Weekend Open Thread – Travel Oddities
In extreme southern Georgia – on US Highway 84, designated the “Georgia Wiregrass Parkway” for much of its length – there is a small town named “Climax”. It’s about 8 miles east of Bainbridge.
On the west side of the town, when traveling westbound a smallish (3’ x 3’ or thereabouts) sign or billboard can be seen.
On that sign, the following text appears (unfortunately, I haven’t located a photo of the sign online, and didn’t take one myself):
JESUS
JESUS
I can just hear the late George Carlin now: “Considering the town’s name, I’m not really sure what to make of that sign.” (smile)
Also, for what it’s worth: just off the same road (US 84), there’s another small town in Georgia named “Jakin”. Per Google Maps, it’s 41 miles from Jakin to Climax – but you can shorten that to a bit over 37 miles if you really want to and know what you’re doing.
Make of that what you will. (smile)
. . .
OK, enough travel oddities for today. Enjoy the WOT, everyone – and the weekend.
And remember: “Be careful out there.”
Category: Open thread, Who knows
1st
You da man, 5th/77th FA. Standing by to obey your commands.
RTR
My main Man! Tanks Bro. Hope you and the family doing mo’ better. We’ll be hitting over 90 F for the next week to 10 days.
Congrats my friend on your win (again)!!
VoV…My Brother from another Mother.
Congrats on once again taking the crown as Lord of the Dickweeds! How’s that F5 key feelin’?
F5 is sleeping in the wet spot.
Congrats 5th/77th FA, sorry I’m so late in commenting on your win! I had to make room on my desk to put my grandson’s old laptop here so I can finally access this site again! I have really missed everyone and can’t wait to get everything set back up again! I will still have to take this thing in and get all the crap he downloaded on here, it takes at least 20 minutes to even access this site! I hope to be fully back online in a few days. In the mean time, I hope you all have a great weekend and stay safe out there my friends!!
LIn his best Elvis Voice “Lordy Lordy, I feel the temperature rising!” Another FIRST on the Coveted TAH Friday Weekend Open Thread.
King of Battle, Winner of Wars, Bringing Dignity to what would otherwise be considered a vulgar brawl.
Bringing aggravation to dickweeds all over the net.
FIRST!
In not lin damnit. Where is everybody? Not even a contest?
Happy Belated Birthday to The WACS. It was Wednesday 15 May 1942. Was gonna post it on the MOT, but we didn’t have an MOT.
Congrats, 5th/77th FA.
Don’t know about others, but I was in 1856 Texas where General Samuel Houston is running for governor of Texas for his last time, demonstrating how to start a fire with flint and steel for a bunch of eager school children.
Doing it all (with fewer school children) tomorrow.
Thanks GB. Good to hear from you. Hope the health problems in the compound are more better.
Love to do historical interpretation for school groups. Usually doing 1775 thru 1875. For the most part, once you grab their attention, you can not only learn them something, you can entertain them. Can always tell which ones have the SJW and helicopter parents. Have gotten applause and dirty looks from some of the teachers when I make reference to the “climate controlled warehouses they keep you in, teaching you how to take a test that will have no bearing on your future job.” Good times.
Third?
Finally got on the TAH WOT podium! Bronze. 🙂
Actually, technically second, 5th/77th 🙂
SILVER!
Ah shucks, late again 🙂
I once interviewed for a job in Climax, Oregon. The company’s name? Climax Portable Machine Tools.
I kid you not.
https://www.climaxportable.com/
That link IS, repeat, IS safe for work.
There is also a Climax Georgia. It’s South of Cumming.
Dropped out paragraph. Have been there in…
Pardon my TAH WOT fumble fingers. The excitement of being 2/3s of the way to a three pete, 1/2 way to tying Chips 4 in a row, and 2/5ths of the way to a new Friday TAH Weekend Open Thread record has me all fugged up.
Ex-PH2 has told y’all I can’t be left unsupervised. We need to find AnotherPat. Maybe hiding with Nick Saban at the Roll Tide Roll Spring Football Camp.
