Extraordinary or larger than life characters you have known

Yeah, that place out 'there'. Anything not really Cambodia related should go here.
User avatar
Ghostwriter
Expatriate
Posts: 3096
Joined: Sat Feb 09, 2019 2:01 am
Reputation: 1998
France

Re: Extraordinary or larger than life characters you have known

Post by Ghostwriter »

My closest friend in Indonesia is an Australian gentleman from Irish & German parents with quite a high-range distinctive name, born & raised in the bush, used to dig mines in Alaska, live fully the 70's in the whole north America in all excesses, became an engineer working on doors for rockets / shuttles, trafficked women and booze through Borneo & Papua, then settled in Java where he still is now. Funny smart guy, older than me, knows shitloads of various technical stuff in several languages.

Turns out there is many people with similar colorful lives, so i'm not sure exactly what extraordinary means to me anymore now that i met a lot of them. It's not the extraordinary meaning perception i had in mind decades earlier.

Big mouthed people being extravagant / flamboyant / extraverted, sure, here and there, but i'm less curious about them. I like the low profile ones.
User avatar
bossho
Aging Tweaker
Posts: 622
Joined: Thu Oct 24, 2019 6:03 pm
Reputation: 276
United States of America

Re: Extraordinary or larger than life characters you have known

Post by bossho »

ImageImage

Skip Guerin, probably one of the best climbers in the world in the eighties. I met him in the 90's when we were both doing a lot of partying and flopping at the "house of pain" in Boulder. I had a room in the house and Skip was rebuilding his Alfa Romeo by himself in a friend's driveway nearby. I was still getting better at climbing then but I was never elite at all, just competent. I was always a student of that game and studied guidebooks and spoke with other great climbers about routes and heard a lot of ribald tales. Skip was such a regular guy and carried himself with no pretense whatsoever. After some imbibing I enjoyed asking him about the three or four routes he established that had never been repeated, at least not in the traditional ground up style that was the ethic of those days. It would take him an hour to say very little about the details of the first ascent, maybe he partied too much. He's still with us but no one seems to know where and what he is up to.
User avatar
truffledog
Expatriate
Posts: 1658
Joined: Sat Mar 07, 2020 4:54 am
Reputation: 1028
Italy

Re: Extraordinary or larger than life characters you have known

Post by truffledog »

Beat Richner from the Kantha Bopha childrens hospitals.
work is for people who cant find truffles
Tootsfriend
Expatriate
Posts: 1178
Joined: Sun Nov 01, 2020 9:36 am
Reputation: 513
Australia

Re: Extraordinary or larger than life characters you have known

Post by Tootsfriend »

OMG, It's a wonder no-one has met or even mentioned this Extraordinary character in your life. In case you haven't his name is mentioned in this book.
Spoiler:
Post Reply Previous topicNext topic
  • Similar Topics
    Replies
    Views
    Last post