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Book Blog
topdawgnc
Member Posts: 7,838
in Tug Tavern
The Boys In The Boat
The story of the UW Crew team who went on to win gold in Hitler's Olympics (which were slightly more free than Obama's Amerika)
Not quite as gripping as other Washington influenced books, like, Bow Down To Willingham, however, Boys In The Boat is highly recommended. Not only an interesting read about the history of crew, especially at Washington ... it also gives tidbits like Oregon being the big game during the 20's.
There is also a good peek into life during the great depression. Pretty fucking rough.
As I read about the dust bowl, where NYC experienced a "black blizzard" of top soil from North Dakota, or how Seattle had record rain fall for 30 days ... was it global warming?
Amazed me that the annual crew game against Cal would bring 80,0000 to 100,000 people to the shores of Lake Washington.
The story of the UW Crew team who went on to win gold in Hitler's Olympics (which were slightly more free than Obama's Amerika)
Not quite as gripping as other Washington influenced books, like, Bow Down To Willingham, however, Boys In The Boat is highly recommended. Not only an interesting read about the history of crew, especially at Washington ... it also gives tidbits like Oregon being the big game during the 20's.
There is also a good peek into life during the great depression. Pretty fucking rough.
As I read about the dust bowl, where NYC experienced a "black blizzard" of top soil from North Dakota, or how Seattle had record rain fall for 30 days ... was it global warming?
Amazed me that the annual crew game against Cal would bring 80,0000 to 100,000 people to the shores of Lake Washington.
Comments
That book will make you doog it up, in an "merica fuck yeah" kind of way.
#calrankedtoohigh
Thanks for ruining the end of the book for me too, motherfucker.
CD, mp4, cassette, 8-track.
Very good book IMO. Would make a great period piece motion picture.
There's so much going on it. The life of the protagonist makes for an incredible story on it's own. The peek into depression era life in the Pacific Northwest is great. Life on both sides of the Cascades is captured. Life on the peninsula, life in mining towns, life in and around the Grand Coulee project, as well as life in and around Seattle.
Was also blown away by the popularity of crew in those days, and by how UW really did field an amateur crew made up of boys from local towns. The crews they faced in the Olympics were mostly made up of older, physically more mature, pseudo-professional teams. The pre-war German propaganda machine is discussed in some detail, as is the life of a master boat builder who found his way to UW from England via Canada. His influence on crew in the USA is amazing, as is UW's. Cal owed it's success to a UW coach, something I was unaware of until reading this book.
It really was interesting to read again about the dust bowl, record heat waves, the "black blizzard", and other climate extremes and had to wonder whether or not they teach this in school anymore. I remember reading about and discussing it decades ago. Doing so today might wake a curious mind or two in a way dangerous to anthropogenic climate truthers, so I'm guessing common core has eradicated this history from the current text books, or distorted it in a way to fit the current agenda.
Anyway, I highly recommend this book, especially to folks from the PNW, doubly so to fellow UW grads.
We are a crew school.
And they're lucky they didn't have to race a U-Boat.
2. Real UW fans read the book last summer when it came out
3. A nice reminder that we're all pussies these days. For other examples of this, see Bednarik, Chuck.
And we will always be a crew school, unless the money runs out. So keep shopping at Nordstrom.
Oh yes, I have thoroughly RowingSuperiorGuy-edIt in this thread.
#TacomaHookerSuperiorityGuy