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Thread: DINOSAURS - Ladyfisher - January 25, 2010

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    Default DINOSAURS - Ladyfisher - January 25, 2010

    DINOSAURS

    This one is for the old folks. You know who you are. If you?re younger than 50 hit the ?back button? and read something else. You won?t understand this one and that will make you either unhappy or mad. Don?t want that.

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    BRAVO! I'm a dinosaur and proud of it. Although a fictitious family, I'm of the school of thought that the Waltons had it figured out.
    Where you go is less important than how you take the steps.
    Fish with a Friend,
    Lotech Joe


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    Well said Dee

    But hold on, this up and coming generation is going to need us! Hey we still remember how to do things without a computer or calculator. As for reading newspapers I also write for them. Anyway I foresee an implosion of all this technology and what happens then? I know people think I'm a flake but they though I was a flake back in 1981 when Canadain mortgage rates were 20% plus and I told them they would see rates under 10%. In 1982 I told people of the economic crash we just went through and are still experiencing. Yup foundational skill are eroding at an alarming rate and when the foundation is gone what happens to the house? I know the brainchildren in charge will tell you it can't happen, like they said man will not fly, the world is, flat, and nobody would dare attack the USA. Do some homework, ask a cashier to count out change? Mark my words it's coming and somebody will need to teach the masses how to cook, boil water, and count change. Hey did anybody in your family ever drive a Bennett Buggy? Think about it?

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    the new outhouse and it's a dandy

    The simpler the outfit, the more skill it takes to manage it, and the more pleasure one gets in his achievements.
    --- Horace Kephart

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    Dee

    Thanks for depressing me this morning. LOL. I haven't been called a dinosaur yet but I have a friend whorefers to me as an old fossil.

    Dave
    Last edited by anglerdave; 01-27-2010 at 01:47 PM.
    " If a man is truly blessed, he returns home from fishing to the best catch of his life." Christopher Armour

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    Deanna,

    I'm 43. My FATHER was born in 1923 and grew up during the Depression. He fought in WW2. My grandparents were those people you described and I remember virtually all of those things you listed in your article. When I called home using a Sprint FON card on the then-new global fiber optic network during Desert Storm, my dad got choked up and almost cried. When he explained what was going on he said, "Son, it sounds like you're next door. When I left for Europe I said good-bye to my folks and we all figured it was for good. And I never spoke to them again until I got off the train at the depot in Jeff City after the war. You see, there were a few telephones at the post office and that was about it. And you had to just about yell into the phone to be heard when you called to the next town. So it just hit me how much things have changed...how much I have seen in my lifetime...what I have been a part of...and it overwhelmed me for a minute."

    My father was on the first wave of infantry landing craft that hit the beach at Omaha Beach on D-Day. He was one of the very, very lucky few who came through that unscathed...physically. He also designed the world's largest COBOL database, the Houston Port Terminal Railroad Authority's surface freight tracking system. It is still tracking all of the surface freight in the northwestern hemisphere today...now THAT's a "dinosaur!"

    He taught me to hunt rabbits with a single-shot .22 rifle when I was 12. He didn't even carry a gun. He taught me to fish when I was about 5, and he never picked up a fishing pole. When he was 9 years old, he and his father caught the world record blue catfish from the Missouri River on a jug line. They were fishing to survive after my grandfather got laid off from his job as a conductor on the railroad. He made his living fishing commercially and gambling.

    While all of the homes I've lived in had indoor plumbing, our second homes did not. My grandfathers always had farms, river cabins, etc. I'm very familiar with outhouses, ice boxes, coal oil lanterns, and pumping drinking water by hand...or thinking nothing of sticking a tin cup into a cold spring and drinking from it.

    I remember when the fax machine was invented. And I remember when the overhead projector was the "high-tech" audio-visual equipment in the classroom. And most of my classrooms didn't have air conditioning until I was in high school.

    The point of all of this, though, is that I've only met one other contemporary about my age who has ever had a similar set of life experiences. I married her. And she is from Europe and spent a lot of time with her grandparents. I think I must be the world's next-to-youngest Baby Boomer. I have a brother 3 years younger than I am.
    Last edited by flyguy66; 01-25-2010 at 04:36 PM.

