My World Came Crashing Down!

I took a couple of friends out to my farm to just look around one day. We were standing on the porch which encircled the trailer. I had just told the one guy to not go any further because it wasn't safe.

So, what does he do? He goes further. (the porch was the only thing we didn't remodel on that trailer)

I was talking to the other guy when we heard a loud CRRAA++CK! I looked over to see a fearful look on the first guys face (sorry I can't remember their names) and watch him fall through the porch! Then the whole section he was standing on started to crash in over top of him along with a couple of my dogs!

I ran to the edge to check on him. BIG MISTAKE! It starts to cave in as well. My friend, the rest of my dogs and I go crashing to the ground with the rest of the porch falling like dominoes! It was about an 8 to 10 foot drop. Fortunately I landed on my ass which has always had plenty of padding! I was even still holding a bottle of Gatorade that I had been drinking - didn't spill a drop!

We sat there a second or two taking stock of ourselves and then we all busted out laughing. Fortunately nobody was hurt. My dogs were all crowding around me trying to get comforted all at once, but we were all fine. I made sure my friends were OK and then we left for the track. End of story.

WRONG! The next morning I couldn't get out of bed. Every move caused excruciating pain. I dragged myself to the ER and got checked out. I had to have physical therapy for 2 months and for most of that I couldn't work. (greyhound training is a very physical job) I couldn't even get a job walking dogs at the track which is what everybody who recuperates does because it is sooo easy.

After we sent the pups away, we moved closer to the track. When you are working 18 hour days, it pays to stay as close to the track as possible to eliminate travel time.

Who Made the Better Deal?

I used to work in a kennel for one of my dad's car dealer friends. (he owned a car dealership and a racing kennel). One day Brent, the trainer, walked in and started to brag...

"Lester sold that corvette your dad sold him today. He made $10,000. What do you think about that?" He said with a smug look on his face.

"Well," I replied, "If you consider the fact that Lester has had that car for about 15 years and then you compare the fact that Daddy had it for about 10 minutes and made $10,000 off Lester then I think that Daddy made more money than Lester. What do you think about that?"

Here's a little history of that corvette. Lester was getting married in a couple of days. He wanted to present his new bride with one of the 70's style corvettes. These cars were hard to find even in the 80's because everybody knew they were collector's items.

Daddy was making his rounds of carlots. (He would go from carlot to carlot looking for deals) He came across the exact corvette that Lester wanted. Not only was it a 70's corvette but it was candy apple red and in mint condition! Daddy bought it on the spot.

We drove it straight to Lester's carlot and Daddy busted Lester's ass for $10,000 ! As I pointed out earlier, Lester had the car for about 15 years before he made $10,000.

Waddle Waddle Waddle

One time my boss came in the kennel and told me that my family was waiting outside for me.

I thought this was unusual because NO ONE is allowed in the kennels without a license.

I walked outside and waddling across the parking lot, I saw a family of ducks!

The sad part is they walked just like me!

Randy Moss Gives Back

The other day Randy Moss visited the grade school he went to when he was a kid. The school is at Campbell's Creek, West Virginia.

To a reward to all students who made A's and B's on their report cards he gave gifts. The gifts ranged from bicycles to X Boxes to I pods and many of the children received more than one gift.

Randy says he intends to return every year and do the same thing.

I am glad that he has done something that rates a little good publicity. I should point out that this is not the first time he has done something like this.

The Best School Year Ever!

When I was in the 9th. grade we had a massive snowstorm that kept us out of school for most of January and February. It started off as a typical school year, just going to school day after day. It had been years since we had a snow day off from school. When it came time to go back to school after Christmas break the skies opened up and the most we went to school for the next 2 months was 2 days a week. Usually it was only one day a week. This was back in the days when they didn't make you make up the days at the end of the year or have 2 hour delays or any of that pain in the ass stuff.

Then in early March I was waiting for the bus and no one else was there. This was unusual. A passing car stopped and told me that the wall had fallen at Central and school was cancelled. I went home to listen to the radio and sure enough the retaining wall had fallen at our junior high school. Central Junior High School was perched up on the side of the mountain overlooking Logan, West Virginia. It was built behind a massive retaining wall that was easily 50 or 60 feet high. We were out of school for a week while they decided what to do with us. There was no way the wall could be repaired before the school year was over.

