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Started by billy rubin, October 12, 2019, 11:51:22 PM

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Dark Lightning

Quote from: Icarus on February 19, 2020, 12:08:16 AM
My memory is shot too,  guys.  In fact I have a serious case of CRS (Can't Remember Shit).  To my claimed credit I am aware of my dwindling capacity.  Truth to tell there are some  things that I had rather not remember.  Memory is a problem for old guys and girls because reality was not actually as we might choose to recall.  Some shrewd wag identified the problem with the observation: 'The older I get, the better I was.

That quote has both fantasy and reality features. I measured my physical performance against the early Air Force aerobics book written by some AF Major. I was in the top performance group. I was the 1st or 2nd best physically fit man in my company in US Navy boot camp. I was able to dead-lift a small block Chevy short block (~325 Lbs) into a pick up bed, by myself. A lot of people have warm memories about their youth and fantasize about how well they did. I know that I did these things, but I am completely incapable of performing them now. What a difference 30 years makes! I've also failed at many things. I guess I'm an atheist because I have trouble with fantasizing. Well, except for some women that I'd like to...well, anyway, I never claimed that I did them, except in my dreams.  :P

Recusant

Quote from: xSilverPhinx on February 18, 2020, 10:11:31 PMIf your memory's shot then so is mine, I recall him saying that! ;D

Well then apparently my memory is defective, because I don't recall that precise detail. What I do recall is that he said that he was deeply aware of the US being attacked, with vivid memories of that period in his life, not that he was on Hawaii.    :shrug:
"Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration — courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and above all, love of the truth."
— H. L. Mencken


billy rubin

even remembering the time personally is interesting

the earliest public event i can personally recall was the telstar communications satellite, launched in 1962 when i was five years old

i remember standing on the porch of my house in kansas watching it pass overhead at night


set the function, not the mechanism.

xSilverPhinx

Quote from: Recusant on February 19, 2020, 03:03:32 AM
Quote from: xSilverPhinx on February 18, 2020, 10:11:31 PMIf your memory's shot then so is mine, I recall him saying that! ;D

Well then apparently my memory is defective, because I don't recall that precise detail. What I do recall is that he said that he was deeply aware of the US being attacked, with vivid memories of that period in his life, not that he was on Hawaii.    :shrug:

Now I'm not so sure. :notsure: Could be the case. I guess we won't know until Icarus retells us.  ;D
I am what survives if it's slain - Zack Hemsey


Dede

Quote from: billy rubin on February 19, 2020, 03:21:35 AM
even remembering the time personally is interesting

the earliest public event i can personally recall was the telstar communications satellite, launched in 1962 when i was five years old

i remember standing on the porch of my house in kansas watching it pass overhead at night
I remember this one too! In 1962 I was in my senior year in high school, and my family were underway by train on our annual holiday (vacation). If I remember correctly, it took two nights and a day to trek across S.Africa from the near-southern end where we were living, to the far-north lowveld, malaria-infested citrus plantation where my father's brother lived and worked.  So, here is this vast, vast expanse of nothingness as the train lumbers across the Great Karoo, on a vast plateau with almost zero light pollution ... Imagine how wonderfully bright the stars were (I don't remember whether there was a full moon or that, probably not or we would not have seen so well this tiny little dot of light.  The newspaper would announce daily the time and trajectory of the satellite  (Oooohh, for the time this was MAGIC!)  It's a wonder the train didn't fall over :-) because everybody was hanging out the windows on the side where the satellite could be spotted. It did feel like magic.  Do you remember Laika the first dog in space? I felt so sorry for her, all alone up there :-(

Biggus Dickus

I thought Mags was the oldest here? :notsure:
"Some people just need a high-five. In the face. With a chair."

Tank

Quote from: Papasito Bruno on February 20, 2020, 06:53:58 PM
I thought Mags was the oldest here? :notsure:

It was nice knowing you.
If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

Biggus Dickus

Quote from: Tank on February 20, 2020, 06:55:12 PM
Quote from: Papasito Bruno on February 20, 2020, 06:53:58 PM
I thought Mags was the oldest here? :notsure:

It was nice knowing you.

