Cactus Jack Calder

Hoppin John, that brings back memories. My wife and her friends from work formed a “Gourmet Club”. Four couples who had dinner at a members home once a month. The hostess picked the theme, Pennsylvania Dutch, Mexican, etc. One hostess picked Southern. She sent out recipes for each couple to prepare and she made the Hoppin John. I’d never had it so I had no expectations other than I hoped it tasted good. Well the dinner went well except, of course, for the Hoppin John. After the first taste no one finished the their first helping much less asked for seconds. The hostess apologized and said, “It’s alright, we have a groundhog in the garden. We’ll leave it for him, maybe he’ll stop eating our vegetables”. Well he didn’t eat it, but apparently he was so insulted he left town. At least that’s the story as we tell it. And we’re stick’n to it! CJ

I was told, that is how you get a 6 day Camel to last 7 days. Clap them on the hangy down part as they are drinking and they suck up the extra water. CJ

My Alias, My maternal Grandfather died when my Mother was six years old. Although my Grandmother remarried before I was born, she always told me of her “First Love”. John Calder was a pure blood Scot, born in the United States of immigrant parents. I don’t know if ever was called Jack, but he worked in a lumberyard and likely the men in the yard used nicknames for each other rather than their full name. I named our second son after ‘Grandpa Calder’ which delighted my Grandmother no end. The life and times of Cactus Jack Calder: Born in Rochester, NY of Scots immigrants, John (Jack) Calder was apprenticed to a sawyer (A man who turns trees into lumber) at a very young age. After several years of grueling labor, he decide sawdust would not make him rich and ran away at the age of fourteen. Of course at this point he was just Jack Calder, the Cactus part came later. Who knows there might be more to the story.😉 CJ

Actually I did not. I accepted the idea that it was a dovetail mount from Texas Jokers response. As I said it worked on my London Pattern Navy by Uberti. CJ

What Cypress Sun said!! I’ve done that myself to a Uberti Navy never had a problem after that. I think it is better than bending the dovetail wings down. CJ

Mom had a friend from Nursing School, Annette. We would visit her up in Connecticut. My brothers and I loved seeing her and listening to her stories. One year we visited her at her new house, a nice cottage on a lake near Old Lyme. She took me and Dad down to the basement to show us something funny. The unfinished ceiling was punctured every 4” by a nail in every direction. She had decided to lay her own subfloor and went to the lumber yard to get supplies. The counterman told her drive nails ever 4” and the floor would be “good and tight”. When she returned to the lumber yard for more nails, he asked what she had done with all the nails he had sold her. Once she explained about the pattern she had followed, on his advice, he gave her enough nails to finish the job just nailing into the beams. She was some proud of her work and happy to show off her mistake on the first quarter of the floorboards. 🙂 CJ

A freebie from NRA. Stud flip on blade works well for me. It holds a decent meat cutting edge. You would never get or want a shaving edge on it. It’s a good work tool not a fancy show piece. What a knife should be. Has a 2-7/8” blade, NC has a maximum blade limit of 3” on folders, no gravity, or automatic knives allowed. I have several knives for carving wood that live in a tool roll. So you might say I’m a knife guy, but they are not really suitable for carry. CJ

Ditto in reverse order. The older son is retired USAF. The younger one isn’t interested. NBD. Youngest got most of his Mom’s art talent and equipment. He was happy with that and the older one only wanted one item his Mom made for the nostalgia of it. Both are good men and do good in this world. Can’t ask for more! CJ

Blackwater, keep a diary of all verbal communication with Insurance Co. obviously also paperwork sent both ways. Date, time, who you talked to, what was said. I had dispute with a health insurance co years ago. I kept a diary on my computer. Eventually I had to contact the State Board of Insurance. They have ability to exert pressure on the Insurance Co. The diary was a big lever that I could hand to the Board’s Investigator. It was resolved in my favor, so well worth the effort. Cj

I worked a summer job at a chain burger joint named “Wetson”. They fried all the burgers on a large flat grill with onions placed on the grill before the meat. If you wanted no onions they scrapped them off the meat and bun. If you wanted a cheeseburger they took a burger back behind the grill and added melted cheese and rewrapped the burger with a cheeseburger wrapper. As far as I know they are long gone out of business. They actually had really good fries, made with whole fresh potatoes pealed and sliced on sight. I worked the fry station. It was a pretty good job. Though cleaning the grease trap at the end of the day, was a job few youngsters could tolerate. Since I had a cast iron stomach I got the job. CJ

