Tag Archives: truth

Lubricating the Works – –

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Jack has been ‘hors de combat’ the last week and a half but may be back in the saddle now – – there’s a joke in there – –

It’s been a rough time with stomach issues I thought were simply constipation and trapped gas (TMI?). So my first port of call involved childhood memories – the dreaded castor oil!

When I was just a wee boy my mother was encouraged by the British government to feed me castor oil to make me ‘regular’, so I came to hate it no matter how she tried to disguise it! One of her gambits was to try to mix it with orange juice but of course they didn’t, and to this day a whiff of orange zest can make me nauseous!

But ten or so years later I became deeply involved in building and flying model planes and most of them were powered with engines – diesel engines! The ‘must have’ was the Oliver Tiger, and I eventually could afford one! What does this have to do with castor oil I hear you ask? Have you guessed yet??

Small single cylinder diesel engines run on a mixture of air and fuel under compression – the fuel is a mixture of ether (yes –actual ether) and castor oil which came in cans from a company called – wait for it – Castrol! They don’t need a spark or glo plug – no battery needed.

So – as usual a mixture of good and not so good memories.

But it seems that the stomach issues are probably gastric flu – so gastro enteritis which I must have picked up somewhere!

Smoke and Mirrors – –

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Jack is very late or very early this time – –

I started to smoke cigarettes when I was about 15 or 16. The ‘tuck shop’ across the street from my high school sold them from ‘under the counter’ – packs of five ‘Woodbines’ or even singly! Back then in the 1950s it was cool and most of my generation started out that way. Almost everyone we knew smoked and you might even have seemed strange if you didn’t!

Of course all the favorite movie stars smoked – Bacall, Bogart, etc.

In the college where I worked you could still smoke anywhere up until the 1980s – classrooms, workshops – wherever – –

I’ve tried often to quit – cold turkey or a pipe but it never worked – –

But for various reasons it is now necessary to bid them goodbye – –

I decided to try ‘vaping’ as both an alternative and a route to stopping completely. That took a bit of a leap in the dark as I know nothing about vaping. But a visit to a local small store and a conversation with the owner explained a lot and so did some research via Dr. Google. Now, vaping isn’t perfect either but at least I’m not sucking actual smoke into me, but mostly water vapor.

Obviously I shouldn’t be encouraging anyone to start vaping for any other reason than as a means of quitting, but I can certainly attest that it is definitely helping me with that. It’s been three days now and I haven’t been tempted to go for a cigarette.

Wish me luck – – –