I guess Mouseketeer wasn't her cup of tea, but Mountaineer was.
In addition to being the youngest person to climb El Capitan, she probably the smallest person to ever have climbed it.
A great feat, yet could this be considered child endangerment? I guess one could argue that it's just as safe as many activities that children are allowed to do that are not considered recklessly dangerous.
This reminds me of someone I once knew...a farrier actually - a tiny little woman who was maybe 4'3" tall who spent her work days dealing with animal's hooves - and every spare minute she had aside of that - climbing things.
Totally, amazingly & completely nucking futs !!
Rock climbing wasn't challenging enough for her though - so she also did ice climbing.
Apparently, being so small & all muscles & bones - she routinely wore out climbing partners because she pretty much climbed like a bug.
Oh yeah - and her name is June - so she got nicknamed 'junebug'.
And when there was no available climbing partner or whatever - she'd carry her skis, on foot, up any of the local mountains around here & ski down...than do it again a few times.
Like I said - totally nucking futs.
(For me, walking the dog is enough of a challenge in my old age - and that woman is maybe a year or 2 older than myself & most likely still shoeing horses full time.)
Very much off topic here, but all this talk of small people and shoes reminds me of this rarely seen contraption.
No sitting around with that contraption, you had to stand up to get an accurate reading, then they would go in the back and bring you a perfect fitting shoe. Ah the good ol' days.
IKR? Accurate length, accurate width.
"Barleycorns"--"Hot Rods" and the "Brannock" Device
"I should mention that while I have been an admirer of the strangely-satisfying device since I was a kid, loving the heft of it and the wonderful way sliding that strange-shaped slider thing feels in your fingers, I wasn’t aware that the fundamental units its designed to measure are called barleycorns, a roughly 1/3" unit of measurement specific to shoe sizing until I read this week’s wonderful Tedium newsletter from the amazing Ernie Smith."
Why the Shoe Fits.
Ah yes - way back when...
Back in the REALLY old days when one's little town might have an actual, PRIVATELY OWNED shoe store pretty much within walking distance of home - I remember those days.
(Also, it was a time when boys were expected to wear oxfords to school that took months to soften up and sneakers were NOT worn in polite company...!)
A new one for me is that IKR?=>
= I Know, Right ??
Living my entire life with 'shoe sizes', I never had the pleasure to learn this until today:
Wow. Thanks !!
Hypothetically speaking, I wonder if the Brannock device could aid someone fitting shoes for horses given that horses are fond of barley and corn. It certainly seems strong enough to support the weight of a quarter of a horse at a time. ( I can hear Farriers laughing ) Anyway, John Barleycorn, who must have some connection to the unit of measurement, has been around for centuries and just won't die ( the song ).
