“Skallagrim” discusses “End Him Rightly”, a fighting technique from the Gladiatoria.
Bonus #1: Here’s another video from the good folks at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC): “Integrity in the Workplace”. Or, things you shouldn’t do as a Federal employee.
Bonus #2: A little something for FotB RoadRich again. Guy picks up a 1973 Piper Cherokee Cruiser for $9,000 (it needs an overhaul and the owner couldn’t afford it) and does a restoration and rebuild.
Besides putting this up as RoadRich bait, I’m posting this because that’s a really nice looking airplane. I could see myself flying something like that.
Bonus #3: And speaking of the Cherokee, “50th Anniversary of the Piper Cherokee” from the good folks at Piper.
Lawrence sent over an obit from one of the Indianapolis TV stations for Edgar Harrell and James W. Smith, both of whom passed away this week. They were 96 years old.
He was drafted by Washington in 2008 as a backup, was cut two years later, went to the Raiders, and was cut again.
According to his family, he was in a car crash in 2010 and was never the same: “…broke his collarbone and ribs, caused head trauma, and resulted in blood clots that would plague him the rest of his life”. He descended into addiction. Recently, he had spent four months in a rehab center.
The one time I took the ‘Hound on the ground, it was only about three hours each way (Austin-Houston and back), and I think by that time smoking was verboten on Greyhound buses. However, in the interest of fairness…
Bonus #1: “10 BAD Things That WILL Happen on the GREYHOUND BUS” from the “Frugal Travel Guru”.
Bonus #2: This one’s a long one, but probably somewhat more pleasant than traveling by bus. Especially if you have a good car: a man with a good car doesn’t need to be justified.
“100 Years on the Lincoln Highway”, a Wyoming PBS documentary about the first coast to coast road.
It has been about two weeks since I’ve done any gun crankery, so I think the cycle has come around again. Today, let’s talk about a subject that is close to my heart, and that certain people are probably tired of hearing me go on about: the pre-1964 Winchester.
Target Suite covers the pre-64 Model 94 versus the post-64 Model 94.
My own Model 94 is a 1963. I only have one of those.
“WINCHESTER 70 ‘PRE-‘64’: what’s the BIG deal?”
“WINCHESTER MODEL 70: Past & Present Rifles”.
And finally: “Winchester Model 70 Post 64 Review”.
I’m lucky enough to have temporary custody of three Model 70 rifles: one in .270 Winchester that appears to be from 1951, one in .30-06 that seems to be from 1937, and one in .308 that, as best as I (and the guy at Cabela’s) can tell was early 1964 production.
(I haven’t written off for history letters on any of these: the dates are based on the serial number tables in Roger Rule’s The Rifleman’s Rifle (affiliate link), a book I recommend if you have any interest in the Model 70. Yes, I know, the price is enough to give you the leaping fantods, but I think it’s a great book. And not just because I would get a small kickback if you bought it.)
He would have been in Welles’ “Heart of Darkness”, if RKO hadn’t pulled the plug on that. He had a wife and a baby and needed work, so he left Welles before his next project: an obscure film called “Citizen Kane”.
I want to post some more safety related videos, but it feels too early for that. I am tempted to make “Safety Saturday” a thing. But I probably won’t, for reasons.
In the meantime, how about some cars?
No, the other ones. At least a couple of folks seemed to like that General Tire promo video I posted a while back (how can you go wrong with children and firearms?) so here’s something from DuPont: “Facts About Tires”.
Bonus #1: “Why the Ford Model A is the best American car ever made.”
I don’t know that I would call it the “best American car”. But there is something pleasing about the looks, you can work on it yourself…
Bonus #2: Speaking of working on it yourself, back in the day, my dad changed his own oil. And he always put STP into his cars. These days, you don’t hear much about STP. (At least, not the oil treatment. Maybe more the octane booster and gas treatment. You can get all this stuff from Amazon. (affiliate link))
“The Racer’s Edge”, a promo film about the history of the STP racing teams, featuring Andy Granatelli.
Here’s something that is a little more contemporary than I’ve been posting: “SAC: The Global Shield” from 1980.
Bonus: Something older, but for good reason: “The Air Force Missile Mission”, from 1959. The good reason: this is yet another military propaganda film featuring Brigadier General James Maitland Stewart.
I was fascinated by this. Still am: I haven’t found the original Scholastic book, but Samantha Weinberg’s A Fish Caught in Time: The Search for the Coelacanth (affiliate link) is a pretty swell book, and is targeted more at the adult reader. And I think my grandmother would have endorsed this (ditto).
(I was hardly a “reluctant reader”, but I believe the kids she taught sometimes fell into that category.)
“Diving With Coelacanths”. Be warned: the people in this video are doing highly technical diving at great depth. Which means mixed gasses. Which means they sound like Donald Duck. There are subtitles: but as some of the comments point out, what’s in the subtitles doesn’t always match up with what’s actually being said.
Bonus: Another one of the Scholastic books she had lying around was a biography of Clyde Tombaugh and how he discovered Pluto.
“Reflections on Clyde Tombaugh” from NASA.
And here’s an approximately 30 minute interview with Dr. Tombaugh from 1997, shortly before his death.
Bonus #2: This is borderline science and/or technology, but I have a reason for posting this. A week ago Saturday, for some reason, we got into a discussion of auto racing and racing technology. I mentioned, but could not recall the details at the time, that there was a gas turbine powered car that competed in the Indianapolis 500, back when you could still do stuff like that. You know, before everything became standardized and homogenized and experimentation was limited…
“The Silent Screamer”, a short-ish (17 minutes) documentary about Andy Granatelli’s turbine powered car at the 1967 Indy 500.
There have been a couple of incidents recently involving old guysfalling off boats into the water and dying.
I’m not making fun of them: mad props to these guys for being out there. But, as Lawrence put it: “Important safety tip: try not to fall off the boat.”
From the National Safety Council, circa 1972: “Find a Float”.
Bonus #1: in honor of the late Bobby Unser, “Hazards of Mountain Driving”.
Bonus #2: “Blasting Cap Danger” brought to you by the “Institute of Makers of Explosives” circa 1957.
I remember when I was young and reading “Boy’s Life”, every now and then they’d have a public service advertisement depicting various types of blasting caps and warning young Boy Scouts not to mess with them. My question was: why? Was there a real problem with people just leaving blasting caps lying around for kids to find?
Two videos on unrelated topics today. One short-ish, one admittedly long.
Short-ish: This is an episode of the old “True Adventure” TV show called…”Serpent Cult”, about snake handling religion in Kentucky. I possibly could have put this in last week’s travel entry, but it didn’t feel right there.
I actually kind of like the host’s introduction. When was the last time you heard someone on TV say:
I was brought up religious.
I believe in people’s right to worship as they please.
I have a point of view on this, but I’m not going to force it on anybody else.
Long (about 70 minutes): “Raid on the Northfield Bank: The James-Younger Gang Meets Its Match”.
I wanted to link this for two reasons:
1. There’s a pretty good movie that the Saturday Night Movie Group watched not too long ago: “The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid”, which you can find on YouTube with a carefully crafted search or on Amazon (affiliate link). I don’t believe it is exactly historically accurate, but…