In your element?

[JMohegan]

Back in the old days, lots of cool things were still legal. We had a cinder block thing for trash burning. Actually, it looked kind of like a chimney but not red bricks, cinder blocks.

It was always best to go out after dark because flames always look better then. And the sparks racing up into the sky until they burn out and well, it was just plain fun. I think it was my job from about 1962 until I moved out on my own and into the big city in 1971. I even got to burn trash then, too.

I'm not sure when it was stopped in my area, but I think it was in the late '80s or early '90s. To this day I look at my trash and think fondly of how some items would surely burn great.

I'm sure everybody knows what a zilch is, right? Well, maybe not, if you didn't get to burn the trash, when you were a kid.

I was born in '58, and have never seen a household burn trash, or the cinder block thing you describe. Thanks for explaining.

If "zilch" means anything other than "nothing" or "zero," I don't know what that is. What is the meaning, in the context of burning trash?

 

[Aquila1]

*SNORT*

The desert is actually my second favourite environment. Like the ocean, it is challenging and full of "secret life". I love the wide-open feeling and also the smallness one inevitably feels against such a formidable setting.

Oh, and Lance's messed up knees don't hurt so much in the desert. Nice and dry!

It's the desert plants I love. Freaky looking plants with the most stunningly beautiful, vibrant blooms. I'm slowly building a rock garden here with succulents and cactii - even though the climate is too wet here, some are surviving.

 

[RunningJib]

Johnny's Garden

I live in the country and have a few acres that includes a large pond that boarders the property line.

We see pheasants, deer, turkey and an occasional fox. A couple of times of the year I will see a mink. My favorite place in the world is the back deck.

Yes, I had to buy it. It's worth more than words can describe

 

[DVS]

I was born in '58, and have never seen a household burn trash, or the cinder block thing you describe. Thanks for explaining.

If "zilch" means anything other than "nothing" or "zero," I don't know what that is. What is the meaning, in the context of burning trash?

I lived in a small town growing up so maybe we got to burn longer than most did. But, even in Kansas City, we were able to burn trash into the 80s or so. But that was Kansas City, Kansas, not Kansas City, Missouri. Maybe we were just trashy people?

A zilch is when you take something plastic, it can't be just any kind of plastic, it's been too long now, I don't really remember what works best. Some forms of plastic bag I think work. Anyway, you nail it to a tree, or somehow hang it from a high spot and light it on fire.

It works best in the night time, for the light show it creates. As the burning plastic melts, it sometimes send molten bits of burning plastic down to the ground and when those molten bits go through the air on their way down, the fire makes a noise. That noise, for lack of a better name for it, sounds like a person saying zilch, zilch, zilch, as the drops continue through the air.

Another definition of Zilch is a dice game. I never played Zilch, but I played one that was very similar called Sparkle. We also added colors to the dice, and had an advance game called Colored Sparkle.

Like I said, the rules were similar to Zilch, but enough were different to make them two different dice games. There was a time when I and some of my friends would get up in the morning and role the dice just to see how the day was going to go. Similar to looking at your horoscope and probably just as accurate.

 

[LilTexanGal]

I love the city! I love the country!

So...the suburbs are good for me. I live in Texas where I get plenty of summer which I LOVE. I'm the kind of gal who rolls with the windows down and the radio blaring in 100 degree heat.

I can be in the city and the country fairly quickly here in Texas.

If I had all the money I wanted...I would live in a cottage on the beach where it is 65 at night and 85 during the day. That would be about perfect!

 

[neci]

I live in the country and have a few acres that includes a large pond that boarders the property line.

We see pheasants, deer, turkey and an occasional fox. A couple of times of the year I will see a mink. My favorite place in the world is the back deck.

Yes, I had to buy it. It's worth more than words can describe

this sounds like heaven. big back decks are amazing. i would love about 10 acres outside a small town.

Aww shucks!

I just let the gumballs roll out of my brain.

keep 'em rolling!

This message brought to you by the National Desert Council.
Deserts: they're hell holes and you don't want to go there.®

:caning:

Like the ocean, it is challenging and full of "secret life" that will kill you before you know it's there.

There. Fixed that.

the ocean intimidates me for some reason. maybe i just swallowed too much sea water as a child. i tried snorkeling once, and got so sick to my stomach the only fishes i saw were the ones who surfaced when i was sick.

