Miracle or Magic

by | Aug 10, 2020 | History, Musings | 367 comments

Everyday I witness a phenomena that I don’t understand, can’t explain, take for granted but enjoy immensely. We all are lucky enough to share this gift daily (and nightly).

It wasn’t always like this but for the past 100 years or so we have had the good fortune to live in a country where we enjoy this liberation, not only from drudgery but, it makes life downright pleasurable. Some of us had the luxury of growing up in a rural area, some were able to visit Grandpa’s farm when you were younger and can remember some of the differences from today.

“Mom, did you know they have to go to the bathroom outside? In another little building?” Of course Mom knew, she grew up there and got the hell out after high school graduation.

In the house it may not have been so modern as well. Grandma making breakfast with hot biscuits because she didn’t have a toaster or too many other conveniences. The breakfast was always good with homemade jam, maybe even homemade butter.

Then the revolution, the Rural Electrification Act, the REA, brought a miracle to many farm families. We got electricity in 1953, our house was old and the electrician, who was really just a handyman, wired our house with the wire stapled on the outside of the walls. It wasn’t neat but it was functional. My bedroom was upstairs, the ceiling was low so I didn’t have an overhead light. Two wall outlets, one for a bed light and one by a little table that I used for a desk with a lamp on it.

What a major transformation! I could read, look at the JC Whitney car accessory catalogs and see to get dressed without having to light a kerosene lamp. My folks started to modernize; my mother already had an old toaster, the kind where you open the side door, the bread flips over and you toast the second side. They bought an electric refrigerator (a ‘frig’, my Mom called it) and the gas one went out the door. We got an electric cream separator so my brother and I didn’t have to crank out the cream by hand any more. Little by little things changed for the better; a 5 tube Arvin radio on a little shelf between the kitchen and living room, an electric wringer type wash machine replaced the old one that ran on white gas.

When I went to work I bought my mother an electric percolator, then a deep fryer (’cause I loved French fries), then an electric skillet and a pop up toaster. We/she was living the high life, times were good at the Fourscores.

Now I wake up in the morning, maybe turn off the electric blanket or the ceiling fan, look at the electric clock, push the button on the coffee maker. The counter top is covered with appliances, I’ll try to remember without looking: first the refrig, then coffee grinder, coffee maker, air cooker, counter top oven, toaster, mixer. Probably missed something. Microwave is near the electric range. All day long is a parade downstairs to the pantry with another dozen or more appliances, woks, fry pans, slow cookers, rice cookers.

Too warm, turn on the AC, too cold, start a fire and the furnace fan will kick on automatically. Another refrig and freezer downstairs, ditto out in the garage. Drive up, push the remote and the garage door opens. Garage is full of electric power tools and I’m about as handy as a cub bear with his…well you get the idea.

Garden needs water? Throw the switch. Keep the electric fence going around the bees in case there is a bear in the neighborhood. Everything we do, every waking minute, is pushing a button or a switch and it’s a miracle. I have no idea where the power comes from, how it is generated or who keeps things humming but I’m grateful. On those rare occasions that the power goes off it’s deathly silent. All the daily work, from pumping the water to keeping me up at night on the computer costs about 6-7 bucks a day. What a bargain.

Miracle or magic? We are lucky to be living in these times, I wish my folks were around to enjoy it. When we see other places, Africa, Central America and other places less modern there is a reason and it’s not because of an energy shortage.

We’ve come a long ways, Baby! Now to keep the magic going!

About The Author

Fourscore

Fourscore

367 Comments

  1. Brochettaward

    After the excitement from the First from earlier, I’ve been left with chaffing. I may only be able to do one of those a week until I build up a tolerance.

    • Frnxt Ghrt Digby Gurm

      I’ve been left with chaffing

      Someone may have something to say about that.

      • Mojeaux

        Me.

        It’s CHAFING, with 1 “F”.

      • Frnxt Ghrt Digby Gurm

        Kudos, Mo!

      • Mojeaux

        I feel honored that you remembered. ?

  2. Brochettaward

    What a major transformation! I could read, look at the JC Whitney car accessory catalogs

    Sure, that’s what you were reading.

    • Bobarian LMD

      The Sears catalog…

      Dad always said you wiped with the underwear pages last.

    • Mainer

      He was reading before cranking out the cream by hand.

  3. Brochettaward

    every waking minute, is pushing a button or a switch and it’s a miracle

    Tell that to the oppressed black and brown bodies of this nation.

  4. Brochettaward

    Yes. I did just First, First-Second, and First-Third. The rare Triple First.

  5. dbleagle

    Good on ya Fourscore. We do live in an amazing time.

    When I was young I was in an adobe house and the electricity ran right under the ceiling suspended in conduit. Even in Tucson AC was rare and we had evaporative coolers. My dorm in college? No AC, and steam heat we didn’t control, except by opening a window. Three common phones for the entire dorm open from 2-8pm.

    Then years later the last house I lived in Cali also predated the REA but the walls were reinforced concrete. The electricity was in conduit bolted to the walls. Again, no AC, or evap, just one bedroom window AC unit. The rest of the house? Open windows. and hope for a breeze. But that house had three AMAZING fireplaces that were constructed to be used and not looked at. I burned cords of oak in the three years I was there. The bedroom fireplace was nice in the evenings, but cold in the mornings.

    • westernsloper

      Dood, evaporative cooling is still the most efficient in may areas. <10% humidity for the win! (not that I have one)

      • Rhywun

        I don’t even know what that is. Also, <10% humidity doesn't exist here. Sometimes it goes down to 35% or so but rarely.

      • westernsloper

        It’s where you put much lotion on the skin even when you are not worth some psycho making a skin suit out of you. My knuckles get bleeding open cracks in the winter when it gets really low.

      • Don did not Escape Bama

        I tried to explain it here one time and escaped with only minor injuries

    • Fourscore

      I still burn wood, mostly birch. I have a propane furnace too but somehow a wood furnace keeps me in touch with the past. Instead of a barrel stove in the living room though it’s centrally ducted.

    • l0b0t

      Growing up on a sailboat in the early 1970s, the only electric things we had were radios. Our lighting came from sunshine, candles, or kerosene lamps, the icebox took a 10lb. block every week, while a Coleman stove (white gas) and a hibachi provided hot meals. Showers were on deck and came from a giant black jug/hose with perforated nozzle, and the mechanical head was primarily for marina/anchorage use – over the side while underway was pretty standard. Bloody idyllic.

      • Gender Traitor

        OK, you really should write an entire article about that.

  6. Sean

    Save the ??.

    • Tres Cool

      #andIoop
      /tsktsktsk

  7. Urthona

    I appreciate the record lows in poverty, war, famine, violence and disease we are now experiencing as a planet but only somewhat because Trump is — after all — a racist.

  8. Sean

    Just wait until the EMP…

    • juris imprudent

      +One Second After

    • Tundra

      *fires up Triumph*

      • Spudalicious

        Lucas Electric kills it dead.

      • Tundra

        *fixes fucked up ground and drives away*

      • zwak

        Hey, it isn’t a fiat with a positive ground at least!

      • Tundra

        There’s that!

        Still, if reliability is one of your concerns, classic cars are probably a poor choice.

  9. Rhywun

    Gaia wept.

  10. westernsloper

    Just imagine what your grand children will be living with when they are your age. So long as capitalism is allowed to grow and continue to make life better that is. Sometimes I wonder about that.

    • DEG

      So long as capitalism is allowed to grow and continue to make life better that is.

      There in lies the problem.

      • Rhywun

        We have large numbers of people actively working to take us back 150 years. It’s unbelievable.

      • Fourscore

        They will be surprised, nasty and brutish. Camping out can be fun, if you can go back to the cabin if it rains/snows/mosquitoes/etc.

