ON Topic - Other Model T Era Things

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Burger in Spokane
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ON Topic - Other Model T Era Things

Post by Burger in Spokane » Sun Apr 14, 2019 3:14 pm

I came to the Model T as just one thread in a larger "fabric" of what I call "steam era"
Americana. To me, the Model T did not exist in a vacuum. It was part of a different way
things were done in its time. I love the furniture, the way buildings were sided, roads
were built, streets were lighted, everything !

I figure a few others here might share than broader interest.

Here is just one example of that "other stuff" I find inextricably part of the Model T
interest:

culvert.jpg

Do it once. Do it right. It should last forever. Most people would never think to stop
stop and look at a culvert, or even notice the ground around suggests a culvert might be
there. To me, this is every bit as cool as an old barn or a Model T.
More people are doing it today than ever before !


Dallas Landers
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Re: ON Topic - Other Model T Era Things

Post by Dallas Landers » Sun Apr 14, 2019 3:33 pm

Anything from that time and before is of intrest to me Burger. I live in a house built in 1899 and keep old things just to look at or use if needed. This is a couple walls in my office.
20190414_151824.jpg
20190414_151828.jpg
20190414_151852.jpg
Mixed in with my computer and printer and cell phone ate these things. I think working in this enviroment helps keep me sane.
Sometimes I stop and just think about these things and who and how they were used and on what project that is still in use today.

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Ruxstel24
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Re: ON Topic - Other Model T Era Things

Post by Ruxstel24 » Sun Apr 14, 2019 4:58 pm

I enjoy all things old...most every trip as a kid, whether in the T or a modern car, always had a few antique shops on the way. Not to mention swap meets and auctions.
I have a few things here and there, I enjoy the toys, also.
This train is cast iron and not easy to move, so not a great picture. I'll get a better one after dark.
IMG_3955.JPG
This bank shoots a coil in a slot and makes the cowboys hands go up.
IMG_3956.JPG
Found this sewing machine next door before they tore the house down.
IMG_3957.JPG


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Re: ON Topic - Other Model T Era Things

Post by Burger in Spokane » Sun Apr 14, 2019 6:38 pm

Great stuff. A lot of years sifting through misty early childhood memories has
never really been able to pinpoint when, where, and why I developed the "brain
damage" I have for old and cool, but about as early as my memory goes, I have
this "mind photo" of being in one of the California Gold Country towns in the early
60's, before they became cutesy tourist traps. I must have been 3 or 4 years old,
as we moved away when I was 4. I can still picture the old covered boardwalks
and hear the clunking of feet, as people walked by. The buildings were all decript
gold rush/Victorian era achitecture, and in vacant lots where buildings were now
gone, old rusty equipment and early cars/trucks simmered in the summer heat and
tall browned out grass. I remember the sun glinting off the chrome and glass of parked
and passing cars, and everything was in slow motion. No one drove much faster than
a walk. I was already fascinated by those colorful sparkly glass things on the telephone
poles, and I clearly remember looking up at them, still wondering what they were. I
remember my grandfather sitting on a bench with me there. I am quite sure I was a
chatterbox, full of questions.

That culvert photo really rings a special feeling inside. I look at it and can see my
six year old self sitting on it there in the late winter sunlight and feeling the warmth
of the concrete from the sun. Everything still dead from winter. Soon, everything will
be warm and green, but at that special time of year, sitting on a culvert and feeling
the unfamiliar warmth of the sun after a long winter was a special thing to behold.
The fact it was just plain cool and had a date on it from the time my youngest grand-
parents were born only made it that much neater.

These windows were said to have come from an 1890's hotel in Seattle. I bought a
pair of them almost 40 years ago, and recently found a second pair.

DSC05802.jpg

They are currently being installed in my backshop for ambiant lighting and obvious
"ambiance".

DSC06804.jpg
More people are doing it today than ever before !

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Re: ON Topic - Other Model T Era Things

Post by Ruxstel24 » Sun Apr 14, 2019 8:43 pm

Here's some better pics of the train.
I assume it's fairly old... :?:
IMG_3959.JPG
Attachments
IMG_3960.JPG

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Re: ON Topic - Other Model T Era Things

Post by Steve Jelf » Sun Apr 14, 2019 11:06 pm

Ah, yes. Old stuff. The culvert makes me think of the Model T era stone bridges of Cowley County.

