Pop Rocks and Coke

If you put a packet of Pop Rocks in your mouth and then immediately consume a Coke, your stomach will explode from the carbonation!

Jose laughed after telling me this urban legend, which is apparently one of his favorite ones to share with others. He used to believe it was true and tested it out for himself many times before when was younger, always awaiting his explosive demise and never quite experiencing it. He did firmly assert that this is not true, though. Because he said he saw it on Mythbusters, a popular television show, and they took care of disproving the whole thinking behind it.

Jose’s experience with this Pop Rock and Coke phenomenon when he was younger reflects a more general fascination and intense curiosity that often surround similar urban legends because there is always that anticipation and desire to know, “what if it’s true?” Urban legends such as this one also serve to hype certain products which can be an incredibly effective street marketing and sales tool. Moreover, the fact that Jose finally received confirmation that this combination was perfectly harmless from a television series, shows how pervasive urban legends can be and how quickly they can become a part of mainstream popular culture.

Annotation: The song “Pop rocks and coke” by the artist Green Day. This song is found on their studio album “International Superhits!” on Label Reprise released in 2001.

Tom Brown the Legend

So this girl was doing an internship over the summer at an outdoor education place and finds out that Tom Brown, her idol, was coming to make a speech, so she asked her boss if she could be the one to pick him up from the airport.  Her boss agreed, and when Tom Brown arrived, she got to pick him up.  When she was driving with him, she was in such awe that she never got up the nerve to talk to him or ask him any questions.  Soo they got back to the camp and she dropped him off without taking advantage of his knowledge of nature.  So Tom Brown makes his speech and is…er… needs to go back to the airport the next day, so the girl, realizing that she made a mistake the first time begs her boss to let her drive him back to the airport, and he again consents.  So she’s driving back with him, but yet again she is in such awe that she freezes, she doesn’t know what to say or ask him, so she uhh drops him off in the airport, and helps him carry his bags inside.  In the airport Tom Brown suddenly stops right.  Then the guy walks 45 yards away, leans behind a garbage can, and picks up a tiny ass cricket that he takes outside and releases.  The intern of course was amazed.  “How’d you do that?”  she asked. Tom Brown just asked her if she had any change, and she took a few coins out of her pocket and gave them to him.  He then dropped them on the ground, and like everyone around them turns and looks at the two of them.  “You hear what you listen for,” he said, and straight walks away yo.
If you don’t know who Tom Brown is– He is a famous outdoorsman who was raised in nature by a Native American Indian chief and is known for his unbelievable knowledge of the outdoors.

My friend Peter Klimkow, who is a camp counselor in his hometown of Evanston, which is located in Chicago, IL, related this story to me. According to him, the story is told around a campfire where all the campers can gather to hear stories, play games, and sing songs. Apparently, Tom Brown is a known legend at the camp, for this is not the only tale about the nature man, and he is often a camp favorite when they are all in the mood to hear a great story. Peter is not sure whether the man actually exists or not because the stories often seem to far-fetched to be real. Also, it seems most of Tom Brown’s legendary tales carry some sort of meaning to them, such as “you hear what you listen for,” which young kids at the camp can take home with them when they leave the wilderness.

When I asked Peter where he first learned of Tom Brown, he replied that he was first introduced to him at camp as well, where he heard it from an older counselor. This leads me to believe that maybe Tom Brown is just a camp legend passed on from year to year, used in stories as a way to teach children how to appreciate nature. Peter says he has a multitude of tales regarding the nature man and the ways he interacts with the natural world around him. Tom Brown functions as both a legend and tradition because according to Peter, his stories are always told in the same way, the oldest camp counselor sits on a log seat and tells the story over a fire with all the campers gathered in a semi-circle. Perhaps Tom Brown’s legend is made that much more legendary because it is always told in such a fashion and seems to be an event that campers know to look forward to for enjoyment.

Although Tom Brown has achieved legendary status, he is in fact an actual man.  Not only does he run a tracker school, but also Tom Brown is even a renowned author. He was a seven-year-old boy when an Apache chief named Stalking Wolf who used his last years to teach Tom Brown the way to commune with nature took him in. After living outside of civilization for ten years, Tom came back to open a tracker school and share his knowledge of the wilderness. Tom Brown Jr. tells all about himself and his journey to becoming a naturalist in his article “Night of the Red Sky,” which was published in Nexus Magazine. There he relates some of how he became such an expert in the wilderness. Although Tom’s skill is sometimes called into question by skeptics who doubt that such a man could be so skilled in tracking, Tom Brown Jr. has still achieved a level of notoriety befitting of legend status and I believe that he has all the proper makings of legend whose stories will be told for decades to come.

Annotation:

Tom Brown Jr. “Night of the Red Sky.” Nexus Magazine, Volume 7, Number 1 (  December 1999 – January 2000)

“A girl named Karin is babysitting for a family while the parents are away for the weekend.  The first day she is at the house she notices a clown statue that the children are playing with in the living room.  Karin is terrified of clowns so she moves it into a room where the children don’t go.  The next day she sees that the clown statue is back in the living room and assumes the children moved it back in there.  So Karin calls the parents and asks if she can move their clown statue out in the back yard.  The parents tell Karin to grab the children and go in their bedroom, lock the door, and call the police because they don’t have a clown statue and it must be a real person.  Karin does so and the police arrive to find out that the clown statue was an escaped criminal who has a sleeping disease where he falls asleep randomly while standing and does not move.”

Ariella heard this legend when she was fifteen, around the time when she was beginning to baby-sit for several families.  “I originally heard the story from my other Lebanese friend, and the story was told to her in English not Lebanese.  I was about to leave my friend’s house, the night after I baby-sat, when my friend told me the story.  When I heard the story I did not baby-sit for another three weeks because it frightened me so much.”  Ariella claimed that she heard that story a second time from her Asian friend, which can mean that this is not specifically a Lebanese urban legend.  Ariella believes that the story is meant to scare young girls from watching children and that it encourages young girls to work at “actual” jobs.

Through paradigmatic analysis, this urban legend appears to send a message warning to young girls to be careful when baby-sitting and watching other children.  The clown represents an exaggerating version of the troubles that can go wrong through baby-sitting, and the urban legend emphasizes that there is a responsibility that goes into baby-sitting, in this case the protection of the children.  The fact that Karin is scared of clowns poses the idea that Karin herself is still a child, and can present the case that adults should not rely as heavily on baby-sitters to watch their own children, and instead, should take upon the responsibility themselves.  Watching other children is a major task to offer to young girls, and it is possible that this urban legend’s intent is that maybe it is too great of a task to offer.