I remember those street peddlers back in the 50s. We had a fruit peddler with a truck, and a knife grinder who we called the Umbrella Man. There was even a song about him, although it probably was written about some other umbrella man, not ours. I've got a copy of the sheet music somewhere.
"When there's a lull, and things get dull, he sharpens knives for all the wives in the neighborhood, and he's rather good. He'll darn a sock, he'll set a clock, an apple cart, a broken heart, he'll mend anything, but he'd rather sing, Toodelumaluma, toodelumaluma, toodeleyay. Any umberellas, any umberellas to fix today?" ......or something like that.
Our umbrella man didn't sing, though, or even talk. He didn't have just a single grinding wheel, he had a miniature machine shop mounted on a tricycle similar to the ones the ice cream peddlers had. He would peddle up to the corner, then change gears so that the tricycle stood still and all the wheels and grinders turned at the same time when he peddled. I only saw him a few times, but some of the older kids had known him for years, and he let them peddle for him while he sharpened stuff.
My favorite, though, was the Ragsaline Man. He had a horse and wagon that went clattering down the alley once a week to pick up junk. We called him the Ragsaline Man because that's what we thought we heard him chanting as he clattered down the alley driving our dogs nuts. Come to find out, years later, that he was really saying "rags and old iron", but he ran it all together so that it sounded like "ragsaline". He was one of the last street peddlers in Chicago. When I was in the army, my mother sent me a newspaper clipping about when he retired or died or something. It explained that the city fathers had decided to phase the street peddlers out a long time ago. They stopped issuing new licenses, but they allowed the guys who were already operating to keep doing it until they retired or died, which they all eventually did.
There was another self contained community right downtown called the Merchandise Mart. It was all in one building, and you could theoretically live there your whole life without leaving that building, but I don't know if anybody ever actually did that. Is it still there?
A lot of people seem to use their computers for gossip and drivel, but then there's guys like us who ponder the really big questions of our time and spread enlightenment throughout the land. We got a slow start, but we have recently increased our membership by 50% .There's no stopping us now!
Friday, July 8, 2016
Alley cats
Ah, the alleys of my youth, back when they were paved with honest concrete and not the cheesy blacktop in use today.
Since we all seem to have "grown up" in the 50s, I was wondering if we share the same memories. Way, way back in the day there was a fruit peddler (Peaches! Peaches!) with a wagon drawn by a swayback horse, complete with blinders and hat. He later got a truck, but it wasn't quite the same. He still hollered "Peaches! Peaches!" though.
Then there was this guy with a push cart who sharpened knives, scissors, whatever needed it. The cart had a big stone wheel which was operated with a treadle; heady stuff for a curious kid. It looked like fun to me, but to the guy doing the work it was just probably another crappy job until something better came along.
But that was when everybody had open windows because air conditioning wasn't commonly used. Window units were huge (or Yuuuuge!) and noisy. But those open windows allowed alley commerce to thrive and also allowed the "mom network" to keep an eye on all the free-range kids. Somehow Mom always knew when I went someplace I was told not to go...a "little bird" told her. Huh. Why some damn bird had more credibility than me, I'll never know, but I was never taught to be a good liar. Or never learned.
Free-range kids had an incredible amount of autonomy, and it was probably the same for you south siders. I always felt that I was trusted as long as the folks knew what I was up to. If you let a seven year-old kid out by himself today, letting him cross Kedzie so he could go climb trees and throw crabapples in Humboldt Park...well. The authorities would be notified. Probably for the best, though. You can trust the kids, but it's the weirdos in white vans that you should worry about.
-----
Can't think of any developments that plopped in out of nowhere in the area you speak of, Mr. Beagles. If it was in the 70s it has probably been absorbed into something else. Been a long time since cornfields were around that neck of the burbs. The only thing I remember that seemed to spring from nothingness was the Old Chicago indoor amusement park, around Bolingbrook. It looked strange, big old building like that, sitting by itself in the great expanse.
