Ż Janada was discussing "Stupidest New Law Redux" with Wayne. ®
CYŻ What of the soil from other parts of California -- what made
CYŻ them inferior to the San Joaquin Soil?
WT> All VERY good questions!
WT> Hell, I -=LIVE=- in the middle of the San Joaquin valley, and I
WT> have NO IDEA WHATSOEVER what they mean by "San Joaquin Valley
WT> Soil".
JOŻ (209) I thought that area code looked familiar. Fresno? I lived
JOŻ in Bakersfield for 12 years.
Kinda' close.  Stockton actually.  About 120mi North of Fresno on
Highway 99.
JOŻ Now, I don't know what *THEY* mean by San Joaquin Soil, but I
JOŻ know that it's "special soil"! It's so special it's the only
JOŻ soil you can get San Joaquin Valley Fever from.
Yep, that's something ELSE San Joaquin Valley Soil is "famous" for
besides being great for growing stuff in.  We're really "blessed" in
the disease department, as we also have "Tularemia" named after
Tulare, Ca. also known as "Rabbit Fever" or "San Joaquin Valley
Spotted Fever".
Living in an area that has not one, but TWO diseases named after it
has GOT to mean something.  Exactly what, I'm not sure of...
JOŻ Yippee! Did you ever hear the legend that the spores are from
JOŻ dust of the bones from American Indians that had their burial
JOŻ grounds disturbed?  Shades of Poltergeist! ;)
As a matter of fact, I HADN'T heard that!  Thanks for the info!!!
JOŻ I don't know how true that is, but every time there was a dust
JOŻ storm I'd have a bad allergy attack, and almost all the major
JOŻ outbreaks of Valley Fever follow a dust storm. Weird, huh?
Well, the spores that cause valley fever live in the ground, and
it's not uncommon to have outbreaks after a dust storm.  The last
really bad dust storm we had here was about six years ago, and there
were a couple dozen reported cases of fever, and a couple of deaths.
JOŻ I never had an allergy in my life until I moved there 18 years
JOŻ ago, and I still have them.
The odd thing is that I was born here in Stockton, and up until I
went into the Army in 1969 I NEVER had any kind of an allergy.
After being out of the valley for four-years and a few odd months I
came back and now I'm ALLERGIC to EVERYTHING!!!  Sometime I think
that I'm the guy who's keeping the "Actifed" company solvent...
JOŻ The doctors out there later figured I'd caught a mild touch of
JOŻ Valley Fever when the first signs of allergy came up.  (My
JOŻ brother lived there too, and he tested positive for it, same
JOŻ symptoms as mine).
Almost everybody who lives here for any length of time ends up
catching it.  Most people think they caught a cold, or a mild case
of flu, and never even think about seeing a doctor about it because
the symptoms are fairly mild...
JOŻ But I suppose we'll just be thankful for the "mild" cases, since
JOŻ a bad case can kill you!
Better than 75% of the cases are mild.  Valley fever is only a
problem if you are elderly, have a pre-existing medical condition
that can be aggravated by a disease that can have some fairly severe
upper respiratory symptoms, or if you happen to be one of the really
unlucky ones who happens to be really susceptible to the organism...
WT> Depending where you go in this valley, the soil can be adobe,
WT> loam, peat, or any of the above combined with sand and/or rocks
WT> from the size of dried peas up to the size of a VW bus...
JOŻ You got that right. I love the white rocks up by Lake Isabella.
JOŻ You know, I work security at a plant that actually molds bricks
JOŻ to *look* like that? They call it Kern Whiteriver Rocks. I guess
JOŻ it beats hauling the real thing half across the US.
That sounds very reasonable to me.  There's an outfit up in the
Sierras about an hours drive away from here that quarries a
dusty-rose colored granite.  They saw it into sheets about an eighth
of an inch thick, and then laminate it to Masonite to turn it into a
wall paneling.  The stuff wholesales for a couple hundred bucks a
sheet, but they can't make it fast enough.  It all goes to Japan,
Korea, Singapore, etc. for executive offices.
I know the guy that started the company, and even HE can't believe
how much of it he's selling in the Far East.  When he started the
business, he was thinking of -=maybe=- selling two-hundred sheets a
year, mostly to high-end interior decorators and the like.  Now he
is an exporter doing millions of dollars worth of business every
year, and has single-handedly SAVED the community he lives in by
starting a company that hires a lot of people to do a whole lot of
different things, pays a fair wage, and tries to do right by the
folks he has working for him.  In other words, a "typical `hippie'
entrepreneur", and I mean that in the BEST possible way...
Ain't America WONDERFUL???
WT> * Ż NRA Life Member, 1972 ® *
JOŻ So, are you an "extremist" too? 
Yep...  Every time I get a "Beg" letter from the NRA, I return it to
their main headquarters with a cover note saying "I Will will start
contributing to you again when you start representing me again".
All of my 2nd Amendment contributions now are evenly split between
GOA and JPFO (both of which I've joined as a yearly member)...
I know that my threat to the NRA won't mean much, all they have to
do is check my contribution records, and they'll see that my yearly
donations rarely exceeded $500.00 a year (and some years much less
than that).  HOWEVER, both GOA, and JPFO are really happy to see my
donations of an occasional $25.00 or $50.00.  BOTH of those
organizations have sent me thank-you notes.  Something that the NRA
NEVER bothered to do...
                              \x/7
.45 ACP:  ONE-HUNDRED years of successful practical testing!
... The "Mozambique Drill" is NOT a wood working tool!
---
 * Ż NRA Life Member, 1972 ® *
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