A Blast From The Past

I am an only child...almost. My father got remarried after my mom and adopted his new wife's daughter so that gave me a sister, Tori. Years later (many years later) after my mom got remarried. Her and her new husband had a son so then I had a brother. Andy was born the day before my 21st birthday and he was the cutest, best little boy in the world! I think he still is but he's a young man now. Boy! Time flies!

As I mentioned in a previous post, when you're from South Dakota, you go to the Black Hills...a lot! It was the weekend of Andy's second birthday and we wanted to have a little vacation. The four of us (Mom, her husband Russ, Andy and me) headed to Rapid City. We were staying at the Holiday Inn which is an 8 floor hotel based on an atrium plan. The inside was open all the way to the top with the rooms around the outside. That's high design for South Dakota!

One night (I think it was the second one) the fire alarm went off at 4am. I did NOT want to get out of bed. After a few minutes, my mom came into my room and said that we better get up. She thought we should get dressed first and go to the bathroom. In the meantime, I looked out the window and there were already people outside of the hotel in their PJs. Well, we got dressed and started to head out the door with me leading the way. When we opened the door we heard someone yell from the bottom of the atrium, "GET BACK IN YOUR ROOMS!!! THERE'S NO FIRE!! GO BACK IN YOUR ROOMS!!!!" Well, I'm a smoker and I wanted to smoke which I couldn't do in the room. I continued to head out the door to smoke when Russ grabbed me and pulled me back. As soon as the door shut a gun shot when off!

There was a gunman in the hotel!! What the hell was going on?!?! This was South Dakota for goodness sakes! We weren't in the middle of DC or Atlanta! This was South Dakota, the safest place I've ever known.

Well, Russ pulled us all away from the door and into the other room (we had a suite, if you can call it that). We turned on the TV and at first there was nothing then the local news team showed up to fill us in. In turns out that a guy about 19 stole some guns and came to the hotel looking for his girlfriend, well, ex girlfriend. She wasn't working so he decided to take the front desk people hostage and head to the 8th floor. He pulled the fire alarm and when people started coming out of the rooms, he grabbed some of them and forced everyone into their room.

We were getting all the info from the TV. No one from the hotel called while this was going on. Yes, the front desk staff was unavailable but I'm sure the manager of the hotel was called or at least the next person in charge. But we heard nothing from them!

Mom and I looked at each other and I asked her what she thought we would be doing if we were up at this time on purpose. She looked and me and said drinking a beer! So we cracked a few and continued to watch TV. By then, Russ figured out where the camera crew was set up. He called us over to the TV and said "Watch this." He started flipping the lights on and off and we saw our room on TV! It was pretty funny...especially after a few beers!

My mom decided to let me smoke by the window in the room, which was VERY nice of her. While I was smoking a cig, I decided to call my boss back in Virginia. He answered the phone and immediately ask where I was. I said that we were in Rapid City. He said that some nut was holding people hostage at the Holiday Inn and I told him that was exactly where we were! Again, it was funny! At that point we were down to just a half of a roll of toilet paper! We were starting to worry about that.

In the end, the gunman let everyone go and shot himself in the stomach as the cops were coming in the room to get him. I never found out what happened to him. Oh well! We were finally "released" from the hotel at 11am. We ended up being one of the lucky ones. Remember those people that went out of the hotel in their PJs? They spent the night in the convention center with NOTHING!!! At least we had beer! When we checked out of the hotel, they weren't even going to offer us a discount for that night! They didn't even mention it until my mom brought it up.

That was one of my brushes with danger during my life so far. I also have a story about a bank robber but I will NEVER tell that story!!! Do you have a brush with danger? What was it like?

Fishing in the Hills

When you live in South Dakota, you go to the Black Hills on vacation...A LOT. I think because it's one of the few things that you can do in the state. I was about 7 or 8 years old when my grandparents took my aunt Kim, uncle Mike and me on our bi-annually pilgrimage to the almighty vacation spot in the Hills. We hooked up the Starcraft Pop-Up camper to my grandpa's new Ford LTD and headed west for 350 miles (if you haven't been there, South Dakota is flat and well, it's VERY flat).

We camped at a place with Black in the name - Black Horse, Blackshoe or Black Fox - something like that anyway. We spent a couple of days fishing in the trout stream beside our camp site but didn't have any luck. I did however fall in the stream which was normal for me at the time. It wasn't a trip unless I got soaked head to toe. As I said, we we weren't having any luck. I think it's because you couldn't throw a rock without hitting another fisherman. My grandpa was not going to give up. He had his mind set to catching some rainbow trout and nothing was going to stop him.

The next day we set out to find a trout stream. We drove forever and every place we saw was fenced in and had no trespassing signs. We came upon a town that, according to the sign, had a population of 3 and a dog. Shortly after that grandpa spotted his stream. It had a fence around it but no signs. Grandma waited in the car while the rest of us climbed the fence to try our luck. It was mine and Kim's job to catch grasshoppers to use as bait while grandpa and Mike fished. And boy, did we have luck! We caught 6 of the most beautiful rainbow trout you have ever seen!

We were loading the fish and the equipment in the trunk of the car when a truck we has seen in the tiny town stopped. To the best of my memory, this is the conversion that took place.

Truck Guy: "Hey! What do you think you're doing?"

Grandpa: "Leaving! What does it look like?"

Truck Guy: "Looks like you've been fishing where you should have."

Grandpa: "Well, where are the signs?"

Truck Guy: "It's down the road."

Grandpa: "Well a fat lot of good that does here!"

Truck Guy: "You getting smart with me?!"

Grandpa: "If I was, you wouldn't know it!"

Truck Guy: "That's it! What's your name?"

Grandpa: "Jim. What's yours? Asshole?"

Truck Guy: "You stay here I'm going to get the sheriff! You're trespassing and you're going to pay for it!"

Grandpa: "Good! Get going asshole!"

At this point the truck guy tried to turn around in the road and backed into the side of the cliff. My grandpa stood there laughing as hard as he could and slapping his knees. The truck guy finished his turn and speed off. As soon as the truck guy was out of sight, grandpa turned around to us and said "Let's go!" We hopped into the car as fast as we could and sped off in the other direction.

My grandpa fried those fish up for dinner that night and they were the best tasting fish I can ever remember eating!

Any funny stories about your grandpa?