Since we all seem to have "grown up" in the 50s, I was wondering if we share the same memories. Way, way back in the day there was a fruit peddler (Peaches! Peaches!) with a wagon drawn by a swayback horse, complete with blinders and hat. He later got a truck, but it wasn't quite the same. He still hollered "Peaches! Peaches!" though.
Then there was this guy with a push cart who sharpened knives, scissors, whatever needed it. The cart had a big stone wheel which was operated with a treadle; heady stuff for a curious kid. It looked like fun to me, but to the guy doing the work it was just probably another crappy job until something better came along.
But that was when everybody had open windows because air conditioning wasn't commonly used. Window units were huge (or Yuuuuge!) and noisy. But those open windows allowed alley commerce to thrive and also allowed the "mom network" to keep an eye on all the free-range kids. Somehow Mom always knew when I went someplace I was told not to go...a "little bird" told her. Huh. Why some damn bird had more credibility than me, I'll never know, but I was never taught to be a good liar. Or never learned.
Free-range kids had an incredible amount of autonomy, and it was probably the same for you south siders. I always felt that I was trusted as long as the folks knew what I was up to. If you let a seven year-old kid out by himself today, letting him cross Kedzie so he could go climb trees and throw crabapples in Humboldt Park...well. The authorities would be notified. Probably for the best, though. You can trust the kids, but it's the weirdos in white vans that you should worry about.
-----
Can't think of any developments that plopped in out of nowhere in the area you speak of, Mr. Beagles. If it was in the 70s it has probably been absorbed into something else. Been a long time since cornfields were around that neck of the burbs. The only thing I remember that seemed to spring from nothingness was the Old Chicago indoor amusement park, around Bolingbrook. It looked strange, big old building like that, sitting by itself in the great expanse.
faster, stupider
I have no knowledge of this complex by Brookfield Zoo, but you know
Marina City was built with the idea of a self-contained community.
Except for the employment part. I don't see how how you could do that
without having some kind of company town like Pullman and that didn't
work when times got tough.
Speaking of Marina City here is a YouTube. When it gets to the 1.11 time you can see my balcony with its sunflowers, tomatoes and morning glories. https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL2joBSBovm0srkBNQ9erCfppn6ufCLWXe&v=wH37z8b51A0
Purty huh? But back to building complexes. Some recent city developments chiefly on the edges of iffy neighborhoods undergoing gentrification, are built like fortresses with limited access in and out, and I guess they have space for some shops and restaurants within, but not that much.
There has also been a movement in the burbs to take their downtowns back. Many of them were their own little cities, but they they got absorbed into the city and vast tracts of houses around them were built for commuters who did all their stuff in the city or in the shopping mall of some nearby burb so the local downtown faded away. Now they want to have a nice 'walkable' little downtown where they can dine by the sidewalk, browse quaint little shops, maybe go to the library or church and then get back into their car and drive back to their dismal soulless house in the tract among all the other houses that look just alike. I hate the burbs.
But I have to agree, as Old Dog had opined, that where I grew up, a couple miles west of Midway Airport, has a suburban feel. There is the occasional two flat or a small apartment building, but mostly it is one block after another of twenty-five bungalows, but every four blocks there is a busy street with taverns and drugstores.
Time seems to go much faster with three commentators. I believe a few posts ago we were talking about the internet. Was it just a development like the printing press, just a matter of degree or was it something qualitatively different? And then I was proposing that the duper phone was a further development because now you had phone and computer together. And now that I think of it don't fb and twitter sort of combine the two? You send out a message and it goes to the web. I was talking to a couple of people last night and Instagram came up. I almost asked what was up with that, but it was a pleasant evening down by the river and I wasn't up for a long stretch of boredom.
But for all this, all this revolutionary development, doesn't most of it just go to gossip? Aren't we just doing the same stupid things we always did, only now we are doing them faster so we do more stupid things?
Speaking of Marina City here is a YouTube. When it gets to the 1.11 time you can see my balcony with its sunflowers, tomatoes and morning glories. https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL2joBSBovm0srkBNQ9erCfppn6ufCLWXe&v=wH37z8b51A0
Purty huh? But back to building complexes. Some recent city developments chiefly on the edges of iffy neighborhoods undergoing gentrification, are built like fortresses with limited access in and out, and I guess they have space for some shops and restaurants within, but not that much.
