Calling all older folks


A friend I hadn't seen since college posted a pic recently on Facebook. I remarked she looked as if she hadn't aged at all in decades...and I was serious! She replied "that's a picture from when you knew me right after college, look at all the tools (t-squares and protractors) on the drafting table behind me. Everything's computerized now!
 
And in the alarm clocks on their beside table.

I remember being fitted for children's shoes. The shoe shop used an unshielded X-Ray machine to look at my feet in the shoes. The shop staff had a massive dose of X-rays every day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe-fitting_fluoroscope

I don't understand why you need an xray for that?? Shoes are like the easiest thing to fit. You get them like 2 sizes bigger than whatever the size is on the little sliding thing. (So you can grow into them. When you quit growing you just know your size. It's the one that didn't change from the last time.) Then you wear them until they hurt and then give them to your little brother.

It's not... at no point would you need an xray?? What was the point of this?
 
Roentgen

Just a slight non-sequiter re X-rays. The original discoverer of X-rays was Wilhelm Roentgen in 1895. He was showing the apparatus to his wife and did a scan of her hands, revealing the bones in her fingers. She ran from the room screaming in fright. He went to her and asked her what was wrong. She replied: "I have seen my death".

I suppose, given that X-ray research eventually led to nuclear bombs, she may have had a point...
 
Just a slight non-sequiter re X-rays. The original discoverer of X-rays was Wilhelm Roentgen in 1895. He was showing the apparatus to his wife and did a scan of her hands, revealing the bones in her fingers. She ran from the room screaming in fright. He went to her and asked her what was wrong. She replied: "I have seen my death".

I suppose, given that X-ray research eventually led to nuclear bombs, she may have had a point...

That would be pretty fucked up. Like imagine how fucked up that would be if it wasn't considered self-explanatory and common.

Reminds me of this time Bitesized said to me, "You ever think about how your skeleton is wet?"

And I was like, "...Jesus Christ I have shit to do today and now this is gonna be the only thing I'm gonna be able to think about."

She said it because of the phrase, "bone dry".

I went out for a smoke and just kinda stared wistfully off into space.
Then I looked it up and found out that bones actually have a protective layer and they are dry but it fucked me up for a good ten minutes.
 
That would be pretty fucked up. Like imagine how fucked up that would be if it wasn't considered self-explanatory and common.

Reminds me of this time Bitesized said to me, "You ever think about how your skeleton is wet?"

And I was like, "...Jesus Christ I have shit to do today and now this is gonna be the only thing I'm gonna be able to think about."

She said it because of the phrase, "bone dry".

I went out for a smoke and just kinda stared wistfully off into space.
Then I looked it up and found out that bones actually have a protective layer and they are dry but it fucked me up for a good ten minutes.

Candi, you’re a hoot! Speaking of bones, it was many years before I realized that a certain man’s body part didn’t get the way it was because of a bone in it! And that the word ‘boner’ was a kind of euphemism.
 
Candi, you’re a hoot! Speaking of bones, it was many years before I realized that a certain man’s body part didn’t get the way it was because of a bone in it! And that the word ‘boner’ was a kind of euphemism.

I mean, you were right about most mammals. Humans are an outlier and should not be counted.
 
When I was 11 years old (through about 16 years) I used to have a round wear spot in a rear pocket in my jeans, much like a can of chew would leave, but it was from carrying a round stone for sharpening my knives. Patching gill nets required a very sharp knife.

A lot of things that look easy really are not. I've had a couple of friends they could put a surgical edge on any knife. I watched one do it with the bottom of a coffee cup.

Even with good equipment I can never seem to get that edge.

Yea, my dad taught me how to sharpen a knife. Before we used rubber bands to castrate piglets and calves, he used his pocket knife, a three bladed stockman style. It had to be surgically sharp for that kind of task. He used a double sided (course/fine) carborundum stone. Once it was to his liking he used his belt. He always wore a wide leather belt and he had the inside of a section of it treated with polishing rouge. He'd strop the knife until it was scalpel sharp. I learned that skill from him and i can put an edge for any task on most any blade.

I sold a 1200 sportster to an old guy who revealed while leaving he hadn’t ridden since his teen years.

He insisted on riding it, so i stepped back and watched him miss the first corner, drive over the curb, destroying the front end and tossing himself about 10-15 feet in the air with solid hang time.

No life threatening injuries, but his pride was pretty banged up.

In 1973 I rode my CB750 Honda home to visit my dad. Now my old man had an Indian Chief (foot clutch, suicide with a shift) while he lived in California for a short time in the middle 50's. But hadn't rode anything since then. When I pulled up in the yard he walked around my bike and said it was kinda small comapred to his old Indian, then he ask if he could ride it. I tired to explain that the clutch was on the handle bars and the gear shifter was the lever under his left foot and the bike had a lot of power, but my old man being my old man listened not at all. He got on the bike pulled in the clutch, put it in first gear, rev'ed it and popped the clutch. I still have a mental picture of him hanging onto the handle bars, scrambling along behind my vertical 750 across the yard and straight into the board fence around our pasture. Afterward he tried to say I didn't tell him clear enough how to ride the damn thing. I had to bite my tongue, hard not to laugh.

Comshaw
 
Back
Top