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PWK glasses on eBay - real or fake?


Emile

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7 hours ago, WMcD said:

Very interesting Diz.  Next question is whether the museum can sell some sort of rebranded booze, perhaps called Paul's Hooch.  Or have a contest to find a name.  

PWK liked Scotch and Irish whiskeys….I introduced him to Glenfiddich...he showed his appreciation by giving me a bottle of it for Christmas right after he returned from his Scotland trip (back in those days Glenfiddich was only available in an 8-year-old!)...before that he drank Johnny Walker.  My understanding is that his favorite Irish was Jameson??...but I bet if he was around today to try Red Breast, he would have a new favorite Irish!  Just saying.....

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I'm pretty sure it was Bushmills.

 

Don't let the label fool you, to me, it's not smooth or mellow. :huh: Only tried it once, but I am not an Irish whiskey person.   

 

They say it's the worlds oldest licensed whiskey distillery, 1608.

 

 

 

 

 

 

bushmills-irish-whiskey.jpg

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5 hours ago, HDBRbuilder said:

PWK liked Scotch and Irish whiskeys….I introduced him to Glenfiddich...he showed his appreciation by giving me a bottle of it for Christmas right after he returned from his Scotland trip (back in those days Glenfiddich was only available in an 8-year-old!)...before that he drank Johnny Walker.  My understanding is that his favorite Irish was Jameson...but I bet if he was around today to try Red Breast, he would have a new favorite Irish!  Just saying.....

 

Of course I defer to you Andy, as you had personal contact with him.  

 

If I knew much about whiskey, which I do not, that 1970s conversation between PWK and his entourage would have made more sense to me and my recall would be more credible.  It’s my recollection today that he was expressing a favorable opinion about an American single malt whiskey.  In any case, we know he enjoyed libations, and we know he had strong opinions, which he shared freely.

 

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1 hour ago, DizRotus said:

 

Of course I defer to you Andy, as you had personal contact with him.  

 

If I knew much about whiskey, which I do not, that 1970s conversation between PWK and his entourage would have made more sense to me and my recall would be more credible.  It’s my recollection today that he was expressing a favorable opinion about an American single malt whiskey.  In any case, we know he enjoyed libations, and we know he had strong opinions, which he shared freely.

 

My father was born in 1913...he turned 65 in Sept 1978...and I first started having conversations with PWK in his office after work hours just before then after I finished the black-powder rifle I was building for Dad's 65th birthday...So, I guess that PWK trip to Scotland happened in October or November 1978....because he was back in Arkansas well-before Christmas that year....and he brought back two cases of Glenfiddich 8-year-old single malt with him.  I believe I was the only "non-honcho plant employee" who got one of the bottles...along with a bunch of the office honchos and a few of the plant honchos or very-long-time employees.  He never mentioned a favorite bourbon in our conversations, though!...or any other American whiskey....probably because the subject came up while he was asking me about my time as a paratrooper in Europe...working with other NATO paratroopers and I threw out this:  "If you want to know what the best booze is in any country, just ask the paratroopers from that country...and they wiil also have a good low-priced alternative for when they are broke!"...at that point, PWK began asking about Scotch because of his planned upcoming trip to visit Scotland with one of the main purposes being to visit the site where the Scotish-rite Masons began...in his own words: " I'm a Scottish-rite mason and I've always desired to see where in Scotland that all started....."...……"like most WWII era Army officers, we cut our "Scotch" teeth on Johnny Walker's blended Scotch  during the war because so much of it was available to allied forces.....".  Once he said that...the conversation took a different turn....to European NATO countries and the best of booze in each of them...and the "poor man's alternatives"...beginning with Scotland!  I had worked with the Scots, and told him what THEY recommended...Glenfiddich if they could afford it....or Teacher's blended, if they were broke!  They considered Chevas Regal to be "An Englishman's abomination of what a Scotch should taste like"...LOL!  All of our conversations NEVER HAD A THING TO DO WITH LOUDSPEAKERS...I think he really "enjoyed that break from his norm" whenever we chatted....we talked about shooting, guns, re-loading, about his trains and everything else, though!  The train engines he built from scratch for his electric train sets were built based upon original blueprints for the real engines!  Simply amazing!!  He would get pretty animated in describing how hard it was to get the exact miniatures correct to scale for all the water lines and such! running along the outside of the boilers, for example!  He told me that he had bought an entire reel of really tiny copper or brass tubing once he found the right one for a particular use on his train engines that was also very close to scale!!   A "true Renaissance Man" stuck in the latter half of the 20th Century!...best short description I can give of PWK!!😉

 

BTW...PWK had been a smoker earlier in his life, but was dead set against it by the time I was working there...he was always asking me when I would quit smoking!  He had to have some kind of lung surgery in the 1960's...I think....it was related to emphysema or something....he was honestly concerned about my smoking...not to the point of riding me about it...but I honestly felt good that he was concerned about it!...He was honestly concerned about ALL of his employees, and their health, though...SERIOUSLY!!  We had the best employee health and dental plan in the entire area!!...with absolutely NO COST to the employee and the family plan was EXTREMELY low-cost!  Whenever the "number-crunchers" would suggest reducing/cutting any of those benefits, PWK stood his ground and NO cuts were made to health and dental!  He even instituted the one mile brisk walk/run thing...15 mintes prior to lunch a buzzer would go off and employees could run/jog or BRISKLY walk a set one-mile run course...for aerobic exercise...which NEVER took the entire 15 minutes to complete!   So you actally got at least 5 extra minutes out of that for a longer lunch break!  PWK CARED ABOUT US!!