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    Deanna,

    I wish to "thank you" for the walk down memory lane! I will be 62 in March and I can remember when "62" sounded very old! A lot of my fly fishing "buddies" call me an "old ****" and that is fine with me because of the way I was raised, I know I will and can make it when they will be totally lost as to how to survive when all the "buttons" they now push quit working and they will. Your article brought back many great memories and some that were not so great. For instance:

    The first farm house I remember had an outhouse and no indoor plumbing except for a hand pump located in the middle of the kitchen floor right next to the milk separator that always reminded me of the "tin man" in the Wizard Of Oz! I know a lot of FAOL members do not know what a milk separator is, but, I do and I know my Mom spent many hours with it to be able to sell the butter and cream she produced using it. She also sold eggs to others from our chickens. I was raised mostly by my Mom because my Father spent many hours away from home driving his own truck hauling whatever people wanted hauled so that he could provide for us. I, thankfully, do not remember when, at the age of 4, my Mom said I came up missing. She always took me to the barn each morning when she would do the milking and other chores and when she finished one morning, I was no where to be found. She told me that she looked everywhere and even walked to the neighbors which the closest one at that time was 1 mile away and her and several of the neighbors searched the hills and woods looking for me. When they found me I was walking back through the woods to the barn following our tom cat. They figured I had traveled with the tom cat on his daily route for the entire day! I am thankful that I do not remember that because Mom said I got one swat with a switch with every step from the barn to the house!

    Our second farm had indoor plumbing and a wall mounted telephone in the kitchen. Our phone number was 2 long rings and 1 short ring. If you needed to call someone, you gave the phone crank one long ring and Lena, the operator would pick up and ring the person you wanted to call. I still remember meeting Lena and watching her use the switchboard with all the holes and cords she used to connect and disconnect people. My Mom always painted the woodwork in the kitchen white every year and that walnut wall mounted telephone got a coat of white paint each year! When they retired and sold the farm I asked them for the phone and still have it today in its original working condition, plus all the layers of white paint, and keep telling myself that one day I will strip the paint off and restore the walnut finish which I have yet to do. We raised all our own food from the 3 gardens and raised our own beef. The only thing we purchased from the store would be flour, coffee and sugar. My Mom worked very hard to provide the food for us and she seemed to enjoy every minute of it. It was just the way things were for us even though some of my school friends were used to living from the grocery store and having things I never had. My Dad had his beliefs on how things should be and some I thought were wrong back then and was sure they would scar me for life, but, they ended up being good lessons on how to make it through life when things got bad. We never had a Christmas tree because Dad said it was a waste of electicity that we could not afford. He did not understand why people thought they needed to wait until Christmas to give someone something they needed. He said they should receive those "gifts" when they needed them and not have to wait. He always told me to never buy anything on credit and always pay with cash. If you needed something and did not have the cash to buy it, you waited until you had the cash. He never got over my wife and I buying on credit a refrigerator, washer and dryer after we got married! He also never allowed me to go "trick or treating" because he said it was unfair on the elderly on limited incomes to have to purchase candy to give to children who did not need it and now that "makes sense" to me although I did allow my son to go. Before school would start my parents would buy my "school" clothes. No, I did not get to pick what I wanted to wear or what the latest fade was, my parents would purchase 5 shirts, 5 pair of pants and new shoes and socks and that gave me a school "outfit" to wear each day of school. As soon as I got off the bus at the farm from school I had to take my "school" clothes off and put on my farm clothes which were last year's school clothes. We did have a TV, but, it was not allowed to be turned on until all school homework was done, all farm chores done and supper over and dishes washed and put away plus you never watched TV if it was still daylight outside. It was a black and white but we had one of those special plastic screens taped over the screen that has the blue strip at the top, red in the center and green at the bottom to give you the impression the picture was in color.

