Is “Tough” the Right Word?

In the 1970s, young boys often looked up to larger-than-life action heroes like Rocky—but guest host Randy’s legendary friend Butchy may have taken “tough guy” culture to another level. In this episode, Randy shares hilarious and unforgettable stories about a friend who embodied the fearless, reckless, and wildly entertaining spirit of a true 1970s kid.

Always chasing danger, excitement, and a little neighborhood fame, Butchy’s adventures often blurred the line between toughness and total chaos:

• A harmless round of ding-dong-ditch ends with Butchy getting hit by a car and breaking his ribs—then secretly getting patched up by Randy with medical tape because he was too scared to tell his dad. 
• Inspired by Rocky, Butchy insists Randy punch him in the stomach to “toughen him up.” 
• In a high school football game, Butchy catches a pass, barrels into the goalpost, gets knocked out… and somehow never drops the ball. 
• Hoping to impress the girls, he dyes his hair blonde without reading the directions—and ends up with bright green hair. 
• After building a gas-powered go-kart from discarded parts, Butchy ignores Randy’s warning that the steering works backwards… with predictably disastrous results. 

Through humor, mishaps, and a lot of bruises, Randy paints a fond portrait of a loyal friend who may have been the ultimate tough guy—or maybe just the ultimate 1970s daredevil.

Another classic, laugh-out-loud story from Boomers on the Edge.

• Boomer rating: Under the Edge.

https://www.boomersontheedge.com

boomers@boomersontheedge.com

Transcript

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SPEAKER_02 0:02

Hey, and welcome to Who's on the Edge. Some guys in their 60s who still think they're 60. Your hosts, Ken and Ron. And this week's guest host, my brother, Brandy. Let's get started.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

Oh. Oh my guest. That song reminds me of a really good childhood friend of mine. Who's that? But she this kid is the toughest can.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

Oh, you're gonna tell some Butchie stories? Oh, he he was awesome. And uh tough. Tell everybody who you're who Butchie was to you.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

So Butchie was uh a buddy that I grew up with and played football with for many years, uh, did many things, built all kinds of things with him and had a great childhood with him. It's a tough guy. So one night he said, back then, and I know you've talked about this on other uh episodes, uh Devil's Night. We used to go out Yeah, that was on the Halloween episode. Yeah, we used to go uh knocking on doors and uh physically just banging on the door.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

So ding dong ditch, they call it.

SPEAKER_02 1:14

A lot a lot a lot of times I'm surprised they still they call it ding dong ditch because that's the term you had used, I believe, when you talked about this.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

We just called it ringing door, ringing doorbells.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Well, we didn't this night Butchie said he wanted to hit some door, some doors, not the doorbells. So remember those uh screen doors, and here it is uh fall, you know, and it was a warm evening, and the door was open. Um, the main wood door was open into the living room, but there was an aluminum door on the outside with a panel on the bottom.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

There was a panel halfway up that hit the other episode.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

It would have your last initial from your your last name, your first initial for your own. Or maybe in your neighborhood. Well, so anyway, they didn't have any shares to pay extra for the produce uh this particular somebody else's initial. Yeah, this particular family had the letter O on the door, and he thought he thought it'd be cool to just bang this right in the middle of the O. Like it was a target, like a target. So he runs up to the door. But she thought a lot of things. So I was about one step behind him, all right? And he goes up there, and I'm thinking he's just gonna tap on the door. He smacks this one tough kid. He punches it and puts a dent right in the center of the O.

SPEAKER_02 2:30

Real nice.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

Well, sitting in the living room is one of the um uh daughters of the people that live there, her boyfriend, and this guy's a stud. And I'm like, oh my gosh, he's coming out of his seat, and I see him coming, and he's gonna kill us. And we start we start running, and I was faster than Butchie. Yeah, thank God. So I start he was a little bigger than you though. Yeah, he was, but I was faster. So we're starting I start running across the street, and here's a car coming. Oh boy, and I'm doing all I can flat out running to avoid getting hit by this car. And I'm in my mind, I'm like, where's Butchie? You know, because he's a step behind me, and then all of a sudden I just hear BAM, and I know I look and going over the car like a rag doll is Butchie. He's beating me, like he flew over the car because it caught him in the on the fender, hit him so hard and flung him over the street, and he landed on the neighbors. Johnny's blowing. Yeah, yeah. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

So it's been in other episodes.

