Quite a few years back. Was doin' some work related research at a public library outskirt of Washington, DC. Wallowing through the isles of books our eye happened to catch the title of a particular volume of interest, Comic Book Prices For Collectors, or somethin' like that. Immediately pulled it off the shelf and grabbed a chair. Was a big comic book fan as a kid and had a big box of old comics, say circa 1958 - 1967, stashed away at the old homestead back in PA. Exactly 500 as we recall last count, had been years. Mostly Marvel Comics ranging from late 50's favorite war, horror and monster tales right into their early 60's transition to super heroes beginning with 1961's Fantastic Four.
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Totally unknown to us until we picked up issue #5 off the revolving wire comic rack at the local newsstand. After getting home and reading it ten times over, all the while scrutinizing Jack Kirby's brilliant artwork panel by panel, we immediately resolved to seek out issues #1 through #4. Not hard to do back then. The newsstands only kept the current months comics shelved, to be immediately replaced when the next months issues rolled in. The now "back issues" gone from the newsstand for good. There was an Outlet Store (junk shop) in town. They apparently picked up much of the surplus comics from the distributors, newsstands, grocery stores and such. That was the place ya' went to for the back issues - no Amazon, eBay and such back then. They had several large cardboard boxes of comics along a back wall. No order or organization. Considering our recollection of the size of the box of our 500 count, those boxes must have contained 800+ assorted comics. We left with issues #1 through #4 in hand. A fifth forgotten purchase gave us the stores usual bargain price of 5 comics for 25cents.
For the five FF comics alone, lets look at the values indicated in that aforementioned library collectors price guide for modern collectors pricing:
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$25,000
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$8,000
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$5,000
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$5,000
With that issue #5 listed at $10,000 - sounds like we got a heck of a deal back then - all five for 37cents. And that doesn't include the other 495 comics in that "box up in the attic" which we knew included first and all early issues of titles like X-Men, Daredevil, Hulk, Sgt. Fury and Howling Commandos and Avengers to list a few.
Hightailed it back to PA that weekend, first stop the old homestead. Took the second floor staircase two stairs at a time - the attic staircase three. Top of the staircase and a quick scan around the attic. Other than a few old suitcases and Christmas decorations, the attics bare. Back down the stairs five at a time to search out mom.
"What happened to everything in the attic??!!"
"Oh, I gave all that stuff away a few years ago - what are ya' lookin' for sweetie?"
Old school images - a "Good-man" and Strongman Matt - two strong "dudes" back in the day
Better times before the sport was absorbed into "pop culture"
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After many years, recently ran into an old buddy who worked out regularly at a small garage gym we had back in the late '70's. Nothin' fancy - solid bar and dumbell free weights, one store-bought bench along with another home-made bench or two and home-made cable machine. A ton of plates and dumbells. Our boy Derby had a father-in-law who was a pretty good welder/machinist. Along with the benches he'd fashion some heavy plates from pilfered sewer manhole covers (hey - look what we "found"). Derby, primarily a power lifter who regularly benched 400lb+ again set the standard. Workin' out heavy even the smaller guys were soon benchin' 300lb+, including smallest guy Dale who probably weighed 165lb soakin' wet. If ya' didn't get your workout in early before all the boys arrived forget it. It always turned into a strength contest after that. Always had a good time there.
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Hero of the day, 'Arnold', crankin' off some heavy cross-bench dumbell pullovers at Golds Gym, CA. Think that only one photo of our gym ever existed. No idea what happened to it.
Flashback to great times - our boy Rick is preppin' for a few sets of cross-bench dumbell pullovers. He's got the bar beefed up - 80lbs. "Hey Rick - watch the (screw) collars on those dumbells, they been workin' loose pretty easy of late".... "Don't worry 'bout me - I tightened 'em up! And double checked 'em!!". Three reps into his first set and full extension - first he get's the collar off his forehead followed by an orderly 10-10-10-10, then the bar. He drops the remaining 40lb right in his groin. The Stooges couldn't have staged it any better. The only thing missing were the sound effect chimes. Quick on the comeback, Derby deadpans "Hey Rick, what are those good for?" The place was breakin' up with laughter.