She doesn't scare me,...well maybe a little bit, but she wouldn't cast a spell on her old buddy Bruno. :zombie:
"Some people just need a high-five. In the face. With a chair."

Magdalena

Quote from: Papasito Bruno on February 20, 2020, 07:02:33 PM
Quote from: Tank on February 20, 2020, 06:55:12 PM
Quote from: Papasito Bruno on February 20, 2020, 06:53:58 PM
I thought Mags was the oldest here? :notsure:

It was nice knowing you.

She doesn't scare me,...well maybe a little bit, but she wouldn't cast a spell on her old buddy Bruno. :zombie:


"I've had several "spiritual" or numinous experiences over the years, but never felt that they were the product of anything but the workings of my own mind in reaction to the universe." ~Recusant

billy rubin

Quote from: Dede on February 20, 2020, 04:36:38 PM
Do you remember Laika the first dog in space? I felt so sorry for her, all alone up there :-(

no, but i do remember ham. he came back.

when my wife and i got married, we were picking up a load of bees by starlight out in the middle of the old yparraguirre cattle ranch. eighteen thousand acres of grassland with no electricity for ten or twenty miles in any direction. no houses, no traffic, no farms, no lights of any kind.

got the bees tied down and looked up, and it was the perseids.


set the function, not the mechanism.

Dede

Quote from: billy rubin on February 20, 2020, 07:49:46 PM
Quote from: Dede on February 20, 2020, 04:36:38 PM
Do you remember Laika the first dog in space? I felt so sorry for her, all alone up there :-(

no, but i do remember ham. he came back.

when my wife and i got married, we were picking up a load of bees by starlight out in the middle of the old yparraguirre cattle ranch. eighteen thousand acres of grassland with no electricity for ten or twenty miles in any direction. no houses, no traffic, no farms, no lights of any kind.

got the bees tied down and looked up, and it was the perseids.

WOWIE ... awesome.

Icarus

To set the record straight: No I was not in Hawaii on December 7th. I was a kid who lived in Tampa Florida at that time.  What I do remember, vividly, was the depth of the emotional crush that instantly became a national resolve. There are things so much engraved in ones long term memory that those things are not modified by the passing of time, or  an atrophying brain.

For starters there was national rationing. Meat was rationed and each family was issued food stamps that were required in order to buy a limited quantity of meat.  Gasoline and heating oil was also limited and there were gas stamps that one had to redeem at the gas station in order to buy part of a tank of fuel.  Lucky Strike cigarettes were popular. Their package came in a dark green color. Green dye was a needed material for the war effort....think camouflage colors on war machines like tanks and planes.  The cigarette manufacturer changed their packages to pure white.  My father worked in a shipyard, we had frequent air raid drills in school and frequent required "blackouts" at night.   Air raid sirens signaled the need to blackout, automobile lights had the top half of the headlight permanently blocked out.  Most of all there were no skeptics about the need for unity and cooperation for the benefit of the war effort.   That was a time of American patriotism and resolve that we may never ever see again. 

Too damned bad that we are now so divisive, unappreciative, and stupid.  Too many of our American  Bubbas would shoot us in a fit of rage for rationing his beef steak and potatoes.

I have vivid memories of what we would now describe as insufferable hardships.  I suspect that Tank, Siz, Essie Mae, et al  might be acquainted with some older Brit citizens who have been through the 1940s hell that was indescribably  worse than mine.  We never were bombed, England was.  Here is a sincere salute to those indomitable Brits who fought back valiantly, no matter what. 





Tank

Quote from: Icarus on February 21, 2020, 11:48:19 PM
To set the record straight: No I was not in Hawaii on December 7th. I was a kid who lived in Tampa Florida at that time.  What I do remember, vividly, was the depth of the emotional crush that instantly became a national resolve. There are things so much engraved in ones long term memory that those things are not modified by the passing of time, or  an atrophying brain.

