Fun_People Archive
5 Sep
WhiteBoardness - 9/5/97

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Fri,  5 Sep 97 22:05:49 -0700
To: Fun_People
Subject: WhiteBoardness - 9/5/97

Excerpted-from: WhiteBoard News for Friday, September 05, 1997

Olney, Texas:

It started out as a joke among the gang down at the Cub Drug Store: How many
one-armed guys does it take to shoot down a dove?

Twenty-five years later, the One-Arm Dove Hunt is going strong.

What began as a lighthearted contest among local amputees has grown into an
annual two-day hunt that draws more than 100 participants from around the
country. The only requirement is that the hunter lack a hand or an arm. Or
two.

"We were talking about shooting doves," recalled Jack Northrup, who lost
his right arm in a traffic accident.  "I said, `I wonder how many one-arm
guys we could get here just to compete?' "

"We weren't looking to solve any problems or anything," said co-founder Jack
Bishop, a former Young County commissioner who often jokes about the left
arm he never had. The idea was simply to have a good time, Bishop said.

This year's 26th annual shoot begins tomorrow, and many hunters bag their
12-dove limit.

Gun safety is stressed - one reason there's been just one minor injury in
26 years.

"A one-armed guy got a BB caught in his eye," Northrup said of an incident
in the mid-1970s. "And it was a two-armed guy that caused it. That's why we
don't let two-armed guys hunt with us anymore."

For participants like Joyce Baughn, the hunt is more about people than
birds.

"That's what Olney is. It's a family," said Baughn of Jacksonville, Fla.
Baughn lost her forearms as a child when she crawled under a moving train.
She ditched prosthetics early on, choosing to use her working elbow joints
to write, drive and fire a shotgun.

Her double-amputee status becomes an advantage at the Saturday morning
"10-cents-a-finger" breakfast during the hunt.
==========

Romeo, Michigan:

Their single-engine plane stalled, clipped a tree, had its tail sheared off
by an electrified fence and skidded upside down for 50 yards.

But John St. Clair and Henry Kirst had bigger things to worry about, like
getting to the Romeo Peach Festival's all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet.

Neither St. Clair, 82, of Shelby Township, nor Kirst, 71, of Mount Clemens,
was hurt. But they were hungry.  So after hanging upside down for a few
seconds after the Sunday morning crash, they unbuckled their seat belts,
got out of the wreckage and headed for breakfast.

A passing motorist gave them a lift to the Romeo Airport, their original
destination and scene of the breakfast spread.

"We figured, since were here ..." Kirst told the "Detroit Free Press" in a
story Wednesday.

The men spoke with some of the 100 other people at the buffet. But neither
mentioned the crash until they told airport manager Robert Brereton about
it some 90 minutes after the fact.

"They're lucky men," said Brereton, who located the wreckage Tuesday by
following the smell of airplane fuel to a cornfield several miles from the
airport. "I looked at that airplane and I said, 'My goodness."'
==========

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania:

Les Waas hopes people will do nothing Friday that cannot be put off until
next week at the very earliest.

That's because Friday has been proclaimed National Be-Late-For-Something
Day by the Procrastinators Club of America. And as the only president the
club ever bothered to elect, Waas is honor-bound to put the word out, even
if it means getting the job done on time.

"If you're not in the habit of procrastinating, this might be the one day
to just try it out and see if you like it. Maybe go into work an hour late,
and make up for it by leaving an hour early," explained Waas, a 75-year-old
self-employed advertising executive who confesses that he never got around
to retiring.

The Procrastinators Club boasts an unofficial worldwide membership that
encompasses at least half the human race. But actual card-carrying members
are believed to number about 14,000. They mainly include doctors, lawyers,
accountants, journalists and other professionals who face constant deadline
pressures.

Waas admits that club chapters outside Philadelphia are not active, adding:
"If they were, we'd kick them out."

But behind the quips and corn-ball humor, Waas says the procrastination
principle is as important as any government health warning.

"When you see who the club attracts, you see that these are people with a
sense of humor. They enjoy life more than others and seem to be healthier
and happier and look at procrastination as a fun thing," he said.

The punctual, on the other hand, are a peevish and frustrated bunch, Waas
said.
==========

JoeHa (Joseph Harper) <joeha@microsoft.com>

© 1997 Peter Langston