A little story about Trader Vic

While visiting my cousin and her husband for Christmas in Walnut Grove, CA, I happened to meet one of her husband's childhood friends, a man named CJ. Now I thought it was odd that he had recieved for Christmas a Hinky Dink's aniversary mug, so I asked him about it. Turns out that his family are longtime Delta residents and that his grandfather was a friend of Trader Vic's! His grandfather was a big hunter (like Vic) and hosted a party for the opening of pheasant season in Walnut Grove. Vic loved to come out for opening day each year (once or twice with his hunting buddy Bing Crosby, apparently).

Well, the story goes like this: Vic always had a valet/driver with him who followed him around while he hunted through the muddy Delta and presumably kept "refreshments" close at hand. He also carried a black zippered bag with him as he followed Vic. Apparently he used to carry a spare leg for Vic just in case something went wrong. Well, Vic was aiming his rifle at a pheasant as it flew up and his back leg sank into the peat bog under him. He couldn't pull it out, so he said "Ah, fuck it" or something similarly colorful and just popped it off. The valet ran over with the spare, Vic re-attached it and off he went.

Well, spring rolls around, and since this was on farmland, a local farmer is tilling the land for planting and he sees this boot sticking out of the ground. When he goes over to it, he sees that it's attached to a leg and flips out, thinking someone has ben buried in his field. He calls the cops, and somehow CJs granddad comes over when he hears the hubbub. Everyone is standing around staring at the leg and CJs granddad just walks over, pulls it out of the ground as everyone gasps, and says, "No big deal. It's just Vic's leg."

Now, since this is a Vic-related story, take it with a grain of salt, but CJ went on to tell me a few others, including how he befriended Bing's grandson, and they shared some of these stories as well. CJ owns a restaurant now, with a framed note from Vic's granddaughter on the wall wishing him luck in his new business.

Great story Martiki,

It's odd how tiki and related people seem to travel in similar circles and eventually meet.

Hey Martin,
That is a great story, they should have carved the leg into a commemorative Tiki.
Please don’t get pissed if I hijack your thread, but I got to tell you this relative story.
The church that I use to go to had a ski club, and we would go skiing about once a month.
One of the members was a girl who also had a prosthetics leg and she came with us on the ski trips with a special adaptor to fit in the ski boot. She had one of those prosthetics that was held on by a vacuum/suction-based device.
Anyway I was teaching her how to get out of her snowplow habit, and apparently the altitude started affecting the suction of her leg and became loose. She went down the hill and wiped out pretty good. Of course the leg came off and started to go down the slope.
Well, talk about perfect timing, this occurred right under the chair lift.
What I would have given to have a photo of those other skiers’ faces, when they say this little girl wipe out and having her leg come skiing down the mountain.