    My Father was born in Winston County in Mississippi as southern baptist and my Mother was raised Greek Orthodox which made going to church on Sundays a very interesting experience! My Father left Mississippi when he graduated high school and moved to Ohio. He always told everyone he moved to Ohio for 2 things. One was to get a job and the other was to meet a girl he was not kin to. In Ohio is where he met my Mom and with her being raised Greek Orthodox, she definately was not kin to him! My Mom dragged me to every church of every denomination she could think of if she thought Dad would attend with us, but, that never happened. She was a strong christian women and her determination to get me to church every Sunday engraved in me that I needed to follow the straight and narrow path. I am proud to say that I am now a born again christian and know my creator even though I may not act it at times.

    I could go on and on, but, I do not want to make this thread any longer than what it is. I thank my Mom and Dad for the way they raised me because I know I can make it when the bottom falls out and I can provide for my family. Being raised the way I was is why I like tying my own flies and making a lot of my own tools instead of buying them. Create your own and you learn to appreciate them more. I love being in the outdoors and hiking many miles when fly fishing because I was raised to appreciate the great outdoors and I want to continue exploring it since it keeps getting smaller and smaller with each new housing development created.

    My Father passed away 5 years ago and since my Mom has never had a driver's lic., I take care of her wants and needs. She is 87 and still lives by herself and takes very good care of herself because she knows how to from the way she was raised. She is a little spoiled now and that is my fault but she deserves all of it for what she done for me.

    Thanks, Deanna, for the great "ride" down memory lane....
    Last edited by WarrenP; 01-25-2010 at 04:24 PM.
    Warren
    Fly fishing and fly tying are two things that I do, and when I am doing them, they are the only 2 things I think about. They clear my mind.

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    I could have written parts of flyguy66 and Warren's response...closer to Warren's other than the Greek Orthodox Mother, and Warren, God bless you and her!

    flyguy, if you mean Jeff. City, Missouri, (what other one might there be?), I know exactly whereof you speak. Goin' to "Jeff" was a big deal for us kids back in the 50's and 60's. A huge, metropolitan area to us kids from a town of less than 1000 and 60 miles away. I grew up in Owensville...if you remember where that is, and my wife grew up on a farm north of St. Martins. We lived outside Jeff. City the first 25 years of our marriage. First near Brazito then on our farm between Russellville and Centertown. Do those towns dust off a few memories?

    A comment on the Depression. Back then, down here in the Missouri Ozarks we didn't know it was over until someone told us in 1968. It didn't make any difference and we weren't any different from over half the people in Gasconade County. 1968 was a banner year, the year my grandparents got electricity. They never did have running water in the house. Come to think of it we didn't have running water at our house until I was 8 or 9.

    A wonderful piece of writing. I believe I'll be proud to be a dinosaur. As with the others, I know my wife and I can take care of ourselves just fine without all the electronics.

    I have to offer this observance. We like to eat at Cracker Barrel resturants. I've often commented on how lots of folks think those things hanging on the wall are antiques.....well heck....we still use most of them!!!! And Warren...I darn well know what a cream seperator is....and a crosscut and buck saw!!

    Vic...still in the Ozarks.

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    Default Dinosaur...

    Just call me T-Rex. hehehehe

    We had an outhouse when I was growing up on the farm. My dad even cut a moon into the door.

    Mike
    Work is something for people that don't fish.

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    Vic,

    My uncle lived in Owensville. My maternal grandpa was the fire chief in Jeff City for ever and a day, Donald Hunter. My grandma was the head nurse at the hospital. And they owned the rollerskating rink for awhile.

    I was taught the Ozarks ethics of not missing when you shoot because you can't afford to waste ammo and that a coffee can is a durable goods purchase...the coffee that comes in it is incidental. While fishing, you scoured the banks for lost floats, hooks, lures, flies, and weights. A forgotten fishing rod or tackle box was like winning the lottery. And this stuff was serious business because the vast majority of the meat you ate you either caught, hunted, or raised yourself. And who wanted to go to all the trouble to raise stuff when hunting and fishing were so much more fun?

    My dad's father, the railroad conductor turned commercial fisherman-gambler I mentioned earlier, won a percussion lock damascus steel wire barrel 12 ga side-by-side from a traveler on the train one night in a game of craps. It was made by the Royal Belgian Gun Works in 1863. Shoots paper black powder shells. I said "shoots" because I still have it.

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