Stuff I Encounter in Cyberspace. . .

[Palehorse]

So a whole lot of folks in the midwest of this nation, and perhaps some of you reading this, may recall watching "Bozo's Circus" on television as a kid. I know I do, and it was a staple in our household as me and my siblings were growing up. I was watching it at home the day JFK was assassinated, and recall the network interrupting the show to report on the president's shooting and eventual death. I was in kindergarden . . .

As fate so often has served to have things in my life, one day I obtained a job at a local factory and was quickly moved up the ranks to management. And I  was a peer with a man who looked strikingly like Ringmaster Ned. So much so that it didn't take long for me to realize his last name was also Locke; so I asked him. Low and behold he was indeed the son of Ned Locke, and thus started a 32 year and counting friendship that continues to this day.

I've tried on the Top Hat, and coat of the Ringmaster himself; which I swam in by his son wore as if it were tailor made for him. Norb and I share a love of outdoors and we spent many a fall season pursuing salmon on Lake Michigan for over 15 years, until I left the state.

Norb in his more formative years, spent his time building dragsters alongside the likes of Big Daddy Don himself, and he cut his chops during drag racing's infancy.

I ran across this add today on social networking, and it is a piece I had never seen before, so I shared it with my old friend:



Norb has been retired for a number of years now, but shortly after retiring he paid his old Buddy Don a visit at his racing museum in Florida. He never got rid of the racing bug, and in his retirement he wanted to rebuild his old dragster again. And Norb is not a man to pursue such endeavors lightly. Sure enough Big Daddy had his old dragster's frame sitting right there in the museum, and he gifted it to Norb and the quest was on.

He now tours the nation at NHRA events each season, displaying his old dragster which has been restored to its former glory by the owner himself. (With some help from his son). Here's a coupe of pics of him and his dragster, which now carries the Moniker "Grandpa's Toy". (And it runs. He and his wife dragged it by on their way to Louisville several years ago, and we fired that puppy up on the road right outside my house, and he smoked the tires). 

[libby]

Interesting story, PH.