The thread about the kid in the washing machine mentioned getting caught in a wringer.

How many kids know what "getting her t*t caught in the wringer means"?

How many kids know what happened to the old family milk cow when she kicked the pail over one time too many?


What have you got?

The flip side.

Two bits. For the record, old Spanish dollar coins (pieces of 8) commonly used in colonial days were worth 8 Reales, which were called bits. So, 2 bits was 1/4 of a dollar, ie a quarter. When correct change wasn't available, the gold dollars were often cut into 8 pieces, 8 bits.

$hit from $hinola

Four bits!

Not just kids, but city folks too, When I say " give 'em the gate" just gets a blank stare. My daughter knows...lol...when some dipschit BF shows up and I tell her to give 'em the gate.

I also remind her that boyfriends are like busses...there's always another one coming along.

Ice Box.

Crank 'er over
And, it's only been a very few years since shotgun shells were rated by dram equivalents.

How many have heard a liberal retard speak of "Lock, Stock, and Barrel" with nary a clue as to its origins?

Pop the clutch. I'm convinced no one under 30 can drive a standard transmission.

That's because a standard transmission is now the automatic.

You would lose that bet! I made both of my kids learn and take their driving test in my Toyota pickup.

"We'll be chitting in tall cotton."

He would lose twice.

My brother drives a 95 Ranger with a standard transmission, I learned from him and my dad. I know how to drive the Peterbilts and Internationals from my dad's work.

Made both my kids learn how to drive one.

Dial phone

Party line

Step on the starter

Running boards

Hand signals

Steam roller

Steam shovel

Mine too. I have to be honest, 4-wheel low and an open field just seemed like a
good idea to me.

Every vehicle I have had has had a stick.

'Barking up the wrong tree'
'An arm and a leg'
'Well heeled'
'The whole nine yards'
'Face the music'
'Got an axe to grind'
'Sold down the river'
'Pulled the wool over his eyes'

Clutch Hell, speed shift once she's rollin... with yer ear on the engine and yer eye on the tach Those were the days.

Just as shore as [bleep] on yer shirt tail, bub...

The two girls took their test in an '84 Jetta, and the boy in the '86 Mazda B2000, both with 5-speed sticks. They also drove the '97 Max. Both girls have automatics now, but can still use the Frontier 5-speed. Seth bought his 2010 Xterra with the 6-speed stick.

Not sure they don't know as recently saw a sign in Gettysburg or maybe Littlestown, shop called All Gussied Up, and asked the 20 year old if she knew what it meant, and she did. Not sure though, they'd know how to "dial" a phone, and think they mostly think you're lieing when you say, we got a phone call about once a month when I was a kid (and that might have been a busy month). Dad used to say some of the Blue Grass folks sounded like a cat with it's tail caught in a wringer.

I was having a heated discussion with my youngest and told him he sounded "like a broken record". Discussion ended right there while he went to google it.

What tach?

Shift without grinding the gears, because they weren't synchonized.

Remember, throwing it in neutral, killing the switch, and coasting down all the hills! Saving gas!

That dog ain't gonna hunt..

You're like spit on a griddle...

It won't amount to a hill of beans.

I'll tell you where the bear [bleep] in the buckwheat.

"Best thing since sliced bread"

I made the above statement awhile back and one of the classmates of my 7th grade son asked, "What does that mean, I hear my parents say it sometimes."

Flash in the pan.

Razor strop. (They were used on razors AND kids when I was growing up.)

He went to the well once too often. (A quarterback tried a previously successful play too many times and got picked off.)

Home-made soap. (My grandmother used Banner Lye in her soap. It took a layer of hide off of you, and you came out of the bathtub pink. I guess that would be child abuse these days.)

"Hung out to dry" I almost forgot what it was like till Katrina hit. Got a 2 week refresher course.

Why use a clutch except for starting and stopping. I would go up and down 13 speeds and shift five hundred times in a day and use the clutch eight of ten times.

