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  1. tonyb

    You know you are getting old when:

    I bought a new pair of Red Wing Iron Rangers a couple years back, wore ’em only for shoveling snow and digging in the garden and such because they were too stiff to wear all day and besides, I still had (and have) the Red Wings I bought new in 1974. But now the new ones have softened up and the...
  2. tonyb

    Myths of the Golden Era -- Exploded!

    Which is why I part company these days with more than a few people with whom I generally agree. I’d rather talented people were admirable in all other aspects of their beings. But then, I’d rather that was true of the untalented as well. I hear that Flannery O’Connor, nearly a saint in the...
  3. tonyb

    You know you are getting old when:

    ^^^^^ Such is the nature of memory. I can heartily recommend Lawrence Wright’s “Remembering Satan.” It’s an account, in part, of people recalling events that plainly could not have happened. It’s not that they were lying (not all of them, anyway). It’s that their minds constructed memories of...
  4. tonyb

    That old thrift store aroma

    Neighbors in this subdivision, built out in 1977, tell me that the popcorn ceilings here are asbestos-free. (Scraping the ceilings is among the more common changes people make to their houses around here.) But it’s best to assume there is asbestos, even if the structure was built after new...
  5. tonyb

    DEATHS ; Notable Passings; The Thread to Pay Last Respects

    The dinner scene in that movie is among the funniest ever. (Not everyone shares that opinion, of course. But for those of us whose inner adolescent male is still alive and kicking, it’s a riot.)
  7. tonyb

    That old thrift store aroma

    ^^^^ Yeah, that and lead paint abatement can push costs way up. A not-for-profit of my familiarity operated out of an old wood-framed, wood-sided school building. Three stories, as I recall. Painting it involved enveloping the entire structure in plastic sheeting, among other measures to collect...
  8. tonyb

    That old thrift store aroma

    It is not to advocate the use of asbestos to note that the stuff may well have saved many a life by preventing the start or the spread of fire. But then, that’s akin to observing that nicotine can be something of a brain tonic. And that amphetamines come in handy during all-night bombing runs.
  9. tonyb

    That old thrift store aroma

    Just occurred to me that I must have been exposed to asbestos when I worked at Lou Spurlock’s Texaco station in the early 1970s. Lou had invested in a fair amount of expensive brake equipment. Good money in brake jobs, he said. I recall one machine —a simple device, really — that arced brake...
  10. tonyb

    That old thrift store aroma

    So I’ve heard. Old furnace ductings wrapped in asbestos cloth and painted over (as in the basement of a friend’s old house) won’t hurt anything if they aren’t disturbed. Same with lotsa old linoleum floor tiles. Same with some acoustic (aka popcorn) ceilings.
  11. tonyb

    That old thrift store aroma

    Right off the top o’ my empty little head I can think of a couple of occasions I’ve been exposed to friable asbestos. I learned of that exposure only in retrospect. Seeing how asbestos was in so many common building products, which I may have played a part in tearing out decades later, it...
  13. tonyb

    That old thrift store aroma

    ^^^^^^ That’s awful! Is the lung damage reversible? I’ll say it again, that’s just awful! So I am to conclude that among the molds more dangerous to humans are those undetectable to the unaided senses. It’s like radon that way, eh? Can’t see it, can’t smell it. can’t taste it. But it can kill you.
  14. tonyb

    That old thrift store aroma

    Whereas around here (greater Denver), the problem can be too little humidity, which causes its own set of problems.
  15. tonyb

    That old thrift store aroma

    ^^^^^ Greater Vancouver must be Nirvana for certain molds. It’s pretty much the some climate as Seattle, where I resided for lo those many years, and where organic stuff (paper, natural fibers, leather, etc.) left in unheated garages and sheds and such will serve as a buffet line for molds. A...
  16. tonyb

    That old thrift store aroma

    Just read a magazine piece called “What’s That Smell You’re Reading?” that identifies several factors in the varying aromas of printed matter — primarily old (like, real old) books. Yes, it’s the various types of papers, and the glues, and the inks, and whatever might have been used in the...
  17. tonyb

    That old thrift store aroma

    Old paper gets an odd odor, too — magazines and newspapers more than books, maybe? Maybe it has something to do with different types of paper? Or maybe that’s just my imagination.
  19. tonyb

    That old thrift store aroma

    What is that smell? And how would you describe it? Musty, of course, but it’s something not quite that. This comes to mind because another old Life magazine arrived in today’s mail. Its aroma, somehow acquired somewhere along its 59 years of life, transports me back to the old St. Vincent de...
  20. tonyb

    Any Bicycle Riders Out There?

    I’m truly happy for you guys and a bit jealous. I couldn’t do it. Seriously, I’m just not up to it. And I hope that you and every other bicyclist don’t suffer any injuries. We really need to put more distance, in more places, between motor vehicles and bicycles and pedestrians. I see efforts...
  21. tonyb

    So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

    Returning to junk mail ... Today’s mail brings another solicitation from a “wealth management” outfit offering a pair of VIP (it’s nice to be not just important, but very important) passes to a complimentary dinner at a fancy-pants steak house where post-dessert I can sit through a presentation...
  22. tonyb

    So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

    ^^^^^ Skinny jeans? To see yourself as others see you. Among the loveliest of sights is a shapely woman’s bottom squeezed into a pair of boy’s jeans. And, seeing how she doesn’t have eyes on the back of her head ... And then you got those of each and every gender who just ain’t got the...
  23. tonyb

    So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

    Ever since the daily newspapers have no longer been a part of my life, I’ve found a new appreciation for junk mail. What else for lighting the charcoal chimney and the fire pit?

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