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Well that was unexpected

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by toddus, Mar 31, 2010.

  1. toddus

    toddus
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    I recently found out thanks to a Cracked article that my Chiropractor was the original drummer for the Clash and toured with Black Sabbath. I have been visiting him for three years and the closest I came to guessing his musical past was assuming he was a stoner. I have yet to tell him I am aware of his musical past.

    My Chiro:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Chimes

    Him tearing it up:


    Focus:

    When has someones past suprised you? Ever had a quiet neighbor who was a Medal of Honor winner? An Aunty who was a playboy bunny?
     
    #1 toddus, Mar 31, 2010
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 27, 2015
  2. cynismus

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    My old boss (a very serious, boring, engineer-type), served in the first Desert Storm and was involved in an accidental fratricide. I believe he was called in front of a Congressional committee to testify regarding the incident.
     
  3. Benzilla

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    I had one music teacher for my entire stay in high school and I keep on hearing interesting stuff about him:

    1. He is a pilot, he owns a Cessna that he flies around for fun.
    2. He went to Julliard for the Tuba and helped pay his own way by flying mail from New York to Boston.
    3. After Julliard he entered the session musician circuit. He's been a part of Dave Letterman's band, played (and is still playing) in the pit at a ton of Broadway musicals, and he's recorded a few film scores.
    4. Once upon a time he was a professional bowler with an average over 250.
    5. He owns a skywriting company he started with his brother-in-law and I hear it's somewhat of a big deal.

    ...and he's a teacher. I have no idea why.
     
  4. thevoice

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    When I was 11, I went to a Vancouver Canuck's game with my Dad. They were playing the St. Louis Blues, and the Canucks quickly jumped out to a 3-0 lead.

    The man and woman beside me were getting more and more angry as the game progressed. I kindly asked the woman, "Are you two from St. Louis?"

    She smiles and says, "No, we don't live there, but our son plays for the Blues."

    Being 11, I responded with the typical, "Oh, that's cool" and then I went back to watching my Canucks stomp the Blues. Everytime the Canucks made a big play, or had a good chance, I would look over to the couple and say things like, "Wow. The Canucks are awesome!"

    They would laugh, all the while they would continue to get excited when St. Louis got the puck.

    "C'mon Brett! Let's go!" They would say in unison.

    Upon hearing this, I lifted my head in amazement. I peered over, and looked closer at the man sitting next to the woman. Bobby Hull!!!!

    Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God!

    Even at the tender age of 11, I was aware of Bobby Hull's legend. I shook his hand, and told him that I had one of his old hockey cards. He humored me, and chatted with me until the end of the first period. Then he and his wife went up to the press-box to visit with the Blue's management.
     
  5. Cult

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    My uncle served in Vietnam and was an intelligence officer. Apparently while he was in Vietnam he somehow ended up running a brothel (yes, my uncle was essentially a pimp) and making a ton of money over there. The only thing I have to confirm this aside from multiple family members corroborating the story (including my grandfather and grandmother before they passed away) is that he has an obscene amount of stuff in his house from Vietnam. Apparently they wouldn't let people bring back money from Vietnam but they would let them bring back random shit so he just spent all of the money he earned on stuff and brought it back to the states. He always seems a little embarrassed when I ask him about it, maybe because his wife is around.
     
  6. Maltob14

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    This old guy I know who is a long time family friend is one of the nicest, funniest dudes you'll ever meet. Plus he's fat now and drives a tiny 1970's VW beetle around town which is always amusing. I found out almost two years ago that the guy used to be a mob hit man. One day I was having a drink with him and the topic crept up. He was so casual about it, it blew my mind. I kinda should have seen it coming since his nickname in that town is 'the big boss/the pit boss.'
     
  7. SMUGolfer

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    Awhile ago a book came out chronicling the history of Greeks in Chicago. Grandma gave a copy to everyone for Christmas because a 2nd cousin wrote it, so that was cool. What blew my mind is that a photo of Grandpa as a kid was in there and that before the Great Depression hit, the family was a prominent figure in the Jewelery trade. Considering most of the family is now in the trades, that nugget of history threw me for a loop.
     