Derogatory comments referencing "Liberace" are lost on the younger folks.

as my dad would say " you cut a fat hog in the azz "

Lake pipes

Flat head mill

Dual quad carburetors

Timing light

Distributor points, dwell time

uncorked

bite the bullet.......
buffalo hunters caried poision in an empty shell with a bullet for a lid just incase they were captured by indians.
"from Billy Dixons book"

That was another kick in the ass, ya see, there were no hills where I came from... but gas was .18 cents a gallon Also another reason for no 1000 yard long range enjoyment ;(

Seafire Jr can drive a manual... taught him on the 88 4 Runner...

Anyone remember the spark advance, manual spark advance lever on the left side of the steering wheel?

Drop off to sleep (train or wagon???)

Get a job.

"Shape up or ship out"

Favorite yell from my kindergarten bus driver, over 35 years ago. She was a second or third generation Bohemian-American.

I didn't know what it meant then, and I am not sure now. It might mean shipping back to Europe if you don't shape up? anyone know?

Put a cork in it!

This one keeps popping up - and a lot of you old farts don't have a clue about it either...

"I couldn't care less".

More...

"More __ than Carter's got pills."

"Highball!" - bet most of you scratch on that one too.

And how many write the semiliterate "nary a" with ne'er a clue as to its origin and its proper spelling and pronunciation?

Keep your powder dry!

Lest you have a flash in the pan.


Here's a couple for even you OLD guys �

" � doesn't know B from bull foot."

" � like to've busted a hame strap."

I picked out my daughters first car.5 speed Eclipse.She turned into one of those girls that raced the boys on weekends.It got expensive working on that car.

Yep, and the throttle lever on the right and shifting with floor pedals.

My granddaddy used to always say that he was gonna "kick the slats of us" if we didn't stop annoying him....If he ever said that a woman was a real slat breaker you knew she hadn't missed many meals!!


"don't let the bed bugs bite"....tho not common much anymore they have been in the news a few times lately

Headed out on shanks mare.

Good Lord willing and the Creek don't rise.

Piss poor.
Pot to piss in.
Banana seat.
Mag wheels.

Let he who drew the water take the first drink.


I gave a practical application of this one when my youngest daughter and I gathered veggies from the garden and grilled the venison her and I took last year - then we ate all but a handful before advising my step-daughter and her fiance that dinner was ready.

My grandfather Doc, after a meal in the kitchen, would say "Let's go to the house," meaning Let's go to the living room. In his youth (1880s and 1890s), the typical deep-South house was in two parts � with the kitchen separate from the main house, connected to it by a covered walkway (not a hall).

I don't know of any old sayings about it, but I grew up dimming the car lights with my foot.

And working the windshield-wipers by hand?

Don't make me take off my belt!!!

And who can forget the old suicide shift bikes, more fun than a ferret down your trousers.

I always thought it was abbreviated for: never a clue.

As to the origin, ya got me.


Both my folks are gone, but daily I fondly recall, "up the wooden-hill".

"Cap'n Jake" Lowery was annoyed that his brake squeaked, so he oiled it. In those days (mid-1920s), the brake was a clamp around the flywheel on the drive shaft. Oil got rid of the squeak, all right, but "Cap'n Jake" wiped-out the steps to his store when he parked there.

Now Doc, tell us why they were separate...

Had two of them! One with a mousetrap clutch.

I'm not the good Doctor but I can tell you why. Built that way so when the kitchen caught fire you could save the house maybe.

Old sayings:

Kick like a bay steer.
Shoot the anvil ( speaking of a good time)
Seen the elephant
Hot as a tailor's goose
Dull as a froe


Anybody know what a froe is, what and how it is used?

I never owned one but I've ridden a couple.
One of my most embarrassing moments involved a bike with a suicide shift and an odd gear box. It had been set up to run a side cart and the guy had built his own gear box with a reverse gear and three forward gears.
I was 19, drunk and showing off to some girls at a party. I started the bike, clunked it into what I thought was first, hit the gas and sort of leaned forward expecting the bike to go forward. It went backwards and I went over the front and downwards.

Yep, it's used to split planks or shingles from timber.
You hammer it in the end of a piece of timber with a wooden maul then twist the handle to split the timber along the grain.

