Reading this old thread and recalled doing a prune of several maples on Mimosa Drive (weren't any Mimosa by the time I was working there). The old timer next door came out to watch. As I came down from the last tree he asked to see my adjustable lanyard. He asked if I had made it. Nope, bought it at an arborist supply house I told him. He said buy a piece of rope, snaps and thimbles and bring them by and he'd teach me how to do the ram's head and eye splice. As he taught me a few days later he told me when he was in 6th grade his father, an engineer at the Continental Company ( later the Budd Co plant), came to school to get him. His ability at splicing was well known in the community and a major assembly line that was comprised of rope and suspended buckets had snapped. He was able to resplice it within the parameters of the machinery and said you could barely see where the splice was. Later during the World War he oversaw captured German soldiers splicing wire cables for observation balloons. He told me they were the best workers because they knew if they were returned to Germany they'd be headed for the Russian front.