There has also been a movement in the burbs to take their downtowns back. Many of them were their own little cities, but they they got absorbed into the city and vast tracts of houses around them were built for commuters who did all their stuff in the city or in the shopping mall of some nearby burb so the local downtown faded away. Now they want to have a nice 'walkable' little downtown where they can dine by the sidewalk, browse quaint little shops, maybe go to the library or church and then get back into their car and drive back to their dismal soulless house in the tract among all the other houses that look just alike. I hate the burbs.
But I have to agree, as Old Dog had opined, that where I grew up, a couple miles west of Midway Airport, has a suburban feel. There is the occasional two flat or a small apartment building, but mostly it is one block after another of twenty-five bungalows, but every four blocks there is a busy street with taverns and drugstores.
Time seems to go much faster with three commentators. I believe a few posts ago we were talking about the internet. Was it just a development like the printing press, just a matter of degree or was it something qualitatively different? And then I was proposing that the duper phone was a further development because now you had phone and computer together. And now that I think of it don't fb and twitter sort of combine the two? You send out a message and it goes to the web. I was talking to a couple of people last night and Instagram came up. I almost asked what was up with that, but it was a pleasant evening down by the river and I wasn't up for a long stretch of boredom.
But for all this, all this revolutionary development, doesn't most of it just go to gossip? Aren't we just doing the same stupid things we always did, only now we are doing them faster so we do more stupid things?
Thursday, July 7, 2016
I Remember Alleys
My Uncle Joe was the first person I knew who moved out to the suburbs. I must have been pretty young because, when he told us that they didn't have any alleys in his Oak Lawn neighborhood, I was incredulous. How can there not be alleys? Where does everybody keep their garbage cans? Where do the kids hang out?
Our house was on a double lot on the corner of 51st and Whipple, and it wasn't one of your traditional bungalows. Our store faced 51st Street, and our living quarters were behind the store. The corner lot was mostly yard, with a garage in the back by the alley, but the garage didn't open into the alley, it opened into Whipple Street on the side. My dad had fashioned a home made driveway that crossed the sidewalk and the grass strip between the sidewalk and the street. There was no curb to speak of, so my dad hadn't bothered to get a permit to level it off, he just had somebody dump a load of gravel right over the grass. There was a rental hall across the street where they used to have weddings and stuff, but there was no parking lot, people just parked on the street wherever they could find room. The entrance to our garage was frequently blocked by wedding guests, but the cops wouldn't ticket them because it wasn't an officially licensed driveway. Sometimes my dad would block it off with barrels or saw horses, but people would sometimes move the obstacles and park there anyway. One night we came home from a wedding at a different hall to find our driveway blocked. The offending car was not locked, so my dad reached in and put it into neutral, and I helped him push the car out into Whipple Street, just as the car's owner came out of the hall and got all upset about it. My dad was kind of upset himself and, as they had both been drinking, it might have gotten physical if the guy's wife hadn't come out and told him to get in the car and take her home.
There are a few alleys in Cheboygan, but I don't think anybody uses them for anything. They are unpaved and really narrow, left over from the days when there were more horses in town than cars. Occasionally I read in the paper where a homeowner asks the city to vacate the alley because he has a use for it and they don't. Maybe that's what happened to most of our alleys in days gone by. Garages generally open out into the street with a short driveway. In the winter there is no parking on any city street from 2:00 AM to 7:00 AM, so people have to park in their garages or driveways overnight. This law is allegedly to keep the street clear for snowplowing, but the plow crews seldom start that early in the morning and, if they do, they just break a track down the middle of the street so people can get out and go to work. It might be days before they get around to plowing the edges.