IMG_4237 copy 3.JPG
IMG_4259 copy.JPG
IMG_4299 copy.JPG
Several are still in use, but when they wear out they aren't rebuilt. The county can only afford something modern and uninteresting. Being a tourist attraction doesn't save them.
The inevitable often happens.
1915 Runabout
1923 Touring


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Re: ON Topic - Other Model T Era Things

Post by Wayne Sheldon » Mon Apr 15, 2019 2:05 am

Hey Burger! Like minds stink alike! Not just model Ts, I have over the years collected and studied phonographs, records, books, magazines, cameras, tools, gadgets, and on and on! I spend hours immersed in old photographs, listening to the music and recorded vaudeville routines, and finding comfort in the few surviving bits I find around surrounding areas. Truly, I have a very sick mind.
I find myself wondering which of the many "Gold Rush" towns it was that you remember from so long ago? I have heard (read?) of your recollection before, and find myself picturing the town of Columbia. It has been a State Park for many years, and I remember going there myself a few times (both as a child and as an adult). It has (sadly) been a few decades now since I have been there. But I well remember that the "feel" of the town was still largely genuine, and it has been mostly well preserved. A few of the other towns I have been to that still had areas that presented fairly well the look and feel of the era have been Jamestown, Sonora, a small piece of old town Sacramento, and Truckee. All of these towns still had areas with wooden sidewalks at least until about twenty years ago. Old town Sacramento and Sonora have both been way too crowded by tourists for several decades already. But some of the others still are okay for a short visit. There are dozens of other fairly nice old town areas, Grass Valley, Nevada City, and Auburn among them.
I actually liked living in the "Victorian Village" of Ferndale for about four years. Unfortunately, "family" issues drove us away from that place. The historic Fernbridge bridge was built in 1911, and was at its time of completion the largest steel reinforced concrete structure in the world (so they claim). Our house there was also built in 1911, and had a comparably old barn in remarkably well maintained condition. I and the cars I had then felt right at home in that barn. I sure miss that place.


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Re: ON Topic - Other Model T Era Things

Post by Rich Bingham » Mon Apr 15, 2019 11:45 am

Burger, you have written pure poetry. Well put, and I think more than a few of us are much in tune with your views. "Art glass" is a facet of that wonderful era. Here are a couple of little pieces in our humble shack:
Attachments
image.jpg
image.jpg
"Get a horse !"


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Re: ON Topic - Other Model T Era Things

Post by Rich Bingham » Mon Apr 15, 2019 11:52 am

From the time I was very small, the life style and all artifacts from that era 1860-1920 is something I felt more at home with than the "modern" stuff that had no appeal. Things like a white-washed cellar:
Attachments
image.jpg
image.jpg
"Get a horse !"


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Re: ON Topic - Other Model T Era Things

Post by Rich Bingham » Mon Apr 15, 2019 11:56 am

When items like those stone bridges Steve showed us are torn out (usually for "improvements" like more asphalt for butt-ugly vehicles to infest) it cuts me to the quick, and I grieve.
"Get a horse !"

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Re: ON Topic - Other Model T Era Things

Post by Ruxstel24 » Mon Apr 15, 2019 1:13 pm

My brother worked at Ohio Brass when I was a kid. They made the glass high tension wire insulators and closed up in the 70s.
He had brought a bunch of seconds home, I think some are still around. I will have to look... ;)

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Re: ON Topic - Other Model T Era Things

