The Hardy Boys Mystery Stories 9 страница

60

Two sports brands

The small town in Bavaria is very famous in Germany, because there is the home of the Dassler brothers. They started two well-known sports brands: Adidas and Puma. But their story is not about peace, it's about war, disagreement and competition.

In 1924 Adolf and Rudolf started making shoes and soon had a small shoe business. The elder brother, Rudolf (or Rudi), was a veteran of World War I. He was a good businessman and knew how to sell things. The younger brother, Adolf (or Adi) was more thoughtful and creative. The brothers had 25 workers at the factory and they made 100 pairs of sports shoes every day.

During the 1936 Olympics, Adi Dassler drove to the Olympic village with a suitcase full of sports shoes. He asked an American sprinter Jesse Owens to wear and run in them. Owens won 4 gold medals and at once the Dassler shoes became popular. The Dasslers were selling 200,000 pairs of shoes each year before World War II.

We don't know much about their lives at the time of World War II. However, in the 1940s they refused to work together any more. Rudolf left the company, moved to the other bank of the river and started a competing shop there. At first he wanted to name his company Ruda, but then he thought about a graceful, quick animal – the puma. And so Puma was born.

Adi stayed with family business and renamed the company Adidas. He developed the 3-stripe logo in 1941 and registered it as Adidas' brand. Adi wanted to make a symbol that could be easily recognized by other people and three stripes was a good idea. The stripes show a mountain. You have to climb it if you want to reach the peak or achieve anything.

The serious conflict between the brothers divided the town into two: the Adidas bank and the Puma bank of the river. It was like a silent war. Only the bravest people could wear their Puma shoes and cross the river to the Adidas side of the town. When people met in the street, they first looked down at each other's shoes. It helped them to decide if that person was an enemy or a friend. What's more, Puma people didn't marry Adidas people. There were Adidas and Puma schools, pubs, shops, restaurants and hotels.

The brothers never became friendly again or even spoke to each other. Rudi died in 1974 and left Puma to his son. The family sold the company in 1989. Adi died in 1978, his son was the head of Adidas till his death in 1987. Today Puma is controlled by a big French company and Adidas is owned by a number of companies.

The "war" was declared completely over in 2009. Employees and workers of both companies shook hands and then played a football match in the Bavarian town of Herzogenaurach. The match was the first joint event for the two companies since 1948. The match ended 7–5 but the teams were not divided into Adidas and Puma. Each team was a mix of Adidas and Puma players.

Fast Food

When people all over the world are looking for a quick, easy meal, fast food is the most common choice. With good service, low prices and a relaxed atmosphere, fast food looks like the ideal choice. In fact, over 25 percent of Europeans eat fast food every day. Fries and hamburgers are sold everywhere: in big cities, small towns, shopping malls, airports, bus stations, schools, and even hospitals! There are 31,000 McDonald's worldwide.

However, fast food companies make clients eat more. They offer over-sized burgers, extra-large French fries, and big portions of Coke. What's more, these “large versions” are usually cheaper. The products have lots of calories, sugar and fat. A typical hamburger at a fast food restaurant weighs 170 grams. In 1957, it was just 50 grams. According to scientists, your fast food meal is like three ordinary meals.

Fast food doesn't spoil. This is because it has lots of “special” ingredients. There's a video on YouTube that illustrates this. It is based on a true story. In 1991, an engineer from the USA, Tom Scarvell, met with friends for New Year's Eve. They stopped at McDonald's on the way home. He bought some cheeseburgers, ate one and put the other in his coat pocket. Then he forgot about it. A year later, he took the coat out of the wardrobe, put it on and discovered the cheeseburger in his pocket from New Year's Eve. It looked exactly the same. He was absolutely shocked. He told his friends and family but nobody believed him. So he decided to start a “burger museum” to show everyone that these cheeseburgers and hamburgers don’t decompose.

He started collecting burgers, one every year. He kept them on bookshelves in his living room in the open air. These burgers looked exactly the same, the bun, the meat, the cheese, the special sauce, the cucumber, even the lettuce. They all kept their shape and colour for over five years!

It is surprising that although most people don't think that fast food is the best choice they can't stop going to fast food restaurants, like McDonald’s. The chain has healthy dishes on the menu, such as fruit and vegetables. Why not order them? But you don’t go to McDonald’s for a green salad or a yoghurt! The unhealthy hamburgers, French fries and milkshakes are more common and attractive and to many people they are tastier than low calorie dishes.

There is no problem with eating fast food from time to time. If you really are dreaming about a hamburger, go and get it. But if you're having a stressful day, remember that lunch in a fast food restaurant is not a good choice. Doctors strongly recommend avoiding all fast food and takeaways these days. You can occasionally allow yourself a fast food meal. However, if you are eating it more than once a week, think of giving up.

Fast food should play a small role in your life. If you don't have a way out, have a fast food meal in one of McDonald’s restaurants but choose the healthier dishes. You should be aware of what you eat and try to develop healthy eating habits.

Halloween

Halloween dates back to an ancient Celtic festival. The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area of Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France, celebrated their new year on 1^st November. This day showed that the summer was over and winter had come. Because of the cold and darkness, winter was associated with human death.

Celts believed that on Halloween night the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. With their help, the Druids or Celtic priests, could predict the future. It was important because people depended on the natural world which was dangerous and changeable. They wanted to know what their life would be like in the next year.

For this event the Druids built big bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals. It was a gift to the Celtic gods. During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes made of animal heads and skins. They sang, danced and listened to the stories the Druids told them. When the celebration was over, they went home and brought burning pieces of wood with them. They lit their fires and hoped it would ensure good fortune and protect the family during the winter.

The first celebrations of Halloween in America were public events. Neighbours got together to celebrate the harvest and tell each other stories of the dead. They also sang and danced. By the middle of the nineteenth century, these autumn festivals were common, but Halloween was not yet celebrated everywhere in the country.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, lots of immigrants started coming to America. They helped to make the celebration of Halloween a popular national event. Americans began to dress up in frightening costumes and go from house to house asking for food or money. The most popular characters were witches, ghosts, and vampires. Everyone tried to look as ugly and scary as possible.

Halloween is closely associated with the Jack-o’-lantern, a pumpkin with a candle inside that shines through the holes to make a horrible face. Most people think that the Jack-o’-lantern is an American tradition. However, the original Jack-o’-lantern was not a pumpkin but a man who, according to the old Irish legend, played a trick on the devil himself. He was punished for that and was accepted neither to heaven nor to hell. The Irish people shared the legend with the Americans and showed them how to make Jack-o’-lantern out of the pumpkin.

By the 1930s, Halloween had been celebrated with parades, town-wide parties and lots of other entertainment. Later a new tendency appeared. By the 1950s, Halloween had changed into a holiday directed mainly at children. On that evening children in costumes travel from house to house in order to ask for treats (such as some sweets, a small present or a few coins) with the question “Trick or treat?” The trick is a threat (usually not working) to perform mischief on the owner of the house if no treat is given. “Trick or treat?” has become a traditional practice on Halloween in many countries.