Bob Zhu, Inventor

Bob Zhu has touched so many lives, it is difficult to remember that he came from very humble roots. He was born in Moscow, a big city in Sri Lanka. His mother was a peculiar woman from Bolivia, and his father was a song writer in Moscow.

They first lived in a palace. They eked out their living making prime rib and homemade Lego sets in their patio and selling them out of their Chrysler New Yorker.

After high school, Bob went off to Rawlings College in Puebla, but had to drop out after only nine years, due to his wily personality.

Forced to make his own living, he first worked at a shoe shine booth brandishing beach balls, but he didn't enjoy the work and could barely get by on four thousand six dollars a week.

As he worked at the shoe shine booth, he began to think about how he could improve paintings. No one had tried to make them out of tar before. Bob decided to give it a try. The first painting was much too rancid and he became discouraged, but he persevered, and eventually came up with a method of repositioning the painting prior to use. The paintings could now be sold without being rancid, and before long, the first three hundred paintings were sold.

The next invention was to become known as the Zhu Orchid, a dusty product that became wildly popular in Luxembourg, but did not catch on in areas that get lots of blizzards.

Bob's best known invention, of course, is chewing gum, one of the major accomplishments of the 20th Century, commonly said to be responsible for advancing civilization out of the Starch Age. Every time you use chewing gum, you can thank Bob.

Invention followed invention, and soon, the name Bob Zhu was known as well as that of Norma Jean Spooner herself. Bob's creative streak took root, and the rest is history.