      • Brochettaward

        They tend to among the most materialistic little bitches you’ll meet, too. My favorite is bringing up the iphone in their pocket.

      • Dr. Fronkensteen

        True. But I only have one item. That serves the purpose of a camera, phone, flashlight, Walkman ( yes I’m dating myself), TV, video arcade, and encyclopedia.

      • Son of Fourscore

        Rhywun,

        I’m followed by nearly 800,000 people on Facebook and the common link is that almost all of them want to go back to some earlier place in time. It’s a powerful impulse. Heck, the President’s campaign slogan was an appeal to it.

  11. DEG

    Miracle or magic? We are lucky to be living in these times, I wish my folks were around to enjoy it. When we see other places, Africa, Central America and other places less modern there is a reason and it’s not because of an energy shortage.

    One of my uncles, who is now dead, wrote a brief bit of family history. I have it somewhere on my computer. He documented his maternal grandparents’ life with a little bit of his mother’s history based on various family stories.

    One thing I remember from the story is my great-grandmother was born in the time of horse and buggies. After she retired, she got to fly on a jet airplane to California.

    The house my dad lived in until he was five or six had no running water. Sometime around when his mom remarried, they moved into a house with running water.

    Fourscore, I like what you wrote.

    • Fourscore

      My dad was born in 1893, in a single generation we went from pre-Ford to a totally computerized world of today.

      • Sean

        Where we can communicate, in real time, from our comfy furniture around hate world. Including pics and video. ?

      • DEG

        And porn.

      • Sean

        Err…not hate… “the”

        Sorta works the original way though.

      • C. Anacreon

        My grandfather was born in 1895, he didn’t speak to us grandkids much, but occasionally we could get stories about life with no cars, planes, phones, electricity, on and on. Amazing what a different world it is than it was for people 120 year ago, some of whom people my age we even got to discuss it with. I even remember a July 4th parade when I was a kid in the 1960s that had a float with Spanish-American War veterans.

  12. The Hyperbole

    Bullshit! where’s my jet pack and robot Jeeves. I wanna live 2, 3 hundered years from now, we got royally screwed being born so soon.

    • Cancelled

      You step through the time portal jubilant at the marvels you will see. As you arrive you notice lush forests as far as the eye can see, obviously clean energy has arrived and the world is a giant park. Three days later you finally see your first human being, a tiny old woman trudging along the path with a bundle of firewood on her back. You offer to help her carry the wood and in return she offers you shelter for the night and a meal. Over a tasty supper of turnips stewed in a watery broth, eaten by the emberglow of the dying fire she shocks you by claiming to be 35 and a widow. You ask her about the history of the past two hundred years and she becomes confused and agitated. All she knows is that her parents raised her on a small farm, and married her off to a woodcutter at age 13. She bore him 3 children but they all died of plague some years ago, and now she ekes out a meager existence on her plot of cleared land. She tells you that maybe someone in the big town 3 more days journey to the west can answer your questions.

  13. DEG

    RE: JC Whitney: They are no more. In July, what was left after the 2010 acquisition by CarParts.com was folded into CarParts.com.

    • Fourscore

      Where am I going to get a chrome air cleaner for my ’46 Ford?

      /17 year old Fourscore

      • mikey

        Or my Fire Injectors!?1

      • Tres Cool

        Or those plugs that fire in OIL! (and burn a hole in your piston)

      • Fourscore

        If that was the 4 electrode spark plugs I had them too.

      • mikey

        Yep. Think I’ve still got mine somewhere.

      • TARDIS

        16K of RAM is $200??? 300 baud? What is that?

        /18 year old TARDIS

      • pistoffnick

        My first 20MB hard-drive cost me just under $200

        My HP48G calculator (Reverse Polish Notation, fer life!) cost me $250. I was King of the Nerds for about a week.

        My first Pentax K100 camera cost me $300, plus film, plus developing.

        Now my cell phone has over 6,000 times more memory, has a free app that emulates my HP48G calculator, 2 cameras that take better pictures than that Pentax, and acts as my spare brain. Unfortunately it also gives away all my secrets.

      • Bobarian LMD

        I think it was K100 that the horse stepped on, with zoom telephoto lens.

      • Gustave Lytton

        I still have my 48SX and remember when they first came out. And several other calculators. I too am an RPN addict.

      • Gustave Lytton

        My dad still uses his 12C from when he worked accounting.

      • Son of Fourscore

        Imagine handing a 10 TB hard drive to a RAMAC operator in 1956 and telling him that the 3.5-inch device in their hands holds two million times more data than that big box in front of him. He’d think you were nuts.

  14. invisible finger

    In the late 60’s I clearly remember the three-flat my grandmother lived in on the far south side of Chicago where it was evident the plumbing and electrical lines were added years after the building went up. Basically the front porch and back porch were repurposed as additional rooms so the plumbing (back, extensively ) and electrical (front, small) were protected from the elements and interlopers.

  15. Count Potato

    “When I went to work I bought my mother an electric percolator, then a deep fryer (’cause I loved French fries), then an electric skillet and a pop up toaster. We/she was living the high life, times were good at the Fourscores.”

    We have more stuff now than kings and queens had 200 years ago.

    • TARDIS

      That sounds like something Bill Gates would say.

    • Ted S.

      One of the things I always enjoy about old movies is the conveniences thethey had, or more accurately didn’t have. Everybody made coffee on the stove top.

      Thank god for Mr. Coffee.

      • Gender Traitor

        Now I wake up in the morning,…. push the button on the coffee maker.

        I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: the single greatest invention known to humankind is the programmable timer on a drip coffee maker. I can crawl out from under the covers and the cat, stagger into the kitchen, and find the fresh, hot coffee waiting for me.

      • l0b0t

        French press now, French press forevah!

      • Gender Traitor

        That’s for the second cup, once you’re awake enough to make it AND appreciate it.

    • creech

      Well they did have all the servants they desired and the kings had power, if you know what I mean, over all the hawt women in his kingdom

      • Count Potato

        Then they got sex pox and antibiotics didn’t exist.

      • Bobarian LMD

        Yeah but all it took was a little silver nitrate up the ole urethra.

        Good as new.

  16. Crusty Juggler

    OT: Abolish teachers

    I don’t agree with the unorthodox curriculum replacement, but I don’t not agree with it, ya heard?

  17. Ted S.

    We had an electric can opener until it broke. Never had to use the old claw-style opener, just the wind-up.

    I remember we had a hand-cranked ice cream maker you had to fill with ice and rock salt. We have an electric ice cream maker, but we never use it. I’m not certain if the freezer part is even in the chest freezer.

    • Fourscore

      I love that homemade ice cream, used to see it at my neighbor’s annual picnic, then he left this world. If it was from an electric maybe his wife will make some and bring it to the Honey Harvest

    • Tulip

      My family still uses an old fashioned hand crank ice cream maker at family reunions. We round up the kids and make them all take a turn.

      • Tundra

        Love it. My grandparents had one and we boys used to fight over who got to crank the stupid thing.

        Still the best ice cream I’ve ever had, though.

      • Tulip

        Made with strawberries picked that morning. Yum.

      • Tundra

        Or picked while the idiots are fighting.

        But yes.

        This is also the time of year my grandma would make me my birthday strawberry rhubarb pie. I’ve never tasted anything like it. With fresh ice cream? Heaven.

      • Gender Traitor

        Mmmmm!!! Strawberry rhubarb pie!

        I miss our neighborhood farmers’ market (cancelled for 2020, dammit!) : (

      • R C Dean

        Fresh home made handcranked peach ice cream. Texas summer at dusk. Heaven.

      • The Hyperbole

        Nerds! ..er… Luddittes!

