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Gary
climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Oct 29, 2008 - 01:27am PT
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Allie, you are a very lucky woman to have had such a father. Ouch! was a genuine soul. I had the same hillbilly upbringing and really appreciated his outlook on life.
He had a great run. As others have said here, he just got it right.
RIP Ouch!
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Oct 29, 2008 - 01:37am PT
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hey there son of ouch!, andrew.. wow, thanks for shareing here... and YEP, we all know how well a possom munching on an ol' sweetpotatoe feels... :)
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Omot
Trad climber
The here and now
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Oct 29, 2008 - 02:32am PT
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Oh no, say it isn't so. This is very sad. My condolences to Ouch's family. He was the best, and will be missed.
Tomo
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Ouch!
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 29, 2008 - 03:39am PT
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From Allie,
Hi Andy! I was hoping I would see you here...
Should we tell them how much he liked Anne Murray? haha! It's true!
I was thinking today that I always thought it was weird that I was named after him being the only girl and the youngest...I loved having the similar names when I got older. He was Allen Gayle and I am Allison Gail. Kind of cool. I think I want to go back to the maiden name again now... I always thought if I hadn't remarried by the time my girls went to college I would make up my own last name because both of mine are really hard to pronounce.
When I was young we had chokecherry trees in our back yard. Dad took a switch off of one of them and whittled it down and swooshed it through the air and put it on top of the fridge...while I watched. When he wasn't around I would get up there and take it and get rid of it. When he noticed it was gone...he would have me go to that tree and get another one and put it back on the fridge again. Sounds bad in this day and age but the best part is that....that switched never touched me. I cannot even remember how it got started that he put it there in the first place but it had become a game. A year did not pass when I grew older that at some point he would say..."you better be careful or I'm going to make you go get a switch." Last time he said it was last Christmas. I was 43. He didn't have a mean bone in his body.
Want to hear something totally bizarre? Sure you do! Ok...so everyone in our family can touch their elbows behind their back. haha! You think that sounds like no big deal? Try it....
All of us can. We got it from dad. hehe. His kids and all of his grandkids. Andys son is a bit young still to know if he got "the gift" : ) haha but I guarantee he will be able to...How did we all figure out we had said gift? I have no idea...then again how did my dad come to make pictures that entertained many with a combination of your awesome photos and wildlife, aliens, twinkies, cartoon cops, sharks, and countless other unexpected figures? Sometimes it is better not knowing how things came to be but simply relishing in the fact that they did.
Andy...since you never answer your cell phone...hehe...call me before you head over to mom & pop's this weekend. I want you to take mom to Target whether she wants to go or not. She loves Target and has not been out of the house for more than 45 minutes at a time in the last year. She will enjoy it...trust me. She needs to get out and not feel guilty about it so come up with a reason that she will believe on why you want to go there.
I'll be seeing some of you in Seattle I am quite certain : )
Goodnight and thank you...
~Allie
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Hardman Knott
Gym climber
Muir Woods National Monument, Mill Valley, Ca
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Oct 29, 2008 - 03:47am PT
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Awesome posts, Andy and Allie! I just tried to touch my elbows together, but alas, I can knott.
At this point, I'm thinking some photographic proof is in order...
Oh, by the way, I got a good laugh when I saw the user-name Son of Ouch...
-or as Ouch was very recently wont to declare:
ROTFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!1111
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Ouch!
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 29, 2008 - 04:25am PT
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From Allie,
Aha! I sense a good challenge coming on...and from that I will not turn my back. : )
You will receive such photographic evidence in the coming days...as I sense a bit of skeptism regarding our genetic gift? haha!
~Allie
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nature
climber
Santa Fe, NM
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Oct 29, 2008 - 09:04am PT
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touching your elbows together? That's easy!
How about putting your foot behind your head?
:-P
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Oct 29, 2008 - 10:01am PT
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Allie Gail and Andrew
Thanks so much for your comments.
Please join us at the Taco as often as you can.
Your remembrances of your father are wonderful.
He really was an amazing man, and we only saw part
of his genius.
Thank you so much!
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Hardman Knott
Gym climber
Muir Woods National Monument, Mill Valley, Ca
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Oct 29, 2008 - 12:12pm PT
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Nature - I put my foot in my mouth fairly often.
Does that count?
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Ouch!
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 30, 2008 - 02:45am PT
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From Allie,
(Ok...so my daughter says that putting these symbols in makes it italic on myspace....haha..hope it works here!)
Nature..
touching your elbows together? That's easy!
How about putting your foot behind your head?
:-P
Even easier... :)
So...
I wanted to share something with you that you probably don't know about OUCH! He was an amazing freehand cartoonist his whole adult life. Truly a natural. When we were young he painted. Built his own eisel and spent hours painting. I don't know where they went. He never did anything for the praise or credit. He probably threw them away when we moved. I am hoping to find a few in mom's basement. He also carved wooden birds...ducks...seagulls..geese...cranes, etc. We all have the ones he made in our homes. His very first one was a duck that he turned into a lamp and I have always loved it. Now I love it even more. He had to stop because he could no longer be around the wood dust that it produced. He continued to draw by hand until he could no longer do that because his hands shook so bad as his illness progressed. He went to the computer and continued to find ways to express himself through his art and it is evident to me in the pictures he was doing in the earlier years that the simplicity increased in the last year due to his hands shaking uncontrollably. Still he kept creating them. Every crooked line or slightly misplaced face makes me smile...because I know the heart it took for him to make it when so many others would have sat down in a chair and let their mind head in the same direction that their body was going. He is the ultimate prime example of how easy it would be to make the mistake of judging someone without enough information to accurately do so....I think of that every day now.
