Hello All... A THC Refugee Here!

[cricket]

Doug, 5 years is a long time to be away from home. Thanks for the info. Hope you have wonderful, peaceful weekend. God Bless!

[dstauffer]

Thanks cricket!

[Far Rider]

dstauffer said:

I am originally from northeastern Ohio;

What a coincidence, I am too. I am still a Browns fan although I don't live there anymore. We used to have a kid here from Grand River, Ohio, right up on Lake Erie.

[dstauffer]

My hometown is -- or was -- the epitome of high school football: Massillon. For those of you who may not know or heard of, Massillon is approximately 8 miles west of Canton -- home of the Professional Football Hall of Fame. Some may not even realize this, but the Hall of Fame game (which usually kicks off the season) is actually played in a high school football stadium: Fawcett [sic] Stadium, which is the home of the Canton McKinley Bulldogs -- archrivals of the Massillon Tigers.

...just a little local football history there.

[Far Rider]

Oh, my God!

Massillon is my old stomping grounds; my girlfriend lived there.

You may have heard of the forum that spawned this one: the Burton City Hubcap, named for Burton City, just north of Dalton on Rt. 94.

burtoncityhubcap.blogspot.com/

You will notice that you made the front page today. I hope that's all right with you.

Here's the city limits sign:



Massillon is known for the championship football teams it has fielded over the years, and that area in Ohio has some great motorcycling roads.

[dstauffer]

Well...well... it is a small world after all, isn't it, Far Rider?!

Having not lived in Massillon for many years, I vaguely remember Burton City -- but I certainly remember Dalton.

I grew up on the west side of Massillon and often traveled through Dalton. In fact, back in 1985, after my enlistment in the Army was up, I returned to Massillon and ended up working as a pipe threader at Benmit Hydrotesters, right off of Lincoln Highway (Rt. 172) -- though I am not sure if Benmit was in Dalton-proper.

As far as making the front page of the Burton City Hubcap -- I'm deeply honored! I saw what you posted and noticed there were some "funny" symbols within the posting; possibly a formatting problem?

Again, Far Rider, I am deeply humbled by the posting and offer my sincerest thanks.

Take Care!

BTW - I will be returning to Massillon around the 1st of June. My father still lives there and we will be spending some time there - at least a few weeks.

One other thing: forgivde my ignorance, but who is Laura Ingraham? Just curious. I would like to read what she had to say.

[Far Rider]

dstauffer said:

As far as making the front page of the Burton City Hubcap -- I'm deeply honored! I saw what you posted and noticed there were some "funny" symbols within the posting; possibly a formatting problem?

Yeah, Blogger has a problem with non-standard punctuation marks. I saw it as soon as I posted it but didn't have time to fix it. I'll get it.

Laura Ingraham is a radio talk show host. She was in Iraq for a week a month or so ago and said a lot of the things you said.

You can hear her radio show webcast from 9:00 AM to noon on this station:

www.whkradio.com/

Alternatively, you can click on the link on my web page to bring up Windows Media Player (or Mplayer or whatever you have...).

Here is her website:

lauraingraham.com/

There are some pictures of her with the troops posted. Along with Rush, she is my favorite radio show host. Give her a listen and she'll keep you in stitches while she keeps you informed.

[dstauffer]

Far Rider -

Thanks for the info regarding Lauar Ingraham; I really do appreciate it. Having been out of the country since 2001, I haven't been keeping up on such things as talk radio -- I was grateful to get NPR when I was in Bosnia; here, we really don't get anything.

Unfortunately, listening to webcasts is extremely difficult with our satellite internet connection. By the way, people who complain about the price of their internet connection should come over here and pay our internet bill of $2,400 every three months ($200 per month; per person -- there are four of us here)!

[Remey688]

Canton, Ohio is Timken territory

[dstauffer]

Timken as in steel or as in football?

[Remey688]

Tapered Roller Bearings, Case Carborizing Steel, Drill Bits . . .

[dstauffer]

Remey688 -

Oh, yes, Canton is certainly Timken "country" in that regard. North Canton was considered "Hoover country" -- don't know if it still is.

[tits]

dstauffer said:

My hometown is -- or was -- the epitome of high school football: Massillon. For those of you who may not know or heard of, Massillon is approximately 8 miles west of Canton -- home of the Professional Football Hall of Fame. Some may not even realize this, but the Hall of Fame game (which usually kicks off the season) is actually played in a high school football stadium: Fawcett [sic] Stadium, which is the home of the Canton McKinley Bulldogs -- archrivals of the Massillon Tigers.

...just a little local football history there.

I use to get to Ohio's steel mills regularly. I really enjoyed Massillon! Great "real" American midwest city!

One of my special memories occurred when one of our company's senior engineers from Massillon invited me to dine with him. We had just completed a reline of soaking pit at LTV East in "Cleveberg" and Ronny had come up to help schmooze the LTV whiteshirts. Ronny was such a blowhard and bragged all the time about Canton/Massillon high school football. He lived and breathed OSU ball and was a personal friend of Woody.

Ron demanded that I spend an extra evening and drove us down to Columbus to take us to dinner. We had just sat to drinks when this little elderly man with snow white unrully hair and a huge stoggie hanging out of the right side of his mouth walked up to the table and smiled broadly at Ron and took the empty seat. WOW! dinner with the great Woody Hayes. Man that guy cussed enough to embarrass a DI.

dst, you should be very proud! Massillon/Canton are two wonderful towns!

[dstauffer]

Tittus -

That was a great story about Woody! Both of my sisters are OSU alumni and my oldest sister told us a few stories about him. Woody was one of my Dad's heros. In fact, in 1977, my Dad ordered a brand new Ford Thunderbird with a custom scarlet paint job with grey pinstriping!

Yes, I am proud of my hometown -- though I could never live there again -- and I am especially proud of my roots and upbringing. Though my family is Democratic, they are also very conservative and have traditional family values and deep patriotism. At one tiime, I had something like six cousins serving in Vietnam with all four branches of the military. One of the reasons why I joined the military is that I thought it was my duty to keep up the family tradition.

[tits]

Yes, my maternal family is huge and very democrat. However, most of them are so conservative that they would make Archie Bunker blush.

I too had 11 cousins serve during the Vietnam era, five us went and one was KIA just outside of Hue City. The funny thing is that I am easily angered by those who are now into the third generation of never serving attempting to tell us what the military is like.

Though this photo has little to do with military, I can hear the gunny shout "Stand Fast Marine." I wonder if anyone has ever done a study on the percentage of general population that get into trouble versus those who had served in the military. It still amazes me to think that in our father's wars roughly 3:10 men served in uniform. By the time of our war it was down to around 1:10 and today it is down to 1:24. Talk about "the few the proud."