Yeah, but have you ever gotten laid in Intercourse PA?
What’s that old saying? I think it starts out, “Been there, . . . . ” (smile)
Climax is also in Newberg, Oregon. They are a big employer here
Oblong Man Marries Normal Woman
(Illinois)
https://www.pantagraph.com/oblong-man-marries-normal-woman/image_926006a5-db2b-5684-9e05-9360b8e7c3d9.html
Did you happen to notice that the article you linked was written by someone named “Bill Flick”? (smile)
Busy doing shit. YAY!!
Fuck you guys, and I mean that in the most loving way.
EVERYBODY HAVE A GREAT (and safe) WEEKEND!
Normally I’d be miffed about missing being First in the WOT, especially because of work, but not today. Today I met the 94-year-old lady who was the subject of one of our feature columns: a lady who came over from England in 1944 as a war bride and who is the single most delightful person I’ve met in a very long time. She apologized for taking so much of my time, just trying to get a couple of copies of the newspaper, but she was so vivacious, fascinating and wonderful at her age (94, she said) that I gave the papers to her rather than charge her for them. I hope she comes back to visit. So, friends, don’t take this the wrong way, but that was worth not being First this week. By way of penance (yours or mine, your choice), here’s this week’s trivia column. Hope you enjoy it. DID YOU KNOW…? Which First Lady made “Hail to the Chief” the anthem of the President of the United States? By Commissioner Wretched I want to preface my introduction to the column by stating, for the record, that I do not cook. It’s not that I can’t cook; I just don’t. I’ve tasted my own cooking and lived to tell about it. But recently, having grown a bit weary of nothing but frozen dinners and eating out, I decided to look up a recipe or two of some dishes I enjoy, and I found one for spaghetti. Shopping for that recipe was, shall we say, stressful. Oh, I could find the pasta, all right. The bread, butter, and garlic salt for the garlic toast was easy to come up with as well. My problem came about when I tried to find the ingredients for the sauce. The recipe promised me that I could make a wonderful spaghetti sauce from scratch. I spent hours looking for the scratch, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. So I gave up and got a fast-food hamburger instead. And now, fresh from the oven, this week’s half-baked trivia! Did you know … … George… Read more »
As someone once said: Men die younger than women because we CAN. After marriage for several decades to the same woman.. I fully understand.
Okay, Commish, you want some pasta sauce. Got if for you right here.
YOu need:
Tomatoes – canned are best for this, they’re already skinned and they cook down to the sauce very quickly.
basil – the dried herb is fine, go easy on it
olive oil – keeps the tomatoes from sticking
salt – just a touch, not very much
Put about a tablespoon of olive oil in the bottom of the pot first. Then add the tomatoes, mush them with a big spoon like a soup spoon, or if you have a potato masher, use that.
Turn the stove on just above LOW.
Add the salt to the tomatoes and stir.
Add the garlic powder if you want that flavor.
Stir this constantly, on heat JUST ABOVE LOW, until the tomatoes begin to cook down. Keep squishing them into a thick liquid.
KEEP STIRRING!!!! If you don’t, the tomatoes will stick to the pot.
When it’s down to a thick sauce, which does not take long, it’s done. Turn off the heat and put the pot on a cold burner. Plate the pasta. Put the sauce on your pasta, dust it with a little parmesano Reggiano, and put it on the table.
You may find you don’t need the salt. I usually don’t.
That’s the simplest pasta sauce ever, has no sugar in it (commerical sauces are loaded with sugar) and has a great flavor.
A good soft cheese like brie and some appropriate wine like a Tuscan red works here. Fruit and cheese plate for afters.
Some observations:
1. You can run the tomatoes through a blender first. If you do that, you don’t have to worry about beating them into submission while cooking the sauce. (smile)
2. If you add fresh onions, olives, Italian sausage, ground beef, or meatballs to the sauce – which I do routinely – simmer it at least an hour to ensure that flavor permeates the sauce. This also helps get the most out of the basil and other herbs you added (I routinely add oregano and garlic, and sometimes a bit of prepared Italian seasoning).
