OT -- Church Key Origin?

Wikipedia (you could look it up too) says:

cw in mi

I have and did look at that Wikipedia page. It's been my experience that Wikipedia isn't the end-all-be-all that most hope. There need to be some better checks and balances put in place to assist in _verifying_ those links of "evidence" [supporting pages]. Until then, it should not to be trusted as an authoritative source.

(And yes, I visited some of the links cited on that entry prior to clicking on the Wikipedia.)

The Ranger

Because it opens the door to a better life.

The original church key was invented in the late 1890's to open bottles. The need to puncture beer cans was a post-Prohibition problem.

I have never met someone who had not lived in the USA or Canada who knew what a church key was - although I am certain some do.

Dick

Ah. Yes of course.

The Ranger

Or at least makes it so you don't _care_ what life is like :)

Harry K

Ah yes, wine contains wisdom, beer contains happyness and water contains bacteria.

Now, which should you drink?

Jeff

PS, now that we've got that settled, who is going to be the first to tell us (without a lookup) why the little key sized can lid opener which has resided on my keychain these many years is called a "P38"?

Has to do with the work required to use one. :')

That's right. It supposedly was the number of punches it took to work it way around a can of WWII C-rations. Curent versions are available through camping supply shops.

Lots more about them at:

Maybe so, but the basically informative information that can be had with a few keystrokes is exponentially ahead of some of the webtvers and cerebrally impaired here. They were not checking on nuclear fusion.

Steve

I think that is more than I want to know about them! LOL. I have a few of them around the house. You may have a little problem with carrying one on your keychain in an airport.

Thank You !!!! Bout time someone actually answered the question without name calling and/or being an asshole. I remember when the newsgroups were the ONLY source of information and people were much more helpful and less nasty. That was before the web existed. After wasting my time reading numerous name calling posts which took longer to type than to simply answer the damn question, we finally got an answer. Sure, we can all spend hours searching the web for answers, and reading reams and reams of useless trash, but my time is more valuable than that. If i was doing a research paper, the web is great, but for a simple answer to a simple question, there is usenet. It irritates me to no end when people answer questions on newsgroups by telling the asker to use google, or posting a pile of web urls. When I come to usenet, I came to usenet because that's what usenet is about. A place where people share information. It's too bad the new generation can not realize that, and just use the newsgroups to be rude and nasty. I did add a few more names to my killfiles as a result of this thread.

I used one almost daily for a yr '69-'70, but I never heard them called P-38s until I met my wife in the 1980's.

We called them John Waynes in the Marines- and I always thought that it was just because we used 'John Wayne' almost as often as f***. 'John Wayne this. . .John Wayne that. . . f** the john wayne M'F'ers . . ., etc '

But I see there was actually some history there-

-snip-

From that page- "It is also known by many as a "John Wayne" especially those in the Navy and Marines because in a WWII training film he was opening a can of C-Rations using a P-38, from then on Marines or Sailors started referring to them as a "John Wayne"."

Didn't see the film- but now I know the history.

Thanks- Jim

Bourbon - it deadens both physical and emotional pain.

My uncle who told me a "church key" opened the door to a better life also gave me a "P38". It's a military issue can opener in case you get hungery between beers.

Dick

My P 38 makes it through security every time. They never seem to pick up the key ring for a closer look.

I've started using Yahoo and dropped Google from my search engine lists.

So your time is more valuable that the rest of the world? _Someone_ took _his_ valuable time to do a search on the net to provide _you_ with the answer.

Do you see a problem there?

Harry K