The Banana Man

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The Banana Man was one of the few completely positive memories I’ve retained from childhood. I should never have tried to track him down.

When I was seven, a sacred family tradition was that every Saturday at noon we’d gather in front of our little black and white TV. That’s when The Sealtest Big Top came on. It was a kid’s circus show, sponsored, not surprisingly, by the Sealtest Dairy. We snuggled together on the sofa to eat my mother’s fabulous grilled cheese sandwiches, always including a big slice of tomato which burrowed into the melted cheese. For drinks we had another of my mother’s specialties: chocolate sodas. They were made with seltzer water, Hershey’s chocolate syrup, and milk (presumably Sealtest). After the chocolate and milk were stirred into the syrup, a foamy, spritzy head formed at the top, giving a pleasant tickle to the nose as we drank it.

The ad-heavy Sealtest Big Top featured numerous regulars, including “Sealtest Dan, The Muscle Man”. Sealtest Dan, as I just learned, was Dan Lurie, a runner up for Mr. America in the mid-1940’s. He won the Most Muscular Man trophy several years in a row. He was outfitted in a black cape, sandals, and faux leopard skin bikini trunks. In a typical act, Sealtest Dan would heft a barbell fitted with two hundred-plus pounds of weights. After he finished his reps, a girl about my age would rush onto the stage and offer him a tall glass of milk (you can guess the brand). Simultaneously, Jack Sterling, the snappy ringmaster, averred that Sealtest milk grew big muscles and strong bones; after seeing Dan press that barbell in his leopard skin bikini trunks, there could be little doubt that this was true. Then the girl stood on her tiptoes to palpate Dan’s formidable biceps, while exaggeratedly mouthing the word, “WOW!” In reply, Dan modestly grinned. The segment ended with ringmaster Jack saying, “Extra nutritious and extra delicious! Get the best, get Sealtest.” Those weren’t the days of subtle messaging.

Despite the allure of Sealtest Dan, to me the most memorable act was The Banana Man. (He was not referred to as The Sealtest Banana Man. This was probably because bananas were not a dairy product, and thus not marketed by Sealtest). The Banana Man shuffled onto the stage wearing a baggy tuxedo jacket that went down to his knees, and a bright red wig that looked like a mop head that had been soaked in some sort of carmine dye. He smiled wanly at the live audience, perfunctorily bowed, and began his magic.

While humming to himself in a buzzy falsetto, The Banana Man reached into his tux and began extracting an extraordinary variety of objects: musical instruments, a huge magnet, watermelons, an enormous comb and mirror set, a music stand, a waste basket, a giant hand, and a bottle of milk (by now, you can probably deduce the brand). Each time something emerged from the interior of his tux he brandished it aloft, and in that same irritating but alluring falsetto said “Ooh!”, or “Wow!” The latter, of course, echoed the little girl’s reaction to Sealtest Dan’s biceps, and seemed like a good summary of the entire spectacle of The Sealtest Big Top. Of all the objects The Banana Man produced, the most dazzling was bunch, after bunch, after bunch of bananas. In my seven-year-old mind, which I carried to adulthood until I was very recently disabused of this belief (more on that soon), these were full, heavy bunches of real bananas. How he did it was never a question; it was magic, after all. The point is that he did, and his feat was both wonderful and hilarious. I think I shared his professed amazement as each bunch came forth, silently mouthing his falsetto “Ooh’s” along with him.

The spectacular extractions went on and on until the contents of the tux filled four miniature train cars, which had been set up on the stage to receive them. Wow! What a show–both amazing, and roll-on-the-floor funny. During my entire childhood I rarely felt closer to my family as we all ate those grilled cheese sandwiches, washed them down with chocolate sodas, and laughed uproariously at The Banana Man.



