Welcome to the Guinness edition of This Place, This Time. Today, we’re looking back at ordinary people who did extraordinary things in the 1970s.
In an era of lava lamps, pet rocks, platform shoes and black-light posters, the general public seemed obsessed with being included in The Guinness Book of Records.
Here are some record-breaking feats from a wild, wacky decade.
No pain, no gain
Wooster entertainer Vernon Craig, 40, who performed under the name Komar the Hindu Fakir, punctured the world record for lying on a bed of nails in July 1971.
Craig spent 25 hours and 20 minutes resting on a board of 20-weight penny nails spaced 3 inches apart. The old record, 25 hours and nine minutes, was set in Australia.
“There’s not really much discomfort,” Craig explained to the Beacon Journal. “It’s more like intense pain.”
Let’s get cracking
Dave O’Karma, 18, of Cuyahoga Falls, gulped down 45 hard-boiled eggs in a record-shattering eight minutes and 10 seconds in a July 1974 contest at Lakemore Plaza.
Hundreds of spectators egged on 26 contestants as they tried to crack a 30-minute, 44-egg record.
The secret to success was “to be a little crazy and have a big mouth,” O’Karma explained.
(Yes, this is the same guy who, under the nickname “Coondog,” would go on to win many speed-eating contests and other feats of gastric endurance.)
A glazed look
Eighth-grader Eric Stone, 14, gobbled 23 doughnuts in 14 minutes and 44 seconds in March 1975 before 60 students and teachers at Manchester Middle School.
That put a hole in a 1974 record of 20 doughnuts eaten in 15 minutes.
Unfortunately, Stone didn’t realize the record had been topped in the 1975 book: A California man, 27, had eaten 37 doughnuts in 15 minutes.
“All those doughnuts for nothing,” Stone sighed. But then he brightened. “Maybe, at least, I set a record for kids under 18.”
Keep on rocking
GlenOak High School sophomores Charlene Dawkins and Jennifer Anderson, both 15, set a rocking-chair record in 1975.
With pillows as cushions, the girls rocked for 324 hours and 21 minutes. The previous record was 307 hours and 30 minutes.
They raised $400 as a benefit for arthritis.
Afterward, they said they planned to catch up on some TV and avoid rocking chairs for a while.
Grab a scoop
Ice cream parlor owner Bob Bercaw used hydraulic lifts to whip up a 5,000-pound sundae for a 1976 Fourth of July celebration in Wooster.
The previous record was a 3,814-pound sundae in Washington, D.C.
The three-tiered sundae featured red, white and blue whipped cream.
Bercaw said he’d never try it again because the production was “unreasonably expensive.”
A good yarn
In February 1977, Guinness confirmed that Betty Tafat of Cuyahoga Falls had created the world’s largest ball of yarn.
The 75-pound, crocheted mound stood 4 feet high and stretched 11.09 miles if unraveled — about 8 miles longer than the previous world record.
Tafat started collecting yarn in October 1976 and spent five hours a day, five days a week, wrapping and wrapping.
“I just wanted to see if such a project would get boring,” she told the Beacon Journal. “It didn’t.”
Making a pitch
Six men spent 120 hours pitching horseshoes at Towner’s Woods Park near Kent in May 1977.
Robert Smith organized the marathon with Merrill Evans, Dick Baldwin, Tom Loudin, John Hayes and Harold Lange.
They finished with a resounding clang, breaking a 100-hour record set in Allentown, Pa., in 1973.
Going my way?
Akron attorney Parke Thompson had already been to 229 countries by 1977, and he wasn’t done.
Guinness crowned him “the world’s most-traveled human” after he made it to all 309 countries, territories and island groups.
“The typical tourist is not really interested in travel but in saying he’s been there,” he explained. “I’d rather see a little of a lot than a lot of a little.”
Spinning wheels
Kenmore High School junior Marty Costanzo, 15, spent 26 consecutive hours on a skateboard in a September 1978 stunt at a Stow shopping center.
Breaking the previous record by two hours, Costanzo admitted “it was harder than I thought.”
“Around 5 in the morning, it got pretty boring, and my feet were super sore at the end,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll be on the board for a while.”
Hoop-hoop hooray
Ten Springfield High School students played an 80-hour basketball game — five hours longer than the record — to raise money for cancer research in May 1979.
Players Dave Jackson, Scott Dodds, Jodi Kalmar, Keith Byers, Scott Plummer, Mike Hardy, Jerry Morrison, Jeff Taylor, Paul Gilpin and Ron Miletich celebrated their victory by napping.
Pass the baton
Nine girls twirled batons for 48 hours in June 1979 in Stow.
The girls, known as the Royal Paraders, were Kim Ellinger, 15, Lori Sommer, 15, Sandy Becker, 17, Lynda Lytle, 16, Amy Barbetta, 15, and Lynn Swartzlander, 15, all of Stow; Kelli Davis, 16, of Tallmadge; Jan Harrington, 16, of Kent; and Karyn Le Page, 17, of Silver Lake.
They broke a 1975 record of 44 hours. As one mom put it, “Those kids went through six bottles of liniment.”
Flipping a disc
It was all in the wrist for the “Five Frisbee Freaks” in September 1979. Canton youths Tina and Tom Knisely, Randy and Kenny McNutt and Tim Schirey spent 20 days tossing a flying disc on Willowrow Avenue, breaking a record in 480 hours and one minute.
For those who gave a flip, the previous mark was 475 hours, 18 minutes.
Just roll with it
Michelle Lake, 21, of South Akron, laced up her skates in September 1979 and rolled into the 1980s.
She zoomed past a 14-day record for longest time on roller skates and lasted 125 days. Under Guinness rules, she could take her skates off five minutes every hour.
“I dream at night about accidentally taking them off,” she said. “I wake up in a panic and feel to see if they are still there.”
As a benefit for United Cerebral Palsy, she spent 2,966 hours and 51 minutes on skates, taking them off Jan. 27, 1980, and soaking her feet in a bucket.
“It feels really strange,” she said. “My feet are sore and it feels like they’re not there, because I’m used to having those things on.”
Beacon Journal copy editor Mark J. Price can be reached at 330-996-3850 or mjprice@thebeaconjournal.com.