Bill's Stories about Things and Stuff

[crossmember]

21 hours ago, XSIV4S said:

That's a nice op piece, but here is the rest of the story. That was Bill's brother in law and my uncle, he died when I was 3. If I remember right you had one or more embarrassing motorcycle stories involving you and him?

 

When we were stationed in Indiana he stopped by for a visit on his way to the races at Daytona.  He needed to work on bike, and he wanted me to paint a couple of spare number pllates.  (i was his his lucky numbr plate painter)  During one of th conversations i was invitd to ride it around the block.  He told me to be be careful cause it was pretty quick, and I said Sure.  hell, I'd ridden bikes.  AS I left the house the bike started feeling a little iffy, light in the rear.    I looke back, and saw nothing but a wall of smoke.    I very carefully backed offf to an idl, mad a slo U-turn and went home.  He had kind of an anxious look on his face whwn I got his bike back back to him.  It looked lik the #3 bike int the photom but it was     #95.

[crossmember]

things that makes me wonder how we survived

One incident that comes to mind is the way we rode around in our daily ride. The daily ride usually consisted of a 1-1/2 ton Chevy or Mack, or some old surplus 2-1/2 ton GI trucks that we'd gotten at an auction. They were sort of a special built flat bed with folding headache rack for specialized wood hauling. They would go into an area that had been logged years before and pull the stumps out of the ground and haul the to the turpentine plant.

Today just a trip across town would have gotten our parents jailed for child endangerment. On the truck would be a rack of axes so sharp you could shave with them, an auger for drilling shot holes, one to three cases of dynamite on the bed, a role of fuze around the gear shift, and a box of blasting caps in the glove box. We would stand behind the cab and hang onto the headache rack support, or wander around on the bed, or sit with our feet hanging off the back of the bed. The closest anyone came to getting hurt on one of the rides was hanging our feet off the back of the truck.

My cousin and I were riding with our feet hanging off the back and leaning back on our arms with our fingers through the between the boards. My uncle hit a bump, tossing our yung butts up in the air, and while we were airborne the truck ran out from under us. We landed with our shoulder blades supporting our weight on the back of that truck.

It took us a mile and a half to pull ourselves back up on that truck and away from the end of that bed.

[crossmember]

ROADSIDE SALVATION, poste by Jean Wynn

I just saw a picture of a Kenworth and it's gear box! wow! I remember one very dark night up at the cemetery when my brother, Jack lived there...It was and still is a very dark place at night on top of that hill...there is a bigger that life statue on the premises, Jack noticed late one night that the lights were not plugged in...so he got ready to plug them in he heard a semi struggling up the hill shifting gears. So Jack being Jack waited til the driver got just within sight of the grounds, then plugged in the lights...Driver slipped quite a few gears...not every night Jesus Christ suddenly appears out of the dark, arms open wide with a sign that said COME UNTO ME!

[crossmember]

One day Norman and committed a stupid and Jason was going to use a switch on us. He made us go into the woods where I was supposed to pick and prepare a switch for Norman, and he was to prepare one for me. After we got back to the house he made us trade.

Had lunch with Red Adair, the oil fied fire fighter,  one day. While we were visiting I told him he almost got me in a world of trouble when I was a kid. He said he didn't know me then and I splained it to him.

Norma and I had seen one of those oil well fire snuff movies, where he put out the fires with explosives. Worked for him, should work for us. Down the hill from the house was a five acre field of dry brown grass, that grass that burns like gasoline. Things were going great til we let a fire burn too long and when we tossed in the cherry bomb all we did was create five or six fires over a five or six foot dia circle. We wore our chubby little butts to a frazzle stomping out those fires.

[crossmember]

ORIGINALLY POSTED BY JEAN WYNn
Aunt Lillie- I don't remember going to Aunt Lillie's as a child not until I was 14, but she was such an awesome women...taught school just cause she wanted to, then in her 50's you needed degrees so she went to college and graduated at 55...one time she fell in her yard, she said "Twern't dignified, but I did it anyway!" My daddy's father was a "Baptist preacher by choice and a carpenter by trade"...looked around saw a need and built a school and hired a teacher Mr Bryant...Aunt Lillie married him...sadly he passed away I think during the 1918 flue epidemic...I used to write her and she would correct my letter cause I asked her too, Both her daughters married and one husband said he knew if he wanted to woo the daughter he must first woo the mother...she had 2 grandsons who wrote of maybe still write sci-fi...good books, I have read 2...Daddy's father would not correct the the kids on Sunday, but on Monday LOOK OUT

[Walt Longmire]

On ‎10‎/‎19‎/‎2017 at 8:01 PM, crossmember said:

This is chassis 118 of 120 built for the military.  You should have seen the rent a cops when we showed up at the Reliant Arena for a car show.

