BigEdWalsh

Santa Claus

An Englishman, Frenchman, Mexican, and Texan were flying across country on a small plane when the pilot comes on the loud speaker and says "We're having mechanical problems and the only way we can make it to the next airport is for 3 of you to open the door and jump, at least one of you can survive" The four open the door and look out below. The Englishman takes a deep breath and hollers "God Save The Queen" and jumps. The Frenchman gets really inspired and hollers "Viva La France" and he also jumps. This really pumps up the Texan so he hollers "Remember the Alamo" and he grabs the Mexican and throws him out of the plane.

Idaho Falls

I selected Retherford, but I think it's more likely to be Nix.

Robert “Squirrel” Lester, a founding member of Chicago’s famed R & group The Chi-Lites, has died following a battle with cancer. He was 67. The Chi-Lites scored big with "Oh Girl", "Have You Seen Her" and "Stoned Out of My Mind".

QUOTE (Cali @ Jan 22, 2010 -> 04:07 PM) Let me clarify my opinion on the Deep Dish. I can have like 1 slice, and that's about it. If I ate more than that I'd be 300lbs easily haha Then you'd probably be pretty good at 16".

I like deep dish but I don't prefer it. I've always hated 16". To me it was always a game for BIG guys with beer bellies who could hit that frickin' "basketball" a mile. Never been much of a mustard fan. I'd take ketchup over mustard any day. What I actually prefer is mayo and mustard mixed and it has to be mayo...can't stand Miracle Whip.

I met him once, briefly....more like I encountered him, but he seemed real nice and friendly. I don't get mad at him for going into the HOF as a Red Sox. He was from that area, came up through their organization and played his first ten or whatever years with them. Plus, his defining moment, that World Series homer came as a Red Sox. His quote to Neon Deion ("If you don't play it [the game] right, I'm going to kick your ass right here.") could be applied to McGwire and other roiders. For that alone, ya gotta love the guy.

QUOTE (CryptviLL @ Jan 15, 2010 -> 06:51 PM) The bulls are second in the league in Rebounding and first in blocks. Pretty nice... Game vs Wizards now, pretty good game thus far 34-31 bulls. Pretty nice double overtime WIN!

QUOTE (JPN366 @ Jan 14, 2010 -> 11:23 AM) Or they laugh. I didn't want to see what I saw, but I saw it. Exactly. It's not like I wanted to see a frickin' ufo, but I did. And like what you described, what I saw made NO sound. That was the weirdest thing and it was low enough to the ground that I would have heard something.

From the age of 11 to 19, I lived in an old (over a hundred years old) house in Elmhurst. It was huge and had a real neat garage which was actually more like an old coach house (it was huge and had a big old room upstairs). This place was so creepy, I'm not kidding you. The house was creepy, the garage was creepy...even the yard was creepy. Often, even out in the yard (which was gigantic) I would get "unsettling feelings" best described I guess as a sense of dread. One time, I believe it was summer, I was messing around with two friends on my front porch, which was a very large covered open porch (more about the porch later) when all three of us saw this guy walking through the yard. He was shabbily dressed and looked kinda like you would think a hobo would look. Well, were all looking at him and he walks behind a big old oak tree and never appears on the other side. I mean, he was GONE. We're all like, "Wtf?! Where'd that guy go?". We never saw him again. We had a gigantic attic. I used to think of it big enough to have a bowling alley up there. We used to hear footsteps in the attic on occasion. One time, my brothers and I were were home alone at night and we heard very defintie constant footsteps. My older brother who was probably 16 or 17 at the time was a gun nut and he had several guns. He takes a gun and gives me a gun (I hate guns) and he says' "I'm going up there. IF somebody comes down and it's not me, you f***ing shoot them!". Well, he went up, I was terrified but he came back down (I didn't shoot him..hehe) and we didn't hear any more footsteps....that night. I don't know how many times my mom would ask me to run a box up to the attic. There was a door to the attic and then winding steps up into the attic. Only on a couple of occasions, was I ever brave enough to make it to the top of the attic stairs. Very creepy up there! Getting back to the front porch we often would hear footsteps on the porch. Usually it was so obvious that someone was on the porch or coming to the door that I or someone else would go to the door before they would ring the bell but you'd open the door and no one was there. That happened a lot. My dad told me (long after we had moved) that he often saw people in early 1900-s style clothing on the porch. On a humorous note, every Halloween my Dad would blast spooky sound effects on a stereo. There were lots of kids that would walk right past our house. It was funny. The house was torn down shortly after we moved out because the church across the street needed a parking lot. So, it's long gone but lives on in occasional nightmares. On another note, my mom says that she used to see a deceased aunt of hers occasionally. She would appear at the foot of her bed and beckon to her. This was when my mom was a kid. My grandmother said one time when my mom was a toddler, my grandma went into my mom's room to check on her and she was not only not in her crib but she was sitting on top of a dresser. My grandma said there were no drawers pulled out, no possible way she could have climbed up there. I got UFO stories too. People think you're crazy when you tell them you've seen a ufo.