 

[MasterPhoenix]

And I prefer heat and humidity to freezing cold and rain and wind and ice. Not that either are ideal, but there's no place on Earth that's a nice 70 degrees year-round, unfortunately. The hot and humid is better for my asthma and my various joint issues, at least.

SF Bay Area comes damn close to that.

 

[Etoile]

No way man, average temp in SF is about 60 year round. I'm with BiBunny, it's gotta be 70-75. Actually, I'll take up to about 80.

Actually...Honolulu is my dream, temperature wise. Check it out:
http://www.weatherbase.com/weather/weather.php3?s=028119&refer=

 

[Aquila1]

I lived in a small town growing up so maybe we got to burn longer than most did. But, even in Kansas City, we were able to burn trash into the 80s or so. But that was Kansas City, Kansas, not Kansas City, Missouri. Maybe we were just trashy people?

A zilch is when you take something plastic, it can't be just any kind of plastic, it's been too long now, I don't really remember what works best. Some forms of plastic bag I think work. Anyway, you nail it to a tree, or somehow hang it from a high spot and light it on fire.

It works best in the night time, for the light show it creates. As the burning plastic melts, it sometimes send molten bits of burning plastic down to the ground and when those molten bits go through the air on their way down, the fire makes a noise. That noise, for lack of a better name for it, sounds like a person saying zilch, zilch, zilch, as the drops continue through the air.

Another definition of Zilch is a dice game. I never played Zilch, but I played one that was very similar called Sparkle. We also added colors to the dice, and had an advance game called Colored Sparkle.

Like I said, the rules were similar to Zilch, but enough were different to make them two different dice games. There was a time when I and some of my friends would get up in the morning and role the dice just to see how the day was going to go. Similar to looking at your horoscope and probably just as accurate.

LMFAO...... yes! We did this! - half a world away. Except we called them 'Wurts'. Same reasoning though - the sound of the molten plastic as it dropped to the ground...."wurt...wurrrt....wurrtttt..." We used a type of grocery bag, and used to twist and knot them together into a type of rope.

Best accompanied of course, by a large quantity of cheap wine, and some ferociously evil weed (hey - I was 20 at the time....). And of course, dragging the sofa outside onto the lawn for comfortable seating was mandatory. Unfortunately, wurting came to an end in that student house when one of my roommates taped the end of the wurt to the kitchen ceiling and managed to set fire to the house. Thank you for bringing up an old memory, DVS.

Of course, Aquila would never willfully set fire to plastic these days.......but cheap wine and dragging furniture out into the garden still happen on a fairly regular basis

 

[MasterPhoenix]

No way man, average temp in SF is about 60 year round. I'm with BiBunny, it's gotta be 70-75. Actually, I'll take up to about 80.

Actually...Honolulu is my dream, temperature wise. Check it out:
http://www.weatherbase.com/weather/weather.php3?s=028119&refer=

I grew up in the East Bay where it is a bit warmer than the actual city of San Fran.

 

[MasterPhoenix]

If I could ever afford it.. (Yea right) I would want to get some land in rural San Mateo County in the SF Bay Area. That is up in the hills, a very short drive to the coast or a short drive to SF to be in a cosmopolitan city.

the must for me is water, going to the ocean is a rebirth for me.... I would also love the serenity of the high hills...

I very much want to get about a 35' sailboat...

I lived in a desert hell known as Las Vegas for two years... way too damn hot and dry...

A little something for fellow water people

http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o24/MasterPhoenixCA/Santa%20Cruz/P1020132.jpg

http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o24/MasterPhoenixCA/Santa%20Cruz/P1020202.jpg

 

[RunningJib]

Very tempting

If I could ever afford it.. (Yea right) I would want to get some land in rural San Mateo County in the SF Bay Area. That is up in the hills, a very short drive to the coast or a short drive to SF to be in a cosmopolitan city.

the must for me is water, going to the ocean is a rebirth for me.... I would also love the serenity of the high hills...

I very much want to get about a 35' sailboat...

I lived in a desert hell known as Las Vegas for two years... way too damn hot and dry...