3. If you want a truly “killer” sauce, prepare the sauce the day before and refrigerate it overnight – then reheat it the day you serve it. The flavors blend and change while in the fridge overnight, and it’s WAY better afterwards. Discovered this by accident one day many years ago and have been doing that ever since.
add a half cup of a robust red wine to that and some green onion and you have my sauce ^_^
I’ve tried adding red wine to mine, but wasn’t that impressed with the result. So I don’t bother any more. Ditto extra olive oil.
FWIW: I’ve found tomato paste works well as a “thickener” if the sauce is too thin – added during the simmer phase, of course. Drop in a can of the paste, then add water (if necessary) to bring it back to the desired consistency if the result ends up too thick. Or you can just simmer it longer to reduce a too-thin sauce to the desired thickness. (smile)
I’ve heard that adding a bit of the pasta cooking water works well in thickening a thin sauce (due to the starch from the pasta that inevitably is present in said water), but I haven’t verified that myself.
Good stuff CW! Tanks again. Mama had a 6 oz bottled Co Cola with the heart of a fresh cold watermelon every day in the summer of ’63 when she was preggers with baby sister. To this day baby sister will not drink coke or eat watermelon. Co Cola formula was developed by a former Confederate Soldier turned druggist.
Local credit union got robbed this morning by a perp in the drive thru. No clue why the teller didn’t just laff and tell them they had to come inside for that type of transaction.
gun or inside job? and there’s a panic button the teller should have pulled located in her cash drawer
Not sure, details were sketchy. TV showed a camera shot of the car in the drive thru, note passed? There was another similar one last week right up the road. I bank at the one from today, and will work on getting details. The phone goes to voice mail right now. Teller window has not only bullet proof glass but also a steel curtain that will drop in .09 seconds. I believe someone gonna have some ‘splaining to do.
Teller was probably told to just go along with whatever the robber says. Didn’t give any thought to the fact that she wasn’t in danger.
Or you could buy a jar of Newman’s own. Tip- after adding the sauce to your pan, add about half a cup of red wine into the jar, lid up and shake. This gets all the sauce from the jar. Now pour the wine/sauce mix into the pan and bring to a simmer. Most of the alcohol will be gone, and you’ll get a nice depth of flavor to the sauce.
I add a can of Hunt’s “no salt added” petite diced tomatos and shake. Newmans is too thick.
When I put up tomatoes from the garden, I usually drop them in boiling water until the skins crack, peel off the skin and core out the end thingy, put them in a food processor (leaving them a bit chunky), drain them for a bit in a wire sieve, then mix in a bit of basil, oregano & garlic before “suck” bagging them (Food Saver) and placing them in the freezer.
Use them during the year for soups, spaghetti sauces, casseroles and other goodies.
Thanks, Ex! I’ll give it a try soon.
Which of the end of a basketball you are supposed to bounce.
Request permission to steal, over;
Permission granted, of course! Over.
Sen Tom Cotton’s book “Sacred Duty: A Soldier’s Tour at Arlington National Cemetary” is a good read if you’re curious about inside baseball of The Old Guard’s operations. He was in the Old Guard between Iraq and Afghan tours. $15 Kindle.
Ya beat me to it. I was saving a link for an open thread.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/05/sacred-duty-a-soldiers-tour-at-arlington.php
Looks like a great read.
It is. I now have the attention span of a gnat but this one I read in 2 sittings. But then, I’ve been to Arlington too much and was always impressed with the Old Guard. When my wife was interred there I didn’t expect any TOG presence but there they were: 3 soldiers that took her urn and placed it during the service. Cotton mentions “dependent” services in the book…exactly as it happened. Meant a lot to me. Only bad thing later was seeing my name on the headstone. A sober reminder.
As of a couple years ago I began to start reading everyday.
Since then I have read numerous books on everyone and everything I can find about WWII and the people that fought and died in that struggle of good vs. evil like no other in the history of civilization.
