Our family '67 VW Bug

We had a lot of stories about that '67 Bug. One time we were on I-45 heading home and a Toyota Corolla pulled up alongside us with some suspicious-looking characters and glared at us as we zoomed along. They sped up to pass us and we sped up. Then they sped up. Mind you this is two old cars without much muscle when they were new. We floored it and were going as fast as traffic would allow, keeping them from cutting in, when suddenly they dropped back precipitously. We looked back to see them pulled over with smoke coming from under the hood: They had blown the head gasket! We laughed our heads off.

Once I was driving in the subdivision in my '67 bug when a rabbit crossed the road. I aimed behind him but he changed his mind at the last minute. He went between the front wheels and just cleared the back wheel. I looked in my rear view mirror and saw he hadn't completely cleared my bumper and his tail was laying in the road! I took it home to substantiate my story.

Another time in that famous '67 bug I was passing a truck when I discovered a dog in the middle of the road, running alongside the truck, nipping at his hubcaps. With no time to react, I rolled him under the car but between the wheels. When I came by on the way home at the end of the day, he was at his usual place by the mailbox, but he declined to chase me.

Our neighborhood dog, Bullet, used to chase me every day on the way to work. I maneuvered to the right spot on the road and surprised him with a monstrous splash from a roadside puddle just before he ran into an empty trashcan. He earned because he never hit that trashcan again.

Then there was the time I took my daughter and some of her friends and cousins to the Galveston Beach, a three hour drive South of us. We crammed her and seven of her closest friends into the Bug and away we went. We had a great time.

Once when our oldest, the daughter, was just a baby we went on one of our weekend visits to Tulsa: I'd get off work Friday at 4:15 pm and we'd head out on the 10-12 hour drive. We'd come back Sunday. This particular time I got as far as Atoka, a normal gas stop. Seeing as how there was still a quarter-tank of gas left, even though it was close to midnight, I decided to use up some more before I stopped for gas. It soon became midnight, the gas gage was on "R" and there wasn't much sign of life on the road.

I was getting worried, in the middle of nowhere with a wife and young baby and nearly out of gas. Did I say it was a little cool, too? Figuring that 60 mph was the optimum speed/mpg reading, we cruised along as we surveyed the road-map. We picked the biggest nearest dot on the map: Holdenville OK. They would have an all-night gas station. We left US 69-75, and proceeded to Holdenville. The sidewalks were rolled up, the town looked deserted.

What, ho? What light breaks through yonder blanket of darkness? It is the city hall/police station and there are cars outside. I heaved to, rushed inside and asked if anyone as any gas I could have. No, they said, but they were "purty shure" there was an all-night truck-stop in Wewoka. I only had to drive to the first stop sign, turn left, take state highway... Well, you get the picture.

In no time we were lost in the black hills of Oklahoma, past midnight, with nary a sign of civilization, save an occasional farm light on a distant (black) hill. Wewoka was a memory of the past. Up on the road ahead appeared a simple clap-board building with a chat driveway and two Deep Rock gas pumps. Lit by a single bare bulb, it stood lonely next to a darkened country house with a car pulled asleep next to it in the shadows. Eureka! I pulled over, went up to the porch and knocked on the door.

A sleepy voice called from the dark, "Whattayouwant?" "I want some gas," I said plaintively. "How much?" he responded, warily. "Well, all of it," I announced impatiently. There was a stirring from the inside and a figure emerged cautiously from within the dark house and a man's voice apologized by saying, "I have some buddies who wake me up for $2 worth of gas." Parked by the "regular" pump, I proudly announced, "Fill her up with regular." Looking over his shoulder I could see the bottom of the near-empty gas tank: I was operating on fumes and the drops of gas collecting in the dents on the bottom of the tank! When the pump finished dinging, the little vane in the clear globe finished whirling around and the man hung up the nozzle, I had taken on 10.6 gallons. Now, if you don't know, a Bug holds 10.8 gallons. I was happy to pay a premium price of 32 cents a gallon at this point. Happily refueled and lucky to have no need for the facilities, off we went.

Progress (not mine nor PD nor medical)

I can't believe it! After only 34 years my telephone is history, darn it. I am relegated to looking at Bart Simpson's butt to dial out. And it is so old it has a switch to change from pulse to tone. Problem is they discontinued my party line 16 years ago and rendered it obsolete at that time.

I complained. In steps monolithic ConTel. I can't keep my party line. Rats! And if I move to the wrong place, I can't keep my number. But I can keep my green phone: My trusty, faithful, ever-loud, rotary dial, Stromberg-Carlson, green phone. But for you neophytes, it is wired for party lines and now won't ring on a private line. Rats!

Once ConTel told me I could bring phones to the office to be "wired" for party line use. Can they re-wire my trusty green phone to go back the other way? No. It's mine. Do I rent it? No. It's mine. Didn't buy it from ConTel? No, I guess they gave it to me, it's mine, my problem. What a gyp. Rats

Well, by hook or crook or crock, I managed to rewire it for a private line. Another blissful 16 years went by and one day I tried to dial out and couldn't. I wanted to keep my old phone number when I moved 16 yrs ago. It is similar to Sacred Heart Church in Conroe and the Flagship Hotel in Galveston. We finally became like answering service to Sacred Heart. It was; easier to answer questions than to redirect calls. But, I told Father Dave, there is no truth to the rumor that I heard confessions over the phone. We did make some appointments for him, though, and I hoped he showed up. Now, I could still get calls for Sacred Heart but I couldn't call there myself. I guess the Flagship Hotel in Galveston tangled with Ike and sunk. Enter my ever-omnipotent son and he checked it after we finished fishing. It seems Consolidated Communications, nee ConTel, changed me over to tone dialing only. Rats, foiled again.

