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zBrown
Ice climber
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Aug 22, 2015 - 02:59pm PT
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Speaking of old guys. It's The Bull's birthday today (92). Happy Birthday Lon.
He's going back to Washington D.C. in October on an honorarium.
It's techinically called the "Honor Flight" for WWII folks.
He's not in this group (from Idaho), inasmuch as he hasn't gone yet.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 22, 2015 - 08:53pm PT
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Yer welcome, Tad!
And zBrown, give the Bull a rub on the noggin. He sure does look like James DaBomb with that stash.
And Gnome, your response to my CLIMBING CONTENT, calling it "bedside reading," THANKS A LOT!
North American climbers ignored it. Fans of Alex ignored it. Fans of BASE jumping ignored it. People who looked at it and ignored it didn't comment.
Fans of Mark Jenkins ignored it.
Even Avery ignored it.
"I spent hours on that and it got only one hit!"--Avery A. Clone
The truth is it only took like a half hour to scan and trim. I'm sure SOMEONE FELT LIKE POSTING but ignored the urge.
In turn, I ignored, did not even LOOK, today, at Steve Grossman's old magazine scans.
So let the parade keep marching on into future history. Past history is dead. Long live the future of future history.
I'm glad I enjoyed the article.
I'm glad Jimmy Chin got some of that "national spotlight."
I'm okay with it, just surprised it was ignored, is all.
I got a grip on things.I've just been taught a lesson, but need to count to 50 before I say more.
Or say no more.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 22, 2015 - 10:03pm PT
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[Click to View YouTube Video]
The phone is disconnected.
Georgia, I'm thinkin' of you.
You don't know how lucky you ess ess are.
[Click to View YouTube Video]London (not the one in Ontario), Moscow (not the one in Idaho), NYC (the one in New York state, Houston, Merced...the list is a short one.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 23, 2015 - 01:29am PT
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[Click to View YouTube Video]
While we are vaguely on the subject of presidents, I'm taking the chance that the Way-Back Machine is up to the task of taking all of us back to 1966, the year they let me out of high school.
It was a summer filled with fighting fires, worrying about my friend Liz's pregnancy, and hoping I wouldn't have to stay in Merced, a young man with a new bride and the marks of a shotgun held to my back, waiting for delivery.
I "skated," however, a term which I learned in the US Navy less than a year later. So much for my college plans. I drank them away out of unrealistic guilt. "Perhaps," I've said to myself many hundreds of times since, "I should have taken the other trail."
The result of my leaving school, failing, and my year-long ride with the navy, led me eventually to the Monterey Peninsula and Apathy House and learning to climb on the small rocks of the Pacific Grove shore.
This kind of regretful thinking only leads to unhappiness in turn, I have come to believe. There are plans made here on earth, and there are plans made elsewhere. One cannot know those other plans, but when they come to fruition, accept them, prayerfully, and go on with your life. The die was cast long ago so go with the flow.
While it's not polite to ignore Mother Nature, it is not politic to ignore the fickle finger of fate.
In September, Lady Bird Johnson came to California, but LBJ stayed in DC. She came here to dedicate the first of California's Scenic Highways, US 1. She went on to Marin County from Monterey County to dedicate Pt. Reyes National Seashore.
She said in her ceremonial speech at the Bixby Creek bridge,
“I wanted not only to see the natural beauty of your country but also to salute the citizens and leaders in government who have taken action to preserve this natural heritage.
Your coastline, which is your immediate pride and pleasure, is also the nation’s coastline, our common western edge. What you have done with it makes all your countrymen applaud.
We have misused our resources, but we haven’t destroyed them. It is late. It is fortunately not too late, and I know that the people of Monterey Peninsula know that conservation, beautification, call it what you will, is more than just one tree, or one historic building, or one scenic highway. It is a frame of reference, a way of life.”
"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."
[Applause]
I had already "wired" Sunnyside Bench in the Valley and took this opportunity to develop other things, like learning to belay and wiping sand from holds, fingers, shoes.
I also made my first free-hanging rappel from the south end of the Bixby Creek bridge.
"Good old dawg, ain'tcha? Too bad ya can't vote."
"Say there, Mr. Hoover, ya gonna wipe that dawgshit off yer shoes any time soon?"
September 27, 1966.