 

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6 hours ago, dtel said:

I'm pretty sure it was Bushmills.

 

Don't let the label fool you, to me, it's not smooth or mellow. :huh: Only tried it once, but I am not an Irish whiskey person.   

 

They say it's the worlds oldest licensed whiskey distillery, 1608.

I think you are right!  Black Bush!  Which was available at that time stateside.  I remember now!

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1 hour ago, HDBRbuilder said:

I think you are right!  Black Bush!  Which was available at that time stateside.  I remember now!

Besides talking with Jim alot one night when we had about 25 people with Klipsch go out to eat dinner together in Texarakana,  we all had a glass of Bushmills and toasted to PWK. That was the one time I tried it.

The young girl from marketing was sitting on one side of me and my wife on the other side, they did the toast but then slid there glass over  to me. They had quite a funny face as they both were not whisky drinkers, especially served neat.  So the one time I tried it, I had 3 good size glasses, whew. I like whisky like that, but that Irish whiskey sure had a bite and a kick. 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Dave1290 said:

@HDBRbuilder Amen!  Johnnie Walker Black for years and now upgraded to Green and shootin for the Blue label.  lolol

Johnny Walker is rot gut...even Lynyrd Skynyrd says so!  LOL!  "Don't drink poisoned whiskey...."

For the price of blue-label you can get AT LEAST FOUR bottles of Dalwhinnie 15 year-old highland single malt!!  MUCH BETTER STUFF!!...Dangerously smoooooooth!

 

 

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4 minutes ago, HDBRbuilder said:

Dalwhinnie 15 year-old highland single malt!!  MUCH BETTER STUFF!!...Dangerously smoooooooth!

 

 

I know you know your Irish whiskey, but you almost killed me one Pilgrimage sitting in the hotel ballroom, it was rough.

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32 minutes ago, dtel said:

 I know you know your Irish whiskey, but you almost killed me one Pilgrimage sitting in the hotel ballroom, it was rough.

At least you helped me get back up those damned stairs to my room after the bottle was empty!  Every time I tried to make another step up those stairs, I would sway backwards instead of forwards...so there you were right behind  me... pushing against my back...one step at a time...until I got up those stairs...and we had some VERY CLOSE CALLS where we BOTH almost went rolling back down those stairs, too!  I learned my lesson though...GET A DOWNSTAIRS ROOM!!  Somebody shoulda made a video of that joint-endeavor on them stairs!!  Too Funny!!  "You OK Andy??"    "I think I am...how many more steps are left NOW??"  "Too damned many to count...just keep climbing, Andy!!"  "OK, let me know when we are getting close to the top because right now my eyes ain't working too good!!"😂

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That sounds  about right, I was not just holding you to help you but to help myself also, with the other hand on the railing, I hate when buildings are moving. 

 

Downstairs rooms would help a lot. Or just don't finish the bottle. :wacko2:

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3 hours ago, HDBRbuilder said:

At least you helped me get back up those damned stairs to my room after the bottle was empty!  Every time I tried to make another step up those stairs, I would sway backwards instead of forwards...so there you were right behind  me... pushing against my back...one step at a time...until I got up those stairs...and we had some VERY CLOSE CALLS where we BOTH almost went rolling back down those stairs, too!  I learned my lesson though...GET A DOWNSTAIRS ROOM!!  Somebody shoulda made a video of that joint-endeavor on them stairs!!  Too Funny!!  "You OK Andy??"    "I think I am...how many more steps are left NOW??"  "Too damned many to count...just keep climbing, Andy!!"  "OK, let me know when we are getting close to the top because right now my eyes ain't working too good!!"😂

This story became very vivid in my mind as I read it.  I have done that TOO many times and always vowed never to do it again.  I inevitably woke up vomiting or woke up sitting on the bathroom floor with my head on the cold tub.  Not at all fun.  The next day is just awful too.  Not worth it, but it always seems worth it when you're working up to it.

 

PWK was awesome.  I wish I could have met him.

 

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2 hours ago, dtel said:

Downstairs rooms would help a lot. Or just don't finish the bottle. :wacko2:

I dunno...I distinctly kinda remember passing out in a chair downstairs for awhile and as my eyes roiled back into my skull, my very last vision was of THE BOTTLE with about two fingers still left in it, and I was thinking I was never gonna finish it....then SOMEBODY woke me up a bit later and my FIRST vision was that same bottle with NOTHING left in it...and thinking, there is no way that I drank that while passed-out!!  So either that is what happened (which I sincerely DOUBT!) OR there was another guilty party involved in the final Irish disappearing act! 

