m&dp71 - ouch!

[j minnich]

>
>
>"Mason, willing to try anything, stands his ground and with the help 
>of ***certain Gloucestershire shin-kicking Arts*** acually defeats 
>his Assailant." This rang a bell, since I'm from round those parts ( 
>as appears to be Mason) so I enquired of one of my relatives. Shin 
>kicking is a Gloucestershire, more strictly Cotswold, tradition once 
>pracised at the Dover Hill Games (known as the Cotswolds Olympics) 
>near Chipping camden and in many Cotswold Villages.
> Two men, with Iron plates attached to the front of 
>their boots grasp each other shoulders and then proceed to kick each 
>other on the shin s(OUCH!). Though regarded as a sport there is no real 
>goal it is more a test of endurance. It apparently was taken very 
>seriously, people would undergo a strict training regime (which 
>consisted of hitting one another on the shins with hobnail boots and 
>planks of wood.) and the scars were displayed with pride. I have hazy 
>memories of seeing this as a kid so it may well still go on  today. 
>Such appartently lunatic pursuits seem something of a local 
>speciality others include Shingle Sticks where two men would hit each 
>other about the head with long sticks until one of their heads was 
>split open (this done for money) and the more famous Cheese Rolling ( 
>of which my Uncle was once champion) where eopole throw 
>themselves over the edge of a near-cliff in pursuit of a  
>cheese. And they say TV is a deadening influence.
>

This seems right up there with jumping in front of trains (Ala Infinite
Jest) and something at the University of Michigan in the 60s known as the
"Gomberg Dirty Shirt," which was supposed to be a contest involving a shirt
that got passed from wearer to wearer each day (no laundering allowed) until
it got so disgusting nobody would wear it anymore.  The last person to wear
it for an entire day was declared the winner.

-j minnich
---------------------------------------------------------------
...The poet is dead.
Nor will ever again hear the sea lions 
Grunt in the kelp at Point Lobos.
Nor look to the south when the grunion 
Run the Pacific, and the plunging
Shearwaters, insatiable, 
Stun themselves in the sea.  
   -Wm. Everson