A little something for fellow water people

http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o24/MasterPhoenixCA/Santa%20Cruz/P1020132.jpg

http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o24/MasterPhoenixCA/Santa%20Cruz/P1020202.jpg

I love the sea as well. However, I've yet to swim in the Pacific

 

[Homburg]

Not the desert. Too freakin dry. I visited Vegas once and have no desire to go back. I could feel the moisture escaping my eyes as I walked along.

Not somewhere seriously cold with long snowy winters. I dislike snow.

Not in Big Metro. Real cities are alien to me. I really just can't get into the idea of skyscrapers all around.

Other than that, I'm amiable. I've lived in the mountains and near the sea. Hell, I can hit saltwater in fifteen minutes.

If I had to pick an element, it would be off the chart. I'm more interested in the people than the place.

 

[CurlyKat]

I love the city! I love the country!

So...the suburbs are good for me. I live in Texas where I get plenty of summer which I LOVE. I'm the kind of gal who rolls with the windows down and the radio blaring in 100 degree heat.

I can be in the city and the country fairly quickly here in Texas.

If I had all the money I wanted...I would live in a cottage on the beach where it is 65 at night and 85 during the day. That would be about perfect!

Yeah, I miss that about Texas! Being able to go one direction and be way out in the country (and man those stars really are bright!) or go the other and be in a big city in a relatively short amount of time was awesome. And the weather was fantastic! I liked the DFW area because it gets hot, but not nearly as humid as it stays in this part of Georgia.

Perhaps I should move back.

 

[midwestyankee]

I grew up in a very small city (pop. 20,000) in Maine so being around trees and green places and water (salt and fresh) was very much a part of growing up. Frankly, though, it wasn't until I experienced Boston as a college student that I realized how much more living could be had in cities. I have lived in or around Chicago for over 35 years and I doubt if I could be content living far from a strong and vibrant city. Yes, I do enjoy the peacefulness of being lakeside in Maine but that peacefulness yields to wanderlust in a matter of several days.

 

[graceanne]

This message brought to you by the National Desert Council.
Deserts: they're hell holes and you don't want to go there.®

Gee. Thanks for the update.

Like the ocean, it is challenging and full of "secret life" that will kill you before you know it's there.

There. Fixed that.

QFT

I grew up in a very small city (pop. 20,000) in Maine so being around trees and green places and water (salt and fresh) was very much a part of growing up. Frankly, though, it wasn't until I experienced Boston as a college student that I realized how much more living could be had in cities. I have lived in or around Chicago for over 35 years and I doubt if I could be content living far from a strong and vibrant city. Yes, I do enjoy the peacefulness of being lakeside in Maine but that peacefulness yields to wanderlust in a matter of several days.

You grew up in a small town in Maine?

 

[midwestyankee]

You grew up in a small town in Maine?

No, it was a city. In fact, it was the state capital. And but for the act of picking a small college over the state university, I'd have been a literature classmate of one S. King who seems to have made a few bucks writing books about scary shit.

 

[FurryFury]

*looks at pictures*

Oh GOD!

YES! YES!!​

YES!!!​

Um, thank you.

If I could ever afford it.. (Yea right) I would want to get some land in rural San Mateo County in the SF Bay Area. That is up in the hills, a very short drive to the coast or a short drive to SF to be in a cosmopolitan city.

the must for me is water, going to the ocean is a rebirth for me.... I would also love the serenity of the high hills...

I very much want to get about a 35' sailboat...

I lived in a desert hell known as Las Vegas for two years... way too damn hot and dry...

A little something for fellow water people

http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o24/MasterPhoenixCA/Santa%20Cruz/P1020132.jpg

http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o24/MasterPhoenixCA/Santa%20Cruz/P1020202.jpg

 

[graceanne]

No, it was a city. In fact, it was the state capital. And but for the act of picking a small college over the state university, I'd have been a literature classmate of one S. King who seems to have made a few bucks writing books about scary shit.

I don't read him. I need my sleep too much.

 

[FurryFury]

Yeah, man, burning trash could be fun back in the ole days. But sometimes there were things in that trash that shouldn't ought to be. You know like aerosol cans. Hoo wee!

My whole family were firebugs. You might not believe this but once, I swear to god, my Dad stuck a tire in the fireplace. BAD idea! LMAO!

Back in the old days, lots of cool things were still legal. We had a cinder block thing for trash burning. Actually, it looked kind of like a chimney but not red bricks, cinder blocks.

