This is absolutely amazing! Hahahaha that is freaking HILARIOUS! The fact you had no idea and then low and behold his son sees eye to eye with you. You probably relieved him. He will now understand you are a baller and his dad was being a BARNACLE!!! ROFL!!! Did you share the doobie? Did he ask you why you didn’t get along with his dad? Was he significantly cooler than “pops”? Sometimes it works out that way!
What a f***ing adventure! Global warming sure has been something, hasn’t it? Glacier is beautiful; probably super cool taking a train through there.
Swimming with icebergs in alaskan waters. climbing to the top of pikes peak in colorado. hiking the continental divide for a few weeks. Visiting 911 days after. Hell, living in ny during 911. The candles on all the porches driving back home in upstate... very emotional. waking up in the middle of the night during a camping trip in Moab to be looking up at a wild cows’ nips as he stood over me. That was crazy! The best was meeting and marrying my wife.
All fantastic, but the last was certainly the best!! I concur regarding meeting/marrying my wife, 1,000 percent!!!
So many. Hard to say the "Most Amazing". Lt Gen Steiner pinning a Silver Star on me was up there. Finishing the Ironman Triathlon was pretty awesome! Climbing Mt Hood and Mt St Helens (Before the Eruption) is one of my personal favs. I get to turn out students every year which go on to make some very fine men and women which is as rewarding as any of the above. Flying out of Saudi Arabia/Kuwait for the last time. Actually sky diving rather than jumping out of a C-130. Watching Lillard make the "Wave" shot live was an experience. Building stuff is always amazing. Figuring out how to pick 1,000,000 lbs and move it is always amazing. As i write this the sun is rising and it is glistening through the leaves on the tree out front of my house. The windows are open and i can smell the rain from last night. My dog is at my feet and I'm healthy. That is pretty amazing. The cat is looking at me from outside and wants in.....
Flying from Vancouver BC to Seatac we hit a wind shear and the plane suddenly dropped like a rock. On a dash 8 there is only one door up front, and the stewardess was serving drinks when it happen and hit her head so hard on the ceiling it knock her cold and she was lying in front of the door. The guy next to me was having chest pains/heart attack. There was zero communication from the cock pit. That pissed me off big time and I let the airlines know it. I was in a window seat and had been flying for 40 years, was absolutely amazed at how the wings stayed on that plane from the sudden impact of the fall and stop. We were 5 minutes out form SeaTac and made an emergency landing with emergency vehicles following us down tarmac. They immediately brought Seattle heart paramedic on board and addressed both the stewardess and gent next to me who they immediately hooked. to heart diagnostics. They had all 40 plus passengers exit the plan through the back cargo door gave us $50 vouchers to get cleaning done, as there was drinks and stuff everywhere. I had to jump immediately on another Dash 8 to Portland and I was amazed at how I was a bit jumpy and white knuckled as flying never bothered me a bit over the years even in bad turbulence.
A lot of the ones discussed above come to mind, of course. Watching three times as my amazing wife gave birth to our kids is right at the top. Being there in person at the Blazers championship parade is etched into my memory circuits. Camping out under the stars as a six year old on a camping trip with my dad. Snorkeling on the Big Island and having it slowly dawn on me that the 4’ fish 10’ away from me was a barracuda. The one personal experience that I will never forget was getting a flight in a T-38 at ROTC field training. I always thought it would be amazing to be a pilot, but my bad vision made that impossible. Flying in that 2-seat jet with a Vietnam combat vet is as close as I’ll ever come. He let me take the stick and kick in the afterburners. Holy shit is that a thrill. We were supposed to stay subsonic, but I saw the Machmeter show 1.2. We flew over Grand Coulee dam and he decided to show me how he’d do an attack run on it. Put us into a dive and I watched as the dam grew fast from a tiny thing below us until it darn near filled my field of view. The feeling as he pulled us out of the dive was like nothing else I’ve ever experienced. It felt like I had a 350 lb. lineman standing on my head. I got tunnel vision so bad I could just see a couple of spots dead ahead. The pilot later told me we pulled over 6 Gs coming out of the dive. I wasn’t wearing a flight suit with the fancy bladders that compress your legs and force blood back up to your brain. Fortunately, the pilot was. I was very proud at the end of the flight not to have thrown up. Two other guys in my squadron weren’t so lucky and had to use their barf bags. Both decided to try to hide the evidence by throwing the bags out as soon as they had landed and the pilots opened the cockpits. Both bags were promptly sucked into the jet engines intakes and ruined the engines. They didn’t allow the pilots to open the cockpits after that until the engines were turned off.
