No doubt there must have been much of a huckster in Ripley. He certainly knew how to get and hold media attention. Apparently he was quite the ladies’ man with some five girlfriends in different houses he owned (though lying may not play any part in that).

Like anyone, I can muster a fascination in the morbid and bizarre. Too bad the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! world of today is so lost in the shameless and silly. I haven’t seen any coffee table books of late, but I remember them as full color glossy versions of “bat boy” tabloid rags, complete with horrid design and garish colors meant to bludgeon the viewer and largely hide the idiotic and even mundane “stories”.