      • Fourscore

        TundraBoys fighting over who gets to lick the paddle

        Best ice cream

      • l0b0t

        When I was wee, we would schlep up to Sebring to visit Papa Jim and Nanny Karnes (my maternal great-grandparents). She would despatch a hen and make chicken and dumplings; while he would gather lemons and spend the afternoon on the porch, smoking his pipe and showing me how to churn the best lemon ice cream I’ve ever tasted.

    • Frnxt Ghrt Digby Gurm

      I can’t believe there are even this many people here that like that homemade shit. It’s runny(ish), like froyo, or custard, but it ain’t custard.

      That Bluebell Homemade vanilla is the grossest flavor they have, and they got quite a few ‘experiments’

      /but, they do get others plenty right.

  18. westernsloper

    When we see other places, Africa, Central America and other places less modern there is a reason and it’s not because of an energy shortage.

    What’s the reason? I can ramble on this for hours and probably have. Corruption? Idiocy? No market worth a company investing due to instability?

    • Urthona

      Not enough American-ness. Bring those people some bald eagles and hamburgers.

      • Urthona

        But not bald eagle hamburgers.

      • pistoffnick

        *Wonders what eagle meat tastes like*

        has eaten:
        ostrich
        donkey
        cow heart
        cow stomach (both Schezhuan and 5 spice style)
        alligator
        elk
        venison
        buffalo
        beefalo

      • Bobarian LMD

        No donkey or ostrich, but did have emu which is supposed to be very similar.

        Had everything else, and moose, bear, cougar (ick), and your north american small game.

      • Count Potato

        “beefalo”

        Now you are just making shit up.

      • Shpip

        Never to my knowledge have had beef heart, but had pig heart chili and pig blood chocolate mousse at a place in DC called “The Pig.” Also stir-fried spicy pig intestines in Houston’s Chinatown, and horse tartare in Verona. Horse is delicious, BTW.

      • Dr. Fronkensteen

        They just need tons of regulations and a large welfare state so they can avoid the Dickensian nightmare of our Robber Baron age when US industry grew its fastest.

      • Urthona

        We are only 87 million layers of bureaucracy away from that happening again.

      • westernsloper

        I am not sure if that is just a smart ass reply or a really smart ass reply because American-ness has #semi stable corruption.

      • Ted S.

        HM posts smart ass-replies.

      • Frnxt Ghrt Digby Gurm

        #LearnedAssery

  19. LJW

    Test 1,2,3 comments not posting…

    • Urthona

      Is this thing on?

    • LJW

      Ah there we go but my replies to other comments are still not posting.

    • TARDIS

      Your’e breaking up.

      • Gender Traitor

        …but you can still be friends.

    • Ted S.

      Test failed.

    • Urthona

      Can i get more lead guitar in my monitor please?

      • Gender Traitor

        …and if you could back off the Talent Inhibitor while you’re at it…

    • Dr. Fronkensteen

      Was that a Tilted Kilt. I couldn’t read the restaurant sign.

      • DEG

        No. The Tilted Kilt uniform is much different.

        The comments claim it is Bombshells.

      • Dr. Fronkensteen

        Thanks. It looks like that’s just a Texas based “breastaurant”

      • Frnxt Ghrt Digby Gurm

        “Just”….

      • Urthona

        I have been to a Bombshells and it is indeed.

      • Nephilium

        I thought the Tilted Kilt pretty much went under. And they always went with white blouses and plaid skirts.

      • DEG

        They have a few restaurants still open, or at least did before the Lil Rona panic happened.

      • Frnxt Ghrt Digby Gurm

        I think he’s right–if they ain’t ded, they’re circling the drain very quickly.

      • Dr. Fronkensteen

        I’ll have to see if the one near me is still open and help a struggling college student.

    • westernsloper

      I am very ok with whatever that was.

  20. Crusty Juggler

    When I went to work I bought my mother an electric percolator, then a deep fryer (’cause I loved French fries), then an electric skillet and a pop up toaster. We/she was living the high life, times were good at the Fourscores.

    Now I wake up in the morning, maybe turn off the electric blanket or the ceiling fan, look at the electric clock, push the button on the coffee maker. The counter top is covered with appliances, I’ll try to remember without looking: first the refrig, then coffee grinder, coffee maker, air cooker, counter top oven, toaster, mixer. Probably missed something. Microwave is near the electric range. All day long is a parade downstairs to the pantry with another dozen or more appliances, woks, fry pans, slow cookers, rice cookers.

    Too warm, turn on the AC, too cold, start a fire and the furnace fan will kick on automatically. Another refrig and freezer downstairs, ditto out in the garage. Drive up, push the remote and the garage door opens. Garage is full of electric power tools and I’m about as handy as a cub bear with his…well you get the idea.

    Garden needs water? Throw the switch. Keep the electric fence going around the bees in case there is a bear in the neighborhood. Everything we do, every waking minute, is pushing a button or a switch and it’s a miracle. I have no idea where the power comes from, how it is generated or who keeps things humming but I’m grateful. On those rare occasions that the power goes off it’s deathly silent. All the daily work, from pumping the water to keeping me up at night on the computer costs about 6-7 bucks a day. What a bargain.

    What is this, an episode of everyone’s favorite new podcast “Are You Garbage?”

  21. mikey

    Hey Fourscore. Fun read. At 3.5 score I think about this alot. I feel like we were born on the cust of a huge change. I don’t have memories of the Before Times, but I grew up with reminders all around me. I grew up in a big city, but it was a big deal when we got a fridge to replace the ice box. I missed the ice box. After my dad cut the block down to fit i got the left over piece and had fun chopping it up with the ice pick. An unsupervised five-year-old with an ice pick!
    I’d spend summers at my grandparents place in a small Utah town. All the electric wires in the house were stapled to the wall and the power from the house to the out buildings was over two bare wires seperated by ceramic insulators. My grandmother thought that if you didn’t put the new light buld in the fixture right away the electrcity would pour into the room and electrocute us.
    The outhouse and hand-pumped well were still there if unused.

    • Fourscore

      I lived in Mpls as young kid, no refrig but the ice man delivered ice in the summer, with a horse. We had a card w/ 25/50/75/100 on it. Whatever number was on top was the quantity we got. Us kids would run out to look at the horse and the ice man would chip off a small piece for each kid. Kind of like a poor kid’s ice cream truck.

  22. Crusty Juggler

    ‘Last one out, turn out the lights’: New Hampshire governor says higher taxes prompting urban flight

    New Hampshire’s governor said New Yorkers are pouring into the state due to high taxes and fear for their safety amid the Covid-19 crisis.

    “We’re booming,” New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu told CNBC. “People are coming from all across the country, especially in the Northeast. You’re in New York, you have a mayor who doesn’t know what he’s doing. You have years of terrible policy out of Albany. People have choices, and 2020 is driving them to those decisions. It’s like they put a big sign on the Brooklyn Bridge that says, ‘The last one out, turn out the lights.’”

    New Hampshire’s real estate is selling quickly, Sununu said, adding that he’s getting frequent calls from companies looking to relocate to the “Live Free or Die” state.

    We comin’ for those Johnny Cakes.

    • Brochettaward

      How bad is your state when people are fleeing for the relative freedom of New Hampshire?

      • Crusty Juggler

        Pretty bad…

      • LJW

        What about Delaware?

      • Crusty Juggler

        My office has been busy post-hurricane and I received help from Delaware.

        The Delaware guys are far superior to my doofus New Yorkers.

        My God.

      • Grumbletarian

        Then said people vote for the same crap from which they fled.

    • DEG

      It helps that the state has a bit less Lil Rona Panic nonsense than NY and MA.

      Shame the Clown Prince won’t end the state of emergency and open the state fully.

    • hayeksplosives

      Problem is, if true blue urbanites take over the suburbs too, we really will have a one party system. And it’s not Thomas Massie or Rand Paul’s party either; it’s AOC’s.

