OT Your opinion? Giving someone a ride.

[Mike]

Bah, Singles need to get laid too. Besides I hear Jesus is very forgiving

[Robert Green]

Yep. What do you think your chances of survival in a rollover accident in convertible are compared to a hardtop?

-- Bobby G.

[Robert Green]

The secret to how man "worked the fields" for 6000 years in the sun is that they DIED by age 30. It's specious to claim melanoma is suddenly a problem after 6000 years of successfully working the fields in the sun. Such implications can't possibly figure into this argument in any reasonable way. "Mankind" might have survived 6000 years in the sun, the story for individuals wasn't so rosy. Skin and other cancers were actually one of the causes of death back at least 2400 years ago and probably much earlier:

So the supposedly miraculous secret out ancestors used to avoid dying from melanoma caused by working in the fields was by *dying* by before it could get them. Not a strategy I would recommend for modern humans.

Interestingly enough our OP pointed out that this horrible, convertible-hating woman was 30+ and thus had a very reasonable fear of skin cancer. She had probably also seen some of the elderly former "sun bunny" matrons in places like Florida who end up with spotty, leathery skin full of lesions and other nasties and didn't want to go down that path. My wife looks 20 years younger than her real age and that comes from being "sun smart" and wearing sun hats and sun block along with avoiding convertibles, a car that can be opened by anyone with a buck knife that offers poor protection in a roll-over accident.

As for how long people actually lived in the past 6000 years:

Neolithic 20 Bronze Age and Iron Age 26 Classical Greece 28 Classical Rome 28 Pre-Columbian North America 25-30 Medieval Islamic Caliphate 35+ Medieval Britain 30 At age 21, life expectancy of 59 for British aristocrats Early Modern Britain 25-40 Early 20th Century 50-65 Current world average 67.2

That's clearly born out by the aristos living nearly twice as long as the serfs out in the fields who were getting skin cancer from their working unprotected in the sun. Of course, some societies were smarter then others and used large straw hats to protect them from the sun. Chinese straw hats and Mexican sombreros come to mind as but two examples.

They maintain their cars well? Where? Who? (-:

In some history course or another I learned that civil engineers have saved far more lives than doctors could ever hope to.

-- Bobby G.

[Fat-Dumb and Happy]

Did you get some gas money from them?

[Robert Green]

They may have been common but they certainly were different than almost any other car on the road at the time and very eye-catching. I learned to drive a stick in one. Came with miserable heaters, as almost all VW's did but they were sure a lot more stylish. Didn't survive T-boning a Chevy Impala that ran a stop sign at about 50mph. Front end crumbled like a wad of tin foil. A second or two difference and the outcome would have surely been fatal. Not a lot of metal to protect the occupants.

-- Bobby G.

[mm]

I don't think so. At least not soon after. Details below***.

Sure, I would insist, but what could I do? Wrest the steering wheel out his hands?

I've thought about this since my first post tonight. There were police at the enntrance to the national forest (which had no facilities, until the orgnaizers got there a month in advance and built log and rope bridges over some streams and "kitchens", log shacks with 3 walls and canvas roofs.) and I did ask the police where the nearest doctor was. They would have called for the doctor, but he was an hour away, in the wrong direction, so I said we would go to the hospital which was an hour in the right direction. The cops had no objection to that, of course. Now if he were driving and he said he wouldnt' stop at the hospital, I might well have told the police how sick they were, and I suppose the police would have insisted we stay there and wait for the doctor. What other option would they have?

But my friend was always cagey and I think he would have said to me, before or even as I was talking to the police that he'd take us all to the hospital, and then when we got near the town, he'd point to the two of them and say they were doing pretty well and we didn't have to do that. If he had done that we might have been on a bypass road with no stoplights, no stop signs for another 20 miles, and no hospital there and no docors in their offices on Sunday. I'd have to before we pased that first hospital tell him I was going to testify against him at his trial for criminally negligent homicide, and the survivor or heir's lawsuit. But he was so sure they would get better, that might not have scared him, and waiting until someone is dead or has a lawsuit isn't my idea of a solution. Maybe I could have told him I'd complain to police and the bar association, and his employer, an insurance company, even if everyone recovered, if he didnt' go to the hospital.

BTW, I sort of belittled the girl before, but now I remember that she had health insurance for herself and her daughter, and he knew it. It didn't cost any money to any of us for him to stop.

BTW, they had shigellosis, and he had it too before we got to Baltimore, and I had it too by Tuesday. I was okay in a day or two, no fever afaik. I learned from the CDC that it's caused by bad sanitation, probably by bad latrine placement, and I think then drinking out of the streams, or not washing hands and making food. This group, Rainbow, had been camping on July 4 weekend, and the whole week before it for some people, and a couple months before it for the organizers, real diehards, for 15 years and I don't think anytone had ever gotten sick before, or at least not many. Those years they had about 10,000 campers, and I forget exactly but 3000 or maybe 6000 got sick. Pretty amazing, huh, even for 3000.