An eye for an eye
Dont make me pull this car over
Go cut me a switch
Son, go out and draw a fresh bucket of water


Gunner

Ethyl

You got it my Kiwi friend. Cedar block and a two pound hammer makes a pile of cedar roof shakes. Froe is dull so it will split instead of cut.

Boggy knows this one and I bet he has even used it a few times.

All hat and no cattle.

More than a few times my good friend. Sometimes even here I've thought it if I didn't post it.

Along with drugstore cowboy.

Telling time...half past, quarter to.

Using a rotary dial telephone. Using a telephone number with a name like "Lakeview 421."

AMEN that Sir.

Always heard it-"More__ than Carter's got oats." Rumor was Carter made so many oats that he had to rent ground to shock them on. And there is another one. miles

And then there was the "Fat Cats". Poor people used to not be fat, only the well off. miles

What it boils down to

I always though "bite the bullet" referred to when, in lieu of pain medication, a patient would be given a lead bullet to chomp down on during a field medical procedure.

Never heard of the poison thing, but it makes sense.

Two other occured to me.

Wonder how many know what eating high on the hog means.
Another that I use and get strange looks for is fair to middling (pronounced middlin') when asked how I am or things in general are going.

Nobody but cotton farmers know what I mean. :>)

The best, and most expensive, cuts of pork came from high on the hog.

I use fair to middlin' a lot as well.

The saying is from Carter's Little Liver Pills.

How about "keep up with the Jones"

Tolerable goes with that as well.

Potlicker.


Banana seat wasn't complete without a sissy bar.


Run and get me a bucket of steam!


Couple years ago the wife saw a car along side the road during a blizzard and stopped to help. Seated inside was a woman holding the blinker lever in her hand with wires hanging out and laughing so hard she was crying. "Laughing so hard she couldn't even talk to tell me what was the matter, but I knew immediately."
Lights, turn indicators, and windshield wipers, all kaput - and she sitting there laughing at her predicament, wind a howling with near whiteout conditions.
The wife led her to the next town using taillights as a beacon to keep her on the road.

I much preferred the old pull knob for lights on, twist for interior dome light, kick button for bright/dim, separate lever for the wipers on the dash board where it belongs and turn signal lever with just one simple function.
These are but a few of the many, MANY things I dislike about new cars. Over complicated, poorly built, plastic pieces of junk in my opinion.

And if your bike had a banana seat, a sissy bar, AND a slick you were the [bleep]!
Can you imagine what would happen back then if one of the neighborhood kids showed up with a bike helmet on!?

I did have an old Jeep with one those...only 1. I guess they didn't figure the passenger needed to see anything.

I left a few mufflers on the road by coasting then hitting the switch again and giving her the gas.....

I do if you are talking about a Model A Ford. Gas on the right side or on the floor, choke clear over on the other side. Never could quite get the hang of hand cranking it.

how about a floor vent you opened by kicking it? the little triangular vent windows in front of the crank-your-own side windows? stepping on the gas to set the carb and then starting it? stepping on the high-beam button?

you could damn near stand in the engine compartment while doing spark plugs or working on the carb in dad's 1979 f-100.

i am 31 and i think i might be the last group of kids who remember any of this stuff.

my grandma used to say "i can't" died in the poor house. anytime you told you you couldn't do something.

when i got a lot older and realized they started life together with 5 bucks and a house they built themselves, that all sunk in nicely.

and if it makes you feel better, steelie- i learned on a stick in 1997 and still drive one

"Go ahead and try it. If you do you will be picking $hit with the chickens."

"that dog won't hunt"

"Run it up the flag pole, see if anyone salutes"

by people that knew nothing about shocking oats.



This was from before Carter made little liver pills. miles

Yep.
Then we started welding extensions on the front forks to "Rake 'em".



Here you'd have been called a homo.

Now the little toy foam helmets are common and homo is a compliment.

My boys are all too young (5, 7, and 11) but I will have considered myself a failure as a parent if they grow up without learning how to drive a standard. The 11 year old has drove an automatic through the pasture a few times already.