I was going to ask you guys about this days ago, but I keep forgetting. I think it was back in the 70s when I was driving north on Highway 83, probably taking my wife and daughter to see Brookfield Zoo while we were visiting my parents in Palos Park. Well maybe it wasn't 83, but it was out in the country somewhere west of Chicago. Anyway, we came upon a cluster of multi story buildings that looked brand new, right in the middle of a cornfield. I don't remember if there was a wall or fence around it, but I know that the cornfield ended abruptly where the buildings began. It was like the compound had dropped out of the sky preassembled. My parents had never see nor head of this, but my mother later saw an article in the paper about it and sent it to me. It was a self contained community that had been built from scratch, with housing, employment, stores, entertainment, and everything else you might need so that you would never need to leave the neighborhood if you didn't want to. Some people were against it because they said its main purpose was to get away from the Blacks in Chicago. The proponents denied any racial motivation, but admitted that they were trying to provide an urban lifestyle without all the typical urban problems like crime and traffic congestion, and that it was easier to build from scratch than to try to rehabilitate the Chicago Loop. Do either of you guys know what ever became of that project?
Our house was on a double lot on the corner of 51st and Whipple, and it wasn't one of your traditional bungalows. Our store faced 51st Street, and our living quarters were behind the store. The corner lot was mostly yard, with a garage in the back by the alley, but the garage didn't open into the alley, it opened into Whipple Street on the side. My dad had fashioned a home made driveway that crossed the sidewalk and the grass strip between the sidewalk and the street. There was no curb to speak of, so my dad hadn't bothered to get a permit to level it off, he just had somebody dump a load of gravel right over the grass. There was a rental hall across the street where they used to have weddings and stuff, but there was no parking lot, people just parked on the street wherever they could find room. The entrance to our garage was frequently blocked by wedding guests, but the cops wouldn't ticket them because it wasn't an officially licensed driveway. Sometimes my dad would block it off with barrels or saw horses, but people would sometimes move the obstacles and park there anyway. One night we came home from a wedding at a different hall to find our driveway blocked. The offending car was not locked, so my dad reached in and put it into neutral, and I helped him push the car out into Whipple Street, just as the car's owner came out of the hall and got all upset about it. My dad was kind of upset himself and, as they had both been drinking, it might have gotten physical if the guy's wife hadn't come out and told him to get in the car and take her home.
There are a few alleys in Cheboygan, but I don't think anybody uses them for anything. They are unpaved and really narrow, left over from the days when there were more horses in town than cars. Occasionally I read in the paper where a homeowner asks the city to vacate the alley because he has a use for it and they don't. Maybe that's what happened to most of our alleys in days gone by. Garages generally open out into the street with a short driveway. In the winter there is no parking on any city street from 2:00 AM to 7:00 AM, so people have to park in their garages or driveways overnight. This law is allegedly to keep the street clear for snowplowing, but the plow crews seldom start that early in the morning and, if they do, they just break a track down the middle of the street so people can get out and go to work. It might be days before they get around to plowing the edges.
I was going to ask you guys about this days ago, but I keep forgetting. I think it was back in the 70s when I was driving north on Highway 83, probably taking my wife and daughter to see Brookfield Zoo while we were visiting my parents in Palos Park. Well maybe it wasn't 83, but it was out in the country somewhere west of Chicago. Anyway, we came upon a cluster of multi story buildings that looked brand new, right in the middle of a cornfield. I don't remember if there was a wall or fence around it, but I know that the cornfield ended abruptly where the buildings began. It was like the compound had dropped out of the sky preassembled. My parents had never see nor head of this, but my mother later saw an article in the paper about it and sent it to me. It was a self contained community that had been built from scratch, with housing, employment, stores, entertainment, and everything else you might need so that you would never need to leave the neighborhood if you didn't want to. Some people were against it because they said its main purpose was to get away from the Blacks in Chicago. The proponents denied any racial motivation, but admitted that they were trying to provide an urban lifestyle without all the typical urban problems like crime and traffic congestion, and that it was easier to build from scratch than to try to rehabilitate the Chicago Loop. Do either of you guys know what ever became of that project?
The wheels turn...
The bit about the quick getaway when you back into a space is news to me, but I didn't learn much, vehicle-wise, in the army, Had a license for jeep and deuce-and-a-half, but that was it.
But it makes sense to back in because you have better control and need less space. Consider parallel parking; almost impossible if you go in nose first. Same thing with fork lifts, which have to operate in confined spaces with demanding precision. The wheels that do the steering are in the back.
