Not All Metaphors Apply

For most of us, saying "I wouldn't trust him as far as I can throw him" is a phrase meant to convey a complete lack of trust in someone, because throwing someone for most of us would not result in much yardage.  Billy Bangert had to express distrust a different way.

Billy Bangert, who recently passed away at 87, was sometimes referred to as the 'World's Strongest Mayor,' for founding a town in east St. Louis in hopes of attracting the Olympics, while at the same time being a champion shot-putter, discus thrower, caber tosser (a Scottish telephone pole), and all-round strongman of novelty events.

(Ron Swoboda was once described as the strongest Mets outfielder, but then some wag added: "odor's not everything.")

Stephen Miller gives us Mr. Bangert's surely colorful life in an obituary in today's WSJ.  It is not without some confusion, although it is straightened out when you do a little research.

Mr. Miller tells us Billy carried the 775 pound Dinnie Stones across the River Dee bridge in Potarch, Scotland.  At first, this was thought to be a vary large large human named Dinnie Stones. Perhaps a relative of Dwight Stones, the U.S. Olympic high jumper.

Not so, since reading on there is a reference to someone doing the same thing with Dinnie Stones in 1860.  This would make Dinnie quite an old person who hasn't yet succumbed to being overweight, let alone being over 150 years old.

No, the Dinnie Stones are a pair of very heavy rocks in Scotland that people lift up, carry, toss a bit, and if successful, carry across the Potarch Bridge.  They seem to do strange things in Scotland, perhaps due to the weather. 

But after all, they did invent golf.

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