The Biggest Ball of Twine In Minnesota

If you can spare 7 minutes, I'd highly suggest taking the time to release your cares in the world and give a listen to one of the most epic songs ever created.  It's by "Weird Al" Yankovic, and it's entitled "The Biggest Ball of Twine In Minnesota."

Before last week I hadn't heard this song since I was about 11 or 12 years old.  The sheer brilliance of the song prompted me to do some further investigating.

I was able to dig up an explanation of this BIGGEST BALL OF TWINE, located in Darwin, MN:

Link!

Turns out that it was made by a guy named Francis A. Johnson.  Despairingly, I see no mention of "who he was trying to impress," "where he got the twine," or other answers to Weird Al's compelling questions about Francis A. Johnson.  

What it must have been like to have been that man.  Such a glorious American hero.

Johnson even kicked the crap out of some other guy from KANSAS who tried to beat his twine ball record.  Guess what happened to that guy?  He fuckin' died.  He couldn't even finish the job.

Towards the end of the song, Weird Al speculates that if you were unravel this ball of twine it would stretch all the way out to Fargo, ND.  I decided to do the math.

According the article, the ball was somewhere over 1,600,000 feet of twine.  Google maps says that the distance from Darwin, MN to Fargo, ND is 205 miles, which comes out to 328 million feet.

As much as I would love to believe that this brilliant mountain of twine would stretch this distance, I'm sad to say that it falls quite short.

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Update:

There is Twine Ball Wallpaper available for your desktop too.

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TWINE BALL FACT:

If you're as curious as I am, here's Slim Whitman.  He was mentioned in the song, I had never heard of him, and now I wish I hadn't.

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TWINE BALL FACT:

In this song they stay at the Twine Ball Inn.  This is an actual place located near the Twine Ball.

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TWINE BALL FACT:

The song claims that there are 21,140 pounds of string in the biggest ball of twine, yet the web site says that there are only 17,400 pounds of string.

I'm going to have to make a trip there to see who is correct.

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