My grandfather's brother, Paul Mueller had something to do with the invention of the detonator of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Also related to Robert Rogers of Roger's Rangers fame. Spencer Tracy played him in the movie Northwest Passage.

Oh, I thought of another one. I wasn't a kid but I was about 35 years younger than I am now. Sunday, May 20th, 1973 the then first place White Sox hosted a double-header with the Twins. It was Bat Day. In the first game, Wilbur Wood bested ex-Cub Bill Hands as the Sox won 9 to 3. Melton and May homered. Eddie Fisher pitched game 2 but the Sox got shutout 3-0. The real story though is that on a beautiful Sunday (perfect weather) in May, 55,555 people showed up setting an all-time Chicago baseball attendance record (still held to this day). Anyway, at one point during a break in the game the PA announcer asks all the kids to hold up their bats and everyone did, it looked really cool. So the next day on the front page of the Tribune sports section there's a picture of that moment. It's a shot of the center field bleachers and I look and on the right side of the picture I see some people that were sitting just a couple of seats away from me. I pointed this out to my dad and he told me that in the actual photo I would be in the picture. He advised me to write to the Tribune and see if I could get a copy. I did and they sent me a nice black and white glossy and sure enough, there I am. I still have that photo somewhere but it's packed away and I haven't seen it in years. I gotta find it.

QUOTE (SnB @ Jan 11, 2010 -> 03:39 PM) Elaine dancing gets me everytime. I started cracking up just reading your post. Another really funny episode (well, they pretty much all were) was the one with the doll that looked like George's mom.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jan 11, 2010 -> 04:10 PM) I'd let him in and I think it was a real good apology. One of the most honest we've seen, imo. I absolutely would NOT let him in but I agree with you 100% otherwise. Now that I actually read what he said, I feel for the guy. He was honest (at last) and I feel for his pain. I genuinely feel sorry for him. But, I would never go so far as to say all is forgiven, now we can let you into the Hall.

Yeah, I'll give him his props for coming clean. Hopefully more admissions come from other cheaters.

#1 Bridgette Bardot After that, many others including Ann Margaret, Kim Novak, Grace Slick, Judy Collins, Natalie Wood, Grace Kelley, Julie Newmar and of course Marilyn Monroe come to mind. Some actresses from waaay back: Theda Bara, Jean Harlow, Greta Garbo, Fay Wray, Hedy Lammar, Lana Turner, Veronica Lake, Lauren Bacall and Donna Reed. Joan Crawford was pretty damn good looking when she was young. I'm too computer-challenged to post pictures or I would. Oh and Betty Page.....heck yeah!

One very most favorite of mine is "The Heart Attack", where George thinks he's having a heart attack. Turns out he needs his tonsils removed. Trying to save money he sees a hollistic healer. The "cure" turns George's skin purple. It's frickin' hilarious.

Now I'm wondering if there was ever a Gumby Pez Head........hmmmmm??

QUOTE (MexSoxFan#1 @ Jan 8, 2010 -> 07:16 AM) When Mike Royko had his funny column in the Sun-Times... Speaking of columns, back in the late 60's when the Cubs were becoming the toast of the town and White Sox attendance dwindled to really dismal numbers and there was talk of the Sox moving and some of their "home games" were played in Milwaukee a guy named John Justin Smith had a column in the Daily News called Voice From The Grandstand. He was a White Sox supporter and often took potshots at the Cubs. It was great because the Sox got very little notice from anyone else back then.

I'm another one that likes to watch former White Sox players, unless they're on a team I absolutely hate like the Cubs, Red Sox or Yankees. That said I would tend to pull for the Cardinals mainly because of the St. Louis fans disdain for the Cubs. I used to like the Mets and was a big fan of theirs since they came into existence in 1962, but not so much interest in the Mets the last 5 or so years.

Remember the Magikist Lips sign??

It's Cold Outside

I count 16 with White Sox connections. I was a little disappointed to not see Bobby Coluccio in there.

QUOTE (Pants Rowland @ Jan 6, 2010 -> 09:58 AM) I take it your family moved from Maywood to Elmhurst? Yep and I hated Elmhurst. I feel much the same as you about listening to Farmer. I thought he was ok as a color guy. He was at least funny sometimes., but he is dreadful at play by play. Speaking of White Sox announcers, I remember Bob Elson ("The Ol' Commander") on WCFL. Speaking of WCFL, I remember Top 40 radio...WLS and then later WCFL too. Speaking of WLS, I remember when Dick Biondi was on that station in the early 60's. He left and came back a few years later on WCFL.