Sixty Five Years? Yep, Sixty Five Years Ago...

Mom has that dinner bell in front of her house.

I think Grandma snuck this picture.

December in Iowa; they had to chain up before they left the church.

Ruger's Auction To Benefit Homes 4 Wounded Heroes

Ruger is starting 2014 with another great firearm to help wounded vets.  This All-Weather Ruger 77/22 was test fired in 1991, and has been residing in Ruger's vault.  Click Here to read the entire writeup and to place your bid.  100% of the proceeds will go to Homes 4 Wounded Heroes, and the auction ends mid-day, New Year's Day.

$1255.99!!!!

It Ain't Blue Steel and Wood...

...but it does what must be done!

Previously...

He's still waiting for a repeater.

Tuesday Turbo Boost

Back in the early 1980's we would put this album on in the morning while I got ready to go out the door.  It still works for me now...




Bobby Bare;  Down and Dirty

Here's another, not quite as energetic, but fun, nontheless.

Icy Monday?

 

 Back To The Old Grind!

Not My Victrola: Early 1920's Songs

We haven't played any records from Pax41 for a while, but he is still out there on YouTube posting very high quality records from the Roaring Twenties.  I'm kind of a dinosaur, mixing technology from ninety years ago to play my records, with digital technology from the present day.  Pax41 plays his records on modern turntables and obviously uses current technology to erase noise from the record-needle interface.  Sometimes I think I should spend the money for good recording equipment, but then I couldn't let my cat walk around on it. 

Weekend Steam: A Reunion Of Sorts

Back in '06 I was up in Minnesota for a couple weeks on fire duty with a Forest Service crew. I was riding in the back seat of their truck all the way up and back, and as we neared Duluth, Minnesota on the way home I saw a really big locomotive sitting on the west side of the road. Well that engine just appeared in a slide/video show on YouTube, and I have been having a good time watching it. It was uploaded by whj58, and I include his writeup for your educational pleasure.



"Yellowstone Locomotive Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range Railway Minnesota DM&IR 2-8-8-4 steam locomotive.These locomotives were based upon 10 2-8-8-2s that Baldwin had built in the 1930s for the Western Pacific Railroad. The need for a larger, coal burning firebox and a longer, all-weather cab led to the use of a four-wheel trailing truck, giving them the "Yellowstone" wheel arrangement. They were the most powerful Yellowstones built, producing 140,000 lbf (620 kN) of tractive effort, and had the most weight on drivers so that they were not prone to slipping.
Eight locomotives (class M-3) were built by Baldwin in 1941. The Yellowstones met or exceeded the DM&IR specifications so ten more were ordered (class M-4). The second batch was completed late in 1943 after the Missabe's seasonal downturn in ore traffic, so some of the new M-4s were leased to and delivered directly to the Denver & Rio Grande Western.
The next winter the D&RGW again leased the DM&IR's Yellowstones as helpers over Tennessee Pass, Colorado and for other freight duties. The Rio Grande returned the Yellowstones after air-brake failure caused Number 224 to wreck on the Fireclay Loop. This was despite the Rio Grande's earlier assessment that these Yellowstones were the finest engines ever to operate there.
DM&IR's were the only Yellowstones to have a high-capacity pedestal or centipede tender, and had roller bearings on all axles. Some of the locomotives had a cylindrical Elesco feedwater heater ahead of the smoke stack, while others had a Worthington unit with its rectangular box in the same location.
Only one Yellowstone was retired before dieselization took place on the Missabe; Number 237 was sold for scrap after a wreck. The rest of the 2-8-8-4s were retired between 1958 and 1963 as diesel locomotives took over.
Three of the eighteen built still survive and are on display: Number 227 at the Lake Superior Railroad Museum in Duluth, Minnesota, Number 225 in Proctor, Minnesota, and Number 229 in Two Harbors, Minnesota."

Crankin' It Up: Re-Runs

Tonight we are recycling a few of the records that we pulled off of YouTube.  Three are reassembled into one video on DailyMotion for you.



Prohibition Collection by TrueBlueSam

This Calls For A Review!

I'll try not to shoot an eye out.

This Made My Day!

We got home late from a trip to St. Louis, and were greatly cheered to open this e-mail: "Recently I googled Marmon16 and your blog appeared. On your blog,there was a 1932 Marmon 16 that you photographed in Aug. 2011 on display in Pinckneyville, IL. That car belongs to my Dad. We live in Belleville. Recently Dad turned 89. I threw a surprise birthday party for him at Fischer's Restaurant. I wanted to incorporate a picture of his beloved Marmon on his birthday cake. I used your picture (attached) for the cake. I wanted to thank you for the nice article and pictures you took. If you ever want to see that car again, let me know."

 Here is a photo of the car. It's nice to make someone happy once in a while with this little blog.