Friday, August 06, 2010
The Pied Piper
Did ya ever wonder...
"The Pied Piper"...
What caused him to be "Pied"?
Did Soupy Sales or the Three Stooges get to him?
I had to look it up. Cinders, DJ, and GH will have an advantage here, as will those who know why Elizabeth Taylor's horse in "National Velvet" was called "The Pie".
The term "Pied" is related to "Piebald", and means "many colored".
So apparently the Pied Piper, along with playing the flute better than Ian Anderson, was a pretty colorful dresser.
All the above is tangential.
I drove to work tonight to find that while I was sleeping today in preparation for my second night of 10 in a row, crews had oiled and chipped the last two miles of road leading to my workplace. I was lucky in that it wasn't blazingly hot, so my tires didn't pick up the oily rocks and throw them down the sides of my car.
But it brought back memories I knew I could share with you...
I can remember like yesterday when they first oiled and chipped all the roads in the Sutton addition. I think every kid with a bicycle showed up to watch the crews and follow them as the oil truck first laid down a coat of tar, with dump trucks following and dispensing rock on top of the tar.
They may as well have been "The Pied Piper"!
As I recall, there were also a couple guys with shovels following along to add rock where dump trucks might not have laid down a heavy enough layer.
It was fascinating to watch, and more so because with most of the neighborhood kids watching it became a social event. I'm sure we all came home with bicycle tires speckled with spots of tar, and we probably had tar samples on shoes, other parts of clothing, and maybe even some body parts.
A fond memory for me, and I've shared it with you.
Traffic has been mighty sparse here lately...
Have you a fond memory to share this Friday?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
GB Thanks for the post, sure does bring back memories, can't stay right now but will be back later. Have a Great Friday and blessings to all.
dj
Our "Pied Piper" was the Mr. Softee man. Had to get a chocolate ice cream cone every afternoon. Mr. Softee even gave our dog Rebel free ice cream every day.
That also reminds me of one of my favorite songs of the 60s..."The Pied Piper" by Crispia St. Peters. Heard the song on XM the other day, and they said Crispian recently died.
Thanks Helen for the tweak.
I shoulda embedded that video before I published this post!
After we got to drive. It seems like they would just add tar to the road. Then after it got all over my car they would add the stones. Then I had a chipped window. That 58 Impala convertible seems like it would show a million tar balls each and ever trip. But hey the gas was less than $.25 a gallon so I could use it to clean it off. (till dad caught me)
I hope it is not as hot where ya'll are at as it is down here.
H of H&C
We had the tar treatment in BoMar too, I have many memories of that. Cleaning tar off the car was top job for me. Then getting it off my clothes and feet! I'll never forget how those chips of rock hurt my bare feet for weeks after is was put down and the hundreds of "tar bubbles" on hot days on the streets of lovely BoMar.
Bo
Post a Comment