Bat Factory Tour!

[Leon]

First things first. Guns, then bombs, then bats. See?

[Leon]

Back when kids/drunk adults were taught to use their heads, little happened. Now days all bets are off because, one out of a zillion, will obtain an attorney and we end up where we are today.

[Leon]

+1 I am proud to say that my wife and I forced a cell phone on our 20 year old son 10 years ago. He still does not use it much, he does not always answer my texts! ;~(

Now you see that right there? That is a lost teaching moment. Had dad let the bat pop the kid, an excerpt from the book on School of hard Knocks states, the kid would never use his phone at a base ball game again.

[dpb]

On 4/21/2018 3:50 PM, [e-mail] wrote: ...

...

At about ten years earlier I finished uni and moved from SW KS to Lynchburg, VA; had no idea there was anywhere so much grew so easily! :)

Had taken HS WW shop classes and liked it but hardwoods/furniture-type lumber there was exceedingly hard to get; the HS shop ordered in a small supply for student projects at beginning of each year and it was "first come, first served" to try to pick out something. Was also quite expensive for the time so had little experience with good materials; built one small cherry bookshelf and a walnut coffee table for the folks (the latter still here in the farm house; I don't know what happened to the shelf when our little house was sold and moved back to town when parents refurbished grandparents house and moved into it, I guess it was given away or auctioned; it isn't here any longer.

Anyway, I caught the bug again after a year or so and met another younger local kid who was just out of HS and making some extra money on the side turning out decoupage plaques for the then-current fad ans was selling them through the Davis Paint Co retail store. He had started running them on a small 1/2" Craftsman spindle shaper by hand; Mr Davis had been able to sell enough he provided a shop area in the basement of the building and bankrolled him to buy a larger two-spindle shaper and PM 180 planer. I met Eddie by answering his ad in the Sunday paper to buy the old Craftsman shaper. We hit it off well and ended up going in with him as a side line.

That ended up as a business that was running about 40,000 bd-ft of soft maple through the shop annually with the primary product being the lifts and heavy shoe soles for the Craddock-Terry shoe manufacturer there in Lynchburg. As your acquaintance, with the demise of all shoe manufacturing in the US, as well as the closing of essentially all of the NC and VA furniture manufacturing, the markets just went away...

I also met and bought personal-project lumber from a couple (and one in particular) one-man sawmills that were rampant in the area. The old codger in particular didn't have a kiln but had piles of anything you could possibly want stacked in his drying sheds that was anywhere from

10 to as much as 40 yr old since he had initially sawed it.

His primary business was railroad ties and coal mine timbers from oak and locust; he would get the random cherry, walnut, whatever log delivered to him that he would set aside and just hold until somebody came along; hence the stashes. I was buying oak for 100/1000; tree-run walnut was 150-200; a 8/4 clear 15-ftx12"wide walnut mantle piece might be all of $3/bd-ft.

Oh, for the days... :)

[Markem]

But then again there was Disco Demolition at Comiskey Park may years ago, A Bill Veck promo gone awry.

[-MIKE-]

Looking at the photo, I'm surprised some nanny group has not tried to

Another Bill Veck promo debacle was Dime Beer Night at Cleveland's old municipal stadium, which remains the only game in MLB history to be forfeited because of unruly fans storming the field.

[Puckdropper]

Leon wrote in news: [e-mail]:

I don't know about that... There's still plenty of education that can go on with a close call and some excited talking to.

Puckdropper

[Markem]

White Sox forfeited the second game, the "fans" okay "Insane Cohos" who stormed and tore up the field after the blowing up of Disco albums in center field. Yes alcohol was involved.

[DerbyDad03]

I agree. Leave the phones at home. Attend games at stadiums like this:

or maybe like this:

[Doug Miller]

-MIKE- wrote in news:pbgvvc$bs2$ [e-mail]:

And the surprised look on his face.

[Leon]

LOL... Now that there is funny!

[Jack]

When I was a kid my best friends uncle was Stan "The Man" Musial. He gave me one of his broken bats, which we taped up and tried to use. The bat was WAY to big for 10 year olds, and the tape didn't hold up anyway. The bat was in my Mom's house for at least 30-40 years and then disappeared. Probably could have sold it to Rick Harrison on the Pawn Stars show for some cash.

[Michael]

Not apples to apples, but good shape, game used Stan Musial bat with provenance: $13,668.00

[Jack]

Neat. Musial gave the bat to his nephew, same as my bat. Mine was broken though, but it was broken by the man, I assume at a game. Maybe I should search my mom's house a little harder. My mom probably thew it out along with my boxes of baseball cards from the 50's...

[DerbyDad03]

My brother had a fairly extensive original set of Lionel Trains from the early

1950's. Besides the trains, there was a complete village set of the same scale. Mom/Dad tossed it all when they moved from our childhood home to their retirement home.

I don't recall exactly what was in the set (memory may have expanded it's size over the years) but I see values of $500 to $1500 for the train set on auction sites.

[Puckdropper]

DerbyDad03 wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Many Lionel sets just aren't that valuable, especially without the original box. Still, if you've got one it's best to check their value before doing anything with them.

FWIW, if anyone wants to get theirs fixed I know a guy. He handles the Lionel repairs for the local hobby shop and has worked with them for much longer than I have. (I handle the HO and N repairs.)

Puckdropper