good talk

In the early 80's Goodyear's most popular tire brand was "the Wingfoot." After awhile all of the Rubber Companies dropped their basketball teams due to the expense except for Goodyear who kept the Wingfoots going due to their love of basketball. As late as the 1964 Olympics Goodyear had 4 Wingfoots on the Gold Medal Winning U.S. Olympic Basketball Team. One of these Gold Medal Winning Goodyear Wingfoots was Larry Brown. Yes, that..... I had a good friend in high school (Akron Firestone High, Judy Resnik, the ill-fated Astronaut who was aboard the 1986 Challenger which blew up was a year behind me and I knew her slightly, Stu Powrie who was a member of the Thunderbirds, the Naval Aerobatic Flying Team, who was killed flying in 1982 was in the same class as Resnik, Chrissie Hynde was 4 years behind me and Angie Everhart went there, the 3 grades totalled a thousand, it was a public high school but had its own indoor Olympic Size Swimming Pool and its own Planetarium, the physical layout was impressive, I was in the 1st graduating class in 1965) whose father was a Vice-President of Goodyear and he threw a Cocktail Party at their house for the entire Goodyear Team in honor of the 4 Gold Medal Winning Wingfoots good effort. My friend was at the Cocktail Party, not to drink, he was just "17," but just to be there, I would have been there too except nobody invited me, that threw a damper on things. This was like a Command Performance, the entire Goodyear Team was there and one of the 4 who had won a Gold Medal brought his along to show his Hosts and one of his teammates took it and told my friend to hide it, ha, ha. The Naval Aerobatic Flying Team is the "Blue Angels," the Air Force's is the "Thunderbirds." So Everybody was Fat and Sassy in the Rubber City in the Fall of 1964. When my Father was playing ,Goodyear and Akron U would have a double-header and draw 4000, as this was in the midst of the Great Depression I would like to think that it provided Wholesome and Upbeat Entertainment for the General Public. I'm sure it didn't cost much to get in and you could have an entire afternoon taken up by an uplifting example of high athletic endeavor. You might enter the gym feeling down because you had no job and leave feeling much better about things. My Father probably only wanted to play 2 years for Goodyear as he had his work to do, being on the team entailed traveling long distances by train to say, Bartlesville, Oklahoma to play Phillips 66 and to Denver to play the Denver Truckers. Athletic Teams founded in the 20's and 30's often took the names of local occupations , i.e. the Green Bay Packers, the Pittsburg Steelers. Unfortunately I must leave this fine subject to bring up Kelly Ripa's and her husband's threatened lawsuit against the Enquirer because the Enquirer said that she and her husband were on the verge of splitting up (I feel like a Gossip Columnist). I don't know about anybody splitting up but I do know that that wouldn't be the worst thing that the Enquirer knows about these 2. People who live in Glass Houses.......Kelly is sort of likeable in a Little Girl Lost type way, but really think of the Bohemian things that these Lesbians do with each other, ugh. It would seem like Lesbians would be kind of limited in what they could do with each other, Real Limited when you think about it. I tried to set a Good Example for Kelly for the past 8 years, I did my Best.