Hardpan Curmudgeon SASS #8967
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Posts posted by Hardpan Curmudgeon SASS #8967
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Not a meme... but a darned cool picture~!!
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Wal shux... I'm often considered "vertically dyslexic" - can't tell up from down~!!
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Golly Gee... why not just ban crime for twenty years instead?
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5 hours ago, bgavin said:
I bought a new Hasselblad 500C from Brooks Camera in San Francisco.
I remember Brooks!
I bought a bunch of filters from 'em ~ was REAL happy when they started selling Monsieur Coquin's "Organic Glass" squares and holders!
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Hopin' there are no DFG wardens here...
Back about 1983 or '4, I called up ol' Hank one afternoon just to see what he was up to.
Well, the lad was kind of despondent - he'd planned a hunting trip up to Northern California with his pard Stan, but Stan couldn't get off work and he didn't want to go alone.
"Oh Hell, Hank - I'll go with ya! I just got laid off and have money in the bank and I definitely have the time!"
So, we rendezvoused at Lurch's house in Modesto (Hank's ranch was about 20 miles south of Fresno; I lived in San Francisco). I transferred my gear to Hank's truck and left my car - a 1974 Fiat Spider - in Lurch's driveway. Off we went, to meet up with a fella who managed a cattle/hay ranch in Siskiyou County, just below the Oregon Border.
A week later we headed home. Both of us were bone tired, as it turned out our buddy was short-handed and we'd spent most of the week raking and baling alfalfa. His wife said that she'd kept track, and we'd averaged less than three hours sleep a night. Anyway, Hank lasted about five miles before I insisted he pull over before he killed us both, and I took the wheel. Hank slept, and I drove. Six + hours later, we arrived in Modesto; Hank woke up refreshed and headed south. I packed my gear into the trunk of my li'l roadster and headed west.
An hour or so later, I figuratively "hit the wall," and pulled over in Livermore for a half-hour "power nap" before completing my journey. When I finally reached home, I unloaded and crawled into bed. I was so tired that I literally slept for something like fifteen hours. And when I finally did wake the next day, I was moving mighty slow...
But! This was a special day! The "cooling off period" had expired, and my at-that-time rare Ruger Mark II was ready to be picked up at Tri-Cities Sporting Goods in Fremont!
Fortified with a hearty breakfast and a quart or so of coffee, I saddled up in that Fiat and headed to Fremont - with the route I was going to take, about an hour and a quarter to half drive. Still not feeling terribly sharp, I decided to take Highway 280 and avoid heavy traffic. After a while, I got off the freeway for a fun and casual drive through the hills of San Mateo. Which should have been a relaxing drive.
But!
Cruising along, minding my own business, I came whipping along around a sharp curve just as Mister Blacktail Forked-Horn (2X3) decided to zip across the road and play chicken with my Fiat.
Unfortunately for Mister Blacktail, the Fiat won. Mister Blacktail suffered a broken neck; Mister Fiat suffered a cracked headlamp. And I was immediately WIDE awake!
Note for future "road hunters:" With the spare tire removed from the well in the trunk, a 1974 Fiat trunk CAN accommodate a healthy (well, recently healthy) blacktail buck - all but one hoof that I just couldn't quite get folded in. So I tied the trunk lid down with a bootlace. After I tied my unused X-1 deer tag to his antler.
(By the way - the trip to Fremont to collect my Mark II was delayed a few hours - I detoured to a buddy's house in Alameda, and much to his wife's dismay used his garage to skin and dress the critter. And when folk would ask what I took 'im with, my pat answer was "I got 'im with my 124 Magnum!)
This is the car the following Spring. The mid- repair damage was from some young girl in front of me at a car wash accidently putting her car in Reverse instead of Drive. Repair from the deer collision was about four bucks for a new headlamp - starboard side.
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1 hour ago, Buckshot Bob said:
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When I was a kid, school lunches were actually pretty good. Nothing like today!
I would occasionally join my son for lunch when he was in elementary school, and I was stunned to discover how inedible a "nutritious" meal could be. The one example that sticks with me was "hamburger day." It's pretty hard to screw up a 'burger, but these things were ghastly - a pre-cooked, partially warmed "meat" patty on a dry whole wheat bun. Little packets of mustard and ketchup were available, but didn't help much.
After my first experience the Kid got to take a lunch form home. To this day, the "Kid" does not like hamburgers.
On another note, a personal school lunch experience from my own high school days:
High school, for me, was not a good experience. It started out okay, but ended terribly.
