the butt patrol

[Wilson Gray]

On Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 8:02 AM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Even in my day, "bindle" was a rather esoteric term in everyday life.

That's certainly true. If I hadn't read an SF story entitled
Bindlestiff and wondered, What does that word - and related words -
mean?

"[T]he bindlestiff was a migrant who stole from other migrants — he
robbed their bindles, the bags they carried their few belongings in."

It's doubtful that I would have _bindle_ and _bindlestick_ at the
ready. But, OTOH, isn't it ordinary to be *able* to discuss more
things than you actually *do* discuss?

> What's more shocking is that a bindle would be carried at the "end" of a
> stick.
>
> Gravity says it should be tied onto the stick and allowed to sink to the
> shoulder, with the end of the stick projecting out behind.

If the bindlestick were sufficiently long that the weight of the
bindle balanced the the weight of its carrier's arm, then the bindle
would, for all practical purposes have only negligible weight.

> But today's hoboes undoubtedly prefer backpacks and gym bags, just as those
> of a hundred years ago preferred Civil War style blanket rolls.

Very few people-on-the-street know how to carry a backpack. The weight
of the pack should *rest on* the shoulders* and not *dangle from*
them. Seeing everyday people miscarrying backpacks makes me cringe.
When you think about it, if there wasn't some trick to it, there'd be
no way that an ordinary, couch-potato city-boy could complete a walk -
technically, a "road-march" - of twenty miles with a sixty-pound pack
on his back, after a mere four weeks of only moderately-strenuous
exercise, and live to tell about it. (FWIW, by the time that we had
arrived at the bivouac area, we wanted water more than we wanted rest.
Remember how cowboys had to keep the cattle from stampeding, when they
smelled water? It was like that, for the cadre. BTW, the water was
stored in "Lister bags." Hadn't ever heard of or seen such things
before. Haven't heard of or seen such things since.)

> And you can't carry a whole lot on a "stick." Â I think the stick image must
> have originated with nineteenth-century kids packing a few sandwiches while
> goin' fishin'.

Youneverknow.

--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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