-----
Regarding the twits who text, I have to remind myself that I am a dinosaur. I don't get it, but in the words of a 20th century bard, "The times they are a changing." Don't criticize what you can't understand. Lots of folks like to T&T, fair enough.
But the notion of personal privacy seems to be an archaic concept. It's like everyone is nosing into everyone else's business rather than tend to their own knitting, with gossip and thoughtless speculation becoming major economic forces. Perchance my symptoms of media overload are becoming more acute...
-----
Duper phones? An excellent description, much better than "smart" phones. Nothing like having all of your personal information, your friend's information, pictures galore of everybody and their brothers, and god knows what else, all in one place which can easily be lost or stolen. Oh, and there's probably some kind of tracking info that records everywhere you've been. And you have to recharge it everyday, I suppose. Probably only costs about $75 per month (with a 2 year contract) or so, but I don't know.
The big benefit of the dupers is the camera; plenty of bad actors getting caught in the act; another police shooting today of an unarmed man.
I was never a fan of cell phones, but when I moved into the new apartment 6 years ago I realized a cell phone and a naked DSL line would be cheaper than a landline with cable. A $30 flip phone with "pay as you go" service is working well enough. And if I happen to be out and about and fall but can't get up, help could be summoned. Beats trying to find a pay phone.
But it makes sense to back in because you have better control and need less space. Consider parallel parking; almost impossible if you go in nose first. Same thing with fork lifts, which have to operate in confined spaces with demanding precision. The wheels that do the steering are in the back.
-----
Regarding the twits who text, I have to remind myself that I am a dinosaur. I don't get it, but in the words of a 20th century bard, "The times they are a changing." Don't criticize what you can't understand. Lots of folks like to T&T, fair enough.
But the notion of personal privacy seems to be an archaic concept. It's like everyone is nosing into everyone else's business rather than tend to their own knitting, with gossip and thoughtless speculation becoming major economic forces. Perchance my symptoms of media overload are becoming more acute...
-----
Duper phones? An excellent description, much better than "smart" phones. Nothing like having all of your personal information, your friend's information, pictures galore of everybody and their brothers, and god knows what else, all in one place which can easily be lost or stolen. Oh, and there's probably some kind of tracking info that records everywhere you've been. And you have to recharge it everyday, I suppose. Probably only costs about $75 per month (with a 2 year contract) or so, but I don't know.
The big benefit of the dupers is the camera; plenty of bad actors getting caught in the act; another police shooting today of an unarmed man.
I was never a fan of cell phones, but when I moved into the new apartment 6 years ago I realized a cell phone and a naked DSL line would be cheaper than a landline with cable. A $30 flip phone with "pay as you go" service is working well enough. And if I happen to be out and about and fall but can't get up, help could be summoned. Beats trying to find a pay phone.
spoken and written, backing in or backing out
I've always hated telephone calls. I don't like the way you they
intrude into my life and I have to deal with them whether I am in the
mood or not. Sometimes a long drunk phone call to an old friend is
alright, but alright mostly from the viewpoint of the drunk. Another
trouble with long phone calls to old friends is sometimes it's hard to
hang up. If you are sitting with your old pal in the bar every time you
finish a beer you have an opportunity to say well I gotta go, but on the
telephone if you want to end the conversation you have to do this thing
where you just stop bringing things up and wait for the other person to
run out of things and then maybe there will be an awkward pause and
then you can broach the subject of hanging up, and then sometimes when
you are about to hang up the other person suddenly remembers something
and the conversation goes back to full force and then you have to go
through that whole process of getting around to the hang up again.
An email you compose at your leisure. If you are replying there is the letter you are replying to right there, and you can calmly address all points one by one. If something doesn't look elegantly phrased you can rephrase it, you can hone it, just as we hone our posts here at The Institute. And when you send it, there is no irritating noise in the recipients domicile. No, it sits silently on some disc in outer cyberspace until the recipient is in the mood to receive information, and then ping, there it is. Nice, very nice.
