The Prairie Spy

Alan “Lindy” Linda

As the years behind me add up, I’ve become somewhat more aware of those people who are gone now, and what they have left behind them. As in, for example, their name.

The best person I can think of is the Earl of Sandwich, John Montagu, who died in 1792. Of all the things attached to your name, the word “sandwich” has some positive feelings with it. Obviously.

The Earl requested roast beef between two slices of bread to avoid him having to leave a card game. (I wish we knew what kind of card game. But we don’t.) Not only did he not have to leave his card game, he could hold his food in one hand and his cards in his other. This practice of having this for a snack became quite popular. People began requesting that same fare, saying: “Give me what the Earl of Sandwich had, please.” Incidentally, meat and bread had been served long before this. The Earl’s name just happened to stick to it.

So there you have it. Incidentally, the Earl of Sandwich restaurant chain in England, started in 2004 by the 11th Earl of Sandwich and his son, still exists. It serves, of course, freshly baked sandwiches.

This next man was a plumber and businessman in the late 1800’s in England, at a time when chamber pots, which had been used and the contents then thrown out the back window, were being displaced by other means of waste disposal.

In fact, the very first flush toilet was invented and built for Britain’s Queen Elizabeth 1 by her Godson, Sir John Harrington, in 1596. It turns out she wouldn’t use it because it was too noisy, all that running water and stuff. (In fact, the Romans were using running water to flush waste many years before this.)

In the later 1800s, an enterprising fellow with a plumbing equipment company began selling and installing devices that used controlled running water to flush human waste away. His timing was good because at the time pipes were being manufactured more and more. Of course, pipes helped this man make a lot of money taking advantage of this modern device.

And this man’s name? Thomas Crapper.

I’d much rather have the sandwich named after me.