Soooooooo...I wonder who or what might have been the "another guilty party" involved??  So, I guess that I just need to fall into my "Sergeant Schultz syndrome" maneuver and say:  "I know NOTHING!...I see NOTHING!"...huh??🤐

 

I have actually insisted on a ground floor room ever since then, tho!😏

 

And we WERE ACTUALLY using those PWK etched glasses that night, too!😀

 

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2 hours ago, codewritinfool said:

I inevitably woke up vomiting or woke up sitting on the bathroom floor with my head on the cold tub.  Not at all fun.  The next day is just awful too. 

Never got sick, but did feel bad the next day and was moving slow. Have not been sick from drinking anything since the late 70's, don't know why, probably should have been more than a few times.

2 hours ago, HDBRbuilder said:

OR there was another guilty party involved in the final Irish disappearing act! 

:blush: Well, you did say we were not leaving until it was done. :huh:

2 hours ago, HDBRbuilder said:

Soooooooo...I wonder who or what might have been the "another guilty party" involved?? 

I have no idea, I drank too much. :blush2: All I can say is thanks. :lol:

 

You gave me that metal square tag that was hanging off of the neck of the bottle, it's hanging in the pole behind the bar where I told you I would put it.........to remind me to not do that again. 

 

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10 hours ago, HDBRbuilder said:

So, I guess that PWK trip to Scotland happened in October or November 1978 . . . .

 

Thanks Andy for sharing that detailed history with PWK.  I know I met him well before 1978 at a Klipsch demo in Lansing, MI sponsored by The Stereo Shoppe of East Lansing.  You hadn’t yet introduced him to Glenfiddich.

 

I recall fondly your tale of the black powder rifle you made for your father’s 65th birthday.  Where is that rifle now?  Reading about it on Father’s Day was nice.

 

Unfortunately, I never had an opportunity to honor my father’s 65th birthday, as he had a fatal heart attack a few months after turning 64.  It’s strange now being 6 years older than my father ever got to be.

 

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10 hours ago, dtel said:

Never got sick, but did feel bad the next day and was moving slow. Have not been sick from drinking anything since the late 70's, don't know why, probably should have been more than a few times.

:blush: Well, you did say we were not leaving until it was done. :huh:

I have no idea, I drank too much. :blush2: All I can say is thanks. :lol:

 

You gave me that metal square tag that was hanging off of the neck of the bottle, it's hanging in the pole behind the bar where I told you I would put it.........to remind me to not do that again. 

 

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Yep, that Powers Irish was some pretty strong stuff!!  As for getting a chance to get on my knees and pray to the God of porcelain...haven't had to do that in decades!  Although I have come very close to it a few times!

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8 hours ago, DizRotus said:

I recall fondly your tale of the black powder rifle you made for your father’s 65th birthday.  Where is that rifle now?  Reading about it on Father’s Day was nice.

A coujple of years after I gave that rifle to Dad, he told me that he hated seeing it gather dust on a gun rack and that it should be getting used during black powder rifle deer season!  He pretty-much ordered me to make meat with it....It was an Italian-made Armsport mountain rifle kit...basically the barrel, hook-breach, action and sights were identical to what Thompson Center was selling....so I prepped it for accuracy...removed the rear adjustable sight (had too much play in it!)….replaced it with a Thompson Center primitive rear sight and filed a notch down into it where the front sight blade was barely visible in the bottom of the "V"...with the rifle dead-on at 50 yards...then modified that "V" with a wider flare-out further-up...so that I could raise the front blade up to the start of the flare-out and it was dead-on at 100 yards.  After that it was just a matter of hunting with it!  Every time that rifle was fired at a deer, it was a clean heart shot!  I won some blanket meets at rendezvous with it too!!...card-cutting contests were a breeze, also!  75 grains of FFG black powder behind a .50 cal Buffalo Bullet was my load for it!  Groups were one raggedy hole!! Very accurate!!  I hunted with that rifle every year until 2004.  It put lots of meat in the freezer!

 

When I left for the desert in 2004, I left all of my guns with my brother.  He moved to a different location while I was gone....a small rent house.  He failed to change the locks before he moved into that place and a few days afterwards that house was broken into using a key...most of my guns were stolen, including that black powder rifle!  What wasn't stolen was only because he hadn't finished moving them all at the time.

 

About 5 years after Dad told me to hunt with it...I was hanging a deer up for skinning behind his house...and he remarked that he was amazed by how accurate the rifle was, since all the deer had been heart-shot with it!   He said "I sure wish my eyesight was as good as yours is now...I'd show you how accurate it REALLY IS!"  So I loaded the rifle...handed it to him...put a beer can in the crotch of a tree about 30 yards away...and told him "Show me what you got!  Take off those glasses and squint a bullet thru the middle of that beer can!  Just cock the hammer to full-cock...set that rear set-trigger, and as soon as the front sight blade shows up in the craw of that "V" of the rear sight...let the bullet fly!"  He did it...sure enough...half-inch hole in the middle of that can!  He never let me forget it, either...BUT...I never expected him to!😉

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