JFK

I am quite a pop culture fiend, and my family and I are full of random facts. I never realized how random my facts were until a couple of summers ago.

My friends and I were at Lake Tahoe, and my friend Julianne read the final two Harry Potter books and Vanity Fair in about three days, so we were talking about her incredibly reading speed. The conversation lulled for a minute and then I sat up and asked, "Wasn't JFK a speed reader?"

My friends looked at my as if I just started speaking in tongues, apparently the fact that JFK was a speed reader is not common knowledge.

To enlighten you, JFK could read approximately 2500 words per minute (wpm in the speed reading world) which is 10 times the average. He would read 6 newspapers every morning at breakfast cover to cover.

Some more fun facts about JFK:

• He had his suit jackets made with extra long pockets. This is because he liked to smoke cigars but didn't want to be photographed smoking. So when photographers were around, he would put his cigar in his pocket. Resulting in him having the lining of his pocket redone all the time. 
  
• JFK was also a speed talker.  He was the fastest random speaker in the world with upwards of 350 words per minute.

Image from Life Google Archives