Two reasons �

� To keep the heat from the kitchen out of the house on hot summer days

� To isolate kitchens that caught fire

Stuff my dad says:

"Smoke 'em if you got 'em"

He "bought the farm"

"Put your ass into it"

"Is a pigs ass pork?"

"runs like a strip-ed assed ape"

"pick 'em up and put 'em down"

Oh, and he measures fat chicks asses in ax-handle length increments. "There's and axe handle wide" he'll say



Us country boys can still drive them But I'm pushing 30 really hard. Don't know about the knew crop. Lots of city boys my age don't know how. Still, I'd guess 20-25yrs is a more accurate estimate.

The same libtards misuse "Point Blank Range"

"Let's light a shuck outta here."

"He's richer than four foot up a bull's ass."

"That guy's as lost as a goose in a snowstorm."

"Colder than a well digger's ass in the Klondike."

"Hotter than a forged hammer in Hell."

"I'm so broke a dime looks like a wagon wheel."

"That family eats high off the hog." (Mentioned previously.)

"Blacker'n a raven's throat at midnight."

"Time to piss on the fire, call the dogs, and go home."

L.W.

"I'm so broke, I cant pay attention"
"Havent got a pot to piss-in or a window to throw it out of"
"Spending a night up the river"

Harder than a hickory dick.

Dancehall Doctor!

Yep. You have to want a manual trans to get one now.

I remember driving papaws ford truck three on the tree.

Who here remembers the old chain-drive LaFrance?

Or the REO?

Or the Diamond T?

Or the Cord?

Steam locomotives?

most kids now a days don't have a clue as to honor.

I remember the old ad of the Cord driving through a brick wall.

Don't strain your butter milk.

Katie bar the door.

I'd say your a pretty good floater Scot,with your favorite sound , the Jake Brake.

Tain' no hill for a stepper!

You don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

Riding the old Greyhounds as a kid, I used to wonder why the logo "FlXible" was misspelled. Years later, I learned.

Along about the time of the first world war, an old guy in my mother's home town had patented a coupling for motorcycle sidecars that let 'em make a left turn without leaving the ground. "FlXible" was the manufacturing company that came of that design.

Don't buy a pig in a poke.

Suppose somebody still has wooden nickles for the novelty of it, don't take any.

Pretty much taught myself how to drive a manual, didn't think it was that hard. But a couple of us tried to teach a friend and he never did get the left foot coming up and the right foot going down at the same time thing.

Oh yeah, I hear that one too.

Also; "you look like a bear cub playin' with his peter"

Still have one,found in some of daddy's things, also flub stubs,good for one drink at the local tap,the kids now days would call them rain checks.

I'll give ya a tin-ear
slower than molassas in january

My grandfather would never get excited when any of us kids would show up with a shiner. He would just look up ,take the pipe out of his mouth, and say, "that fight'n is hard on the eyes". To this day, everytime I see someone with a black eye, I think of him and smile.

� like a monkey humpin' a jug �

I do not know if it has been said but

Does any one know the origin of "Hit the nail on the head"?

I recall reading that frontiersmen would drive a nail in a board and set it out at however many paces. They then would shoot at it to hit the head of the nail.

Or is that completely wrong?

I always heard can't rub 2 dimes together.

How about thin?
Thinner than piss on a platter.
Thin as a gnat's ass stretched over a wagon wheel.
Thin as a flea's ttit stretched over a rain barrel.

Rain.
Raining like a cow pissin' on a flat rock.
Raining pitch forks and n****er babies.

Here's one grandad always said. Any guesses what he's talking about?

"Take 'em into camp"

How about "potlickers" I mentioned earlier.
Anyone know what that means? It was another of grandad's.



Aaaaaand another of grandad's... This was the topper of all toppers. Ya knew'd screwed up sumpin' when ya heard this.

"About as handy as a bear cub in boxing gloves with 2 armloads of shelled corn."

Reminds me of one of granny's.

"Slap ya up to a peak and then slap the top off."

Potlicker is a dog.

