Anecdotes

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Opal Bull






Bob tells this story. Dad was THE strongest man we ever knew. During World War ll, it was almost impossible to get tires, Dad had an old coupe with a flat tire, so he was walking to work. Bob and Duane during one of their outings found an old tire, brought it home, and while Dad was at work managed to get the tire on the car. Just as they had finished mounting the tire, which was to big for the car, Dad arrived home and noticed the car was sitting lop sided, and wanted to know what was up. The boys told him the story about finding the tire and Dad said, "let's try her out" So off they went. A few miles down the road, the tire came rolling off the car. They had no jack so, Bob and Duane were scouting the area for something to use to raise up the car. When they returned empty handed, Dad had found and old log and using it as a lever, raised the car so Bob could put on the tire, using one lug off the other three tires, down the road they went happy as clams.




While we are on the subject of Dad's strength, a couple more stories come to mind.

To our knowledge, Dad never used his strength against another man outside of the boxing ring. Bob was in the Army and came home on leave bringing a buddy home with him. They went out to a bar to have a few drinks. A couple of men Bob knew started a fight with him and proceeded to beat him pretty badly. His buddy could only watch, being only a little over five feet tall. Although Bob was a rangy six foot four, was no match for two thugs. Dad seeing the condition Bob was in, wanted to know what happened. Not knowing that Dad would react the way he did, Bob told him the story. We're sure if it had been a one on one fight, Dad wouldn't have reacted the way he did. One of the men was over twenty-one and that's the one Dad went to see. He invited the man to step out into the hall way and gave him a sound beating. Dad told him if he wanted to call the law, he would wait for them to arrive and if he ever touched his son again, to expect the same beating.




Dad had an uncanny tolerance for pain. Mom and Dad moved to Florida and Dad bought an eighteen foot fishing boat. While fishing one day by himself, he got a fish hook caught in his thumb. It went in pretty deep and knowing he couldn't bring the boat in, in that condition, pulled out the hook, when he did that, he said the tendon in his thumb was caught on the barb, so he maneuvered the tendon off the barb and when it snapped back in, he said he felt it all the way to his elbow.




Dad was a Greens Keeper on a golf course, he was in charge of keeping the grounds in tip top condition. He always mowed the greens himself, because he wanted them to be perfect. One day while mowing, he stopped to clean off the blades. Thinking he had stopped the blades, he reached under to wipe the grass from them. He couldn't remove his hand, so he gave a big jerk and when he got his hand out, one finger was hanging by a thread and the others were pretty badly cut. With no one around to help him, he got back on the mower and drove to the car, then drove himself to the hospital.

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I'll be adding to this page as I recall more stories. Keep checking back.










The next page is the
"Final Chapter"
The story of Dad's last day
in this world.




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