The Greatest Show on Earth!

Step right up folks.  Be amazed! See "The Greatest Show on Earth.  Three rings of excitement, intrigue,

mystery, and drama.  All right before your very eyes.

In the first ring, see the young man!  Daring, exciting, full of vigor and youth.  See him attempt great feats of

daring.  See him from his childhood adventures, throwing his first football, making his first tackle and growing

in leaps and bounds.  Watch him as goes on his first date, tastes the lips of the girl in his first kiss and feel his

sorrow in his first heart break!   See him as his mother hugs him goodbye and his father shakes his hand as he

goes off to the Marines. Feel the passion, the uncertainty, and experience the fear that fills him for the first time

in his life. Feel his despair and the warmth of his tears as he carries his sister's coffin to her grave.

Look now to the second ring!  Examine his ascent into manhood.  His father at his side, the best man at his

wedding.  Don't look away before his first child is born!  Watch him giving cigars away and proudly showing

photographs of her to anyone that he can stop for a moment.  Imagine his misgivings as he experiences so

many firsts! Mortgages, sick kids, career decisions and finances.  Imagine the joy and madness that

accompanies the birth of three more children.  Breathe deep his hopes and plans for a future for them all!

Gaze now on the third ring!  Dreams, aspirations, great sadness with hope are the stars. See his unrealized

dreams fade before him.  Watch as aspirations are replaced by reality, circumstances both within and outside

of his control.  See his marriage fail and the sadness, grief and madness that accompanies divorce.  Watch his

hopes soar as his runs his first marathon, meets a childhood friend and falls in love again for the first time.

Experience the melancholy as his children enter college, throw their first football and make their first tackle.

Swell with pride over his children's accomplishments and be encouraged in his belief that everything will work

out if you just keep the faith.

Ladies and Gentlemen, don't look away for even one moment.  Life......... it's the "Greatest Show on Earth!"

The Legend of Linthicum Hill

Every town has a legend.  A story retold again and again passed down from generation to generation.  Usually

it's of a heroic deed, perhaps a touchdown pass in the state championship football, or  the final strike in

the state baseball championship or maybe it's rescuing someone from a burning building.  Alas, I think for my

generation it's Linthicum Hill.  Maybe we should call it the Sled Ride on Linthicum Hill.

It was 1982, I don't remember the exact date as it's been 28 years since the legend was born.  Some men are

destined for greatness others have greatness thrust upon them, some of us are just plain unlucky I suppose.  I

would fall into the latter class.  It had snowed in Tarrant on that fateful day and had left the streets with a thin

sheet of ice on them and just enough snow to cancel school and send us all in a frenzy.  When it snowed

everyone would head to Linthicum Hill in our little town.  Linthicum Hill was the Mount Everest of Tarrant

City.  It was a monster hill.  I don't know the exact height of Linthicum but I consider it one of my greatest

accomplishments as a kid that I rode my bicycle all the way up the hill without having to get off and push.

I know many of my friends that could not do that.  I can tell you that it was so long and so steep that my

friend Allen and I "popped wheelies" in his father's wrecker while driving up the hill.  He would put it in first

gear, pop the clutch and the front two wheels would come off the ground.  Let's for argument's sake say

the hill was a quarter mile in length and steep enough to touch the sky.   Anyway, back to that fateful day and

our hero, yours truly.  When it snowed everyone gathered at Linthicum Hill to watch the bravest of brave

sled down the hill achieving speeds of Olympic magnitude only match by those crazy men that get on that

little sled called a luge.  I (the hero please remember) was a senior in high school and thus endowed with

levels of testosterone and stupidity that leave medical researchers shaking their heads in disbelief.  It was

considered brave to sled by yourself on a real wooden sled with the metal runners and the faux steering

board that gave only the slightest ability to steer during your run.  If sledding by yourself was considered

brave then sledding with someone was considered, well stupidity I mean courageous beyond belief.  I think

it was Scott Clements who suggested the fateful ride, he on the sled and me on top and we would start at the

very top of Linthicum Hill with a push from our friends (or so I thought at the time).  The beginning went well

and we began to pick up speed.  I swear at one point that we begun to go so fast that I saw a portal to

another dimension open up in front of the sled.  Unfortunately, what reality was there was a truck.  Apparently

someone had tried during the snow to go up the hill in a truck, couldn't get up the hill, slid down the hill and

parked on the side of the road.  We failed to take into account the velocity, trajectory, distance and weight

in our calculations on the sled run in which we were currently on at the time of the ride.   Really, what we

failed to take in to account is that the manhole cover was warmer than the rest of the street and when the

runners of the sled hit it, it changed our trajectory.  Yes, you guessed it.  We were headed for the truck.

Now, if you have followed this through you have deduced that the person on top of the first person on the

sled is the one that might hit the truck about bumper high you would be correct.  I cannot explain to you what

the word stop really means.  Many of you will mistakenly think that you know what the word stop means.

You will assume that you have hit the brakes, that watching Fred Flintstone push his feet to the ground

while driving or you have run into a door frame when not paying attention will have experienced what stop

really means.  I am here to tell you that you are wrong, incorrect, have a negative assumption of the word

stop.  The word stop can only be experienced if you are going down Linthicum Hill on a sled with another

person at about a hundred miles per hour with everyone watching and I mean everyone that you know is

watching and then hit a truck parked at the bottom of the hill.  That is the true meaning of the word "stop"

and if you do not experience this you will never, ever, ever know what stop means.  Trust me on this one.

People will tell you they were at Super Bowl 12, that they were at the Sugar Bowl when Barry Kraus

stopped Penn State from scoring or they were there when Bo Jackson scored over Alabama to break the

ten year domination over Auburn, people in Tarrant City will tell you they were there the day Mike White

ran into a truck sledding down Linthicum Hill.  Legends are born this way........