I must have signed in, and a few weeks later I got a survey form from the Centers for Disease Control, which I filled out and returned, asking where I camped, what kitchens I ate from -- they had free food, nothing fancy, no meat, pancakes maybe, popcorn, bread, potatoes maybe**. maybe my general health, which was fine. AS they promised, a few months later they sent me a copy of their report. They didn't iirc identify any very specific cause, any specific kitchen, at least not one that I ate at.

**There was also a 14-year old boy walking around in the middle of hte night offering free mushroom, with blue veins, psychodelic he said. I don't use any drugs at all, but there was a 10 year old girl who wanted some. The boy said, You're too young. She said, firmly, defiantly, I had my first pot when I was 6 and my first acid when I was 8. The boy said, I think you should wait until your brain is fully formed before you start to ruin it. I kid you not. I was just there for the camping!

Wikip: An estimated 18,000 cases of shigellosis occur annually in the United States. In most cases, the disease resolves within four to eight days without antibiotics. Severe infections may last three to six weeks.

The local folks and the national forest service used to try to stop this camping, back around 1980, but they would sneak in someplace and they left the place as good as they found it (they would stay after we all left and tear down the kitchens, remove all the trash and litter, but leave the bridges.) and eventually they cooperated. This year was the only big illness problem they've had afaik.

I guess we had already left late because they were sick. I think his plan was to be up and out by 8;30.

Instead he had me going to the medical tent -- the MASH tent he or they called it!!! -- where there were supposed to be doctors and medicinal tea. He emphasized the tea!! Well they need to drink liquid, but they also had no tea.

They were supposed to have volunteer doctors, but I think that meant only if a doctor wanted to go camping, and he told them he was a doctor. Maybe in the past that had worked, but when I went to the tent, there was no doctor. They did have an oral thermometer though, so that's why I know what their temperatures were.

THE ONE THING BOTH OF US DIDN'T THINK OF WAS getting towels, wetting them in the stream that was very close, and using that to wipe their faces, wet their hair iiuc, wipe their arms and legs. I ddidn't know anything about this at the time, but it seems that even though the fever comes from inside, because of germs, it can be treated on the outside with "wet compresses". Maybe if the movies didn't use the word compress, it would have occurred to me. He might have suggested putting them in the stream, but I have an image of them shattering, like hot glass in a cold stream. Surely the stream would be too cold for them???? If he suggested it, he dropped it quickly.

*** She was, I guess, what one might call a doormat. For one thing, he had a regular girlfriend that he lived with and she knew it, and she was his summer-home town girlfriend, because his regular girlfriend had gotten tired of going to the summer home. Too much work because it was never finished. He couldn't get a sewage permit, though he tried to bribe someone for it, or maybe it was that there was only 6 or 12 inches of soil and the rest was rock and he'd have to blast to put in a septic tank and finger system (He had to blast, that is, pay someone to blast, to put in his foundation) so though he had a chemical toilet, he kept asking everyone to go outside to do their business, even in the rain.

If I loved the town girlfriend, she would have been pretty, but as a mere girlfriend**, she was very overweight. **I say mere girlfriend because he was already living with another woman in Westchester county, not married to her but with a contract hetwteen them. They were supposed to modify the contract between them if they decided to have a child, but I think they couldn't agree on terms, and they had the child anyhow. That woman was more attractive and had a very good job that required a college degree and probably more than that, and I don't know why she settled for him. She has a unique name and I found her phone number online and have been meaning to call her. At the very least I'd like to know if they are still living together. I doubt it.

I was never jealous of all his girlfriends and sex, even when the girl was pretty, and I think it was because I believe that no matter how many he had, it was never enough, while for me one is enough.

But as to the woman on the trip, she lived in this small town and was probably happy to have him. Oh yeah, she reccovered some by the time we left at 10 or 11, no more delirioum ("Don't let them cut off my legs!") and he told me that she said they didnt' have to go to the doctor. He might have been lying, but I told him I don't take the advice of a woman who was delirious an hour or two ago. And she can't waive the rights of her daughter, or judge how sick the daughter is. They both lay in my back seat (a big car then) with their eyes closed saying nothing in the hour's drive to the hospital.

This guy is not very attractive either, at least I don't think a woman would think so. He was way overweight by this time. He got as much as he did by asking for it, and I guess going to the next person if the one he asked didn't do it. For example, he called me at the last minute to buy more Xmas tree lights on my way to his Christmas party. That's certainly fair, and I wasn't very late to the party, but most hosts woudn't do it.