Hunters Point, a predominantly black section of San Francisco, erupts in a riot. Compared to Watts, or, especially, the riots to come in 1967 and 1968, the violence is relatively mild: it only lasts 128 hours, and no one is killed.
Two days later, however, LBJ tells Robert McNamara that he has received a frantic 2AM phone call from San Francisco's mayor asking for help in finding work for the city’s young black men. LBJ has asked his staff to see if there might be work available around the defense industry, such as in the Navy Yards.
Then, at about 6:46, LBJ describes the impact the riots are having on support for civil rights: “These people are…these old dogs won’t hunt any more.” LBJ blames rioters for “a great revulsion taking place” against civil rights.
While this is especially true in the south, LBJ adds that “the Daleys are awfully bitter” and that places like Chicago and New York are also becoming less hospitable to federal civil rights actions.
LBJ refers to “my Demonstration Cities bill,” which was a bill currently before Congress that proposed an ambitious plan to partner with local governments in tackling urban problems. The fight over model cities is heated, but the bill becomes law in November.
All this in my first month at college, and then along came the concert in the gym with The Jefferson Airplane and The Warlocks/Grateful Dead.
Reelin' In the Years
Your everlasting summer
You can see it fading fast
So you grab a piece of something
That you think is gonna last
You wouldn't know a diamond
If you held it in your hand
The things you think are precious
I can't understand
Are you reelin' in the years
Stowin' away the time
Are you gatherin' up the tears
Have you had enough of mine?
--Steely Dan
["official" photos from the LBJ Presidential Library/Tumblr]
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hooblie
climber
from out where the anecdotes roam
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Aug 23, 2015 - 04:03am PT
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 23, 2015 - 07:00am PT
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Dingus, I'm sure glad you don't write in the style of WEB Griffin.
I must say (having just got off the pot, I'm drinking chocolate now) I am wonderin' if I went too far in my reach back to '66-69; did I reveal too much of myself, or hit too close to home for others? Having read your take on the Brits and their history, that old warhorse/griffin comes to mind--griffins being a part of British heraldry, along with warhorses. Were I writing like he, I would have turned in a whole chapter, complete with orders, bureaucratic memos, and after-action reports, and then cavalierly exonerated myself with statements like "A stiff prick has no conscience."
BURT BRONSON I AIN'T.
I do care about reputation up to a point. Beyond that point, anyone or anything had best stand the eff by. For I have a plan, vaguely formed at the mo', but I'm slowly gettin' it to come into being. I've laid aside plans to novelize my Nana's life in favor of my own. It just needs time, like a seed under the soil, and a bit of rain.
Y'all readers of this semi-blog might say, get on with it. Well, it's not that easy when yer as lackin' in ambition as I. But I think that when the time's right it will go quickly, the project done in a fairly small amount of time, unlike, say a new guidebook to the Valley, or planning a peripheral canal, or building an Olympics from the ground up like they are in Rio and did in Greece.
When you go diggin' into the past, you will get dirty; but it washes right off. For me, I've begun numerous times, but the solvent was alcohol and this time it is not. This time it's blood, the blood of a kind savior who has apparently spared me to do this thing. Spared me from dying before the tale is told, though why anyone would want to hear about a mousey little guy from Hickton-on-Bear is not quite clear.
I guess I'll have to rely on style rather than major accomplishments in the realm of mountaineering/climbing with occasional detours into the glories of fly fishing in remote places or surfing the wild shores of South America.
I did get several hours of restful sleep just now. The sun is threatening to come up again in the same manner as it did through most of last week, topping a layer of nasty smoke on the eastern horizon and then blazing away for the rest of the day in a cloudless sky and turning exhaust into ozone.
Which reminds me, it's that time, 6:40.
"THAR SHE BLOWS! SHE BLOWS!" as Melville might write.
Welcome back, Globe TRotter. Hope you can snag that ride with La Dama Escarlata.
By the way, the WAS is kickin' in. Where has Ward Trotter gone off to?
At least I can say I know where old C. Otter is.
"The mothers followed me at a distance, like dogs, calling to their young with a voice like the wailing of an infant; and when the young ones heard their mother's voice, they wailed too. I sat down in the snow, and the mothers came close up and stood ready to take the young ones from my hand if I should set them down....
After eight days I returned to the same place and found one of the females at the spot where I had taken the yong, bowed down with depest sorrow. Thus she lay, and I approached without any sign of flight on her part. Her skin hung loose, and she had grown so thin in that one week that there was nothing left but sin [sic, WTF] and bones."
