For 'old' people..

[modernhamlet]

I was wondering... back in the "old days", did you guys also walk 20 miles to school, uphill both ways, barefoot, in blinding snowstorms?

 

[tstenback]

Yes and the wind was blowing in your face both ways too

 

[Synastic]

I was wondering... back in the "old days", did you guys also walk 20 miles to school, uphill both ways, barefoot, in blinding snowstorms?

You are gonna get smacked by the old people for asking that.

 

[tstenback]

Yeh i never thought of that....SLAP!

 

[Lateral Line]

>>>
You could buy an official 'turtle tank' which was a 12 inch plastic bowl with a stairway up to a 1 inch plastic palm tree.
<<<

I believe my sister had exactly that model! With 2 Red Eared Terrapins on it.

I converted to trops in about 1965. The scary stuff was the heater and the, quite seperate thermostat. The stat was a dark green box, usually a Rena or Uno SlikStat or KonStat, that hung on the outside of the tank with a metal plate in contact with the glass, and a knob on the other side facing out. A small neon lamp was at the front top. It contained a bimetallic strip which mechanically switched as the temperature changed.

The thing was, you had to manually connect this to your heater. To do that, it was necessary to cut into, not cut, but cut into the heater wire, to expose the insulated conductors. Then cut just the live line and wire it to a terminal block with the 2 leads from the SlikStat connected to the other side to act as a switch. Actually the terminal block was optional, there were many that just twisted the wires together and added a bit of insulation tape to cover the evidence.

Airpumps also were like small compressors then, they had a motor driving a flywheel from which one or more pistons compressed the air. They were silent in them days - such is progress. Air operated filters were all there were.

My tropical mentor, a bloke named Dave, had trops in his cellar, they were heated by paraffin burners under the slate base of his tanks, glass would crack. (I don't know what Americans call paraffin, it is an oil product not unlike modern aviation fuel).

Wow, this is nostalgia!

*** EDIT ***

Ooooh, something I forot! Tanks were made of angle iron in them days and glazed using putty like windows! You could take a wall or the base out and change it if it cracked!

 

[Synastic]

>>>
You could buy an official 'turtle tank' which was a 12 inch plastic bowl with a stairway up to a 1 inch plastic palm tree.
<<<

I believe my sister had exactly that model! With 2 Red Eared Terrapins on it.

I converted to trops in about 1965. The scary stuff was the heater and the, quite seperate thermostat. The stat was a dark green box, usually a Rena or Uno SlikStat or KonStat, that hung on the side of the tank with a metal plate in contact with the glass, and a knob on the other side facing out. A small neon lamp was at the front top. It contained a bimetallic strip which mechanically switched as the temperature changed.

The thing was, you had to manually connect this to your heater. To do that, it was necessary to cut into, not cut, but cut into the heater wire, to expose the insulated conductors. Then cut just the live line and wire it to a terminal block with the 2 leads from the SlikStat connected to the other side to act as a switch. Actually the terminal block was optional, there were many that just twisted the wires together and added a bit of insulation tape to cover the evidence.

Airpumps also were like small compressors then, they had a motor driving a flywheel from which one or more pistons compressed the air. They were silent in them days - such is progress. Air operated filters were all there were.

My tropical mentor, a bloke named Dave, had trops in his cellar, they were heated by paraffin burners under the slate base of his tanks, glass would crack. (I don't know what Americans call paraffin, it is an oil product not unlike modern aviation fuel).

Wow, this is nostalgia!

*** EDIT ***

Ooooh, something I forot! Tanks were made of angle iron in them days and glazed using putty like windows! You could take a wall or the base out and change it if it cracked!

No wonder the oldens talk about the past. So much has changed and I mean it.