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Hi.

Welcome to This Awful/Awesome Life! My name is Frances Joyce. I am the publisher and editor of this magazine. We'll be exploring different topics each month to inform, entertain and inspire you. Meet new authors, sharpen your brain and pick up a few tips on life, love, entertaining and business. Enjoy and please share!

Next Month in This Awful Awesome Life - July 2023 by Fran Joyce

Thank you for reading the June 2023 issue of This Awful Awesome Life. Previous issues are available to read on our website. Go to www.thisawfulawesomelife.com and start scrolling or you can enter specific search criteria.

Next month we are playing “Would You Rather?” Have you ever played the game? It can get pretty risqué, but we’ll try to stay with PG questions. We’ll be asking questions and seeking answers from our readers and some of the people we featured in the magazine. It’s a fun activity to help kick off the summer.

We’ll also be celebrating Alice’s Day, Canada Day, the Fourth of July,  World Chocolate Day, Bastille Day, and World Chess Day.

Lilly Kauffman, Orlando Bartro, Linda Cahill, and I will be back with interesting articles and recipes for you.

We’ll be continuing our reading recommendations, streaming articles, “What’s in a Word?” and “Dare to Believe.”

It’s a new year for quizzes, Q&A’s, and book reviews.

Stay safe. Stay well. You are important, and you are loved.

All my best,

Fran

 

Answers to the June 2023 Daredevils You Should Know Quiz:

1.    Donald Campbell was a British speed record breaker for land and water during the 1950s and 60s. His father, Sir Malcolm Campbell, was a British racing motorist and motoring journalist. Between them, they set eleven speed records on water and ten on land. True

2.    Reinhold Messner – This Italian mountaineer, explorer, and author made the first solo ascent of Mount Everest. He was also the first person to cross Antarctica and Greenland without using a dogsled or snowmobile. He also crossed the Gobi Desert alone. True

3.    Charles Blondin was a French tightrope walker and acrobat. He crossed the 1,100-foot (340 meter) Niagara Gorge on a tightrope. Teddy Roosevelt compared himself to Blondin in political speeches during his 1904 presidential campaign as “Blondin on the tightrope, with all that was valuable to America in the wheelbarrow he was pushing before him.” False - It was Abraham Lincoln in his 1864 campaign who used that slogan.

4.    Joseph Kittinger, an officer in the United States Air Force held the world record for the highest skydive- 102,800 feet (31.3 km) from 1960 until 2012. True

5.    Philippe Petit is a French high-wire artist who gained fame for his unauthorized high-wire walks between the towers of Notre Dame Cathedral in 1971,the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1973, and the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in 1974. True

6.    Alain Robert is known as the French Spiderman for his daring free solo climbing, scaling skyscrapers using no climbing equipment except for a small bag of chalk and a pair of climbing shoes. He successfully climbed the Burj Khalifa, the Eiffel Tower, the Sydney Opera House, and the Montparnasse Tower. On September 1, 2009, he successfully climbed to the top of the Petronas Twin Towers in Malaysia for the third time. False - This was Robert’s third climb of the Petronas Twin Towers, but  on his first two attempts he was stopped and arrested before he could successfully complete his climbs. On his third attempt, Robert finally reached the top. He was later fined RM2000 in default of two months in prison for criminal trespass.

7.    Harry Houdini was an illusionist, escapologist, and stunt performer. He was also an aviator. His goal was to become the first man to fly a powered aircraft in Australia. True

8.    Jeb Corliss is an American skydiver and BASE jumper. Corliss is best known for his seven successful BASE jumps from the observation deck of the Empire State Building. False – Before Corliss could attempt his only jump from the observation deck of the Empire State Building in 2006, he was arrested and received three years’ probation and 100 hours of community service. He is now permanently banned from the Empire State Building.

9.    Travis Pastrana is an American professional motorsports competitor and stunt performer who has won championships and X Games and American gold medals for supercross, motocross, freestyle motocross, and rally racing. True

10. Robert “Evel” Knievel was an American stunt performer and entertainer. In the 1971 biopic film of his life,  Knievel was played by George Maharis. False- George Hamilton played Bobby “Evel” Knievel in the film.

11. Helen Gibson was a rodeo performer, film actress, vaudeville performer, and Hollywood’s first stunt woman. She appeared in all 119 episodes of The Hazards of Helen. False – Gibson appeared in 63 episodes of the series. Helen Holmes was the original Helen for the first 49 episodes. Gibson was hired to fill in for Holmes while she was recovering from an illness.

12. Lillian La France was considered the world’s foremost woman motorcycle stunt rider during the 1920s and 1930s. She was the first person to ride a wall in a scaled-down midget racing car. True

13. Rosa Richter was an English aerialist who used the stage name, Zazel. She was a trained gymnast, tightrope walker, and aerialist. At the age of seventeen, she became known as the first human cannonball. Later in life, she used her athletic skills to promote the use of safety nets by fire departments to help people escape burning buildings. True

14. Debbie Lawler is an American motorcyclist and stunt performer. She is the first woman motorcyclist to beat Evel Knievel’s indoor record when she jumped 101 feet. When Knievel reclaimed his record, he gifted Lawler a pink jumpsuit. False – Knievel gifted Lawler a pink mink coat.

15. Kitty O’Neil was an American stuntwoman and auto-racer. O’Neil lost her hearing as a child. Other illnesses in early adulthood forced O’Neil to give up competitive driving and switch to auto racing. She was often called the fastest woman alive because of her December 6, 1976, record set for female drivers at an average speed of 512.71 mph (825.127 km/h) and a top speed of 621mph (999 km/h) in a hydrogen peroxide powered three-wheeled rocket car. When she retired, O’Neil had set 22 speed records on land and water. True

16. Shirley “Cha Cha” Muldowney is an American auto racer. She is known as the “First Lady of Drag Racing” because she was the first woman to receive a license from the National Hot Rod Association to drive a Top Fuel dragster. In 2008, ESPN ranked Muldowney 15th on its list of the Top 25 Drivers of All Time. False – Muldowney earned the 21st spot on the list for being the first woman to win a major racing championship, the International Hot Rod Association Southern Nationals in 1971.

17. Debbie Evans is an American former motorcycle observed trials competitor and current stunt actor. Evans is famous for balancing her motorcycle with the kickstand up while doing a headstand on the seat of the bike. True

18. Sonora Webster Carver was an American entertainer famous for being one of the first female horse divers. Blinded in 1931 when she hit the water off-balance with her eyes open, Carver continued to dive horses until 1942. True

19. Maxine Dunlap Bennett was an American aviator. She was the first licensed woman glider pilot. She flew her record-setting glider rating qualification flight over Death Valley on April 28, 1929, for a distance of 990 feet (300 m) for fifty seconds exceeding the required minimum of thirty seconds to obtain her Glider flying certificate. False – She flew over the sand dunes of Ocean Beach in San Francisco, California.

20. Nell Schmidt – In 1912, twenty-year old Schmidt became the first woman to swim across San Francisco Bay. Nearly 100 years after her accomplishment, Schmidt was finally inducted into the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame. True

 

Author Page: Where to Find Your Next Great Read

May 2023 in This Awful Awesome Life by Fran Joyce