!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Gift That Keeps on Giving
The one present Roy Collette wasn't looking forward to getting for
Christmas 1988 was those pants. Yet he knew he was in trouble as soon
as the flatbed truck bearing a concrete-filled tank off a truck used
to deliver ready-mix rolled up. Sure as God made little green apples,
those pants had to be in there. And he was going to have to fish them
out, else declare his brother-in-law the winner of a rivalry that had
spanned 20 years.
Being the sport he is, brother-in-law Larry Kunkel thoughtfully
supplied the services of a crane to hoist the concrete-filled tank
off the flatbed.
What's this game, you ask? What was the significance of these pants,
and why were two grown men going to such efforts year after year to
retrieve them, only to send them off again?
It all began in 1964 when Larry Kunkel's mom gave him a pair of
moleskin pants. After wearing them a few times, he found they froze
stiff in Minnesota winters and thus wouldn't do. That next Christmas,
he wrapped the garment in pretty paper and presented it to his brother-in-law.
Brother-in-law Roy Collette discovered he didn't want them either. He
bided his time until the Christmas after, then packaged them up and
gave them back to Kunkel. This yearly exchange proceeded amicably
until one year Collette twisted the pants tightly and stuffed them
into a 3-foot-long, 1-inch wide pipe.
And so the game began. Year after year, as the pants were shuffled
back and forth, the brothers strove to make unwrapping them more
difficult, perhaps in the hope of ending the tradition. In
retaliation for the pipe, Kunkel compressed the pants into a 7-inch
square, wrapped them with wire and gave the "bale" to Collette. Not
to be outdone, Collette put the pants into a 2-foot-square crate
filled with stones, nailed it shut, banded it with steel and gave the
trusty trousers back to Kunkel.
The brothers agreed to end the caper if the trousers were damaged.
But they were as careful as they were clever. As the game evolved, so
did the rules. Only "legal and moral" methods of wrapping were
permitted. Wrapping expenses were kept to a minimum with only junk
parts used. Kunkel next had the pants mounted inside an insulated
window that had a 20-year guarantee and shipped them off to Collette.
Collette broke the glass, recovered the trousers, stuffed them into a
5-inch coffee can, which he soldered shut. The can was put in a
5-gallon container filled with concrete and reinforcing rods and
given to Kunkel the following Christmas.
Kunkel installed the pants in a 225-pound homemade steel ashtray made
from 8-inch steel casings and etched Collette's name on the side.
Collette had trouble retrieving the treasured trousers, but succeeded
without burning them with a cutting torch.
Collette found a 600-pound safe and hauled it to Viracon Inc. in
Owatonna, where the shipping department decorated it with red and
green stripes, put the pants inside and
welded the safe shut. The safe was then shipped to Kunkel, who was
the plant manager for Viracon's outlet in Bensenville.
The pants next turned up in a drab green, 3-foot cube that once was a
1974 Gremlin. A note attached to the 2,000-pound scrunched car
advised Collette that the pants were inside the glove compartment.
In 1982 Kunkel faced the problem of retrieving the pants from a tire
8 feet high and 2 feet wide and filled with 6,000 pounds of concrete.
On the outside Collette had
written, "Have a Goodyear."
In 1983 the pants came back to Collette in a 17.5-foot red rocket
ship filled with concrete and weighing 6 tons. Five feet in diameter,
with pipes 6 inches in diameter outside running the length of the
ship and a launching pad attached to its bottom, the rocket sported a
picture of the pants fluttering atop it. Inside the rocket were 15
concrete-filled canisters, one of which housed the pants.
Collette's revenge for the rocket ship was delivered to Kunkel in the
form of a 4-ton Rubik's Cube in 1985. The cube was made of concrete
that had been baked in a kiln and covered with 2,000 board feet of lumber.
Kunkel "solved the cube," and for 1986 gift-giving repackaged the
pants into a station wagon filled with 170 steel generators all
welded together. Because the pants have to be retrieved undamaged,
Collette was faced with carefully taking apart each component.
What happened to the pants in 1987 is a mystery, and their 1988
packaging (concrete-filled tank) was mentioned at the beginning of
this page. Sadly, 1989's packaging scheme brought the demise of the
much-abused garment.
Collette was inspired to encase the pantaloons in 10,000 pounds of
glass that he would then deposit in Kunkel's front yard. "It would
have been a great one - really messy," Kunkel ruefully admitted. The
pants were shipped to a friend in Tennessee who managed a glass
manufacturing company. While molten glass was being poured over the
insulated container that held them, an oversized chunk fractured,
transforming the pants into a pile of ashes.
The ashes were deposited into a brass urn and delivered to Kunkel
along with this epitaph:
Sorry, Old Man Here lies the Pants. . . An attempt to cast the pants
in glass brought about the demise of the pants at last.