A week or so ago, a bunch of bananas in the fruit basket for some reason triggered thoughts of The Banana Man. Hmm, it occurred to me, I could Google him! Perhaps I could find out who he really was. And maybe even see one of his performances on YouTube. Unfortunately, Google came through, loud and clear…

I learned that there were actually two Banana Men. The original was Adolph Proper, an Austrian who emigrated to the US, reinvented himself as “A. Robbins,” and invented the persona of The Banana Man. Before a performance, his tux jacket was intricately loaded with 60 pounds of stuff, which took up to 2 ½ hours to prepare. Alas, Adolph Proper died in 1950. But someone named Sam Levine stepped up to the plate. He bought Proper’s entire wardrobe, equipment, and shtick, and continued the Banana Man act in venues including Captain Kangaroo and The Ed Sullivan Show.

After learning the identity of The Banana Man—or, more correctly I guess, The Banana Men—I found a video of one of their performances. This one, on Captain Kangaroo, was by Banana Man II, Sam Levine. He was the same Banana Man I saw on The Sealtest Big Top. And, WOW, was it depressing! I hadn’t remembered that he looked so sad and disheveled. I hadn’t remembered how cheap and tawdry all the things were that he pulled out of his pathetic tux jacket. And most distressing of all, I had no idea that the 300 bananas he produced were tacky imitations. Not only weren’t they real bunches of bananas, they weren’t even fake bunches–they appeared to be hanging from a string, like fish caught on a line of hooks. And they certainly weren’t hefty, rich yellow fruits—they were merely cores of springs covered with pale yellow cloth which Adoph Proper had fashioned lovingly by hand. To pack the tux, the Banana Men compressed the springs, then jammed the flattened fruits into various pockets. Then, as they were pulled out during a performance, the springs sprung, turning the cloth coins into very rough simulacra of real bananas. So much for the magic! Even at the tender age of seven, how could I have been so fooled? Or was I? Maybe I appreciated the ruse, but was happy to suspend my disbelief to enjoy The Banana Man with my family.


As Thomas Wolfe famously said, You Can’t Go Home Again. That’s because when you do, what you find will not be what you remember. And, quite possibly, what you find will be worse. Old Tom sure nailed my Banana Man memories! Alas, after going home again, I now carry two parallel reels in my head: The first one is the Banana Man of my youth, pulling huge bunches of real bananas out of his tux jacket, while my family and I howl in amazement and delight. The second reel is the Banana Man of my adulthood—a bit tattered and worn, awkwardly pulling fake objects only tangentially related to bunches of real bananas out of that same tux. Perhaps these two reels are two different versions of the reality of the Banana Man–mutually exclusive, but both still true. In any case, the more recent reel still nags at me.

I wonder if The Banana Man is a cautionary tale. For example, lately—probably triggered by the pandemic—I’ve been involved in a flurry of Zoom convocations with old high school buddies. Most of us haven’t been in touch for decades. Interestingly, and to my mild distress, we almost exclusively reminisce about ye olde high school days rather than discuss what everyone is doing now. And once again, some of my long-held memories of those days are being challenged. I wonder if we would do better to leave the past fallow, keeping the old memories, right or wrong, intact.

Maybe. But it could be that some of our pleasant memories of yesteryear are actually accurate, and could be made even more vivid by collective recollection. That is, maybe old memories don’t always go in the Banana Man direction. For example, during one of those Zoom chats some of my high school buddies fondly recalled a funny high school stunt of mine that I had completely forgotten about. That recollection made me feel good, and connected. So maybe revisiting old memories isn’t all bad. Maybe you actually can go home again, at least once in a while. I’ll think about that, perhaps while making a grilled cheese sandwich. With a fresh tomato slice, of course, and a chocolate soda on the side.

Different Cultures, Different Truths

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“I saw Khun Ken eating like an animal!” Sukhorn said with a shy, self-conscious smile. Sukhorn was my lab tech at the Suan Dok hospital in Chiang Mai, Thailand, where I was spending a year researching the effects of pediatric malnutrition. It was Monday morning, and I’d just arrived at work. Her statement, needless to say, was puzzling.

“Sukhorn, what do you mean?” She grinned, and demurely looked down. Finally she said, “Khun Ken bought some curry on the street this weekend. And he was walking along the sidewalk eating it. Just like an animal!” I still didn’t get it, and she didn’t seem to want to talk further. So I just shrugged, and attended to my limulus assays.

