A Funny Story

[DanG]

Sure we get frost. Had some this morning, matter of fact.  What you saw in the pics weren't from frostbite, though.  Some of us is just naturally homely. :D :D

[farmerdoug]

Now DanG,  We do not associate frost bite with bad looks.  It just shows that people who are not use to our cold gets its quite quick as a badge of honor they show as an initiation to our way of life. ;D :D :D :D

Farmerdoug

[Faron]

A local farmer and historian was in yesterday telling stories on some of the old timers.  Seems a drummer (salesman) was in the local store selling his wares.  A young lass was in the store.  She had a toothache, with noticeable swelling of her cheek.  During his speil, the drummer leaned over and kissed her on the swelled cheek.  " Now that tooth will be perfectly well in the morning!"  he promised.  As he left, one of the old timers cornered him.  "Say," he questioned, "Can you cure piles, too?"  :D   ;D

[Quartlow]

Back when I was about 15 we moved into a new neighborhood. I quickly made friends with the closet neighbor about a 3/4 mile down the road. Didn't take me long to figure out Mike wasn't too bright. But Daddy had money so he had all the latest toys. We moved in there in the early part of winter. Second or third time I was down there he drags me out to the shed to a brand new pair of Skidoo snowmobiles. Didn't take much arm twisting to get me on board.  ;D

We went every where on those things. We where riding through the fields on the property that Dad had rented just having a a grand old time playing follow the leader. Being as I had little invested I tended to be just a tad bit braver than Mike. Hey it wasn't my snowmobile  :D I had a place scouted out I was sure I could lose him. Through the woods was a creek and I had a place laid out where the bank on one side was about 3 feet higher then the opposite side Off we went I took him down through the woods hammer down.  I never let off the throttle across the crick I went, Mike hot on my heals. Out into the field and stopped. Mike whips around Big grin on his face. Thats was GREAT he shouts, I just shook my head and grinned. Next thing I know he is headed back for the crick, going the wrong way  : I caught up in time to see him go airborne out through the woods, The Skidoo? it didn't fair to well it stopped dead in its tracks when it hit the bank. Mike, he was lucky, banged bruised and scratched up but no broken bones. His Dad wasn't none to happy either  :D  :D

[Bibbyman]

In the engineering department of a large manufacturing facility where I worked for half my life there was a lab technician.  In the early years he wore his hair long and had bell bottom pants.  I always picture him in his lab coat and a pocket protector full of pins.  He was the closest thing we had to a clown.

He would make the rounds inside the 17 acre facility on a tricycle.  Not your normal children's type of tricycle but one made basically of a standard bicycle but with two back wheels.  It also had a basket and one bent wheel.  So he made an odd sight peddling his tricycle around the factory.  He was married but fancied himself a lady's man.  He'd often have reason to stop in the components assembly area where most of the workers were women. They all knew his was a real goof and harmless.  He'd make them laugh and break up their day.

He had a co-worker in the development lab.  He was a machinist that made prototype parts and fixtures, etc. The two where always playing pranks on one another and anyone else that would get within range.  But the machinist was able to best the lab technician far more than he got back. 

In the early days the engineering lab was inside the manufacturing area just outside as you pass from the office area.  The wall made of cinder blocks was only about 4' high.  Every noon break found the lab technician standing at the wall greeting and smiling at the ladies as they passed by go to and from the lunchroom.  It was kind of like a dog that liked to chase cars but was locked behind a fence. 

The machinist capitalized one major flaw of the technician.  That was that he was real goosy.  If prodded from behind he'd jump 3' high and yell.  He also found out to his advantage that if he said something to him as he was prodded, he'd repeat it real loud.  So the machinist would wait until the technician was at the wall making contact with a group of ladies and sneak up behind him and give him a good goose and then say something profoundly tasteless.  Every time the technician would jump and yell out the profanity.

These kinds of pranks went on all the time in the early years.  But later they would have gotten them some kind of disciplinary action or maybe fired. In later years they built the walls to the lab all the way to the ceiling. They said it was to secure the area.

