Scary situations.

[Stu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stu,June 22 2005,04:28
Well, there was that time I was detained by Cuban authorities for questioning. Then there was that time I was detained by Costa Rican authorities for questioning, and then there was that time I ended up in a $1 a night hostel with a bunch of drunken, heavily armed Nicarguan Contras and then .... see a pattern here?
What the hell do you do for a living?
At that time I was a freelance journalist/foreign correspondent. In Cuba, a buddy of mine and I were out on a bike ride and he stopped to take a photo of a billboard. In Cuba they have fascinating billboards, giant drawings of a massive Fidel staring down a little ant labeled "Tio Sam," and great catchphrases like: "You should be quaking in our revolutionary presence." Â Anyway, turned out, there was an Army installation behind the billboard. It seems the Cuban government is not too crazy about Americans taking photos of their military installations. They detained us, and finally let us go, but confiscated the film. The day before we left, they delivered all my buddy's photos, developed, in an envelope to our hotel. Nice of them to develop the photos for him. In Costa Rica, I was just caught in the street with the wrong group of people, and it turned out I had overstayed my visa by about 6 months, which at that time, in the middle of the Cold War, with Panama, Nicaragua and El Salvador on fire, was highly frowned upon.

 

[Stu]

Ken Shamrock (a UFC fighter, for those who don't know). ...

Ken Shamrock is a major badass. I went to one of those UFC bouts one night and he cleaned the ring up with everyone.

 

[jasonpraxis]

What is the most scarey situation you have ever been put in? Was it an accident? Was it breaking down [without a phone] in the middle of no-where? Tell us about your most frightening situation.

9/11.

Number two is something that I tend to repeat every few years: finish whatever I'm working on and throw all my stuff in a rented truck and move to a new city. But that's the good kind of scary: it's exhilerating and rewarding and keeps me from getting too bored, complacent, or apathetic.

 

[dik_tat]

I had the opportunity to have been in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge regime.

Somehow I managed to acquire immunity, and visited the prison, S-21, where the acts now infamous were taking place.

I visited several times.

 

[faustian bargain]

i have led a sheltered, sheltered life.

once a couple years ago i thought someone was breaking into our house in the middle of the night. turns out it was the cops arresting a ne'er-do-well whom they had chased partway up our back stairs. there was yelling and scuffling, and the breaking of our fence. seems kindof trivial now. but in the middle of the night it was a little frightening.

 

[globetrotter]

Globetrotter, do you miss those days at all?

good question - I guess not more than anybody misses being young. I miss some of the rushes, the feeling of being invincible, of being rock hard and getting the respect that tough youth brings. I remember riding on top of a speeding armored personal carrier through enemy territory, or walking into a bar and pulling my own bottle of vodka out and ordering an orange juice and knowing that the barman and the bouncer weren't going to give me any bother about making my own screw drivers.

Willian Styron wrote a short story/essay once, that was part of a bigger book, I believe, about how having been a marine he could look back with mild envy but without real jelousy at fit young men - part of it is that, I know I was a hard young man once, and now I am a fat old man, and I can live with that.

would I go back? and/or give up the life I now have? not for a minute.

 

[globetrotter]

Quote:

(globetrotter @ June 22 2005,05:30) hmmmmm...... Â let me see, let me see..... I have been shelled by syrians and lebanese, nothing quite like having 155 mm shells hitting your position... I have been shot at a few times.... I have had somebody charge at me with an ax..... had stones thrown at me from the rooftop of buildings..... been close enough to either see or hear a dozen or so suicide bombs.... been in a house fire..... detaned by Macedonian cops..... I would say that the ones that really stick in my mind were when I was scared for my wife and son's well being - Â when my wife's place of work was hit by a bomb and a half dozen people were killed, but she happened not to be in the cafeteria when the bomb went off.
Globe: Â Sounds like you and I have a lot in common, i.e. young men off in search of adventure, found in some cases more than we'd bargained for, and now just want to grow fat, old and happy with the old lady and the kids.
exactly. actualy we have even more in common - children about the same age, spanish speaking wives, and, if I remember correctly, a fondness for bourbon and cigars.

 

[arrogant]

Well I've been to prison, and I've engaged in fisticuffs and a knife fight, I was in a juvenile detention facility sharing a room with a kid who claimed to have killed his parents and was probably legally insane, I was in the general area of a drive-by shooting once, I hitch-hiked alone across some of the seedier parts of Mexico when I was 14, I was raised by my mother (laugh all you want, you don't know her)

but I never panicked like I did when my 16 year old g/f told me she was pregnant. (I was 18)

dude you 're hardcore

 

[gorgekko]

I've been shot at twice but the scariest moment was during a brawl I was a participant in when a biker reached into his coat for a handgun. He didn't shoot but that was scary.

The time I ran in front of a train -- and missed getting hit by inches -- was scary...not to mention stupid.

 

[Horace]

Mine are much more boring (and tame) -- and I didn't have time to be scared, like when I was nearly scrunched up between a double decker bus in London and a wall. Looking back, I would've been finished or at least had my legs crushed, but I guess I didn't have time to panic.

As for fights, I'm not at all a badass, but I'm usually much more scared of hurting someone else than I am of hurting myself because I'm not sure I could heed certain limits if I'm going to get ****** kicked.

 

[hopkins_student]

Airplane crash

 

[T4phage]

Seeing my name on marc37's "who would you like to meet" list....

 

[mkk]

I'm going to have to reflect on my 23 years to think of anything. I too feel a bit sheltered.

 

[mkk]

(Tokyo Slim)Well I've been to prison, and I've engaged in fisticuffs and a knife fight, I was in a juvenile detention facility sharing a room with a kid who claimed to have killed his parents and was probably legally insane, I was in the general area of a drive-by shooting once, I hitch-hiked alone across some of the seedier parts of Mexico when I was 14, I was raised by my mother (laugh all you want, you don't know her) but I never panicked like I did when my 16 year old g/f told me she was pregnant. (I was 18)

Hope you don't mind my asking, but - how old are you now, and are you now a father?

 

[LA Guy]

The time I ran in front of a train -- and missed getting hit by inches -- was scary...not to mention stupid.

Every Canadian kid seems to do this. I wasn't scared because I was well out of harm's way when the train passed, but looking back, I wonder if we all grow up just plain stupid in small town Ontario?

As for brawls, I was pretty scared during my first one. After the first, it's less fear and more adrenaline. I think that gorgekko and others can relate, though his brawls seem much more serious than the ones I've been involved in (i.e. no one ever pulled a weapon out).

And yes, Ken Shamrock is a tough dude, so I'm glad that confrontation with his sparring partner didn't get physical, because even before knowing that he was Ken Shamrock's sparring partner, the guy looked like a guy who fought a lot, fought well, and could break me in half alarmingly easily.