I am a California native but was raised primarily in Texas - and back when I was a kid, Texas schools were NOTHING like California schools. Anyway, in 1967 we moved back to California after I'd started my junior year at North Dallas High School - my sophomore year was at another school, but Ma had moved during the summer. (Note - High School was grades 10 - 12; Junior High was grades 7 - 9. None of this "Middle School" stuff back then)
After a brief stint at Hayward High, I transferred to Castlemont High in Oakland. Demographic - approximately 2,100 students, about 97% African American, and a dangerous place. The school often made national news for race riots; surprising, as the student body was pretty much ethnically homogenous. It was undoubtedly one of the worst schools in the state, if not the nation. Absolutely horrid. But I digress!
Shortly after my arrival at Castlemont, posters began to appear around campus, followed by a list of "demands" from the student body, delivered to the administration. One of the major "demands" was that the school cafeteria begin to offer something called Soul Food. "Soul Food?" What on Earth is "Soul Food?"
Well, the school administration acquiesced, and as of a certain date, "Soul Food" would be on the menu. A couple of my classmates invited and encouraged me to come with them to sample this "Soul Food." "It'll be great! Yer gonna love it! A whole new experience!"
So I went.
Lunch that day, as I recall, was fried chicken, red beans, greens, corn bread and maybe okra. Yummy stuff!
But when one of the other kids asked me what I thought of "Soul Food," I had to say "It's good, but I don't see what the big deal is - this is just what we'd get every day at school in Texas. And at HOME!"
Hey - White Folk gots Soul, too!
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Curious... what was the badge number?
I once lost my Life Member badge at a "Civil War Revisited" event near Fresno. I was devastated, of course, and was hopeful that some kind soul would have picked it up and handed it in at Lost and Found.
No such luck. Someone went home with a "pretty souvenir."
And yes, I have a replacement. Never want to replace it again!
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6 hours ago, Chili Pepper Kid, SASS #60463 said:
Philips met with the FDA to report their findings asking if they could do anything to stop SoClean. FDA can't do much about the SoClean since it's not the medical equipment but since Philips had just reported a safety issue with their machine they could do something about that. FDA instructed them to recall ALL of their machines.
So... because of a problem caused by a third-party product, Phillips has to recall all their machines??
That bites for Phillips.
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One of the most fun cameras I had was a "Baby Rolleiflex" that a buddy gave me about fifty years ago. I ultimately passed it on to another friend when 127 film became difficult to find.
But it was a TON o' fun...!
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"Mister Hardpan, I pulled you over 'cuz you have a trailer hitch ball on yore bumper!"
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Well, alrighty!!
About fifteen years ago I was asked to start a Cub Scout pack for a group of... well... "disadvantaged kids." These were actually kids in the county's Victim Services program. How do you say "no" to such a request? This was at the same time one of the most difficult but rewarding things I've ever done.
Anyway, one of my little projects was to teach them a song. Being a bit of a non-conformist, I selected Louden Wainright's "Dead Skunk In the Middle Of the Road."
Well, the kids loved it, and were all excited at the opportunity of performing for their parents and the Victim Services staff. After they finished the song and were rewarded by a round of applause, on a whim I asked them "So - does anyone have any idea why that skunk smelled so bad?"
A little 8-year old African American lad eagerly raised his hand and with a grin declared "I know! I know! 'Cuz he FARTED!"
That pretty much brought the evening's program to an end. Every adult there laughed so hard we had tears streaming down our cheeks.
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HAR~!!
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11 minutes ago, Smuteye John SASS#24774 said:
Nose gunner's probably the bombardier, too, and the rear dorsal gunner's probably the navigator/radio operator. Belly gunner's probably does double duty as flight engineer.
There weren't a lot of room for malingering on any of those light bomber crews back then.
I had a boss once who'd been a B-47 navigator/bombardier/radar operator. Ol' Tony said that he could have never imagined being that busy - it was the busiest he'd ever been in his life, before or since.
But at one point he and a few of his colleagues were pulled and re-assigned to KC-97's (and later KC-135's). He said they were insulted to the point of being incensed! Madder'n hell! But after a period of time they were offered opportunities to move back to bombers - "Uh... No thanks. We're just fine right here."
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12 minutes ago, Abilene Slim SASS 81783 said:
No copilot. Like an A-20 Havoc.
Well then... that pilot was a busy booger!
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"Crew
4?" Lessee.... one nose gunner, pilot, copilot? No copilot? One or two rear gunners? If one, he's gonna be mighty busy!
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Although I've never met these two fine people, the news makes my heart heavy.