SPEAKER_00 3:33

Butchie slides across the grass and the lady stops and she's screaming because she just smashed into him with a car. Yeah, and Butchie yells at me, get me, take me to the bushes, like behind the house. And uh, I dragged him. You have to drag him like in a military movie, and I just dragged him away, and the lady's screaming, like, what we what are we doing? You know, and then Butchie goes, You can't let my mom or dad know I got hit by a car because my dad will kill me. And I'm like, Well, you might die anyway if I don't tell somebody. He goes, I will beat your ass if you if you tell my parents or you tell anybody. Wow, so he goes, You gotta help me. And I I dragged him.

SPEAKER_02 4:10

What happened to the guy trying to chase you?

SPEAKER_00 4:12

I thought there was a guy as soon as he saw the car hit him, he turned around. He turned around and he's like, I think he got his punishment. I know nothing, yeah. So I'm like, Oh my gosh, what am I gonna do? And I'm I look at Butchie in the side of his uh shirts ripped and his his uh by his ribs, it's all bloody, and he's a mess, you know. So I this was kind of the beginning of my medical career. So I ran into the house and I my mom is there. She's like, Hey, how's it going? You're not gonna be able to do that. You need any Avon product?

SPEAKER_02 4:44

So I go, um How about a soap on a rope? I've got this new drum that's gonna help right now.

SPEAKER_00 4:49

So I told her, I said, I um I said I was running out back and I I just like scraped my arm a little or something because I had blood in my arm.

SPEAKER_02 4:56

She probably went to the Avon band.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

And I said, Do you have uh I I just want to get a little band-aid or something? She goes, Oh, go in the bathroom and there's a little medical first aid kit, right? I took everything. I took everything that was in that bag and I stuffed it in my clothes so she couldn't see it. And I meanwhile, Butchie's laying behind Johnny's house. Yeah, so I go over there and I kind of roll him over, and like his rib was sticking. Oh, like part of his rib was coming through the skin, not out of the skin, but you could feel it was broken. It was broken, I don't want to do that. And I knew it. So I he goes, just tape me up. Take me up. So I took the ace wrap and I went and like running around his body with gauze in the ace wrap, and I taped him up. And then I stopped.

SPEAKER_02 5:41

I mean, I'm sorry. What what was gonna happen if he went home and told his parents that he got hurt? Well, this guy was gonna beat him.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

He I guess because they'd be like, What were you doing? You know, he's out on devil's night, he wasn't supposed to.

SPEAKER_02 5:54

So instead, he's gonna have you be his doctor to set his uh yes. So you set Dr.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Randy, so you set his uh I set whatever his rib and I taped him up and it never went to the doctor. Never went to the doctor. So uh for days I kept getting um I would change the dressing. Oh, no way, and he would come over and or I'd go to his house and work on him, and he never told his parents. That's how tough he was. And I know the rib was broken. Oh my god. Well, you have other stories about him being tough.

SPEAKER_02 6:24

Oh, super tough. So one other time um we went to No, we told some tough stories the other day, and you know, I'm starting to wonder is tough the right word? I don't know. We'll keep we've out of respect, we're gonna call it tough.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

Keep going. So he he always called he called me Rand. So he goes, Hey Rand, he goes, There's this movie coming out, it's called Rocky. Yeah, I go, Wow, let's go see it.

SPEAKER_02 6:46

That sets the pace for the audience of when this when this story is from. Yeah, so Rocky One, Rocky One, whatever year that came out, was that in the 70s?

