Let's have some fun!!!!!

[BearBio]

When I went back to college, I went to California Baptist University and was required to take 5 Units of Constitutional Law. We looked at the historical context and each of the amendments. Final exam was an actual California Bar Exam question concerning Neo-Nazis, First Amendment, Second Amendment, Fourth and Fifth Amendment issues in a hypothetical.

Somewhere I remember reading that there was a Constitutional Amendment exempting hunting, fishing, & military stories from perjury laws. I MAY be wrong! It HAS happened once or twice in the last ~76 years! .

What is your BIGGEST whopper or TRUE story??

I'll start: I was skin-diving/snorkeling with an Australian buddy off of Seal Beach, CA and came face to face with a 25 ft great white shark and fought it off with a Swiss Army Knife (my buddy swore it was a 3-5 ft blue and my speed in one direction was exceeded by its speed in the other direction. Who you gonna believe? That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

 

[Hilldweller]

Used to surf just south of there in Sunset, Huntington Beach (aka “tin can beach at that time), and others.

More to your point….true story…

Buddy (pilot) and I were flying in his Piper Cherokee from Long Beach to Las Vegas (McCarran Int’l Airport at that time) for our first stop on the way to Utah. When approaching the hills close to the airport we contacted the tower announcing our intent land and included “Mode T” to let the controller know our transponder could not ‘squawk’ our altitude. When we broached the hills the controller requested we squawk our altitude to which we replied “we’re mode ‘T’. Obviously confused, the controller repeated his request, so my buddy dialed in our altitude (7500 feet) and pressed ‘ident’ effectively ‘squawking’ our altitude.
There was a long pause, then the controller came back with “Ahh….confirming 7-5-zero-zero?” To which we replied “that’s affirmative “7-5-0-0”. As we approached we were on high alert because McCarran was known to be very busy. Oddly enough we didn’t see a single plane/jet anywhere….on the runways/taxiways or in the air.
Long story short(er)…they vectored us to a runway. On close approach we noticed a few airport security vehicles with their light bars flashing. As we landed we noticed there were security vehicles pacing us on either side of the runway. We turned onto the taxiway and turned into the fueling station, swung around to point the nose at the taxiway for our exit and hit the brakes hard when we noticed 8 security vehicles, lights going in a semicircle directly in front of us. No sooner than we stopped there was an officer banging on the pilots window yelling for us to shut down the engine.
We were ordered out of the aircraft and taken in separate cars to the security office.
The two cars were Airport Police and FBI.

Turns out 7500 is the emergency code for hijacking. They had the airport shutdown for over 45 minutes, diverting all incoming traffic to other airports.

Controller: rookie who didn’t catch our “mode T” transmission(s).
Pilot: should have made sure the controller copied the above.

We pissed off some major players who probably wanted our heads. We pissed off a S#17load of travelers. Pilot got a slap on the hand. Don’t know what happened to the rookie controller. I do know that the controllers mucked with us on the way out vectoring us half a dozen different ways before we left their airspace.

We flew to Dagget airport for fuel on our return trip. When rolling down the landing strip there were MANY jets parked to the side of the runway each with a Russian red star on their tail. Talk about feeling “dazed and confused” !!

 

[Karate_kid]

Following...

 

[BearBio]

Used to surf just south of there in Sunset, Huntington Beach (aka “tin can beach at that time), and others.

More to your point….true story…

Buddy (pilot) and I were flying in his Piper Cherokee from Long Beach to Las Vegas (McCarran Int’l Airport at that time) for our first stop on the way to Utah. When approaching the hills close to the airport we contacted the tower announcing our intent land and included “Mode T” to let the controller know our transponder could not ‘squawk’ our altitude. When we broached the hills the controller requested we squawk our altitude to which we replied “we’re mode ‘T’. Obviously confused, the controller repeated his request, so my buddy dialed in our altitude (7500 feet) and pressed ‘ident’ effectively ‘squawking’ our altitude.
There was a long pause, then the controller came back with “Ahh….confirming 7-5-zero-zero?” To which we replied “that’s affirmative “7-5-0-0”. As we approached we were on high alert because McCarran was known to be very busy. Oddly enough we didn’t see a single plane/jet anywhere….on the runways/taxiways or in the air.
Long story short(er)…they vectored us to a runway. On close approach we noticed a few airport security vehicles with their light bars flashing. As we landed we noticed there were security vehicles pacing us on either side of the runway. We turned onto the taxiway and turned into the fueling station, swung around to point the nose at the taxiway for our exit and hit the brakes hard when we noticed 8 security vehicles, lights going in a semicircle directly in front of us. No sooner than we stopped there was an officer banging on the pilots window yelling for us to shut down the engine.
We were ordered out of the aircraft and taken in separate cars to the security office.
The two cars were Airport Police and FBI.

Turns out 7500 is the emergency code for hijacking. They had the airport shutdown for over 45 minutes, diverting all incoming traffic to other airports.

Controller: rookie who didn’t catch our “mode T” transmission(s).
Pilot: should have made sure the controller copied the above.

We pissed off some major players who probably wanted our heads. We pissed off a S#17load of travelers. Pilot got a slap on the hand. Don’t know what happened to the rookie controller. I do know that the controllers mucked with us on the way out vectoring us half a dozen different ways before we left their airspace.

