Category: Flotsam

Posted in Flotsam

Overtime at the Lumber Mill

Posted on by NeverJetHot

I was rooting around for something and found these old paystubs, and an electric bill, from 1943.

Looks like they took out about 14% for taxes; I thought taxes were lower back then… Maybe making a whole $1.07 an hour bumped you into a higher bracket? Doesn’t sound like a lot, but his electric bill from a few years previous was only a buck eighty. That’s for 52 killowatt hours. Google says the average household today uses well over 1000 KWH a month. Where is it all going?

Also note the insurance deduction. It’s just for if you are hospitalized. I guess you paid the doc for office visits (Or house calls!) out of pocket, or gave him some chickens? or a bushel of corn?

I was just looking at my son’s insuance plan, it doesn’t kick in until you spend $3000 a year. So I guess that’s like hospitalization insurance too.

Posted in Flotsam

Girls can’t resist!

Posted on by NeverJetHot

Years ago, women were so bored out of their skulls that they would flock to a man wearing a “Kiss me in the dark, baby” glow in the dark tie.

Ad for Kiss Me in the Dark tie

It didn’t hurt his odds any that they were attending parties where everyone would get drunk and someone would put Johnny Mathis on the hi-fi and turn the lights out.

Posted in Flotsam

Slim pickings this campaign season!

Posted on by NeverJetHot

ArchieBunkerForPresidentLooks like I will be sporting my Archie Bunker campaign button again in 2020, since I don’t have a button for Pat Paulsen. I remember my dad hated that a comedian candidate was able to get into the voter guide. But Even then I thought that parody and mockery have a place in political discourse.

Dad should have ran, I would have voted for him, “the cribbage candidate”.

Posted in Flotsam

Found buried treasure in my filing cabinet!

Posted on by NeverJetHot

I found a batch of these novelty “Comic Cards” from probably the 1950’s? when I was rooting around in one of my filing cabinets.

In this one, two dogs have to pee, but they are afraid to use the only tree-like object in the vicinity, a rather imposing totem pole.

My dog doesn’t get the joke- He’s a squatter, not a leg-lifter.

Scroll down for more, but please note, they could be considered NSFW depending on how uptight your boss is.

The lady with the irritated nipples is looking at the sailor like, “See what shit I put up with?”

I think we have some DNA too.

I don’t get this one. Didn’t she have about nine months to ascertain the identity of the father? Mom seems to be in shock. Maybe she never learned about the birds and the bees, and the flowers and the trees, and a thing called love.

PFC Looney was given a full military burial, and his high school football coach gave an inspiring speech at halftime, urging the team to “Win one for the Zipper!”

I would have called this bull a cowpoke, not a cowpuncher. But I’m not from around here.

Mr. Hotchkiss’ HMO doesn’t even cover three-headed babies.



“Where’s Alice?”

“Oh, she’s gone with the Schwinn again! She has this sudden obsession with bicycling.”



Posted in Back in My Day, Flotsam

Color me recycled

Posted on by NeverJetHot

I was going through some stuff in the garage, and I found this McNeilus garbage truck coloring book.

What happened was, when I was working ordering parts for a Waste Management repair garage, I had recently been laid off from an airplane factory (guess where!)

So when someone needed parts, I would absentmindedly ask, “What airplane is this for?” instead of the truck number. Word got around, and the administrative lady that worked up in the office dug around and found this coloring book to help me remember. (Waste Management people are the best, always improving things and solving problems.)

I never colored in it though. It was to cool to ruin that way, I didn’t have a “Waste Management Green*” crayon, and oh yeah, I’m a grown-ass man.

*They do make “Waste Management Green” spray paint- it’s to cover up graffiti on dumpsters.

Posted in Back in My Day, Flotsam, In the Shop

Don’t throw the radio in the river

Posted on by NeverJetHot

My dad bought this model GE radio for my mom, I think for their anniversary? They were listening to it at the breakfast table, it woke me up so I got the treat of having a pre-dawn bacon and egg breakfast with my parents. This was much better than fighting over the Quisp or Cap’n Crunch when all the other Everett brats were up.

I think it was 1967 because they were playing “Ode to Billy Joe”, so I was 7. I don’t know when the radio made the transition from the kitchen nook to the garage, sadly I have inherited it (It was in the back of a closet and hardly plays, I guess dad didn’t have the heart to chuck it, sentimental reasons.)

They make a rebuild kit to make it play AM good as new, and a kit to make it function as a bluetooth speaker; but the handle is broken. I have no idea how a double stitched leather strap breaks right across the top, but this one did. There is also paint on the case but I could clean that off. They made this model for years so maybe I could find a good one for parts. Stay, uh, tuned.

Posted in Flotsam

This is bloody hilarious

Posted on by NeverJetHot

A friend of ours was going through her dad’s hilarity and knick-knack box, and found this old practical joke.

(Everybody’s dad has a drawer of stuff. My dad’s mainly had coins and tokens, one from a place called “The Stork Club” which sounds expensive.)

Anyhoo… The idea here was that you talked into the little microphone/speaker, then you were supposed to “press button firmly” – but the “button” concealed an inverted thumbtack that would impale your finger, much to the delight of the other drunken fools in the room. Probably there would usually be someone so drunk, they would say “Oh! Let me try!”