[SwampDonkey]

Sounds like the Offices of Amiga:

"The way the Amiga team came to a consensus was with foam rubber baseball bats.

It isn't known who first came up with the idea, but the foam bats became an essential part of all design meetings. A person would pitch an idea, and if other engineers felt they were stupid or unnecessary, they would hit the person over the head with a bat. As Jay said, 'it didn't hurt, but the humiliation of being beaten with the bat was unbearable.'"

"We worked with a great passion... my most cherished memory is how much we cared about what we were doing. We had something to prove... a real love for it. We created our own sense of family out there."

"Like the early days at Atari, people were judged not on their appearance or their unusual behavior but merely on how well they did their jobs. Dale Luck, one of the core OS engineers, looked a bit like a stereotypical hippie, and there were even male employees who would come to work in purple tights and pink fuzzy slippers. "As long as the work got done, I didn't mind what people looked like," was Jay Miner's philosophy. Not only was it a family, but it was a happy one: everyone was united by their desire to build the best machine possible."

;D

[Bibbyman]

For a while there was a "Nerf" rubber brick in one of the meeting rooms.  It got tossed at people from time to time. :-[

[submarinesailor]

John Deere Tractor – A Miracle Maker

Been using my buddies 4520 John Deere all week end to do work around the hose in Madison and late Sunday afternoon it was time to put it away for the week.  Now I have seen tractor make a lot of things happen and gotten a lot of work out of them.  But, I have never had one perform a miracle.  It made it rain – squirrels.  :D :D :D

I was driving up the road to put the tractor away when all of a sudden something flashed down in front of the tractor  and took off running up the road.  It was a big old fox squirrel.  Just about the time I recognized it, here came 2 more, one right after the other.  Landing on the road with a big wop, wop and off to the races they went.  The whole thing was so funny, I had to stop and reflect on what had just happened and got a good laugh at the whole situation. 

The only thing I can think of is that they ran out of trees and jumped to get away from this big old mean tractor. ;D ;D ;D

Bruce

[Tom]

Maybe they had been blasted by overhead exhaust before. :D :D

There has to be some relation between wheeled vehicles and squirrels.  It seems to me that a squirrel won't cross the road unless it is immediately in front of, or under, a wheeled vehicle.  Usually they turn around and cross two or three times  before deciding to stay on one side or the other.   Is it a game of Chicken squirrel?

[SwampDonkey]

There were squirrels flying from the corn stalks one morning when I drove around a section of field bordering the woods. I musta seen 12 in 300 yards of travel. Almost needed the wipers on.  ;D

[Don P]

We've been contemplating something the past week or two. Howcum it is that the free range chicken folks are always the ones right on a blacktop road  ???. We have one group right at the top of the knob. Last week I came to a hard stop twice. First time I rounded the corner and there was mama standing in the middle trying to fake me out, dodging one way then the other as my nose was diving hard. She finally threw up her arms and just squawked for the impact. I got it stopped and she tried to hide her embarrasment as she stepped back into view and strutted off to the shoulder. A day or two later I was coming home and the whole family was crossing the road, she goes back, the poults go forward and she was giving them what for the whole time  :D. I noticed fresh meat on the way home today  :. They must be lucky to get one or two to the freezer every year.

[beenthere]

Are ya talkin about the chicken folks, or the chickens?? : ???

I don't brake, swerve, or even slow down fer chickens...but chicken folks would be different.. ;D ;D

[Tom]

It used to be that you had to pay for  chicken if you hit on the road.  I don't know if that has changed or not.

[Warbird]

One of my buddy's went duck hunting last year with a bow and arrow.  He flushed out a couple and took a shot at this really large one.  Grazed it's head with the arrow.  He carried it back to his truck by it's neck, in a hurry as he was late for meeting some friends at a restaurant for dinner.  He tossed the bird in the floorboard, drove to dinner, and told them the story of his awesome bow and arrow head shot on this duck, and how big a bird it was.  So they got done eating and then went outside to check out this bird.

