Lunch

A couple items we talked about at lunch today.

Tires

Golden Goodyear Tire

Cousin John tells us that he got 100,000 miles out of a set of Goodyear 6-ply tires on his aging Toyota 4-Runner. I recalled that I got 80,000 miles out of the Goodyear Wranglers that came with my Dodge Dakota when it was new. Never had tires that lasted so long before or since. Never had a car that lasted that long either, so maybe it's not a fair comparison. Still, it says something for Goodyear.

Working

IAman tells us his kids want to hear stories about the jobs he has had. He can't understand why, to him they were mostly pretty miserable. Perhaps they were miserable because he was poorly paid, but never mind, he worked at some odd jobs, like uranium mining in Colorado and shipping out out an oil tanker.

This reminds me of a story told by a doctor at my first job out of high school. I had a job as a machinist trainee in the radiology department at OSU Hospital in Columbus Ohio. The doctor was known for being frugal - he hung up his old tea bags to dry so he could reuse them. One day he tells us about his first job as an immigrant kid in New York City or Chicago, some big place. For some reason I thought it was in the 1920s, but it may have been as late at 1945, given that he was a doctor and I'm guessing about 40 years old. Anyway his first job is in a jigsaw puzzle factory. They load the uncut puzzles into a machine that cuts them into puzzles all at one blow. The puzzles, still all assembled, go down a conveyor belt to our doctor where he catches them as they come off the end and guides them onto a stack of cut puzzles. All day long, bent over, catching these fragile collection of cardboard bits and setting them down. If he screwed up and dropped one, he got to stay after work and put them back together. He got so familiar with these puzzles that it was easier for him to assemble them from the back. He knew the shape of all the pieces and looking at the back he didn't have the picture to distract him.

I was making $2.25 an hour at that job, which was a heck of lot more than my cousin John was getting at his first job. He got a job washing dishes when he was in high school where they paid him 75 cents an hours. This was 1965-1970. He was living at home in Longview Washington and I was living in the big city paying big city rent, so he was probably coming out ahead.

Travel

Kids these days seem to think nothing of flying 500 or 1000 miles, or across the country to see some friends for day or two. I can probably count the number of airline flights I have made on my fingers. Each one was a pretty big deal. I did drive all over the country when I was in my 20s, so I guess I had a bit of the travel bug. But gas was 30 cents a gallon and airlines were regulated, so I guess that explains that. I never much cared for flying and the thought of flying now repels me. All this business of standing in line and then being cooped up in tin can with no place you can stretch your legs has no appeal. I still like driving though. The price of gas would have to go to $10 a gallon before it would give me pause. The way inflation is going I wouldn't be surprised if it got there within five years.

P.S. I went looking for some pictures of puzzle production. I didn't find any that kept the puzzle intact, but I did find this one and it's pretty nuts. One guy talks about how a puzzle will hold together just after the 2:40 mark.

How America's Largest Puzzle Factory Makes 2 Million Puzzles A Month
Business Insider