Wishing Our Dear Bill
The Best Birthday Ever in Cyber Space.
Come one, come all
As you hear my Call
To gather around
To the keypad sound
Of my Happy Tap! Tap! Tap!
For My Special Friend Bill
Such a Chirpy Chap
Who turns Eighty Six Today
What can I Say
Except that I admire your Tenacity
And Your Capacity
To Keep Enthralling us Bill
With your Knowledge and Spiel
About days now gone
Written with Flair by a Remarkable Man
Who has given us all so much insight
Interspersed with pure delight
Bill at Eighty Six you hold your own
And I want you to Wear The Multiply Crown
For not only being our Octogenarian with the most
But for also being the perfect blog host.
Happy Birthday Bill.
To visit you and have you visit us
Is always the best Thrill.
********************************
Please wish Bill a Happy Birthday here or in comments below.
Happy Birthday Bill. Hope there's not as much rust on you as on the contraption in the photo above!!! LOL.
ReplyDeleteROFLOL..Thanks Mitch..love your comment.
ReplyDeleteDo you know what any of those contraptions are?
ReplyDeleteBill, here's a great big Texas wish for a happy birthday.
ReplyDeleteMilli, that's a treadle sewing machine stand that is holding what ever that big thing is, would love to have what ever it is. The item in the background is a scale of some sort. I have something similar but not that complete and type.
today is a day of many bdays it seems..and to you good Sir Bill a very blessed bday
ReplyDeleteThanks Lynda you are correct and the big thing is a Bath!!! an old tin bath.
ReplyDeletelovely milli
ReplyDeletebill is such a treasure!!!:)
Thanks Gary I believe you are right.and I will pop over to see your birthday post for your friend too.
ReplyDeleteHe certainly is Heidi.
ReplyDeleteHAppy birthday! and what a wonderful photo and poem Milli!!!!
ReplyDeleteRust what rust.
ReplyDeleteThat's my hearing aid I'll have you know.
Thank you one and all and you Milli for your wonderful wishes.
ReplyDeleteI think the bath was called a hip bath, supported by a treadle machine with a shuttle and not a Bobin.
A favourite with Outworkers who were paid pennies for a dozen shirts
The weighing Machine for sacks of Coal and the Spring balance for livestock and produce.
The weights looked to be one hundred weight, 114 lbs.
A Very Happy Birthday to you Bill and may there be many more!
ReplyDeleteWOnderful pic and poem Milli and a great tribute to Bill.
Bill? Speak up will ya? I can hardly hear ya with that Bill, I mean Bell dinging in my ear, sounds like "bill-bong, ding-dong, bill-bong," So all them candles and that are gonna be rough to blow out so I thought I'd give ya this to use to blow them all out with. Happy B'day to ya!
ReplyDeletedanceinsilence.
ReplyDeleteI won't smell that much because in future I will have a bath in-between my birthdays.
So here is story with Ozzy roots ad I was 14 and 3 month.
'No Ted, you can't expect him to ride to work each day on his bike with hands like that. Look at him, look at his hands.'
Mum was taking my part after I dropped a teacup when wiping up one evening. Dad had refused my request to travel a part of the way to work by tram for a few days and where I walked the last one and a half miles.
My first few weeks at work was bad for hands that were soft, and not fully developed. My skin was no match for the rough metals and oils, and my charge hand took pity on me and gave me an easier job.
The PIV department (Positively Infinitely Variable), was the sales initials given to a variable speed gear box. Designed by a retired army Major named Thatcher it was my first workplace.
Among the many components were four springs named shoe springs and they provided the necessary tension to the chain adjusting shoes.
Designed to press on the power chain together with other complex mechanisms it provided the means of tensioning the driving chain of the variable speed gear wheels.
This was my first encounter with the gear box and manual work.
The shoe spring started life as a length of coiled spring similar to a curtain spring and it would be cut to length using hand cutters. Its two end loops would then be bent outwards with a chisel to allow space for long nosed pliers. It was the left thumb and forefinger that held the spring tight. With the right hand holding long nosed pliers, one twisting movement placed the two separated loops on top of the length of spring at right angles.
Nipping the finishing end of one of the loops provided a means of entry for the second loop at the other end of the spring.
To make this connection the thumb and forefinger of each hand twisted the pair together similar to putting a key on a key ring. That single looped shoe spring would be one of many hundreds I made each day until my swollen fingers and thumbs couldn't work anymore.
'You'll have to toughen up those hands,' said Charlie, after inspecting my bruised and twisted forefingers and thumbs.
Then seeing the detailed state of them he roared with laughter as he shouted to an adjacent adult worker.
'Hi Jack, come over here and show this kid your hands.'
Jack Martin's muscles seemed to leave the constricting flesh of his arm as he turned his palms upward.
His hands were large with badly deformed fingers where the years had hardened them to resist the ravages of the metal thus making his skin look to hide. The forefinger of each hand was bent towards the thumb by forty-five degrees. Today mine are bent twenty degrees.
'That's the sort of hands you need. You can clean up the shop
floor tomorrow morning. That will give you a rest and then
you'll have the weekend to do something with them.'
Charlie turned to thank Jack for his cooperation when Jack mumble something in reply.
'Well he's got to learn sometime Jack.' Retorted Charlie.
I thought Jack was being sympathetic to my plight but Charlie Porter had little time for such niceties. He was an Australian who worked the sheep farms.
'Where hard work really existed,' he would quote.
Love your fun Picture here Bill and " what a great idea for Birthday candles"..Yep on the 24th Bill will let you use that same machine too LOL.
ReplyDeleteHi Sharon and Mia its good to have your wishes for Bill here too.
ReplyDeleteBill I had read the story before ( as I have read many of your Stories from your books)
ReplyDeleteYou certainly are a man of many talents and you also know a thing or two about the old artifacts in my chosen photo above.
I hope the day was perfect for you. xo
YES Milli and thank you for it too and here I am referring to my Virtual Birthday.
ReplyDeleteThe real day was fine except for my dinner choice.
The wine was corked and the eggs for the omelette had the yokes of a pigeon.
Raised a few feathers too. lol
I bought the wrong ones.
So to you and your fine friends,THANK YOU.