      • westernsloper

        I am not sure I ever classified where I am as suburbia or more bum fuck hillbilly nowhere but I have seen more MA, VA, PA and CA plates than I ever remember seeing here. All cars loaded with gear. Hopefully just nomadic covidrefugees wandering around but I get worried. Then again I don’t. I am kind of ready to escape myself.

  23. pistoffnick

    You never hear about anybody catching polio anymore. My Grandma had it. She was in a wheelchair after giving birth to her 10th child.

    • Brochettaward

      She legs had already served their purpose.

      • Tundra

        I can’t decide whether to punch you or applaud…

    • mikey

      Yeah. When the vacine came out everyone rushed to get it. Several kids at my elementary school had it.

      • Fourscore

        Jonas Salk for the win! Worse than Covid because of some of the after results, like PONick’s grandma.

    • Urthona

      My grandfather had it as a child and was crippled his entire life. way worse than covid.

      • dbleagle

        My mom caught it in the last big Polio outbreak. Now she fears a late bloom from virus within her. I guess that is a thing- another thing not to worry about. Yet the crazy islamists in Africa and Asia are trying to stop polio vaccinations because of the (((origin))) of the vaccine.

  24. SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

    I really miss spending time on my great grandparents’ farm (up near Hyperbole). It was like a living museum. The original farmhouse was built in the 30s, I’m guessing, and various additions were added every 20 years or so until the 90s, when they passed. Seeing the work ethic they had puts somebody of my generation to shame. Oh woe is me with my first world problems. Meanwhile my great grandmother had a miscarriage falling off a fence while wrangling cattle. Family leave? Hazard pay? Please.

    The luxuries of today are amazing, bur the people born of the luxuries are soft, myself included.

    • westernsloper

      I had a great aunt and uncle that had a farm (up near Tres) Seems Ohio roots runs deep in the glib community. I remember visiting there vaguely when I was 5/6 or so. Other Great Uncle missing half an arm from WW2, (which was cool cuz he had a hook for a hand like a pirate), lightning bugs and sweet cereal (count Chocula which mom never bought) are my only memories. That and their house smelled of old people and antiques.

  25. Tundra

    Now to keep the magic going!

    Couldn’t agree more, my friend!

    Thanks for this.

    • Crusty Juggler

      More magic?

      Roger that

      • Ozymandias

        Tundra –

        No kidding, earlier today I was thinking about asking TPTB if I could submit some links – my music choice was going to be this. And I had a sneaking suspicion that you would (1) be a fan, and (2) submit the song you did in response to the one I was going to link.

      • Mojeaux

        I won’t link all the magic songs I like. Everyone will make fun of me. ?

      • Tundra

        In love those guys. As a matter of fact, I linked one in the horoscope thread yesterday.

        Canucks punching wayyyyyyy above their weight class!

      • Ozymandias

        I absolutely loved – and wore out – the cassette of their album that had “Time Canon” and that whole “Time” theme to it: the one with Vitruvian Man on the cover/jacket. That was a kick-ass three-man band.

  26. hayeksplosives

    I try to acknowledge at least to myself daily that I got pretty danged lucky being born where I was when I was.

    We got the chimney fixed for winter. Between that and the windows, we don’t run central air on many days.

    Later generations will look at flip phones and 4 color vga monitors in which their game character was made of about 4 pixels. Then they will riot in the street for a hashtag, following the latest social media trend like it’s the Pied Piper.

    The piper will have to be paid eventually; those of us who still marvel at clean drinking water from the tap will be resilient. The others…? Who knows?

      • R C Dean

        R C wouldn’t have lived two years. Barely made it with open heart surgery in 1964.

  27. dbleagle

    I love primitive hunting and camping. Same for simple sailboats on big waters. But those are my choices and not superimposed on all because that is all that is available. All these people trying to turn back the clock on others, and how they live, to meet the lefts insane ideas is terrifying.

    I am only three score and change and I remember classmates dying of diseases that are now easily treatable. Polio was defeated by then, but a classmate had an uncle who existed in an iron lung in the family room. (He had a great sense of humor.)

    Food was different and rarely for the better. Asparagus was a few weeks in the spring, then that’s it for the year. Kiwi Fruit- is that a New Zealand homosexual? Cause there ain’t no food named that. Getting an orange in the mail for XMAS from a great aunt, because that is when she would have one as a girl.

    One thing that was better then IMHO was the phone was connected to the wall, and there was one for the family. The concept of helicopter parenting can’t happen when kids were expected to explore on their own. I was too young to drive when I first rode my bicycle Tucson to Phoenix and back one weekend. I just called my parents collect when I arrived in Mesa. Then I got some food, biked to the desert and spent the night. The next day, sore as hell, I started back.

    • westernsloper

      I was too young to drive when I first rode my bicycle Tucson to Phoenix and back one weekend. I just called my parents collect when I arrived in Mesa. Then I got some food, biked to the desert and spent the night. The next day, sore as hell, I started back.

      This explains a lot. You are a masochist.

    • pistoffnick

      I lament the free range of my children. When I was young, I biked everywhere. I had a range with a radius of about 14 miles. I would bike to Lake City, MN to swim in Lake Pepin, and then ride home. I biked 12 miles the other way to go fishing at the dam. Then biked home.

      When I got my first car, I couldn’t wait to go exploring further. I got a job just so I could have money for gas.

      My kids barely used their bikes. One pretty much refuses to drive the car we bought him (THAT is another sore spot I don’t want to talk about).

      • Nephilium

        I have several friends who have kids who have turned 16, and aren’t interested in getting their drivers licenses. I can’t even comprehend that.

      • Fourscore

        It was a right of passage, I got my full license at 15.

        “When’s your birthday? Gonna take your driver’s test?”

      • Gustave Lytton

        I didn’t because I biked everywhere in smaller town and I’d have to follow my folks’ rules and pay for the increased premiums. In retrospect, it would have been better for me to have buckled down, did what they said, and actually did the school work instead of skipping.

      • Viking1865

        Internet is to blame for that.

        I got a folding flip phone for my 16th birthday in 2005, and it was used solely to coordinate meeting up with friends. Now these kids are constantly plugged into social media, group texts, video calls, etc. They are hanging out with all their friends at the same time, and they’re all laying on their beds at home doing it.

      • Tundra

        Not an option in our house. I love extracurricular activities, but I bored quickly of being a fucking chauffeur.

      • westernsloper

        This has been the tact in all households in my family. “You want to go there? You can get a drivers license, get one and drive there.” Even the Canadian half of the family where apparently from what I hear of cousins of the kids it is totally cool to not have a drivers license into your 20’s. Fuck that.

      • whahappan

        My buddy’s daughter in PA just got her license in PA. At 21. His younger daughter got hers a few months ago at 16.

      • Mojeaux

        Also, my kid. Totally not interested. We’re tired of ferrying her around.

        She’s got a job. She needs to be able to get herself there.

      • R C Dean

        “We’re tired of ferrying her around.”

        No wonder she doesn’t have a license. She has a car service. Tell her that 01/01/2021, you won’t do that any more. Get a license, and we’ll talk about a car.

      • one true athena

        My son *says* he’s interested, but he’s only poked a bit at the online lessons which he has to finish before he can get his learner’s permit.

        But I”m not sure that’s not a rational choice when the DMV hours are so screwed up right now, he probably couldn’t get the LP anyway.

      • Brochettaward

        One pretty much refuses to drive the car we bought him (THAT is another sore spot I don’t want to talk about).

        So…why doesn’t he want to drive the car?

      • pistoffnick

        Afraid he’s going to crash it.

      • pistoffnick

        To be fair, his older sister did t-bone a landscaper truck when she was 16. She trusted her sister who said “Punch it!”

  28. Spudalicious

    I love your outlook, Fourscore. Keep them coming!