  8. Bob Trousers

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    My very first job when I was still in school was working as a weekend cleaner (dustpan and brush, not silenced .22 and a tub full of acid). Small company, nice bunch of guys. Turns out one of them (who I won't name, in case you can can figure him out from the millions of people in the world who share his name) had been in prison. He'd found out his wife was having an affair, and shot-gunned her and her lover to death. Nice guy though-still see him around from time to time.
     
  9. scotchcrotch

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    I never knew my maternal grandfather, but I heard he was a prick.

    Born into wealth, he knocked up my grandmother and moved across the country back to New Hampshire and abandoned her and my mom. He never paid a dime in child support, yet this fucker was old money.

    One day I was watching Saving Private Ryan and my mom mentioned to me he was there on Omaha Beach.

    I was shocked. This jerkoff had enough money to buy himself out of the war, but was there serving his country.

    He died before I was born, so I never really got any details. It was a sore subject for my mom so I haven't brought it up to her, but I was shocked.
     
  10. dixiebandit69

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    Sorry, I tried to watch that video, but I couldn't because Sony blocked it. What happens in the video?!
     
  11. Roxanne

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    My grandfather was a quiet man who kept to himself and didn't speak much, but he usually was smiling when he did talk.

    So I was pretty stunned to learn that he was a three-star general in the Shah's army in Iran before the 1979 Revolution, and was one of only a handful who wasn't shot because of corruption. If you were military under the Shah, it followed that you made mountains of money in bribes, but my grandfather chose to raise his family on only his military salary, and refused every single bribe he was ever given, even though it meant they stayed firmly middle-class instead of vastly wealthy like all the other generals.

    It saved his life in the end, so good for him.
     
  12. breakylegg

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    When I was a kid I sometimes would stay with my grandparents for the weekend (while mom partied), and hang around with Colin, the kid next door. Whenever prompted to come up with things for us to do, Colin would say stuff like "let's go urinate in the desert!" or suggest we wait til it was dark and "play drive-in" by aiming a flashlight at a brick wall. Sometimes we'd go over to his house and he'd tell me all about his favorite place in the world, Spokane, WA, of which he had many maps.

    Colin didn't live with his parents, but a friendly aunt (can't recall name) and uncle, Fred Coe. (I remembered the name because me and my sister would sometimes prank call Fred at work asking for Fred "Cocoa" Coe.) I recall sleeping over their house a few times.

    Over time my grandparents moved and I never saw Colin again. But one night many years later I saw some true-crime show about the infamous Spokane (or South Hill) Rapist, a cereal sex offender suspected in dozens of rapes.

    Long story short, Colin's uncle, Frederick "Kevin" Coe, was convicted of being the infamous rapist. I called my sister and for a while that's all we talked about. I couldn't believe I'd stayed in the same house with the guy. Hilarious.
     
  13. Kubla Kahn

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    My dad was a jovial outgoing guy and the only of his three siblings to have kids. The other two were a hell of a lot less social. His sister, my aunt, was always very quite and reserved when ever we were at family get togethers. I dont really know if it's shyness or she's just really introverted but she never seemed outgoing at all. She never interacted with us like my mom's side of the family did.

    Turns out she was a professional skydiver in her twenties. She's done thousands of jumps and was part of "the scene" back in the 70's. She also is a huge sailor and her and my uncle go to Lake Eerie every single weekend, weather permitting, and get drunk as skunks with the sailing crowd that parties up there.
     
  14. MateFeedKillRepeat

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    Nothing terribly interesting, but my older sister and her husband have been together since they were in highschool so I've grown up around him and his family. When they would go out sometimes his parents would watch me when I was little or I would hang around with them at the house. The thing I always noticed his father slept with the lights on no matter where he happened to pass out at, even if it was in the garage at the work bench after working on a car. Always. A. Light. Me being young, I just passed it off as him being a crazy old man. Now that I'm older, I decided a few year ago to ask him why he does that.


    He is a gruff old man, typical nothing-in-this-world-scares-me type of guy, so when he sat me down and explained to me that when he was in Vietnam he saw things in the jungle that scared him so badly that as long as he is alive he will NEVER sleep in the dark again. That was it, no explanation as to what exactly he saw or what happened. Needless to say I was pretty shocked, and neither of us has ever brought it up again. It does make you wonder though, what could scare you bad enough to never want to sleep in the dark again? Shit..
     
