love to impress on people. The book is called the Boy who Knew Too Much. It came out in March 2017. What I really encourage people to do is rather than make a snap judgment, please read the book. Because a lot of people, I've been getting message after message, letters of people whose lives have really been changed by it, and especially people who have lost a loved one, people who've lost a child, lost a parent, lost a sibling. The book really gives them hope and that connection to that person who's passed away.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:36:57]:
I really enjoyed it.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:36:58]:
Yeah, you talked about it a lot and then ended up getting in contact with this woman. So it obviously rung, rung something in you. I don't even know what I mean to say. It obviously touched something in you.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:37:11]:
The idea of reincarnation has always been fascinating to me. I just read an account of somebody who had a hypnotic regression to a life that they had as a soldier in World War I, where he describes how he died, and he died from gunfire in the battle and where he was shot and how he laid there for hours, dying slowly. And in this life, he suffers from, or had suffered from migraine headaches in the exact same spot that he found out through hypnotic regression or that it was suggested the same spot where he was shot.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:37:43]:
Right.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:37:43]:
You know, and like she said, you know, a lot of times people will be born with birthmarks and things of wounds that they died from or had in previous lives. So that's all very fascinating to me. And being a baseball history nut, this just seemed like right in my wheelhouse.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:37:58]:
Kind of just converged into the ultimate Jethro fan, you know, Fan.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:38:02]:
Yep.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:38:03]:
Story.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:38:04]:
It was everything. I mean, I seriously, I read it in two nights. I just couldn't put it down. It was just fascinating. And I have to say, I don't discount it. I think that I can tell there's a lot of evidence that, to me, suggests that there's more to this than we know.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:38:22]:
Sure. And you know me, I don't pretend to know the answers. I. I most often will be very skeptical about almost everything to the point that annoys you sometimes. But, you know, I can't say that it's not true.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:38:40]:
I love that we're doing this show because we can kind of explore these things in depth. And I never would have been able to interview the author of a book just, you know, on my own, but calling up and saying, hey, we're doing the box of oddities. And she's like, yeah, I'll be on that. So that's pretty cool. Yeah, we appreciate that.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:38:56]:
Absolutely.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:38:57]:
And we appreciate you for downloading us.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:38:59]:
I love you.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:39:00]:
We love being downloaded. Downloading is our favorite thing. So keep downloading. And if you haven't subscribe. We appreciate that.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:39:09]:
Also floss.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:39:11]:
Yes.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:39:11]:
It's so important.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:39:13]:
Proper dental hygiene is something that we feel very strongly about as the hosts of the box of audio, the boxofoddities. Dot com. We'll see you next Tuesday.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:39:24]:
See you next Tuesday. And keep flying that freak flag.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:39:29]:
Fly it proudly.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:39:30]:
And so, let it be known that the Box of Oddities belongs to you. And its fate is in your hands. Therefore, it's been requested by those of whom I report to to beseech you for assistance. The Box of Oddities is free. We ask but one thing of you. To provide a five star rating and a positive review. True, that is two things. However, tis merely a five star rating and a positive review also. Subscribe to us. Okay, so three things is all we ask. Three things and three things only. Henceforth, the Box of Oddities commits to the telling of stories. Stories of the strange, the bizarre, the unexpected. We wish to offer our deeply felt gratitude and appreciation for your patronage. The boxofodities. Com Copyright 2018. All rights reserved.