There was a pop rock band called REO Speedwagon.
I wonder....



lol.
Grandad was a little more on the coarse side with that one.

"all humped up like a monkey phkin a football."

Pot lickers is what my Grandaddy called his fox hounds.

Also I could never understand why he said slicker than snot on a hoe handle,then he and my uncles would spit on there cotton gloves when pitching manure into the spreader.

Almost forgot one of my favorites; "month of sundays"

[quote=jdm953]Potlicker is a dog.[quote=Archerhunter][quote=Leanwolf]

Fits there, too.

Poor folks.
Pop filled his belly. The scrawny kids got what was left, if any, then licked the pot.

The REO was a truck made by Ransom E Olds's car company before it became a part of General Motors, IIRC.

"Take 'em into camp."

He always said that when someone was driving too slow and he wanted you to pass them.
I always figured it was somehow akin to "put the wagons in a circle" but never really knew for sure.

I remember it back in the 40s.

Cat head biscuits.

or from good-grade apple butter

I had to walk 1 mile to a one room country school and was late one morning from lollygagging,told the teacher it was so slippery that id take one step forward and slid back two,when she ask how I got there,told her I walked backward,heard that from my Daddy so I though it would work for me.

Spent all morning writing I will not fib on the Blackboard.

"Raining harder than a cow pizzin on a flat rock"

Been in REO's, driven Diamond T's, drove trucks with a 5 speed main and a 4 speed "brownie" quite a bit. The most confusing were 2 Kenworth's we had with 4X4X3's in them - it could get a bit hectic!
Concerning a "heavyweight woman" - jogging - from behind - "Looks like 2 pigs in a gunny-sack!"
Slicker than snot on a brass door-knob!

Mark

My Dad used to have a lot of sayings, here is one of them:
"took off like a ruptured duck"

"freeze the balls off a brass monkey"--comes from the old days of sailing ships.

We called that runway between the summer kitchen and the rest of the house--the dog-trot.

Anyone remember what a waif is? Or who a fast fish belongs to.

My dad had a few. 'Slicker'n a minners di*k' was one of my favorites.

Once when I was about 12 I heard him say about women, 'Big girl, big pu$$y, skinny girl, all pu$$y.' Still chuckle about that to this day.

My dad would make me comb my hair every day so people wouldn't think I was a waif.

Guilty as charged!

That is one I have never stopped to think about. Thank You Ken, for the enlightenment.

Haven't run across that one in a long time!

A homeless kid or orphan, IIRC.

I've called obama that but usually just stick with gutter urchin or ghetto trash.

It all works.

"Water the buckskin"

Actually heard someone say that a month or two ago.

Couldn't make that comparison as it don't snow here...

How bout "As lost as a buzzard in a fog" or

"As confused as a blind queer at a weenie roast."

'73 IH farm truck loaded with 18,000lbs of wheat. Through town, brakes(?), maybe. Always hit 'em to check before you need to stop!



Drove a stick shift tractor through town today. Dudes were standing out in front of the Wilbur-Ellis office so I had to clutch it and 'rev' the engine for them, Russel thought it was great. Also pruned a few trees with the toolbar.

That be a binder Sam.

Waif as in a street urchin was a coloquialism.
Waif was a flag stuck in a whale carcass with the mark of the ship who had been fast to it.

"You Young'uns settel down, elsun I'm gonna smack you so hard you'all gonna starve to death a bouncin."

"You and me boy--we be Kin. Long as I got a biscuit you entilted to half."

Plunk you magic twanger froggie.

That could refer to either of two things �

� A pot-licker was a person or dog who licked the pot when it was "empty." The connotations were many. To my fox-hunter grandfather, a "pot-licker hound" was somewhat less than special.

� Pot liquor was the rich broth left after the cook boiled a "mess o' greens." My grandfather "Doc's" favorite evening snack was a glass of pot liquor liberally stuffed with chunks of corn bread. His li'l grandson Kenneth was also known to surround a few of those 'way back when.



"common"

An often-heard put-down in those days was "He's so common" � which brings back to mind the old British-Southern "ord'n'ry," which became "ornery."