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A few days late - adding this in honor of Veterans Day. Post high school education and we had an excellent physics instructor named Mr. Paxton. Could never get into the chore of high school physics - went to a Catholic school and those female Nun by-the-book teaching methods weren't very stimulating, to say the least. Just couldn't crack the nut. Paxton's class was all guys enrolled in technical curriculum including construction, engineering, architecture and electrical. He was a retired physicist, having worked forty years for US Steel. He knew his stuff. Teaching us was elementary to him, and he'd cut loose. He had us calculating anything interesting to guys - ballistic pendulums (bullet momentum), ferry angles for canoe river crossings, crane loads and rigging, airfoil angles of attack. All real world use. All right off the top of his head, bordering on improvisation. Would only ever open the book to give ya' an end of chapter home work assignment. Of coarse, ya' had to read the chapter which was a lot easier to understand following his in-class instruction. If someone would comment upon his genius, his reply would only be "No, I've been doin' it for forty years". He even looked the part - a bit resembled 'Exeter' from the old sci-fi thriller, 'This Island Earth' - tall and thin in stature, large hands, receding silver-gray hairline with a "developed forehead" (could have been 'Professor Moriarty' right out of a 'Sherlock Holmes' novel).
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'Exeter' from 'This Island Earth (1955)' - gotta' be a distant relative of Mr. Paxton.
Mr. Paxton was a World War II vet. He related the story that during the war he was stationed in the South Pacific, along with one other guy, manning a radar installation on a small isolated pacific isle. The Japs knew of the radar and island but never bothered it because they would occasionally intercept intelligence transmissions for their own use. Besides, the island was quickly defended by air if attacked. He said that after month's of isolation they would have welcomed any action.
Once a month a supply boat or sea plane would stop by. Rations were sparse. They subsisted pretty much solely on canned corn beef hash - breakfast, lunch, dinner. They'd supplement it with what they could catch from the sea and fruits and vegetables from the island. One day the supply ship arrived carrying a package from his wife back at home in the states. Excitement. Upon opening the package, however, he discovered that the cargo comprised a several dozen can supply of corned beef hash. Said he almost tossed the entire package into the sea. To break the monotony, there was additionally canned fruit and multiple packages of chocolate and vanilla cake mix, so they at least had dessert to go along with the hash.
Gotta' admit, casting a fly rod is just as addictive as archery shooting or workin' out on a good boulder problem... "OK, time to go home - one more cast and I'm out of here"...
... next thing ya' know it's an hour later and you're still workin' your way several hundred feet downstream.
Usually tote along an 'Olympus TG-4' compact camera if not an SLR. Always the TG-4 if moving alone (most of the time). Always like to have a perception of scale in landscape images when possible, usually showing a bit of action. Tough to do when alone and behind the camera. Got to messing around with the TG-4's Interval Shooting function, with some decent results (other than the goon).
Local native trout stream
Some rugged hiking - there's a trout stream under all that limestone breakdown
Worth the effort to reach a few nice holes
Some tight casting - gotta' expect some snags
Best hole on the Run
Always have to stop and check out the potential lines on this very cool boulder. A few more on the hillside above. Gonna' have to hike up and check 'em out one day. That thought occurs every visit.
Snapped an image of our rig while takin' a break. Dragontail Tenkara Mizuchi zx340. Telescoping to 8' - 9.5' - 11' lengths. Fully collapsed (pictured) 25". We run a 10' furled line with 3' 4x tippet. Those tenkara rods really open up the small streams. We wouldn't even be up here with a regular fly rod.
Those native brook trout are pretty cagey. Bit of a game trying to draw 'em out of all the rocks and crevices they like to lay. Two or three (if any) is a good day. Our personal record is eight. Usually 3' - 6" length.
Over time have caught two native rainbows in this stream
This is pretty much optimum stream level (our opinion)
Played a decent sized brook laying under that rock ledge for probably forty-five minutes. He'd follow after about every tenth cast, just close enough to get ya' amped (just so ya'd see 'em, I figured), before darting back under the ledge. Never did strike. After a while you're wondering who's playin' who.
A few weeks back. Dozed off for a little over an hour, waking up late evening. A bit drowsy, but right off the bat noticed that it was a heck of a lot darker than usual. Pitch black actually... ? Hey, that's it - the nearby corner street light, which always provides a bit of "nite lite" window illumination, is out. Get up and hit the wall switch. Huh - ceiling light is out. Navigate a dark hallway. Another wall switch. Kitchen light is out, too. What time is it? Don't know, oven clock is out. Fridge ain't hummin'. Open the door. Feel around in the darkness and grab a bottled water. More shuffling about in the black. Glance out a back room window. Live up on a hill with a view across the north end of town. Looks like everyone's in the dark. Yep - power failure. Make our way back through the sanctum. Along the way grab a flashlight stashed on a hallway staircase for just such circumstance. Take a walk outside. A half light waning Gibbons Moon casting long dark shadows. It's still as a tomb. Not the slightest breeze. You could have heard the heavy breath of death's reaper thru all the quiet. Figured we'd at least hear a bit of automobile traffic along the near distant highway. And where is... anybody? Considering our usual bent for isolation, this is f*k'n great. Light up a stogie.
