I’ve been mulling a side-project for a while. A separate blog that would profile 365 extraordinary people. I’m talking the lunatic fringe that lifts cars off of people with superhuman bursts of desperate adrenalin, survive grizzly bear attacks by biting the bear’s jugular vein, and hit Omaha Beach brandishing a Scottish broad sword.
The inspiration came to me from the once-awesome history blog — Axis of Evel Knievel — where every day saw a post relating some extraordinary catastrophe, natural disaster, or act of human mayhem that occurred on that date. Any blog with the tagline: “Another Day, Another Pointless Atrocity” and this banner image is okay with me.
Anyway — I thought I’d jump the gun and share four anecdotes of manliness. I’ll probably never pull the trigger. I’m keeping a list and only have 100 names (men and women, suggestions and nominations welcome)
The first is from Zach Galifinakis in the trailer to Morgan Spurlock’s upcoming film on modern manliness: “Mansome.” Thirty seconds into the video, Mister Galifinakis basically ends any tenuous connection I may have had with my Klout score when he destroys Twitter with the quick zinger: “Real men don’t tweet.”
Just as Norman Mailer’s title Tough Guys Don’t Dance kept me off of any and all dance floors, Galifinakis just took the magic out of Tweeting.
Here’s to that.
Now, for a preview of the kind of manly men I would hope to bring to your attention if I were to stop procrastinating.
1. Mad Jack Churchill. British commando in World War II who went into battle with a broadsword. He had the only confirmed bow-and-arrow kill of the war when he shot a Nazi in the neck and was captured while defiantly playing the bag pipes. He is on the far right in the photo below. That is a sword in his hand.
2. Sandy Irvine: he died on the flanks of Mount Everest while climbing it with George “Because It’s There” Mallory. In the last year of his life, Irvine managed to: win the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race, explore the arctic island of Spitzbergen, bang his roommate’s step-mother, and get invited to pull on a sweater and go for the summit with Mallory. A friend wrote: ” “One cannot imagine Sandy content to float placidly in some quiet back-water, he was the sort that must struggle against the current and, if need be, go down foaming in full body over the precipice[ital.mine].” I think am going to adopt that last phrase as my motto.
3. C. Dale Petersen: killed a grizzly bear with his bare hands by sticking his arm down its throat and biting its jugular vein. Need more be said? The pic tells the tale:
Here’s four more…
– George Pollard, Jr. (Being where you’re from, I’m surprised he wasn’t first on your list. Probably some of his surviving crew deserve to be included as well.)
– Earnest Shackleton.
– William Wallace
– Spartucus
History is replete with those who gave the full measure of their effort and many who paid the ultimate price for freedom and to save those in need.
I would review Medal of Honor Winners and others who have been awarded military medals for bravery. Many claim to be a Badass but when you are under fire, your life changes forever. Some of those who fought in the Civil War defy belief for what they endured.
Middleboro, MA holds the distinction on being the home of two Medal of Honor recipients….2nd Lt. Patrick Reagan who served in WW1 and HM3 Wayne Caron who served as a Navy Medic in Vietnam…..
We are lucky to have men such as these in our midst.