    • Fourscore

      The latest miracle. My newly married granddaughter and husband left Seattle a week ago Sunday driving to Alaska. No big deal, right? Yesterday she called me from Galena, Al
      Check your Rand McNally) on her cell phone, sounded like she was in Poduckville. This morning I got an email with pictures of the house they have rented, from Galena. Only 2 ways into Galena, by bush air (as they did) or barge down the Yukon River, as their truck is coming.

      How can these little hand held things perform that magic from an Alaskan wilderness? How small is this world we have inherited? No wonder the Post Office can’t make money, overcome by technology.

      • Tundra

        Damn. What an adventure!

      • Gustave Lytton

        Galena, Al

        One of Johnny Horton’s earlier efforts “North to Alabama”.

      • DEG

        I thought the border was closed? How’d they cross?

      • Brochettaward

        Fourscore teller of tall tales confirmed!

      • Brochettaward

        I bet he doesn’t even make his own honey!

      • pistoffnick

        The bees make it for him! He is a bee slave owner!

      • Fourscore

        The border is open at one crossing near Seattle but only for trans Canadian travel. They had to provide proof that they were going to Alaska, they had their teaching contracts as proof. They had a 5 day window to make the drive and lots of advice about what not to do, like party with the locals along the way. They drove non-stop, 34 hours, on the north end it crossing was easy, since they were entering the USA. They had long guns and ammo but that wasn’t a problem, as they were going to be in Alaska where the guns are legal.

        The border crossing was 3.5 hours but because of traffic, not because of any bureaucratic problems. The Canadian Border Patrol were totally unmasked and didn’t see any masks in Canada. They are in a 7 day quarantine in Galena however.

      • Count Potato

        “They had long guns and ammo but that wasn’t a problem, as they were going to be in Alaska where the guns are legal.”

        I thought you needed a letter from the Canadian government.

    • DEG

      #2 – Face diaper. Blech.

      #16 – Despite her tattoos, I like her and her iChive gallery. Well, that is until I saw the face diaper picture in her iChive gallery.

      #17 – You’re trying too hard.

      #32 – Very nice.

    • Count Potato

      Archive wouldn’t work for me.

  29. Viking1865

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqZWa959-vE

    I’m watching pro disc golf. I really love the combo of hippie/skater type word choice and phrasing with the same “hushed excitement” tone of a typical golf announcer.

  30. hayeksplosives

    Back in MAH days, we had shag carpeting. Blue with a few brown strands for contrast. That shag was so deep, it could conceal Lite Brite pegs, holding them upright to attack an unsuspecting foot.

    • Q Continuum

      “Lite Brite pegs”

      You rule Ms. Splosives.

      • hayeksplosives

        Thanks, man. Graphic arts ❤️

      • Frnxt Ghrt Digby Gurm

        Imagine the people at….(checks the internet) Hasbro that got to make up all the designs that teased and inspired us li’l ‘uns. Helluva job to have.

      • Bobarian LMD

        Reminded of the funniest movie scene ever.

      • Frnxt Ghrt Digby Gurm

        All hail Bobarian!

    • Tundra

      Yeah?

      We had shag carpeting AND some ’70s ceiling treatment that involved straw and plaster. WTF?

      • Tulip

        We had popcorn ceiling with sparkles. So 80s.

      • Nephilium

        In the living room of the house I currently live in is a giant mirrored wall. It’s on the list of things to remove. They even found a mirrored outlet cover to put on it.

      • Tulip

        I am in awe of the mirrored outlet cover. When you take down the mirrored wall, you should keep that and put it in a shadow box or something.

      • Nephilium

        It’s gloriously tacky. The only person who visited the house who liked the mirrored wall was the girlfriend’s grandmother… “it makes the room look so much bigger.”

      • pistoffnick

        Put…put … put the mirrors on the ceiling!

      • hayeksplosives

        A ceiling treatment involving straw and plaster—-doesn’t ring a bell.

        Now, popcorn ceilings on the other hand, were quite the thing. Add glitter for the height of sophistication.

        As a kid I asked dad about the glitter on my aunt’s ceilings. Dad told me they’d had a party while the paint was still wet so the Glitter confetti stuck on there.

        It was one of those things Kids accept their parents’ word for it and only find out years later they were pulling your leg.

      • Tulip

        Did you have a carpet rake?

      • hayeksplosives

        Nope.

      • Tulip

        We did, had to rake the shag carpet. How ridiculous was that?

      • Gustave Lytton

        Ripped out the shag carpeting in the back bedroom a couple of years ago. Still have popcorn ceilings in much of the house. I absolutely hate that shit. If I was moving in today, I’d scrape the whole thing all at once. And the bathtub is pink.

      • hayeksplosives

        Popcorn ceilings can be readily removed these days with a special attachment. Still end up with it everywhere so an empty or well-covered interior would be needed.

      • Gustave Lytton

        I have that tool and having done several rooms, I’m not bad at it and minimize the mess. The real issue is after scraping, it needs to be patched, skimmed, and textured. All of which is a pain when the room is full of stuff.

        And if the popcorn has asbestos in it, the removal can be more interesting.

      • Count Potato

        Use a sprayer with water. Still need an an empty and well-covered interior.

      • Tulip

        As a kid, I really wanted that in my room, I liked looking at the ceiling and imagining it was stars. My room had a smooth plain ceiling.

        We also had avocado appliances. *shudders*

    • Nephilium

      4-sided die are the caltrops of the dice world.

      • Tundra

        By the way, I was late to your travel article, but it was excellent!

        Looking forward to the next chapter.

      • Nephilium

        Glad you enjoyed it. Part 2 has been submitted, looks like it’s on the calendar for Sunday after GlibFit.

        Time to start on Part 3, which includes a picture of the world’s longest bar with every table in the place empty.

      • Nephilium

        Oh… and it includes some classic cars and other oddities. Such as a 1924 Model T Snowmobile that was built for the government to deliver mail in Minnesota.

      • Tundra

        Sweet!

        Looking forward to that, especially!

      • Tulip

        I’m looking forward to it.

      • DEG

        Yes.

    • one true athena

      We had the most noxious yellow deep shag. I remember this because my mom dropped a box of straight pins on it.
      Yeah, everyone was finding those with their feet until it was all ripped up and replaced years later.

  31. Tulip

    My aunt and uncle first got running water in the barn. It took a few more years before they got running water in the house.

    • Fourscore

      Prioriies, cows and horses drink a lot of water. Probably your kin had a pump near the back door so water was handy for the house.

      • Tulip

        Exactly. Lot less work to haul water for 10 people (they had 8 kids) than for 75 cows.

      • Bobarian LMD

        I remember the guy who worked for my Dad lived on a farm, and while the house was set up for running water, it never worked right, everything in the house was done by the pump on the well.

        This was in the early ’70s.

  32. hayeksplosives

    Reflecting back on Fourscore’s original article, it’s not just the time, it is also the place.

    Brazil is modern and gas some huge cities. But in Sao Paolo, even in ritzy neighborhoods, you can’t drink or brush teeth with the water. WTF?

    Call me crazy, but when I watch documentaries on Toman engineering, or the first Gutenberg press, part of me is wanting to file that knowledge away for safekeeping when we have to rebuild civilization.

    • The Bearded Hobbit

      Foxfire books.

      • The Bearded Hobbit

        Started in the hippie days of the 60’s. High school kids in Georgia were concerned about the loss of backwoods old-timey knowledge so they went out and collected the info from the old folks which they published. The books that came out in the 70’s were the Preppers Handbooks of the time.

        https://www.foxfire.org/

    • straffinrun

      Yep. Sometimes I wonder if this comfort and convenience isn’t a curse, though.

    • Chafed

      Brazil is modern but corrupt. There is some rule of law but not like here. It’s no surprise it’s a mish mash of technology.

  33. Bobarian LMD

    Just saw this.

    Still laughing.

    • CatchTheCarp

      Haha, that was good!

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      Psych!!!