Prayers are continuing.
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I'm reminded of Herb Caen, columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, once reporting that prisoners at some prison (San Quinton?) loudly bitching and filing complaints about the ice cream being too hard.
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"Main Line" sure beats "Solitary!"
All in all, I'd say them boys ate well back then.
I daresay better than many, if not most Americans of the day.
For comparison, here's a sample of a modern menu... oddly, no mention of breakfast.
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Please pass on my regards to the man!
Oldest PM's in my inbox are discussions and exchanges of good wishes with him back in '05.
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Half-Breed Pete and I were reminiscing today about the days when we had Zone A ("Coastal") and Zone B ("Inland"), plus an X zone or two 'way up in Northern California. If you bought two tags you could hunt most of the state.
We now have something like 55 - 60 zones. Some will sell out; some require a lottery-type drawing with "special points" to increase your odds. Sorta.
But the absurd thing is, when they came out with this mess, they had the audacity to proclaim "Hunters! You now have MORE CHOICES!!"
Evidently they think we're all idiots.
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There have actually been a few good ones... the "executive producer" Rye referenced was one, the football player was cool, and I liked Buzzy Cohen.
None are Alex. But Alex is gone, and there are others who can do well.
(But it ain't George.)
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Sheesh!
Gee... we must be LUCKY in California! Our lifetime hunting license goes down at age 62!! Uh... from $853 to $579.25.
BUT!
For Christmas twenty years ago I gave Sassparilla Kid a Lifetime License ~ I bought it for him the day before he turned 10 a month before, for something in the low $300 range. The "under 10" option is no longer available; now at age ten it can be had for $946.75.
One of the smarter things I've done - he's set!
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I've been summoned several times, and have served twice. And y'all have had it easy! Honestly, I think I deserve a Lifetime "Bye" on jury duty.
Back in the early 80's I received a summons to show up for jury duty at the Federal Court in San Francisco, and did so as instructed.
There were over a hundred of us in a large room; it seems they were going to empanel a Federal Grand Jury. Oh, wow! This could be cool! Exciting stuff! Bank robberies! Kidnappings! Espionage! Murder on Federal installations! Cool!! And I was the LAST juror selected (not counting a bunch of alternates).
But... nope. It seems that they were creating a grand jury to hear one case. Antitrust. And it was to be a six month assignment. Oh, Crap!! At least we were only to meet the last week of each month.
First off, there cannot be anything much more boring than antitrust. Each witness was asked the same questions; about a hundred or so from a list that the U. S. Attorneys had prepared. Eventually, we learned which questions were pertinent, and would tune out the rest. At any given time during the "non-essential" questions one could look about and see as many as four or five jurors sleeping soundly. Heck... one afternoon a witness had to wake up the foreman to excuse us for lunch!
And then, the unthinkable happened.
As we approached the end of our six month "sentence," the lead U. S. Attorney stood before us and read to us from a page that cited this-and-that statute and law that stated that they - the U. S. Attorneys - could extend our period of service, and advised us that we were there for an additional six months. Even worse, at the end of THAT period, the same U. S. Attorney again stood before us and read us the same page.
After a year and a half of near terminal boredom, the attorneys announced that there was not significant evidence of antitrust laws violations, therefore they were not going to ask us for any indictments. Thank you, have a nice day, and enjoy your five bucks a day stipend.
By the way, upper management at work decided that if my department (I was department head) could function missing the manager for twelve weeks a year, it would be prudent to just merge with another department and eliminate my job.
Oh... the "case?" Nothing more than a bunch of hard-working, blue-collar commercial fishermen crossing paths at the coffee shop in the morning - "Hey, Bob! Whaddaya think crabs will sell for today?" "I dunno, Ralph! But if we can't get a buck apiece I'm turnin' mine loose!"
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Second time was five or six years ago. Rape case. S'posed to last a week; turned into a month. Horrible experience - we found the cretin guilty, but the poor victim was literally victimized a second time by the defense counsel. What the poor woman was subjected to in court was inhumane.
But we did find him guilty... and he fired his attorney, hired another, and was granted a re-trial due to incompetent representation. The victim flat refused to go through the process again, so the defendant walked away. I was - and still am - disgusted, and just a tad disillusioned by the process. Maybe more than a tad.
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The Van Buren Sisters
in SASS Wire Saloon
Posted
Two remarkable young ladies: "Gussie and Addie"
Adeline continued her career as an educator, and earned her law degree from New York University. Augusta became a pilot and joined Amelia Earhart's Ninety-Nines international women's flying organization.