That afternoon I told Panja Kulapongs, a wonderful pediatric hematologist/oncologist who did most of his training in the US, about this interchange. He started laughing, then explained that in Thai culture the proper thing to do after buying street food is to eat it while squatting down on the sidewalk near the vendor. Eating while walking is what animals do—very tacky, and impolite. I was abashed to realize I was seen doing something so crude, especially since as one of the few westerners in Chiang Mai at the time I really stood out.

Even decades later, this has stuck with me—to this day I’m self-conscious about eating an ice cream cone while walking down the street. And when I see people strolling along the sidewalk munching on a pizza slice or a hot dog, my initial reaction is to think how uncouth they are.

About halfway through my time in Thailand, our research unit organized what I guess would be called a “fun run” to raise money for a pediatric charity. All suited up and ready to go, Panja approached me. “Please remember, Ken” he said, “don’t run your hardest. You want to leave room for doing better the next time.” Then he added, “And most important, don’t come in first. In fact, try not to distinguish yourself in any way.” I completed the run in safe anonymity, firmly in the middle of the pack.

One of the perks of working at the Anemia and Malnutrition Research Centre was that I was entitled to rent a car at a whopping discount. What I got was a cute little beige VW bug that cost me a dollar a day. (This was truly Dollar Rent-a-Car!). Even my modest vehicle turned heads in Chiang Mai, among the multitude of scooters, samlors and tuk-tuks.

Here in The Far East, driving was somewhat reminiscent of being in The Wild West. At the time, the nearest traffic light was probably in Bangkok, 700 km to the south. Even stop signs were sparse in Chiang Mai, and the few that existed seemed more for decoration than instruction. So when driving among all the bicycles and non-automobile motor vehicles, it was important to be hyperalert.

One day I was heading down the main street, going with the flow at about 20 miles per hour. I ended up behind a samlor, a three-wheeled peddled vehicle that carries a passenger or two for short distances. As I very slowly passed the samlor, it was apparent that the driver was staring at me. We locked eyes. Then, suddenly, he jerked his handlebars so that the side of his samlor smacked into the side of my car. We both pulled over. He quickly checked out both vehicles, then peddled off into the traffic. I saw only a few tiny scratches on the passenger front door, so I shrugged and drove on.

Two days later Boonsri, the chief secretary at the research centre, called me into her office. To my surprise, standing next to her desk was the samlor driver, a piece of paper in hand. Boonsri explained that this was a bill for the repair of his samlor, which he was presenting to me for payment. “What!” I yelled more than asked. I explained to Boonsri that the guy deliberately turned into my car, no question about it. It was clearly his fault. Boonsri smiled patiently. “Khun Ken,” she said, “that’s not the point. The point is that your vehicle is worth more than this man’s. So you are responsible for paying the damage”. “But”, I sputtered, “he intentionally ran into me! It was his fault!” “Fault is not relevant, Khun Ken”, she said. “Your VW is worth more than his samlor. So, you pay. It’s quite simple”. She just smiled and shook her head at my failure to grasp the obvious.

I settled down, and reflected. It was, I guess, sort of like no-fault insurance. Or a social welfare scheme, where the richer look after the poorer, evening things up a bit. Actually, maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

The Anemia and Malnutrition Research Centre reimbursed the samlor driver. As I unpacked this astounding occurrence, it occurred to me that his samlor probably had some preexisting mechanical problem, and the driver opportunistically bumped into my VW to fund the repair. Well, more power to him; with his samlor in tip top shape, I hoped his business would increase. And maybe someday he would save up enough to buy a VW. And then help another samlor driver pay his bills.



The well-worn mantra says that “we’re all alike under the skin.” And we joyfully sing, “It’s a small world after all; there’s so much that we share.” I suppose that’s all true, and I celebrate my common humanity with every other person on the planet. But, in fact, we’re not all the same, and there certainly are things we don’t share. If I had tried to convince Sukhorn that it was perfectly civilized to eat while walking down the sidewalk, she would have been as apt to agree as I would if she told me it was quite polite to loudly hock up and spit into a bowl during a meal (which, at least when I lived there, the Thais frequently did).

