In Reply to: For space history lovers posted by Victor Khomenko on December 18, 2018 at 07:47:44:
I don't get net flick, but your mention of gold teeth caused me to respond.Seeing the soviet working class with stainless steel front teeth made a lasting impression on this guy.
I well remember the suited young man running for the trolly to go to work, digging into one of the dried perch that were strung from many apartment balconies, with his steel front teeth. I didn't see much of the privileged class when I was there, just the cars they had, which were easy to spot. People were super nice, except for the few who followed the no americans allowed party line.
You might enjoy how they dealt with american sailors during the grain trade in the seventies.
At first, they put a guide with every person going ashore. This didn't work, the guides kept getting punched out , leaving the sailors to tour on their own.
So they got smart, having you to leave your seamans documents with the armed guard at the base of the gangway . If you returned before midnight, you got your papers back, to use again the next day. if not, they kept your document until sailing, no shore leave for you.
Although the docks were behind the usual secured gates, each ship had three armed guards, at the front, back and gangway, with machine guns, not side arms. The result was a lot of guys looking for a taxi around 11:30 , and staying out late on the night before sailing.
People were so polite , they would never correct my language pronunciation. I always try to at least learn to say thank you , where is the toilet, that kind of thing. The problem was if they understood , they would say I was speaking correctly. It took some time to learn to say thank you correctly, as I first leaned it phonetically from another sailor. I was saying space ce bo for the longest time. thankfully for me, the folks were well educated, english speaking was common., because I was getting nowhere with signage.
If you are ever in Los angeles, they have a nice engine display in the space shuttle hanger. After looking at all the monkey motion of car engines, to see such a simple engine capable of so much power, is quite a change. The shuttle, all you can see is the outside, I had hoped for more. They also have an external fuel tank so the display will change when that is installed.
Edits: 12/20/18
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Follow Ups
- RE: For space history lovers - beach cruiser 21:01:38 12/20/18 (1)
- Nice story! - Victor Khomenko 10:13:36 12/21/18 (0)