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Someone suggested (insisted, really) that vpw was not only an athlete, but that he was an exceptional one, part of the tiny handful of people capable of great feats of athleticism. The exact words used previously about this was that he had "an OVERabundance of brains and brawn", and that he was "OVERgifted". and that "when he walked, the earth shook." I'm not going to address the other points at this time. For fun, I thought I'd recap his athletic accomplishments and what they mean and what they don't mean. vpw was on his high school varsity basketball team. The end. THAT was the end of his athletic "career." Oh, but wasn't he a professional ballplayer, and on his college's team, and so on? NO. He later (when he was used to getting away with all sorts of inflated claims) claimed he invented the hook shot (attributed to Lithuanian Pranas Talzunas or Harlem Globetrotter Goose Tatum, among possible others). However, his previous claims are easy to track. He said outright he was on his high school basketball team. He showed photos of that. He later said he "PLAYED BASKETBALL ALL THROUGH COLLEGE." He showed no team photos from college. Did he actually say he was on the team? No, he was deliberately vague-he prevaricated. He phrased it so people could mistakenly think he said he played on his college's varsity team. However, all he said actually was that he played all through college. If he played a game of pick-up once a semester, he "played basketball all through college." ANYBODY could do that if they could move freely around the court, dribble, pass and shoot, even if they could do none of them WELL. vpw was fond of inflating his credentials and claiming everything he had even a questionable right to claim. If he was on the varsity team, he would have said so and shown photos. He didn't even try to claim membership in the JV team. Furthermore, he "was involved with" the Sheboygan Redskins team. Again, people thought that meant he played on the team. Someone even read that claim in "TW:LiL", cited their source, and claimed he played on the team. But their source for that was the sentence where he said he was "involved with" the Sheboygan Redskins. What WAS his association? Did he take them out for ice cream after the games? Was he the waterboy? Did he sweep up after the game? We only know he wasn't actually on the team as a player because someone once went through the roster of the entire history of the team, and his name does not appear ANYWHERE. So, we can either speculate that he was on the team but somehow absent from every record, or we can avoid being unforgivably stupid and accept that he was never on the team and never claimed he was. So, in short, vpw's career as an athlete goes all the way up to high school graduation and ends there, never joining a team or competing at any level. =========================================================== How does that stack up against the general population? I took a poll and started a thread here some years ago, asking about everyone else's levels of involvement. About 40% of GSC posters actually exceeded vpw's athletic achievements, either because they were on the college varsity team, or because they competed NATIONALLY at a sport (i.e, was eligible to be considered for the Olympic team),, and so on. All actual athletes, Including me. *holds up his varsity letter* The percentage of posters who were athletes at least to his level (meaning, high school varsity or higher) jumped into the 60s. That means more than 1/2 the posters who responded were athletes at least to the level of vpw, with most of those exceeding his accomplishments. ========================================================= Those are the actual, record-able participations we're discussing, things a matter of record. In those, vpw was shown to be strictly AVERAGE in athletic accomplishments. What about BEYOND college and tournaments and national competitions? As to that, vpw would be the first to LEAP forward and trumpet his participation and involvement. Yet, we have a tremendous silence on that front. We have him HINTING about a team in college and outside college, but never having the nerve to just outright lie and claim he was on either team. He also never had any anecdotes of athletic accomplishments otherwise. We don't have him claiming he used to preach to the trees then chop down record numbers of them. We never have him claiming to have performed some leaps, swimming, or even hiking accomplishments of any note. (I imagine that somewhere, sometime, he talked about walking while hunting, but I'm talking about LONG walks like a marathon or any size.) What does that leave? vpw's accomplishments-and thus, all measurable yardsticks of his athletic ability- end at high school varsity, and after that vanish into some vague double-talk that never directly claims he was on the college team or any other team. It's all smoke and hot air. Even his own father said he never worked hard on the farm. By any measurable standard, wierwille was average and lukewarm AT BEST, and underperformed almost 1/2 the GSC posters in athletics. Naturally, it's still possible to insist on discarding both the facts and the logic, but that's on the head of the person determined to do exactly that.

$h!t

According to Wikipedia, Italian sandwiches ("heroes") were sold by Italian immigrants in the US (in NYC and other places) starting in the 19th century. with NYC ones becoming "heroes" around 1937. Then again, they also say they were invented after that in 1903, so make of that what you will. (See the beginnings of the entries for "submarine sandwich" and "Italian sandwich.") Lots of places have had people make fast food to buy and eat while working or traveling, throughout history. Empanadas have their traditional crimp on one side from the original purpose of eating them with one hand while at manual labour (so I've been told.) Again, there's examples across the centuries, across the continents.

He said it lots of times, some of them to Corps members, including those with military service backgrounds (they do more work before 9am than most people do all day...) Uncle Harry said it was due to their German upbringing (check TW:LiL for the exact quote, but he said that.) The hypocrisy of vpw saying it was that he skipped his chores on the farm all the time. His own Dad was quoted as having said so (TW:LiL). We know vpw vanished in the woods for hours at a time. Harry-who did not see him during those times- seemed to have confused him with Billy Graham. He said vpw was preaching to the trees. BG rather famously addressed his own nervousness at crowd-speaking by preaching to trees and altar calls alone in the woods. (Uncle Harry plagiarized too. This was a plagiarizing family. Plagiarizing and farming were the family businesses.)

If there were a book on VPW would it really be that compelling? He got drunk a lot and lied to a bunch of kids. (or call it plagiarism) I think that story his been written a thousand times before. The book won't be written due to a lack of uniqueness.

If saint vic was in prison he might get a taste of his own “motor coach medicine” when fellow inmates “minister” to him in the shower.

Yes and for good measure as a door stop prevention strategy- you might want to post a sign on your forehead