SPEAKER_00 6:54

Yes, we walked to the mall and we went to the movie theater. There's the Rocky movie, and we were so motivated. And Butchie was punching me in the movie theater. Like, this is great because he's like, This guy this is awesome. Like he's all yeah, like he's already found his calling. Oh, he's like, so the movie ends, and he raced me out of the movie to go home to work on lifting weights. Oh man, and we ran the tiger, we ran to my house, went in the basement, and we were lifting weights. And I mean, he was like just like going crazy because of that movie. So a couple days later, he's doing sit-ups, right? Okay, like in the movie, and he's got like a weight, and he's got his arms crossed, and he's doing sit-ups, just like the movie, and he's like, Randy, he's like, Pound me in the stomach with your your fist, and I hit him, and I hit him really lightly. And he goes, Is that all you've got? And I hit him harder, and I hit him so hard that I twisted my like I bent hurt my wrist. And he goes, That's as hard as you can hit me. So then I'm he goes, hit me harder. Wait, because you weren't a breadstick at this point. Oh, I wasn't. I was working out, right? You and we had to beat him up by that. Yeah, you transferred it. I'm punching him as hard as I can and I'm hurting my wrist.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

Didn't he say, didn't he like like caution you or warn you that if you didn't?

SPEAKER_00 8:14

Oh, he's and I said, I can't hit, I can't hit you. He goes, If you don't hit me, I'm gonna punch you in the face. And I'm so I'm like, he will punch me in the face. I'm gonna now I'm like, all right, I'm gonna hit you. So I took my elbows above his stomach and I came down as hard as I could on his stomach. He goes, That's great. He's like, That's great, because now I'm really hurt. You should have seen his stomach. He had a shirt off. Oh yeah, he was completely red, and this was only like a maybe a year after the broken rib, and you could see that was like deformed in his side that where it healed wrong. And uh, he was a mess.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

And he's like 10th or 11th grade at this point, 10th.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

No, uh uh, we were 16 uh sophomores in high school.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

Okay, and then you played football with the guy.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

So yeah, well, we had played uh sand lot football, and then we played uh little league football.

SPEAKER_02 9:01

They don't play a lot of sandlot football nowadays.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

We played football for many years together, probably nine years. Uh we play football in the front yard and my our house and Johnny's house, and I would have this one pass pattern where I would run down a couple homes and then he would sprint to the right and go by this one tree, and then I'd throw him a pass, and then he would avoid hitting cars coming by right on the edge of running down the sideline was the sideline was the curb where cars came by. And so you had to be, you know, he pretty talented to not get hit by a carb. And he he'd always run by there and do just fine. A couple years go by, and you know, we had been practicing that play. So an actual football game came up. We were sophomores in high school, and I was playing quarterback, and Butchie, we're in the huddle, and I said, Now you run just like you. We the pattern, the same pattern that we've done on the lawn. I said, I'm gonna hit you when you get to the Johnny's tree, like right there. You know, just think of that in your mind. Which the goalpost was the tree. The tree. I said, You just get right by that goalpost, and I'm gonna drill it, and I'll hit you. He turns and he's focusing for the ball, and I the ball is right there. As soon as he catches the ball, he turns to run upfield and he hits the goal post and they don't have a pad on it. Oh and you can just hear his helmet, and he's out cold, unconscious, laying on the crown in a real game, in a real game, still had the ball in his hands, which is amazing. So we scored a touchdown. So I'm and everybody runs over to him. They thought he thought he died because you know it's broke his neck, something, and he's out, so they come out there with the smelling salts back then. That's disgusting, and they're doing that. But she just shakes his head, he he he wakes up like someone had turned the switch back in. He still has the ball in his hands, he tries to get up and keep running. It's like he thought in his mind It was the play was still going on, the play was still going on, it was absolutely bizarre, and he had been out for probably 20 seconds, 30 seconds. You gotta love it though. You gotta love it's how tough determination. He got up and he ran, he kind of fell over. It's like he just collapsed, you know, like his body just gave out.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

And he didn't care about what some people thought about things sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 11:20

No, he didn't, and uh yeah, I'm glad he mentioned that because he so being the tough guy he wasn't always says, you know, Rand, he goes, He goes, you know, I see these guys on TV, like these surfer guys in California, and then kind of reminds me of one of your earlier episodes. Yeah, so anyway, um, he's like, We need to look uh better, and I go, What do you mean better?

