Found while researching trends in Pennsylvania Governors last night, under the entry for Governor Martin Grove Brumbaugh, 25th Governor of Pennsylvania from 1915 to 1919:
His son, Dr. David Brumbaugh died in a barnstorming accident over Lake Michigan in 1921 when he choked on a sausage.
I had to do a double take on that one. There are barns to storm over Lake Michigan? And I’m not sure I want to know what role the sausage played in this daredevil stunt, or how he ended up choking on it. But I was unable to find any credible independent verification out there on how M.G. Brumbaugh’s son may have actually met his demise. So I’m thinking maybe someone on Wikipedia has a twisted sense of humor.
ZOMG!! falsities on wikipedia? Within 15 minutes of Lou Albano’s death, this wiki page said he died when he choked on one of those rubberbands he kept in his beard.
Oh, but you have to give credit for the creativity of choking on a sausage while barnstorming. That was hysterical.
barnstorming = aviation
Maybe barnstorming was a euphemism for… err… something else, which raises the question of who’s sausage he choked on?
I’m surprised the Wiki article didn’t link here.
Barnstorming.
My own definition, gleaned from the part of my youth that was spent reading up on the history of airplanes:
Barnstormers would cross the country in small biplanes, often landing where available (usually some farmer’s field) and sheltering from storms in whatever was available (a barn was usually the biggest structure around). They would hold airshows for the folks in the area when the weather was good, and would move on after a day or two.
Now the bit about the sausage: that might still be a joke, or a poorly-source folk tale. Or it might be history. I’d not be surprised if it was history.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnstorming
Barnstorming doesn’t require barns, and doing barnstorming over Lake Michigan sounds perfectly reasonable.
The bit about the sausage is a bit odd though.
Since his son was a doctor, chances are he was a passenger in the plane rather than the pilot (barnstormers almost always sold rides in their planes). So he could very well have been sitting in the non-pilot seat (the front seat in an old bi-plane?) munching on his sausage on a stick when it got stuck in his throat during a roll or some such.
Just a thought. It’s not as absurd as it might seem if he were a passenger and not the pilot — can’t imagine a pilot in one of the WW1 era planes being able to eat a sausage while flying.
I’m betting that some /b/tard wannabe, um, inserted the sausage thing. (Pun intended)
Could be some sort of bet: how long can something like that stay before one of the mods catch it and revert it?
I’m guessing it was a dry sausage. they’ve been used as handy meals for adverse conditions for a looong time.