Looks like Rat Patrol.

[crossmember]

Posted by Eric Powell

About fifteen years ago, Bill was customizing an old Volkswagon Squareback. The interior of the car was stripped out and he was converting the front doors to suicide doors. For those of you that are not into old/custom cars, suicide doors are hinged at the rear and open at the front. He had been using a torch and he had thoroughly soaked the car around the area he was working, to prevent a fire. He was also using an arc welder and the stinger was lying in the passenger side floorboard. When he got done with the torch, he sat down on the floorboard, right on the arc welder's stinger! Well, he knew right away that something wasn't right.;f That stinger was burning a hole in his butt and every place he grabbed to pull himself out of that car had another jolt of electricity waiting for him. He looked like a cat on a hot tin roof getting out of that car.

My brother Jim and I were laughing our asses off by this time. That initially added insult to injury for my Dad, but after his butt cooled off, he saw the humor in the situation too. That stinger burned a hole right through his pants.;f

The moral of this story is, "Don't set on stingers. They hurt."

I only thought of this because I did a search for a picture earlier and found a picture of an old VW Notchback. Bill has done a lot of work on old VW's.  Eric

Edited December 5, 2017 by crossmember

[Walt Longmire]

Welding on logging equipment in the rain. Cotton White Ox gloves. Soaked. Grab welding rod. Insert into stinger. Feels like an electric fence.

[crossmember]

I had an Aunt Flo, you ever have an Aunt Flo?

Sure you have, even if you don't want to admit to it. Well, as Aunt Flo's go, mine wasn't too bad, and I liked her a lot. She used to live with my Granny Doshie a lot/ and sometimes by herself. During one of her berself times she lived in a little community south of Picayune. The house was up on blocks, about 30 inches off the ground, and she had chickens laying all under it. Her egg production dropped way off, and she figured it her neighbor's hog stealing the eggs. One day she had a pan of really hot water on the stove when saw movement through the cracks in the floor of her house. She decided right then she'd cure that hog of sucking eggs. She picked up that pan of water and started pouring that hot water through the floor. There commenced a hell of a lot of grunting, squealing, and scraping, and when that animal cleared the edge of the house it was not her neighbor's hog, it was her neighbor.

 

Edited December 6, 2017 by crossmember

[crossmember]

Right after I got out of the army in 63 I brought my new bride to Ariz and she almost went back to Okla on her own.

The mining trucks had air turbine starters and made a god awful wailing sound when they were engaged. Mary heard that, wanted to know what was, and I told her they dinosaurs but not to worry as they very seldom came over the hill. It was hard to get her anywhere new that mine site.

[crossmember]

 

What would you call the signature sound of the twentieth century? I was reading through a book by an author I was not familiar with, a guy named Lee Child, and suddenly I was reading my own thoughts. I had picked the sound years ago and did not know anyone else had even dwelt on it.  This is not about a sound you likr
Some may say the drone of an Aero engine, and early morning dawn patrol in a Spad, or the lonely sound of a single plane in 1940 or '41. Some may call it the sound of a ground vibrating low flying jet. The whup whup whup of a helicopter. All sounds never heard before the twentieth century. There are other sounds born in the 20th century.
But, the sound that is the signature of the twentieth century is the squeaking and clattering of tank tracks on a paved street. It was a sound heard in Warsaw, Rotterdam, Stalingrad, and Berlin. More recently in Budapest and Prague, Seoul and Saigon. It is a brutal sound, the sound of fear (unless your're an A-10 pilot). Probably the ultimate unfair advantage is the M1A1 Abrams. No other tank can begin to hurt it, with its armor from hell, depleted uranium sandwiched between high strength steel. Mr Child singled out M1A1. My though was just tanks in general.  How about it, boys und girls, anyone have any thoughts on that?

[crossmember]

The mine where I worked was Duval Sulphur, Copper, Moly. Now it is a gold mine and think it is called Battle Mountain Gold. There were two pits thirteen miles apart, and in the east pit was a guy named Bubba (I swear) who was a track mechanic and tool pusher. Bubba liked to supply demand as cheaply as possible.

We all carried the metal lunch boxes with the round lid that the thermos fit in and two latches that held it together. We normally made a big safety pin out of brass welding rod that slid through the eyelets to prevent surprises, like the lid popping open.

One day we were leaving for the day and Bubba walked past the security guard, sans safety pin on his lunch box. Just as he passed the guard his lunch box popped open and dumped about thirty pounds of bolts and nuts and washers and other related stuff right on the ground at the guard's feet. Bubba stared at that pile of bolts in feigned shock for a few seconds and yelled, "Some bastard is trying to frame me." He dumped out the last few items, snapped his box shut, and stalked out to his truck. The guard looked at that pile of stuff for awhile and told one of the day laborers to pick it all up and re-stock it, and that was the last ever said about it.
We caught Bubba a short time after that tormenting a rat in a box. I'm not a rat fan but he should have just smacked it with a crescent wrench.