Not true. Waif is a word with several meanings, some centuries old. As a legal term, it dates back as far as the 13th century � "A piece of property which is found ownerless and which, if unclaimed within a fixed period after due notice given, falls to the lord of the manor; e.g. an article washed up on the seashore, an animal that has strayed." (Oxford English Dictionary)

It later (1700s) came to mean "A person who is without home or friends; one who lives uncared-for or without guidance; an outcast from society; an unowned or neglected child." (OED)


That's one of its meanings.

Highball (asked several pages ago) is a railroad term. They used a ball on rope or pole at the station, if it was high, you could at high speed for the next section of track. It comes from the rotating ball type pressure regulator. When the balls are high, the pressure is up and there is enough pressure to run fast.

My kids (ages 17 and 25) can drive stick, in fact the daughter's first car after college was a stick that she couldn't drive well enough to drive off the lot. Wife drove it part way home and we stopped at the high school parking lot to practice.

Dale

'Toodlem gravy' (I'm not sure if it's spelled correctly)

That's a fly-ball governor, I believe.

Running balls out. An old fashioned spinning governor on a steam engine had metal ball weights. As it would spin faster, centrifugal force would move the balls outward. Balls out was full throttle.

Raining like a double kudered cow peeing on a flat rock in Arizona.

Ugly as home-made sin.

Looks like she was beat with an ugly stick.

And I do remember the Crosley. An uncle had one with a Ford V8 in it. You could see the road through big holes in the floorboards. But he won quite a few race bets with that car.

I always knew the "jig was up" when my Dad came to me an said "I've got a crow to pick with you". I usually had "more sh#t with me than a Christmas turkey" so that happened often. I had a sports car when I was a youngster and my buddies said that it would "run like a raped ape" and was "slicker than snot on a porcelin door knob".

Speaking of "Balls up" is that the same as "Balls to the wall" ?

Crosley! Ah, yes! Little cars � also radios and refrigerators, made by Cincinnati tycoon Powel Crosley, Jr, IIRC.

One of the super-tall kids on the basket-ball team at my brothers' high school drove a Crosley to the "away" games � took the front seat out and sat in the back seat. I never saw it, but I heard that there was always a crowd waiting to watch him unwind out of that "car."

Which for some reason brings to mind that old three-wheel Italian scooter-car (Isetta?) that a parking valet sat in all day because he'd run it up too close to the wall and couldn't open the door because he couldn't figure-out how to shift it into reverse.

There were still a very few Crosleys around when I was young. They had a reputation for being able to attain 45 miles per hour, downhill, with a tailwind. I think I must have been about 5 when my uncle had his.

My mom's name was Izetta, so we had reason to remember the Isetta very well. Just as you describe, tiny three wheeler with a swing open front. There was a family attended church with us who had one.

Another car from that era was the Willys Aero Ace. That's the car I practiced driving around the pasture to prepare for my driving test. We could get a daytime license at 14 back then.

Early 60s saw the Nash Rambler.

None of those seem to have endured as brand names.

hotter than two rats fing in a wool sock

That Crosley engine was made just like a kitchen appliance too!

Sheet metal "block" with cast iron liners. They were light though and the Crosley Hot Shot did have some limited success in smallbore roadracing.

As slick as two fish eels fking in a barrel of snot..

Historically aircraft throttles have balls on the end of the levers to distinguish them from prop speed and mixture by feel. Move the levers forward, to the firewall, for full throttle.

New one on me but I have heard of "Hoover Gravy". It was used a bunch when I was small. That and sawmill gravy. miles

got my truck running like a scalded dawg.

Almost as fast as a turpentined tomcat!

that's a good un

]
May be true in the city, ain't true at all in the country. Though not all can drive a clutch in the country any more. But most can. Even my wife does, not great at it, but can do as needed

'Can't take the properity' was always a favorite of mine.

sweatin' like a Mennonite tryna' read

Might be the same thing, I dont know. Granddad made toodlem gravy, every morning, to eat with his biscuits. He poured about equal parts of syrup and bacon drippings in his plate, then added a generous amount of butter. Stirred it all together.... WAALAA, toodlem gravey!

