An air traffic controller in Pueblo, Colorado, now flies to work with a propeller strapped to his back. The trip takes 20 minutes, slightly longer than driving. He calls his own tower first, because he does not show up on radar.

A tired man asked his doctor for something to put him in fighting trim. He wanted a tonic that would stir him up.

— from More Toasts, 1922, retold. Got one worse than that? Hit reply.

Inventory down one apple. The cashier has no comment.

Seen something funnier? Reply with a picture you took — a dog in a hat, a sign gone wrong, whatever made you laugh this week.

On the Billboard chart dated October 16, 1976, “Disco Duck” stood at No. 1. Rick Dees, a Memphis radio disc jockey, wrote it to poke fun at disco. The week before, No. 1 was “A Fifth of Beethoven,” a disco version of the famous symphony. A parody of disco topped the chart one week after Beethoven went disco.

Also today: October 16, 1969: the New York Mets won the World Series. Seven years earlier, they lost 120 games in one season. They beat Baltimore 5 to 3 in Game 5.

In 1975, Sony put a new home video recorder in American stores. What was its name?

A) VHS
B) Betamax
C) LaserDisc
D) Video-8

Answer’s at the very bottom. Try it first. 👀

In February, a 75-year-old glider pilot crashed into Mount Prevost on Vancouver Island, Canada. Its peak stands 2,585 feet high, taller than two Empire State Buildings. The pilot hung in a tree about 200 feet below the top, with his harness cutting off his blood flow.

Matthew Clark, a 24-year-old electrician, went up to him. He climbed a steep 40-foot slope, then a 27-foot rock chimney, a tall crack in the cliff. He had no climbing gear. Clark cut the pilot free, gave first aid and stayed for several hours until a helicopter arrived.

The pilot spent eight days in the hospital, then fully recovered. Clark was not hurt. In September, the Carnegie Hero Fund gave him the Carnegie Medal. It was one of 16 awarded across North America.

Keep smiling,
The Distraction Desk

B — Betamax. The first one reached American stores in November 1975. Sony stopped making Betamax recorders in 2002 and blank tapes in 2016.

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