A better example was a Sunday morning with a lot of snow. He called me at 9, which I thought was early for a Sunday, or maybe it was 8, to come over and start his car, to give his battery a jump. I lived in Brooklyn, he was in Brooklyn. at his girlfriend's apartment (a different year, a different girlfriend.) and once I was awake and in the car, it was no big deal to drive farther, but it was actually only

2 blocks from my apartment. So I knock on the door and he comes out, and walking to his car, I learn he hadn't even tried to start it!!!! What a jerk. I think he called me to show his girlfriend he had a friend who would come over to start his car. It started right up without my doing anything. What a jerk. I would have been really mad at him but the girl was pretty, unusually so for his girlfriends. I don't want Norminn to be mad at me for caring, but in college all 2 or 3 of his girlfriends were so fat and ugly. But this one wasn't, and I waited 3 weeks and called her. (This was before cell phones so I had her number in order to call him if I got delayed that morning) As I expected, they weren't going together anymore, and we went together for months.

Another thing he did was fix me up with a co-worker, maybe she was a lawyer and she was very pretty and nice, and after we had one date, he told me he was going to call her again. I said, What do you mean? You fixed me up with her. He said, she doesn't have to be exclusive. What a jerk.

Another thing he did was at another Christmas party at his apartment. I had a girlfriend and we were going to the party, and there is always room at the party for me to bring someone else. and my gf brought along a girlfriend of hers, a really beautiful girl, whom I had met when she was playing Liat in a road company of South Pacific. If you remember the movie, she was Bloody Mary's daughter, whom Bloody Mary wanted to marry the Lieutelant, on some south Pacific island during WWII. Well this girl was every bit as pretty as the actress in the movie who had the same part. And sexy without even trying, no matter what she was wearing. So we all got there, and my friend and the new "Liat" were dancing, and a few minutes later Liat left. She took a taxi or the subway. Later I found out that my "friend" was feeling her up while they were dancing. It didn't matter to him that she was a nice girl who he'd be lucky to have as a girlfriend. And it didn't matter to him that she was also a guest of mine and my gf, and it was embarrassing to me to have a crude friend, and maybe to my gf to have a bf with a crude friend. I guess this was his way on some occasions of sorting out who was easy and who wasn't.

Another thing I don't know all the details about was, before he had a Chevty Blazer (since the lot he bought had no road going to it), with all the parking problems that presents in nYC, he had a motorcycle. I never saw the motorcycle, maybe that was before I got to NY, but he would go to Woodstock NY and around there, 2 hours from Manhattan, and on the trip up or back with a girl on the back, he fell over, on a wet road iirc, maybe on a bridge with a steel roadway. He wasn't hurt much, the girl was, but I don't know how bad or if any of it was permanent.. When he told me this story, he didn't express any regret for hurting her. But this was pretty early in knowing him, and I figured that his silence there didn't mean he wasn't kicking himself. AFter North Carolina, I decided it did mean that.

He's about 64 y.o. now and when he bought property and built a house (of his own design with much of his own labor, and his friends') it had to be in Woodstock. Even though all the towns around there are alike, with antique stores and artists and artsy or rural yuppie restaurants, he had to be in Woodstock, because it was famous, even though that was 5 years earlier and the bands and audience had all left.

When we went camping in NC, he had to camp in Hippie Hollow, it was caled, even though he'd been to these things before other years, other US states, and there were no more hippies there than anywhere else. Although he was afraid to buy pot for fear of getting disbarred. (Myself, I don't use pot or anything. I also avoid aspirin and even more so Tylenol.)

That night, they got back to Westchester so late he didn't have time to take them home. It was 2 hours from Brooklyn but maybe an hour from Westchester, so that would have been two more hours of driving that had been planned that I forgot about. They couldn't stay at his house because his regular girlfriend lived there. I think he put them up in a motel and how they got home the next day I don't know. He probably knew bus routes, or maybe she knew routes to NYC, and found a motel near one.

Well, old memories can be fun, but this was too long. :)

[Jim Yanik]

" [e-mail]" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

I'd never own a convertible;they can be cut,they are noisy,and they rot. No security when the top is down. Plus I was always getting caught with the top down when it began to rain.

[Ed Pawlowski]

"mm" wrote

We were in Virginia and coming home through Baltimore. My wife was not feeling well the past couple of day. They she said she wanted to see a doctor NOW! Ended up at Chesapeake Medical Center where she stayed for 6 days. Had we continued, maybe she would not be here.

[Ed Pawlowski]

"Robert Green" wrote

Wish I had a miserable heater. The heat ducts were rusted out so nothing came to the passenger compartment. I used to carry an ice scraper in winter to use on the inside when the windshield froze up.

[aemeijers]

Do they still have those pop-up rollbars on the fancy brands? If it has one of those, and you are securely belted in, probably not much worse than in a sedan, as long as you keep your arms inside.