Now I have to have a Bart Simpson phone I can't hear (but his eyes light up!) so I can dial out. I have to sniff his butt every call. Oh, the ignominy of it all. (At least my spell checker didn't squiggle me on ignominy.)

Telephones and photographs

Here I sit with a blank mind. I agreed to start a music chatroom group, I decided to scan my old Instamatic and Brownie pictures into digital form, I decided to fix the leaks in my boat before I bottom-fished from the bottom of the lake, we finally finished with grandchildren-based travels for the season and my hand is shaking like a leaf. My wife is coughing like crazy and my son is due sometime this morning.

Maybe he can fix my 70's model Stromberg-Carlson phone. It can be answered, it just won't dial anymore. I discovered it is an antique now and worth $10 (if it worked), but no one has parts for a chartreuse phone anymore. The truth be told (shhh, no one knows this but me) it is really the case of the old chartreuse phone moved to the old red phone. The old red phone cratered on the outside and the chartreuse one cratered on the inside. Why keep it at all? Because it goes ringgggggggg loud enough to wake the dead. I can't hear those cricket-chirping newfangled things. I may have to resurrect the Bart Simpson phone because while he chirps like a cricket, his eyes light up too. Then I would answer one of the real phones so I wouldn't have to talk to his butt.

I put in a bid on eBay on a replacement for the Stromberg-Carlson to at least use for parts. Another phone died too. It is an old 70's phone too and now you can only hear on it, you can't be heard.

The scanning has been fun though. Those blurry, speckled, pixilated,, faded and splotched photos really come alive with a few well-chosen clicks. They go WAY back to when my 40 yr old daughter was born and a haircut I once had that was so good it lasted for six months. Stay tuned.

New Year and New Decorations

Well, the big switch is on to move the Christmas stuff back to the caverns
and bring out the day-to-day stuff.
And I have this entry for the days after Christmas:

'Twas a few nights after Christmas
when not a creature was stirring on PLM
nor could I remember what comes next.
The stockings were hung like clearance items at Macy's
in hopes they would again nestle safely till next year
along with 136 Santas and a herd of tiny reindeer.

I, in an egg-nog stupor gurgled and wheezed
as I settled in for endless ordinary days
The grandkids had all gone home with the kids
all that was left were the cribs where they slept

Out on the lawn there arose such language
as a sailor ever heard
while I fought with the lights on the eaves
and turned off the power
that aired up the big Santa and allowed him to wave.

Styrofoam peanuts flew like snow in the wind
as BFI trucks leaked some of their loads
and I broke out in a smile
at the memories we made
the laughter we shared
all the bowl games we saw played

As we committed this scene to make way for the next
we thought of our family and our friends
and sat down to put to paper
the Christmas letter for 2005 we send.

Parkie in the darkie

A Parkie in the Darkie
10-4-08

we had to have a new printer
we had to have it now
so we did
"That's good," they say
now here I am at the creak of night with USB in USA
waiting for the NCAA
"LOL" they said
parallel and 2.0 what to do?
I can parallel park
and hold my sweetie too
only now my sweetie is a Tootsie Roll
and she won't let me drive
so how can I?
parkie o parkie here I am in the darkie
at the gandy dancers ball
"Are your drugs out of wack?" they asked
oh, those little floaters in my eye
why can't I forget about loss of memory
why can't I shake this shaking
needles and pins
"It's time to go to bed," they said
and, Poof! I'm left alone in the glow
of the dark and I know
I'm just another parkie in the darkie.

New Year's and me

Here I am at 2 a.m. writing a blog entry. I liked some of my PD friends' blogs. They are good reading; funny and poignant. Everyone else has given up the ghost for January 1, 2009, but I'm still here. I can't seem to spend time relaxing when something may be happening that I might miss. I got to talk shop with a young lady from Clear Lake who works at a refinery in Houston area. We got to talk about what is known on one end of the totem pole as "management operations" and "strike breaking" on the other end. Both sides can be so obstinate.

When I garduated from college, I went to work at a refinery in the Golden Triangle, also known as the cancer belt of the USA. The custom each day was the first time you saw someone for the day, you shook their hand. It made for camraderie. But come time to renegotiate the contract, they would cross the street to avoid you. They wouldn't even speak to you. I was hurt. I didn't understand the protocol. Finally a peon of the union class took me, the peon of the management class, aside and said, "Look, it's nothing personal. You've got a job to do and I've got a job to do. I'll train you to take my place but I can't be fraternizing with you."

Funny, but I was raised to respect my elders and call people older than me "sir." I got a bad arting for being so formal and unsociable for referring to one of the electricians as Mr Nelson instead of "Nelly" like all his contemporaries. That was easy to correct. But it still rubs me the wrong way when a younger person calls me by my first name. They do but now that I had to opt for a moniker befitting a grandpa but not "grandpa," things are reaching an equilibrium. Now everyone is calling me Pop or Pops. PawPaw was already taken, Grumps and PeePaw as well. Luck I wasn't Pop2008. And with that I'll pull the curtain on this amateur hour.