Is it possible...

[liberty]

Perhaps I got lost along the way, but I thought the comment was about black Africans: This guy is a Honkey; hell, he is more honkey than I am, just look at that nose. That aint a nose it’s a ski slope, you could sell tickets: : http://www.nobel-winners.com/Chemistry/aaron_klug.html


Aaron Klug - Timeline of Nobel Winners, 2002, 2001, 2000 ...
Aaron Klug (1926) British chemist who was awarded the 1982 Nobel Prize for Chemistry ... Klug was taken by his parents from Lithuania to South Africa when he ...
http://www.nobel-winners.com/Chemistry/aaron_​klug.html - Cached

[Sean]

Actually, what you posted gives more weight to my theory not yours. Thanks for saving me the trouble of researching it.

You do research? What part of "the dance was around before the stage shows" didn't you understand?

The part where I'm supposed to believe it just because you posted it...

Tap dance has roots in African American dancing such as the Juba Dance, English Lancashire Clog dancing,[1] and probably most notably Irish stepdancing. It is believed to have begun in the mid-1800s during the rise of minstrel shows. White performers would imitate Southern blacks and satirize their dance forms while incorporating step-dancing. In later minstrel shows, black performers in blackface would play roles in which they imitated the Irish imitation of black dance forms, further mixing the two. Famous as Jack Oxendine, William Henry Lane became one of the few black performers to join an otherwise white minstrel troupe, and is widely considered to be the most famous forebear of tap dance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tap_dance#History

I'll wait for you to provide a whit of evidence to support your ludicrous 'tap dancing on a pull-up bar' theory before I even consider changing my mind thank you very much!

[loCAtek]

note the background music;



...there is a relation.

[loCAtek]

Who can mistake the resemblance?

[Sean]

Nobody is disputing that dozyarse! I'm just waiting to see you come up with leprechauns tap dancing on big levers on the railroads.

[loCAtek]

Why is that? Or, is there a point you want to debate?

[Sean]

So you admit that your dancing leprechaun claim was total bollocks?

[loCAtek]

Good thing I didn't say that. Who said anything about leprechauns?
I asked a question; what did you want to debate?

FWIW page 345;

http://books.google.com/books?id=rU9dUa ... ry&f=false

[loCAtek]

Just a nice Flashmob;

[Sean]

Good thing I didn't say that. Who said anything about leprechauns?
I asked a question; what did you want to debate?

FWIW page 345;

http://books.google.com/books?id=rU9dUa ... ry&f=false

You came out with some crap about tap dancing being invented by the Irish dancing on railroad levers. Are you ready to admit that you pulled this out of your arse?

FWIW? Fuck all as it happens...

[Econoline]

Gandy dancer (article from Wikipedia)

Also...

Sorry I couldn't find a link to an audio or video version of this next bit...it's hilarious to hear Utah Phillips tell the tale (which eventually turns out to be a retelling of a really old joke):

The Worst Job I Ever Had (Moose Turd Pie!)
Utah Phillips
I'll tell you about the worst job I ever had. It was working for the Santa Fe Rail Road south of Las Vegas, Nevada. That's the old Mormon Muddy Mission, way out in what the Navajos called the "boonies", out in the desert. The job was gandy-dancing. Now, gandy-dancing used to be in the old days when the Irish were building the rail road. Of course, the first transcontinental rail road was built by Irish labor, and they used these long-handled shovels called "Irish Banjos" that were made by the Gandy Shovel Company of Chicago. Now, the Irish laborer would take the wide end of the shovel--when he could find it--and he would jam it in under the rail or tie, and he would climb out on the long handle...do a little jig step out there. And they would lever the tie up and they'd push gravel up underneath it, and tamp it down; and that leveled the road bed. See, that's what gandy-dancing is...leveling the road bed so the damn train didn't fall off as it goes by...which is just a big drag for everybody. (Link to a transcript of the whole thing.)

[loCAtek]

ThX Eco - nothing said about leprechauns anywhere then.

It is info hard to find, unless you know one of the original 'gandy-dancers' and/or are related to one...

While we didn't call them that in the West (the railroad workers most often spoke Spanish or Chinese); my Grandfather worked the rails from his teens to his retirement. His strong back and hard labor was all he brought with him from México, after the turn of the century, after being orphaned and impoverished. There was no welfare, nor social services back then; so you found work, or you died in those times, in that desert. Pues si, he pounded the rails from dawn til dusk.
...which is why he is mio Hero primo uno!
If he could be so strong to as come back from abject, destitute, poverty with absolutely no one to help him; and emerge a hometown legend, honored by mourners that filled the church and the streets when he died; then I, La Loca, with my meager set-backs, and low salary, that have never left me hungry nor homeless- can be proud, knowing that no matter what happens in life, we Teks tenemos cojones; - We have balls, Nothing can overcome iLos Locos!