Post by david_dewey » Mon Apr 15, 2019 10:19 pm

Well, I don't have any decent photos to share, but my place is also littered with 'cast offs' of a previous generation. I hope to get to work on my house this summer, finishing the interior and the two windows still to go in (a bow window and a picture window both looking like they belong in a house from the teens of a century ago--modern windows, but look "right." The interior will look like a craftsman home, and one of the features is an opening framed by pillars with a half-wall under them. I always wanted them to be bookcase walls and while scrounging an out-of-the way yard sale, we found the doors to a craftsman house's built in cupboard. Perfect leaded glass doors just the right size. I was mourning the loss somewhere of a period house when I looked at one of the door frames and found termite trails! So the house had problems before the tear down, and I didn't feel so bad--fortunately there are more doors than I have need for, so the damage won't be a problem for me.
The other day I was talking with my older brother and discovered that the family thinks I am hoarding a fortune in stuff in my garages/storage areas that I will never get around to, and if I would just start selling them, I can do OK financially (not doing that well right now, especially the pittance the Social Security administration has dealt me). How do I explain to them that the market for piano rolls, old phonographs, old car parts, player piano parts, Old car magazines, etc. has passed--even my toy trains are not appreciating anymore (not that I ever cared about that, I want them to play with them--OK, so I still don't have a layout to run them on. . . ); the Millinials that are growing up seem to have NO care or interest in history nor collecting.
And I have to admit, my family is correct; I will likely never get around to all the projects I have here. But how to dispose of them, there is no one locally interested in a 1915 Stanley 20 hp engine, and the list goes on like that. It's not fair to Linda to leave her to dispose of all this stuff,so I should do SOMETHING.
Sorry, didn't mean for this to become "a downer." Just a lot on my mind these past two weeks.
T'ake care,
David Dewey

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Re: ON Topic - Other Model T Era Things

Post by Steve Jelf » Mon Apr 15, 2019 10:49 pm

IMG_2848 copy 2.JPG
All the light switches in my house are a symptom of my "old stuff" affliction.
The inevitable often happens.
1915 Runabout
1923 Touring


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Burger in Spokane
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Re: ON Topic - Other Model T Era Things

Post by Burger in Spokane » Tue Apr 16, 2019 12:33 am

A peek out the big doors of the shop shows a 1910-era construction power pole and
street light, that casts a "correct" glow out front at night. The sun pours in and lights
up a few colorful insulators on period brackets. An old porcelain sign off the upriver
powerhouse tells the reader there's high voltage in those wires. And of course, the
obligatory mail pouch thermometer ..... Gotta have a "healthy" environment for a
Model T, right ?

at the door.jpg
More people are doing it today than ever before !


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Re: ON Topic - Other Model T Era Things

Post by Loftfield » Tue Apr 16, 2019 7:43 am

Part of the appeal of the "steam" era is that it was La Belle Epoch, the beautiful time period, when Western culture reached the top of its influence, power, prestige, and inventiveness. Things, items, from that period are beautiful to behold, i.e. not only were items useful, rational, and well-made, they carried an artistic beauty as well as artistry. There is always that extra curve, flourish, molding, or other fancy. There was an unbounded optimism in life, progress, and inventiveness. New ideas, new devices, were flying out of the heads of inventors at a rate never achieved again. Alas, the Great War sapped so much of that energy and outlook that our culture began its inexorable descent into the mundane. Straight lines (Art Deco) replaced the sweeping, nearly erotic curves of Art Nouveau in architecture, design, and inspiration. Everything became flat, square, dull, boring, uninteresting, in the name of "practicality". Today we worship at the altar of cost, believing that cheap equals good. As a consequence our landfills are bursting with the discarded detritus of modern life. We believe that flying electrons define and validate our inventiveness, all the while bad ideas are driving out good ones. The other day I noticed that if you don't see the three-pointed star on the grille, a Mercedes looks exactly like a Honda, or any other car on the road, ditto Cadillac, sameness everywhere and very little real newness. My neighbour's 1911 Rolls Royce had cruise control. OK, it was a spinning mechanical governor connected to the throttle, but it kept the car at constant speed without reference to the accelerator lever. So where did La Belle Epoch go? The Great War sapped the energy and optimism, income tax took money from the hands of captains of industry who funded inventors, artists, performers, and put it into the hands of government bureaucrats, and, finally, WWII finished the job. We like to make fun of the blandness of Soviet-era buildings, but what we construct tends to suffer the same mind-numbing "efficiency" dictated by those bureaucrats, who are basically the same whether Soviet or Western. Now go back and relish the steam age. Yes, polishing all that brass takes time and effort, but can the front of a modern Chevy or Ford compare to a gleaming brass radiator proudly displaying its marque as well as usefulness? Then look at the fashions of the period that accentuated, emphasised, the human form while clearly differentiating men from women. Mr. Ford decided that a Model T was all that anybody would ever need, and he was essentially correct until Madison Avenue convinced us of endless new "needs". Consider how many Model T's, and other steam-era automobiles, are still on the road. How many of our modern monstrosities will be around and functioning a century from now?


