I went out with the gang last night, as a few of my friends are leaving and I won’t see them again before I move out of town. We found ourself in a happy little nauctically-themed bar in the mall after dinner at a decent restaurant, and I decided to make my way over to the paddlewheel (like a form of roulette) [sub]I love these things.[/sub]. I’m playing a few dollars from my hand at a time to see just how generous the wheel is, when from out of the back of the bar I hear this trumpet of a voice, “HAY RAY, HOW’S SEA BISCUIT DOING?” Ray, who apparently was standing right next to me, looks back and shakes his head dissapprovingly.
A couple of spins later, a middle aged, well dressed (and apparently very well fed) man comes over and notices a couple of wooden fish on the paddlewheel table. He grabs both of them and the same trumpet of a voice calls out “COME ON, SEA BISCUIT! ROUND AND ROUND SHE GOES, WHERE SHE STOPS NOONE KNOWS! IT’S SEA BUISCUIT AROUND THE FIRST. . .” and starts on with a mock horse race on the table while the wheel is spinning. We all lost that particular spin, and the cheeky, portly fellow meandered off. But throuought the night, “COME ON SEA BISCUIIIIITTT!” blared off sporadically like homeowned firecrackers on the 4th of July.
At first it was kind of funny, because the guy had just the kind of a voice that made it funny. After awhile, it just got plain dumb. After my ears started ringing, I didn’t much care for the guy’s hollering.
Anyone heard of/of a “Sea Buiscuit”? Is it a character from a Disney movie or something? A book? A cartoon? Or was it just some retarded pipedream of a middle-aged drunk?
Tripler
The wheel was not kind last night: I’m out $40.
My contribution to this thread is that I almost started CRYING when I saw the first movie preview because I cannot wait to see this book in movie form.
I’ve been wanting to buy another copy of the book since I sent mine on to someone else, but the used bookstore next door to my office can’t keep copies in. They say they rarely get them, and when they do they are snapped up.
lieu, after reading my posts since, what, August of 2 years ago, haven’t you already determined that I’m an IDIOT?
Cranky, hubby and I (who are very very into horse racing) watched the documentary - I WAS in tears! It’s one of the most touching stories - and incredible to boot. Then again, I may not be the best judge - at the end of the movie “Iron Eagle” I was crying and jumping up and down for joy.
And in case anyone’s wondering, a “Sea Biscuit” was basically a very hard cracker, made by mixing flour with as little water as you could and baking the resulting dough until hard as a rock. It kept for a very long time without going bad, and was used as army rations (“hardtack”) or as rations on seagoing vessels, hence the name. Apparently (so I guess from reading C.S. Forester) bugs would get into the biscuits and eat them – “weevils”, and were a constant scourge. Hermetically sealing the biscuit or storing them in tins wasn’t done for a long time.