My buddy opened the door to his truck and there was the duck, standing in the seat.  *quack quack* it says.  He'd only knocked it out.  Someone noted that they thought the bird might actually be a domestic duck, not a wild one.

So he takes the thing back to the dorm apartments on campus and it follows he and his room mate everywhere, pooping all over the porch.  Someone calls it in and then it turned into a huge deal.  Fish & Wildlife got involved, the duck ended up being euthanized, he got a spendy ticket, and it was a big 'ol mess.

Sure is funny to laugh about now, tho.

[thecfarm]

I never heard of that law in Maine.All animals belong in a pen,fenced in or trained to keep out of the road.Seems like chickens like to be where the action is.We have a 500 foot driveway,so my ckickens have a long ways to go to the road.My dog,Boo-Boo,got run over by a truck.Not the guys fault,but the wife was right there and saw it happened.He claimed he didn't know he did.You can feel a chipmuck under your tire.Boo-Boo is fine,but he acts alot differant now.This happened a couple years ago.We live on a deadend dirt road and Boo-Boo thinks he owns the whole hill.I will try to avoid things in the road,but won't put myself or anyone else lifes in danger because of it.The other night I slowed down for a deer and the mother walked in front of me and than her 2 youngins had to fellow.By the time I got my truck stopped all I could see was thier head going by the hood of my truck.

[Don P]

Another one from last week. I rounded the corner and a party was going on. A deer did a fancy double axle spin before sidestepping to the woods, the two squirrels did a jump to the side and several crows took flight. It took a moment to figure out what had caused such a gathering. The walnuts are dropping into the road and get run over and smashed. Kinda neat.

When we worked west of the river in SD it was free range, you hit it, you own it. It was late one night, I came around a corner and am sure glad one of those black angus was bright eyed and smiling  :D.
My aunt has some social security cows, the remnants of my late uncles herd. In NC if they hit your animal, you pay. One of those old girls bought herself a cadilac as a final act.

[Roxie]

It's always fascinating to see how different states handle similar issues.  In Pennsylvania, if you were to run into livestock on the road, the farmer has to pay for damages, and can be sued.  Our way gives a real incentive to farmers to keep their fences in good order. 

[asy]

I can imagine in Don's area the farmers herding their stock onto the road when times are hard!!!

asy :D

[sawguy21]

Don't laugh, that has been known to happen here.

[Bibbyman]

I can imagine in Don's area the farmers herding their stock onto the road when times are hard!!!

asy :D

It's kind of like about 10 years ago when the big pork producers flooded the market with pork to run the family farmer out of the pork business. There was a story going around where a farmer heard a disturbance during the night.  He got up to check. Sure enough one of his neighbors was unloading pigs into his hog lot.  :D

Mom had all manner of fowl.  For some reason the guinea were the only ones smart enough to stay out of the road. Or get out of the road.  I don't remember her ever loosing one to traffic. 

[Bibbyman]

I was born in 1950.  My earliest memories of the area we now live in are much different.  Farm houses were about a mile apart were now the homes are next to one another on the main roads.   Subdivisions have eaten up whole farms.

Back then there were a few poorly maintained county gravel roads and steams were forded.  Many farms were reached or connected by "unimproved" dirt roads going through fields and forest.  Now many roads are paved and bridges cross the streams.  All of the dirt roads connecting farms have been improved or,  more likely abandoned.  Our farm was one of these that was a full mile from a gravel road in any direction.  There were three dirt roads,  one heading south, one west and one north.  The north route remains.  There is but little trace of the other two routes.

There was no electricity.  And needless to say but I'll say it anyway,  no other modern necessities.

The social fabric was much different too.  Most everyone was related somehow or at least close friends.  There were no strangers.  Today,  I know very few people that live within a couple of miles from our home.

Entertainment was generally a party with live music and dancing at someone's house on a Saturday night.  Each would take turns hosting the party. 

It was after one such party at our house one cold winter night that this story took place.

Uncle Norman (an honorary title as he's not really my uncle but my cousins are cousins to his kids so by extension,  he's my uncle too.) gets embarrassed any  time this story is brought up.  He, like many others of this time has mended their rowdy ways.  But back then they must have been pretty wild.

