Carniespeak...there was a form of jazzed up carnie piglatin when I was a young feller...I don't remember anything but a few base words...Donnacker is the crapper..as in if a rube askes for the boss or anybody you send him to see "Mister Donnacker, just ask around, he was just here..." Slough, meaning to take the show down and load it aboard trucks... Dukeit, conceal what's in your hand, especially money. Roughie, he services the jointies...stolen credit cards, whatever they need. (Ours was on the lamb from the joint) Good times...camels were 25 cents, gaso 21 cents. Learned how to bribe inspectors! I was an electrician, but did every job, learned more than I did at college!View attachment 252920
Just finished and thoroughly enjoyed "Eyeing the Flash" by Peter Fenton. "Flash" is carny lingo for the prizes -- plush stuffed animals, etc. -- that are given away in carnival midway games. I've always had a thing for books about outsiders, such as outlaw bikers, prisoners, slaves, alcoholics. This book fits the bill.
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This is one of my favorite outsider books. Written in 1935, it's a first-hand account of being a hobo during the Great Depression.
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Another good one. About a homeless man from Austin and his dog.
Well! That’s one I have to add to my read list !Two heavies, and a bio of Uncle Albert (Einstein)
Soviet Military Deception in the Second World War, Glantz.... It seems that the nazi armies were poorly led, and the degenerate commies' deciding advantage was their superior mastery of deception...the armies were approximately matched so far as numbers, but the commies had better stuff and simply outfought the nazis, which armies were not "German" but actually European... Interestingly, sonar21 (he's an intelguy) opines and others as well, that today the Great Armies of Democracy study the methods of the WW2 losers... If so, that 'splains a lot.
Losing Military Superiority, Martyanov (cat taught at West Point, and went to Soviet Military Colleges, etc.)
As you do, I too have many dead family members, relations, who were Germans in the War My case> wealthy, a big family of industrialists...they all perished and their villa in Frankfurt as well as their real estate and wealth were blasted to bits... I retain the key to the family walled garden...that's it. In '62 I saw it, a vacant lot. Made inquiries... O Ya, Er ist tote... I have read letters in gothic cursive German that expressed opinions "highly congruent with nazi propaganda" from long dead aunts to their long dead sisters. Actually there are no words for the horrors of war. Evidently it's repeating, in rhyme...a terrible pity. Best! 40NWell! That’s one I have to add to my read list !
Yes, despite the much vaunted “blitzkrieg”, reported by the allies, Germany was not prepared for war at all.
My grandfather ( Hauptmann., wheremacht forward observation officer, long range and siege guns) started the war with horses, and finished the same way
A veteran of all the winters in Russia, his combat logs are a litany of poor high command decisions…one of the worst was hitlers “ fortified city” concepts in the east..
That guaranteed encirclement by the Russians
He was for example, one of only 55 survivors at the fortified city of Ternopol (il) in Ukraine. As a FOO, he could maneuver with his FOO sections …everyone else , 6000 men. Perished or worse, was taken captive.
As hard is it is to fathom, the “Ostkrieg” was total, so total that we forget that 85 % of the German war machine was in Russian on our D Day…
His logs are very telling of the collapse at the end. Prussian by birth and a graduate of the military college system in the republic, he had been in commissioned and service 5 years before the national socialists came came to power . Always truthful in his character, one of his last entries records an intense and short close range duel between his FOO sections Stug 3 crew and , an SS blocking section preventing their withdrawal. The SS men did not survive the engagement with their fellow countrymen….
I got half way through this but became bored with the constant Drugs, Shagging , Drugs, booze, drugs, shagging............This is on the bedside right now. Just a quarter the way through but boy has this lad had a life.
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The Red Hot Chili Peppers front man.