Page 20 - 2016.01.19Voices!
P. 20
Tell Me A Story
Ridiculous, Idiotic Feats of Manly Strength
by Joe Anthony, ACS, ALB
Since time immemorial man agreed to duel the prize bird of died, after the 11th dish from a
has tested his strength, stamina, the Jacksonville Florida Zoo– condition we recognize today as
and prowess against the forces of an ostrich named Percy. The Old Country Buffet Exhaustion.
nature. We scaled sheer, crum- weapon of choice picked by
bling cliffs to plant our proverbial the ball player was, of course, When you consider the fact
flag. We hunted lions with spears Spaghetti. On April 3rd the that ostriches can stomach
to prove our valor and elimi- about 8 pounds of grain, one
nate competitors for food. Jacksonville City Hall was
We allowed poisonous ants filled with eager onlookers, might find Percy’s death-
to pierce our skin to display despite the event not being by-pasta a little suspect.
our unflinching resolve. And advertised in the local paper. Except for the fact that
we challenged giant flight- Ping managed to put down articles about ostriches
less birds to spaghetti eating 11 bowls of pasta while Percy, and emus eating them-
contests to…wait, that one probably due to a very small selves to death are pretty
doesn’t sound right. brain, tried to match the burly easy to come by.
baller noodle-for-noodle. By
Really? This happened? firsthand accounts Percy also Man vs Octopus
Well, okay. ate a man’s pocket watch by – Wrestling
accident. Depending on the
For your entertainment source Percy also passed out, or In the time-worn
(but mostly for mine) pages of ancient history
here are two unnecessary, we find documented cases
possibly idiotic feats of of divers dragging octopi
manly strength performed up from shallow waters,
by individuals hell-bent on risking life and limb to
telling the animal kingdom show these 8-limbed
to step aside. sacks of writhing muscle
who’s boss. How far back
Man vs Ostrich – Spaghetti in the annals do we have
Eating to search to find these
titans of the deep; these
In 1919 Ping Bodie was a chisel-jawed men willing
center fielder for the New to spit in Poseidon’s eye
York Yankees. That’s 1919, as for machismo and brag-
in the year before prohibition, ging rights?
when America had three things Oh, only about 1949, as seen
in abundance: liquor, baseball, in Mechanix Illustrated.
and a shockingly negligent And that’s not even the
attitude toward animal cruelty. latest version. In 1963 during
This was about five minutes the World Octopus Wrestling
before the 20’s began to roar, Championships (oddly a real
when the country as a whole thing), a 57 pound Giant Pacific
had beer muscles, and we were Octopus was wrangled up from
ready to prove it at the drop of the blue. And “giant” isn’t a
a hat. colorful moniker they gave to
the animal that previously held
So it was that the hardy the title for “not being dragged
Italian-American Ping Bodie
20 Volume 2 Issue 6 - JANUARY 2016