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Burger in Spokane
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Re: ON Topic - Other Model T Era Things

Post by Burger in Spokane » Tue Apr 16, 2019 10:46 am

Very well stated, Rod.

I was 8 years old when my parents "bought the farm". Prior to that, we lived in town in
nice, but boring places. Dad liked to hunt and fish, and dragged a small Burger along with
him into the back country, while he did his thing. It was here that I got my early taste for
studying the lichen growing on an ancient fence post, the hum of the wires on a telephone
pole when I put my ear up to it. Frozen morings and the rising sun making the frost crystals
explode in a dazzling display of sparkling light, riding along in the back of a station wagon
while the World Series played as background noise on the radio up front. Water rushing over
rocky streambeds, the smells of weathered wood, hot rusty metal, creosote, and dust, after
being lightly kissed by a passing summer rain cloud.

It was here that I saw horses running in distant fields, majestic open vistas, big valleys,
high, jagged mountains, and lots and lots of discarded old and beautiful things that always
made a little kid wonder why they were set out back, left in the weather, left to rot, while
the world raced on with its increasingly cheap and dull looking pursuit of "trendy".

When we moved to the farm, my fate was sealed. Old stuff lurked in every barn, ravine,
anywhere we kids looked. It's been a life wasted, spent chasing ghosts of a world my grand-
parents knew as "every day". I have spent my entire life trying to make other people see and
understand the beauty and wisdom of old and forgotten things, but few can get their head
around it. They are programmed to think new is best and the bottom line is the dollar. I
often ponder if I am blessed or cursed to see things so differently. To see and care about beauty
where others see nothing.

121020-149.jpg
More people are doing it today than ever before !


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Re: ON Topic - Other Model T Era Things

Post by HPetrino » Tue Apr 16, 2019 11:56 am

I personally agree with the sentiments expressed here. However, there was a downside. My mother, her 2 siblings and her parents lived in what was basically a pre-Model T situation until 1946 (she was 22 at the time). They had no phone, no electricity, no tractor to work the land and no "conveniences" whatever.

The downside items included:

1. My grandfather worked his 20 acres with a team of mules.
2. Bathwater had to be heated on a wood stove after it was hand pumped and the stove wood was cut and split.
3. After your weekly bath you had to bail the tub out with a bucket.
4. Kerosene lantern chimneys had to be cleaned weekly.
5. A phone call required a trip to a friendly neighbor's house.
6. Due to all the chores there were to do, recreation was non-existent.
7. No radio.
8. No Television.

And so on…..

The era had some really neat stuff, as we all know. It was a much different life than we have today, and to some extent we tend to romanticize it.


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Re: ON Topic - Other Model T Era Things

Post by Dallas Landers » Tue Apr 16, 2019 1:49 pm

Henry, I lived that life only we had electricity. A TV that got 3 channel to.
You are correct it was work and free time was short but we had much less to worry about. Of course I was a kid and the folks had to worry about bills and food but those are the memories we treasure most.
At the time getting up early twice a week to pump water for wringer washer and double rinse tubs was not fun. Splitting and carrying in wood for the stove every day after school was another unpleasant chore as a kid. Helping can food, picking wild berries and fruit. Hunting and fishing was not a sport but needed to survive.
I was so lucky not to have video games and truck loads of toys and computers. The outlook on life is much different when your raised that way. Simple things like useing the toilet and not having to put on boots and heavy coat and walk 30 yards in the snow to do so.
Now this was in the early 80's so we were looked at as being poor but us boys didnt know it . I thought helping dad fix an old car or build something out of nothing was great fun. Knowing how and where to find food or making use of something others had thrown out was the norm. We were rich in so many ways we didnt even know.
Most people today dont get it. They worry about who said what about who on facebook or getting the latest app on their phone or the biggest TV. I guess thats why I enjoy a simpler time with old stuff from days gone by. It helps me appreciate the the finer things I have now and how I got them. Slowing down for a ride in the T is just another reminder of where I came from. It sounds like many of us here can relate. Im glad we have a place to share the odd old things that spark distant memories of a past way of life that may have been harder but more enjoyable.


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Re: ON Topic - Other Model T Era Things

Post by Rich Bingham » Tue Apr 16, 2019 3:08 pm

It's perennially interesting to me to learn "modern folk's" perceptions of life "back when".
I don't mean to argue the points, Henry, they are what you deem impossibly onerous as you see life in that distant past. Those who lived that life are mainly responsible for the "romantic" notions some of us hold, and it is true that "days that are gone seem the brightest."

