Quick hits: Chris Stapleton; the first hydrogen-powered ferry; Stephen King's library; was Paul Bunyan a real man?

Chris Stapleton is one of the most famous men in country
music and beyond. (Photo by Stacy Kranitz, GQ)

The holidays mean getting together with relatives, but those gatherings can lead to heated discussions. As an antidote to arguing with Uncle Alan over religion, there is one topic everyone might be able to enjoy: Chris Stapleton and all his general awesomeness. Brett Martin of Gentlemen's Quarterly went road-tripping with the musical icon and asks, "Is Chris Stapleton the One Thing That America Can Agree On?"

Farm accidents happen, from tractor mishaps to pumpkin harvesting cuts. Each year, nonfatal injuries occur to about 33% of the farming population in the United States. One way to prevent accidents from becoming fatal is to be trained on how to slow blood loss until help can arrive. "Stop the Bleed is a nationally recognized, 90-minute certification program providing participants with hands-on opportunities to recognize life-threatening bleeding and intervene effectively by properly using a tourniquet in the event of blood loss caused by an injury," reports Jenny Schlect of AgWeek. Many 4-H extensions and rural nursing programs offer the training.

The "Sea Change" hydrogen ferry
(Switch Maritime photo via Canary Media)

While some of America is going all-in on electric, hydrogen power is also a renewable energy option. "America's first hydrogen-fueled ferry is set to launch in San Francisco early next year after more than five years in development," reports Maria Gallucci of Canary Media. "As the milestone nears, the vessel's owner says it's already looking to deploy more zero-emissions ferries nationwide — particularly in places where aging, polluting diesel boats still ply rivers, sounds and coastlines.

Remember when your phone stayed in your house or workplace? Many younger Americans don't remember when phones were tied to a landline. "My tween will never know the sound of me calling her name from another room after the phone rings. She'll never sit on our kitchen floor, refrigerator humming in the background, twisting a cord around her finger while talking to her best friend," writes Julia Cho for The Atlantic. "'We don't even have a landline anymore,' people began to say proudly as the new millennium progressed. But this came with a quieter, secondary loss — the loss of the shared social space of the family landline."

From the redwood forests to Maine islands, 
Paul Bunyan stories live on. (NG photo)

Famed lumberjack Paul Bunyan and his big blue ox Babe are the stuff of some superbly American tall tales. But as history tells it, those stories "were spun from ever more ridiculous yarns," reports Josh Keefe of National Geographic. "But there's much more to his story. . . . In Bangor, Maine, a framed birth certificate of Paul Bunyan hangs in the city clerk's office. . . . Despite Paul Bunyan's 'birth certificate' and the many children's books that place his birthplace in Maine, evidence suggests that Bunyan was invented sometime after logging operations moved west and began clearing almost all of the old-growth forests in places like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, says Michael Edmonds, a historian and author of Out of the Northwoods: The Many Lives of Paul Bunyan."

Well, maybe Paul Bunyan never lived in Bangor, Maine, but Stephen King and his wife Tabitha did. King shared a tour of their Bangor home, now their library, with John Williams of The Washington Post. "Fear not, the king of chills serves as a friendly guide to his library," Williams reports. King told him: "The house has been here since 1845; we've been here since 1976. . . . But we don't really live here anymore, and it's kind of a time capsule."