And nicer still because we don't have to fiddle with an envelope and remember where we kept those sticky stamps, which we had to lick back then, but not anymore, and then you would have to set it somewhere near the door where you would remember to pick it up the next time you went out, and then you would have to alter your path so that you went by a mailbox. One thing though, that plunk when you put your letter into the slot and let that drawer slam shut, that was pretty satisfying, more satisfying than the click on send. But still overall a very laborious process.
But apparently even the ease of email is not enough and people prefer texting which myself I think is actually harder, nicking on that little keyboard. I think it's the difference between spoken and written language.
Of course we are born into spoken language, but written language is something we have to go out of our way to learn. Some of us, like ourselves, take to it right away, how you can move the words around like on a chessboard and make them into something effective, and, dare I say, pretty. Other people learn it because they have to, so they won't have to stay in the third grade the rest of their life, so that they can become the CEO of their very own Fortune 500 company, and I guess they read whatever you have to read to get to that place, but they don't read any books, they don't write any letters.
What I am trying to get to is that I think texting is more akin to the spoken rather than the written word. If you look at it it has no elegance. Put into the an email it would look ignorant, but it's right at home in the world of texting, and that's why people prefer texting.
Well that was satisfying. I may not have crossed all the t's and dotted all the i's, but I have managed to call people who do something that I don't like ignorant, so that feels good.
But I have left all the other burning issues aside, so let's see.
When I was down in Champaign over the Fourth, in the midst of all the good cheer of friends who haven't seen each other for a year sitting at a table full of beers, out came the duper phones and within a minute we were all over fb. Some people like that stuff, some people when they can't make it to an event ask you to take photos for them. I don't know why, they just do.
In the brief time I owned an automobile I never owned a garage. Growing up in the great bungalow belt on the southwest side everybody had a garage at the back of the lot that faced the alley. My dad always drove in headfirst and near as I can recall so did everybody else in the hood. It seems to me that backing into the alley or into the garage are equal work so why should one be preferable. Actually it occurs to me that probably backing into the alley is easier because you have more room to maneuver out there. I get the impression that my two colleagues will disagree with this, and of course, that is satisfying.
An email you compose at your leisure. If you are replying there is the letter you are replying to right there, and you can calmly address all points one by one. If something doesn't look elegantly phrased you can rephrase it, you can hone it, just as we hone our posts here at The Institute. And when you send it, there is no irritating noise in the recipients domicile. No, it sits silently on some disc in outer cyberspace until the recipient is in the mood to receive information, and then ping, there it is. Nice, very nice.
And nicer still because we don't have to fiddle with an envelope and remember where we kept those sticky stamps, which we had to lick back then, but not anymore, and then you would have to set it somewhere near the door where you would remember to pick it up the next time you went out, and then you would have to alter your path so that you went by a mailbox. One thing though, that plunk when you put your letter into the slot and let that drawer slam shut, that was pretty satisfying, more satisfying than the click on send. But still overall a very laborious process.
But apparently even the ease of email is not enough and people prefer texting which myself I think is actually harder, nicking on that little keyboard. I think it's the difference between spoken and written language.
Of course we are born into spoken language, but written language is something we have to go out of our way to learn. Some of us, like ourselves, take to it right away, how you can move the words around like on a chessboard and make them into something effective, and, dare I say, pretty. Other people learn it because they have to, so they won't have to stay in the third grade the rest of their life, so that they can become the CEO of their very own Fortune 500 company, and I guess they read whatever you have to read to get to that place, but they don't read any books, they don't write any letters.
What I am trying to get to is that I think texting is more akin to the spoken rather than the written word. If you look at it it has no elegance. Put into the an email it would look ignorant, but it's right at home in the world of texting, and that's why people prefer texting.
Well that was satisfying. I may not have crossed all the t's and dotted all the i's, but I have managed to call people who do something that I don't like ignorant, so that feels good.
But I have left all the other burning issues aside, so let's see.
When I was down in Champaign over the Fourth, in the midst of all the good cheer of friends who haven't seen each other for a year sitting at a table full of beers, out came the duper phones and within a minute we were all over fb. Some people like that stuff, some people when they can't make it to an event ask you to take photos for them. I don't know why, they just do.