[aemeijers]

Not to mention the frigging gas tank being above the driver's knees. Yeah, KG's were cute in a sort of retro-50s way, but they were even more fun than beetles on big road. I remember driving a KG between 2 semis on I-465 around Indianapolis once, and realizing that the steering wheel wasn't doing much of anything- the wash from the semis was almost lifting the nose off the ground. I backed off the throttle, and let them get well ahead of me, while I tried not to wet my pants.

[aemeijers]

Chuckle. So did I, and probably most owners of air-cooled VWs north of the salt line.

[mm]

Good for her.

Six days is a long time. Good for her for speaking clearly and firmly.

[mm]

Convertibles are slightly less likely to roll over than the hard top of the same design. Mine never have. :)

When the top is down and maybe when it's up, the non-existent or maybe lighter top lowers the center of gravity.

And the reinforcing of the frame, to make up for not having a top, lowers the center of gravity.

And Pontiacs had wide-track, which was about an inch wider other makes.

But the '72 to '76 GM convertibles with the scissors top was designed that way because GM thought NHTSA was going to regulate roof strength for convertibles. It never did, and the scissors top broke a lot and was an incredible pain to adjust -- I didn't know how -- and once it broke my rear window, and the next day rippped a hole in my own top. I was already looking for another car then.

[krw]

No security with the windows down either.

There is a reason they're called SWMBO. ;-)

[krw]

My brother had one in Minneapolis. I remember visiting him over the new year holiday '73-'74. It was cold enough to freeze the battery but I fixed that (got rear-ended on I94).

[Robert Green]

Dunno. Never had much interest in owning easy-open cars. I rented a few when I had business in CA but the thrill wore off after the first serious golfer's sunburn. Plus, it can be kind of cold on the coast highway. I can understand the "I paid for a convertible, it's sunny and damnit I'm going to ride with the top down" feeling. I realized that I was the only one of many convertibles on the highway that day that DID have his top down. Hmmm. Still, the natives could wait for a warm day. That day was my only shot.

I wonder if Budget still rents Porsches, Jags and US convertibles? They were expensive but it's a great way to sightsee in the rich places without getting stopped by the local police. Melanomas be damned, I did have fun driving around Malibu and Pebble Beach in XJ6 convertible that someone ELSE had to maintain! As I recall that f'uc&ing convertible had this big steel plate attached to the windshield that smashed a 6' guy in the left temple HARD until you learned to swing around it. Ouch! IIRC, they wouldn't rent Jags or Porsches to locals - you had to be from out of town!

Had some good times out at the Naval Postgraduate in Monterey. Was personally haunted by the ghost of John Steinbeck at the Salinas River. Paid for a beachfront hotel room in San Diego and got to watch a seal carcass rot right outside my patio. (Can't touch 'em, California green kook law!) They comped me an extra day for the rotting seal. That's better than the $10 credit I got for bedbugs (no questions asked, BTW) at a Sheraton near the US Army War College at Ft Leavenworth. No Jags or Porsches for rent there - just building after building with a statue of a cow or bull on top. Great steakhouses, though.

As for rollovers, if I had a choice, I'd choose a hardtop, especially if I was rolling through the underbrush. Admittedly, I've only known one person that rolled their car so as Kurt says, we all seem to have a bad sense of real risks. I have known a number of people who have damaged their ragtops in a wider variety of ways so I'll fall back on that as a reason to stick with a metal roof.

-- Bobby G.

[Higgs Boson]

"...obviously has issues..." ????

Disgusting, patronizing, opaque, egotistical. Never heard of a woman aged 30 and single BY PREFERENCE?! You need to widen your macho horizon

[...]

HB

>

[Robert Green]

"...obviously has issues..." ????

Disgusting, patronizing, opaque, egotistical. Never heard of a woman aged 30 and single BY PREFERENCE?! You need to widen your macho horizon ==================================================

Singles weekends, in my experience, aren't heavily attended by people looking to stay that way. If you rearrange your epithets the first letters spell DOPE. What I don't get about the whole tale of ragtop woe is how did she get there in the first place? Why not go home the same way?

I'm just saying . . . (-:

-- Bobby G.

[Robert Green]

My ex-boss *didn't* listen to his own "inner voice" telling him that something was wrong as he pushed himself to make a cross-country drive in record time. Cost him dearly as a blood clot formed in his leg from lack of motion, broke off and became a pulmonary embolism. Proof that people's need to "get there fast" can sometimes mean getting to a very bad place. When my dad had his first stroke I drove 12 hours from Asheville, NC to DC after being awake all day to arrive in rainy rush hour. Nearly killed myself in a spin-out I was so tired. Danger, Will Robinson, Danger! Glad to hear you made the right choice. It's very easy and tempting not to, some times.

-- Bobby G.