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Brian Ojanpa

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    Keeps ticking

August 21, 2009

Can't stop the ticking on this cave clock

There are seven Wonders of the World. Randy Spear just might have the eighth in his garage.

That darn clock of his has taken a licking and kept on ticking for more than 10 years.

Incredibly, its power source is a single Duracell size C non-rechargable battery that has never been removed, is rusted in place, yet continues to power that timepiece despite all odds.

Typically, those batteries should be good for a year or so of run time. But this one, carrying a “Best if installed by Jan. ’99” inscription, appears to be the alkaline equivalent of Methuselah.

Spears swears it’s legit.

“I’ll take a lie detector test if anyone thinks I’ve screwed with that battery,” the St. Clair resident says.

Spear, a former pro wrestler who purposely got whupped under the name “Mr. Outrageous,” says beer-drinking buddies cajoled him into trumpeting the longevity of his wondrous clock, the faceplate of which can’t be shown in this publication.

That’s because it bears the shellacked charms of a Playboy centerfold nude that, Spear opines, could be the reason the battery has kept huffing these many years.

He thinks some kind of divine intervention has kept the clock on Miss January’s right thigh to continue breathing heavily since the latter part of the last century.

“It’s — how do you say it — possessed,” Spear says.

He thinks the clock’s ceaseless spunk qualifies it for an appearance on “Oprah,” or maybe with David Letterman. Who knows? Stranger things have happened.

Besides, the self-deprecating Spear is a piece of work in his own right.

He says he was “too stupid” to graduate high school via traditional merits and got a diploma from St. Clair High in ’74 pretty much because they wanted to shove his butt out of there.

Two divorces and a passel of girlfriends later, he works as an independent trucker, his company bearing his name.

You may have seen his ride: black International with flames on the sides.

Speaking of flaming out, Spear did so with the wrestling gig about 14 years ago.

As Mr. Outrageous he toiled as a “jobber,” pro wrestling parlance for a guy who gets paid to lose. The script never varied: Four minutes in, he goes down for the count. Check please.

He says he made $175 a minute, and on a good night he’d pull in about $1,500 if he wrestled twice for taped matches that would air a couple of weeks later.

He did that for about a year until the grind and the injuries caught up to him and he quit.

Ah, those were the days.

“That’s when I was put together pretty good,” he says. “Now I’m kind of a fat slob.”

Then he laughs. Life is what it is.

Which gets us back to that tireless clock that’s been reposing in his man cave through brutal winters and blistering summers.

It was a gift, but Spear can’t recall who gave it to him.

“I’m 53 years old and I don’t remember very well anymore. I’m old. I’m ready to kick the bucket.”

Spear says people think he’s nuts when he sits in a St. Clair watering hole and tells people he has a clock battery that’s been running that long.

Then he takes them to his garage, they take a gander, and they say, “Well, I’ll be hornswaggled,” or obscene words to that effect.

Spear fancies that clock, and the unlucky-in-love trucker plans to keep her.

“Ain’t been no woman that’s worked this long. If I could find one, I’d marry her.”

Brian Ojanpa is a Free Press staff writer. Call him at 344-6316 or e-mail bojanpa@mankatofreepress.com .

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