Craftsmanship

One of the fascinating displays we saw at Evansville was a collection of engines and accessories built by Jerry Dickson. We took some photos and video and have pieced them together for you and for Mr. Dickson to enjoy. I think he will be at the Boonville, Indiana show coming up in July, so be sure to look him up and admire his work.

July 1, 1898

"The instant I received the order I sprang on my horse, and then my "crowded hour" began...I spoke to the captain in command of the rear platoons, saying that I had been ordered to support the regulars in the attack upon the hills, and that in my judgement we could not take these hills by firing at them, and that we must rush them. He answered that his orders were to keep his men lying where they were, and that he could not charge without orders. I asked where the colonel was, and as he was not in sight, said, "Then I am the ranking officer here and I give the order to charge"--for I did not want to keep the men longer in the open suffering under a fire which they could not effectively return.


Naturally the captain hesitated to obey this order when no word had been received from his own colonel. So I said, "Then let my men through, sir." and rode on through the lines, followed by the grinning Rough Riders, whose attention had been completely taken off the Spanish bullets, partly by my dialougue with the regulars, and partly by the language I had been using to themselves as I got the lines forward, for I had been joking with some and swearing at others, as the exigencies of the case seemed to demand. When we started to go through, however, it proved too much for the regulars, and they jumped up and came along, their officers and troops mingling with mine, all being delighted at the chance....."

The Rough Riders, Theodore Roosevelt

(Click; click on View Large Image)

Monday Again!

Back to the old grind!

A Sad Case

Ouch! We acquired this record in a box of old records at an estate auction several years ago. There were too many records stacked in the box, and some were broken, which is not unusual at an auction. I just recently took a good look at it and realized that it is a very old record. The singer is Arthur Collins, who was a very early recording artist. I looked up this label and found that the company was in business from 1904 to 1908. Arthur Collins discography shows that he recorded this song in 1903 and 1904, recording it first for Edison. The record is one-sided, but has some very intersting features. The label is recessed, and the record has a ridge before and after the groove to protect it when stacked with other records. The picture on the label is very unusual for a record of this age, and it reminds me of the Robert Service story, ' The Gramophone at Fond-Du-Lac'.

This is a 'mild' example of minstrel show comedy songs, most of which are too free with racial slurs to post or to play for entertainment. If you want to hear more of Arthur Collins, many of his songs are posted as mp3 files on Archive.org. This is what entertained folks 100-plus years ago; I think about that when I listen to the comedians of today. They think they are above this type of humor, but they still make fun of the groups of people that are safe to pick on, just like the comedy acts of long ago.

Anyway, here is what is left of this record.

Weekend Steam

This ad reproduction from the March-April 1964 edition of the Iron Men Album provides plenty of food for thought about the 'Good Old Days'. There are eight people working in this picture, and there also has to be a water boy to haul water to the engine; all to harvest maybe twenty acres of wheat or oats. The winter wheat harvest is nearly done in Southern Illinois right now, and there are usually only two or three people required to perform the work; one to run the combine, and one or two to haul the grain away to the bins.

The thresher is not far removed from horse-powered models, and the engine is a true primitive. It is a portable engine moved with horses, it has no lagging (insulation) on the cylinder, the safety valve is a pre-pop valve type, and water for the engine is supplied only by one feed pump. After the invention of the injector, engines were always built with two systems to supply water to the boiler; either two injectors, or a pump and an injector.

Not My Victrola

This is a very nice recording from around 1952 of a well known piece, Saint-Saens Havanaise op.83, performed by a little known violinist, Louis Kaufman. It is guaranteed to help you decompress for the weekend. It is posted by our You Tube friend Rolf den Otter.

Crankin' It Up

The selection this week is the great Vaudeville entertainer, Frank Crumit, who also performs our theme song 'True Blue Sam'. 'Rosie' is a very pleasant song that would have been a delight to see performed on the stage. If you do a Google search for Frank Crumit you will find many of his songs available on CD. He recorded around 250 songs in his career, and we have several of his recordings in our cabinet, so you will hear a few more of Frank Crumit's songs if you check in on future Friday nights.

Round and Round They Go!

Here is more video for your viewing pleasure from the Southern Indiana's Antique and Machinery Club show. These are Model A and Model T speedsters fixed up in the best jalopy tradition. Boys used to go to town on Saturday night to hot rod around and generally have a good time. On Sunday morning they would be under the car tightening the rods. Those were the days!

Art Appreciation

There is undiscovered talent out there.

Try Putting Salt On Its Tail!

Dynamite Comes In Small Packages!

