Japanese Blacksmith Work that isn't Swords

[Hefty]

I'm a high school teacher and I was blessed to be able to go on a school tour to Japan during our Easter holidays this year.

We visited Nijo Jo castle while in Kyoto and I among all the other hundreds of photos I took on the trip, I snapped a few of these rivets on the outer doors:

I love the decorative elements, even on such practical, heavy-duty rivets (about 3/4" diameter). I'm not sure what the larger round pieces are but I believe the floral pattern on them is the Imperial Crest which is a Chrysanthemum.

There were no photos allowed inside, unfortunately, but they had examples of (I presume cast) metal crests of the Shogun who originally had the castle built in 1603, and the Imperial Crest from when political rule, and the castle, were handed back to the Emperor in 1867.

Thanks for looking!

Jono.

[Scott NC]

  Thanks for sharing.  That sounds like it was a fun field day, Juno.  My daughter just took a class to Washington, DC.  No iron work photo's though.  She was close to me but we could not arrange a visit.  I'm not an expert but those doors look pretty thick and substancial..

[Frosty]

High school sure has changed since I graduated, field trips for us were an evening at the theater (The Mikado) or the athletic field to watch the school balloon club launch a package. Yeah, walking to the athletic field was counted as a field trip. 

Are your students in an exceptional group or are you guys just really lucky?

Thanks for the look Jono.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Scott NC]

  Things have changed.  My schooling was in a town with 360 people.  It might be why I did not learn properly.  We had NO field trips.

[Frosty]

You probably surrounded by fields! The only "fields" around us were either truck farms, orchards or vacant lots. My graduating class was 1,013 and those were the ones who graduated.

Deb and I were visiting her Sister who lives about 6 blocks from where I used to work in Burbank and her son's girlfriend now wife graduated from my old high school, Sylmar Hi. Her graduating class was close to 3,600 but it had been split for the last semester and her graduation was held over 3 days. 

When I found out Thom the minion of Thomas, grew up maybe 3-4 blocks from where I lived in Sylmar I took a look at satellite pics of the old place and school. Sylmar high used to take up a 4 block lot site, in the mean time it had absorbed the park's 4 blocks and Olive Vista Jr. high's maybe 4 block site. And that was just N-S, it had expanded at least one block E-W too. 

IIRC my old high school was surrounded by 3-4 much larger than my old one Jr. highs and there are larger middle and high schools in the valley. 

It was really hard to grasp how much it had changed in the 53 years since I moved here. 

Anybody out there who wants a little shell shock check out your old neighborhood if you've been away a couple few decades! Heck, there's a good chance I used to ride horses with Thom's grandmother! 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Scott NC]

  Yeah, I suppose it had something to do with being surrounded with cornfields.

[JHCC]

When I was attending the college where I currently work, it was surrounded by cornfields. The same fields are still there, but nowadays they rotate between corn and soybeans.

[Frosty]

Did you know a dash of coy sauce goes well in chow chow? 

Were there any farm produce stands? We were almost surrounded by truck farms and produce stands. About the only thing we never bought locally was olives in spite of living in a city named Sylmar, "Olive Sea."  There was a local dairy with a stand if you like REALLY fresh milk and home made cheese. 

Spectacularly good farm land and it's virtually all covered in subdivisions and pavement. <sigh>

Frosty The Lucky.

 

[George N. M.]

Physically, my old neighborhood on the south side of Chicago has changed very little.  However, socially, economically, and ethnically it has changed considerably.  When I grew up in the '50s and '60s it was predominately Jewish (we were some of the non-Hebraic folk) but in the '70s there was classic White flight to the suburbs and the neighborhood became predominately Black.  The area is now socially and economically lower down the scale.  Rappers have referred to it as "Terror Town" but that is mostly hyperbole.  Kanaye West lived about 3 blocks from me when he was growing up. All the small shops that were family owned in my time are gone but some of that is due to the decline of local neighborhood shopping all over (no Walmarts, or big boxes back in the day).  Interestingly enough, the last time I was there, about 10 years ago, the street I lived on (South Shore Drive, aka US Highway 41) looked as good or better than it did when I was a kid (more security fences and gates, though).  It is right along the Lake Michigan shoreline and has higher end, older apartment buildings and single family homes.  I am told that the folk who live there today are largely "buppies" (Black Urban Professionals).  The further away from the Lake you get the rougher things appear.

Here in Laramie I am living where it was just short grass prairie in the '60s when I was in college.  My house was built in '77.  The town has expoanded about a mile or so out to the east in the last 50-60 years.  That said, we still have pronghorn antelope wandering through the front yard.

GNM

[Frosty]

I meant to say a dash of SOY sauce, NOT coy sauce. <shudder>

Sylmar Cal. is in the San Fernando Valley a northern suburb of Los Angeles. I've been gone some 52 years and the change is unbelievable. Places that were nothing but big dry washes where we used to ride horses, dirt bikes, launch rockets and play with explosives are huge neighborhoods with shopping malls, schools, parks and a big concrete flood control channel to handle the run off that made the wash. I can find our old streets, both of them, but for the most part there aren't even the lots left. 

Hmmmm, maybe I can sell THEM Coy sauce?

Frosty The Lucky.