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About ten minutes knockin' back the ambiance and it suddenly occurs to us - did we just sleep right on thru the biblical prophesied Rapture, portent to the dreaded apocalyptic end times!? "Hey - we were home! Was sleepin'!! Didn't hear ya' knockin'!!!. Calm before the storm?Aww - that's crazy thought.
A car rolls by and it's back to reality. Didn't recognize the driver. Too dark. Some "hip hopper". Face obscured by that black hood and the darkness. Wow - that's a nice V-12 Cadillac wagon. Black on black it was. Popular for hearses back in the day. Surf rods, too. Long pause at the corner stop sign. Reverse lights come on. Hey - he's commin' back. Wouldn't mind checkin' out that ride.
Next door neighbor steps out onto the front porch. "What's goin' on?" Finally, a bit of humanity.
Power outage it is.
The driver shifts it back in gear and makes a right thru the sign, and down the hill.
None the less - a bit bizarre.
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Last responder
Broadened our thoughts, though. Next morning got back to work double-nailing and gluing the joints on that Ark we started piecing together month's back.
A bit washed out, or light from heaven beyond? Considering that one interpretation of the word "tenkara" = "fishing from heaven", we'll accept the latter. It was yesterday.
"Maybe there's only one revolution, since the beginning, the good guys versus the bad guys. Question is, who are the good guys?"
- Bill Dolworth /'The Professionals' (1966)
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NY State Attica Prison
Day time bill-paying job. Sometime around '89-'90 we were tasked with meeting the authorities at New York State's maximum security Attica Prison with regard to planned structural repair and renovation to an area of the main lockdown. We were cautioned ahead of our visit that our scheduled access could be delayed or possibly cancelled because of some current inmate discontent. In 1971, Attica Prison had been the scene of the "bloodiest prison riot in United States history" (aka: the Attica Massacre). Aftermath the riot had become highly controversial with the majority of the violence attributed to the tactics of the prison guards and law enforcement involved in quelling the uprising.The revolt in the first place was motivated by poor prison living conditions and treatment of inmates. We were actually pretty familiar with the riot, having used the uprising as subject to an assigned "current events" report back in high school.
Immediately upon arrival our team of three was informed that inmate morale was at lower than the usual low. The majority of the population was staging a worker strike attributed to poor prison living conditions and treatment of inmates. The small number of inmate non-participants were being subject to harassment and beatings. Everyone had to be on the lookout for flying molotov cocktail-esque combination urine and feces concoctions. Subsequently, the entire lockdown was on lockdown. After about a half-hour conference amongst security, it was decided to go ahead and let us proceed. We were assigned two prison guards, each armed with shotgun and sidearm. Didn't appear to be the most competent. We were screened for weapons, meaning we didn't get any ("f*k that" we each thought).
We were led for probably ten minutes through narrow corridors separated by "KEEP LOCKED AT ALL TIME!" doors then down a dimly lit winding stairwell. Railings and landings secured by chain link fencing so no one could be pitched overboard. It's a bet that the need preceded the application. Another dimly lit corridor. Eventually we arrive at our destination, a basement level mechanical dungeon somewhere deep within the bowels of the prison. The dripping foundation walls purpose to our visit only adding to the dank ambiance.
About a half hour into our business and all of the sudden the insufficient pendant light fixtures flicker and dim then go dark for several suspenseful seconds, then back on. We're lookin' baffled at each other, then all glance double baffled over to the guards. They're lookin' back at us triple baffled. One guard (joking?) comments "Don't worry until you see us running"...!?. The other heads over to "Check upstairs" via a nearby wall intercom - which he finds doesn't work.
Considering that we're unarmed our only resort is Naked Kill*. Between the three of us we have at best a 3/4 drive long handle ratchet wrench, a 3/4 drive long handle breaker bar and a couple screw drivers - couple makeshift clubs and "shivs".
Don't know what our "security" was thinkin', but from then on out, if any real trouble would have broke out we knew where we were gonna' first get two shotguns, two sidearms and spare ammo.
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We really didn't wanna' meet any of these guys (unarmed)
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Small collection of confiscated prison "shanks"
*Ref.: 'Shibumi' (Trevanian/1979) - Hoda Korosu (Naked Kill): A martial arts discipline that trains in the use of ordinary things as instruments of death. Brilliant novel by the same guy who wrote 'The Eiger Sanction'. Been a while, but do recall that the hero, assassin Nicholai Hel, cut one guys' throat with a credit card. Always thought that would make a good American Express commercial - "Don't leave home without it".