Seems this cold winter Saturday they were at the party at my folk's house along with probably a house full of other assorted neighbors and relatives.  Uncle Norman got into a spat with a brother-in-law.  The brother-in-law decided he'd just walk home. So in the middle of the night he headed out through the wood to his house about a mile away.  Uncle Norman got to feeling bad about the argument and went looking for him to bring him back.  It was a good thing because the brother-in-law had stumbled off a bluff and in him impaired state couldn't figure out how to climb back up or continue down.

They regrouped at our house and loaded up their families in a Model A Ford and headed for home.  They were taking the west route out of the valley.  Soon they came to a gap in the fence where they had to cross Dad's hay field.  The brother-in-law got out and opened the gap.  He yelled for Uncle Norman to pull though.  Uncle Norman made the observation that a hay stack stood in the way.  The brother-in-law made suggestion to knock the S.O.B. down.  Uncle Norman admitted he felt it would be a fine trick to play on dad to knock down his hay stack.  So he rammed into the stack but with unexpected results.  The spring mounted bumper on the Model A collapsed and then sprang back – jolting the car backwards and giving the passengers a good "shaken, not sutured" motion.  The car, still trying to go forward regained it's traction and hit the stack again.  Uncle Norman said they bounded off the haystack several times before he could push the clutch in.

One thing in their combined impaired state they hadn't calculated was that it had been raining and snowing for days and the haystack was frozen solid.

[Dave Shepard]

Would like to have seen that, from a good distance. :D :D


Dave

[Bibbyman]

We got a couple of big loads of logs in this morning.  The first was a load of walnut from down south.  The second was our local logger with oak.  The first guy had a big tandem axel truck with pup and had a picker mounted on the back of the truck.  The local guy had a tandem axle truck with pup but on picker.

The first guy was "Bad Luck John", as we call him.  Every time he shows up he has another bad luck story to tell.  But it doesn't seem to bother him.  He's always got a big smile on his face and is always happy.  All these little adversities just make life interesting for him. Mary says you could hit him with a stick and it wouldn't make him mad.

Bad Luck John just had time to get gone when the second truck showed up.  Mary visited with Charlie while I unloaded the truck and pup.  After that was done,  I joined the conversation.

Mary was telling Charlie about Bad Luck John and some of the things that have happened to him.  Charlie got to telling stories about his driver, Pete.  Pete is a character too.  It may take 30 minutes to unload him but it'll take another hour to get rid of him.  Usually he won't leave until it's the end of the day or he gets a call from the crew wanting to know where he is.  We've taken to calling him Re-Pete as he's ran out of all the stories where he has been the one to save the day and is now recycling.

Anyway,  Charlie was relating Pete to Bad Luck John.  He said one time they were working on a truck.  Pete was under it holding a chisel against a bearing on a pinion gear while Charlie took a 6 lb hammer and was trying to drive it off.  He said one blow went a little wild and hit Pete right in the upper lip.  Charlie said, "Oh my GOD!  I thought I'd killed him or something."  But Pete didn't even put down the chisel.  He just spit out a tooth and some blood and said, "I'm all right.  Hit it again."

Then later Pete was dragging some logs and Charlie could see that a limb on a sycamore tree was caught in front of the exhaust pipe and was bending back going to knock the pee-waddle out off Pete.  But he was too far away for him to hear him yell.  Pete was looking back at the logs. About that time the limb came around and hit Pete in the mouth.     Pete pulled the logs on up to the landing, got off and came over to Charlie.  He opened his hand and had two teeth in it.  Said Pete, "Saved myself $160.00."  smiley_ignore

Seems he didn't have many teeth left and was paying $80 to get each pulled.

[Greg Cook]

Just spent a couple of pleasant evenings reading through this thread beginning to end. (And a lot of a rainy Saturday morning  :  )

Thought I'd bump it to the top and let all the newer folks have a go at it.

Greg

[sgtmaconga]

thanks Greg..this is a hoot