"Carl's Lounge" (Off-Topic Discussion, Traditional Knife "Tales & Vignettes")

5K Qs said:
Tom, a polite, warm, legible, and well-written post! :thumbsup::cool::thumbsup:
(But I think you intended to post it in the Totin' Today thread, maybe?? 🤓}

- GT
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Thanks, Gary!
I did consider posting it there as well, yes, but it was more of a joke based on the responses I got to a post I made here in the “off-topic” thread:
Just Tom. said:
It seems that a fascination with knives runs in the family. Found in a 1925 letter from my grandfather to his sister, recounting his sea voyage to Japan and China in 1925:


He was just 18 at the time.

Edit:
It seems the tradition of American kids not being able to resist cool-looking Japanese blades predates the mall ninja by at least 55 years…
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I propose to make the hand-written note the required format for all posts in the Traditional sub-forum. A whole generation of seniors is losing its command of written language because they can’t stay off their dang phones. Maybe forcing them to actually write with a pen sometimes will help combat this dangerous slide into illiteracy 🤣🤣.
 
Just Tom. said:
I propose to make the hand-written note the required format for all posts in the Traditional sub-forum. A whole generation of seniors is losing its command of written language because they can’t stay off their dang phones. Maybe forcing them to actually write with a pen sometimes will help combat this dangerous slide into illiteracy 🤣🤣.
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I’m 81 years old and I haven’t lost the ability to write cursive - my cursive has always been lousy. Looking at something I wrote at the age of twelve is embarrasing. Then four years of taking three or four pages of notes per hour in college finished off any trace of proper cursive - it morphed into a sort of stylized printing. Funny thing is - my older brother could write beautiful cursive that looked like calligraphy. Maybe he siphoned off the cursive gene before I came along.
 
Headwinds said:
my cursive has always been lousy
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Mine too. I struggled to make my post above legible, and actually scrapped a first draft :rolleyes:. I recall always getting bad grades in handwriting at school.

If it wasn’t for writing checks, I would have lost the ability to write cursive completely. Years of working in a technical field made my default handwriting all-capitals block letters.
 
Rufus1949 said:
In certain school systems, there is a push for the return of cursive instruction. It seems many states do not require it. I believe at last count only 25 have it as an integral part of the curriculum.
Sad!
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At least I can still read it - I read some time ago about a Harvard history prof who tried to share some Civil War era manuscripts with her class and discovered that many of the students couldn't read them. Some compared it to trying to read Egyptian hieroglyphics. :rolleyes:
 
My daughter was born in 2010. Going to public school here in PA, there is no cursive being taught. My wife and I decided to teach my daughter how to write/read cursive when she was in 1st/2nd grade, and she's continued to use it all through school. Her friends treat her like she knows ancient hieroglyphic secrets.
 
We've had black snakes living in our wood pile for years. They keep the rodent population in check. I've seen plenty of garter snakes this Spring, but this is the first black snake I've seen out so far. It's a good five feet long, and from the bulge in its middle, it looks like it has eaten recently.
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Now that the 5 feral cats have been removed,and they wouldn't let us keep and spay one we have birds and squirrels back.one Robin we named diane is nesting on top of fence post 6 feet high right outside our back door,her hubby jack is close by always whistling when people are other birds are around,my problem is I like the 2 blue jays that hang around and was getting ready to put up a feeder for them that was untill today,I watched as they chased jack around for a lot of the afternoon, so anyone have a solution to make them all happy.
 
Oldy said:
Now that the 5 feral cats have been removed,and they wouldn't let us keep and spay one we have birds and squirrels back.one Robin we named diane is nesting on top of fence post 6 feet high right outside our back door,her hubby jack is close by always whistling when people are other birds are around,my problem is I like the 2 blue jays that hang around and was getting ready to put up a feeder for them that was untill today,I watched as they chased jack around for a lot of the afternoon, so anyone have a solution to make them all happy.
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Recently I noticed a blue jay hanging around my yard, and decided to feed him. I can’t put up a bird feeder, because the scattered seeds attract rodents, but I read that blue jays enjoy peanuts in the shell, so I have been putting one peanut at a time, three times a day, on top of the small plastic shed/closet thing on my back porch. He comes and snatches them up within minutes, but still isn’t brave enough to take them while I am sitting there on the porch. He turns his beak up at anything else I offer - even shelled peanuts. He just wants peanuts in the shell.

Maybe you could set up a place to feed the blue jays peanuts as far away from the robins’ nest as possible. They seem to coexist OK in my yard - it’s the mocking birds and crows that carry on like the Battle of Britain…
 
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screened porch said:
Bluejays are greedy bullies. They'll be happy if they kill the robins and eat the robins' eggs.
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Ya that was my understanding as well,would like to have the blue jays stick around but not at the expense of Diane's little rockin robins and all the other birds on easy street,I'm going to hold back on getting peanuts for buck the blue jay named after buck Martinez untill I have a better plan.
 
Speaking of birds -I assume it was a hawk who had a meal in my front yard yesterday but he left some. This guy decided to clean up afterwards. First time I've seen one in the yard. I knew they're big but sitting in your front yard they're BIG!
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(Sorry if this is too soon after breakfast.)
 
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screened porch said:
Bluejays are greedy bullies. They'll be happy if they kill the robins and eat the robins' eggs.
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Here in California's San Joaquin Valley we don't have blue jays, but plenty of their close relatives, the scrub jays. And they are just as much a bully as their eastern cousins. I see them chasing other birds away from our bird feeder. And when I am in the middle elevation forest of the Sierra I see the equally obnoxious Steller's jays. The whole family is a bunch of bullies.
 
lambertiana said:
Here in California's San Joaquin Valley we don't have blue jays, but plenty of their close relatives, the scrub jays. And they are just as much a bully as their eastern cousins. I see them chasing other birds away from our bird feeder. And when I am in the middle elevation forest of the Sierra I see the equally obnoxious Steller's jays. The whole family is a bunch of bullies.
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I like watching the smaller birds gang up on larger birds - the crows run the hawks off and then the blue jays run the crows off.
 
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