I just finished reading a book from Starr Smith a former USAAF WWII officer with the 453’Rd Intel Services and worked side by side with Jimmy Stewart.
Most people might know about him from our generation, but it is a lead pipe cinch that nobody in the younger generation knows anything about him serving let alone WWII either…
I knew that he served, but Jimmy Stewart was a true American Hero.
Colonel Stewart was awarded the DFC with 2 Oak Leaf Clusters, was also awarded the Nom De Guerre with 2 palms, a DFM and the respect of all the men that served with him in the early part of WWII in the Eighth Air Force out of East Anglia and flew 20 deep penetration raids into Germany as the commander of the Bomber Wing.
I bought the book at Half Price Books and will be passing it on to my Grandkids.
Truly a great read !!!
https://archive.triblive.com/aande/books/author-details-jimmy-stewarts-military-service-in-new-book/
Stayed in the Reserves after the war too. Made it to BG before retiring. Tried to volunteer for Vietnam, but they wouldn’t let him.
His is an interesting story, because a lot of celebrities were not allowed to serve combat duty (Gable and Reagan for instance). He was famous enough going into the war that he had to fight to be allowed combat duty. Even enlisted as a private and THEN applied for flight cadet training.
I can’t imagine any celebrities doing that now. Hell, most of them are basically ashamed of being American and try and rip down every institution we have.
I know you meant Croix de Guerre (French and Belgium medal for heroism. The attachments depended upon the level of recognition (RVN copied this for their Cross of Gallantry)
o a bronze star for those who had been mentioned at the regiment or brigade level.
o a silver star, for those who had been mentioned at the division level.
o a silver-gilt (gold) star for those who had been mentioned at the corps level.
o a bronze palm for those who had been mentioned at the army level.
o a silver palm stands for five bronze ones.
o a silver-gilt (gold) palm for those who had been mentioned at the Free French Forces level (World War II only).
======
Nom De Guerre (e.g., Thunderstixx)
Hondo, your “Climax” story reminds me of some of the other interesting named cities/villages around the U.S.A.
Where I live, many of the small towns (or large, in some cases) names are taken from the eleven Native American tribes that inhabited the state.
Always interesting to hear visitors or newcomers try to pronounce them. ( Examples: Butte des Morts, Oconomowoc, Lac Du Flambeau, Oshkosh) (smile)
Enjoy the weekend all of you Dickweeds & Weedettes.
Be safe out there and have fun!
Me, I’ll be putting the final touches on the kitchen sub floor and underlayment. Two more weeks, and the new flooring will be down and cabinets installed, with trim work to follow. And then I can FINALLY try out some of Ex-PH2’s recipes that I’ve been saving up. 😉
No shit, there I was…1980, my fellow high school band geeks and I accompanied the school drill team to a competition in Payette, ID. On the way, we passed through Fruitland, ID. Snickers ensued. Then… in Fruitland, we pass “The GayWay Bowling Alley”. The bus is in a full on laugh riot. But wait, there’s more! Next to the bowling alley is “Two Guys TV Sales and Repair”.
During at least part of the 1970s, in one town in southern Alabama there was a place called the “Gay 90s Restaurant”.
The place had a bar. I’ve been told it was called the “Loose Caboose Lounge”. Seriously.
Saw the restaurant from the outside as a youngster, so I can verify the fact that the restaurant existed. (Don’t think I ever ate there, but it’s possible my folks and I might have once or twice.) Never went into the bar back then, so I can’t verify their bar’s name.
I’ve been through the area since. At the time I last saw the place it was still there, but was operating under a different name.
Keep it up and someone will eventually tell you to GO TO Hell, Michigan, especially in Winter when it freezes over!
That reminds me of a story my grandpa told. He was an executive with the phone company in the white/yellow pages division. He always said he was the one who got to decide what color the yellow pages were.