In the brief time I owned an automobile I never owned a garage. Growing up in the great bungalow belt on the southwest side everybody had a garage at the back of the lot that faced the alley. My dad always drove in headfirst and near as I can recall so did everybody else in the hood. It seems to me that backing into the alley or into the garage are equal work so why should one be preferable. Actually it occurs to me that probably backing into the alley is easier because you have more room to maneuver out there. I get the impression that my two colleagues will disagree with this, and of course, that is satisfying.
Wednesday, July 6, 2016
Tweeting and Texting
I don't know how much tweeting and texting goes on in Cheboygan because I only go there about once a week to buy something. (Guys don't shop, guys just go buy something. Shopping is for girls.) I have seen people walking around in the supermarket or driving their cars while talking on their cell phones. I always wonder what they're talking about that can't wait till they get home, but that's just me. I also go to Face Book once a week to see what my daughter and grand daughter have been up to, and I have noticed that they post things right from wherever they are at the time. They have an app or something that shows their current location on a map which, I suppose, is useful if one of your friends is trying to catch up with you. Then again, what if you don't want to be caught up with at the moment, or what if the person trying to catch up with you is not one of your friends? People complain about the lack of privacy nowadays, but they broadcast all kinds of personal stuff, and then make it easy for everybody and his uncle to track them down. My daughter and grand daughter are actually pretty cautious about stuff like that, but I have heard that many young people are not.
I haven't been to a bar in a long time, maybe since before cell phones became popular, and certainly not since those super duper smart phones came out. I don't know why anybody would pay top dollar to drink in a bar and then spend the whole time phoning or texting. It would make more sense to buy your beer in the supermarket by the 30 pack, then do your drinking, phoning, and texting at home. The beer is a lot cheaper that way, and you don't have to worry about getting busted for drunk driving on your way home. I have met some interesting people in bars back in the day, but I also have met a lot of people who weren't very interesting, and some who were down right obnoxious. Of course the same could be said for the internet, but it's easier to avoid people you don't like on the internet than it is in real life.
When I was in the army, they taught me to always back into a tight spot in case you have to make a quick getaway. It makes sense in real life too, even if you're not worried about being attacked in the night. I have driven pickup trucks for most of my life, and they don't do well backing up in deep snow or backing up a slippery grade. If you can back one of those things in, you can usually drive it straight out, but the opposite is not always true. It always makes me nervous when I see somebody backing out of a garage or driveway into traffic, and I slow down and cover my brake when I see anyone doing that ahead of me because I don't know if they can see me or not. I understand that they are putting blind spot cameras in some of the newer cars, which is probably a good idea but, if I ever have one of those things, I will still back in and drive out. Old habits die hard.
I haven't been to a bar in a long time, maybe since before cell phones became popular, and certainly not since those super duper smart phones came out. I don't know why anybody would pay top dollar to drink in a bar and then spend the whole time phoning or texting. It would make more sense to buy your beer in the supermarket by the 30 pack, then do your drinking, phoning, and texting at home. The beer is a lot cheaper that way, and you don't have to worry about getting busted for drunk driving on your way home. I have met some interesting people in bars back in the day, but I also have met a lot of people who weren't very interesting, and some who were down right obnoxious. Of course the same could be said for the internet, but it's easier to avoid people you don't like on the internet than it is in real life.
When I was in the army, they taught me to always back into a tight spot in case you have to make a quick getaway. It makes sense in real life too, even if you're not worried about being attacked in the night. I have driven pickup trucks for most of my life, and they don't do well backing up in deep snow or backing up a slippery grade. If you can back one of those things in, you can usually drive it straight out, but the opposite is not always true. It always makes me nervous when I see somebody backing out of a garage or driveway into traffic, and I slow down and cover my brake when I see anyone doing that ahead of me because I don't know if they can see me or not. I understand that they are putting blind spot cameras in some of the newer cars, which is probably a good idea but, if I ever have one of those things, I will still back in and drive out. Old habits die hard.
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