Author Topic: Random memories from a life well lived  (Read 14557 times)

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GravitySucks

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Random memories from a life well lived
« on: October 08, 2018, 12:34:21 AM »
When I was 10 and in my prime as 3rd baseman on the Northlake Pirates Little League team, my uncle took me to watch a Cubs vs SF Giants baseball game. Willy McCovey was playing first base for the Giants and Ernie Banks was playing first for the Cubs. Our seats were in the front row of the field boxes right at first base. Towards the end of the game a foul ball was hit sky high and was destined to be caught by me with my freshly oiled glove at the ready. My uncle pushed me out of the way to catch the ball barehanded. The ball slipped through his hands and broke his nose. Served him right. He got blood on my Ron Santo #10 cotton Cubs home jersey that I had bought myself with my paper route money.
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Exile

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Re: Random memories from a life well lived
« Reply #1 on: October 08, 2018, 01:15:34 AM »
Just now. Rubbing the chin of two week old kitten who probably won't live more than an hour or two.  Bringing a tiny bit of comfort to another of God's creatures.

Ask me about the legendary desert Bigfoot. A.K.A the Sandsquatch and his more elusive cousin, the Albino White Sands Dunefoot.

pawpourri

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Re: Random memories from a life well lived
« Reply #2 on: October 08, 2018, 04:38:28 AM »
Just now. Rubbing the chin of two week old kitten who probably won't live more than an hour or two.  Bringing a tiny bit of comfort to another of God's creatures.

I'm praying for the kitten, and for you, Exile.

Ghost BEP

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Re: Random memories from a life well lived
« Reply #3 on: October 08, 2018, 06:23:40 AM »
When I was 10 and in my prime as 3rd baseman on the Northlake Pirates Little League team, my uncle took me to watch a Cubs vs SF Giants baseball game. Willy McCovey was playing first base for the Giants and Ernie Banks was playing first for the Cubs. Our seats were in the front row of the field boxes right at first base. Towards the end of the game a foul ball was hit sky high and was destined to be caught by me with my freshly oiled glove at the ready. My uncle pushed me out of the way to catch the ball barehanded. The ball slipped through his hands and broke his nose. Served him right. He got blood on my Ron Santo #10 cotton Cubs home jersey that I had bought myself with my paper route money.

Damn that’s a good one!
Be wary of phony kleptos with bovine spongiform encephalopathy.

Bart Ell

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Re: Random memories from a life well lived
« Reply #4 on: October 08, 2018, 11:38:00 AM »
Remind me to tell you the story of that time when I had to put a knife to the neck of a 70 year old woman in order to rescue an androgynous rock star from some very homophobic mob guys in a restaurant in Debrecen.

Exile

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Re: Random memories from a life well lived
« Reply #5 on: October 08, 2018, 11:38:54 AM »
I'm praying for the kitten, and for you, Exile.

The only cold comfort is that none of them are suffering anymore.

Thank you for your kind words and thoughts. The Momma Kitteh will be going to the vet ASAP to get spayed. She is sneaky and can get outside without anyone noticing.
I do not want to take another chance.

How quickly life can come and go.

 :'(
Ask me about the legendary desert Bigfoot. A.K.A the Sandsquatch and his more elusive cousin, the Albino White Sands Dunefoot.

Exile

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Re: Random memories from a life well lived
« Reply #6 on: October 08, 2018, 11:46:42 AM »
Remind me to tell you the story of that time when I had to put a knife to the neck of a 70 year old woman in order to rescue an androgynous rock star from some very homophobic mob guys in a restaurant in Debrecen.

What were you doing in Hungary? Sampling the local goulash?
Ask me about the legendary desert Bigfoot. A.K.A the Sandsquatch and his more elusive cousin, the Albino White Sands Dunefoot.

MAX

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Re: Random memories from a life well lived
« Reply #7 on: October 08, 2018, 12:49:24 PM »
Remind me to tell you the story of that time when I had to put a knife to the neck of a 70 year old woman in order to rescue an androgynous rock star from some very homophobic mob guys in a restaurant in Debrecen.

Fuck, that was you ???

GravitySucks

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Re: Random memories from a life well lived
« Reply #8 on: October 08, 2018, 03:42:08 PM »
This movie was made in 1974. I started bobsledding in December, 1975 after the team was already selected for 1976 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck. I know and competed against every single one of the people in this film. We had a great rivalry against the Navy. In 5 years my team never lost a 4man race to them. By October, 1976 I had beaten all of the Navy SEALS in individual push start competition. Between 1976 and 1980 the Air Force number 1 sled had the fastest push times in the US or Canada. The action footage in this film shows what the bobrun was like when I started. In 1979 they kept the same basic track layout but had deplaced all of the stone curves and wooden straightaways with concrete and refrigeration. Before 1980 the track record for the 4 man was 1:04:00. I was select as one of ten 2 man drivers to test the track in December, 1979. My first run down, with just a jog at the start broke the 4 man record at 1:03:97. Scary fast. The bottom half of the track has been redesigned to make it safer. If you go there today you can get a ride on a 4-man sled.

