Speakeasy forum: Old fuddies...look here

Right now I'd give a shiny new penny for an old fashioned shovel that was designed by someone who actually had to use one. These curvy ergonomic contraptions they offer now aren't worth crap.

I'd like to see you get those on a plane in your carry-on luggage today.

oils in the wood. Treating new tool handles with repeated rubbed-in vegetable oil works too. My 86 year old neighbour, a construction worker until he retired, had the most beautifully kept tools I ever saw, and was still incredibly spry at 86. Maybe the oil soaked into him and made him incredibly durable too.

I remember seeing people in Greece, Turkey and much of the Middle East using hoes like this 45 years ago, and probably could have seen it 2 millenia ago too. It never caught on in many parts of Europe which were responsible for settling North America, because of the clay soils there. Too wet, heavy and arduous to work with hoes, therefore the plough and shovel tended to dominate.

However the term Greek Ho(e) gives rise to any number of really distasteful and bad jokes.

Rob

The primary industry...if not the only industry...is tourism and selling carvings from olive wood is the livelihood of many. I've seen a lot of their work and I suspect they've gone high tech. I swear they're laser cutting some of the more intricate patterns and details and especially those that pass completely through the wood.