This story is over on The High Road, and whether or not it is true, it is VERY believable. I have heard stories of rattlesnakes being mangled into little bits by deer hooves, and I have experience with deer who become accustomed to human activity. The deer who live behind our barn come into our yard and tolerate us at close distances so long as we; 1: Don't look them in the eye, 2: Don't walk straight toward them, 3: Speak in low, friendly tones when you are near them.

"I had this idea that I was going to rope a deer, put it in a stall, feed it up on corn for a couple of weeks, then kill it and eat it.The first step in this adventure was getting a deer. I figured that, since they congregate at my cattle feeder and do not seem to have much fear of me when we are there (a bold one will sometimes come right up and sniff at the bags of feed while I am in the back of the truck not 4 feet away), it should not be difficult to rope one, get up to it and toss a bag over its head (to calm it down) then hog tie it and transport it home.I filled the cattle feeder then hid down at the end with my rope.The cattle, having seen the roping thing before, stayed well back.They were not having any of it.After about 20 minutes, my deer showed up -- 3 of them. I picked out.....a likely looking one, stepped out from the end of the feeder, and threw.. ..my rope. The deer just stood there and stared at me.I wrapped the rope around my waist and twisted the end so I would have a good hold. The deer still just stood and stared at me, but you could tell it was mildly concerned about the whole rope situation.I took a step towards it...it took a step away. I put a little tension on the rope and then received an education.The first thing that I learned is that, while a deer may just stand there looking at you funny while you rope it, they are spurred to action when you start pulling on that rope.That deer EXPLODED.The second thing I learned is that pound for pound, a deer is a LOT stronger than a cow or a colt. A cow or a colt in that weight range I could fight down with a rope and with some dignity.A deer-- no chance.That thing ran and bucked and twisted and pulled. There was no controlling it and certainly no getting close to it. As it jerked me off my feet and started dragging me across the ground, it occurred to me that having a deer on a rope was not nearly as good an idea as I had originally imagined.The only upside is that they do not have as much stamina as many other animals.A brief 10 minutes later, it was tired and not nearly as quick to jerk me off my feet and drag me when I managed to get up. It took me a few minutes to realize this, since I was mostly blinded by the blood flowing out of the big gash in my head. At that point, I had lost my taste for corn-fed venison. I just wanted to get that devil creature off the end of that rope.I figured if I just let it go with the rope hanging around its neck, it would likely die slow and painfully somewhere.At the time, there was no love at all between me and that deer. At that moment, I hated the thing, and I would venture a guess that the feeling was mutual.Despite the gash in my head and the several large knots where I had cleverly arrested the deer's momentum by bracing my head against various large rocks as it dragged me across the ground, I could still think clearly enough to recognize that there was a small chance that I shared some tiny amount of responsibility for the situation we were in, so I didn't want the deer to have it suffer a slow death, so I managed to get it lined back up in between my truck and the feeder - a little trap I had set before hand...kind of like a squeeze chute.I got it to back in there and I started moving up so I could get my rope back.Did you know that deer bite? They do! I never in a million years would have thought that a deer would bite somebody, so I was very surprised when I reached up there to grab that rope and the deer grabbed hold of my wrist.Now, when a deer bites you, it is not like being bit by a horse where they just bite you and then let go. A deer bites you and shakes its head --almost like a pit bull. They bite HARD and it hurts.The proper thing to do when a deer bites you is probably to freeze and draw back slowly. I tried screaming and shaking instead. My method was ineffective.It seems like the deer was biting and shaking for several minutes, but it was likely only several seconds.I, being smarter than a deer (though you may be questioning that claim bynow) tricked it.While I kept it busy tearing the tendons out of my right arm, I reached up with my left hand and pulled that rope loose. That was when I got my final lesson in deer behavior for the day.Deer will strike at you with their front feet. They rear right up on their back feet and strike right about head and shoulder level, and their hooves are surprisingly sharp.I learned a long time ago that, when an animal -- like a horse --strikes at you with their hooves and you can't get away easily, the best thing to do is try to make a loud noise and make an aggressive move towards the animal.This will usually cause them to back down a bit so you can escape.This was not a horse. This was a deer, so obviously, such trickery would not work. In the course of a millisecond, I devised a different strategy.I screamed like a woman and tried to turn and run.The reason I had always been told NOT to try to turn and run from a horse that paws at you is that there is a good chance that it will hit you in the back of the head.Deer may not be so different from horses after all, besides being twice as strong and 3 times as evil, because the second I turned to run, it hit me right in the back of the head and knocked me down.Now, when a deer paws at you and knocks you down, it does not immediately leave. I suspect it does not recognize that the danger has passed. What they do instead is paw your back and jump up and down on you while you are laying there crying like a little girl and covering your head.I finally managed to crawl under the truck and the deer went away.So now I know why when people go deer hunting they bring a rifle with a scope so that they can be somewhat equal to the Prey... ..."