For example, your item #1 - no tractor "My grandfather worked his 20 acres with a team of mules."
When I was small, we had a neighbor who still worked a team on his place. I clearly remember his conversation with my grand-dad about "the old days" - he said:
"We had a nice life years ago - we grew most of what we needed, and we got a little money from the crops. We were comfortable. Folks always seemed to have time to visit, if nothing else, you'd meet your neighbor on the fence line, you had to stop and blow the horses anyway. Then we got a tractor, and I guess that was nice, you didn't have to worry about it pulling up lame, but it would break down. You didn't have to feed it when it wasn't working, but, see, it took another 40 acres to support the tractor, and that's the rat-race we've been running ever since."
That much personal satisfaction obtains in the training, working, and caring for equines is borne out by the rather impressive number of folks who take that up as a "hobby" nowadays . . . or, perhaps the Amish don't feel especially put upon. Fun for some, not for all.

As for personal hygiene and household maintenance, when the "Saturday night bath" was the order of the day, people were much more meticulous about "washing" thoroughly between full baths. That pumping water and heating it in double boilers was laborious, there's no doubt. The house wife's tasks certainly involved a lot more physical activity than is necessary with today's labor saving devices, and convenience; however, most women were "house proud" and beyond the usual regimen of preparing meals, doing laundry and keeping house, found time to preserve food for storage, sew most of the family clothing, make quilts, and participate in social gatherings. However hard the ladies worked, they realized their husbands and fathers worked much harder still. Division of labor in the nuclear family was clear-cut, and if any offspring had confusion over their sexual identities, it never seemed to be an issue.

So far as maintaining a wood stove for home heating and cooking, or kerosene lamps for lighting, neither is particularly time-consuming nor difficult. We've lived that way for years - by choice.

Telephones, radio, television ?? People wrote letters, sent telegrams if there was urgent news, and read newspapers. By the time telegraph and rail had spanned the continent, communities did not live in an information vacuum. News of Custer's defeat was transmitted throughout the nation in less than a week.

No recreation ?? If the measure is today's possibility of "recreating" most of one's waking hours (as in the average 3-4 hours daily - spent watching TV) then I suppose the necessary imposed "busy-ness" of life in the old days would indeed have shortened that. However, living memories and histories alike relate how recreations of all kinds were abundant and especially enjoyed, from the family circle to church congregations to whole communities. Agricultural existence made for long periods of "down time" when crops were laid by, and certainly on long winter nights.

If one wishes to consider an especially somber downside to bygone days, perhaps the most notable would be "no antibiotics" which meant regular loss of life from many ailments, particularly typhoid, diphtheria and pneumonia, and diseases we don't even give much thought to. Infant mortality was high, and many women succumbed in child bed. Loss of livestock could be catastrophic to a family's ability to provide. There was no federal income tax, but there were taxes, and the actions of "robber barons" could definitely turn a working man's difficult financial situation into an impossible one when banks (unregulated) and railroads arbitrarily raised their rates. These pressures were above and beyond having to deal with the vagaries of the marketplace and the weather.

Yet life's pace was slower, and as a nation, people were generally in agreement on ethics, morals and societal values. Somehow our great-greats survived in spite of a lack of computers, and their grit and self-reliance made what we perceive now as a golden age.
"Get a horse !"

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Re: ON Topic - Other Model T Era Things

Post by david_dewey » Fri Apr 19, 2019 9:43 pm

Well, I finally found a picture of Other stuff. These are photos that cannot be done today, taken about 1985 I think. Reason they can't be duplicated today? Turntable is still there, but UP won't let you drive onto the property, The 25 is no longer in McCloud but up in Oregon, UP now owns the railroad and doesn't allow other steam engines on the line (actually I bet the Big Bosses in SP didn't know this was happening either, but the local "brass" supported Dunsmuir's Railroad Days and allowed 25 to come on down from the interchange in Mount Shasta. This may have also been during Dusnmuir's Centennial celebration. Oh, and my Model A isn't in Dunsmuir anymore either.
Ma Green & 25 dunsmuir.jpg
one more pic;
Ma Green & 25 on turntable.jpg
T'ake care,
David Dewey

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