The urn now graces the fireplace mantel in Kunkel's home.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Too True...
When my grandfather was in his late eighties, he
decided he wanted to visit Ireland before he died. As
part of the preparations, he visited his doctor to get
copies of charts and med info his doc thought he
should carry with him.
While there the doc gave him a quick physical and
asked granddad how he was doing. Big mistake, cuz now
the doc got delivered the litany of complaints - this
hurts, that's stiff, this doen't work, I'm tired and
slower, etc. & etc.
The Doctor shook his head and admonished, "Sir, you
have to expect things to start deteriorating. After
all, who wants to live to 100?"
My granddad looked him straight in the eye and with
the swiftness and assurity of a leprechaun sittin' on
his pot of gold, replied, "Any darn fool who's
gettin' close to 99."
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks to Marti -- Household tips for cleaning out
refrigerators:
Eggs: When something starts pecking its way out of the
shell, the egg is probably past its prime.
Dairy Products: Milk is spoiled when it looks like
yogurt. Yogurt is spoiled when it starts to look like
cottage cheese. Cottage cheese is spoiled when it
starts to look like regular cheese. Regular cheese is
nothing but spoiled milk anyway and can't get any more
spoiled than it already is.
Meat: If opening the refrigerator door causes stray
animals from a three block radius to congregate
outside your kitchen door, the meat is spoiled.
Lettuce: Bibb lettuce is spoiled when you can't get it
off the bottom of the vegetable crisper without
kitchen cleanser.
Carrots: A carrot that you can tie in a clove hitch is
not fresh. (Also, if the carrots have turned to liquid
in the original bag, do NOT attempt to drink as carrot
juice.)
Potatoes: Fresh potatoes do not have roots, branches
or dense leafy undergrowth.
Canned Goods: Any canned good that has become the
shape or size of a basketball should be disposed of
carefully.
Mayonnaise: If it makes you violently ill after you
eat it, mayonnaise is spoiled.
Chip Dip: If you can take it out of its container and
bounce it on the floor, it has gone bad.
General Rule of Thumb: Most food cannot be kept longer
than the average life span of a hamster. Keep a
hamster in your refrigerator to gauge this. (Note: Do
NOT keep the hamster in the refrigerator after HE has
expired. And be sure to check on said hamster!)
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks to SUNSHINEROSE28 -- Thank You for the Birthday
Card
Hi Roxy and Wade,
few days ago I received your heartwarming birthday
card with all the nice words, I like to say thank you
to you both. Here all is getting better now after the
hurricane storm, the power is back, internet too, also
we have TV again after a long long time without it. We
can go to the Public and buy food, the bank is open
and we can cash money too, and the best of all, we are
able to purchase gasolin again because the gas station
are re-open since few days ago.
My outside garbage which was a disaster because of all
waste in plastic bags, you know our complete roof came
down, so we had to clean up all the roofing cardboard
(schingle) after the storm. During the great heat the
smell was terrible for 3 weeks long we had this
terrible smell of the schingle infront of our entrance
door. Now the garbage people came and picked up all,
thanks god! The FEMA put a plastic blue and now we are
waiting for a roof,... new!!!
Today it is raining a lot and we have the mosquitos
back again... so I can say.. "here we go again"
During the stressful Hurricane Wilma session I learned
to live without ice water and food and only with the
basic (like War II , I remembered a lot my mother
when she told me about no food, and millions of
Germans had nothing, but hope to survive. The ironic
was: There was a place just north of Hollywood, in
Dania Beach, men were seen unloading crates of bottled
water — but no one was there to receive it because we
had no gasolin to drive over and nobody new about it
because everybody had no power and no TV or Radio to
listen to an announcement, furthermore was a curve on,
so we all had to stay in.
After we was alowed to go out there was another
announcement for water and ice and also a warm meal
but the long long line of peoples who had formed all
the streets up to 6 miles was made by error. Everybody
waited for nothing and when peoples after standing 6
hours in line, complained there was police who
directed the situation and they said "shut up"... well
I learned a lot in this almost 2 years hurrican season
since I am in USA and I am really thinking of leaving
this nice state as soon I can.
Now everybody is getting prepared for Thanksgiving and
x-mas and all the shops are full with stuff and items
and people rush out and nobody is talking about
Hurricanes until the next one will come again and we
all have to get reprepaired again!
I do wish you a great Thanksgiving with a big turkey
hopefully you all enjoy it.
All my best to you and thanks again for the birthday
card.
Gaby and Albert
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks to J & J R: this is what makes proofreading
hard
olny srmat poelpe can.
cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty
uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of
the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde
Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the
ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is
taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae.
The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it
wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos
not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a
wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling
was ipmorantt!
if you can raed tihs psas it on !!