AMERICANA: Real Dirt

San Francisco Entrepreneur Gary Dahl sold a million Pet Rocks at $4 each in 1975. This month, after three years of living off his profits, Dahl is returning to the packaged humor market with a new product: one-inch-square acrylic cubes of Red Dirt, to be sold at $5.95 each.

Dahl says the dirt comes from mainland China clinging to the roots of flowers and vegetables shipped to Hong Kong. Says Dahl: "If enough Americans buy a square inch of Red China dirt, before long we'll have removed the entire country from under their noses. What I'm proposing is one of the sneakiest conquests in the history of the world." He adds: "This is the year of the dirt—not the horse or the cow or the turkey." Well, maybe the turkey.