No, I didn’t share the doobie. This WAS Mississippi after all and he was a southern boy. So I saved it for later. He didn’t have to ask why his dad and I didn’t get along; he had lived with him. The kids parents were divorced, he was a handful and his mother sent him to live in Oregon with his father for a couple of years. It did not go well (even though coworkers who had met the kid though he was a nice young lad) and we heard most of the details on a daily basis. Finally the father sent him back to MS. So yes, the kid was significantly cooler than pops. Not that it was a high bar to begin with…….
One hates to brag too much. What do you say about a 93-year-old woman who still has it all together the way she does? Takes zero prescription drugs at her age. Pretty sure she’s going to out-live me. She spoils Reggie so bad I’m not sure he qualifies as a dog tough.
Thats scary as hell man. I hope the guy made it through. Can't imagine the terror he felt. I had a fear of flying for many reasons before I ever actually flew anywhere. My first flight ever? Going to Denver, Colorado of course. That turbulence was fun lol. I dont mind flying anymore... just hate take off. Prefer the train though... you get to actually see the country.
I was at the RG that night too. I'd put that on the list along with seeing Elton John and Paul McCartney (not at the same time). And when I went to a concentration camp in Germany, it's not amazing as much as it's life changing.
I have a similar story (actually two). I had re-connected with a friend from HS, and we were going on a trip somewhere together. She was driving and I was in the passenger seat. We were talking about stupid shit, and I go "I'm actually more like my moms side the family than my dads" and I mentioned my moms maiden name. She, as she's driving goes "THE FUCK!?" and smacks me across the chest. Being a little confused, I go "um, wha?" she responds with "how do you know that name!?" "Um, I just said, it's my moms maiden name" "do you know so and so same last name?" "Yeah, that's my cousin." "Holy shit, she was my best friend in college!!!!" Turns out she was in my cousins wedding party (i didn't go, but I had a picture form it). The other story is kind of funny because it's related to this one. I think I've told @Nannerbee this story before too. Anywho, I'm visiting a friend of mine who I've known since I was in the 6th grade. We're at her house at the beach, and her mom is visiting her. I had told my friend about the other story (she knew the friend), and said to tell it so her mom. Thinking this is strange, I go into the story. and when I name drop my moms maiden name, she turns white and goes "do you know William (last name withheld due to privacy)? " "Well, I have an uncle Billy (last name), my moms uncle" "holy shit! I worked with him!!" (I don't remember where, might have been the coast). "Yeah, he's my grandfathers younger brother" Then she goes "do you know David (last name withheld, but a relatives last name)?" "Yeah, that's my moms cousin. Billy was his uncle too. His mom was my grandfathers and Bills sister" "He was my boss for a while too!" So it's funny that someone I went to middle school and high school with, knew people on my moms side of the family, but we didn't know it at the time. And then someone else I went to HS with knew a cousin of mine on my moms side of the family. But it gets weirder. Through an old job I had, I got to be friends with this woman. We became friends with each other on FB, and I noticed that she was friends with someone with the same last name as my mothers maiden name. So I message this person and ask if they're related to someone that we would both be related to, and turns out we are related. But whats funny? When I was about 11, my mom and I went to her families reunion in Calgary, with my grandparents. And one of the peoples houses that we stayed at was actually her grandfathers farm up there. She was at the reunion (probably was about 3-4 years old?) too. Her mother passed away, and her family ended up moving to Salem. Coincidentally, where my grandparents lived (in all my years visiting my grandparents there, we never heard about there being other relatives in the city). Her brothers name is Ryan (same last name). I also have a cousin named Ryan (same last name). They look like they could be twins. Her fathers name? Ed. My grandfathers name? Ed. They don't look like twins, mostly because my grandfather was 30 years older.
The woman is a neighborhood treasure. And Reggie is my new best buddy every time he sees me (a pocket full of treats never hurts. I never figured it was my personality that draws him to me). But Shirley actually makes me miss my own MIL every time I see her (and that’s a good thing!).
