Cache Is Not At The Posted Coordinates
Mr. Toot is the mascot not only of the North Iowa Band Festival, but also for Mason City as a whole. His image has appeared on everything from T-Shirts to business cards to city light poles. Now his image also appears on the geocaching map just south of Mason City Iowa. Each of these puzzles will include a fact or story in theme with the art series. Some may also include a question or two for you to answer correctly to find the coordinates.
Music Man
N 43 04.965 W 93 08.199
Ya Got Trouble
In the song Ya Got Trouble the following is sung by Harold Hill
Would ya like to know what kinda conversation goes
On while they're loafin' around that Hall?
They're tryin' out Bevo, tryin' out cubebs,
Tryin' out Tailor Mades like Cigarette Feends!
And braggin' all about
How they're gonna cover up a tell-tale breath with Sen-Sen.
Now what was Professor Hill talking about?
First He Mentions tryin' out Bevo
Bevo was introduced by Anheuser-Busch as a non-alcoholic drink that tasted like beer. This was first introduced in 1916, four years after the 1912 story line of The Music Man.
Next in that paragraph is the term cubebs - now what's that all about?
This was a type of cigarette that was introduced to help with your asthma and other breathing problems. This was used for "medicinal purposes" only.
There is so much going on in this short paragraph some of it could be put into another cache page but if you stick with me we will continue.
Tryin' out Tailor Mades, what were tailor mades? The reference to Tailor Mades was not about an article of clothing. Tailor Mades referes to any cirgarette that was not rolled by hand.
The machine to roll cigarettes was invented by James Bonsack in 1880. A professional cirgarette roller could roll up to four cirgarettes in a minute while Bonsack's invention could produce 200.
Now that we have discovered all these items that made our breath smell bad Professor Hill then asks how they're gonna cover up a tell-tale breath with Sen-Sen. Obviously Sen-Sen was a breath mint.
Sen-Sen was a type of breath freshener originally marketed as a "breath perfume" in the late 19th century by the T. B. Dunn Company and then produced by F&F Foods until they discontinued the product in July 2013. Sen-Sen bore a strong similarity to Vigroids, a liquorice sweet made by Ernest Jackson & Company, Ltd.
Sen-Sens were available in small packets or cardboard boxes. Similar to a matchbox of the time, an inner box slid out from a cardboard sleeve revealing a small hole from which the tiny Sen-Sen squares would fall when the box was shaken.
Sen-Sen's ingredients were licorice, anise, gum arabic, maltodextrin, sugar, and natural and artificial flavors.