My uncle told me to always keep a bag of marshmallows in the cab...

He was an old river dredge guy from the Ohio River, and he said it with a straight face. 'For the fog,' he told me. 'If you can't see the bank, you light one on a stick and hold it out the window. The smoke shows you which way the wind is blowing the fog.' I thought he was just pulling my leg, you know, a weird old-timer thing. But last fall, we were on a job near Pittsburgh and got socked in so thick you couldn't see the bow. The radar was acting up. I remembered the bag of marshmallows I'd thrown in as a joke. We lit one up, and sure enough, that little wisp of smoke gave us a clear drift direction. It bought us the ten minutes we needed to get oriented and drop anchor safely. Has anyone else ever gotten a piece of advice that sounded totally nuts but actually saved your bacon?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_drew1d ago

My grandpa swore by a potato in the toolbox for drawing out a splinter.

perry.nancy1d ago

I read about that old trick somewhere. The idea is the potato's moisture pulls the splinter to the surface overnight. It sounds like one of those weird home remedies that actually works sometimes. My aunt used a piece of raw onion for the same thing. I guess people used whatever they had in the kitchen back then. It's kind of neat how those old tips get passed down.