SPEAKER_02 11:40

See, he was a visionary, he wasn't worried about grooming, he was ahead of his time.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

He goes, Uh, we need to get really tan in the summer, and we need to have like was this for the chicks? Yeah, yeah. He's like, you know, everything for the chicks. Oh that punching them in the stomach was that was not for guys, that was for he's trying to pick up women because he'd take his shirt off and he was right. Look, and I got punched. Oh, he had a uh six-pack, you know. So anyway, he's like, I want to get really tean and I want to get um like my hair looking cool. I go, What do you mean, cool? He goes, Well, I I want to make like it blonde because he had like dark.

SPEAKER_02 12:14

So he was like he was like a visionary for this kind of shit. Yeah, guys didn't dye their hair back then, they didn't dye their hair back then.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

So I go, Well, what do you think? They might have been so he goes, Well, my sister has my sister has this stuff called uh sun in. I go, Sun in. He goes, Yeah, you put you it's like a shampoo and you put it on your hair, and your hair gets more blonde. And I he goes, We need to do that. I go, Well, uh, we don't need to do it, but you could try it first. So, and I always let him try things first, which sounds like a smart move. Yes, I was always like letting him hit the door first on Devil's Night. I let him do everything first. So, anyway, he gets the bottle and it says on the instructions to use like the two teaspoons or something. Sparingly and then put it on mix, mix it in with whatever and just use it a little bit, right? Well, Butchie never did anything like half speed or anything, so he's like two teaspoons, two. No, the whole bottle. Yeah, so he shampooed his head with sun in the whole bottle. It says right on there not to use too much, right? He's like, I don't care about burn your head off. So he gets some type of a chemical burn on his head. 1970s burn. So his head is kind of burned, and his hair turned not just blonde, but green. Like it was a blondish green, and it was horrible looking, you know. And I didn't put any in because after well, he used a whole bottle, plus I'm like, plus your plus, I don't think dad would have gone for that.

SPEAKER_02 13:43

I don't think dad's thinking, I don't know. Uh between those pants you're wearing and blonde hair.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

Uh, where are you trying to go? We have to go to school the next day, and he's like, Oh my gosh, he goes, and he has he has he's wearing a hat. And you can't wear a hat in school back then. Teacher says, Butchie, take that hat off. And he goes, No, and like not taking his hat off, you know. He had like a like a big hat on.

SPEAKER_02 14:09

I don't understand how his dad's not beating him over this, you know.

SPEAKER_00 14:12

Well, I don't think he's he's he he didn't see him snuck. Oh, he wore that. Wore a hat for that night, at least. So he goes to school the next day and they made him take his hat off, and then everybody's laughing because he's got a green hair hair and burned scalp. And so then he ended up shaving his head to get that of course that green hair off. But so he yeah, he was uh he was something else.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Wasn't he uh into go-karts or into like building things?

SPEAKER_00 14:41

Yeah, so he after his hair episode and all, he said, Hey Randy, we need to build we again we we need to build we need to make our hair, we need to build a really fast go-kart, not just like the regular ones in the neighborhood where they're push carts and they might have like a two horsepower briggs and strat and he got like an eight-horse or ten horse from his dad. Somebody had it, and this is a real gasoline engine, a gasoline engine, and you know, we're this is before we drove cars and all that.

SPEAKER_02 15:09

This is a wood frame with a gasoline engine or a it was a metal frame.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

Uh actually, we were like 15 something like that. Where'd you get that? But anyway. He found in a trash or something. We found everything in a trash back then, so drag it back to his place. His dad was a welder. So he goes, I think my dad could help us weld this. And uh I did the engineering of the uh engine and I mounted all that, and then he said he was gonna take care of the steering. And I said, Now the go-kart frame was upside down when we were uh working on that, and we're gonna weld this one little uh piece to for the steering. And I said, Well, if you put it on that way, plus the go-kart was upside down. I said, When you turn the steering wheel to the right, that go-kart's gonna go to the left. And he goes, No, it's not. And he kind of punches me, you know, like usual.