We flew to Dagget airport for fuel on our return trip. When rolling down the landing strip there were MANY jets parked to the side of the runway each with a Russian red star on their tail. Talk about feeling “dazed and confused” !!

"Tin Can Beach" to us was Bolsa Chica. Rode back from there with my best friend's head (He died my sophomore year of college=LBCC, followed by the Army, then Cal State Long Beach) in my lap, in the back seat of his mom's '51 Victoria after he got "rayed" there. Years later, I got slashed by a swimming ray (not TOO painful!). Good place to go to park, while in college!

Do you remember "Airplane Hill" on Signal Hill??? Used to find fossilized sharks' teeth there!

Going back down to Seal Beach soon to move my niece up here!

 

[Hilldweller]

Los Al high & CSULB alumni here too! “Airplane hill”, damn haven’t heard that in a long time. Remember in Jr High we’d ride our bikes to Sig Hill and dare each other to go down that steep sucker. The hill wasn’t the problem, it was the crossroad at the bottom. Few close calls there !

Once we were “too old” for those shenanigans and had our drivers license we’d head up to the top of Sig Hill to the make out spot. Forget the name of it but it was where there was at least one couple murdered up there a few years earlier.

We stayed away from The Pike and the carnival area downtown. Too seedy for us.

We should chat offline, or next time I’m in Leavenworth visiting my buddy I’ll trek over to Wenatchee and we could meet.

 

[BearBio]

We'd get drunk and go to the Pike when later teens!

SoCal was the greatest in the '60s & early '70s! Went X-Country skiing at Wrightwood, then surfing at "The Cliffs", bonfire that night! Was telling my wife just last night how we came home one night and had our first Whopper. We worked at McDonald's while at LBCC and swore it beat the Big Mac!

Saw so many things off of the SoCal coast while fishing, it was the inspiration to become a Marine Biologist 35 years later!

 

[Hilldweller]

When I was with LBFD (33+ yrs) our go-to was Joe Jost down on Anaheim St. for one of their “Specials” (hot dog, dill pickle spear, Swiss cheese slice, and mustard on rye bread), a large iced mug of beer, a pickled egg, some pretzel sticks and small yellow hot peppers. Still crave those today.

Weekends was the “Belmont Shore Shuffle” hitting most of the night life establishments ending at Legends. Was working when that place burned down. So many additions over their long history kept the fire hidden in (basically) inaccessible area of the attic.

I took my girlfriend to Catalina on a 25’ power boat one weekend. I deadheaded all the way there and ended up exactly where we were supposed to be. (bird rock) Amazed myself, but of course never admitted how happy I was that we actually arrived at the island at all ! Neat side note….when we anchored near the shore we were right next to Donald Sutherland’s boat which looked like a Spanish galleon from the rear. Did some “air toasts” with him.

Used to scuba dive with a dept buddy over there too but those are stories for another time.

 

[BearBio]

After I graduated from grad school but before I started with Fish and Wildlife, I taught a Marine Biology Lab for my alma mater at the "Isthmus" . Woke up to the students screaming we were sinking. I heroically carried 27 scantily clad young college girls up to the deck (Keeping with the original hyperbolic theme of this thread!!). Then I told them it was just the pilot whales rubbing against the hull to scrape the barnacles off their backs.

Similarly, I rescued single-handedly 30 students from a jaguar while we were in the jungles of Belize while teaching a Jungle Ecology class for the college (It was just a bunch of howler monkeys at night!). However, I didn't tell them we WERE being followed by a jaguar until we were back to the lodge on another day!

C'mon guys!! Let's hear some TALL tales!!!

 

[Hilldweller]

What was one of Bill Murray’s lines from Animal House?………”I wanna party with you man !!”

 

[VancMike]

I'm late to this thread, but...

Years ago, I bird hunted with Keith, a friend who had a pair of setters. I had Frieda, a German Shorthair, who hunted nice and close. His setters had a tendency to range a little too far away, but, oh well.
One weekend, we were hunting the Columbia River breaks in Klickitat county for quail and chukar. It was a cold December day and towards the late afternoon, we looked down river and saw huge, threatening grey and black clouds billowing upstream our way. We were close to the truck, so we turned on the radio and heard warnings about blizzards in the Gorge, upcoming highway and road closings. We called the dogs, but only one setter showed; 'ol Luke was still out ranging somewhere.
With the prospect of being trapped by the oncoming blizzard, we finally had no choice but to leave without Luke and slink back through the Gorge to Vancouver.

Keith went back as soon as he could, but it was still one of the worst winters and he had no luck. I joined him when I could, but...

Finally spring came. We made another trip; there was one farm house in the area, but they hadn't seen him. We went down to where we'd last hunted and walked desultorily through the new spring grass. Flushed a Hun.

Then Frieda, my shorthair, kind of yowled. I saw where she was looking and in front of her was Luke. Well, Luke's skeleton. On perfect point. Right front paw raised, tail straight out behind him. Collar waving a little in the breeze, a little tinkle from the bell.
And 6 feet in front of him, a skeleton of a quail, sitting hunched, hoping no one would see him.....