For starters there was national rationing. Meat was rationed and each family was issued food stamps that were required in order to buy a limited quantity of meat.  Gasoline and heating oil was also limited and there were gas stamps that one had to redeem at the gas station in order to buy part of a tank of fuel.  Lucky Strike cigarettes were popular. Their package came in a dark green color. Green dye was a needed material for the war effort....think camouflage colors on war machines like tanks and planes.  The cigarette manufacturer changed their packages to pure white.  My father worked in a shipyard, we had frequent air raid drills in school and frequent required "blackouts" at night.   Air raid sirens signaled the need to blackout, automobile lights had the top half of the headlight permanently blocked out.  Most of all there were no skeptics about the need for unity and cooperation for the benefit of the war effort.   That was a time of American patriotism and resolve that we may never ever see again. 

Too damned bad that we are now so divisive, unappreciative, and stupid.  Too many of our American  Bubbas would shoot us in a fit of rage for rationing his beef steak and potatoes.

I have vivid memories of what we would now describe as insufferable hardships.  I suspect that Tank, Siz, Essie Mae, et al  might be acquainted with some older Brit citizens who have been through the 1940s hell that was indescribably  worse than mine.  We never were bombed, England was.  Here is a sincere salute to those indomitable Brits who fought back valiantly, no matter what.

Thank you for putting that straight. One other clarification please, how old were you then?
If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

Icarus

11.5 years old. Conscious of the seriousness of the event and its aftermath.  For example I, along with thousands of other kids, sought out empty cigarette packages.  The interior of the  packages were typically laminated with tin foil.   We peeled the foil from the paper and made balls of foil that were eventually converted to a useful alloy for the war effort.  No one was compensated for that kind of effort.  That was part of the deal, our freedom and maybe even our survival was the deal that everyone seemed to understand.

Once again I salute the resolve and courage  of the Brits whose efforts did not necessarily include kids with tin foil.  They made Spitfires and Mosquito Bombers partly of plywood, we made tanks and munitions and "liberty ships" of concrete. ...

It is near 10 Pm as I write this.  I went to the kitchen to get some Ice from the refrigerator for my wee dram o' scotch.  I puhsed a button and ice cubes came spilling into my glass, as usual. Somehow, that reminded me of the ice wagons of the early forties.  Many were horse drawn wagons that carried 300 pound blocks of ice. The "Iceman' would use his ice picks to chop the blocks into smaller blocks that cost 5 cents or larger ones at 8 cents.  The chunks of ice were carried into the houses and stores that had "ice boxes" not refrigerators.  The kids, in summer, would run after the ice wagons to get the small chips of ice that broke from the chopping process.  Yep, I am on a nostalgia kick.  Please forgive me for that.

hermes2015

Quote from: Icarus on February 23, 2020, 02:55:46 AM
11.5 years old. Conscious of the seriousness of the event and its aftermath.  For example I, along with thousands of other kids, sought out empty cigarette packages.  The interior of the  packages were typically laminated with tin foil.   We peeled the foil from the paper and made balls of foil that were eventually converted to a useful alloy for the war effort.  No one was compensated for that kind of effort.  That was part of the deal, our freedom and maybe even our survival was the deal that everyone seemed to understand.

Once again I salute the resolve and courage  of the Brits whose efforts did not necessarily include kids with tin foil.  They made Spitfires and Mosquito Bombers partly of plywood, we made tanks and munitions and "liberty ships" of concrete. ...

It is near 10 Pm as I write this.  I went to the kitchen to get some Ice from the refrigerator for my wee dram o' scotch.  I puhsed a button and ice cubes came spilling into my glass, as usual. Somehow, that reminded me of the ice wagons of the early forties.  Many were horse drawn wagons that carried 300 pound blocks of ice. The "Iceman' would use his ice picks to chop the blocks into smaller blocks that cost 5 cents or larger ones at 8 cents.  The chunks of ice were carried into the houses and stores that had "ice boxes" not refrigerators.  The kids, in summer, would run after the ice wagons to get the small chips of ice that broke from the chopping process.  Yep, I am on a nostalgia kick.  Please forgive me for that.

I salute you, Icarus.  :spock:
"Eventually everything connects - people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se."
― Charles Eames