From the journal of Dr. Georg Wilhelm Steller 1741
And thanks to the unsung but appreciated hooblie for his contributions!
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Aug 23, 2015 - 07:14am PT
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Elcapinyoazz
Social climber
Joshua Tree
Aug 22, 2015 - 08:41pm PT
The men of SuperTopo are not a bunch of pussy-whipped whimperers who rush to defend women because their manliness has been stripped away by shrewish wives, the feminist agenda, and closely spaced bolts.
That's where you're wrong girlfriend. There are a few exceptions of course, but most of the so-called "men" on the Stupid Toke-O have lower T than a crate of Earl Grey in the Marianas Trench.
Metro anorexic SNAG fluff boys in skinny jeans, "ironic" hats (hint boys: they're not), creative facial hair, sipping their soy chai lattes, and getting spanked by stuff that's not even hard enough for the 9 year old girls I coach to warm up on.
And you have to read the taciturn duck, and being 'Whipped', and also who's always in charge
The ny times climbing comes of age? Or some such.
Yikes- trying to climb today too - but there is a cool quote or two and I have some new insight into the instant gratification of the newer gym generation, their disgust at dirt and nature and then the mixing of old and new . . . .
Going to go easy fun climbing , but for me that means an adventure in a teacup. Thrash through brush, surmount a extremely loose pile of rocks to a slanting stance at the toe of un chalked overhanging granite block with vertical and horizontal cracks.The response from noob or pro is priceless.
Nothing is clear to a person who has only played connect the dots climbing.
The current concern for specs. And safety is bewildering for sure,
you generate enough force to break gear, you have crossed the line and will die.
The energy transfer, questions?
If you generate that sort of energy, your problems are going to be internal injury.
Redundancy is good,
Speed is safety when practiced techniques are followed carefully.
They are all the 'get in line crowd' now, not, 'the front of the back of the other side', the way we were
Mostly, BITD, we were all a bit misfit or renegade, in our out there-ness,
today's climbers seem to need to climb only and experience clean, follow this way dots.
I hesitated then showed a bit of how summer sausage is made, prying flakes cleaning cracks.
, the noob took it to far
but,
and failed to to grasp a light touch,
but
wants a tight rope (almost all aide) all the time all the way up .
If I do not lead a climb or a smokin' easy solo, at least, I feel like the day is missing, short of something .
The gym climbers have very little ability to sit and belay a lead.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 23, 2015 - 07:26am PT
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HA! Just as I'd have predicted had I predicted.
The elderly pontificator might like to point out that the younger practitioners of gymno-climbing would be aghast at tales of swilling insect repellent, leaving fecal waste on critical holds, or deliberately falling to wake up the belayer.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 23, 2015 - 12:35pm PT
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"Synthesizer music, Sylvester. It's the future."--Kool
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpbAe2HyzqA
Further studies reveal that actual facts abound, but the mystery abides.
"Vibes" of an ultra-high-spectrum nature were detected by using super-sensitive "devices" this week. Federal agents calling themselves "spectro-inspectors" and showing Dept. of Interior creds, bent to the task of checking out...blah, etc, etc...but that they were listening to these sounds as they painted. And that opinion was promptly...more blahs, etc...but it is hoped that the pope will come around to their view.
In other art-related news, Linda Abbott has a new release. It's called "Last Day to Hang Out."
Kool & The Gang/Hangin' Out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMixniP2zPg
Saturday last.
Same day.
Hangin' out.
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Aug 23, 2015 - 12:36pm PT
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Vroom Vroom
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 23, 2015 - 01:00pm PT
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"Gear!"--Ringo
I found the phone number for the ag museum, the one Charlie had posted up on his door last time I was out there with the Rev.
209-756-1913. Ag Museum on Hwy 140.
Bright's Pioneer Museum is on Plainsburg Road south of Le Grand Road. They are open anytime. If the gate is shut, use the buzzer.
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Aug 23, 2015 - 03:36pm PT
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Right down the road apiece from my mom's farm in Ironwood.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 23, 2015 - 03:52pm PT
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Mrs. Kool.
The Peanuts and Diane Hour.
