|
||
Intermarkets' Privacy Policy Support
Donate to Ace of Spades HQ! ![]() ![]() ![]() Recent Entries
Daily Tech News 2 April 2023
Saturday Overnight Open Thread (4/1/23) Saturday Evening Movie Thread 04/01/2023 [TheJamesMadison] The Weekend Hobby Thread Ace of Spades Pet Thread, April 1 Saturday Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, April 1 Newsom Nightmares Saturday Morning Coffee Break & Prayer Revival EMT 4/1/23 Daily Tech News 1 April 2023 Absent Friends
westminsterdogshow 2023
Ann Wilson(Empire1) 2022 Dave In Texas 2022 Jesse in D.C. 2022 OregonMuse 2022 redc1c4 2021 Tami 2021 Chavez the Hugo 2020 Ibguy 2020 Rickl 2019 Joffen 2014 Cutting The Cord And Email Security
NoVaMoMe 2023:
06/10/2023
Details to follow |
« Not So Quick Hits |
Main
| ONT: Thanks For The Meme-ories »
January 06, 2023
ON A LESS SERIOUS NOTE: Surviving Quicksand and Other 1970s PerilsWe children of the ‘70s were famously free range, heading outside after lunch and coming home for dinner. We rode our bikes miles from home, explored creeks and woods, and we played pickup ballgames with kids from other neighborhoods that we’d meet at the park. All of this was unsupervised by adults. But when out in the creeks and the woods, there was one extremely dangerous peril we had to always be on the lookout for. And if one of us got caught in this peril, we had rescue and response plans. What was this great menace? Quicksand. You may laugh now, but if you were exposed to the pop culture of the era, there was nothing more terrifying than the slow death-by-drowning that quicksand was famous for. And judging by how much quicksand was in TV and movies in that era, we assumed that it was one of the leading causes of death. It was always a huge relief at the start of each school year when we learned that none of our classmates had been lost to quicksand over the summer. Of course, Central Texas was pretty dry. We assumed that in wetter parts of the country the kids weren’t so lucky. This 10 second clip is pretty much typical of the awful fate that faced quicksand victims in that era.
From Get Smart to Batman to Blazing Saddles and even into the ‘80s with The Princess Bride, quicksand was ubiquitous. If any of you lost friends or loved ones to quicksand during the quicksand epidemic, my apologies for the insensitivity of this post. We weren’t just threatened by quicksand, the Bermuda Triangle was aggressively devouring boats and planes back then too, or so we thought.
From the archives, here is an old New York Times piece about the Triangle: The early origin of the Triangle myth stretches as far back as Columbus, who noted in his logbook a haywire compass, strange lights, and a burst of flame falling into the sea. When I heard about all the cruise ships sailing out of Miami, I wondered what sort of horrors the passengers on those boats were experiencing, and how many ships never came back at all. Suffice it to say, I was quite adamant that if the Throckmorton family ever went on a cruise, it would have to be a Pacific Ocean cruise. Preferably this one… There were still more perils… Since this was the same decade that brought us “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” it goes without saying that space aliens were a big problem for my buddies and me.
Several blocks from my street there was a 7-11, which was the commercial hub of our childhood. From candy to baseball cards to slurpees to pinball, this was our favorite destination. Strolling over to the 7-11 with my grade school buddies on a weekend night was as good as it got, but the shortest route cut through the darkened school yard and an unlit park. Obviously, those dark open spaces were where UFO abductions were most likely to happen. So we either ran through those open areas, or we did the more prudent thing and added a couple blocks to our walk, staying on streets lined with houses. As everybody knows, UFOs don’t abduct kids on residential streets. What cultural perils were you dodging in your childhood? Any quicksand survivors out there? (buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com) | Recent Comments
Puddleglum at work:
"The F1 live timing and scoring appears stuck. I th ..."