So how do I square the notion that we’re all alike under the skin with the obvious fact that there are profound cultural differences? Actually, I think that keeping these disparate truths in mind can be quite helpful when interacting with others. This is especially true when navigating the profound political and religious differences we encounter daily. We ought to respect everyone, because we do, of course, share a common humanity. But because some views are as ingrained and unshakable as the belief that walking while eating is what only animals do, it’s simply not useful to try to change them. If I mentally superimpose an image of Sukhorn or Panja or Boonsri over the face of the person I’m talking to, maybe I can be less critical of opinions of theirs that I find distasteful. And maybe I’ll feel less compelled to, fruitlessly, try to change them.

So here’s what I hope to remember to do: If I’m engaged with another person with whom I have a serious difference of opinion, rather than thinking of them as a stubborn and ignorant American, perhaps I should think of them as from a vastly different culture. Maybe this will allow me to feel more comfortable in accepting that some of their beliefs, though quite different than mine, are simply part of who they are. And then I can focus on the commonality we do share, like Sukorn’s great sense of humor, Panja’s caring and support, and Boonsri’s patience and tact.

The Knurled World

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Lately, I’ve been seeing knurls everywhere. You know, those vertical ridges on bottle tops, toothpaste caps, and lids. At first I didn’t even know what they were called. But out of a dark corner of some unidentified gyrus of my cerebral cortex, I heard a shy, tentative peep say ‘knerl,’ or something like that. I of course Googled it, and was eventually led to “knurl,” which was defined as “a small projecting knob or ridge, especially in a series around the edge of something.” Bingo, I found it! I then spent (or, you might well argue, wasted) many hours scouring the web for “knurl” and “knurling.” Thus, I was introduced to the knurled world.

As the first article I read put it, “Knurling can enhance the aesthetics of a product by introducing an attractive pattern to its surface. Most people will agree that textured finishes are more attractive than smooth finishes.” Already my mind was spinning! Is it really true that most people agree that textured finishes are more attractive than smooth surfaces? That never occurred to me. Though, since no references were cited, perhaps the knurled enhancement of aesthetics is obvious–especially to anyone who knows their knurls. And certainly to anyone who sells knurling machines, of which, as I soon found out, there are many.

The article went on, “Aside from aesthetics, though, there are practical reasons for manufacturing companies to perform knurling. Products that require gripping, such as hand tools, are often knurled to improve their performance and usability…Knurling protects against hand slippage by creating a textured pattern that’s easier to grip.” I found that statement easier to accept than the aesthetics one. But, curiously, though the learned articles as well as the purveyors of knurling machines all state that knurled surfaces are easier to grip than smooth ones, not a single one explains why this is so.

All I could come up with was this: when we grip a knurled surface, the skin of our fingers, along with the various layers of underlying tissue, press into the spaces between the raised portions of the knurl. Then, when we squeeze, we’re applying lateral pressure to the sides of the knurled valleys. That is, we’re pressing our flesh against the adjacent ridges. This provides additional force over what we could apply by gripping a smooth (and less aesthetically pleasing) surface.

Here’s a little thought experiment which, at least to me, proves the importance of our finger tissues getting down into the grooves: Pretend that the skin overlying our fingers is totally smooth and totally non-pliable, like, for example, the metal hand of a robot. If R2-D2 applied the same amount of squeezing force to the toothpaste cap as we do with our fingers, imagine how much harder it would be for him to open it—his robotic digits would likely just slide over the knurling without getting a good grip. And if his smooth fingers squeezed it tightly enough to unscrew it, the cap would run the risk of cracking. I guess it’s a good thing that R2-D2 has no teeth to brush!

When you think about it—or at least when the author of the Wikipedia “Knurling” article thinks about it–knurls are everywhere: the author cites the knurling found on tool handles, mechanical pencils, barbell bars, pistol grips, control knobs, darts grips, surgical instruments, and even the foot pegs of BMX bicycles. And it doesn’t stop there: consider, for example, the “knurled nut,” found so commonly on small diameter bolts, electronic components, musical instruments, and automobiles, to name a few. I suspect that it would be extremely difficult to get through even a single day without interacting with multiple examples of knurling.