They decided to send us to East Junior High School - our arch rivals. To minimize the possibilities of fights we started school an hour after the East kids and we went home an hour earlier than they did. We also had staggered lunch hours so that we didn't take lunch at the same time. I think some of the teachers were more traumatized by the move than we were and we learned quickly how to take advantage of the situation. We were particularly thrilled when Mrs. Triolo and Mrs. Mendez got into a fist fight because Mrs. Triolo called Mrs. Mendez a dike! Boy, was that a story!

Some teachers padded our grades, saying we were traumatized and upping them a whole letter. (Not that it mattered to me. I was an "A,B" student anyway so that didn't help me much.) We got every concession that a teacher could possibly give a student. Some didn't even give tests for a whole month so that we could adjust to the situation.

Then in May there was a massive flood. There was about 6 feet of water in East Junior High School. It took a week for the river to subside and then another week for them to get the school cleaned up so that we could go back again.

By then there was about 2 weeks to go and school was out. I started High School the next year so I am not sure but I think that it took several years to fix the wall and the kids at Central continued to go to East well into the next school year.

She Ran Over My Hair!

I used to love to roller skate. My cousin, Jane, and I used to go to the park and we would pull each other with the car. One time Jane was driving and I was holding on to the back side window of my Horizon. Jane saw a couple of good looking boys and slammed on the brakes! This caused me to go down parallel with the road! I was looking right at the back tire hubcap and I saw my long, blonde hair actually get run over by the wheel!

Fortunately she realized what she had done and she speeded back up and this enabled me to get my balance and then she eased the car to a stop. It would have been so easy to get my hair twisted in that tire and have my head pulverized! Another time I was lucky to be alive. We never pulled each other with the car again.

I continued to roller skate in the park though. One time I fell because I was skating down a little hill. I broke the outside of my hand just below my little finger. I didn't tell my parents because I knew my mom would ban me from skating anymore. I was working at Burger Chef at the time and I had to carry people's trays to them by balancing them on my hurt arm. I couldn't even use the hand for a couple of weeks.

We trained to roller skate in our basement. We were so rough with each other that we could have been roller derby experts. We would whiz in a circle on that concrete floor and propel each other across the room. Not to mention the knock down, drag out rough and tumble way we skated to begin with. It was great preparation for the rather mild way we skated at the park and the roller rink every Friday.

My First Major Dog Fight (for Frankie Baby)

I had two full turnout pens outside and I was inside doing beds when I heard a mighty roar. I raced outside because I knew what it meant - both pens were fighting! A greyhound fight is an awesome sight to see and I never met anybody that didn't freeze the first time they saw one. It is like watching a calm ocean rise up into a mighty tidal wave of seething, writhing dogs. It boggles your mind!

Anyway I went into the first pen to break it up (there were 26 dogs in each pen). I was pulling and pushing and screaming and doing basically anything I could to separate the dogs. I finally get the first pen calmed down and I headed for the second pen and I saw something that I only saw in that particular fight - I never saw it happen again in 13 years of racing.

There was a stud dog named Terri Hug Her in the other pen. He weighed 92 pounds, but he was a gentle giant. He was running between fighting dogs using the force of his weight to break them apart. I watched him do this with 3 different groups of dogs while I was trying to get to the pen. All I had to do when I got into the pen was to calm them down. The fight was basically over.

Unfortunately the other pen started to fight again so I had to go back over there. I ran to grab one particular dog because all the other dogs in the pen were ganging up on her. Just as I grabbed her collar the momentum of the fight shifted and a wave of greyhounds ran over me. I slipped in the sand and went down on my back. I remember in the one second that I was on the ground seeing a sea of legs around me.

I had one thought, "GET UP!" I did something that was normally physically impossible for me or just about anybody else to do. In the time that it took to think "GET", I was flat on my back with the dogs running over me! By the time I thought "UP!", I had leapt to my feet and was standing straight up (just like one of those fighters you see in a Karate movie when they are flat on the ground and they rise to their feet in one motion and you think to yourself - hey, that would be impossible to do)

Fear is a great motivator! If I had not gotten up so quickly those greyhounds would not have hesitated to eat me alive! Even though they are muzzled they can still bite through them and muzzles break and fall off in the frenzy of a fight all the time.

I grabbed the dog they were after and I dragged her out of the pen. The fight stopped in both pens and I put her in her crate (unhurt - thankfully). Then I just stood there exhausted, gasping for air, with both pens of dogs looking at me, each dog wondering what was going to happen next. About that time my boss pulled up and we put them to bed because once they start fighting they are prone to fight again.

I was proud of myself for breaking them up and nobody got hurt. (you have to break up fights and not hurt any of them because they have to race and they can't run if they are hurt)

It's a fine line to walk.