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Aug 23, 2015 - 03:57pm PT
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[Click to View YouTube Video]
skip ahead to 13:30, or so - then back to check out the other fun.
seems like last i looked Jimmy Chin was doing well filming the Meru thing, did you miss that?
it was front page only last week ? I think? a cool video that was a tease for, an upcoming
Conrad Anker, climb of a climb envisioned by migs stump, the thread was about the thinking of it being a bit of a nod to the MUGZ . . . .i shared a grapefruit with him at a desert bivy along time ago. need i say that? need kept me re watching and so hearing the posts shinning, contribution; J Chin's fine eye for a great shot.
From the 70 year old thread:
jogill
climber
Colorado
Aug 1, 2015 - 12:39pm PT
78.5 now and I climbed up until shoulder arthritis and questionable inner-ear balance made climbing (all solo) too risky - age 74. I chose not to continue if it meant being put on a top rope and jollied along by youngsters. But then I had a fall-back in bodyweight exercises that I have done since my days as a gymnast 60 years ago. Puttering Around
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
Aug 3, 2015 - 08:19pm PT
I am 71 and by now have a shoulder that needs to be replaced, so the docs tell me, but from what I hear those replacements are not so good and the recovery time is very long
I ruined my shoulders 55 years ago working the still rings but it only caught up to me about 10 years ago. The surgeon presented three options: shoulder replacement (no more gymnastics stuff at all, ever - including difficult climbing), resurfacing (he said sometimes the person is left with a lingering ache - I declined), and doing nothing. I chose the last.
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Aug 23, 2015 - 04:06pm PT
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[Click to View YouTube Video]
the thing is right now I am up a bit having sold some approach shoes that never fit me but i had hoped to use as wall shoes,
now that maybe someday baby maybe some day..
I need to go pawn shop shopping for a camera, the internet is full of them I also need climbing shoes with rubber that fit.
really wanted to hear this song here, a lot, Wasn't Me,[Click to View YouTube Video] i hope this takes if not
i'll post the double dose.
seeing these all in a row[Click to View YouTube Video]
The draw that is, training and the lure of other like minded people working to maintain fitness, while pursuing the act of being a good YO-YO, did entice me a few times.
]Prison, version sounds better,[Click to View YouTube Video]. I was sad to see the sea-change in rock climbing that, that indoor climbing led to.
the form and function of indoor, simulated to copy the things that occur on real rock, led to people gaining skills beyond the learning curves norm.
threeseys[Click to View YouTube Video].
Often, after three sessions indoors, males, with a natural upper body strength, are climbing juggy 5.11. There is no suffering. No learning curve in gear or form. No going from a rope wrapped around the waist thru tied webbing swami, to tied diaper, to harness.
No finding the amazing weight difference, between the old gear, pins and hamer, to a rack of nuts, both spiritually and physically Up-lifting.
The ability to find the rocks, and other climbers, was part of the gumby gate, if you wanted to rock climb, you had to get to the rocks, if all you did when you got there was stand around and look up, no one noticed, no one was there to stand around and stare. Going Climbing Meant something different then.
Now it is a sanitized world that leads to 'climbers' wanting clean trails, lines up the rock marked by every passage with white dots and smears, so that no dirt - environmental hazards - exist.
bring in the security of bolts, anchors or protection, and many people want to have more , not less. The thinking was that the Gunks needed bolted anchors, the thing is that the placing of bolted anchors opens the question of why not be as safe as can be, why risk at all.
Not me ... by choice, I climb in the woods on fresh dirty stone and try not to use chalk, ever. Trying is easy if you have no chalk, bring it around me and I dipp. Chalk is a white powder and every hippie used to know from caffeine to heroin, the white powder habbits are the hardest to break.
And that Is another thing about gyms they teach all the bad habits, instilling the wrong lessons and making important the things that in long run do not matter.
Sleep as was the order of the moment when I posted the tunes.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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feralfae
Boulder climber
in the midst of a metaphysical mystery
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Aug 23, 2015 - 08:44pm PT
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Mouse, the persimmons by Linda Abbott are beautiful!
Thank you for sharing.
An image I will savor in my mind's eye for a while.
ff
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 24, 2015 - 07:02am PT
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I wasn't too sure what those hanging fruits were.
Persimmon cookies were one thing my father baked!
And here is the Daily Sun, just now come up.Without the Duke's influence, I wonder, who'd be wearing those insane Hawaiian shirts just to look cool?
Beach Boys - Wipe Out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiCszcc-FLg
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