Why my opening story even came to light is beyond me. I was just perusing a newspaper and the memory surfaced from a long time back.
Maybe it was reading about the legal troubles of a 15-year-old boy who was looking at multiple charges. Or maybe it was due to a 15-year-old girl without a driver’s licence being clocked driving at almost 190 kilometres an hour.
I don’t like going that fast in an airplane.
But, for some reason, this story came back to me from my old days announcing stock races at a place called Circle Eight Speedway.
The late Gene McMahon took over the stock-car scene in the mid-1960’s and was looking at ways to attract the paying public with something different.
The ideas, I know, were many. But one he decided on and stuck with for years was the demolition derby.
He advertised throughout southern Alberta looking for potential drivers, while also stressing the rules and the need for safety in such a dangerous sport, if you could call it a sport.
The first derby attracted a field of only 10 or so, but one of the entries kind of stuck out. It was from a guy named Gord Gurnett and, on the form where age was to be written in, he’d put down 12.
“Geno” immediately contacted the young man and told him in direct terms that to drive in a demo derby you had to have a driver’s licence. If you can believe this, the kid said: “Where in your rules does it stipulate that?”
There was no rule and McMahon was handcuffed. He had no choice but to let the youngster run and, to be quite honest, even as a 12-year-old Gurnett did not look out of place in his first demo derby. As the years went on he became a regular and posted several wins before becoming a motorsport daredevil.
Sometimes the best stories are actual events, and I ran into a couple just recently.
The name of the first person will be kept secret and you’ll soon find out why. This man, whom I have known for probably 40 years and tipped many a pint with, has had his personal problems of late, and as part of the rehabilitation program has turned religious on us.
Now that doesn’t make him any different than he was before, except that the drinking part is behind him and he’s committed himself to daily sessions at church. During a recent holiday in Arizona, this baseball buff somehow found tickets to a World Baseball Classic game. But in securing those ducats he had to miss his morning church session. And while watching the game realized that he and his travelling buddy had to leave the game early so he could be at church for the late service. They departed during the seventh inning of a game between Canada and Mexico.
As you might recall, that game ended with maybe the biggest baseball brawl in the history of the game with both sides throwing haymaker after haymaker and many of them landing squarely on the target. It was a baseball fight that would have made hockey players proud.
I didn’t hear his comments, but I’m betting that Hockey Night in Canada’s Don Cherry would have cheered that one from start to finish.
For my friend it was not good news when he got back to his hotel after church, only to get partial glimpses of the battle on television. But he did fulfill his duties.
My second story involves long-time, and I mean long-time, Calgary Stampeders equipment manager George Hopkins.
Earlier this month George and his wife Cathy were to celebrate a wedding anniversary. When she asked what they were going to do, his direct reply was: “I don’t know about you, but I’m going to the Italian Sportsman’s dinner.”
He suggested they could celebrate another time. That night he joined 700 or so others at the dinner and purchased a $20 ticket which offered the winner a trip for two anywhere that WestJet Airlines flies.
When it came to draw time “Hoppy” was blessed with having his ticket drawn which had him out of the doghouse at home but being envied by the rest of us in the crowd. And that night Cathy was one happy camper.
To be honest, I never liked Reggie Jackson as a baseball player. He was without question a superstar but he never was one of my favorites. So it was a kind of a surprise the other day when I read a quote from the long-time major-leaguer that made an awful lot of sense. It read: “I feel the most important requirement in success is learning to overcome failure. You must learn to tolerate it, but never accept it.”
Smart words to live by, I’d suggest.