  15. bewildered

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    For one summer during break between college semesters, my dad was a police officer in the little country town, population 400, that he grew up in. They have him a gun and told him to have fun patrolling. (spoiler for length)

    The story that stands out in my mind was the one where the police from the next town over radioed ahead because they were pursing a suspect speeding like crazy on the interstate. He was instructed to stop the vehicle in question, so he speeds down and waits beside the interstate. His plan was to pull crossways into the middle of the road when he could see the headlights coming up over the hill, which was located maybe 4 miles down.

    He sees the headlights and he pulls into the middle of the road. The problem was, those were the police headlights, and the suspect didn't have theirs on.

    This was in the 60s, and this brand new car was going about as fast as they were made to go back then. Dad estimates that they were going 100, 125, something in that range. So basically, the slow poke police cars couldn't keep up with the speed demon ahead of them and my dad pulled right in front of the suspect's car.

    The car swerved amazingly and actually missed my dad. The car hit the gravel and grass and spun out of control, finally stopping. The passengers, 3 teenagers, basically fell out of the car; the 13 year old girl in the back was having a panic attack and later had to be taken to the hospital. My dad pull his gun and screams, "kiss the ground or I'll blow your brains out!"

    There's about 10 stories similar to this (a guy bleeding to death in the back of his police car, pursuing the church bus driver from the local bar), and apparently "I'll blow your brains out!" was his favorite go-to line because he used it 4 of those stories.

    My older siblings grew up with these stories, but I have only heard them recently and I almost shit myself. My dad is super reserved.
     
  16. toytoy88

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    Alone in the dark, drooling on himself

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    I recently met an old drunk that I pretty much blew off as annoying. He started off telling me that he was an officer in Vietnam and some of his stories. I just rolled my eyes and thought "Oh Christ...here we go again...some drunk asshole telling me his make believe stories again."

    Then people that I trust started coming up to me and swearing up and down the dude was telling the truth.

    Apparently this old, emaciated drunk that could barely walk or speak was telling the truth. I kind of wonder what kind of horrors he's trying to drown with all the booze. I'll find out eventually. For some reason people talk to me.

    The only story of his that stands out in my mind (Mainly because I thought he was full of shit at the time) is about his squad crossing a stream. While they held their M16's over their heads to keep them dry, he killed a snake that was swimming by by biting its head off to keep it from whatever the fuck a passing snake might do. And not give away their position.

    I called bullshit and started laughing. I immediately drew the ire of the veterans present.

    Oops.

    Apparently this guy I saw as a homeless, drunk, drifter was someone that deserved a great deal of respect.
     
  17. JohnQ

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    Years ago, before he passed away, most of the stories my family told about my grandfather involved his later years as the vice president of a bank. Occasionally my grandmother would talk of his previous career as a Colonel in the army and the officers parties they would attend.

    Later, I would find out that he ran a POW camp for Japanese in the Philippines (mainly protecting the prisoners from the Phillipinos). He would also later accept a position as the Military Attache for El Salvador, and later Thailand. As I'm told, this is somewhat like being the ambassador, except he would gain information from government informants that he would feed back to our own government as to the state of that countries current uprisings/coups/etc. My dad also later mentioned that they would occasionally receive calls at the house in El Salvador wherein the caller would just say "Lo Mismo" (The Same), meaning my grandfather was supposed to meet his contact at the same location. At some point Mr. Lo Mismo was found with a knife in him. While in Thailand he was given the White Elephant, which I'm told is the highest honor a foreigner can receive from the Thai government. My grandmother likes to wear the little white elephant pen around on her lapel like some kinda jewelry.

    So, it would seem that before his career as a banker, my grandfather was somewhat of a spy. Pretty cool.
     
  18. cllrbone11

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    This happened this weekend. I wrote about it on the blog, it's easier to just link it I think. Basically, a guy built a miniature railroad set in the middle of my town's forest over ten years ago. My friends and I heard about it last summer and went looking for it, and I met the guy this weekend while I was doing an estimate for a powerwash on his deck.