One year ago today: August 7, 2018, 104.9ºF in the A/C.
Five years ago today: August 7, 2014, KLIM dissected.
Nine years ago today: August 7. 2010, I was voted out.
Random years ago today: August 7, 2011, I sewed this.
How about this great shot of the undersink cutoff valves. I did that myself, y'know. It’s roughly the last thing I saw in Florida before piling in the car and making the twelve-hour trip in nine and a half. That’s driving time, it was eleven hours because I stopped for gas twice and wasted some time in Georgia.
When I walked back past ten minutes later, they were still at it. I get it, clerk. The two illiterates who can't read but might buy something if they pool their nickels, that's more important that goodwill. I don't even rate the impoliteness but the inefficiency of the situation seemed lost to everyone except myself. I spend $200+ per year on coffee at BK. Not today. I went to the Dunkin up the road.
The last place needed to know what I wanted the quarters for. I gave up after a few minutes—without the quarters. Have you ever tried to explain to some cash register clerk in Cordele, Georgia, what a newspaper is? A what? Huh? It has what? News? In a machine? Yep, I gave up. And there is an old lady somewhere in Georgia today telling her friends about the city slicker who tried to con her into thinking news could come from paper instead of on TV. How her home-spun wisdom saved the day.
Vintage Zippo.
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Zippo lighters must be a collector’s dream—any you are likely to find have the date of manufacture stamped on the base. Sit back a few minutes and let’s learn the Zippo story, the one that most people don’t know. Zippo lighters were always rugged but not a collector’s item. The nearby graphic shows the design changes in their logo. Dates were not stamped on the lighters until around 1956, but prior to that you could use the patent number quite often.
However, the dating system is weire, so I’ll not reproduce it here. You can link to the Zippomania site yourself. Then dig out the trunk in the attic because the rarest Zippo, a 1933 model, sold in Tokyo in 2007 for nearly $40,000. There are more expensive models, but they are special models in gold and such. We are looking here only at regular issue lighters.
One thing I’d watch for is counterfeiting. I notice the dating system involves taking a dot away in later years. It's easier for a clever forger to add a dot back than erase one. Go see for yourself.
ADDENDUM
My usual behavior in clubs full of couples is to ignore the place and do things like check my e-mail. This is sometimes highly conspicuous, but there is a rule. If some lady asks what I’m doing, it is never the one I’d hit on. So later, when I stopped for a brew, I was disappointed all round. I haven’t been out much since last time I was here, so I imagined that first Tennessee cold beer was going to be ideal. It wasn’t but I have a tale from the trailer court for you. This one delayed a few days because I want you to see the video, and why I fell out of my chair laughing when I got the news.
This got the place looking at me and there was a decent sort of gal at the far side of the place. That’s “Shooters” out on Old Hickory. I told you how the place is long and narrow. She was sitting next to a thug, who obviously was not her boyfriend, but still still a thug. Unlike the beef-armed types who talked to me, she sat ther, staring. I wondered if she wanted me to make the first move. Ladies, when you sit next to an obvious goon, this isn’t the greatest way to meet intelligent men. He was soon staring knives at me and I prefer that to real knives.
Y'know, I think the original Zippo logo still looks the best and they should stick with it.
