Trailrider #896

It has been 4 weeks since our 15 year-old Cockapoo Lucy decided she was tired of fighting cancer and left us for Rainbow Bridge on her own. Needless tp say, we were deeply saddened. Her kennelmate, Jeffery, a 3-1/2 year cocker spaniel, who had known Lucy from the time we brought him home to keep her company, after we had to put Chichi down, was used to her being around, although she hadn't played with him for almost a year. My wife "happened" to visit the pet store where we got Jeffery as a puppy, to find a new toy for him to play with. There just happened to be a strange-looking puppy who was in a pen with several female dogs who had just been spayed. He was paying no attention to them. Very calm doggy. Wife thought he'd be just the thing for Jeffery. After I saw him, I agreed to adopting him. When we got him home....surprise, surprise, surprise... he is a very active puppy, now six-months old. He and Jeffery get along okay, although no matter who has the toy, the other dog wants it, and they trade back and forth. In other words, "Buddy" was sandbagged us about his personality. But that's okay. Jeffery is much happier to have a playmate again. Do we forget Lucy? No way! But we know she is playing with my childhood dogs, and Charlie-the-Poodle, and Chester, and Skippy and Chichi and Lucy, at the Rainbow Bridge. It still hurts when we lose our furry friends, but we have loved them and will always remember them. Have to excuse me...I need to defog my comfuser screen.

The real question is where is Doc Holliday's grave. Glenwood Springs has/had (haven't been there in years) a marker, but the story is that he is actually buried somewhere not too far away.

Can't recall what grade (maybe 2nd or 3rd), but we had to copy the multiplication tables to the 12's. Also taught to write in cursive in 3rd grade. Some schools starting to teach cursive again as kids can't read stuff written in cursive, much less write in it!. Granddaughter was taught how to use a dial telephone when she was 3. I ask her every once in a while if she remembers how to use one...just in case. She says she does. Even I didn't know how to drive a stick shift vehicle until one of my sergeants showed me on an Air Force truck! That was in my 20's. Haven't had to in the last 60+ years, but probably could in an emergency. One of these days I will have to buy a smart phone and learn to use it!

At one point, Congress mandated we switch to the metric system. In point of fact, NASA, SpaceX, et al, show velocities and distances using both metric and English. But, except for European import vehicles, there was/is too much "inertia" in our manufacturing system to change over. The cost would have been enormous!

Depending on the wound, the surgeon might have said, "Roll up your sleeve. Orderly, get me a scalpel and my saw!"

And within days many troops received orders to get ready to transit to the Pacific, to prepare for the invasion of Japan, with over a million casualties expected. Fortunately, President Truman made a different decision. Saved a lot of lives on both sides!

Years ago, when the first OMV's came out in .44-40, the first one I bought had a bunch of bad chambers. I contacted Ruger, but they stalled a bit, so I had a gunsmith fit a .44 Mangle-em cylinder to the gun. The Ruger said to send it back and they replaced the .44-40 cylinder. The magnum cylinder still worked fine, so it gave me a convertible. When SASS went to two gun scenarios, I bought a second OMV with a .44 Magnum cylinder. I happened to find a .44-40 cylinder, and had my 'smith fit that, which gave me a pair of convertibles, one with a 7-1/2" and one with a 5-1/2" barrel, which became my main guns. Now, both .44-40 cylinders had the tight throats. Of course, everyone knows that is no good, and I should have the throats reamed out to .430. Well, I left them alone! With hard-cast .430" bullets, both guns will shoot 1-3/8" 5-round groups, shooting with my elbow resting on the bench! How can that be? Apparently, the bullets swage down going through the throats, but because the dwell time is so short, the compressive stresses built up in the metal doesn't disipate in the form of heat, so the bullets re-expand into the rifling. Loads consist of 8.0 gr. Universal, which gives 950 ft/sec from the 7-1/2" barrel. From a 22" barrel rifle (Rossi M92) the MV is about 1185 ft/sec. With Universal no longer available, you could substitute Unique.

Ahhh! Now I see it!

A little boy asked his father where he came from. The father, thinking the kid was wondering about the facts of life, started to explain all about where babies come from. The boy looked at his dad and shook his head. "No, Daddy," he said, "Jack next door comes from Philadelphia. Where do I come from?"

Guess not, but I've seen a bunch of full size Atlas Snap Track, ties and all sitting at places near the BNSF/UP Joint LIne.

Most of the track work is now done by machines, especially where continuously welded track is used. Back in the day, they must have used some sort of gage to get the distance between the heads of the rails correct. I doubt if it was a giant National Model Railroad Association (NMRA) track gage, say 87.1 x that of an HO scale gage.

I would expect he wears a vest under his outside clothes. A vest apparently saved the life of the Secret Service officer. The problem with a vest is it doesn't protect you from a head shot, as witness the first attempt on Trump, which would have succeeded had he not turned his head at that moment! Not sure what practical solution would be.

If I could qualify and be trained to work the "carrier", I'd love to shoot that 35mm job with the airplane wrapped around it. I bet Custer would have loved to be able to call for an A-10 strike danger close!

Heavan forbid...the Air Force would have to change the words to our song: "Off we go into the wild green yonder, Right down into the weeds!"

The Key West Agreement needs updating with relevance to close air support! Give the A-10's and pilots and support personnel (although I doubt those troops would like having to change dress uniforms), like the Marines do. Won't happen, but it should have...a long time ago.