Metal buildings and lightening sort of OT

One Halloween when my Grandfather was a teenager (1901-1905) his brothers and friends decided to put the wagon on top the barn. So they spent several hours in the dark hauling the parts up onto the roof and putting it back together. The next morning when my Great-grandfather got up and walked outside he saw the wagon up on the roof . He walked back inside and said "I don't know how the wagon got itself up on the barn roof but it better get itself down real quick." At which point my Grandfather and his brothers set a new record getting the wagon back on the ground. I've always wondered if they woke up my Great-grandfather. It would be pretty hard haul the wagon parts up onto the roof without making some noise or setting the dog off barking. I can see him sitting at the window watching them, laughing to himself, waiting to get them in the morning. Karl

Reply to
Karl Vorwerk
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Probably wasn't too bad until she lit it.....

Reply to
Don Foreman

I'm glad they got out alive. It could have been much worse, as in:

There once was a man named McBride, Who fell down the outhouse and died. His next elder brother, Fell into another, So now they're in turd side-by-side.

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff Wisnia

Heck, I remember when it came in 55 gallon barrels and we young pump jockeys had to transfer it into those one quart glass jars with those tinplate screw on spouts on top of them.

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff Wisnia

Yes, there's a whole bunch of guardian angels doing their level best to keep kids alive, but every once in a while one of them has to take a pee break and we lose a teen ager. Sometimes it's not really the kids' fault.

Our youngest son lost two of his high school classmates last year, one through a sailboat capsizing, and even though he was wearing a life vest hypothermia killed him before they found him. The other kid was involved in a head on collision with a drunk driver who got onto an interstate the wrong way by entering it through an exit ramp.

But, our son walked away without a scratch the first snowy night last November when he drove onto a patch of black ice on a slight curve, slid over to the curb and rolled his recently hard earned car onto its head.

Those guardian angels were working overtime for us that night.

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Jeff

Reply to
Jeff Wisnia

Yeah, and there was the Flying A Service stations where you could get your car serviced ... had to get gas this morning and I think I got "serviced" instead $2.37 (up to $2.41 same station by the time I came home). When people came in, you did their windows, checked the water and oil for them and all those good things (been there done that)

Reply to
Mike Fields

Right, I even had to clean the front floors of customers' cars with a whisk broom and dustpan. (Seriously.)

I just hope that gas prices don't go so high that young toughs will start stealing gas from peoples cars like they did during the oil shortages in the mid 70s.

Remember how those bastards used to shove a pan under the back of your car and then jam a shiv up through the bottom of the gas tank so they could make off with your gas? Ugly times.

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff Wisnia

At $2.42 (and still rising, despite only being $2.30 in the next town over) a gallon locally, I'm expecting exactly that type of thing to begin happening in this area just about any time now. (Butte County California - SERIOUSLY depressed, economically. Depending on which report you read, we're either #1 or #2 in the category "highest percentage of county population receiving unemployment/welfare benefits in the state of California." - A rather dubious honor.) I'd consider moving, but with gas prices being what they are, I practically can't afford to fill the car to get me out of here!

Something REALLY needs to be done about the price-gouging the oil companies are doing. And don't try to hand me any of that crap about the price of a barrel of crude being high - That barrel of oil that the oil company buys today isn't going to arrive at the gas pump for 6 months, if not longer, but you can bet your ass that it'll be jacked up even further when it DOES get here, even if the price of oil were to magically fall through the floor overnight. They don't care, though... So long as they keep lining their pockets.

Reminds me of the "coffee shortage" back about the same time as the oil shortage - Prices almost literally doubled overnight when the south american coffee crop got frosted. Never mind the fact that those beans wouldn't have hit US shores for processing, LET ALONE grocery store shelves for consumers to buy, for a minimum of 6-8 months. But when record-level crops from other countries started coming in a few months later, practically flooding the market, did the price of coffee go back down to anything near what it was prior to the "shortage"? HELL NO!!! Prices actually JUMPED AGAIN!