Not just trucks, my uncle kept a Flying Cloud in his garage...named after a schooner, image of which was at the center of the spokes of the drivers wheel.

That's undoubtedly the most creative phonetic "spelling" of voila that I've ever seen!

The Apple doesn't fall far from the Tree

Come on Mr. Ken, give a coonass a break!

"Loose lips sink ships"

"I'm so short i'm afraid to get out of my rack"

"CONTACT"........."contact"

That.
And if the ball was low, you were to stop at the station.

No balls on poles now, but the term sticks. "Highball the work"....leave the cars scheduled to be added to the train.

(Regarding a buyer making a ridiculously low offer)

"Low-ball him."

Doc Howell, did you ever dip tar?

If it has t i t s or wheels-sooner or later it will give ya problems

All dark...

Mean anything to you?

No, but I've changed a few by the side of the road.

Tougher than wang leather.

Deader than a door nail.

It usually means there is a manager lurking about.

"Double Clutch" not many know how to do it today. I had a kid driving one of my haylage trucks last week and he wanted to know how come he couldn't shift down without grinding the gears. I told him to double clutch it. Huh? What's a double clutch?

Still need that maneuver once in a while...

"You may as well pizz on the fire...and call the dogs!"

Actually on the main line just as the train entered a curve the engine crew could look back and see the entire train, a mile or better back. The term "all dark" was said by the crewmen that could see that side of the train and repeated by the other crew members where all were to know that no hot boxes were spotted for the entire length of the train. Hot box, or dry axle, could cause a train fire or derailment.

I was present where chipping boxes and dipping tar was taking place and saw enough of it that I never wanted to do it for a living.
Was hard and dirty work. Made many a trip to the turpentine still with a barrel or two of tar in the pickup to sell.

Even for 40+ old, it's a distant memory too.

Twenty years ago I was still driving a '79 Ford pickup with a 3 speed stick; "three on the tree". Had to park in the city at a lot where the attendant parked your vehicle for you. Got out and said; "it's a stick". "OK" was his reply. Walking away from the lot I noticed he was still in my truck and it hadn't moved yet. I went back and asked if everything was O.K. Turns out he had never even parked anything with a three on the tree. Once I showed him how to get first and reverse he did fine. He just had never even heard about or seen a three speed column shift. That's when (1992) I first realized that those things were getting scarce. Or should I say; "rarer than hen's teeth".

Any of you ever been on an "E ticket" ride.
My 30 year old son didn't know that one.

DK

Thanks for the info on 'waif' Ken, I was just repeating things I heard from the old folks back when I was a kid. They all gone now and most didn't have no 'school larne-in'.

OH that is a riot. Several years ago my wife and some co-workers were talking at lunch as one described an auto accident she had been in my wife said just that, "Wow that sounds like an E-Ticket ride".

A younger nurse asked what she was talking about, when Kath explained that was the big rides at Disney the girl said "Your nuts, they don't have tickets at Disney". At that point my wife dug into her purse and pulled out an old book of tickets from Disneyworld in Orlando and showed her one!

BTW, she still has them in her purse.

My wife's mom used to tell the younguns, them what can't hear can feel.

You're right. I'd forgotten that one - haven't heard it used that way for quite some time. Hot-box is another one that's just about history. Haven't seen an axle with a grease box for years, but I think there are a few still out there.

More concerned with what's going on ahead these days. "All dark" would indicate a signal outage (usually a test) and the requirement to stop.

We could go off-topic with railroad lingo all night, but I'll just crawl back into my crummy instead (not seeing any of those anymore either).

I just used "hurtin' unit" to describe a real sick patient at work (hospital). I had to explain it to my co-workers.

"... doesn't know Gordon from Gottschalk."

Get up and change the channel, son.

My uncle had a 1941 Buick with a three on the tree, and he let me drive it one time...it is by far the smoothest manual transmission I have ever used! (his 1950s "M" tractor, on the other hand...)