I came across a memory today in the form of two nephews of an old German well man I used to help in pulling wells, replacing pipe and rod, whenever my too helpful father decided the child I was was better suited to standing around with an 80 year old man, in subfreezing temperatures and snow on the ground in January than dad was.I learned a great deal from the old gentleman, as making a simple slip knot with a loop, if you feed the end to the rope through it and pull the loop back through, you have a bowline knot.
The bowline is like all true knots in it will never get tight, but will always bind and hold on itself, but can always be untied easily.
It is a sad thing that rope craft and splicing is gone so much out of use these days as knowing how to use ropes, chains and pull loads are such important things, and yet so few know the art of it any more.
Old Joe would pull wells slower than molasses in January, so my young joints would ache and my feet would be numb. It was always some horridly frigid day we would be out with a 40 mile per hour wind, his homemade rig lifting well pipe high in the air so the pipe was swaying in the breeze like a serpent ready to strike, and me standing underneath thinking, "This is about the most unhealthy place in the world to be", but I never got killed.
I did though in the rigging once get my hand caught in a vice that was used to hold the well pipe on the platform. Like most old Germans, Joe probably told me once to get my head out of my butt and not ever get my hands under that vice when he dropped it, and being like most humans, I got my hand under it as it dropped, as you had to hold the vice in place, or if not, spent the day fishing for that pipe which was a nightmare down a hole.
The vice dropped, I felt the weight, I jerked my hand back, and felt the end of my fingers start to smash, but fortunately I only ripped the end of my gloves off as I got my hand clear.
I of course never mentioned the fact to Joe and hoped he never saw it. I do know that I never in my life since have got my fingers under anything, picked up any hot metal as I wave my hand over it first and I never get myself into position to be crushed, as when you get a close call, you feel and remember to pay attention.
Idiots end up at funerals.
Joe just told me things once, like, "Don't you ever put that oil in the coupler attaching rod together or when you put it together it will explode".
The way he had of telling was just saying it, but the way he said it was like, "You brainless buffoon who should have been drown at birth, don't you ever make a mistake after I have invested the my precious time to educate you by telling you once".
Joe could humiliate you in a sentence by just the feel of his soul, so you paid attention and didn't waste his time.
He told me once, "Don't you ever drag the teeth of my pipe wrenches over those pipes, but you lift them up otherwise it dulls them".
To this day I behave around pipe wrenches. Although, I think Joe liked his pipe wrenches more than he did his virginal daughters or sons.
He was somebody who did things right and when he died, he took more knowledge with him than a thousand people have.
I never knew him to witch for oil or water though, but simply drilled. My Uncle though was a witcher and he used two copper rods bent in an L shape he held in his hands.
There are many witcher rods around, some are the willow sticks, some use crow bars, some use a copper wire woven with a circle on the end and two wires you hold between your fingers. I have seen people find all sorts of things in witching from rings to caves.
The key to it they say is to picture in your mind what you are looking for.
These nephews told me a story which I am still laughing at in their relative had been in a national park a few years ago in a cave. The tour was going on and the guy had to pee awfully bad.
Finally he stole away and took a leak in the corner as the rangerette was lecturing about some college subject and he wandered back.
Unfortunately the tour happened to go back where the guy took a pee.
The rangerette was beside herself with excitment as she had found water in the cave. She thought she had discovered a new spring underground and was examining the situation closely..........
And then a little girl stepped up and said, "That looks like someone took a pee there!"
Silence swept through the tour and the rangerette finally figured out the obvious and that was it for the new underground spring she was going to name after herself.
That is the problem in the disconnect between college people and Americans who know that college only lasts 4 years and then you go out and get a real job instead of sucking off the people by working in government.
People like Barack Obama have no idea the value of a dollar and no idea how much government sucks. Real Americans, have no time for government and ignore it 100% of the time. They invest their lives in intricate ways to make money and keep the government from finding out how much money they have.
They run over a wolf. They don't call the game warden, but act stupid in not knowing what happened to a wolf.
They spill some toxic garbage, they just act American stupid.
They pee in a cave and just let the government think it is a new spring discovered.
All of the above were not crimes under George Washington, but are now crimes under Barack Hussein Obama.
There is an American which works like old Joe and there is an America which is broken like Barack Obama's world.
Ronald Reagan was correct when he said the problem is not the American people, but the problem is government. There is now more government than there was under him. Obama is trying to make the government in control of 50% of America's economy. Considering how screwed up everything is the government touches from bankrupt Social Security to the post office, there is no reason to conclude that Mr. Obama is not going to screw this up worse too.
The NeoProgs needed an old Joe to bite their souls in telling them they are stupid, and when they felt bad, not let them get away in feeling Obama bad in going to change old Joe's system, but instead be made as I was to do it Joe's way and do it right, as there was only the right way.
My dad always said, "You might as well do it right the first time, as it takes twice as long when you do it wrong".
Under the patricians it is taking America twice as long to do it wrong, and the NeoProgs are doing it even more wrong the second time.
agtG
