Fun Facts That Are

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall gets washed by hand. Vietnam veterans get down on the granite and scrub it themselves, with buckets, soft brushes and a hose. Their group, Chapter 641, started the ritual in 1996, and through 2026 that is 31 seasons of vets and volunteer groups washing the stone together. The wall carries 58,281 names. They are still out there scrubbing it, every warm season.

Flea grew up playing trumpet in Los Angeles. He has said his public school's music department kept him out of trouble as a kid. By 2001, Los Angeles had gutted school arts funding, so Flea opened a free music school in Silver Lake. 25 years later, it is still running. It grants scholarships for free lessons and instruments to families who cannot pay. He never forgot what music did for him.

Union Pacific's Big Boy No. 4014 is the largest steam locomotive running anywhere on Earth: 1.2 million pounds, 133 feet long. Only 8 of the 25 ever built survive, and only this one still runs. For 51 years it just sat as a park exhibit in Pomona, California. Union Pacific rebuilt it and put it back on the rails. This summer it crossed 14 states and 7,145 miles for America's 250th birthday. It is still running.

Field of Dreams finished filming in 1988. The baseball diamond stretched across two Iowa farms, and both were supposed to go back to corn. Farmer Don Lansing left his half standing instead. His family had farmed that ground since 1906. He never charged a cent for admission or parking. By the film's 20th anniversary, about 65,000 strangers a year were coming to play catch. They still show up today.

Metallica has spent years quietly paying for trade school. Their All Within My Hands foundation funds welding and other skilled trades. The Metallica Scholars Initiative now covers 93 community colleges in all 50 states, plus Guam. Thousands of students have gone through the program, and most fans have never heard of it.

A foul ball fell into the Philadelphia bleachers in 1923. Robert Cotter, age 11, caught it and pocketed it. Back then the ball belonged to the Phillies, so they pressed charges. He spent the night in a cell. Next morning a judge freed him, refusing to brand a boy a thief over a $1.50 ball. It was the first court ruling that a fan could keep one. Every foul ball in the seats tonight is yours.

A small group of retirees in Bangor, Maine has met every troop flight through the airport since 1991. It started with one homecoming during Desert Storm. Volunteers give each soldier a handshake, a cookie, and a free phone call home. Some flights land in the middle of the night. Someone is always there. More than a million troops have walked through that line. Thirty-five years on, they are still waiting at the gate.

The Buck 110 is the brass-and-wood folding knife in a million pockets. At 13, Hoyt Buck forged his first blade from a worn-out file. In WWII, the country ran short of knives for soldiers. He built a basement forge in Mountain Home, Idaho. "I didn't have any knives, but I sure knew how to make them," he said. His son Al built the company. The 110 came in 1964. The family still makes them.

Dennis Anderson bagged grain for $3.65 an hour. He welded a monster truck from a wrecked 1950s Ford. Rivals mocked the junk heap, so he snapped back he'd dig them a grave with it. The name stuck. A booked truck no-showed a car-crush show, and his junker stunned the crowd instead. That truck became Grave Digger, the world's most famous monster truck. The weathered early Digger still sits in his family's truck museum.

Lynnewood Hall is a 110-room palace outside Philadelphia, closed to the public for more than 80 years. It was built for the Widener family. A father and son, George and Harry, boarded the Titanic in 1912 and never came home. Inside were more than 2,000 artworks that later helped found the National Gallery of Art. This fall, for the first time in generations, the doors open. You can walk in.

Jay Leno hosted The Tonight Show for 22 years, from 1992 to 2014. Now, at 76, he tears down cars from his own collection in a Burbank shop. He puts them back together with his crew. The collection holds around 212 cars and 186 motorcycles. He posts the work on YouTube every Monday, and almost 4 million people watch. He still drives every car himself.

Hugh Laurie played TV's Dr. House for eight years. Off camera, he was chasing something real: a life as a blues musician. He recruited New Orleans legends Dr. John and Irma Thomas for his debut album, Let Them Talk. It hit No. 1 on Billboard's Blues Albums chart. Two years later, his follow-up, Didn't It Rain, did it again. The TV doctor now has two No. 1 blues albums.