[Sean]

Thanks Eco.

Is that going to be your evidence lo? A joke?
You are aware that the Moose Turd Pie tale is a joke aren't you.

I was wondering if you were going to try claiming Gandy Dancers as actual dancers (because, you see, you don't actually have to know one to have heard of them ) but realised when you started using the 'leprechaun' straw man that you'd never heard of them. Then, Eco mentions them and, just like that, your grandfather was one!

Tune in tomorrow folks to hear all about how Gandy dancing caused PTSD in lo's grandad's, neighbour's, sister's, housemate's cat!

[Gob]

Remember this Sean?

[Sean]

Indeed I do! It will now be my stock response to certain posts...

[Econoline]

Of course Moose Turd Pie is a joke, and a very old one (though I think Utah Phillips's telling of it is the best I've ever heard--and the only version I've ever heard that involved railroad workers of any sort). But the terms "gandy dancer" and "gandy dancing" are genuine and Utah Phillips knew a heck of a lot about railroad history and railroad folklore/folksongs; other sources suggest that his etymology of the term is speculative but far from unique. (That's why I included the other link.)

Loca first mentioned "gandy dancers" in this post on August 14 where she quoted a source that described them as "railroad maintenance workers," so she obviously knew that gandy dancers weren't actual dancers. You, Sean, first started asking about leprechauns in this post on August 15, and continued to bring up the subject several times since.

I'm really not sure what the two of you are arguing about here. Minstrel shows and the construction of American railroads both started before the invention of tap dancing, and clog-dancing and step-dancing preceded all three. Certainly working together on railroad construction and maintenance crews is one way that African-American and Irish cultures could have been thrown together.

Why do you think it's unlikely that Lo's grandfather was a railroad worker? If he was, and thereby picked up some apocryphal railroad B.S. folklore and passed it along to his admiring and credulous granddaughter, wouldn't that explain how she came to believe this story?

[liberty]

Eco, if you don't mind, what do you do for a living? You have always struck me as the voice of reason.

[loCAtek]

A Mexican railroad worker with a 'Gandy' shovel.




...although, a bar was more practical, you used whatever you had to out there.


We're short, but we're not leprechauns; why anyone mentioned that, I dunno
...must have been a Jackanory!

[loCAtek]

Eco, if you don't mind, what do you do for a living? You have always struck me as the voice of reason.

Does that make Sean the voice of leprechauns?

[Sean]

Of course Moose Turd Pie is a joke, and a very old one (though I think Utah Phillips's telling of it is the best I've ever heard--and the only version I've ever heard that involved railroad workers of any sort). But the terms "gandy dancer" and "gandy dancing" are genuine and Utah Phillips knew a heck of a lot about railroad history and railroad folklore/folksongs; other sources suggest that his etymology of the term is speculative but far from unique. (That's why I included the other link.)

I think you misread my post Eco mate, it was lo who I didn't think realised it was a joke...

Loca first mentioned "gandy dancers" in this post on August 14 where she quoted a source that described them as "railroad maintenance workers," so she obviously knew that gandy dancers weren't actual dancers. You, Sean, first started asking about leprechauns in this post on August 15, and continued to bring up the subject several times since.

Eco, she claimed that tap dancing was started by Irish railroad workers step-dancing on the levers. This was where my vision of tap dancing leprechauns came from . You may notice the emoticon I posted straight after it to show that I was joking...
Unfortunately, lo's sense of humour is on a par with rubato's. She didn't get the joke/reference and proceeded to use the word leprechaun as a way to try to extricate herself from her embarassment.

I'm really not sure what the two of you are arguing about here. Minstrel shows and the construction of American railroads both started before the invention of tap dancing, and clog-dancing and step-dancing preceded all three. Certainly working together on railroad construction and maintenance crews is one way that African-American and Irish cultures could have been thrown together.

I don't doubt that it happened with the bringing together of cultures. My point was that they much more likely came together on the stage rathre than the quite ludicrous idea that Irish railroad workers (hence the leprechaun joke) were dancing on the levers thinking that this would somehow lend them more weight. Lo disagreed so I asked her to evidence it in some way. That's where we're at.

Why do you think it's unlikely that Lo's grandfather was a railroad worker? If he was, and thereby picked up some apocryphal railroad B.S. folklore and passed it along to his admiring and credulous granddaughter, wouldn't that explain how she came to believe this story?

I find it hard to believe anything that comes out of her mouth these days Eco... especially as she failed to share this information until you posted about Gandy Dancers. Then suddenly it suited her purpose and she was all over it like a rash! Don't you find it strange that she posted the info on Gandy Dancers without mentioning her grandfather?

One other thing, she can't simultaneously "obviously [know] that gandy dancers weren't actual dancers" whilst at the same time believing an apocryphal story from her grandfather that they were.