Puddleglum at work: "Hi Skip I checked online. A crash. Weather look ..." Skip : "Sounded like a plane buzzing my house ..." Skip : "Everyone better pick a side, Leftism is join or di ..." Skip : "More carnage in Australia but can't tell what's go ..." Adriane the Golden Oldies Critic . . . : "[i] https://youtu.be/hIqwzQ7g-Cc [/i] Holy Cow, ..." Debby Doberman Schultz: "Good night, Horde, I need to be up early. Thanks f ..." RickZ: "[i]Everybody MUST get stoned! Posted by: Bob Dy ..." Some rando on the net: "Donald Trump raised four million dollars after the ..." Cindi Lauperseeder: "Time after Time ..." Bob Dylan: "Everybody MUST get stoned! ..." Berserker-Dragonheads Division : "If I won the lottery, well I would buy several of ..." Recent Entries
Daily Tech News 2 April 2023
Saturday Overnight Open Thread (4/1/23) Saturday Evening Movie Thread 04/01/2023 [TheJamesMadison] The Weekend Hobby Thread Ace of Spades Pet Thread, April 1 Saturday Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, April 1 Newsom Nightmares Saturday Morning Coffee Break & Prayer Revival EMT 4/1/23 Daily Tech News 1 April 2023 Search
Polls! Polls! Polls!
Frequently Asked Questions
The (Almost) Complete Paul Anka Integrity Kick
Primary Document: The Audio
Paul Anka Haiku Contest Announcement Integrity SAT's: Entrance Exam for Paul Anka's Band AllahPundit's Paul Anka 45's Collection AnkaPundit: Paul Anka Takes Over the Site for a Weekend (Continues through to Monday's postings) George Bush Slices Don Rumsfeld Like an F*ckin' Hammer Top Top Tens
Democratic Forays into Erotica New Shows On Gore's DNC/MTV Network Nicknames for Potatoes, By People Who Really Hate Potatoes Star Wars Euphemisms for Self-Abuse Signs You're at an Iraqi "Wedding Party" Signs Your Clown Has Gone Bad Signs That You, Geroge Michael, Should Probably Just Give It Up Signs of Hip-Hop Influence on John Kerry NYT Headlines Spinning Bush's Jobs Boom Things People Are More Likely to Say Than "Did You Hear What Al Franken Said Yesterday?" Signs that Paul Krugman Has Lost His Frickin' Mind All-Time Best NBA Players, According to Senator Robert Byrd Other Bad Things About the Jews, According to the Koran Signs That David Letterman Just Doesn't Care Anymore Examples of Bob Kerrey's Insufferable Racial Jackassery Signs Andy Rooney Is Going Senile Other Judgments Dick Clarke Made About Condi Rice Based on Her Appearance Collective Names for Groups of People John Kerry's Other Vietnam Super-Pets Cool Things About the XM8 Assault Rifle Media-Approved Facts About the Democrat Spy Changes to Make Christianity More "Inclusive" Secret John Kerry Senatorial Accomplishments John Edwards Campaign Excuses John Kerry Pick-Up Lines Changes Liberal Senator George Michell Will Make at Disney Torments in Dog-Hell Greatest Hitjobs
The Ace of Spades HQ Sex-for-Money Skankathon A D&D Guide to the Democratic Candidates Margaret Cho: Just Not Funny More Margaret Cho Abuse Margaret Cho: Still Not Funny Iraqi Prisoner Claims He Was Raped... By Woman Wonkette Announces "Morning Zoo" Format John Kerry's "Plan" Causes Surrender of Moqtada al-Sadr's Militia World Muslim Leaders Apologize for Nick Berg's Beheading Michael Moore Goes on Lunchtime Manhattan Death-Spree Milestone: Oliver Willis Posts 400th "Fake News Article" Referencing Britney Spears Liberal Economists Rue a "New Decade of Greed" Artificial Insouciance: Maureen Dowd's Word Processor Revolts Against Her Numbing Imbecility Intelligence Officials Eye Blogs for Tips They Done Found Us Out, Cletus: Intrepid Internet Detective Figures Out Our Master Plan Shock: Josh Marshall Almost Mentions Sarin Discovery in Iraq Leather-Clad Biker Freaks Terrorize Australian Town When Clinton Was President, Torture Was Cool What Wonkette Means When She Explains What Tina Brown Means Wonkette's Stand-Up Act Wankette HQ Gay-Rumors Du Jour Here's What's Bugging Me: Goose and Slider My Own Micah Wright Style Confession of Dishonesty Outraged "Conservatives" React to the FMA An On-Line Impression of Dennis Miller Having Sex with a Kodiak Bear The Story the Rightwing Media Refuses to Report! Our Lunch with David "Glengarry Glen Ross" Mamet The House of Love: Paul Krugman A Michael Moore Mystery (TM) The Dowd-O-Matic! Liberal Consistency and Other Myths Kepler's Laws of Liberal Media Bias John Kerry-- The Splunge! Candidate "Divisive" Politics & "Attacks on Patriotism" (very long) The Donkey ("The Raven" parody) |