I am the only person to ever…

When you reach early adulthood, it seems you strive to be different. To be the one and only person who has ever seen something, done something, or to experience something that no-one else has done. It is in the human nature to want to be unique.

In 1973, when I was nine, I was traveling through the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming with my parents. We were going through a mountain pass, above 10,000 feet, when we stopped to take a break. Maybe it was actually a “brake” because they 1969 Camaro we were driving had smoking brakes. But during this break, I crawled up part of the mountain and found a fossil. A fossilized imprint of seashells. This was amazing to me and patently proved to me that the whole “Noah’s Ark” issue was settled. It was only later when I learned about plate tectonics.

To this day, I’ve carried around this fossil. I’m not sure what it means to me but it does mean something. It may be one of the only items I’ve carried around to all the various places I’ve lived. At some point, in my twenty’s, I decided that my fossil was too dirty. Pre-historic dirt I’m sure. So I dishwashed that fossil.

I believe I am the only person on earth that has dishwashed a fossil.

So I looked for other unique people and here’s what I found:

• Now 87 years of age, Venetia Phair (née Burney) is the only person in the world who can claim to have named a planet. In 1930, at just 11 years of age, Mrs Phair suggested the title Pluto for the newly discovered ninth planet.
• Side note: did you know that Uranus is the only planet that rotates on its side? Although, it is unclear to me how you determine which way is “up” in the vastness of space.

• Abraham Lincoln, who invented a hydraulic device for lifting ships over shoals, was the only US president ever granted a patent.
• Franklin D. Roosevelt was the only US president elected four times.
• George Washington is the only man whose birthday is a legal holiday in every state of the United States.
• Gerald Ford was the only US president not to have been elected to either the presidency or the vice presidency.
• Grover Cleveland is the only US president to have been married in the White House.
• James Buchanan was the only US president never to be married.
• Only one person ever won an Oscar by a write-in. In 1934 and 1935, write-in votes were permitted and Hal Mohr won an Oscar for Cinematography in 1935 for his work on "A Midsummer Night's Dream" as a write-in.
• Richard M. Nixon is the only US president to have resigned.
• The first graves in Arlington National Cemetery were dug by James Parks, a former Arlington Estate slave. Buried in Section 15, James Parks is the only person buried in Arlington National Cemetery who was also born on the property.
• The only Englishman to become Pope was Nicholas Breakspear, who was Adrian IV from 1154 to 1159.
• Woodrow Wilson was the only US president to earn a doctorate.

What is it that's unique about you?