  34. hoof_in_mouth

    Some of my relatives in Kentucky had a big old house that didn’t get power until the 70’s. I don’t remember it without power but I do remember the electric pump down in the old brick well and the black/yellow smoke stained ceiling from 100 years of kerosene and pipes

  35. Gustave Lytton

    Was this covered last week?

    https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/meteorologist-cliff-mass-loses-job-at-another-radio-station-over-controversial-comments-about-seattle-riots/281-c8658179-552f-46ef-af53-8f3d9787d0c3

    Of course, the thugs running free in the street and their allies don’t like being compared to the street violence of the Nazis, no matter how apt. It’s also comparable to the leftist insurrections such as the Spartacists that directly led to the Nazis as a reaction to their thuggery.

    • Brochettaward

      There probably wouldn’t have been any Nazis in power if not for the violent commies.

      • straffinrun

        It’s always been a battle of good intention violence vs bad intention violence.

        -Woke Media

    • Rhywun

      Ah, blogs. The original “social media”. DON’T DO IT. I had one about 15 years ago and I guess some instinct other than laziness told me to stop.

    • Frnxt Ghrt Digby Gurm

      “Wait a minute–You guys call Trump a Nazi all the time! Even his supporters!”

      “We thought it was a compliment….”

  36. CatchTheCarp

    In the mid 60’s my parents bought a home in a new subdivision built on land that used to be rural farmland north of St. Louis. There were still a few old farmers around, two I remember were brothers who lived in a ramshackle house that was off the narrow 2 lane road to our subdivision. No indoor plumbing, just well used outhouse and a well for water. Heated by fireplaces and a wood burning stove. Lots of dogs and feral looking cats running around. Primitive. During our fist summer there a group of us neighborhood kids used to walk by the farmers place and being a friendly sort he would always ask us we wanted a drink from his well and if any us had any older sisters. Sure we wanted a drink but none of us had any older sisters. He nodded and wound the bucket down and brought up a bucket of cool water. We were still thirsty so he sent the bucket back down. We were talking among ourselves about how cool it was to be drinking real well water and how it tasted different. When he pulled up the bucket the second time it contained a very stiff drowned cat.

  37. Yusef drives a Kia

    I run my home for about 375$ for electricity, and 20 dollars for water, per month, and you dont’t drink the water, it’s barely potable, Fabric softener required laundry,
    But hey, it’s sunny!

  38. straffinrun

    Watched 1917 last night. Powerful movie. Striking how polite the British soldiers were to each other. “Pardon me” “Oh, thank you” etc. Even when in hell on Earth.

    • l0b0t

      Q – What did the Englishman say when he caught his wife in bed with three men?

      A -“Hullo, hullo, hullo.”

      • straffinrun

        Nice. Then he put on tea for everybody.

  39. Ozymandias

    Great article, Mister Fourscore. I think about this all the time. I’m not sure why – as I grew up in the 70s – but my dad was raised on a small farm, in a house he helped build.
    Maybe it’s because I’ve spent time in places (abroad) where what you describe is the norm – something slightly above subsistence living – and all I could think was, “thank god I was born in the time I was.”

    Too many people have become too soft for OUR own good. That’s just the plain truth of it. As a society, we’re lazy, overweight, and doughy, outside and in.
    Maybe what we’re witnessing is simply the inevitable result of such incredible success over our environment and largesse for the masses. I look at how I live, largely a middle-class existence, and I often tell my wife, “We live better than most nobles did in the Renaissance.” It’s mind-boggling how much… abundance we have.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      Even the modern science fiction i read in the 70’s and 80’s didn’t quite anticipate the Tech we have today, except for maybe Elon,
      This time just Blows me away if I think how far we have come as a species,

      • Ozymandias

        I always try to tell people that the iPhone is basically everything that Captain Kirk had in his communicator, sans laser. Instead of saying “computer” first, we say “Siri” or “Alexa” or “Google.” Otherwise, we have access to the collective knowledge of humanity in our back pockets… and yet most people are still fuckheads – and can’t be nice to others and/or leave them alone.
        So much for all of that knowledge.

      • Dr. Fronkensteen

        One of reasons I like my flip phone. It’s like the Star Trek communicator I grew up watching.

      • Gustave Lytton

        My wife says that too.

    • straffinrun

      This brings in the thing that drives some libertarians nuts: Nationalism. As soon as property rights become less than fully protected, it became clear that you’d need another mechanism to protect your system from being overrun.

      • Ozymandias

        I understand the “why” of that, but it seems to me that libertarian objections to nationalism confuse love of culture with chauvinism. I love the US not simply because it’s the US, but because of all the associated largesse that comes from a country that (as you note) protects property rights, has a justice system, low crime, etc.* It’s not an accident that we are so far ahead of the rest of the world in so many ways, but unfortunately the education system has convinced too many people that (a) things are horrible, and (b) the largesse we enjoy is an accident. (I wanted to shoot Ofuckhead right in the face when I heard him say “you didn’t build that.”)

        *Caveat with how fucked it is now as compared to how it was originally founded and conceived.

      • straffinrun

        (b) is even worse than that according to the left. Literally everything in the US is built on slavery and explotation. The old saying of shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves in three generations is ignored or dismissed out of hand. The system rewards all white people regardless of how poor or even how long inter generational poverty exists (see West Virginia). There is a naked power and resource grab being under taken on a mass scale and the people that should be fighting back are too comfortable to risk losing that comfort. Of course they will lose it in the end if they don’t, but short sightedness is a common human trait.

      • PieInTheSky

        it seems to me that libertarian objections to nationalism confuse love of culture with chauvinism – because it more often than not is chauvinism?

      • Frnxt Ghrt Digby Gurm

        Well, one could just as easily say, “It’s not bragging, if you can back it up”.

        Don’t take that to mean that I disagree with you, Pie. And, as the world connects more and more, it may be the case that people inclined to ‘nationalism’ do so less with exposure to other countries.

      • PieInTheSky

        “It’s not bragging, if you can back it up”. – I don’t understand what this has to do with anything

      • Frnxt Ghrt Digby Gurm

        In the sense that nationalism often takes the form of bragging about one’s country–the idea that our country is The Best.

        Sometimes, people who take that stance feel its warranted, based on the country’s accomplishments. They’d probably say they aren’t bragging, because the country has backed it up with actions.

      • PieInTheSky

        Sometimes, people who take that stance feel its warranted, based on the country’s accomplishments. They’d probably say they aren’t bragging, because the country has backed it up with actions. – meh I think the form nationalism most often takes is more than just bragging, and probably all feel it is warranted… Every shithole has a glorious history.

    • Plinker762

      “Our success over the environment” has been misinterpreted as control over it and is causing some of our current problems. I think the idea that we can control a virus is a symptom of this. The idea that certain countries or states have the virus under control is false. They may be controlling the people but not the virus.

    • Festus' Mustache

      I’m still pretty hard, physically but being bereft of the finer things I might last one winter, maybe two…

  40. Hyperion

    Excellent article, Fourscore.

    The first house I recall living in, was in Van Nuys, CA. In 1964. We had electric. Next house was later that same year, in Simi Valley. That house was new and we had electric and a TV.

    I guess I can’t tell you to get off my lawn?

    But I remember when we would go back east, we would visit some relative in Appalachia and not only did they all go to the bathroom in another little building outside, they didn’t have any electric and that was in the 60s.

    • Frnxt Ghrt Digby Gurm

      Maybe it’s….necessary? If so, congratulations!

    • Brochettaward

      She needs to keep herself loose for her much larger Japanese lover.

      I’m saying your wife is cheating on you and that you have a small penis.

      • straffinrun

        Lazy. You can do better.

      • Chafed

        I’m not so sure.

      • Frnxt Ghrt Digby Gurm

        Lover, or, Fighter?