I have read many threads my dad was on here and I admit a few of them made me really angry...until I asked myself who I thought I was kidding? My dad relished in it and trust me when I say that he was so secure with who he was that there is nothing that anyone on this planet could have ever said to him that would have changed that. The cartoons he produced for all of you are evidence of someone who valued the right to ones personal expression and enjoyed a bit of good old fashioned mud slinging with those that could take it as well as give it out along the way! If someone was not getting "it" he seemed to take the high road after sometimes pointing it out to them...often in ways they probably did not even recognize. What he didn't like to do was hurt anyones feelings and when he did, it appears he put in the effort to make it right. Laying down at night not feeling better or somehow powerful due to efforts to make someone else feel badly ...now that is the lesson to be learned...and he was a great teacher of such lessons. Don't get me wrong...I cannot say that he never crossed any lines! I'm sure he,like all of us, had his moments. The one thing I have seen here several times is that when they first crossed paths with my dad on ST, before they got to know him...that is when they felt slighted...or downright hostile! It takes time to get to the bottom of someones soul and see who they really are. We all need to take a bit more time to delve deeper before casting judgement and if after we do...the person is still an ass...then we have the choice to walk away or continue to fight that losing battle. We all know when we are in one...it is what we take away from it that matters I would think.
There is nothing worse than a bully...they learned what they saw when they were young I would guess and they took it to school with them and out onto the playground and they grew up and moved it into the boardroom or into their own family home or to chatrooms or wherever they could find someone that would keep giving them the fix they need. Amazing thing is they don't really ever make many valid points. They only want to win whatever battle it is they are fighting in their own head that they have yet to figure out. Intelligent debate with open-minded people is an awesome thing. this forum is full of them...
Bullies suck. As hard as it is for me to grasp sometimes I truly feel like they need empathy more than anything else because walking around angry all of the time must be exhausting and has to fill them with continual sadness. Typically cannot change them so the one thing I will not do is to walk along side them down that same path...
Sorry. Major rant. I am way behind at work and there is a "bully" that will not cut me a break and is just begging me to snap! I will never give him that satisfaction... : )
~Allie
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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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Oct 30, 2008 - 03:00am PT
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Allie is definitely "warming up" to the campfire eh?
Ha ha...that's great.
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Oct 30, 2008 - 03:58am PT
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Heck of yeah, I love it when a stranger makes me cry. Welcome on in.
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nature
climber
Santa Fe, NM
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Oct 30, 2008 - 06:53am PT
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Allie... well.. i guess then touching the bottom of your foot to the top of your head is easy too?
more neat stories... thanks!
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Oct 30, 2008 - 07:00am PT
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hey there allie... that was such a deep and sweet, yet strong letter... you are a precious jewel to your dad, dear gal...
say, i have a gift for you... email me... and god bless...
hit the names here, and you find the emails...
but remember to mention supertopo, so i will know where the email is from...
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Crimpergirl
Social climber
Boulder, Colorado!
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Oct 30, 2008 - 05:14pm PT
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I've been on the road for over a week with no internet/taco access. So now I'm sitting in a library in Tombstone Arizona weeping as the man next to be keeps glancing worridly at me.
There aren't words really. I loved Ouch. I was honored to be in his cartoons. I loved emailing with him. I started to believe he could never die.
Callie
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mynameismud
climber
backseat
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Oct 31, 2008 - 01:09am PT
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Dang, Bummers. I lurk only on occasion lately but OUCH is one of the few characters here I can actually rememeber. Will miss his humor.
God Bless
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Gary
climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Oct 31, 2008 - 01:39am PT
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Poor Crimpie, we understand...
That's why folks keep bumping him to the front page.
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Ouch!
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 31, 2008 - 05:09am PT
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From Allie,
My dad loved toads... : )
He called me Peaches or Peach from before I was even born. He sent it to me and just had "PeachToad" in the subject line...hehe. I don't know if he posted it here for something as well but it totally cracked me up.
I am trying to get through this week without the string that I am hanging on by breaking...you guys help keep me together right now. I believe the state I am in would be categorized as complete denial. I guess if I recognize it that somehow makes it ok. Thanksgiving and Christmas without him seems unimaginable. I am too tired to come up with anything positive to say to try and make myself feel better...not a good sign. :( I think I am down right grouchy...
He bought like a case of these plastic green frogs that the arms and legs could be twisted up into poses...that he would give my kids and then he would buy them back from them. hehe. Went on for many years. A few months back we were at his house and my daughters had a bunch of them that he had given them in the past...They ambushed him and tried to sell them all to him at once and he agreed on a payment plan. haha! He sent them 2 payments in the mail after the initial down payment. They thought it was so kewl...as he would have said... :) He loved spoiling his grandkids more than anything in the world...
Ok...I take that back...I feel a little better.... : )
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Oct 31, 2008 - 05:20am PT
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hey there allie... say, that toad just made my day... or morning, rather... :)
what the "heck" i say kindly, did i stay up THIS late for...?
oh, my, as i cruise back here to supertopo, i learn WHY:
that's why:
IT WAS FOR THE TOAD! just to see you POST that ol' toad and story...
now i feel better, too, and i just need to justify staying up---nothing as serious as your sad loss...
god bless to you, dear allie...
*check your email when you can...
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