My great-great-somenumberofgreatsupthechain grandfather has a brand of rum named after him.

My 'uncle' Woody just warded off a heart attack by taking Aspirin, then survived a "Bill Clinton" - aka quad bypass surgery.

My grandfather was killed in the line of duty as a Baltimore City Police Officer.

These men are among my heroes.

I must be a top notch loser, because this thread is seriously making me cry. Love to all those we appreciate, outside of ourselves...........I cannot bring myself to contribute right now.............

For months, an ex-girlfriend gave massages at a Thai hospice devoted to teenage prostitutes who have contracted HIV. She also studied Arabic in Beirut.

A student of mine successfully completed an anger management class after being jailed for severely beating his sister--she had refused to give him the remote. This is the only student in ten years of teaching who has ever inspired me with physical fear. He now appears to be a happy, healthy person. His smile is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen, the platinum grill notwithstanding.

steve wrote:As a little girl, my girlfriend drew a picture of Rich Koz, and it was shown on the Son of Svengoolie monster movie show, which will be familiar to any Chicagoans of a certain age.

Top that!

One of my friends met Svengoolie when he was a kid. There is a funny picture of them together hanging on his wall.

My mum used to be an air stewardess for PIA and was put on the VIP flights in the old Fokker Friendships because she was an arrogant 16 year old who was rude to the standard customers. She was rude to the posh ones too, but they were mostly happy with this for some reason. Over this time she had her backside pinched by Brezhnev and was wowed by a handsome young Colonel Gaddafi (he was a bit of a poster boy in Pakistan). She also gave the unpleasant nurse of Idi Amin's children sore feet through a cruel trick. She also was the girl on the Coca Cola poster campaigns in Pakistan around this time.

My grandfather on my dad's side was a member of the British Communist party who left it in the '50's due to his late realisation of the horrors of Stalin. Soon afterwards, he was visited in his front garden in Chelmsford by a couple of American men in grey suits and grey fedora hats who asked him to appear in some anti-Commie adverts; he gave them short shrift. My folks have a short letter from Gandhi to him on their wall, thanking him for donations from an Indian liberation organisation he was involved in.

My dad was an excellent goalkeeper as a late teenager who was rated by one England U21 coach as better than his contemporary Peter Shilton.

While fishing in a rowboat with me and my dad, my late-grandfather completely filled 3 empty 16oz. plastic soda bottles with a single piss.

yaledelay wrote:Dr Akaward once set himself on fire on the first song of a set, the trooper that he is, he finished the set without complaining...

That is our traditional "Oakland Greeting"

Welcome to Oakland, now we'll set you aflame.

That's just how we roll.

Ben Adrian

benadrian wrote:

yaledelay wrote:Dr Akaward once set himself on fire on the first song of a set, the trooper that he is, he finished the set without complaining...

That is our traditional "Oakland Greeting"

Welcome to Oakland, now we'll set you aflame.

That's just how we roll.

Ben Adrian

let me tell you when you look back on the first song and see that your drummer is on fire, and I mean litterally ON FIRE, it means you are going to have a great show.

bert trautmann played the end of the 1956 fa cup final with a broken neck.

alain bombard shipwrecked himself to try and prove that you can survive on sea water

http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,11882,1554976,00.html

i remember reading a story about an old man who lived a very frugal and solitary existance - always wore the same clothes apparently - who seemed to hate kids, but left millions of pounds to a children's charity when he died.

i don't know the details here, but my great-great (great-great..? i don't know) grandfather was involved in an effort to provide a telephone link across the sea bed to america. unfortunately his team ran out of cable

yaledelay wrote:

benadrian wrote:

yaledelay wrote:Dr Akaward once set himself on fire on the first song of a set, the trooper that he is, he finished the set without complaining...

That is our traditional "Oakland Greeting"

Welcome to Oakland, now we'll set you aflame.

That's just how we roll.

Ben Adrian

let me tell you when you look back on the first song and see that your drummer is on fire, and I mean litterally ON FIRE, it means you are going to have a great show.

Oh, come on. He wasn't that on fire. I've burned myself more severely while cooking. You were burning much more brightly when Tyler and I put fuel-soaked angel wings on you while you were passed out on the futon that one time.