Flask halves

[sussexmuzllodr]

Funny how you mentioned the clam meat was considered waste. I didn't know that until I was a teenager when a bunch of us kids took boats on the Mississippi and went swimming near a sandbar on the opposite side of the river. We could feel the clams in the sand underwater with our feet and gathered up a pretty good haul of 6" to 9" fat ones, I thought might be good for eating. We commonly took catfish out the Mississippi in those days and they were a real treat. When I got home, Dad asked me what I intended to do with them. When I told him I thought we might fry them, he laughed and said the meat was terrible and fit only for feeding hogs. Then he had me go dig hole in the woods behind our house to bury them before they began to stink.

That same Paternal Grandfather probably had at least something to do with me getting interested in black powder. Dad took us to see his folks frequently as we grew up and Grandpa's hugely long garage and workshop was a great place to explore. One day when I was around 11, I spotted what looked like a small cannon and asked Grandpa about it. He chuckled and said, "I wondered where that had gotten to.." As a young man, he had taken the barrel off a single shot percussion pistol and turned it into a cannon. I didn't realize it for years later, but the wheels he used were from scrapped metal working machines, larger ones on each side and a small one in the rear, so the cannon would roll under recoil. The barrel was held onto a bent piece of flat stock with good size round steel bands. When I asked him if it worked, he got a humorously ornery look in his eye and said, "Sure, do you want to see it fired?" Of course I agreed with enthusiasm.

This was in the mid 1960'a mind you and he pulled out a severely rusted one pound can of Curtis and Harvey black powder, probably left over from the 1930's. He used an old teaspoon to get the powder into the muzzle and I swear he filled half the 8 inch barrel with it. He packed it in with old newspapers right up to the muzzle. Then he found some surprisingly new looking cannon fuse and cut a length about 6 inches long and stuck in in the threaded hole in the breech where a nipple was supposed to go, all the while grinning from ear to ear like the Cheshire Cat. It happened to have been a Saturday and the park across the gravel road from his work shop was full of kids playing. He put the cannon outside the work shop door and didn't point it at the kids, but in the direction of the park. He lit the fuse, jumped back inside the shop next to where I was standing and slammed the door closed. We waited for what seemed like ages and then that cannon ROARED much louder than any firecracker or 12 Ga shotgun I ever heard, even from inside the closed shop. When he opened the door and we peeked out, stunned kids all over the park were staring in our direction and he began laughing. The cannon had flipped over and landed about 6 feet to the rear of where he had set it off.

It didn't take but a short while when we heard Grandma's voice from the house 40 yards away. She yelled his full first, middle and last name loud enough we both jumped and told us to come in the house right away. He smiled sheepishly and said, "Your Grandma is going to be mad for days, but it's worth it." When we got inside the house, she chewed him out royally for doing it (again) after she had told him long ago not to do it again. Then she lit into me saying I had better not follow the example of my Grandpa in such foolishness ever again. When she finished and we escaped back to the work shop, he was laughing so hard tears came to his eyes.

A few years later when I bought my first ML Rifle in January 1972 while home on boot camp leave, he helped me make a powder horn and cast balls for it all in one day. In later years when I came home on leave, I always made a point of visiting him a few times each time I came home. He was always so tickled to show me the projects he worked on and was tickled pink to see things I was working on and hear about my work as a NM Military Armorer. I was the only of his five Grandsons who worked with his hands in any wood or metal trade and that meant a lot to him.

Thank you and Treestalker for the kind words and fond remembrances as well.

Gus

Nice Story Gus.

 

[tenngun]

I had read it was the snail, channel welk. So after your post had to look it up, quick and dirty to Wikipedia. Take that for what’s it’s worth. Anyway it said the white came from the snail, and put oil/black came from the quahog .
Lot of work for one bead.

 

[Gun Tramp]

Lot of work for one bead.

That's what the clam said, too.

 

[toot]

Actually the wampum beads were, and still are, made from quahog shell. Hard to appreciate the work involved to fashion uniform beads by hand.
View attachment 49423

QUAHOG.!! now that is NEW ENGLAND!!! QUAHOG CHOWDER IS just the best on a cold winter day, actually any day. or as they / we say in NEW ENGLAND, CHOWDDA!!

 

[appalichian hunter]

TOOT the chowda is good but give me a plate of fried hole belly's any day.

 

[tenngun]

Clams, snails ,squid, octopus , muscles, oysters, abalone, conch, the only one that taste better is the one I’m about to eat.
Chowder New England Washington or New York ,bouillabaisse , gumbo, fried,baked,half shell, uhmmm. Never met a mollusks I don’t like

 

[Artificer]

QUAHOG.!! now that is NEW ENGLAND!!! QUAHOG CHOWDER IS just the best on a cold winter day, actually any day. or as they / we say in NEW ENGLAND, CHOWDDA!!

And if you don't want an adult beverage with it, don't forget the "Tonic."

BTW, is it still New England Chowdda if it is clear, rather than milky? I was surprised one time I ordered Chowdda in Connecticut and it came clear. It was still good, but it caught me off guard.

Gus

 

[toot]

there is ,RHODE ISLAND IS CLEAR, AND WITH CREAM / MILK, NEW ENGLAND AND MANHATTEN with RED SOURCE/, TOMATO PASTE. that is the 3 kinds of it. and using the word 'TONIC' should put you in the state of MASSACHUTES? any way they, all 3 kinds are good! they are also good on the half shell with hot source! they are called CHERRY STONES!

 

[appalichian hunter]

Funny story a few years ago the wife and I took a trip through new England, I believe it was on the cape one evening we stopped for dinner on the menu was a bucket of steamers, well where we hail from a steamer is a ground burger sandwich so after a bit of head rubbing we ask the waitress what it was and low and behold the little clams arrived. The next morning while getting gas to continue our trip the fellow at the station looked at the license plate and ask if we were heading home to which I replied no heading for Martha's vineyard, he then said to be sure to try the fried clams there that they were the best damn clams he ever ate. He was right.

 

[Marc Adamchek]

Quahog = Wampum 'nuff said (I bin collectin' it on Cape Cod National Seashore and Brewster Flats (Bay Side) for over 40 years

 

[Artificer]

there is ,RHODE ISLAND IS CLEAR, AND WITH CREAM / MILK, NEW ENGLAND AND MANHATTEN with RED SOURCE/, TOMATO PASTE. that is the 3 kinds of it. and using the word 'TONIC' should put you in the state of MASSACHUTES? any way they, all 3 kinds are good! they are also good on the half shell with hot source! they are called CHERRY STONES!

Absolutely correct on the use of the word "tonic." It was used by a woman I used to date who was born and raised in Boston and her two adult daughters. I didn't realize it was MASS specific, though.

Gus

 

[toot]

BARSTAN!, they have a distinct accent / language from the rest of MASSACHUTES!! WHY?? another distinct word for TONIC, is, I will have a SODA / SODIE, POP! they interchange, POP for TONIC. STRANGE??

 

[Pukka Bundook]

I used clam shells to make "Mother of pearl" inlays for a matchlock, late 16th/

early 17thC style.

 

[Pukka Bundook]

Clam shells are the white -looking ones.

 

[Artificer]

Clam shells are the white -looking ones.

Wow, you must have spent quite some time inletting all those things.

Gus

 

[Pukka Bundook]

Hello Gus,
Trust all is well.
Yes, there are quite a few inlays. 300 and odd if I remember right. It was all enjoyable work though. Just did a few as I had time..