      • Gustave Lytton

        Party in the front, business in the back.

      • Frnxt Ghrt Digby Gurm

        Don’t nobody want to inherit that business.

      • Chafed

        Good lord the Japanese are racist.

    • Festus' Mustache

      Gift from her Mama-San.

    • straffinrun

      I may be mistaken, but Cruz hasn’t been out leading the charge against the massive cash give aways. At least I haven’t seen it. As Ron Paul said, “If you cede 1% of the principle, you cede 100% of the argument.”

      • Frnxt Ghrt Digby Gurm

        Probably not. At lease, I haven’t seen it, either. Then again, Ed deserves as much shit as can be heaped upon him.

    • Frnxt Ghrt Digby Gurm

      Mike Tyson approves

  41. KSuellington

    Great read Four, thanks for a good reminder, I hope we as humans stay improving life quality instead of a rapid devolution. It is true that we are presently at a very ridiculous state of affairs, but we are comfortable there. In many ways that Is what has enabled the very ridiculousness.

    My father was raised in a stone, thatched roof, farmhouse with no indoor plumbing. We took a piss on the ruins of it in the early 80’s. Then visiting my mother’s family in Ireland they didn’t have proper indoor plumbing, they still had an outhouse and a metal tub with heated water from the peat stove to pour over yourself. We as kids thought it was awesome, but it wasn’t so great taking a crap there in a freezing cold January morning with rain pissing down.

  42. straffinrun

    Popcorn time. Seattle police chief to resign because her pay got slashed. TFW you are neither pro cop nor pro looter/arsonist…

    • Frnxt Ghrt Digby Gurm

      Sometimes, hating everyone in a story is the correct play.

      • straffinrun

        Hate is a probably justified, but I don’t wanna do it. I love the story of the anti hero and always hold out hope that he/she will redeem themself.

      • Frnxt Ghrt Digby Gurm

        I have no idea what kind of a chief she makes. I’ve seen good ol’ boys, and, good people. Sure as shit, though, she’s had to cover for officers who’ve done shit–and, will again, if she continues to be in police administration.

        As to what she’s learned recently, I guess we shall see.

      • Gustave Lytton

        I watched Fraser. I know what kind of cops work for SPD.

      • Frnxt Ghrt Digby Gurm

        They were regular callers to his show, eh?

      • Gustave Lytton

        His dad Marty was cop retired after he got shot. There were a couple of storylines around Marty and his former work.

    • Chafed

      I just read her resignation. She thanks Mayor Durkan. What a tool.

    • PieInTheSky

      resign or retire with a fat pension?

      • Frnxt Ghrt Digby Gurm

        She has a pension regardless of it–it’s very difficult to remove a pension that someone has been paying into.

      • Gustave Lytton

        But to add onto it, yes, she is retiring not just quitting.

      • Frnxt Ghrt Digby Gurm

        Now, onto a security consulting gig.

      • Gustave Lytton

        What’s the point of being a big dip dipper if you can’t double dipple?

        HT: Ohio Players

      • PieInTheSky

        I realize that but it is much easier to quit your job on a matter of principle when you are set afterwords…

        it’s very difficult to remove a pension that someone has been paying into. – do cops fully pay into those pensions? Are Seattle police pensions fully funded?

      • Frnxt Ghrt Digby Gurm

        It’s usually a split between the employee and the agency (at least it is in my part of the country). You can add more to the “pot” if you wish. Also, many agencies have multiple retirement savings opportunities. I have one through the Teachers’ Retirement System of Texas, and started a private savings/investment scheme that the school district started last September (matching up to 3%).

      • PieInTheSky

        It’s usually a split between the employee and the agency – but as far as I am aware in certain spots in the US the agency does not keep its end of the bargain when it comes to actually paying the sums needed to fund promised pensions, or am I wrong? Otherwise why are there unfunded liabilities?

      • Frnxt Ghrt Digby Gurm

        It is happening, although I’m not quite sure which pub sector employees are being affected. It’s my experience that police are often handled under different retirement pensions, although not all.

        Dallas Police were having a hell of a time with their funding liabilities over the last couple of years–lawsuits and whatnot. The monthly payouts are too high for the amounts of money they have on hand, not to mention an influx of retirees hitting at one time. It also has to do with how quickly a person can retire and be considered ‘fully vested’.

        But, yes–there are plenty of cities and states that have over-promised and come up short.

      • Rhywun

        NYC is in the hole for future retirement benefits to the tune of over 100 billion dollars.

    • Frnxt Ghrt Digby Gurm

      “Us kids can’t run for president, we can’t be a politician or anything, so we have to find other ways to change the world.”

      Oh, fuck…already pining for authority

      • hayeksplosives

        They devalued family and destroyed society. They have to find something else to cling to now.

        This is not an accident.

      • Frnxt Ghrt Digby Gurm

        Yeah–not even close.

      • Frnxt Ghrt Digby Gurm

        Welp, I’m ready for a Kumbaya-fest; how about you lot?

    • Frnxt Ghrt Digby Gurm

      Thaaaat’s…..that’s gotta be a typo.

      • limey

        New jack swing in chinee. Marvellous.

    • limey

      [pravda]It is a well known fact that[/pravda] AZN ladies look very young until about 70, at which point they immediately shrink in size and shrivel up into cute little AZN grandmas.

  43. limey

    Dropped car in for MOT (inspection) after about 6 years off the road and a long, boring story about how all that came to be. Anyway, she’s probably going to fail because in the name of safety, these mandated inspections are just as often a charter for makework scams. I’ll do any work myself. I don’t trust mechanics.

    • Gender Traitor

      Aw, c’mon! We’ve watched Wheeler Dealers. How could you not trust cuties like Edd or Ant? Mike’s the sleazeball salesman you have to watch out for.

      • limey

        ‘old out yer ‘and! I think I prefer the old WD episodes with Ed China when they were still UK-based. Good show. The “customer” at the end was just an actor though. Someone somewhere did a round up of what actually happened to the cars and the LS400 ended up on Ed’s driveway as his daily driver for a while.

        There are a couple of other car fixin’ shows we have here. There was For the Love of Cars which I think is where Ant comes from, and was hosted by the actor from Life on Mars (did you get that in the US?), and then my fave Car SOS which involves secretly sneaking away an old and well-loved yet dilapidated car from people who have had serious health problems that stopped them working on the car or disrupted their lives significantly, then fixing it up and surprising them with it. The mechanic on that show, Fuzz Townsend, used to play drums briefly for Pop Will Eat Itself (that’s pretty cool I had a legit reason there to link to another 90s song with the same title as the random one I posted below).

      • Gender Traitor

        The “customer” at the end was just an actor though.

        ::faith in humanity shattered::

        Not familiar with Life on Mars, so I don’t know if we had it over here. Car SOS sounds fun. Some of the other car-fixer-upper shows do that sort of thing occasionally, usually initiated by a relative.

      • limey

        I do enjoy a good car fixin’ show. The old WD would show more jobs and let Ed(d) explain things, and when the producers/Discovery Channel/whoever it was wanted to change the format to include less technical stuff, he felt like the format was being watered down and would lose it’s USP or something. I respect his decision to step down. Unfortunately he had a hell of a time getting all his tools shipped back to him or something. TV people are the worst. Youtube pretty much took over the niche programming market, though.

        Life on Mars was a detective show set in the 70s or 80s, involving someone who found themselves transported in time from the present day. I never watched it but it was a big hit.

      • Nephilium

        Life on Mars made it over here in the US, but I think it only got 1 or 2 seasons.

      • straffinrun

        “Here’s a hubcap from a 1940 Studebaker, Edd. Rebuild the car from that. I’m sure you can sort it out.”

  44. limey

    Good morning, Glibertarians. Does anyone remember how easily impressed some of us were with a bland, jangly guitar riff in the ’90s?