SPEAKER_02 15:56

No, right, ran, I'll bet you green hair.

SPEAKER_00 15:59

And I said, I said, I am for sure that if you turn it to the right, it's gonna go left. And then his dad was there only for a few minutes. He goes, Well, we get my dad's gonna weld it right now, and then he's gonna be gone. We have to have him weld it. So his dad welds it, and I said, Well, we're stuck now. Just in time engineering, yeah. So his dad takes his dad takes off, and we turn the go-kart upright, and I go, turn the steering wheel to the right. And he turns the steering wheel to the right, and the tires in the front went to the left, like I said they would. Look, I it's wrong. We have to fix it. He goes, We can't fix it. My dad just left and it's all welded. Yeah, I go, No, we can't do this. And he goes, We'll get used to it.

SPEAKER_01 16:41

We'll get used to it.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

And I go, how are we gonna get used to it? He goes, We'll get used to it. So, once again, I said, Well, you can drive first, because I'm thinking there's no getting used to this. This thing, this looks like danger, you know. We rolled it all the way from his house to the parking lot at the school behind our house, yeah, which is pretty far. Yeah, we had never test drove it yet. So we go to the parking lot or back there by remember where the uh we used to play like 10 uh yeah racquet ball against the by the gym wall. Yeah, there's a big flat area there to ride it. Yeah, well, so we we roll it over there, and I started up and it's oh my gosh, that thing was allowed. We had a little expansion pipe on and everything. So he starts out and he's doing like maybe five miles per hour in a straight line, in a straight line, just going slow, you know, and then he kind of you see him turn to the right, he turns to the right and it goes to the left, and he's you see him going through this learning curve of left, right, left, right, and but he's not going that fast, and he's going kind of in a straight line.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

So it's kind of manageable at this point.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

It's kind of manageable, but he's you know, you got to think in his mind, he he he can't do anything like slow. He wants to go flat out, right? So now he's back pretty far from the wall, and he's going towards the wall, and he's now he's really going fast. And he's you see it, it's just jittering left to right, left, right, left, right, and it's going kind of in a straight line. And you see him lean his body, like naturally, he's gonna make a sharp left because he sees the wall coming, and he's probably doing 35 miles an hour. I mean, he is flying at that point, and that's pretty fast on a go-kart. Yes, it is.

SPEAKER_01 18:19

And did he have a helmet on?

SPEAKER_00 18:22

There's no helmet. Come on, he had he had back then we wore tight jean shorts, yeah, yeah, and yellow hair. We had uh we had tight jean shorts, tube socks, and tennis shoes.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

I love those tube socks, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:35

And he's all suntanced. Picture that he's all muscles, and he's going and he leans to the left five feet before the wall. You think he's gonna make a sharp left? Well, because he's leaning his body to the left, the go-kart turns to the right and it completely throws him off, and he goes right into the wall, and the triangular portion that holds the steering shaft goes right in his chest. Oh my gosh. And that thing that we had been welding the day before, part of that, and that thing smashed him and broke his sternum. And I just hear him go, oh, and he hits the wall, and I run over there and he's like, Rand! So I'm like, oh my gosh, he's he might die this time, you know. So I kind of now I'm like, what am I gonna have to do? His heart's gonna be busted or something, and his chest is just smashed, and he he's all just bleeding and stuff, and so I'm working on him again, and um then we get up and he goes, 'Yeah, I think we need to fix the steering.

SPEAKER_02 19:42

What did you end up doing as far as medically for him? Did he have to go to his dad this time finally?

SPEAKER_00 19:48

No, he didn't. I took him back to mom dad's and I taped him up again.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

That's how he got into cardiology.

SPEAKER_02 19:57

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

But I taped him up, helped him out, and yeah, he had broke his sternum.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

That's interesting. Well, anyways, those are some very interesting stories, Randy. Thanks for sharing. And you guys, thanks for listening.

SPEAKER_02 20:09

Hey, thanks for joining us here on Boomers on the Edge. We hope you'll join us again. And until then, have a great time. Thank you.