Some old Photos for your enjoyment

Bret4207

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
They opened a Five Guys in Potsdam NY to cater to the college kids. Haven't heard anything good about it. Theres a Red Robin in Watertown some say is good. We prefer to go to the little hole in the wall place that still serves a real hot turkey sandwich with gravy and fries!
 
Bret4207

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
No offense to anyone, but I think we drastically overuse the word "hero".

I grew up with the US version of WW2 taught to me. The war was all but lost when the US appeared on the horizon to save the day! Well, not quite. If it hadn't of been for Hitlers absolutely foolish decision to turn east and try to take the USSR, things might well have ended very, very differently. The Eastern Europeans and Soviets really took the brunt of Hitlers might. Mussolini and his clownish attempts at recreating the Roman Empire, and then failing miserably, also siphoned off a lot of the Reich's efforts. Chinas internal struggles turned that theater into a stalemate that helped the Japanese, but being basically without a means to replenish lost men and materiel doomed them from the start- something they couldn't see. The whole thing was a giant mess. The US did some really great work, no doubt, but it wasn't all John Wayne and apple pie winning the conflict. And there were a lot of idiots in charge that seemed to put personal, ego driven concerns far above actually making the war shorter, yet people like De Gaul and MacArthur somehow are seen as "heroes", a word certainly overused in their cases.

I knew a couple from England that grew up during the Blitz and I go to church today with a lady who grew up while we were bombing the crap out of Germany. You can't take a thing away from them, or anyone else, who went through something like that. They weren't "heroes", but they were survivors, and that's a miracle in itself.
 
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richhodg66

Well-Known Member
I am a confirmed land lubber, despite ggrowing up close to the ocean, I don't live there now and could go the rest of my life never seeing it again and be OK with it, but tall sailing ships are so picturesque.
 
RicinYakima

RicinYakima

High Steppes of Eastern Washington
Steel hulled, wire rigged and iron masts. The cheapest way to send goods around the world, still; if you are not on a schedule and don't have to pay Union wages. Mechanical power to trim and raise sails and good sea boats.
 
Bret4207

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
On land it's trains and barges in a canal system, but the infrastructure for all that is about gone. We seem to shoot ourselves in the foot a lot, ya know that?!!
 
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richhodg66

Well-Known Member
Yeah, trains are about the only thing more stirring to one's soul than sailing ships, at least to me. Trains are much more of an American thing, though, at least the romanticism associated with them, part of our frontier spirit. You could make a career out of studying just the train songs that Johnny Cash alone performed without ever getting into any others.
 
L Ross

L Ross

Well-Known Member
RicinYakima said:
Steel hulled, wire rigged and iron masts. The cheapest way to send goods around the world, still; if you are not on a schedule and don't have to pay Union wages. Mechanical power to trim and raise sails and good sea boats.
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Easy pickins' for Somali pirates though. :rofl:
 
L Ross

L Ross

Well-Known Member
richhodg66 said:
Yeah, trains are about the only thing more stirring to one's soul than sailing ships, at least to me. Trains are much more of an American thing, though, at least the romanticism associated with them, part of our frontier spirit. You could make a career out of studying just the train songs that Johnny Cash alone performed without ever getting into any others.
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My Maternal Grandpa worked on the Milwaukee Road for 50 years and I used to love rail roads. Then through some typical back door political maneuvering the rail roads made it trespassing to walk on their rights of way here in Wisconsin. As kids we all hunted the rights of way, picked up pop bottles for the refunds, trapped the creek and ditch culverts and bridges under the tracks, and had to cross the tracks to hunt and fish. Hell, many hundred of fishermen fished from the rail road bridges over bigger water.

Now BNSF has railroad cops cruising in Ford Explorers in full uniforms looking like real cops harassing ice fishermen for walking across the tracks to get to the Mississippi River. And the problem is the Mississippi has rail road tracks parallel on the entire shoreline! I know one of these days they will derail a oil train into the river and we will have an environmental disaster. So now I am not so much of a fan.
 
Snakeoil

Snakeoil

Well-Known Member
JWFilips said:
Not That Long Ago: From Shorpy.com

New York City circa 1900. "Shipping at East River docks." More maritime Manhattan. 8x10 glass negative, Detroit Publishing Co.
View attachment 32073
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When I see boats like that, the thing that always amazes me is that they can bring them into the dock under sail power and in full control. Granted, the ones in the photo had the advantage of steam powered tugs to assist. But before that, when it was all sail, you had to know what you were doing.
 
Snakeoil

Snakeoil

Well-Known Member
Bret4207 said:
No offense to anyone, but I think we drastically overuse the word "hero".
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I think the overuse these days has good intentions. But would agree that officers that never saw the front lines were certainly not heroes. Sports figures are not heroes. People who make a stink about something with no risk to them are not heroes.

By coincidence, on 60 minutes they did a segment on the Carnegie Hero Fund. They interviewed recipients in the segment. Then the interviewed a doctor who has been researching true heroes wrt how their brain functions. Two of the recipients on the show agreed to an MRI type of test and both showed the same traits in their brains that seems to make them think about others before their own safety. It's a part of the brain that seems more active in people who do selfless things to help others.

If we want to talk about words that are overused/abused, how about "awesome". Climbing Mt. Everest is awesome. Seeing the Titanic after all these years is awesome. A juicy steak a new set of wheels or a new ski parka are not awesome. But as we all know...
 
Snakeoil

Snakeoil

Well-Known Member
Bret4207 said:
Not if you were to allow them to be properly equipped with some defensive armament!
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I'm not sure that merchant vessels are prevented from having defensive firepower. A search on the web brings various conflicting replies. I always understood that merchant vessels were not armed to prevent them from being perceived at a threat. Not that it stopped either side from sinking merchant vessels during times of war. I know that private vessels can carry arms, but they must be secured in an approved safe when landing in a port. And I imagine every country/port has its own regs.

One of the web articles said that merchant vessels are arming themselves with non-lethal defensive weapons. My guess is to prevent revenge attacks should they take out a group of pirates who have friends.

If I were a merchant captain, I'm not sure I'd want to be in unfriendly waters, meaning pirates, and not be well armed. That would include things like a .50BMB, RPGS, LAWS, mini-gun, etc.. Given that most pirates are using much smaller and fragile vessels, short of them sneaking up at night and launching and RPG at the bridge, I would think that a reasonably armed ship could fend off any attackers.

My understanding is that often the pirates take over a ship simply because there was nobody watching. Doubtful you could hear an Achilles with an outboard approaching from the deck of a ship unless they were upwind of you and the wind was bringing the sound to you.
 
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