LOL......A buddy of mine gets paid $20 per hour (10 years ago) to change lights on the CN Tower in Toronto. In actual fact, he'd probably pay them to get out there.
Nope of the day
- Thread starter Big Dad
- Start date
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Big Dad
Well-Known Member
no thank you
NoCar340
The Original Partstitute
...and that's just a wee little practice hill.
Ski jumping is a huge deal in this area. We grew up a couple of miles from what was the largest man-made ski jump on Earth, though now it's just North America. The video on this page shows what it's like to jump that beast. My brother was a jumper for a time; we have home movies of him veering off a landing and hitting a telephone pole when he was about 8 or 9 (different, smaller jump). I know a lot of local guys who've competitively jumped, including Terry Campbell, who went end-over in that video netting six broken vertebrae. I was there that day, too young to remember his crash, but others still shudder about it. After recovering, he went right back to it.
My idiot brother went off the jump on downhill skis in the mid-1980s. Twice, because he didn't die the first time (nor second). In high school we drank beer atop the jump itself, and I skied the landing several times and rode it in a plastic sled. One friend rode the landing on a refrigerator box. The bottom was smoking when he stopped. It's steeper than it looks. You're going about 90MPH at the bottom, much faster than jumpers slowed by air resistance. Another friend fell down the 'marking steps' (visible right of center in the Wikipedia photo, right along the white barrier fence) after falling near the knoll while trying to turn. Those steps are over 450' long. No broken bones thanks to winter clothing, but I thought he might bleed out on Mom's kitchen floor. We called him Aunt Bunny for quite awhile afterward.
The annual Continental Cup tournament held there is the largest tailgate party in Michigan.
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