Pappy’s Deer Rifle: Some time in the 1970’s my wife’s Grandfather passed away. Pappy was a hunter and I was the only relative who had an interest in guns or hunting. So I was offered his hunting guns. No question, I said YES! Pappy’s deer rifle was a Savage Model 99 chambered in 38-55. I was unfamiliar with this cartridge. Research into the cartridge revealed that it was originally a Black Powder load. The rifle barrel was clearly marked “high pressure” so I contacted a gunsmith I knew and he investigated the rifle using its serial number. The rifle was designed for modern powder, manufactured in 1910 and purchased new by Pappy. Modern loads that I found for the 38-55 had a 255 grain semi jacketed bullet. I don’t remember the powder charge. I took the 99 along on a chuck shoot to sight it in. It had a Buckhorn iron sight (wide rear sight that looks like a moose antler). I sighted it in at 100 yards with a solid rest shooting at a 4” black square on a 3’X3’ paper. The last three shots were solidly in the square. I figured in NY a 100 yards was a fairly good far limit for hunting range. My hunting buddy and I then set up on a hill to wait for the chucks to come out. Our host, a dairy farmer, had asked us to watch for an “old granddaddy” of a chuck that had a burrow in the middle of a field on a hill face opposite where we set up. He had stopped letting his cows using that field to protect them. Sure enough that old granddaddy came out and began feeding. My buddy said, “Why don’t you try that Savage on him?” That 38-55 cartridge had quite an arch to the bullet path. The range was probably closer to or more than 200 yards. I said, That’s not a shot I think I can make with this rifle.” His response is, “I have a .243 with a bipod. I’ll set up and if you miss, I’ll pop him.” So I sighted on the chuck, then raised my sights to a spot I guessed might give me enough elevation. When I pulled the trigger to our amazement the chuck dropped. We went out to check on him. It turned out that I missed. No he didn’t die of fright. About 6 feet in front of the chuck was a flat rock laying in the field with a blaze of lead across the surface. The chuck was laying there headless. A clean kill. The farmer was happy to have his field back. CJ

I’ve gotten a few with that cartridge out of a Browning Semiauto takedown carbine with a 4X scope. Line up with a steady rest, hold it firmly against the rest, pop, pop as quick as I can. Two shots usually did it, if they twitch after that I usually had time to sight carefully again for a head shot. Used the CCI mini mags also. I have an interesting story about a Savage 99 in 38-55 that I inherited from my wife’s Grandfather. It was Pappy’s deer rifle. CJ

Well that proves it! Something is wrong with the water in Florida!! CJ

Offer them a deal. You become their spokesperson, tell how you did minimal maintenance and it lasted 23 years with no repair or replacement. In return they rebuild your deck for free. The you tell folks you expect the new one will outlive you. 😀 Might work! CJ

This is the interpretation I thought was most appropriate. The idea of rubber babies, not dolls, real babies, always made me smile. To many commas? CJ

Dad had long arms. He could swing his right arm back without looking and go smack, smack smack, contacting all three heads while controlling the steering wheel with his left. Almost never missed. My brothers and I learned to not squabble while riding in the car. CJ

Generally I would agree. However, in the late 60’s the Navy used a resupply system labeled 3M. This was set up to automatically supply standard material used onboard a ship without the trouble of getting each item requisitioned and signed off on before it was delivered. This system kept track of the quantity of an item delivered to a ship and automatically replaced it on schedule. If you accidentally got too much of an item you definitely did NOT want to return the excess or delay replacement of that item on schedule. Otherwise 3M would decide you didn’t need it anymore. Getting an item that had been marked as not required was almost impossible. Now the story. Our ship received food stuff through this 3M system. The crews galley received large bags of little pearl onions. Maybe 100 instead of 10. Surely some typo like that. Well the cooks dared not return the extra onions and they were a perishable item so they had to be used up quickly. Heaven forbid they get deep sixed. For months the crew had little pearl onions in the corn, peas, creamed corn, mashed potatoes and finally sewed little pearl onions on their own. Even in “MIDRATS”, the midnight meal supplied for those going onto midnight or off the evening watch. Once I returned home it took me a while before I would eat something with cooked onions in it. 😝 CJ

I have two younger brothers. As the senior brother I always rode behind Dad. Dad always drove as Mom didn’t have a license. Sitting behind the driver gave me the best view of road conditions and car position on the roadway. I believe it eventually made my learning to drive easier as I was used to that perspective. As I remember driver training in High School they told us traffic regulations required that exiting from a car parallel parked on the street required that you use the passenger side. So in movies, the driver sliding across may have been for camera angle, but it also conformed to that regulation.. CJ

Alpo, Just cause you are paranoid doesn’t mean the ain’t out to get you. CJ

Same here. My youngest brother always said to our Dad his name was “Bob, Don, Art! go do/get this or that job/tool”. As you may guess from that we were always fixing or building something. Dad never paid for work he or his sons “could do better”. CJ

I’ve done that with hearing aides. As my nose hit the stream I remembered the aides. Just about broke my neck jerking back. Managed to save them. I’m lucky I didn’t flop on the floor. Phew that was close. CJ

This is why puppeteers are taught to move only their thumb when making talking motions with a puppet. Who wags their whole head up and down when talking? CJ

1939 Dad got a job at Curtis Wright Aeronautics in Paterson, NJ. His first assignment was working the ‘test stand’. They would run radial engines, unmuffled just like they ran in planes, until failure. Then tear them down to find out what failed. In 1939 there was no OSHA and therefore no ear plugs. As a preteen in the late 40’s I discovered a box full of those rubber erasers that fit over the backend of a pencil. I asked Dad why he had dozens of those erasers. Hie said “Ear plugs” and left it at that. A man of few words and he knew I’d figure it out quickly. CJ

I wish I could show this to my Dad. He spent 26 years as an Engineer building ‘round’ engines At Curtis Wright Aeronautics. When he was retired, every time I visited him, he would give me an extended lesson in some of the innovations that he helped to develop for radial engines. I’m an EE, I know a good deal about combustion engines, but it was not my field. On one visit we spent an hour discussing and analyzing how engine exhaust valves were made with hollow head to reduce weight and how they were made to be more durable than conventional solid body valves. I asked, “You know I understand all the things we discuss about engine design, and I love the time we spend talking about technical things. But I’m an Electrical Engineer, I’m never going to use all this information. Why is it so important to you that I know and understand these things? “ His response was, “Because I’m afraid it will all be lost.” He was correct. CJ