This is a rolled out sponge mat drying on the roadside. I think so, but it is far too large to fit inside any of the mobile homes seen nearby. It is too fragile to be underlay. At least whatever it is, it is evaporating the water more easily than sponge rubber. I guess it to be 90 feet long.
[Photo delayed]
Okay, I admit today slipped through the cracks. I missed it, blog-wise. This week has been hectic enough to find me sound asleep shortly after dark. And it gets dark fast in Florida. Another thing I don’t have is a huge supply of recent photos. I can explain that. I keep the camera on a lanyard around my neck, and it has become too cold to unzip my jacket to get at it. Fair enough?
How about some random trivia? In Russia, it is apparently not unusual for neighbors to steal entire houses, brick by brick. Unoccupied premises, say the police, are often dismantled by others seeking the building materials. The theft is worst “in remote areas”. Now just where would that be in Russia?
From roughly the same source, when Ray Charles was growing up, his teacher told him he couldn’t sing or play piano. Ray was advised to go into another career—weaving chairs. This teacher obviously knew the guidance counselor in my high school. Among the occupations my father suggested for me were barbering and driving a medicine bottle delivery truck. If you knew my father, you’d understand.
Here is some serious trivia, almost bordering on knowledge. Land ownership in India is so screwed up that nobody will improve anything for fear it will be confiscated. Thus, even people with wealth are careful not to show it unless they are aristocracy, that is, the class that does the confiscating. Indians secretly bury their gold in the ground.
If the owner dies without talking, the gold remains underground. The estimate is that a fifth of all gold in that country is lost this way. We are talking about nearly $100 billion dollars, or four times the amount the Feds claim is in Ft. Knox, but won’t let anybody go see. Another curious custom is how Indians do not value gold that is made into jewelry, so theft of that item is rare. This takes more gold out of circulation.
Just think, billions just waiting for someone to set up a metal detector franchise. That is a deep subject. Ha ha.