College town’s phone book gets printed one year with a sorority’s listing as:
Alpha Gamma Tau…418 Dicks…KL5-1234
The Address was 418 Dickson St, but space being at a premium. 🙂
Dammit, 5th/77 FA, do you laugh at sleep on Thursdays, waiting for the open thread?
A bit of a personal nature…
Had to take my Father for a medical procedure the other day, and I showed him a magazine article. He kept talking about his remembrances about the times he spent with Mom,the places they had seen. and (some that are now gone…) and some of that shit seemed a little hard to believe.
Looked it up.
Old Man nailed everything.
Old Man needs help with his shoes,
but remembers Mom.
Peace to all.
Sounds like he’s a good man, 3/10.
You’ve got a good father.
He has a good son.
Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying a Friday afternoon as best they can…
I’ve been stupid busy, I like the busy but could do without the stupid, but have been lurking a lot and reading…
Hope to get a few more essays in soon…still pissed off about a lot of things but no time to write lately…it’s been a crazy work load and trying to get the boat ready for the sailing season up here in New England…
My best to all and thank you again for your kind words of encouragement on my essays and the corrections where appropriate.
You folks are the best!!
Somebody questioned V.O.V.?
I guess none of us are beyond reproach.
(would like to have been a fly on the wall during that conversation…)
Happy weekend everyone!
Busy shopping for AR parts, forgot it was Friday…
Have a GREAT weekend y’all!
Your excuse is acceptable.
*grin*
Happy weekend, everyone.
IF API is reading this, Big Boy is up near Cheyenne, heading to Laramie, and there are people at Laramie watching and waiting.
Someone rattle API’s door knocker. Big Boy is on the move now, should be arriving at Laramie before long.
She’ll be comin’ ’round the mountain when she comes!
TRUST ME, I’ve been watching and I’m dissapointed that the Union Pacific RR did’t give Big Boy #4014 a shakedown run like they did with Challenger #3985. UP 3986 pulled a 168 car Intermodal Train unassisted on her shakedown run and is smaller than Big Boy #4014!
I have ridden the Alaskan Railroad from Seward to Fairbanks,back and forth, point A to point wherever. The last little trip to Whittier is on my bucket list.
I saw Big Boy at Ogden last Saturday. It was used to pull a train to and From Evanston, Wy, in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the joining of the rails in Promontory, Utah. Also saw the reenactment of that event with exact replicas of the steam locomotives in the original event. You steam train buffs will enjoy the fact that one of your fellows who recently passed asked to have his cremains dumped into the firebox of Big Boy. The Governor of Utah accommodated his last wish and his ashes went up in smoke on that trip to Evanston. The price for that train ride for live passengers–$3,000. I sure would like to know if they filled all 80 seats with obviously committed train buffs.
A bit of a personal nature…
Had to take my Father for a medical procedure the other day, and I showed him a magazine article. He kept talking about his remembrances about the times he spent with Mom,the places they had seen. and (some that are now gone…) and some of that shit seemed a little hard to believe.
Looked it up.
Old Man nailed everything.
Old Man needs help with his shoes,
but remembers Mom.
Peace to all.
49th
50st and Honorary First once again.
((((OVER))))
Mea culpa for double posting.
(Damn fingers.)
All sins forgiven 3/10/MED/b. Glad to see you up and posting.
Check this one out. It’s not in the USA, it’s in Austria.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fucking,_Austria
“The local residents, the Fuckingers”
They could have shortened that….
There’s also a Wank, Germany. It’s near Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
Per Google Maps, it’s 195km by road between Wank and Fucking. (smile)
Anywhere near Intercourse, Pennsylvania?
It’s in the Harrisburg-Hershey area. I’m almost afraid to ask if the road connecting Intercourse and Hershey is known as the Hershey Highway.
No, that road (PA 340) is named “Old Philadelphia Pike”.
Just looked it up. Intercourse is closer to Lancaster than Harrisburg, thankfully.
There’s also a Climax, Colorado.
Not too far away on I-70 near Vail is Beaver, CO. And yes, there is a store there called Beaver Liquors.
https://www.beaverliquors.com/