Stan the Storyman

This is Stan. We met him in Bedford, Pennsylvania on our road trip. It was a fascinating encounter that I hope we'll get to share in its entirety some day (via video). He is either schizophrenic or the most interesting human alive. It's been a month since having dinner with him at Hoss's (Ponderosa's disgusting, Pennsylvania-cousin) but I will try to recollect a few of stories. A side note: my fellow travelers thought Stan was a con-artist and/or psychopath and they were nervous he was going to rob us. I thought he was definitely potentially dangerous, but he was very entertaining and I wanted to taking him bowling. They didn't let me and cut short what could've been a legendary night with Stan. So with that said....

Stan was drafted. Vietnam. He drove his motorcycle to the admissions office where they ran tests, etc. He did so well in those few hours that they sent him immediately to training for the Marines. They made him abandon his motorcycle and get on a bus.

Boot camp was easy for him because he grew up on a farm digging ditches morning to dark. He was also awesome at guns as a former farm kid and as a marine-in-training so they made him a Black Knight. I gathered that the Black Knights are like the super Jedi, badder than Navy Seals, death rangers that go on secret missions and save the world from bad guys.

Part of Black Knight training is being dropped in the middle of the ocean with nothing but Black Knight dungarees and a shirt. Stan swam to an island and lived off the land for a few weeks. He killed and ate animals with his hands and forged weapons. Not sure how he got off the island.

While in Vietnam, Black Knights can track enemies by smelling their poop from miles away. Black Knight training also involves turning noses into weapons. Sometimes their noses failed them and the bad guys engaged them in a wild wild east shootout. Stan watched numerous friends get killed. At one point he took shrapnel in the leg (he showed us the scar) while saving a friend Forest Gump style.

At some point he and his death rangers got trained by a 70lb. Vietnamese sensei. That's where he got staked to the ground for three days while getting slop thrown at him. Start watching here at about the 24:08ish mark to see Stan stake me to the ground. Stan and his crew staked the enemies to the jungle ground instead of taking them prisoner.

The government planted a chip in Stan so they could track him. He found it when he got a liver scan a few years ago.

He is a consultant for Blackwater and travels to Iraq to train our troops to kill more efficiently.

He is currently traveling around in his truck working odd jobs for weeks at a time. The most insane one was a bouncer at a dog fighting ring in New Orleans. He applied for the job by telling the head bouncer that he'd fight any of his current bouncers and if he couldn't "drop" them in two minutes he'd leave. He dropped their biggest guy in :45 seconds and got a job.

This winter he walked into a snow covered woods and spent the night with nothing but the clothes he had on.

There's soooooooo much more, but I'm exhausted. After we dropped him off that night (instead of going bowling) we all agreed that he fully believed everything he said. It may not be real but no matter how you slice it, he's a brilliant storyteller. And worth a horrible dinner at Hoss's. Someday when we edit together our ROADTRIP documentary you can judge for yourself what you think of Stan.

Oh yeah, back in the day he had a flat top. I may not have liked Stan so much if he still did. His friendly hair helped me digest my "meatloaf" and his dazzling tales.