It was always best to go out after dark because flames always look better then. And the sparks racing up into the sky until they burn out and well, it was just plain fun. I think it was my job from about 1962 until I moved out on my own and into the big city in 1971. I even got to burn trash then, too.

I'm not sure when it was stopped in my area, but I think it was in the late '80s or early '90s. To this day I look at my trash and think fondly of how some items would surely burn great.

I'm sure everybody knows what a zilch is, right? Well, maybe not, if you didn't get to burn the trash, when you were a kid.

 

[FurryFury]

I've lived near a fairly big city but in the suburbs on a mountain a fair amount.

I have to say, I've seen possums, foxes, flying squirrels, wood chucks and raccoons quite often. I miss that from my last location but even here I see possums, raccoons, rabbits and heck the other night driving by a university close to me I saw a fox.

Kewl!

I live in the country and have a few acres that includes a large pond that boarders the property line.

We see pheasants, deer, turkey and an occasional fox. A couple of times of the year I will see a mink. My favorite place in the world is the back deck.

Yes, I had to buy it. It's worth more than words can describe

 

[FurryFury]

No way man, average temp in SF is about 60 year round. I'm with BiBunny, it's gotta be 70-75. Actually, I'll take up to about 80.

Actually...Honolulu is my dream, temperature wise. Check it out:
http://www.weatherbase.com/weather/weather.php3?s=028119&refer=

Really? 60?, that's a damn shame. It's such a beautiful city but that's a mite chilly for me.

Now, perhaps I'm doing the menopause thing or having fevers due to allergies, Idk, but anything above 73 and I'm miserable. Saves on utilities!

 

[chy_girl]

the ocean intimidates me for some reason. maybe i just swallowed too much sea water as a child. i tried snorkeling once, and got so sick to my stomach the only fishes i saw were the ones who surfaced when i was sick.

Any large body of water give me the creeps, but the ocean is the worst. Bad enough that we made a deal a long time ago - it stays west of the coastal range and I'll do everything in my power to stay east of the coastal range.

It's been a rather amicable arrangement.

Let's just hope I don't hyperventilate when I go to an event on the coast this week end.

QFT

There are very good reasons to live in Oregon and I'm not talking about grass seed and no sales tax.

 

[JMohegan]

I think snorkeling and body surfing are great, but other than that I find the ocean sort of boring. I've got no desire to be cooped up on a boat, and even less interest in lying around on the sand getting toasted.

When it comes to the great outdoors, I love forests and mountains more than anything else. If I had to pick just one state for vacations, it would be Colorado.

 

[DVS]

No, it was a city. In fact, it was the state capital. And but for the act of picking a small college over the state university, I'd have been a literature classmate of one S. King who seems to have made a few bucks writing books about scary shit.

Yes, I agree. I have heard too many times when people say they grew up in a small town of 20,000. That's NOT a town.

I grew up in a small town in Missouri. There were approximately 2,000 people living there when I was a kid. Everybody knew everybody. If you didn't know about a person, you at least knew the person's name and maybe even where they lived. If you did something (good or bad), it wasn't long before the whole town knew about it.

My dad was mayor of the town for a while. I was about 8 or 9. I thought that was cool. But he wasn't elected, he was chosen. He was a member of several groups such as the Lion's club (he was a charter member), the city council, park board and church boards, etc. People like that were seen as good people, so a list of those people was made and each person on the list was asked to be mayor for a few years. I think it was an honor and also a pretty good way of picking a mayor, without the cost of someone running for the job.

Also, when we needed something that someone else in the town provided, we would usually exchange what they sold for what my dad sold. My dad was an optometrist and everybody needed his help from time to time. So, we got shoes in exchange for the shoe store owner's family coming for annual eye exams and adjustments to our backs from the only Chiropractor in town in the same way.

There were several goods exchanges made in those days, instead of money changing hands. When someone needed glasses and couldn't afford to pay, they gave my dad free chicken eggs for a period of time or maybe some cuts of beef from their farm...whatever they could provide. THAT'S a small town.

To this day, I think there's only about 6,000 people living there and part of the reason there are that many is the city (or should I say town?) council decided to expand the city limits to include the three (yes, I said three) prisons on the edge of town. That way, they can include all inmates as residents of town. The more people living in a town, the more money they get from the government for various things. So, I guess whatever works is what you do.