He had a can of starting ether and his torch. He was knocking the rat out with the ether and reviving it with the oxygen from the torch. The rat survived about six cycles of that before he kicked one leg up and expired.

It seemed overly cruel to me, so I went out to the parking lot and ran a wire from his brake light switch to his horn.

[Walt Longmire]

I caught a pigeon while working up in a structure in an oil refinery at night. Tucked in inside my coveralls, and headed for the huge canvas break tent. Stuffed it in a buddies lunch box. The tent was full of workers when he opened that box. The pigeon was making fast circles inside the tent and not able to find an exit cause it was dark outside. The Mexicans were all pissed about this little adventure, but everyone else got a laugh. Except the pigeon. He didn't laugh either.

[crossmember]

tHE AY I ALMOST CRASHED A PIPER J3

Jack and I went flying one day in a little Piper Cub, one of those that if pull the doors off and leave them on the ground it's like riding in a flying arm chair.

We were flying about 1300 feet above a dirt road running South from Cutter. Jack told me to do an S turn over the road and finish the turn lined up on the road. Well, I'd seen every John Wayne fighter pilot movie ever made so I picked up my massive engineer boot shod foot and stomped the right rudder right to the floor. At the same time I turned the wheel far too fast to the right. The poor little ole plane farted, and went into a stall. Jack  used up almost all of our available 1300 feet of air getting that plane out of that stall and flying again. I found out then why Jack wore thin soled shoes to fly.

[crossmember]

I'm becoming a linguist

[crossmember]

I have found that the international icons for the "Check Engine" function on new cars is confusing to the point that I am forced to get out the owners manual to figure some things out - Then Craig Vigil of Fountain Valley, CA sent this in - Makes perfect sense...

 

[crossmember]

Did you hear about the gentleman who saw a guy in his shed at three AM, and called 911? He was told to not confront the guy, just hide in the house. He was told they did not have a car to spare, and they would be there the following morning to count what he'd lost. He thought about that awhile, called the police back and told them not to hurry cause he'd killed the bastard.

About ten minutes later fifteen cars came up the road, sirens wailing and lights blazing. They flew into the yard, caught the bad guy and arrested him, and turned to the home owner all indignant and told him he said he'd killed the guy. You lied.

He told them he thought they had no cars to spare. They lied.

[Nestor]

I need some time to read through all of this.

[crossmember]

At this point it appears my grandson, Jacob, will graduate school living in the same house he's lived in his entire life.  I can claim almost total responsibility  for that........for all the wrong reasons.  My sons grew up draggd from house to house, state to state,   an school to school.  My son swore he'd never put his faniky through that an he has been man enough to make it happen the way it should.   The little defense I have is  I grew  up thinking this was  the norm..  I heard my mother and oldest sister talking on day an they counted up more than fifty houses we had lived in from 1936 til 1964.  

[crossmember]

h guys, it's been awhile.  i'll be back.

[XSIV4S]

MAY 18TH??? Where the hell is Bill?

[crossmember]

HULLO BOYZ UND GIRLZ, I STOPPED POSTING BECAUSE OF MY TYPING INABILITIES.  MY SON GAVE ME ENCOURAGEMENT AND I'M GONNA TRY AGAIN.  SO,  WAIT FOR IT

[XSIV4S]

Just now, crossmember said:

HULLO BOYZ UND GIRLZ, I STOPPED POSTING BECAUSE OF MY TYPING INABILITIES.  MY SON GAVE ME ENCOURAGEMENT AND I'M GONNA TRY AGAIN.  SO,  WAIT FOR IT

Got any embarrassing stories about Eric??

[crossmember]

If you mean his problem with gravity and sharp objects, i thought everyone knew  that                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

[crossmember]

AGAIN, HULLO BOYZ UND GIRLS, TIZ I, BILL, STARTING OVER.  A few of you know that I grew uo in Miami, a small copper mining town in central Arizona.  We had personal freedoms that you young guys can't imagine.  Our high sports teams were known as the Vandals, named after vikings, but a lot of towns that we competed against thought the vVandals name had a lot more modern meaning.

 

Our high School was built into the side of a mountain, a mountain interlaced with ventilation pipes that had supplied fresh air to various underground mining operations in the past.  In the school basement, where our school shop class was held, they just cut those pipes flush with the concrete wall.  I discovered I could simulatea small earthuakes by     pumping oxy/acet into th pip and then passing a lit torch in front of the  pipe.   They damn near evacuated that building.