QUOTE (John Sandberg @ Sep 2 2008, 05:33 PM)
God, when we were kids, NOBODY wore helmets except racing. Which is great.
I miss those days...not just being a kid, but growing up in a period before the world got so completely freaked out about safety and fear that little Johnny will get kidnapped.
This photo wouldn't happen today because 1. There would be four parents standing among these kids; 2. The kids would be wearing helmets; 3. The four parents would require that the kids stand back another 100 yards.
We were so lucky to grow up in the '70s and early '80s (and in the '50s and '60s for DC, Conley and Moe).
Apparently, you still have not visited the skate/pool park in Mound. Concrete, iron grinding rail (mounted in immovable concrete, with sharp corners), not a helmet nor an adult around. Just lots of big air, and hard concrete to smack your melon wide open on. I watch the kids there, and I feel the opposite.... I actually wish a few of the dumbbells would put on some mellonware.
And please, quit forgetting to add number 426z green to that list of important numbers.
Seriously though....
I did a quick browse, and I am baffled as to making any sense of old numbers.
Here is a 1979 shot at BJs. I had WHITE number 68Z and Jeff K had WHITE number 10Z. I also had on some sweeeeet sweat pants, a pimp pinstriped helmet with my name on it, an uber pimp Miller Beer shirt, and I was riding on super small Red Line V-bars, complete with a Red Line pad on them.
I also happened across some other confusing details. In this shot, I had a professionally painted 426Z GREEN number plate in Rochester. Shawn is clearly watching in his yellow duds with number 7, but as I will prove in the next photo, this is 1980, so Shawn carried number 7 both years??.
And here is a shot that shows my plate as 426Z in green, HOWEVER, it was not the same day of racing, as the numbers are stickers, and the Z is a small hand painted letter on the bottom. More importantly, the trophy says 1980.
And after further evaluation, as an aside, the blue helmet exactly like mine, with a Minnetonka Youth Hockey Assoc. jacket, with a "hat trick" patch on it, had me baffled as well. After further review, I think that must have been Mick Heiland (RIP), who's father drove the bulldozer to clear off the burning site, and create Shorewood BMX from it's ashes.
So, bottom line, the numbers during that time period are a mystery to me when looking at photos. If I was to pay attention to the photos, and apply point system logic, it would tell me that Jeff was number 10 in the NBA in 79, and having a white plate, he was an expert. Which leads me to being number 68 in '79 in the NBA, which means Jeff had more points than me in '78 by a long shot. Then in 1980, I went back to being a novice with a green plate....etc.... It's all bunk. They must have started the green plate in 1980 or something like that, or we carried ABA numbers with a Z added for NBA numbers too, or who the heck knows? .....Not me. I think we just did whatever the hell we wanted in those years...HA!
But I found your number 10Z anyway. Jeff Karsten.
