Posted on 04/06/2020 4:37:59 AM PDT by sodpoodle
Had a squirrel swimming in my pool last summer. Not joking.
A real Texan, my father taught me how to fish and hunt (mostly squirrels) and didn’t believe in wasting food. He encountered an unfortunate squirrel still twitching on the street —next day’s dinner. A pheasant hit our windshield in SD. He made me stop and retrieve it. “ can’t waste good food... “
Fugetaboutit. I was born and raised in the Bronx. Moved to the suburbs in my teens. Started hunting then with a bolt action mossberg 12 gauge. Spend every November in my hunting camp deep in the dense oak forests of western NY. Eat rabbits, squirrels, pheasants, grouse (wrongly called partridge around here) and usually have a freezer full of venison.
We call stew made with squirrel....squirrel stew.
Saw Arfons and his Green Monster at “The Bend”, Great Bend, Kansas. They used to have the summer nationals there. Don Garlits also. Arfons’ runs were mostly exhibitions. no body else had a jet car.
Now that’s old school.
The Arfons bros were out of Akron where I lived at the time.
They were “out of the box” thinkers for sure.
Both lived to quite old age also, despite all the risks they took.
Lol
All too true! I have been driving a Honda Magna V65 for about thirty years now, and it still tries to kill me every once in a while.
Problem solved.
“...for the large seagull that let go of one up ahead of me...it started the hit the front of the tank then I watched as it drew a line across the tank vertically and most of the way up my jacket.”
The link to the JATO story I referenced:
https://darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin1995-04.html
The story for those who don’t choose to click:
The Arizona Highway Patrol were mystified when they came upon a pile of smoldering wreckage embedded in the side of a cliff rising above the road at the apex of a curve. The metal debris resembled the site of an airplane crash, but it turned out to be the vaporized remains of an automobile. The make of the vehicle was unidentifiable at the scene.
The folks in the lab finally figured out what it was, and pieced together the events that led up to its demise.
It seems that a former Air Force sergeant had somehow got hold of a JATO (Jet Assisted Take-Off) unit. JATO units are solid fuel rockets used to give heavy military transport airplanes an extra push for take-off from short airfields.
Dried desert lakebeds are the location of choice for breaking the world ground vehicle speed record. The sergeant took the JATO unit into the Arizona desert and found a long, straight stretch of road. He attached the JATO unit to his car, jumped in, accelerated to a high speed, and fired off the rocket.
The facts, as best as could be determined, are as follows:
The operator was driving a 1967 Chevy Impala. He ignited the JATO unit approximately 3.9 miles from the crash site. This was established by the location of a prominently scorched and melted strip of asphalt. The vehicle quickly reached a speed of between 250 and 300 mph and continued at that speed, under full power, for an additional 20-25 seconds. The soon-to-be pilot experienced G-forces usually reserved for dog-fighting F-14 jocks under full afterburners.
The Chevy remained on the straight highway for approximately 2.6 miles (15-20 seconds) before the driver applied the brakes, completely melting them, blowing the tires, and leaving thick rubber marks on the road surface. The vehicle then became airborne for an additional 1.3 miles, impacted the cliff face at a height of 125 feet, and left a blackened crater 3 feet deep in the rock.
Most of the driver’s remains were not recovered; however, small fragments of bone, teeth, and hair were extracted from the crater, and fingernail and bone shards were removed from a piece of debris believed to be a portion of the steering wheel.
Ironically a still-legible bumper sticker was found, reading
“How do you like my driving? Dial 1-800-EAT-SHIT.”
Confirmed as URBAN LEGEND and also featured on MythBusters TV show.
This guy is my neighbor down the street.
He’s sort of an Art Arfons of the current era.
https://www.autoblog.com/2011/12/09/paul-stender-returns-with-cruise-missile-powered-impala/
Saw them here in N.J. at Island Dragway. Like you said exhibition only but quite a sight back then. Backyard mechanics at their best.Saw Garlits be the first one to go 200mph here in I think 1964. He match raced in this area all of the time back when they did that stuff.
Carpetbagger!
My bags are canvas but if I travel south I will look for ones made of canvas. If that’s what expected of me ; ).
When fishing if I can’t locate schools of fish I will often put out a couple of lines with lures and move forward, trolling. More than once I have heard the reel scream and looked for the line on the water and found the line going up into the air. Gulls are also attracted to fish like objects and they have been known to snare themselves then fly away. I try to be as gentle as possible as I reel them in and release them unharmed. They sometimes are calm. Other times they tend to try to bite you. I try to find a stick or something soft for them to chew on as I release them.
You sound like you’d make a good southerner and we need all the votes we can get to change VA back to a red State.
I live in a Marxist state and stay here due to family. If I leave (now in my 70s)it will be to a ‘free’ state. Perhaps WV or Kentucky or Tennessee. No longer do I consider VA and NC has been going downhill fast thanks to New Yorkers who are looking for a tax break but bring their NY leftist says with them.
I hear some VA red counties are thinking of secession over to WV.
Watch it's good.....
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