So where, you are almost certainly wondering by now, did the word “knurl” come from? Well, that’s easy. Once again, Wikipedia to the rescue: “The terms knurl and knurled are from an earlier knur ‘knot in wood’ and the diminutive -le, from Middle English knaur or knarre ‘knot in wood; twisted rock; crag’. This descends from Old English cnearra but the vowel in Middle English may have been influenced by Old Norse knǫrr ‘merchant ship’ which was known as cnearr in Old English.” You may protest that this is a little abstruse. But not so fast—when you press your fingers against the knurling on the toothpaste cap as you brush your teeth in the morning, simply think of ‘knot in wood’ while visualizing a Norse merchant ship; if you do so you’ll never forget the derivation.

A study of knurls naturally leads to the world of knurling machines. Among other patterns, it turns out that knurling machines can produce “annular rings”, “linear knurls”, “rolled knurls”, and “diamond knurls”, as well as the quotidian “straight knurls”. After explaining the basics of knurling machines, an online article goes on to tackle a common misconception: “A popular myth is that rolled knurls are somewhat more complicated to design than cut knurls because the outer diameter of the workpiece must be chosen to allow the roller to roll an integral number of patterns around the workpiece; in practice if the knurl is applied positively, it will engage with its own impression and create a proper knurl on any diameter of work.” I feel fortunate that I’ve been disabused of my belief in the popular myth of the difficulty of designing rolled knurls which, I must confess, I shared.

As is true in other manufacturing fields, purveyors of knurling machines are eager to be green as well as to reduce costs. One site selling knurling machines acknowledges these considerations by suggesting that “specifiers and procurement agents can shave costs by playing with the closure design, process, or grade of material.” Specifically, “knurl reduction” is advocated. Here’s what they suggest: “You can reduce the amount of material in knurls by increasing the distance between the knurls, reducing the width of knurls or by having different patterns—like each alternate knurl can be cut in size by half. Typically, the weight contribution of knurls in the gross weight of a cap is 20% of the total weight. Even a 50% decrease in this would cut the material weight of cap by 10%.” Sure sounds to me like knurl reduction is the way to go!

In the competitive world of knurling machines, it appears that Shandong Lipeng Co, Ltd is at the top of the heap. Their specialty is manufacturing the knurling machines that produce knurled bottle caps. Their machines can crank out an astounding “30,000pcs/8h.” That’s a lot of knurling going on! It’s clear that Lipeng takes its mission seriously—their website tag line is, “Bottle cap is small, but it is still an art work~.” I guess this is another example of knurlers’ belief that their products have aesthetic value–I’ll certainly try to look at the next knurled bottle cap I encounter as the work of art it surely is.

But there’s more. The Shandong site continues, “Shandong Lipeng Co., Ltd has been carrying the sacred mission to create a leading brand in bottle cap line around the worldwide. Keeping persueing perfect & establishing the uncopied central competitive power to enjoy the reasult as small pieces, huge market. We have the enrich facilities for production and we also take granted to our expert R&D center…” Perhaps their English isn’t expert (though it’s a heck of a lot better than my Mandarin), but their comprehensive knowledge of–and passion for–knurling clearly is! It’s humbling to appreciate the expertise, zeal, and sense of mission that the knurling community brings to its craft. Perhaps it’s a model for us all, no matter what our work.



In addition to a much more profound knowledge of the field, my deep dive into knurls and knurling has shown me how oblivious we can be to what’s everywhere around us. I marvel at how many features of our world, in addition to knurls, that we see but aren’t conscious of. Among the things I’ll try to be more aware of are: the multitude of knobs and handles that we use in the course of a day, the ubiquity of right angles in objects constructed by humans (and their virtual absence in nature), the pervasiveness of some shade of the color green just about anywhere you look, and the interaction of all the ambient sounds that, if we really listen, can be heard at one time. And, who knows, maybe even the immanence of God.