2025, Media, Movies, Mysteries, Uncategorized

Oblivious?

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I’ve probably seen the first 10 minutes of the movie Laura 100 times.  It’s one of my go-to bedtime movies.  I can actually recite the first five minutes of the movie by heart.  For fun, I had it on during the afternoon over the weekend and I just happened to look at the screen as Clifton Web and Dana Andrews had this discussion:

DA:  Three years ago in your October 17 column you started out to write a book review but then at the bottom of the column you switched over to the Harrington murder case
CW:  Are the processes of the creative mind now under the jurisdiction of the police?
DA: You said Harrington was rubbed out with a shotgun loaded with buckshot, the way Laura Hunt was murdered, the night before last.
CW: Did I?
DA: Yeah. But he was really killed with a sash weight.
CW: How ordinary. My version was obviously superior.

A sash weight?  Despite how many times I’ve seen this scene, I would never in a gzillion years been able to tell you Harrington got clobbered by a sash weight

I’m not sure which is more amazing, that the line could get by me SO many times or that I   actually know what a sash weight is.  I live in a house that still has sash weights.  I’ve even taken out a window with sash weights and then put it back!

My guess is that knowing about sash weights will become a fairly specialized bit of knowledge as the years go by.

Tell me about something that you know that seems a little rarer than it used to! 

43 thoughts on “Oblivious?”

  1. When I replaced all the ground floor windows in our house with modern double pane ones, I removed all the sash weights and stuffed the cavities with insulation. I suppose one would have to have quite a large window for the sash weight to be big enough to be an effective weapon.

    I know what oakum is and have used it appropriately.

    I still plumb with copper pipe and silver solder; a lot of the professionals have shifted to pex.

    I can identify many of the most popular nineteenth century stars of the stage by sight. That was no doubt a common ability about a century ago.

    One thing that surprised me when I made a cowboy shirt using a print fabric I designed using an image of radio tubes, people kept asking me what they were—they had no recognition of them.

    Radio Tubes B

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    1. I’ve only heard the version in the movie, but I recognized it immediately. This is a very nice version as well. And I could never have told you the name of the song either. Yay Bill.

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  4. Wine corks made of real cork. Screw tops are gradually taking over. It started with cheap wines trying to save money (cork is far more expensive than an aluminum screw top.) Over the years, screw tops have worked their way up to better/more expensive wines. They’ll eventually be the standard because they’re far more airtight than corks (relatively speaking) which means no wine can possibly go bad; i.e., become “corked” if the bottle is sealed with a screw top.

    Chris in Owatonna

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    1. And I haven’t researched this, but I would be willing to guess that even when you do find a bottle with a cork in it, the cork isn’t always made of cork anymore is it?

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      1. There are foam synthetic corks but I think also some of the corks are “manufactured” from cork waste. Pressed together bits of cork. Chris could probably expound on that if that is the case.

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        1. Right you are Bill. I’m not sure I’ve seen foam corks in my wine bottles, but anything that seals out air well can be used, as long as it doesn’t affect the taste of the wine or crumble when wet. 😉

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  5. Rise and Shine, BAboons,

    I was surprised to discover that after examined the picture and thought about it, I do know what a sash weight is!

    I know quite a bit about food preservation which was once common. If there is a recession/depression around the corner (and I suspect there will be) it may come back into more common use. There are people who still do this, though. That becomes evident during a trip to Fleet Farm. They have an aisle and a half full of canning supplies.

    Words of wisdom: only freeze corn. Never can it. The sugar content of corn is very high and it promotes the growth of contaminates. The jars explode which is quite dangerous.
    ANd that reminds me. I need to clean out my freezer. Too much frost.

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    1. I had to teach myself to can and preserve because this was nothing in my mother’s wheelhouse. Luckily, the very first book I checked out from the library gave me the tip about never canning corn.

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  6. I knew what that header picture was! I wondered how you got one of my pictures.
    There was a sash weight as a door closer in our old milk house when I was growing up. I probably asked what it was, but it didn’t mean anything to me.
    At some point I learned what they really are, and just last summer I bought a box of 12 to use almost as actual sash weights in a show. Except in this case, the entire window frame moved up and down in a frame, not just the sash. One never knows when they may need a good solid sash weight…

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  7. I know about Quonset Huts.
    NDSU bought a bunch of WW2 surplus. I saw them on University Drive in Fargo whenever my dad took me up to his assignment at Hector North Dakota Air Guard.
    You’ll see them often in film. Or Gomer Pyle, USMC.

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    1. There were several quonset huts behind the hotel where I worked in Greenland. They served as overflow housing when the number of guest stranded at the airport due to weather conditions exceeded the hotel’s bed count.

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    3. I spent my first two+ years living in a Quonset hut. University Village off Como Ave. Dad was a student at U of M and that’s what he could afford working part time. Those huts are long gone. Weren’t even there when I went to the U in the mid-70s.

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    4. When I was a kid growing up in Owatonna, there were quonset huts on the north end of town. They housed migrant workers who were welcomed, housed, given health care and dental care (my dad was their dentist), and put to work harvesting crops for small pay. These were located across the road from the city dog park on CR 45, just south of the new roundabout. (If you’re familiar with Owatonna.) They came every year in the spring and left after harvest. I can’t imagine living through the summer in those steel quonset huts. Yikes.

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      2. Pink wasn’t always a color. Its name comes from dianthus, also known as “pinks”, but “pinks” gets their name not from their color but from their fringed, “pinked” edges.

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    2. YA and I made polar bear soaps for Solstice a few years ago. I think of it as cheater soap since all we did was purchase soap flakes from Michaels. I got the polar bear forms off the internet – they ended up arriving from Russia, if I was reading all the stamps and markings on the box.

      Barb in Blackhoof, who used to be a regular here has just retired from making fabulous goat soaps – I’ve purchased a few and been gifted with a few. They are very nice.

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    3. We’ve made soap a couple of times. (When I say we, understand that my role was to stir the mixture.) We stirred it for a very long time without noticing any change. Then we got smart and used an immersion blender.

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  13. When Jimmy Carter died his grandson talked about the old rotary phone that was mounted on the wall in the Carters’ kitchen. He call it “a museum piece”. I have one of those.

    I would think of being clubbed with a sash weight more likely to be merely painful than fatal

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    1. Actually, they’re solid metal, probably lead. I think if you took a really good swing, you could easily bash somebody’s head in pretty well..

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  14. I don’t think I have any esoteric knowledge. I know acoustic musical instruments pretty well. I know surgical devices fairly well, and I have some. I also know dental instruments. I can tell the difference between large fish nets used by commercial fisheries and the DNR: seine nets, hoop nets, and trap nets.

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