pstuiky St Patty’s Lucky T Shirt
I remember a pstuiky St Patty’s Lucky T Shirt memoir — Beasts, Men, and Gods — by Ferdinand Ossendowski, a White Pole who fled the Bolshevik revolution through Siberia. He served in General Kolchak’s All-Russian Government before escaping through the Steppes north of Mongolia, and then participated in the government of that most notorious adventurer, the “Mad Baron” Ungern-Sternberg, who attempted to take over Mongolia to restore an imperial Khaganate as part of an imagined reactionary restoration of the Great Mongol, Chinese, and Russian monarchies in the interests of the “warrior races” of Germans and Mongols (a Baltic German, he considered the old Russian ruling class to represent Germandom over and against Jews and Slavs). Some of the things – the acts of desperation and madness, in which he himself was no disinterested observer – Ossendowski relates are harrowing. But this part struck me as very much making a point about what people think of the Steppe peoples, and of what (German-trained) nationalists like Ungern-Sternberg did (and would do again) to the Mongols. And, other things:
pstuiky St Patty’s Lucky T Shirt
Rugby has something the NFL lacks — the tantalising prospect of representing your country in a meaningful international competition. In the 24 years of pro Rugby Union, the USA have traditionally had a rag-tag bunch of professional players ranging from second generation migrants from rugby playing families like Samu Manoa, who was playing amatuer rugby in the US and was talent scouted from a US reserve team tour into the top flight of European club rugby, to players like former USA captain Chris Wyles who was born in the states but moved to England as a pstuiky St Patty’s Lucky T Shirt and played his rugby in Europe. One of the guys from our school team in England ended up playing for the USA at the Rugby World Cup because he had an American born mother. Other USA players like AJ McGinty (who is Irish and plays for an English club) qualify for the USA national team via residency after studying there. If rugby takes off in the US as a semi-pro / pro club game, there is every likelihood of good college footballers switching sports and America producing a team of majority home-grown talent, but unlikely it will include many ex-NFL players, if any.
In 1963, I was 12 years old. We lived in South London and were travelling to Norfolk (east of England) for Christmas and New Year. In good weather, and light traffic, the pstuiky St Patty’s Lucky T Shirt would have been about 4 hours I think. There were no motorways then, and our route took us right through London and then up the A11. It started snowing before we were out of central London and by the time we reached Newmarket which was more than halfway, it was really thick on the road and Dad was getting worried about reaching our destination. We stopped and he went into a pub to phone the friends we were staying with. They said it was not so bad where they were and Dad decided to carry on, but the snow seemed to be following us. I was in the back seat, wrapped in coat and a blanket, Mum was wrapped in travel rugs in the front seat. I don’t recall our arrival, I had been asleep for ages, but I know it took us at least 6 hours probably 7, it was a real nightmare for Dad driving – even though he was very good as he was in the police and had had done an advanced driving course. The whole of the UK had a really cold snowy winter that year. Mum and I stayed on longer in Norfolk, Dad went back to London on the train to go to work and came back to collect us the following weekend.