Anyone who is familiar with the Climber / Power-Beaming team from the University of Saskatchewan, the USST team, knows or knows about Clayton Ruszkowski. Clayton was the team captain for the first several years of their competing and, in the latest competition held in 2009, Clayton was there as an elder statesman…
Many moons ago (Dec 28, 2007), Stan Taylor of the Science Teachers Association of Ontario did an interview with Clayton and recently, he kindly emailed it to me. You can read the interview here (it’s in pdf format). It’s very interesting and we learn all sorts of interesting facts about Clayton. For instance, he is a Canadian and, when he was younger, he played hockey – what are the odds?
He gives his future plans as ‘joining the Canadian Air Force’. I wonder if it’s this Canadian Air Force he’s thinking of:
STAN FREBERG: …ahem, okay people, now when I give you the cue, I want the 700 foot mountain of whipped cream to roll into Lake Michigan, which has been drained and filled with hot chocolate. Then the Royal Canadian Air Force will fly overhead towing a 10-ton maraschino cherry, which will be dropped into the whipped cream to the cheering of 25,000 extras. All right – cut to the mountain!
(Appropriate SFX)
Cue the Air Force!
(Appropriate SFX)
Cue the maraschino cherry!
(Appropriate SFX)
Okay, 25,000 Cheering Extras!(Appropriate SFX, which end abruptly)
Now, you want to try that on television?
Of course, if you weren’t a fan of Stan Freberg, that probably didn’t mean anything to you…
Anyway, it’s a cool interview – check it out. And hey, Clayton – you still owe me a USST mug…