On Jul 19, 5:57*pm, Bryan > wrote:
> On Jul 19, 7:51*pm, sf > wrote:> On Tue, 19 Jul 2011 18:09:27 -0400, "Steve Freides" >
> > wrote:
>
> > > Some of these ingredients are completely unfamiliar to me, e.g., what is
> > > "washing soda", what is "borax powder"? *I know I could Google but I'd
> > > appreciate an explanation as to what these are and where one might find
> > > them.
>
> > Heh! *You must be a young whipper snapper. *I remember Ronald Regan's
> > 20 Mule Team Borax commercials on television back in the day.
>
> I don't hold it against the 20 Mule Team folks that they hired Reagan
> (may he rot in Hell). *They couldn't have known what an asshole he'd
> turn out to be.
>

The successors to US Borax turned out to be assholes. Driving to
Victorville last winter, I passed through Boron soon after Rio Tinto
-- a British mining company -- had locked out its miners. The road to
the plant was lined with a bunch of goons RT had hired to maintain
order (so to speak). The main drag, Twenty Mule Team Road, was a ghost
town, and the nearest gas station was some twenty miles away. The
lockout had received no news coverage, and I didn't hear anything
about it for several weeks.

The company let the miners go back to work some four months later.