    • Gender Traitor

      Good morning, limey/JD (I see you under there!) I probably shouldn’t admit this, but I missed a lot of ’90s music – first hubby was 11 years older than I was, so we tended to listen to what he called “geezer rock.” Did I miss much?

      • limey

        Well now, metal toned down and got less hairy, indie rock was jangly, sliding into progressively less jangly territory as the decade rolled by, rap quickly devolved into a depraved hellscape of murder, petty beefs, and bragging about the success of crack sales, country got real poppy, invoving the man in my original avatar, Mr. Alan Jackson, being blamed by many for something they call “bro country” to which they draw a direct lineage from his (magnificent) body of work. There was a lot of garbage pop music, that got progressively worse, and what was popularly known as “R’n’B” no longer had much if any of the B, and only a very basic idea of the R. There’s a lot more to say but I have to go find out how badly my car failed inspection.

    • Rhywun

      “Were” impressed?!

      Never heard of these guys, though. I can think of a few bands from the same time and place that did it better.

      • limey

        One hit wonder over here. Unsure of success elsewhere. Mornin’ Rhy.

      • Rhywun

        Mornin’.

    • Sean

      *waves hi*

      • limey

        *unzips and waves back*

    • Gender Traitor

      Mornin’, UCS.

      • UnCivilServant

        How are things with you this morning? I got nothing to comment on.

      • Gender Traitor

        So far, so good, but I’m teetering on the verge of overwhelmed trying to get up to speed doing Accounts Payable (only temporarily, I hope!) when Unreliable Coworker leaves for good at the end of this week. And then there’s dealing with the mountains of returned mail we get each month, but that’s at least not nearly so time-sensitive. That part of the job is now mine for keeps – the sort of task that puts the tedium back into monotony. At least this evening is a swimming evening, which is my twice-weekly reward for being so brave.

        In reading news, Omnirunner just transformed into Katai.

        How ’boutchoo?

      • UnCivilServant

        I have not transformed into a J-Pop singer.

        I have been trying to troubleshoot a file transfer to an insurance company that has decided to keep giving us trouble.

      • Gender Traitor

        I have not transformed into a J-Pop singer.

        ::huge sigh of relief::

        …that has decided to keep giving us trouble.

        The file transfer or the insurance company?

      • UnCivilServant

        The transfer. A password update is supposed to be a simple transaction.

        We’re still trying to get the darn thing to work again.

      • Sean

        insurance company that has decided to keep giving us trouble.

        You want me to have a lil talk with them?

        *cracks knuckles*

      • UnCivilServant

        It’s the file transfer that’s giving us trouble.

        Surprisingly, computers can’t be indimidated – they’re too stupid to know fear.

    • limey

      Yo, what up, dawg?/Mornin’

      • limey

        Ditto. It feels like there’s a storm brewin’. Inshallah you are not negatively affected by the aerial onslaught of water.

      • Gender Traitor

        Had a doozy of a thunderstorm front pass through late last evening – “weakening derecho,” per the powerhouse weather local TV station. Power outages, apparently, but no ill effects here. Might be headed your way.

      • UnCivilServant

        According to the radar, that storm is headed for Sean, not me

    • Sean

      mornin’

      • UnCivilServant

        I found caffiene. Did you?

      • Sean

        Caffeine and adderall. Breakfast of champions.

    • Rhywun

      Mornin’.

      *yawns, scratches self*

    • straffinrun

      Ohayo.

  45. Festus' Mustache

    The Hobbit mentioned those “Foxfire” books. We had the whole set until the great deluge of 2001 when a roofing section failed. Used to like to read them as a sleep aid. Had an entire set of Encyclopedia America which was also lost. More than you ever wanted to know about every Civil War skirmish that you’ve never heard of. Clumsy reading experience but internet is just not the same. Had a bunch of old Atlases and other stuff that went with the rest to the landfill.

    • Gender Traitor

      What a shame to lose so many interesting books! We have a very tattered copy of one of the Whole Earth Catalog books. Don’t know what year – it’s probably too fragile to pick up and read, and at the moment it’s lying flat on the bookshelf with a row of Pratchett MM PBs across it.

      • Festus' Mustache

        Lot’s of “found treasures” TBH. They weren’t pristine to begin with but I do miss the feel of a three pound tome with tiny print lying on my chest. Probably the reason why we have a couple of dozen pairs of readers scattered hither and yon. Well that and age.

    • Rhywun

      Had a bunch of old Atlases

      *has a heart attack*

      I found an old atlas I had when I was a kid on Amazon recently. Made my day. That thing is better than most atlases produced today. (NB: the pic is wrong.)

      • Festus' Mustache

        My Dad had the Complete Webster’s Dictionary in one volume. It was about ten inches thick and rotting to pieces even when I was tiny back in the late 60’s. My favorite atlas had “German East Africa”. Like I said above, none of those books were worth a damn and already pretty musty. It was cool to flip through them.

  46. Stinky Wizzleteats

    “Morality pills’ may be the US’s best shot at ending the coronavirus pandemic, according to one ethicist”

    https://theconversation.com/morality-pills-may-be-the-uss-best-shot-at-ending-the-coronavirus-pandemic-according-to-one-ethicist-142601

    -Parker Crutchfield
    Associate Professor of Medical Ethics, Humanities and Law, Western Michigan University

    Just because it’s written doesn’t mean it needs to be published. Something something redacted…

    • hayeksplosives

      Nurse ztstvhrd flicks the switch to turn on her desk microphone.

      “It’s medication time.” she coos with her mouth while running a reptilian eye over the abundance of Ethics patients entrusted to her care.

    • Rhywun

      My research in bioethics focuses on questions like how to induce those who are noncooperative to get on board with doing what’s best for the public good.

      *runs far, far away*

    • Festus' Mustache

      Oh, this isn’t satire? Fuck me, fuck you and fuck everybody.

  47. Sean

    LOL, wut?

    Very mildly NSFW. Not your normal protest accessory.

    • Rhywun

      How transgressive. ?

      • Festus' Mustache

        ^^^ This is precisely how seriously most of these people take the “demonstrations”. Weaponized dildos for Marx.

      • straffinrun

        “Is it shocking and offensive? Good, because I don’t have any good arguments.” It’s how losers try to get their way.

  48. Sean

    https://www.naturalnews.com/2020-08-10-antifa-terrorists-austin-portland-weapons.html

    We have also learned over the last few weeks that Antifa has recruited UPS drivers to snap photos of delivery address tags of residential packages suspected of containing ammunition or gun parts. Antifa organizers are using these photos to assemble “hit lists” of private residential homes to assault in order to acquire new supplies of firearms and ammunition.

    We have also confirmed that Palmetto State Armory, one of the nation’s largest shippers of firearms parts, is now covering their cardboard boxes with plain white wrapping in order to conceal their own retail name, most likely because UPS employees are also stealing firearms parts from PSA and similar retailers. The ATF has made several arrests in the last few months of UPS employees stealing firearms during shipment.

    *adjusts tin foil hat*

    • PieInTheSky

      naturalnews? is that a reliable source?

      • straffinrun

        Give me one source that is. Seriously, they are all bullshitters.

      • PieInTheSky

        I mean its a spectrum and naturalnews is at the wrong end..

      • Festus' Mustache

        Iffy and probably bullshit.

      • Sean

        I have no idea. If I had to guess, it’s probably halfway true. *shrug*

        The customs seizures are true AFAIK.

    • Hyperion

      “assemble “hit lists” of private residential homes to assault in order to acquire new supplies of firearms and ammunition.”

      I know it’s antifa, but is it a really good idea to ‘assault’ homes in which you know the homeowners have firearms? Not sharpest tools in shed?

    • Hyperion

      Are there any more not too fat to chase down and tackle a biker vids out there? I won’t be watching any more NFL even if the pussies decide to play this year.