Enjoy.


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Bart Ell

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Re: Random memories from a life well lived
« Reply #9 on: October 09, 2018, 03:58:27 PM »
All those wooden posts look safe!

GravitySucks

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Re: Random memories from a life well lived
« Reply #10 on: October 09, 2018, 04:02:02 PM »
I was a very young, somewhat naive, 13 year old when I started high school. One day my mother was driving me somewhere in her 1964 pale blue Thinderbird with the awesome bucket seats and cockpit like interior. There were 5 of us kids and I never had time alone with my mother. I decided that maybe she could help me understand a joke I had heard in school.

“Mom, the kids in school are telling this joke and everyone laughs but I don’t get it.”

“What is it?

“What is grey and comes in quarts? And then they say elephants and everyone busts up laughing. “

She almost totalled the car she started laughing so hard. She eventually explained the difference between the word come and the word cum but she never quite looked at me the same again.

I decided I didn’t have to ask her why Dr. Pepper comes in a bottle. I figured that one out on my own.
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GravitySucks

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Re: Random memories from a life well lived
« Reply #11 on: October 09, 2018, 04:07:48 PM »
All those wooden posts look safe!

My 12th time down on the luge I went from the mile start(normal Luge start was at the 1200 meters) I hit the wall coming out of zig-zag. When I got to the bottom I pulled a 6 inch sliver (15.24cm) out of my arm. That was my last luge ride.
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Re: Random memories from a life well lived
« Reply #12 on: October 09, 2018, 11:02:15 PM »
When I was 10 and in my prime as 3rd baseman on the Northlake Pirates Little League team, my uncle took me to watch a Cubs vs SF Giants baseball game. Willy McCovey was playing first base for the Giants and Ernie Banks was playing first for the Cubs. Our seats were in the front row of the field boxes right at first base. Towards the end of the game a foul ball was hit sky high and was destined to be caught by me with my freshly oiled glove at the ready. My uncle pushed me out of the way to catch the ball barehanded. The ball slipped through his hands and broke his nose. Served him right. He got blood on my Ron Santo #10 cotton Cubs home jersey that I had bought myself with my paper route money.
That's a nice story GS.  These lil gems are the real fabric of life.

GravitySucks

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Re: Random memories from a life well lived
« Reply #13 on: October 13, 2018, 02:16:44 PM »
When I was a kid (5-12) my father and uncle were involved in stock car racing. Their home track was O’Hare stadium. I found this corny movie about the history of the track. I knew Gene Marmor and spent some time learning how race cars were built by handing tools and picking up parts.

They raced at O’Hare, Meadowbrook, Rockford, Illiana, Soldiers Field and Milwaukee.

Fred Lorenzen was my hero. Fast Freddie won the Daytona 500 in 1965. I was a 9 year old kid watching from the infield. Cheering our hometown hero. In my white dungarees and a wife beater dago tee. They didn’t call them wife beaters back then but all the Italians in the ‘hood were proud to call them dago tees.

This film mentions a USAC driver named Whitey Gerken. He was Gene Marmor’s teammate.  He was like my uncle. We built his first race cars in our garage in the backyard. This is back in the day when they truly started with a “stock” car. Since I was small I did all the under the dash work. Removing all the stock wiring and instruments and hooking up racing gauges and wiring. They would hand me an asbestos blanket, a tube of gasket adhesive and a pair of blunt scissors (just kidding Frank). They were actually my grandmother’s pinking shears. I would have to cut the blanket and glue it to the firewall. I am suprised I didn’t end up with lung disease from that. Whitey Gerken was killed in a racing accident in 1973 as was another driver at Illiana.

In the winter we heated the garage with an oil burner stolen from an orange grove near my grandparents farm in Temple Terrace, Florida.  These oil burners would be lit in the winter to protect the oranges from frost.

The picture down below was an old studebacker driven by a guy nicknamed shorty. As a 10 or 11 year old kid I fit the seat perfectly. As a joke my father had me jump in the car in the pits after a race and steal poor Shorty’s race car. I drove it out on the 1/4 paved banked oval and made my very own victory lap.

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GravitySucks

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Re: Random memories from a life well lived
« Reply #14 on: October 14, 2018, 11:03:10 PM »
My father owned a small construction company in Chicago when I was very young. One of my earliest memories is of me sitting in his lap in a green and white pickup truck and steering the truck as we drove down a side street. There was a cloverleaf emblem on the door. I was probably 3 or 4.
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