We've got the same thing going on with gas - It boils down to "They'll bitch, but they'll pay the outrageous price because they don't have a choice, so let's leave the price high (or jack it even higher), rake off everything we can, and when the bitching gets loud enough, we'll drop the price 3 cents to shut them up for a while before we raise it another

10 cents."

Fondly remembering a news article on the back of a recipe mom clipped out of the Detroit Free Press back in about '72 - Headline: "Gas war continues: Prices down to 31 cents per gallon in some areas" The story went on to describe a "price war" in Detroit involving several gas stations trying to undercut each other. Owners from several of the stations were interviewed, and were raving about how they hadn't made so much money in years, even with the seeming "cut your own throat" prices that were involved. One owner was even quoted as saying he had plans to drop his prices to a quarter a gallon for all grades, and was expecting that if he did, he'd be making even more of a profit due to the volume.

Reply to
Don Bruder

It was even lower in some places: 26 cents/gal at one station in Grand Ledge, MI, where I used to gas up on my way to Grand Rapids. I remember filling up my MG there for $1.90, and it was on empty when I stopped for gas. The car got 35 mpg, too.

-- Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

I did that, but it was into 1 gallon jars for the Ag-cats. The P&W R-985 was a dry sump with 7 gal reserve oil tank.

Pete Keillor

Reply to
Peter T. Keillor III

***snortttttt***** Time for *another* shirt change..... Jeeeezzzz Jeff, you must have a book full of these..,.. :-) Ken
Reply to
Ken Sterling

On Wed, 06 Apr 2005 05:25:08 GMT, the inscrutable Don Bruder spake:

I remember paying $0.21.3 per gallon in Phoenix in '73 when I left LoCal for tech school there. It cost me $2.50 to fill up the tank of that '68 Ford Ranch Wagon.

-------------------------------------------- Proud (occasional) maker of Hungarian Paper Towels.

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Reply to
Larry Jaques

I'm a little unclear. I remember those flimsy cylindrical 1 qt. 'cans' that were mostly cardboard with metalized foil. Any damage and you'd have a puddle of oil to clean up. I presume real metal cans came before that.

Reply to
Jim Stewart

I don't have a clear memory of taking one of those apart on a Beech 18 with a bullet hole right through it.

Never siphon gas out of an Ag-cat and into your car. Matter of fact I can't recall that either. Nothing like 12' of head on what 130 octane.

I find it flat out amazing that I made it to 19.

Never was into pranks , but I did watch a bunch of guys pick up mid sized car and put it between two trees at a party deep in a national forest.

Oh, I don't remember one fun one my cuz taught me. Hmmm ,maybe I shouldn't mention that one. Hell with it, it cures stores from letting their carts get wind blown into the road at night. I had a shitty very fast (especially on Av-Gas and Marvel mystery oil) car and cuz would hold the grocery cart and I would place it lined up into a concrete based light pole in the parking lot at about 85mph. One didn't land for the longest time must have gone a good 100' up ! Statute of limitations must be up for that one. Very dangerous stuff there, I kid you not.

Pete , you should know... What octane was pink and green , each? To think I use to sit in the stuff with it dripping all over me washing the undersides of airplanes !

Reply to
Sunworshipper

Not necessarily. Are you assuming a lightning strike on the rod? That's what rods are to prevent.

Reply to
freemab

Pretty sure Igor's initial comment was about _during_ a strike, so yes, that's what I was answering in regards to. If you get a strike on the rod, measuring that current with a clamp-on ammeter might be hard on the measuring equipment.

Reply to
Dave Hinz

Man can not live by metal chips alone:

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Jeff

Reply to
Jeff Wisnia

Hey Jeff, I guess you must have some "Native Americans" just like we do here in Albuquerque. (drunk - wrong way on I 40, did in most of a family) ...lew...

Reply to
Lew Hartswick

Lew, Ya don't have to be a "Native American" to drive drunk and kill people. I fail to see why it matters where they were born or who they were born to. Hell, George Bush drove drunk and it was only luck that kept him from killing someone when he took out a hedge. ERS

Reply to
Eric R Snow

Over 93 cents a LITER up here in the "great white north"

Reply to
nospam.clare.nce

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